A Hillbilly Giveaway

Another giveaway - I love much of the jewelry at this shop.  Check out her current giveaway here!

Good luck there too!

One of these days I'll actually get around to creating a post of my own!!

Vintage Pearl Jewelry Giveaway

I ♥ the people over at I ♥ Faces for many reasons.  One is because they do great giveaways like this one!

♥

Check it out!  Enter!  Good Luck!

Do you ever just want to cry?

So, I started my quilt last week!  I was so excited to have all of the fabrics and to get the strips cut in one evening when the stars aligned just right for me again!  

I even completed 6 squares and was so excited to get a little time to work on it again last night.  Until this happened:

Okay, so that didn't just happen.  I was sewing strips 1 and 2 together and noticed an annoying whining sound.  Started sewing strips 2 and 3 together and the noise got worse.  I tried to lower the feed dogs and clean out a little dust/lint and then the feed dogs wouldn't go back up!!  Something happened with the switch, so we (hubby and I) took it apart to see if we could see how it was suppose to work and make it right.  We thought we got it - actually, we did fix that part (even if just temporary - until I move the switch again to lower feed dogs).  So I get the machine back together, threaded, plugged in and ready to go - excitement building again!  Can you feel it?!  I press on the pedal and BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!!!! (the machine noise, not curse words).  I get error message E1 - which has to do with trying to use machine while presser foot is up.  So I check the presser foot, hoping and praying that it's up.  It's down.  What?  I try again...and again...and again.  As if raising and lowering it multiple times will fix whatever it is that's not working now.  By this time it was nearing 11pm and it's been a draining week so I was ready to just give up and go to bed.  I'll work on it another day.  

It has been a rough week:

Monday was good - I had the day off and it was the day I started my quilt.  

The ever-present financial worry showed it's evil face on Tuesday and then I get to work to hear one of my sweet former co-workers is not getting married on the 18th as planned and I just felt so bad for him that I started tearing up.  

I've had to start taking the boys to Becky's daycare since my mother-in-law had surgery last week so they went out there yesterday.  While I love that they're going there and they had a great time, it was exhausting to do all the driving (nearly 70 miles in a day!!?) but the price is well worth the drive.  So add that exhaustion to my frustration with my sewing machine and you can just imagine how I'm feeling.  

This part I hate to admit, but FarmTown on Facebook (skip this section now if you have no idea what I'm talking about, or feel the need to judge me) has been ruling my life more than it should lately.  I've been getting so close to the final level needed to buy a mansion.  Last night I was close and I knew I'd be there today.  I hired help to get everything harvested and plowed and I had enough points and coins to get the mansion so I made room for it, bought it and placed it.  It was a thing of beauty - ha!  And then it happened - I mistakenly deleted it!!  Many, many hours gone to waste because now I have nothing to show for it, there is no way to get it back.  I removed FarmTown from my applications - it no longer has a place in my life!

It was the silly game that pushed me over the edge and I teared up again and nearly lost it.  

Travis is asking if I'm seriously crying over FarmTown.  

No!  I'm crying because nothing is going right this week!  I feel like I sometimes work so hard at things and have nothing to show for it, just like my stupid farm and my quilt strips that are just lying there next to my dead sewing machine.  

Merry Christmas! What?!

I borrowed this idea to make this year's Christmas cards.  I may have mentioned before that I intend for this years' Christmas to be a homemade one.  I haven't had good luck at getting motivated to start making the gifts, so I started with the cards in hopes to get me in the spirit of things!  So far it's working, I'm ready (mentally, but don't have all of my supplies) to start another big, fun project!

1.  When I helped my friend Annie at her yard sale on August 9th, I took my supplies to start making my cards.  With the help of Hunter, Sophia and Annie, we glued tissue paper on a sheet of foil using watered down glue:

(it looks like the foil is showing through in several places, but really that's just light colored tissue paper - the flash kind of washed it out or something)

2.  For awhile, the beautiful sheet of foil just sat on my kitchen table.  Then this past Monday, the stars aligned (Travis and Hunter went shooting and Calvin was napping) and I was able to cut the foil into triangles:

(a few of my triangles laid out)

3.  Today, at Annie's house for "Craft Day" I glued the triangles to cards.  The cards were quarter fold card stock sheets that Annie actually had and didn't need (thanks, Annie!) and I cut them in half so they're just single fold:

4.  I bought a pack of star stickers to put on top of the tree, and I just drew the trunk with brown marker:

The pack of cardstock had 30 sheets so I ended up with 60 cards (remember I cut them each in half).  Amazingly, the amount of trees that I got out of my foil sheet (which I didn't measure, just did a section that looked good at the time) was also 60!!!  How's that for a miracle?  Anyway, I had to throw away 4 cards, because they got stuck together and all tore up so I have 56 Christmas cards and the only thing I had to buy was the star stickers (because the tissue paper was used - of course - I had the foil, brown marker and glue and Annie gave me the paper.  I bought envelopes today (hope they fit right) and I also bought a stamp and ink for the inside message because stamps are just something I haven't gotten into (yet).  If you already have those, then this would be a very inexpensive (and quick - especially if you don't drag it out over a month's time like I did) type of card to make!  

Happy Crafting!

in His Grace: AWESOME frame GIVE-AWAY! (for TWO winners!)

in His Grace: AWESOME frame GIVE-AWAY! (for TWO winners!)

Thought I'd share this give-away I found on a new (to me) blog.  I haven't gone through much on the blog, but so far I'm absolutely loving it!

Shop 'till You Drop

I was fortunate enough to be given the day off today!!  After dropping Travis off at my mom's house (where he has to park his work truck since our neighborhood is lame and we were told we couldn't park it in our driveway overnight) the little boys and I went shopping!  It was only for groceries so it wasn't that thrilling but I do have to say it was better than most grocery shopping trips and here's why I'd say that:

1.  The time of day - shopping early in the day is the way to go!

2.  The other customers - because of the time of day you get a completely different crowd!

3.  No hurry - we weren't in a hurry to get anywhere so we could take our time!

I guess when you go in the evening, most people (including myself) are getting done working, are cranky from that and in a hurry to get home and that always makes for a bad shopping trip.  In the morning, you generally get the older crowd and, let's just face it, their pace and attitudes are usually a whole lot nicer.  They're friendly - stopping to chat with the kids, (mostly) happy and don't give you attitude when your kid is blocking the aisle.  

Here's to grocery shopping in the morning!

I bought pork carnitas today for the first time ever.  I've had pork carnitas burritos, but I think that's it.  Now I need to go find a recipe to use them in!  Anyone have any good ideas - please share!!

Wordless Wednesday - More from McCall

Bubbles - Photo Challenge

Bubbles is the theme for the photo challenge this week over at i♥faces

and when I saw the theme I immediately thought of this photo I took of Hunter on his very first Christmas Eve:

Cowboy Take Me Away

Friday evening we (Travis and I) headed to McCall with our good friends Jamie and Becky - no kids this time!  They were celebrating their 10th Anniversary and we just had our 5th in June and we didn't really celebrate, so we kind of were celebrating both of them this weekend.  Jamie had surprised Becky with the trip and luckily she wasn't disappointed that we were going with them.  We checked into our motel in McCall, then went to dinner at The Mill followed by a couple of drinks and games of shuffleboard at Beside the Mill (no kidding, that's what it's called and it is literally beside The Mill.  We got up 'early' yesterday morning for our 2 hour car ride to Deadwood Outfitters to go on our FOUR hour trail ride.  I've been on a horse only a handful of times in my life and though I wasn't really nervous, I wasn't really excited for it either (not as excited as Becky anyway - ha ha).We got all 'saddled up' (as they would say) and ready to ride up to a little lake.  Most of the ride was fairly flat and easy, then there was a part where we wound up the side of a mountain and at one point I made the mistake of looking at where we had come from a realized it was pretty much straight down.  Then we got to the top and had to go down the other side to get to the lake only we didn't so much wind down, rather we went straight down.  I thought for sure we were all going to just slide right down hitting the horse and rider in front of us and end up in one giant horse/person pile at the bottom.  I decided at that point to just trust 'Tiny' and I literally closed my eyes as we finished going down the hill as if I was on a roller coaster not a horse.  Side note: Tiny was NOT tiny.  Think a man with the nickname Tiny and you probably picture one of the biggest men you've ever seen...same thing with this horse I was on.

We took a much needed, little break at the lake, had a drink and some snacks that the guide brought for us.  My knee was killing me and I could barely walk, but within 5 minutes or so it was just fine.  My ankle, which I was most concerned about, thankfully never hurt at all.

The entire trip as a whole was an absolute blast and hopefully we'll get the opportunity to do it again sometime.  Travis thinks we need to make it a tradition for the 4 of us to go yearly so we shall see!  I'll post pictures of the rest of the trip at another time, so stay tuned!

Wordless Wednesday - Brittany and Aaron Frazier's Wedding

August 8, 2008

Let's Party!

I am doing my first Pampered Chef (in home) party in over a year tomorrow.  I'm very excited for it, but don't have anything ready yet!  I always have dreams leading up to shows where I forget things (like don't have any of my products, catalogs, etc) and of course I had one just the other night.  I'll get it all together and things will work out as they always do.  We're making these mini carrot cake cupcake things that look SOOOOO yummy, I can't wait to try them!

I really need to start doing more shows so I can have some extra money to finish paying all of our recent medical bills.  Hopefully at tomorrow's show I can get a booking or two.  I know exactly what I need to do to book more shows, I just can't get myself motivated to do it!  Do you have any tips or ideas to help me? 

Art-sy Giveaway

Check out this giveaway on I♡faces.  How cool would one of those canvases be?!  Hurry....GO...enter!  Good luck!

Christmas...in July?!

Hopefully more of those items under "Things I'd Like to Try" move up under the "Things I Do" column!

This weekend I hope to make my Christmas cards.  I have all of the stuff I need, and have even cut up a ton of tissue paper.  My thinking is that making the Christmas cards first will get me into the spirit to start making this year's Christmas gifts.  Did you know I'm going with all homemade gifts this year?  Well, now you do!  I'm trying to get some of the girls to come over and make cards with me, so if you're free and want to come over let me know!  Also, if you have ideas for homemade Christmas gifts, please, PLEASE, please share!  I especially could use some ideas for MEN.  Send me links!

'Wordless' Wednesday

It's suppose to be wordless, but quick story of pictures - 4th of July we went to a pig feed potluck at Travis' friend Bob's dad's house (follow that?).  There were a couple of live bands playing and they did fireworks at dark.  We didn't stay for the fireworks, we came home and did our own.

Since I forgot to post pictures from 4th of July:

I ♥ Bowling Shoes

Bowling shoes have never looked as cute as they do on a 3 year old! This picture was taken in March at Hunter's friend Sophia's Birthday party. They went bowling and had a great time, I loved the little bowling shoes!