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!

Pictures from Camping

Here are some more of my favorite pictures from camping at Deadwood last weekend.  

We went with a large group - 19 including our family of 4.  

Cast of Characters:

Grammy Karen and Papa Larry (Travis' mom and step-dad)

Ashleigh, Matt and Tanner (Travis' step-sister, her boyfriend and his son)

Luke, Maria and Dan (aka Chuck) (Travis' step-brother, his girlfriend and their friend)

Jamie, Becky, Payton and McKade (Lanninghams - Brooklyn stayed home with grandparents)

Annie, Stephen and Sophia (Lee - Sophia is Hunter's girlfriends...well one of them anyway)

We didn't get to the campground until around midnight.  Calvin and Hunter hung out by the fire while we got things set up - these pictures were taken at 2 a.m. when they were going to bed:

There were A LOT of mosquitoes so we applied layer after layer of bug spray.  Hunter only wore this hat of Grammy's long enough for me to get a picture:

In addition to the mosquitoes, it was also REALLY dirty:

McKade and Hunter

Payton and McKade brought their BB guns so we all took turns practicing our skills:

Payton showing all the guys how it's done

(Jamie, Travis, Dan, Luke, Larry, McKade, Hunter and Payton)

Hunter and Travis

Sophia and Stephen

Hunter and McKade

Though I didn't get a chance to ride the 4-wheelers at all, everyone else went on a ride or 2, and the 4-wheelers actually got the most action just sitting there while the kids climbed on them and used their imaginations:

Tanner, McKade, Payton and Hunter

Jamie, Calvin, Payton and McKade

(Calvin's first 4-wheeler ride)

Tanner and Hunter

Hunter, McKade and Payton

Sophia

Travis and Hunter

The last day we were there it rained off and on.  We had to build a rain shelter - good thing the Lee's brought their shade canopy thing and Stephen put tarps on 2 of the sides so we could stay somewhat dry:

Me and my little boys

Calvin and I

Sophia and Annie

Sophia and Hunter (who is bending down - he's not that short!)

Hunter in the rain

Some miscellaneous pictures:

Calvin

Hunter and Grammy

Calvin and Grammy