Inspiration

Reading blogs has become my new hobby.  Well, it's nothing new.   I've been a faithful blog reader for quite some time.   But have recently become obsessed with reading blogs.  There is just so much great info out there that others are willing to share.  Every time I cook something new, come up with a new organizational tool or a new peice of home decor, my family asks me if I found it on a blog. 

In my latest cruise around blog land, I saw these inspiring posts:


These photo cubes are so cute!  They are just printed and folded paper.  So smart!  Go check them out here.


Look at these mirrors.  They look straight out of the Ballard Catalog.  Go check out how Alicia made these.  You'll never believe how she did it!


As if the mirrors weren't amazing enough, she made this desk too.  Out of a DRESSER!!!  I know right?  Can you believe it?  So talented!


This cute galvanized tiered stand looks just like the one from the PB catalog.  She made it with cake pans.


And some other great things that caught my eye:

I know I just reworked my craft room, but after seeing this one, I have new plans. 

And you MUST go check out the kitchen on this blog.  Amazing!  Makes me want to redo my kitchen tomorrow.   

What has inspired you this week?

Chalk board

I love chalkboard!  Perhaps a bit too much as evidenced by all the times I have {over} used chalkboard in my house. 


A cute little chalkboard label on the to-do bucket by my desk. (galvanized bucket from Joann, chalkboard vinyl from Home Goods, die cut with Stampin' Up die)


Another label on the cookie cutter jar.


This is just inside the door to our garage.  Sorry for the poor picture - it's the teeniest hallway ever and impossible to find a good angle.  We keep all our schedules here.  My littlest guy uses the wall for artwork too. 


This is my favorite use of chalkboard in our house- painting the bifold doors that lead to my husband's office.  When we bought the house that room was technically a formal dining room, but we thought it better used as office space. 


It's the one room in our house my husband wanted total control of.  I'm not allowed to touch it unless he approves it.  Needless to say his modern, asian taste in decor doesn't go with the shabby, worn and warm look I tend to lean towards.  These doors keep it the room closed and protect our marriage!   :)  Just kidding it's not quite like that, but the doors work to keep the room {out of sight, out of mind!} I also like to hang my children's artwork on the doors. 

How do you feel about chalkboard? 



I'm liking up to these fun parties:


Today's Creative Blog

Car birthday party

My friend Emily is a super party planner.  She threw her son a Car themed birthday party that was so fun!


Isn't this invitation fantastic!  She made it.  Never mind that it's kind of bent.  This invitation has seen lots of love from my son.


There were so many details that I loved!  There was a matchbox car racetrack set up outside on the swing set.  The start was at the top in the playhouse and the finish was down on the grass.



No detail was left undone.


Look at that cake!  It was made by Target and tasted yummy too! I love the fingerprint on the left side.  Cakes are irresistable!


There were race car pennants in the windows.


And signs on the doors, made with a Sillouette.  I missed taking a picture of the "Do Not Enter" sign on the fireplace.  It was adorable.



The food was really yummy too!


And here is the cute little 4 year old birthday boy!

I love birthday parties!!

message board

We have a long strip of wall just begging for something inside the door in our bathroom.  I could not think of anything I wanted to put there.  Photos...already done.  Artwork... eh, not interested.  But then I was looking at a fun blog- Hollyhocks & Honeybees and saw this idea

She used an old window for a dry erase message board.  Brilliant!!


I found this long frame out in the garage- perfect for a dry erase board.


First, I took it all apart and spray painted the frame black.  Then I cut white card stock for the background.  I later changed the white to light grey card stock for more contrast.


At all the joints where the card stock met, I placed paper doilies. 


And here it is in place.  We love to write notes to each other.  My husband is way mushier than I am.  I am more of the utilitarian note writer like, "karate tonight at 5" but he writes sweet and flowery stuff.  It's nice to have visual reminders of his love.  I need to work expressing my love a little better and I think this board will help me with that.


We just store the marker above the frame.


Speaking of Hollyhocks & Honeybees, I recently won a giveaway from her blog. She sent me a pound of this super cute candy.  Yes at one point this bowl was full.  It's not only cute, it's tasty too!  She has tons of cute ideas and a kitchen to die for. Go check her blog!


Easter

I had a hard time getting my Easter stuff up this year.  Usually I'm the first one to put it up. But this year...not so much.  I finally figured out that it was because I liked the red and green items I already had up for Spring.

These colors are really happy and made me smile every time I walked by!  So even though red and green aren't traditional Easter colors, I decided that I was just going to go with it. 


I added some fun color and texture to the bowl on my kitchen table.   


I used white plastic eggs from Hobby Lobby. Some were decoupaged with green and white tissue paper and some with old book pages.  There is also red balls for filler.


The cute little bird is from Home Goods, propped up on a candle stand from Hobby Lobby.


I haven't quite finished the table runner thingy as I still need to sew around the ribbon.  I'll post about that soon.  


I had to add a few Easter things to the living room too.  And I'm OK with no red in here - more traditional colors like green and robins egg blue.

I adore this little bunny in the jar of eggs on a cement-like stand.  (stand and bunny from Hobby Lobby)


A small collection of bunnies. 

I just used a picture frame with scrapbook paper for the tray. 

We are finally ready for Easter.  My kids are pumped.  It's so fun celebrating all the holidays with those that get as excited about holidays as I do!  Happy Easter! 

Jenni Bowlin

When I first moved to Tennessee, I wasn't thrilled.  But one thing that helped cushion the blow was finding out fun things to do here.  And since I was a HUGE scrapbooker, I immediately found a scrapbook store (it's all about the priorities!) to fuel my creative projects.  After visiting a few times- I was pumped to find out that Jenni Bowlin taught classes and sold her products at this store.  I was so excited to meet Jenni!  She is very sweet and kind.  I even went to a yard sale at her house once and my daughter used her bathroom.  :)  I have also run into her a few times at the flea market.

this picture is from 2009 at the TN flea market. 

Last Saturday she had a warehouse sale of her products.  I'm lucky enough to live about 20 minutes away so of course I went!


She recognized me when I walked in a gave me a hug.  Yay!  I'm still smiling about that.  She had tons of her kits, supplies and lots of fun vintage stuff . Unfortunately, I didn't take my camera so I have no pictures of the actual sale. 

This is all the fun stuff I came home with.

And with the April kit that she sells, I was able to make this darling banner. 

Just look at the details!  So cute! 
The green flowers are made from circles of tissue paper with vintage milk caps and Jenni Bowlin white buttons on top.

Even though I haven't yet put any pictures on this, I'm totally counting this as scrapbooking!  I can now say that I have scrapbooked this year.


Just so ya know

In most of my posts, everything is spiffed up.  I have moved all the clutter to another area or worked really hard to make things look nice.  But I am normal.  My house doesn't look like that all the time.  5 people live in this house and make messes on a daily basis.  As hard as I try to keep up sometimes- I just don't.  This week has been a CRAZY week with a huge photo order, a couple of baby showers,  church stuff, normal child chauffeuring to dance, scouts etc, and to top that all off my bigs are taking TCAP (TN standardized achievement tests). Oh and my husband is on a business trip.  That is why I haven't posted any fun stuff.   And this is what my house looks like right now

supplies for projects sitting on the floor

ink and envelopes for that big photo order I was talking about

clutter everywhere (and a cute girl too!)

overflowing laundry baskets

books and toys strewn about

out-of-control paperwork all over the counters

shoes everywhere but in the bins they are supposed to be in

This is real life.  And real life gets messy.  Just wanted you to know!