Blogcation

St Johns : 2009

This past week I drove past St. Pats where I will be participating in a craft show and I saw a huge banner outside announcing the craft show. First my heart skipped a beat of excitement, then it skipped about 10 beats out of sheer panic. I've accomplished a lot so far to prepare for the craft show, but I've got a lot yet to do. I really want to do it right, so I need to make sure I'm as prepared as I can be, and then some.
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So, I'm signing off from blog-land for a bit. The nap-time/bed-time sweat shop is going to be in full force and I'm hoping to get as much inventory ready as possible. Plus I've got all sorts of yards of fabric waiting to be made into tablecloths for the show and displays to plan as well.
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Not to mention, I think I've got some manual reading in my future while I attempt to figure out this bad boy...See you on August 1 with
10 days of My Favorite Things : Summer Edition!

Yarn Wreath #6


Celadon yarn.
A whole collection of fabrics in reds, yellows, blues and bright greens.
Each fabric covered in polka dots!
So fun!

Cards #5-8

Here's the next four cards for the craft show!

Hydrangeas

Out of my back yard and onto my dining room table....

Inexpensive Art Update

Back in April I shared with you some inexpensive art that I had made using my favorite IKEA frames and paper from Paper Mojo. I thought you might enjoy seeing how I used the art in our master bedroom of our summer home!We purchased this Hemnes 3 drawer dresser from IKEA and we have been really happy with it. It's definitely well constructed and the deep drawers give us tons of clothing storage. Plus I love the shiny finish.Since I have a slight fear of putting holes in walls (especially walls that we just spent so much time making look nice!) I just leaned the frames against the wall and placed a small amount of poster putty on the backs to ensure they stay in place.I paired the frames with a ceramic egg crate from Anthrolopologie, as well as some ceramic birds that I picked up on super-clearance at JoAnn's for just a few dollars each. And lastly, because I love monograms, I picked up a cardboard "M" from JoAnn's and spray painted it silver.
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I'm really happy with how the entire look came together!

Monday's 10 Things

Here's what I'm most thankful for, right now!
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1. Living in a country full of freedoms.
2. The men and women who have and continue to protect our freedoms.
3. An extra long weekend full of great times with family and friends.
4. Remembering eight years ago today when Eric proposed to me!
5. Watching how proud Claire was of herself in the pool with her swimmies on.
6. A husband and neighbor who declared this upcoming Wednesday night a girl's night out for us wives, woo hoo!
7. Having neighbors as really good friends.
8. A really fun family day in Chicago visiting the Shedd Aquarium, Millennium Park & Michigan Avenue.
9. Telling Claire the night before Chicago that we were going there and seeing how excited she was!
10. Air conditioning that will hopefully be working again today as it's 92 and humid this week!
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What are you most thankful for today?

Fresh Start Sunday

Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.
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2 Corinthians 2:17 (NIV)

Pinwheels : Revisted

***Originally posted July, 2009***
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For today's getting patriotic project, I made red, white and blue pinwheels! What a fun (and SUPER easy) project this was. I'm totally going to remember pinwheels for future parties, either as part of the favors I give out, or as center pieces. (Wow, did I really just say I'm totally...???")
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Anyway. The tutorial for making the pinwheels can be found here.
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For my pinwheels I:

*found some great two-sided paper at my extremely large and well-stocked but slightly overpriced scrapbook store nearby. The blue and white polka dot paper is my favorite (what's with me and polka dots lately?!?)

*cut my squares to 6 inches x 6 inches and used scrapbooking scissors to give the edges a little pizazz.

*used American flag pencils rather than dowels as the directions suggested. (These pencils along with all sorts of other red, white and blue goodies are currently in the dollar bins at Target, get yours fast!)

*used some of my red, white and blue sewing pins as opposed to the tacks shown in the tutorial. The pins stuck out the opposite side of the pencil eraser, so I just used a wire cutters to cut them off.

Cute!

Favorite Picture of the Week