Way more fun than cleaning!

Multi-tasking.

That is what I did this weekend.  Well...tried to do.

I accomplished a few different crafts this Memorial Day weekend.

Here is the play-by-play of my first one!

Vacuum.
Do dishes.
Toss out a Mike's Hard Lemonade Bottle that was left next to sink.
Start cleaning living room.
Find roll of Jute.
 

.......Stops.......

Pulls Mike's Hard Lemonade Bottle out of bin.
Plug in hot glue gun
Go put dishes away.
Dry hands.
Starts wrapping jute around bottle.
Burns fingers with hot glue.
Keep wrapping.
Keep burning fingers.

Get REAL excited when finished!  I may have squealed. Thankfully, I was the only one home.

I love this little Patron bottle. I saved it, I knew one day eventually I would use it.  I think it looks cute here.
Don't mind the mangled fake flowers.  I had bought a large craft bag from some woman on Craigslist a few months back for $3.00  It had a bunch of useless things in it- yet I kept it.  Dug these flowers out of that bag.  Hey, they do the job.

I love the little rustic flair this gives on my windowsill. 

I have a large sangria bottle I might want to do this to.  I need to buy more jute first.  Do I sense some wedding decor here? ;)


Linking with:
DebbieDoo's Newbie Party
Craft-O-Maniac Monday Link Party 
An Original Belle: make it yourself Monday
Vintage Wanna Bee- Talent Tuesday 
Whatever Goes Wednesday- Someday Crafts
Lil' Luna Link Party 79

She did- He did

Welp- It's over .

My sisters wedding.

2 years of planning, over in a matter of hours.

It's quite sad really.  Now I know what to look forward to for mine.

Everything was gorgeous.

Here is a sneak peak from the photographer, a high school friend of mine at http://www.mikeversprill.com/

I can't wait to see the rest of the professional shots.



Here are a few shots taken with a friends camera.

My fiance and I before the ceremony

The Girls  :)

Sorry for the short post and run!

Got some catching up to do elsewhere.  I promise more fun to follow in the upcoming days!

It's rehearsal day!

Tonight is my sisters wedding rehearsal!

*squeal*

Super excited.

I've been making jokes with my family that we will need shamwows instead of tissues to soak up all the tears soon to come.  We are super emotional people.  I cry at EVERY wedding I see.

I cried when Jesse and Becky got married.

Source

I cried when Zack and Kelly got married.

Source

How am I not going to cry at my sisters? and by cry I mean sob like a maniac.

I even cried watching the JK wedding dance to Forever, I mean come on.

Anyone have any tips how to NOT be a blubbering idiot the day of the wedding? :)

Got my speech all typed up and ready to go.  Tomorrows agenda is mani and pedis and last minute running around followed by an evening watching Bridesmaids with my sisters and maybe some wine. Ahhh.

I can hear the mimosas calling me already for Friday morning.


What are you weekend plans?

(di)Stressed Much?

<begin rant>

I need a vacation.

I can't seem to keep up with cleaning the apartment...
I need to find a second job...
My boot camp membership just ran up last night.

It was bittersweet.

I was attending boot camp 2-4 nights a week for the past 4 months.  No wonder I can't keep the house clean! After work, I'd eat something light- trek to boot camp- sweat my rear off- come home and pass out. This was my life.

Without boot camp how am I supposed to get my anger out? How am I supposed to de-stress? I'll have to do it on my own I guess.  *gasp*  I'll have to push myself...on my own.  It's intimidating.

What else is intimidating? Knowing I make signs for a store now! A real life store- someone can mosey on in and buy a sign.

A sign that I made.

THAT is intimidating.

I'm dropping my first "batch" of signs (batch reminds me of cookies...now I want cookies. NO! No cookies - I have to push myself...on my own, remember?) at the store tonight.  I'm nervous.  What if no one likes them? What if they don't sell? I'm having second thoughts. They are no where near as good as these other signs I see all over the internet.  I swear Pinterest is giving me a complex.

I saw Lucky 7 Design- I don't even remember where. I was browsing blogs one morning and found it.  Such a cute little store, tons of shabby chic decor- the things I LOVE.

OH LOOK! They are in NJ.
OH WOW! They are in the town right next to me.  I made it a point to stop in.

I loved it, and I loved the owner, MJ.  We got along real well, had a lot in common and got to talking.  I had only made maybe 5 signs at this point and I showed her the photos.  She loved them enough to ask me to post some up in the store.  Exciting! So that leads up to date...

Enough blabbing, now to the real point of this post.

I've been seeing French decor around a lot lately.  It's striking to the eye.
Maybe it's the romanticism of the language.  After I spotted a bunch of french 'wordiness' on The Graphics Fairy last night I decided to try my hand at a small French sign.

Still getting used to the small hand painting details.  I knew once it was sanded down, most imperfections would blend in.

Here comes the issue. How much distressing is too much? Can you over distress?  I've heard many bloggers say you can never distress too much!

Hammer
Sanding
Poking
Punching
Kicking

No really, the last two, I wanted to do after I over distressed this poor french piece.

It looks old alright.  *sigh*

I hate it. I think I hate it.  I don't know what to think about this.

What do you think?  Can there really be too much distressing?

linking up to:
Embracing Change: Creative Inspirations 
Whipperberry Friday Flair 
An Original Belle: Make-It-Yourself Monday 
Debbiedoos- Newbie Linky Party

Woody days

I am beyond horrible at thinking of post titles. Is anyone else like this? I struggle to find good ones, funny ones, striking ones, memorable ones.  Nope. I got nothin'.  They all come out so BLAH to me.

I've also had writers block- I haven't been overly crafty lately and I don't want to bore everyone with all wedding talk, even if my sisters wedding is in 9 days! *squeal*
Oh, but you can bet your... um...you can just bet there will be a pic heavy post after the wedding :)

What I have been doing, however, is making some wooden signs.   I've shown some photos of my THEN sign that I made for my sister.  I also made Mr. Fiance Penguin and I one with our wedding date on it.

The apartment reeks of polycrylic, acrylic paints, wood and spray paint.  *giggle*
It actually isn't that bad, but most of my painting has been done inside, sans the spray paint. This New Jersey weather lately is for the ducks.

A lot of my signs are on reclaimed wood.  Pallets for days on Craigslist, my dad can get them from work, pallets pallets everywhere.  They are perfect for this sort of thing.
The pallets I'm using currently were going to thrown out at the firehouse.  I saved you, little pallets!

Here in NJ there are some awesome flea markets.  Columbus Flea Market is a great one that I only get to maybe once or twice a year.  I happened to go with a friend a few weekends ago and she found these great pieces of wood complete with hardware attached! She was yelling across a few tables at me while I was looking at piece of furniture I envisioned a great re-do on.  Excitedly, I scurried over and scooped some up.
 I opted not to use the hardware and I bought some jute instead.  Thanks for the great find Andie!

Too bad I don't have a washer and dryer in my apartment to hang these near.

 Love these next two.  Too bad I don't ride either.

I don't have any beachy themed props in my house but the cowboy boot works just fine in my opinion. :)

I'm excited to share what the future holds for some of these signs.

My next thing I want to try, other than making more signs is a coffee filter wreath. That seems pretty easy. (Now that I said that, I'm going to have a hellava time with it, right?)

What have you been working on?

Linking up to:
Domestically Speaking, Power of Paint Party
Savy Southern Style- Wow Us Wednesdays
Vintage Wanna Bee: Talent Tuesdays 
Treasure Hunt Thursday FMFPTY 
Hookin Up with HOH 
52 Mantels: Thursdays are YOUR days 
Embracing Change: Creative Inspirations 
An Original Belle: Make-It-Yourself Monday 
Debbiedoos- Newbie Linky Party

Inspiration and a Jar

I don't get out much.

Really.

I don't travel often. I don't go out often. I don't shop often.

When I do shop it's usually at the same stores. Walmart. Target. Shoprite. Bor-ing.

I decided last minute to venture off track on my way home from work last night. I had found this Laundry Detergent tutorial by Being Creative to keep my Sanity, blog on Pinterest and I bought everything to try it.



Here is the final product from Being Creative to keep my Sanity:

So anyway, I ventured off my normal highway to home and stopped at Marshals/Home Goods.

There has been one in my hometown for, ohhh about 10 years now and I may have stepped foot in there 3 times, to buy clothes mind you...not even to go to the Home Goods section of the store.

WHAT WAS I THINKING?! WHERE HAVE I BEEN THIS WHOLE TIME?!

 It was like walking around a real life blog!

I didn't know what to do with myself, no wonder all you bloggers out there love to go to Home Goods for inspiration. They had everything.

Burlap pillows

Subway Art

Painted/distressed trunks

Place mats (to turn into pillows- duh)

Lamps and desks and dressers- Oh my!

Whew. I was lucky though- I walked out of there unscathed. Well, at least only what I went in for. A jar for my homemade laundry detergent.

I found myself snapping some photos with my camera phone (as I've read some of you sneaky devils do) of some inspiration. I've been itching do make a piece of subway art.

Pardon the unedited cell phone shots:

I love how that one is all different colors!

I love this pet one! I have many dog lovers who would swoon over something like this. Ok, maybe not swoon- they'd love it though.

I'll get to making my homemade Laundry Detergent in my nifty new HomeGoods jar and provide a review soon.

What have you seen at Home Goods that you used as inspiration?