Tuesday Already?!?

I had a fabulous weekend, and the weather even held out for us! My hubby and I went with some friends to Snoqualimie Falls, and then to the wineries (our favorite place) on Sunday. Then yesterday, we went to the Mariners/Orioles baseball game, and had a blast! So unfortunately I have no crafts to share with you! I know sad day for me, but I am going to go play in my craft room today, and I promise to share some of the fun things I come up with!

I do want to share something I decided to do this month.

I love to dabble in photography. I love getting a great picture, provoke a thought or feeling through an image, so I am going to play along with Sophia this month and do the 30 Days of Photo Fun! (The official rules are posted on A Feathered Nest)

Each day, I will be posting a new picture that I have taken! I think this will be a fun challenge, and it all starts tomorrow!! If you want to play along with us, visit A Feathered Nest for the details, but let me know, because I would LOVE to see what everyone comes up with!

Here’s to a happy June! (and don’t forget the Grillin’ and Chillin’ Bug Hop continues this weekend, where I will have a fun giveaway!)

Oh, and I changed my comment postings since someone had mentioned they had issues posting comments on some blogs when they are embedded below, so feel free to comment! I will always come follow you if you follow me! Have a great day, and I will meet you back here tomorrow with hopefully not only a picture, but a project too!

Peace.Love.Dove.

I Dislike More Than Raw Fish

Alright, I don’t like sushi. It grosses me out. But this post isn’t about fish. It’s not even crafty. It’s about something I don’t like, and that is…

Gardening.

It’s not my thing. I was not born with a green thumb. I was born with a glittered thumb. I don’t mind getting dirty, but I can’t make anything grow, unless it’s a weed. You should see the vegetable plants I planted a few weeks back… ALL gone! I don’t know what happened, but my guess is something ate them!

So, when my husband (who had been gone for 3 weeks), suggested that we weed the garden we are obligated to take care of in our lease, I was more than happy to take his help. Because I did not want to do that alone. I was going to hire someone to do it, but us doing it would save some money. So I went along and did it.

When we started, my husband said we should do before and after pics… but we already started. So, here is our 45 minute into it picture. (We had already weeded along the darker fence on the right.)

BEFORE

And then here is out 3 hours later picture…

AFTER

It still looks bad. But sooo much better!!

Thanks to my hubby for being the model. You can hardly see his knees in the first picture, but you can see his shoes in the after picture!! I am not going to lie. I hated this task. Pulling weeds, watching out for slugs… everywhere, the fear of spiders crawling on me… oh man. It was a terrible 3 hours. But it is done… for now. I burned over 800 calories, and my body still aches.

Since the hubby has been gone so long, we are taking the weekend to enjoy life. Spending it with some friends, taking a trip to the winery (which we do every other month anyways), and a good old baseball game! Not that I would cheer for either team that is playing (I am a die hard TWINS fan), but there is nothing that screams summer more than a baseball game!

Hope you all have an amazing weekend, and stay tuned for next weekend when I am participating in a blog hop… and I have a giveaway that I love!

Oh and one last thing… a year ago today my husband returned from deployment, so it is super exciting to have him here this year (and what a year it’s been). Thinking of all military on this Memorial Day weekend. Thank you for all you do, and have done. Thank you.

Peace.Love.Dove.

I Love Glitter Mantle Project

I love glitter. It is part of me. I don’t know why exactly I love it. But I do. I use it in almost everything I do, and glitter loves me back. I have always seen those beautiful glittered letters at Christmas time, and thought to myself, those would be awesome year round. So, I made my own.

I painted the white letters that I got at Joann’s with a turquoise acrylic paint. I painted all sides but the front. When it was dry, I brushed Elmer’s glue on the front and dipped the letters in silver fine glitter by Martha Stewart.

I let it dry overnight, and then tried to find a way to keep the glitter to stay. You know when it flakes off and goes everywhere… well I didn’t want that. I don’t know if anyone would, so I did some research. I thought about using a gloss decoupage, but I couldn’t get the jar open. So I googled, and read about using hairspray. Hairspray! I have a hairspray! So I did a coat, let it sit of 5 minutes. Then I did another coat of the hairspray. Left it overnight, and checked it out in the morning.

Magic. It stayed!! I don’t think it will work on paper. But on wood, it stayed - full on glitter. So, without further ado. Here is my new mantle piece (and yes, it is in the window sill, because I hate my mantle)

Ah, I love glitter. I hope you liked my project. It was very simple to make, and I think it turned out great! I might do another coat of glitter… since I love it. But all in all, It is totally me, and I am excited to share it with you.

Happy Wednesday!

Peace.Love.Dove.

I’m back!

After a few days of being computer less, I have got back my sweet little baby. Turns out all it was, was STATIC! I thought I knew computers but I didn’t know about the static factor. So I am no longer using my fleece blanket on my lap when I use my computer!

So much has gone on during this past week. I was able to work on some projects.

Today I am going to share with the banner I made for the COW party I hosted at my house. This was a very simple banner, but I think it looks adorable!

I cut out the banner pieces from Stand and Salute at 8.25 inches. For the letters I used Don Juan. I believe those were cut at 4 inches. and the cow is from Create-a-Critter. I put it on my giant empty wall, and everyone loved it!

I am currently working on 2 more home décor items. But they are more year round projects so I can display them all the time! Gotta love that.

Our New Joann’s opened on Friday, so went!! It was so much bigger, and nicer. I found they had a little bit more scrapbook stuff, but not as much as I was hoping for. How come Joann’s does not sell i-rocks? I totally thought they might even sell Sew Easy’s, but they don’t so I was disappointed. They also had a great sale on all cricut cartridges. But of course the ones I wanted they didn’t have!

I like practical cartridges. I am not into the super cutsie ones (such as create-a-critter). Don’t get me wrong, I do like it (I needed this cow, and it was perfect for it). But I am patiently waiting for GREEK letters, Party stuff, more grown up. I have ZERO children (and only ONE nephew), On my wish list, Damask Décor. I love when I font is incorporated into a cartridge. Since most of my stuff is layouts, and layouts of weddings, and college, all the cutsie stuff does not go well with that.

I hope next Hello Thursday has what I am talking about! Keeping my fingers crossed. Oh, and don’t forget, I am in a blog hop June 4-6 and I have some blog candy. The only hint I will give you, is that it is one of my FAVORITE things to use!

Have a wonderful weekend.

Peace.Love.Dove.

Of course it happens

Oh, I LOVE my laptop. She is practically my best friend.

In our house, our computers our are lives. We live on them. Watch TV and play on them. Keep connected, read blogs, everything on them.

Last night it happened. I was in the middle of a playing Monopoly on FB. (Yep, I LOVE Monopoly) and it crashed. It turned off, and it will not turn back on. That is the computer I blog from, post from, all that jazz from. (and of course my  hubby is not around to make sure it is not just USER error). I know that I know enough about computers to know how to turn it back on. But NOTHING!

So I might be MIA this week, while I get things back together. Hopefully they can fix her, or get me a new one (I am glad I bought the extended plan)! I will hopefully be crafting. I will just be posting once things come back together. Luckily I do have a desktop -- but I broke the card reader, so i can't post pictures from this computer that are on my card... I don't know what I did!

I guess it is my life telling me to get off the computer and enjoy the sun rain.I guess I need to clean. Yep, I say it every day, but only do it about 1/3 of the time I say I am going to.. because I find something more interesting on my LAPTOP! (and it is probably your blog)

Have a great week. If I can figure it out, I will be back in a few days, with hopefully some projects. I also am waiting for a shipment to come of some things I purchased and I can't wait to tell you what I bought! I have not tried it before but it looks amazing!!

Peace.Love.Dove.

Check out this AMAZING giveaway!

I just had to share!

Melissa over at Creating From the Heart is having a fabulous giveaway that INCLUDES $100 gift certificate to Michaels! Yeah $100! Can you believe it! She also is giving away a Martha Stewart all around punch too.

Head on over to her blog to check it out!

Have a great weekend.

Peace.Love.Dove.

A very amazing find!

Well, blogger is down, so I am not even sure if anyone has Google Reader up to read my post (or that it will even let me post). I use Windows Live Writer, so we will see what happens.

I wanted to share with you an amazing find I got yesterday while running around town with a friend. We went to our local Joann’s since they are “moving” to the space next door to them, but I wasn’t sure when – so we stopped in to see what was going on. EVERYTHING was 75% off (but there was not a whole lot, maybe a total of 4 shopping aisles). So I wandered, and almost bought 5.5 yards of girly fleece for 20 bucks, but then I was like, I know NO little girls!

My friend pointed out that the fixtures were for sale. I got super excited, and then saw what I wanted!! (I really wanted a cutting table, they were only 35 bucks, but I have no idea where I would have put it). But here is what I got!

And best of all, they were only 5 bucks a piece!! One is a 12x12 paper holder, and the other a 8.5x11! I was so excited!! I bought a plastic one at one point online that was a stacker, and it has ten shelves for 45 bucks. So this was AWESOME!! I need to take some goo gone to it, but other that, I just need to find some space for them!

I hope you have a great day! If you are able to see this post, please comment and let me know since I can’t tell what I posted half the time. What is the BEST bargain you have ever got?

Peace.Love.Dove.

Looks like it is back up! (I was unable to post this earlier today)

Sunday Morning Hour Challenge at Frosted Designs!

I participated in the the quick scrap challenge over at Frosted Designs this morning, and here is what I came up with!

Visit the link to see what the challenge all entailed!

I finished this early but my computer has been messing up, and I broke my SD card, oh it is not going in my favor today. So lets hope I get this posted in time!!

peace.love.dove.

Scrapbook Day challenge (Frosted Designs-Girly)

There are so many challenges out there today, and I going to partake in a few of them. The first one I am going to show you what I made is from Frosted Designs. It is the Girly layout. BUT -- you have incorporate something that you would not find in a scrapbook store onto the layout. Can you guess what I used just by seeing the page?

Can you see it?

Well...

It is a CD! I have had these CDs for a while and the black ones don't work. So, I thought PERFECT! To me this is girly. Want to know the story? Well, I can't really tell you the REAL story, but lets just say college was a blast, and these are the girls in my sorority that I graduated with. When this picture was originally taken, I wasn't even there! (I was still in Italy). When I got back, I dressed up and got superimposed into the picture.

 

Its hard to tell but I am the one wearing the pink and green polka dot swimsuit top in the back.

See the CD here, its the backside and used the picture to cover the hole

Just a nickname

I can't believe I graduated COLLEGE 5 years ago, YESTERDAY!

To try out the challenge for yourself or see the other challenges go to Frosted Designs. They have some great prizes up for grabs!

I {heart} chocolate

I love chocolate. So when I found out I was the winner of the Utah Truffles over at Sherbet Blossom, I was overjoyed!!

I dreamt about winning this. Chocolate is a winner no matter what in my book. I love chocolate so much, that I experiment. A few years ago I made homemade chocolate covered bacon… needless to say everyone thought I was pregnant (which I wasn’t), and the first piece was pretty good. But after having more than one, it was just too much.

My love of chocolate started when I was in middle school. It started with an M&M obsession that turned into me making truffles for a class project. I was hooked. I love using chocolate whenever I can, and gifts are usually my special truffles (made with lots of love of course)!

So, do want to see what I won?

And boy is it DELICIOUS!!!

I got truffles, truffle bars, chocolate covered cookies, candies, and pretzels. I think it is any woman’s dream! I will definitely be a customer of theirs. My mom would LOVE to get some chocolates from them, and I know a few friends (ok maybe all my friends) that would LOVE these too!

I hope you have a wonderful weekend! I hope to be scrapping as much as I can this weekend and take part in some challenges. Next week I will be kicking my butt on the treadmill, since I will be eating a ton of this chocolate! But its all worth it since the chocolate is DEVINE!! I mean seriously good stuff (and I am picky about my chocolate). The first piece I ate was a dark chocolate mint truffle. Oh it was amazing.

Alright back to the swing of things. My hubby is sick and we have a party we have to attend this evening, so I am trying to be a good wife and get into back into shape quick!

Happy Friday!

peace.love.dove.

Another bridal layout

I had a blast being in my friend Ann’s wedding, almost a year ago… time sure does fly. I have also been having a blast scrapbooking them and using beautiful paper.

I am not sure if I am completely DONE with this layout. But I like the concept of it.

I love the glittered letters. Love them.

This weekend going to be a busy one. So much going on! So have a great one.

Peace. Love. Dove.

I am the Worst Housewife

I am.

It’s true.

WHY? Well, I HATE cleaning! I love my time, but I do not like to spend it cleaning. I love cooking though. I also love to bake. But then again, I hate cleaning up the mess I made.

Luckily, we have no kids yet. (otherwise I am sure I will be spending every spare minute cleaning).

Does anyone have any tricks or tips on how I can keep my house up, and enjoy doing the things that I LOVE doing, like crafting, reading a good book, and spending time with my puppy?

Maybe its because we rent, and I feel like the house is never mine – FYI --- all the walls are WHITE… every. single. one. yuck! I have another 6 months and then I will be moving back to MN for 6 months, and then hopefully. HOPEFULLY. We will live somewhere where we can afford to buy a house we have been dreaming about. It only means we will have to be landlords then too… But I think if I would love it, someone else will too! Right?

I can only dream right now. Only dream…

Peace. Love. Dove.

Tulips from Last Year

I made this layout originally for a challenge, but then my parents came to visit, and I lost all track of time. Which is ok, because I LOVE this page.

Last year I took pictures of the tulips as the season was ending, but they were still beautiful. Here is the layout that I came up with.

I do not have a steady hand and boy is is dreary out, so I had to use the flash. This paper is SEI from the Claire collection. I will tell you over and over, but I love SEI’s papers. They have some beautiful patterns, and I love the metallic elements.

I love how it turned out. I can’t wait to scrapbook the pictures I took this year. I think they turned out amazing! Plus I learned a little bit more about photoshop!

Have a wonderful day.

Peace.Love.Dove.

Where have I been?

May is here already, and I have no clue what I was doing the past couple weeks. Ok, I do know what I was doing. I got a new phone!

I would say my hubby and I are techy people, and I got a new phone, so I have spent my time playing on my phone and figuring it out. We have also had some BEAUTIFUL weather out here, and on some days, I can’t help it, I have to go outside! My craft life was briefly put on hold, but I was working on a project that took me longer than I thought it would…

I am a scrapbooker. I will say that over and over. I do try to make cards every now and then, and then there is nothing like a fun altered project (which I have some of those coming up in a month or so). I decided to volunteer my time to make invitations (36 of them to be exact) for a party that I am having at my house. I had some odd shaped envelopes, so I had to fit the invite to them, and got my cuts all out messed up. They are super simple, but the cut I used took forever for some reason to assemble. So here is what they ended up looking like.

I blurred out any information so that I didn’t have a bunch of people showing up at my house! Even though I am sure a bunch of scrapbookers would be a fun get together!

Here is a close up of the cow.

The cow is from Create-A-Critter, and I think she is adorable. I do have to say, I am not sure what type of cuts I like the best. But I do have a little bit of everything.

I hope you guys all have a wonderful week. I promise I will be back in the swing of things this week. I also wanted to thank some amazing people. I have been super lucky lately. I have won a couple gift cards to Michael’s and I am super excited to go shopping to buy some new things! So thank you so much to Sarah and Sonia! Please visit their blogs and send them some love. I am sure I will be picking up some goodies for my readers too!! Keep on the lookout. There is going to be some fun things for me this month! (and probably a bunch of COW decorations too…)

Peace.Love.Dove.