To be continued...

I am painting, painting, and painting! Be sure to check back NEXT Thursday for Before and After bathroom pictures! I can't wait to show you!! 

-Ashley-

Father's Day Hike

Welcome back everyone and Happy Wednesday! I wanted to give you guys a garden update...We harvested our first two cucumbers today and they were sooooooo delicious. Look at that one it is HUGE and so straight, like a grocery store :) I also harvested the last of my lettuce and will have to do a do over on most of it.Those dang green caterpillars destroyed pretty much all of it!!! But we were still able to get a salad from it and had a little to share!

 I hope everyone enjoyed their Father's Day! I know we did here. We went on a family hike up Cowles Mountain and one of my favorite views in SD! Normally when we go we will take the main entrance, but being the adventure-some sort we took one of the back ways...well really it is just less crowded and peaceful)

 Both the boys are out of school now and we are ready to start our summer vacation. How about you guys?

See you all next Wed.
 xoxo
Danni

PS- I am on the Sweet Stamp Shop's Design Team (YAY!) and there is a NEW release out today. I wonder if you can spot any of my creations???

Graphic 45 French Country Canvas

Happy Tuesday!

Recently,  my mom redid her kitchen...yeah, I disliked not being able to help her with all the 'fun' stuff.  I love painting, re-doing things, picking out new decor items, but with her in Wisconsin and me in California, it just didn't work out.  So, I did what I could and I made her some things!

Here is a canvas from the Graphic 45 French Country paper line, which I absolutely adore! (I think she will, too)  It has some of her colors in it and she has some big, tall walls to fill. 

I really love 'fussy cutting' - I think one's first taste of this time consuming, OCD task comes from your childhood, if you were a paper doll fan.  Let's face it - who ever thought those up was really looking to keep a kid busy and quiet for quite some time...and get them well on their way to perfectionism at a young age.  (Not that I've thought about it...)   (I did love cutting those paper dolls and each book/set had it's own shoebox.  Yep, problems.  But I did learn to 'fussy cut!!)

I love layering the paper pieces, distressing them, edging the canvas with matching trim, etc.  I brought out some of the colors with Spica pens, which I love using for a little extra pop of color.  Some are layered twice and some three times.

 Excited to get this out to my mom and see if she likes it as much as I hope she does.

Thanks for letting me share my creation with you - thanks so much, Friends!

Fondly,

Sharon

Shadow Box Tray

I have felt so accomplished this week! I FINALLY finished my shadow box tray that I started over a year ago! I have always loved little things, and I’ve been collecting them for practically my entire life. When I saw these shadow box trays by 7 gypsies, I knew it’d be perfect to house all my mini findings.

I didn’t have a specific direction when I started; I knew I just wanted to concentrate on one window at a time and tinker with it till I was satisfied with it. And after it was all I said and done, I must say it came together quite nicely. It has a lot of travel influence because that’s what I love the most.

It has postcards I got in Paris, a single earring whose mate was lost on one of the best nights of my life, a red bus I bought in London, tiny shards of sea glass that I've picked all over the world, foreign coins, and even a sticker with the lyrics from one of my favorite songs! Everything this shadow box contains are things that are meaningful and hold sentimental value to me, which is exactly what I wanted. Its all about me.

I finished it off by putting an acrylic cover over the whole thing and hiding the adhesive by using decorative corners. That way, the dust won’t creep into the crevices over the years to come. Now I’m onto other unfinished projects!


Have a great week everyone!

Mandy

Book Box

Happy Friday again!  This is a project I finally worked on this week after having seen done in various ways before, and always wanted to try it myself.  Father's Day presented the perfect reason to try it out!

Some people consider it a book safe, as a way to sneakily hide belongings in plain sight.  In this case, it would probably be ideal to use a hard cover book with the outer sleeve still on it, just to make it look more natural.

For me, I chose a book with a clever title to make a box for my dad.  It was a computer joke, and since my dad and I both work in software, I thought it would be a perfect gift from me.  He can use it as a box on his desk to hold notes, business cards, office supplies, whatever.  Or, he can go the safe route.  

It was pretty simple, I just used an X-acto knife to cut out the center of the pages all the way through.  It was a bit of a slow process, only cutting through a few pages at a time, so when you try it at home just sit down with a movie and cut cut cut.  By the end of the movie, you should be done!

I then cut the scrapbook paper to line the inside covers of the book, to give it a finished look.  The last step was to glue the pages together to form a firm box.  You want to make sure to glue the back of the last page down to the back inside cover, and then the rest of the glue simply goes around the three edges of the pages.  I brushed on two layers of Mod Podge with a sponge brush.

The last trick is to then wrap the inside front cover (top of box) in foil or plastic wrap to prevent any of the glue getting on it, close the book, then pile other heavy books on top of it until the glue is dry.  This will ensure the box is firm.  When you remove the plastic wrap, if any glue seeped up on the front of the top page, use a fine grit sandpaper to gently remove it, so that the top page retains the papery quality of the book.

I put a gift card inside the book before I popped the gift in the mail.  If he doesn't want a trinket box or a bookshelf safe, he can throw it away since it only cost me about $1.50 to make, since I bought the book from a thrift store and only used one sheet of scrapbook paper to line it... you can hardly buy a boring gift box for $1.50 anymore these days anyway!

xo Allison

Let's Go To the Fair!

Tuesday just happened to be my birthday! Every year birthdays seem a little more ordinary...  and every year, our County Fair falls on my birthday. This year I wanted to go and let my inner child out for a couple of hours to celebrate.

Kudos to my amazing mom who made this German Chocolate cake and icing from scratch

 Our fair may be small and probably a bit dirty BUT it is what you make of it, and we had so much fun!!!!

This was the worst ride ever.... Mom and I screamed the entire time we were spinning and twisting upside down and backwards. We agreed that it was like being trapped inside of a washing machine and decided not to do it again.

 This year, my birthday was wonderful. 

-Ashley-

Birthday Stache'

My oldest son had his 8th birthday party this past friday, I was so nervous about it as it was the first time we ever did a friend birthday, but it turned out GREAT! We had something low key and easy. I  decided to have it at a local park by our house that was nice and spacious and I didnt have to do any clean up at my house.

I ended up finding these cute little mustache and glasses "masks" for the kids to wear, and surprisingly the boys loved it. We did easy snacks and drinks and had a cupcake cake. Unfortunately he only got to blow out two candles because the windy was just to windy. (imagine that)

I do have to say  I am excited for next year and maybe even plan a themed birthday party for him. Or on second thought I will probably slow things down a bit and worry about my youngest sons birthday instead, cant forget about him!

 

xoxo

Danni