Be Creative

Pinterest Lately

This past week I made the most delicious taco salad that I came across on Pinterest. Here is the link to salad I followed from Pinterest.

Here's my salad... Like I said it was heavenly and so good on a summer night!

I served these on the side since one girlie doesn't like olives and one hubby is allergic to avacado and doesn't like beans...

And one girlie doesn't like lettuce so hers came to the table like this. But i'm a total mean mom so you have to eat some salad if you live here!

Served the warm chips on the side too...

Oh, and a delicious side of these...

Give it a try, I bet you'll love it too!

My girl got promoted!

I mentioned last week that my baby was promoted from Jr. high last week. It seems like just yesterday I dropped this little one off at preschool and I cried everyday for the first month and she cried every day for the second month.

Please allow me to brag for a moment... I'm one proud mommy. She was awarded the Principals Honor roll for achieving a 4.0 GPA for all two years of jr. high.

She is funny and sweet and kind and generous. She is intense and hard on herself and driven and controlling. It's almost harder to parent this girlie because she is so grown up. I'm always encouraging her to not worry, to let things go... to be a young girl and not worry about things only grown ups should worry about. 

Parenting is hard and usually i'm so sad to see these milestones come and go. I cry and cry for weeks at the mere mention of a graduation or sometimes even a birthday. It's usually Niguel that gets me, she paves the way and all these milestones are new. One year later when Kylah passes these same milestones I'm not nearly as emotional. Could be that i've done it and know what to expect but mostly there is much more of a "whew we made it" associated with it.

Things are changing for me now. I hardly cried this past week and I had a graduation and a birthday! I can feel the tides changing. I'm not so sad and i'm starting to feel more excited for all the things to come. Excited to see how these girls lives unfold and how they soar. I'm excited to see how all this hard work of parenting works out. I'm thinking its going to be amazing!

I just finished blogging for this whole week so stop by and see whats up all week long. Have a blessed week.

Just a peek

I've been working on a blog post in my head for over a week. I can't get all the words out, i'll get there. So I thought i'd give you a peek in to my world, my creative space. It's a mess... but i've been working on making it more me... more of the things I love.

One of the best things about having my space in the garage is when the sun is shining and I can work in the sunlight. I love natural light!!!

Look... look quick, I bet within minutes of this photo being taken this space will be piled with stuff again!

I'm starting to feel like I can get back to blogging more. Come back and see tomorrow :)

Hope you've been wonderful!

Project mid way done...

CHA is over... another successful trade show. I'm working on figuring out how to download my photos from my phone to share. In the meantime I thought i'd share a project i've been working on for a while.

I've mentioned that we've been working on updating our home decor. One of my main goals of doing this is to reuse as many things as I possibly can. I just finished refinishing 10 frames that were previously various colors of brown wood tones.

I painted them all white with ordinary acrylic paint. Four coats later I sanded the edges and distressed them a little. Then I rubbed in some paste wax, gave it a while to dry and buffed it off. The wax process made all the difference. It made it a little slick and filled in areas that were not all the well painted. Thanks BETH for the idea!

Now that the frames are done i'm searching my photo files for some favorite shots to print... but in the meantime we are having  a birthday party for Niguel this weekend and the empty frames didn't look so wonderful. Since I figured it would take me at least another couple weeks to get the photos ready I decided on a Valentines vignette using all my cards from my VALENTINES DAY KIT.

I'll be sure to post again when I finish it up with real photos...

Have a wonderful weekend!

Winner + what i've been up to

First things first... Lets get to the winner! Dawn Wagner... Congrats you just won the card from my last post!!! Shoot me an email and i'll send your card right out!

And to answer a couple of questions... I used a dye based regular ink pad from close to my heart and the ribbon was dry within a couple of minutes. If you're wondering what the heck i'm talking about you better scroll down and check out the last post. :)

I have been in the middle of cleaning up an Epic mess. This has really been the mess of all messes. It was entirely to scary to show the entire picture so here are some snapshots!

I've been working on it for several days and have one small pile left. I will be so glad to get through that last little bit. I had to develop a strategy just for this kind of mess. I like to call 20/1. It goes like this... I go in and pick up/throw away/or put away 20 things. Then I go do 1 thing like help with homework... go through the mail... change laundry... eat candy. Then I repeat. It worked pretty well, i'm almost there!

Sneak peek tomorrow of what I did Saturday night! 

Celebrate your freedom

Happy 4th to everyone here in the states!

 Can I offer you one of the yummy cookies we made yesterday?

Freshen the nest

Trying to freshen up the nest around here. Things have gotten so stale, old, stagnant, predictable. I got some new leaf green accessories for my table, moved some bowls around and added some fresh cut flowers.

Having that feeling about alot of different aspects of my life right now. Feeling some shifting happening. Need to set the sails and get ready to catch the wind when it comes up. Maybe even make some wind.

 
Card give away day tomorrow... hope you'll stop by.

Love: The Home Decor Edition

I've had this little hanger thingy for a while and i've never quite found the right thing to hang on it. While I was at my favorite wholesale outlet the other day I found these super cute felt hearts. They sat on my craft table for a few days while I pondered what to do with them. Then over the weekend they met up with some extra die cuts and spare buttons I had hanging around on the table. Here are the results of all that randomness.

 
Still more Valentines coming up tomorrow. Have a great day!  

Gifts for Friends

Last night we made baked gifts for the girls friends. Feels good to give simply and from the heart. Even though Kylah didn't speak to me for 12 minutes because she couldn't keep a candy cane for herself. It was a lovely 12 minutes.

 
I have nothing else to do but play around with funny graphics on the computer. Yep, all my shopping, wrapping, kits, laundry, emails and dinner. Yep, all done! So you can see how I have all kinds of time to blog and do funny stuff with bad pictures of my girlies.

OK, gotta go and eat my share of the left over brownies.

Smiles!

I Am

Congratulations to Marian H you just won yesterdays card give away. Email me your address and i'll send it right out to you.

I was blog hopping the other day and found this fun prompt. I wish I had noted where I found it but I was in about 26 links and after I copied and pasted the words the blog I got it from was gone. Arrrggg, but if I ever stumble upon it again  I will give proper credit. So here it goes...

Outside my Window: There is a family of finches that I watch every morning. Peep... peep... peep... they are very early risers.

I am Thinking: I love Wednesdays. Short day at school and lunch with friends.

From the Kitchen: There is a 5 star chef making dinner for my family... I hope I hope I hope

I am Learning: It's impossible to make everyone happy at the same time.

I am Wearing: Jeans and a henley.

I am Creating: So many things for Valentines Day

I am Going: to snuggle my kids so much tonight they beg me to stop.

I am Reading: the January issue of O magazine (reading is not my thing)

I am Hoping: That my girls grow up to be happy people.

I am Hearing: The quietness of the morning.

Around the House: Two girlies are starting to stir and are getting ready for school.

One of my Favorite Things: Orgins White Tea hand cream

A Few Plans for Next Week: Christmas Everything!

Sneak peek at whats coming tomorrow...

A trio of christmas projects.  

Hope you have a great day!