I Wish The Flu Bug Would Fly It's Way Outta Here!

Sorry for the delay in posting. We had an excellent adventure deep in the wilderness this last weekend with the Napa B.E.T.S snow run. This is where everyone including us, takes our jeeps out and 4-wheels through the snow. It was fun but cold and I was an idiot and forgot my jacket of all things. My Dad who is always teased about overpacking came through for me with two sweatshirts. Dad, you are the coolest! The Scout and the Peanut did not get much sleep the night before and were a little worn out. I was pretty sure that the Scout may have been coming down with something and I was right. Never underestimate mother's intuition. She has the flu! She could not get a flu shot due to her horrendous egg allergy and the poor thing has it full blown. I took her to the doctor's yesterday and they said that if she is not better by tomorrow that she will have to come back. Tonight she has perked up quite a bit so that is great, but I am starting to feel a little on the sluggish side. Uh - oh? I am going to hope and pray that I am not getting it, but after being up for the last three days and cleaning up constant puke, it may be inevitable. (Sorry for the visual folks!) So hopefully, I shall return next week with some new crafty posts. If you don't hear from me, you know what happened.

Why We Rock!

I thought this article on Shine today was pretty interesting. Thought you ladies might enjoy it!

Staying Alive: Four Reasons Why Women Are Better Survivors Than Men - Love + Sex on Shine

Organized Craft Room Ideas : Organizing : Home & Garden Television

If only my craft room could look this awesome!
Organized Craft Room Ideas : Organizing : Home & Garden Television

Photocraft Emboridery

I have been embroidering since I was about seven years old. My Grandma Margie (the seamstress extraordinaire) taught me when I went to stay at her house for a week in the summer. It was love at first stitch! My first piece was a dishtowel that I made for my Mom with two little bees on it. If I find it, I will post a picture. I was so excited to give it to her, that I couldn't wait for her birthday and handed it to her as soon as she stepped out of the car to pick me up. I was so proud. I love the gratification that you get when you finish an embroidery piece. I haven't embroidered in a while and recently got back into this fantastic craft. I found this video on YouTube and thought that this was such a cool idea for some gifts for friends and family.

Daisy's Dahlias

It's been a while since I have showcased any of Petunia's Peeps, so I wanted to share this little one that I painted for my kitchen. It is entitled, "Daisy's Dahlias." I just love the pattern on her dress and the orange and blue. I hung her by a black and white polka dotted ribbon. She is very cute! I have been working on three other large pieces for both of my daughters' rooms that I will show next week. Hopefully I can't get them done by then. Maybe I will actually have enough time to paint one and stick it in my etsy shop for sale. Ha Ha. We shall see!

All The Single Ladies!

I love Beyonce's video "Single Ladies" and when I went to get it off of YouTube to put it on my myspace page, I found this one too. I am still have tears from laughing so hard! Have a fun filled day!

Grace For President

So Santa brought this little gem to my girls for Christmas this year. If you have girls (even if you have boys) and you haven't read this book yet, drop what you are doing and go and purchase it right now! It is fantastic! This book is about a little girl named Grace who wonders "Where are all the girls?" while looking at a poster of the U.S. Presidents. Grace decides that she will run for school President. It's about her adventures on the campaign trail. Truly an awesome book that even goes into explaining how the electoral college works - something that I have been confused about for a long time. So check it out. I have seen it at Wal-Mart and Barnes and Noble. I ordered mine off of Amazon which seems to be the cheapest route.

Styrofoam Wall Art

Here are a couple of pieces of artwork that I made for my office space. I thought they were kinda cool and pretty easy to make. Here is what you need:

1 sheet of Styrofoam 24 inches in length and 12 inches in width and 1 inch in depth. If you can't find one that size you can cut it down to fit.

2 sheets of 12 x 12 inch scrapbook paper (the sky is the limit when it comes to your motif, so go wild)

96 inches of 1 inch wide black (or whatever color coordinates with your papers) grosgrain ribbon

Styrofoam glue (can be found at Michaels) or any other super tacky glue.

1 super sharp box cutter and cutting mat or electric knife

First you want to cut down the Styrofoam so you have two 12 x 12 square pieces. I used a sharp box cutter for this, but you want to make sure that you really get a straight edge when you cut it. Mine is pretty lumpy bumpy. An electric knife is great for cutting this, just be careful.

Next you want to put a good amount of glue on the back side of the scrapbooking paper.

Make sure it is lined up neatly with all four corners of the Styrofoam, and adhere it. I would highly recommend using a heavy book to set on top of the piece while it dries. It helps it adhere well and keeps the bubbles out. I purchased the Styrofoam glue at Michaels and was not very impressed at first. Styrofoam is so porous that it is really difficult to get the glue to work properly. I did let mine sit for 24 hours and it did adhere after all.

Finally, you are ready to attach your ribbon. Each piece is going to use 48 inches. Embarrassingly enough, I had a tough time figuring out how much ribbon I was going to need. And then I realized, "Duh, the piece is 12 inches square. Do the math, dummy." It was not one of my better moments. So you want to attach the ribbon to each side using the glue. Again, this can get pretty tedious because that darn Styrofoam just doesn't want to attach, but, have some patience and let the glue set awhile. I promise, it will work.

So there you have it. Two pieces of simple art for your wall. I placed a small finish nail in the wall to hang them and slid the Styrofoam right onto it. Very inexpensive art and so cool that you have infinite paper possibilities. The papers today are so nice and artsy looking, they really make a great statement!

Repurposing A Hunk of Junk!

I am a recycling queen. I love to recycle! I try to be good about recycling all of our glass, cans and bottles. It drives my husband nuts because I go diving into the trashcan when he throws away something that could actually be recycled. I am also a bit of a scavenger. I love it when the street has free dump days and everyone puts out their respective "trash" on the street. I have made some pretty good finds over the past several years: An antique Sacramento milk crate, a wicker footstool and my last great find was a fire engine red rocking chair with some vintage nursery rhyme motifs that had been decoupaged. Sorry, no pic.... I gave it to Kim for all of her children's photography props.

So last year the family and I headed up to my in laws house for the day. They live on a sprawling eight acres. They had a huge area in the back that kind of served as a "dump" pile of stuff they needed to get rid of. I quickly scanned the area and spotted the "piece de resistance" - and old metal grate. What? A grate you say? Yes, an old grate. My husband and his buddies had found this old huge hunk of metal one day when they were down at the river doing what boys do and thought it would be cool to store their fishing gear in while they swam across the river. It looks almost like an old bread tray that the grocery stores have for display. I nabbed that up and asked my in laws if I could take it home. I think they thought that I was a little nuts, (which I am) but I had the perfect use for it, and they were thrilled to have me take it off of their hands. It makes a fantastic paper holder for all of my scrapbooking paper. When I get to marry my recycling and my great scavenger abilities it makes me so happy!

The grate measures about 2 ft x 2ft and is about 2 inches deep and fits perfectly on the top of my printer shelf. I can just slide it in and out when I need to use it. I think my husband was a little worried when I decided to take it home, but I think it is great repurposed as my paper holder. Very urban chic don't you think? Ha Ha! I love it when I can repurpose a big hunk of junk and save it from being dumped into a landfill.

Can't Wait For My Anthopologie Order

So a few months back, my bff Kim and I decided to make a trek out to the new shopping center called "The Fountains." It is the high-end shopping center with all of the stores that I couldn't afford to buy a piece of gum in, let alone a skirt. We had the kids with us and just started checking out all of the different stores in the center. We came across the store Anthropologie. Can you say HEAVEN?!!!! I have seen so many cool things from Anthropologie over the years and I had been dying to see the store. Let's just say, it's better than I anticipated it would be. The displays are awesome, the clothes are the best, but the prices suck! A pair of socks was about the only thing that I could afford in the store. I mean their sweaters are great, but I am certainly not paying $158.00 for one! So we meandered the store trying to look like we belonged in their, all the while trying to pacify the Scout who had already reached her shopping limit for the day and really did not want to go into one more store.

I had eyed this fantastic belt that was in the window display when we walked in and quickly went hunting for it. I assumed it was going to be like 1 bazillion dollars or something, but it turned out to be $48.00. They only had one though, and it wasn't in my size and the price was still a little too rich for my blood.

That belt has been on my brain everyday since I saw it calling to me in the store window. So you know what my beautiful friend Kim did? She bought me a gift card to Anthropologie for Christmas! Whoopee! So today I cashed in my card and bought myself the belt online. It will arrive in 5 - 7 days. He He. I really wanted to post a pic of my belt, but security conscious Anthropologie won't allow my computer to copy the pic, and didn't like it when I tried to make it into a link either. So here is the long link version.
http://www.anthropologie.com/anthro/catalog/productdetail.jsp?_dyncharset=ISO-8859-1&_dynSessConf=1952244073394693919&id=840225&parentid=ACC_BELTS_WAISTS&pushId=ACC_BELTS_WAISTS&popId=ACC_BELTS&sortProperties=&navCount=2&navAction=jump&fromCategoryPage=true&selectedProductSize=&selectedProductSize1=&color=bro&colorName=BROWN

The Mom Song

My Mom sent me this email today. She only forwards them when they are really good. If you are a Mom, I know you will appreciate this one!

When Life Hands You Lemons - You Make a Cool Collage

So I have been trying to find some good uses for all of my scrapbooking supplies that I am obviously at this point, not going to scrapbook with. I thought that this was a pretty cool idea and wanted to share it with all of my friends out there in Blogland.

I had purchased two 16x20 inch canvases from ye ol' Michaels to make some paintings for the Peanut's room and attempted to open them up when I got them home. I used the old "poke a pencil through the tauntly wrapped plastic trick," and needless to say, it poked a hole right through both of the new canvases. Ahhhhhhhhhhh! I couldn't return them, so I thought why not figure out a way I could use them. Hey, I am a crafty sort of Magyver girl, I could do this! I generally use quite a few papers in my paintings anyway, but I really didn't feel like I could cover it up well enough to mask the rather large holes, so I decided to make a collage of sorts instead. Something that could cover up the whole thing.

Here's what I did:

I just used a few scrap pieces of paper that coordinated, an 8x10 pic of the girls (I think black and white is so timeless), some buttons and sparkly chipboard letters.

I just used my Modge Podge to glue the papers down to the canvas after I cut them and collaged them to my liking; then I added the pic with some photo corners for some easy photo changing if I opted to eventually change it; then I attached the chipboard letters with Elmers glue to read: Sisterly Love; after that I decided to add a few buttons with the hot glue to spruce up the corners that were looking a bit sparse; and lastly, I used some black acrylic paint and painted (not very neatly) around the edges. I got some paint on the canvas, but I thought it looked cool, because it almost appears to be inked.

This is a great project if you can get the canvas on sale and have a lot of the scrapbooking supplies on hand. The project only took me about a 1/2 hour and would make a great gift for someone. This one is hanging in the office in the kids nook where their desk and play kitchen reside. I love how mistakes can turn out to be fabulous things sometimes!

Crayon Roll - Tutorial Link

Here is the link for the tutorial on how to make the kids crayon roll. It's a great tutorial and a super cute blog called Skip To My Lou! My bff Kim used rick rack on hers and had a difficult time with it. I think they look cute either way.

Some Old School Scrapbooking and My Leaky Cup

So New Years is here and everyone and their brother is making their resolutions to lose weight, get in shape etc. Although I know that I have packed on a few pounds since the holidays, my resolutions this year include getting my office organized and functional and cutting back on my Starbucks consumption. Ha Ha.

As you have seen from my prior posts, I pretty much live out of my office space. The rest of my house will be neat as a pin but I can guarantee you a mess behind the office door. Most of my problem resides with incoming paper and constant craft projects. You see, I like to have several going on all at once. It's in my nature. I do this with books too. Have five going at one time. It drives my husband crazy.

So far, I have been doing a great job of getting everything organized. I purchased a stack of inboxes over at Costco for each member of the family. That way we don't have paper stacked on the front counter. I have been downsizing my crafting supplies since last year and only keeping the things that I know that I will finish.

One of my largest ongoing projects has been my pictures. I love everything about pictures. Although, I am not the best photographer, I love taking pictures. The problem is, that they get stuck on my hard drive and never printed out. Last year, I decided that I was finally going to go "old school" on my photos. I was just so "done" with all of the scrapbooking craze. I mean, don't get me wrong, I am in love with scrapbooking stores and all of the paper and the embellishments and everything. Embarrassingly enough, I probably have enough to open my own scrapbook store. The problem is, is it takes me so long to get one page done and every page seems to be so expensive when you are buying ribbon and grommets and chipboard words. I needed to simplify my life a little. I needed to get these pictures in books so that we could really enjoy looking at them.

My Grandma Margie is the most organized scrapbooker I know. Her albums are just pictures and captions. She takes pictures and has them developed and puts them in the same day. She sometimes includes announcements, thank you notes, letters, obituaries and the like. I love going to her house and pulling out one of the dozen or so albums and flipping through them. So, I decided to simplify my own pictures and do the same. I bought albums a couple of months ago and just started putting pics in chronological order. When I have time, I go back and add the captions in my own writing with a black pen. All of you scrapbookers are fainting in horror right now, sorry for that. Nothing fancy, no embellishments, no stickers, no glitter, just simplicity - and you know what . . . I almost have a whole year completed. I have been feeling very accomplished with my "old school" style of scrapbooking.

So as for my organizational resolution, I am still struggling with the organization thing, but I am slowly accomplishing small bits and pieces. I have downsized quite a bit and am feeling pretty good about my progress.

My other resolution this year was to cut my Starbucks intake in half. Ha Ha. It's the hardest thing that I have ever had to do. I started a few months ago when I bought some Oregon Chai Tea from the grocery store. Though I love the chai tea and how easy it is to fix at home. I just really miss going to Bucki's and saying "hi" to all of my Starbucks friends and getting my hot steamy latte from the friendly barista. Today I resigned myself to go because I had a little bit of a gift card still left and I was really jonesing for a hot drink. I knew that I should have abstained, my conscious told me so, but I still needed my Starbcuks fix. So through the drive-through I went and got my delicious cup of joe and began to pull away. I noticed a drip on my hand and so I grabbed a napkin and brushed it away, then another drip on my jeans as I was driving. Maybe the lids not on tight enough? I readjusted the thing and made it home and then...... drip, drip, drip... what the heck? And lo and behold I have a giant fissure running down the side of my cup. Ahhhhhhh! I was already home, so I grabbed a cup and put it underneath the leaky mess. Yuck! All in all, I should have stayed at home and had my cheap chai teal latte instead of spending $3.80 on my latte and leaky cup. Will I ever learn?

2009! - No Way Jose!

Happy New Year! I can't believe that we are in 2009! My husband made it home last night a little early (11:00 p.m) so we were able to watch the ball drop together in Times Square and get a midnight kiss. When my brother called me today, he asked me what I did for New Years. You see, he is still in his 20's, single, with no kids. I kinda laughed and said, "What did you think I did? I sat home and watched an On Demand movie on the couch after the kids went to bed and watched all the partiers in Times Square freeze their butts off. I was secretly living vicariously through all those partiers. But alas, I had my day in the sun to stay out all night on New Years Eve and party like a rock star. Now, I would much prefer to stay in my jammies on the couch with a movie and have my girls snuggly snoozing away in their beds. That's how I know that I am officially matured. Ha Ha. So all in all, it was a good New Years.

I of course have not posted in forever and a day, but I wanted to post my cute little crayon carrier that I made for my little cousin Abigail for Christmas. My bff Kim and I decided that we wanted to tackle a Christmas craft project this year and thought these crayon holders would be just the ticket. Kim has much better math skills then I do, so my measurements somehow got a little mixed up, but, it still turned out pretty cute. They are actually pretty easy to make although a little tedious to get everything prepped. I made mine to fit sixteen crayons, but you can make them to fit eight if you prefer. My next project is to turn one of these into an apron. I think they would be so cute.