11-11-11

This year 11-11-11 brought not one, but TWO family weddings! Since the weddings were in different states, we could only attend one of them. The wedding we attended was beautiful, the bride was gorgeous, the food was excellent, the reception was fun, but what I really want to share is the gift!
Thanks to Pinterest I decided to frame their wedding date as a gift. There are some awesome examples online, but after finding some “11’s” online, here is what I ended up with:


I wish I would have had time to go out and take pictures of my own “11’s”, and if I do this again, I will definitely find a way to make that happen. Don’t you think this would be fun on a wall with some wedding pictures?
I am hoping that both couples like their framed “11’s” and of course the $$$ that we added to the gift!
Best wishes to both couples!!

DIY Sign Post

A few weeks ago I found this sign post on Pinterest, and knew that I needed an interchangeable sign post by our front door.

source

It only took a little convincing before my hubby made one for me!

He used some scrap wood that was leftover from another project (I’m lucky – he’s super handy and always working on building something for our house!). This sign post really is just random scrap wood put together and with a little paint, no one will know it's scrap wood. Unless you tell. Which you won't. :)

Here is the finished post by our front door with a new slate Welcome sign I just received as a gift at work.

It's going to be fun swapping out the signs I already have with the seasons/holidays, but this may lead to some shopping too…..

Pumpkins!

Who doesn’t love carving pumpkins??? I can remember carving pumpkins as a kid and it took FOREVER! I had to keep adjusting and tweaking to make sure my pumpkin was “just right”. I can honestly say that some things never change… :) This year we waited until the last minute (the day before Halloween) to carve our pumpkins. Now we are all set for Trick or Treating tomorrow night!
I used a cookie cutter on mine (great idea from Pinterest) and the boys drew scary faces.

Happy Halloween!

DIY Tab Dividers

Over the past couple years I have transitioned from attempting to scrapbook (I couldn’t keep up) to making cards. Making cards has allowed me to continue paper crafting without feeling the stress of not being able to keep up with scrapbooks. I do still scrapbook some, mostly I designate 1 weekend a year to scrapbooking with the girls and crank out 1 album for the year for my son. Right now this works for me.
Anyways…the making of cards has led to the need for storage. Initially I was able to keep them in my old card box that had ready-made organization – printed dividers, folders, etc. As I continue to make more and more cards, I had to find a new storage box. As you can see, I was using a pretty fancy system for sorting my cards….Love those Post-It Notes!

I have been planning to make dividers for awhile, it’s all just a matter of time. This weekend I enjoyed a couple extra days off from work, so the time was now!
First I cut out a pattern and then I used some cardboard leftover from some packages we recently received. I made a total of 9 dividers.

Then I cut out some scrapbook paper and glued it on. The last step was to print some labels with my labeler (it’s a Brother - I’ve had it for years and it works GREAT!). I used the clear laminated labels so that the words would “pop” off the page.

I am pleased with my easy DIY tab dividers – it was the perfect upgrade to my card storage system!

I Love Pinterest!

Pinterest has become one of my favorite sites to go to for inspiration. There are so many great ideas for projects, home decor, DIY gifts, clothing, yummy food, etc. Here are some of my recent pins on Pinterest:

Repinned from Crafty by Shannon Emrich

You could make different sayings for the Holidays - Haunted, Thanks, Xmas, Easter, etc. and change them out for the different holidays/seasons.

Repinned from yum by Lana Katsaros

Seriously, these look sinfully delicious! I may have gained 5 lbs just looking at them!

Pinned to Yummy by Shawna

Halloween is one of my favorite holidays to decorate for.
I love the vintage look of these decorations from West Elm.

Have you joined in on the Pinterest fun? Click HERE to follow me on Pinterest!

A New Bag!

My Mom retired a couple years ago and has been busy sewing non-stop ever since. She makes all kinds of things, mostly quilts, but has been having fun making some new things too. We recently visited my parents in Wisconsin, and I was fortunate enough to bring home some of her hand-made goodies. She made me a new scarf, an iPad case and this super cute bag!

The colors of this bag are crazy and bright!

Check out the flower she made to dress it up - cute, huh?

And look at all the space on the inside! The pockets add some much needed function.

I sure am lucky to have such a talented Mom!

Sweet Corn!

In late summer we are lucky enough to enjoy delicious fresh sweet corn. Several times each week we stop at a local farmer's stand to pick up some sweet corn that was picked fresh that morning. We always buy a dozen ears (usually it's 14-15 ears) and we cook it all, knowing that we will only eat about 1/2 of it. The leftovers are always cut off the cob and frozen, to be saved for the perfect side dish later in the fall. When we are freezing corn, we usually put about 3-4 ears worth of corn per bag. Each bag is squeezed to eliminate air, dated, and then the bags are double-bagged into another freezer bag to help keep it fresh.

One evening we decided to buy 4 bags (approx 70 ears!!) to freeze, to ensure we would have LOTS of corn for later. Here is about 25% of the corn that we froze that evening:

After 2+ hours of work, we had 17 more bags of fresh corn to put in our deep freezer.

So delicious!!!