Go be artsy today!

via grace's birdcage

oops, there goes my thriftyness...

... definitely experiencing major buyer's remorse, but hopefully that's because I haven't held it in my arms yet.

I did however score free 2-day shipping and 1/2 off the warranty.  It never hurts to ask for a discount, right?

Have a great holiday weekend, friends!

thank you ebay

I've been searching through piles of hankies at antique shops for months and thanks to an ebay search alert, I "won" this beauty:

It's a vintage Georgia State Souvenir handkerchief! I'm thinking it deserves a nice place on our wall next to all of the wedding photos... I still need to have printed.

Side note: I completely forgot how addicting ebay is, especially with the ebay app... this has the potential to ruin my budget

7 months, 2 weeks and 2 days later...

As of today, I have officially and semi-successfully paid off our wedding!

via +

I can't tell you what a relief it is knowing that particular black cloud of debt is behind me... now I just need to buckle down and pay off the other credit card.  As I've written in the past, it wasn't especially easy paying for the majority of the wedding, but it was, for the most part, the wedding I wanted in the location I wanted!

marina and the diamonds

Amazon is dropping off this album tonight... Hopefully, it won't be a melted puddle on our front door step!

A quick brain dump...

It’s been a week of daylong meetings, so by the time I get home my brain is mush and I just want to stream Party Down from Netflix… sorry for the lack of posts!
On Sunday, I attended my second-cousin-once-removed’s Baby Shower. They don’t know what they’re having so we ended up saying “Baby Z” which was frickin’ cute adorable. We played the clothespin game where “cute” was the banned word. I saw the favors (below) and immediately lost my clothespin:

The mother-to-be’s mom (my dad’s cousin) knitted these cupcakes and filled them with the traditional peanut-mint shower combo. I about died from cute overload.

Last Friday, I got a half-assed email from the community president saying that there was going to be a community-wide garage sale… in one week! Andy and I have been franticly pricing and purging since we got the notice. On the plus side, we were really dragging our feet about picking a date for the garage sale ourselves, so after this weekend I can throw away my Hoarder’s application and have overnight guests again.

Hope everyone’s having a great week… not sure if I’ll be able to post a Friday Freebie link tomorrow!

Escalate - Free streaming awesomeness

I am SO looking forward to today's Escalate speaker, Jessica Claire.
Next to Jasmine Star, she is one of my favorite photographers and a complete inspiration to my desire to be a photographer!  What? I haven't mentioned that before? Nevermind, then.

I got exteremely lucky that JC's presenting during my lunch hour today, now I've gotta start charging that iphone.  If you're interested, you can attend the live feed for free online, or on your iphone using the UStream app!

Freebie Friday - Pop Tab Container Wrap

As you may know, a coworker and I collect pop tabs for Ronald McDonald House Chicago.  I've made dorky little signs and taped them to jars for my Mom's office, my church, and our house. So far, we've managed to accumulate two 5-gallon buckets of tabs!

Yesterday, I noticed the library had a way-cuter and much more professional "container wrap" colored by an adorable budding artist.  It is much better than my janky sign, so this week I'm sharing a free download for a printable jar wrap made by professionals at RMH marketing:

Click here to download

Since I have trouble coloring in the lines, I've made a color version that will surely suck every drop of ink out of your printer, but just remember, it's for a good cause!

Click here to download

Here's hoping you start collecting your own pop tabs, and if you do, I promise to pick them up from your house and take them to RMHC!

300th post & First Birthday project

Wow, 300? Really? Moving on...
We were invited to a 1st birthday party yesterday, which was a great excuse to be crafty.  Lately, my craft/blog time has been filled with extra work hours, spring cleaning, general laziness and collecting things for our upcoming garage sale.

I fell in love with the beautiful party invitation (artwork painted by the little miss' grandma) and knew I wanted to do something fun with it.  Like the rebel I am, I have a total disregard for a "no gifts policy" - sorry, but I can't help myself!
I scanned the invite, created line art, which I laser printed onto an overhead projector transparency.  I used the transparency as a poor gal's iron on transfer and then traced the transfer with an embroidery pen. 
Below is the work-in-progress...

I used a back stitch, stem stitch and french knots.  Andy suggested I use a variegated green thread for the stem... I think he was spot on!  Isn't this tiny shirt adorable? It's 50% soy too - I'd sport it!

The birthday party was the first opportunity I've had to try out my Cricut machine for reals.  I've been feeling guilty about buying it weeks ago, considering the cost, and I hadn't used it for any legitimate purposes.  I'm glad I kept the machine because I created this project easily and I ended up looping this through the shirt's tag for a nice finishing touch:

Good times, good times.  I'd forgotten how much I love creating things - I think I need to start scheduling a regular crafternoon or it won't happen for a while.

PS - If you're wondering, that's a party hat, not a piece of traditional birthday cheese.