Goodbye 2013...HELLO 2014!!!!

I absolutely LOVE the start of new years!  I love the clean slate, the endless possibilities and most of all, I love making resolutions!  As I was ending 2011 I had prayed for the Lord to give me a word to focus on for the upcoming year and He gave me "JOY" and it was awesome!  I hung cute little decorative things around my house with the word on it and it served as a reminder to focus on finding JOY in every situation.  For some reason I didn't ask for a word for 2013 but I wanted to go into this coming year with a focus so for the past few weeks I've been asking the Lord for a word.  Several different ones floated around my brain: grace (LOVE THAT), fruit (I've been studying the fruit of the Spirit), blessed, gentleness and finally the Lord shouted the word to me...INTENTIONAL!  For the past year I've said MANY times that I feel like I'm on auto-pilot, just doing what I need to do to make it through each day.  I haven't done as many projects with the kids that I used to or craft as much as I used to or gone on as many outtings as we used to among a bunch of other things.  Even in my Scentsy business I've just been skating by, not putting in much effort.  I want to focus on living INTENTIONALLY in 2014!  So with that said, here are some of my resolutions:

Spiritual Resolutions:
*Continue to try to spend daily time in the Word
*Aim to go to church more often (Being married to an unbeliever who HATES going to church with me makes Sunday mornings a major battle in my mind about wanting to be with my husband but also wanting to dig into the Word with my church family.  The last 6 months of the year I've probably missed more than I attended and that makes me sad!)

Marriage Resolutions:
*Spend more focused quality time with hubby
*Continue to work on submission--specifically in the area of spending $
*Add more fun

Parenting Resolutions:
*Dig into the Word with my kids daily
*Do more crafts/projects with the kids (at least once a week)
*Spend more time outside together
*Keep the tv off during the day

Business Resolutions:
*Be more proactive in filling up my party calendar
*Mail out cards to my downline for birthdays and Scentsy Anniversaries
*Schedule monthly meetings & offer monthly incentives
*Set a sales goal every month

Friendship Resolutions:
*Make more time for friends (schedule more girls nights and hanging out w/ kids)
*Invite friends over at least once a month for dinner & games (this will be so much easier once we buy a bigger house which is on our "to do" list for 2014 *squeal*)
*Be better at remembering birthdays

Those are most of my goals for 2014 and as you can see they all require being INTENTIONAL!!!  I'm super duper duper excited for this new year and I know the Lord has some pretty awesome things planned for us!  HAPPY NEW YEAR FRIENDS!!!!

Thankful, Grateful, Blessed sign

 

Well, it's almost halfway through October and I think I'm finally settled in to our new routine.

This is the first year that both of my children are in school.  My youngest is only in kindergarten and our school is still doing half-day kindergarten so that gives me 3 hours of being kid free.  I originally had planned on using my free time to keep up on housework and possibly running errands but plans have changed!  I now use that 3 hours to workout.  I spend about 1 hour 45 minutes at the gym then run home and get showered and dressed and run up to the school to pick up my daughter.  Then we usually have lunch, run errands and I try to squeeze in some housework before picking up my son and heading to karate, PTA meetings, church functions, Scentsy business, etc.  Needless to say I haven't had much time for crafting and I've been having withdrawls!  :)

Tonight I decided to work on a few projects that I've been itching to do!  My husband built me a pretty picture frame that has been sitting in our garage for a few weeks so I painted and distressed it (will save that for another post when it's completely done and hanging on our wall) and this wooden plaque that I got YEARS ago from At Home America has been sitting in my garage waiting to be repainted.  I saw a similar sign on Pinterest and wanted to make one for my front porch!

 

I used an orange paint sample that I got at Home Depot a couple months ago along with a chocolate brown sample.

 

 

I used 3 of my favorite fonts (Reklame Script, Yummy Cupcakes and Androgyne) for the words.

I used a orange glitter paint (Martha Stewart) and went over "blessed" to add a little sparkle.

I then sanded down the edges and used a dark walnut stain on the edges as well as across the front.

I LOVE how it turned out!

 

 

 

Fall Burlap Banner

Fall is by far my very favorite season of all time!!!  I'm lucky if I can wait until Sept 1st to pull out my fall decorations most years!  :)  This year was no exception!  After setting everything out, my mantle just looked so plain so I decided to make a banner.  I'm pretty addicted to banners on the fire place now and think I need to make one for every holiday & season! 

I still have a few yards of various colors of burlap and a roll of twine and I just went to Home Depot the other day and got some fall colored paints so I was all set!

 

I cut the burlap into 5" x 6" pieces and picked the Rustler font for the letters.

I thought 4 squares would look a little too plain so I decided to paint maple leaves on burlap for each end of the word.

 

 

I just love these sample bottles of paint that you can get at Home Depot for less than $3!!!  A bottle of this stuff actually lets me do several projects and I love not having huge cans of paint cluttering up our already cramped garage!

On my last trip to HD I had originally picked out 12 colors that I wanted to get samples for but wanted ot get some other things too so I decided to take it down to 6 so hubby wouldn't be as upset with me!  :) 

 

 

 

I love a more rustic look so I didn't want to sew the burlap so I used clothespins to attach the burlap to the twine and I love the way it turned out!!!

Here's our fall mantle:

Back to School Command Center

Today was my son's first day of school and kindergarten orientation day for my baby girl and the perfect day for my Thirty-One order to arrive!!!  YAY!!! 

 

(By the way, my friend Tawny is a SUPER FABULOUS Thirty-One consultant!!  If you don't have one already, you should join her FB group HERE where she posts the monthly specials and giveaways and all the other awesomeness of Thirty-One!)

 

Anyways, back to me.  ;)

 

A few weeks ago I shared about our dry erase board that I made to put at the top of our command center:

 

 

Ugghhh...those ugly coat hooks make me cringe every time I see them!  :)

I guess we've survived almost 6 years living with them, we can handle another 6 months or so until we buy a house!

 

This space is really small but we're working with what we've got so this is how it looks with all my new Thirty-One goodies:

 

 

 

I just love these colors!

The wall organizer is the perfect fit for our school calendar and has spaces for us to put any notes/school work that needs to be kept and I love that it has the dry erase marker to write on each area!

The 2 Littles Carry-All Caddies wouldn't both fit on the hooks along with the backpacks so I tucked one down below the two rectangle boxes and hung the other one up where I can keep an extra dry erase marker for our board and I can put things in them that the kids need to remember to take to school. 

 

I think it turned out really cute, especially given the tiny space we were working with!  I love that we now have a drop-zone for all the school stuff and the kids can keep library books and everything else  in the same area so no losing things!  PHEW!

I'm not a better parent than you are!

Why do we feel like there's a parenthood competition? 
Like there's a trophy to be earned at the end of 18 years? 

What if, instead of acting like it's a competition, we started to encourage each other, love one another, respect one another...work together instead of against each other?  What an amazing world it would be!

Whether you choose to homeschool your children, put them in a private school or put them in public school, it's OK!  I'm not a better parent than you are because I choose one way and you're not a better parent than I am because you choose something different.

I think it's safe to say that MOST parents do the best they can.

MOST parents worry about making the right choice for their family and want what is best for their child(ren). 

Who are you to say that what I've prayerfully chosen for my child is wrong just because it's different than what you choose to do?

Whether you let your child watch only Disney movies or occasionally let them see an R-rated movie at your discretion, I'm not a better parent than you are and you are not a better parent than I am.  We all view things differently.  Growing up, my mom's philosophy was that she didn't want to shelter us from the world and allowed us to watch all sorts of movies.  As for me, in my job as a parent, I'm a lot more picky about what I let my kids watch and hey, that's ok.  My idea of appropriate for my child may not be your idea of appropriate for your child.  I'm not a better parent than you and you are not a better parent than me.

Whether you feed your child only grass-fed meats, organic fruits & veggies grown on your own property and absolutely never let them have candy or whether you do the best you can with the income your family has or the busy schedule you have and feed your kid McDonalds a few days a week.  I am not a better parent than you are and you are not a better parent than I am.

Whether you choose to work outside of the home full time or whether you choose to be a stay-at-home mom, I am not a better parent than you are and you are not a better parent than I am.

Whether you allow your child to have a boyfriend/girlfriend at 13 or whether you're choosing to have stricter rules on boyfriends/girlfriends, I am not a better parent than you are and you are not a better parent than I am.

We are all doing the best we can.  We make choices based on our beliefs, based on what we grew up with, based on recommendations from people/sources that we value.  We don't intentionally set out to destroy our childrens' lives. 

We are all different and that's a good thing.  That's how God created us.  Instead of putting others down or questioning them on every decision they've made for their children/family, why not encourage them.  Give them a pat on the back for being a caring parent and whether you agree with their decision or not, it's not yours to judge.  It's not your child they are raising, it's theirs. 
And most importantly, remember the golden rule:
Treat others as you would want to be treated.
And
If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all! 

(And just for the record, obviously if you see someone putting their child in dangerous situations or doing illegal things, by all means, speak up and speak up LOUDLY!)

Our Back to School Command Center part 1

We're 3 weeks away from school starting and now that I'm going to have 2 kiddos in 2 different schools I've been trying to think of ways to keep us organized and on the ball.  I decided that we NEED a "command center" where the kids can leave their backpacks, lunch boxes, library books, etc., where I can post scripture for us to memorize together, some place for me to keep all the important school information and papers and keep track of what's going on at each school. 

 

We live in a small place so finding a spot for this area was starting to stress me out.  I then remembered that we have a space behind our garage door that I've been using to hold my extra grocery bags and a drawer thing for Scentsy pens, ziplock bags, business cards, etc.  I also had a Thirty-One Hang Up Wall Organizer on my garage door that I used for Scentsy stuff.  I cleared it all out, ordered some more Thirty-One stuff so it will all match.  I'll post more pictures as I get things put up and ready!

 

Awhile ago I painted chevron stripes on some beadboard we had left over from our hutch project.

I found this cute picture frame on clearance at Michael's and decided to paint it gray and pink to match the new Thirty-One stuff that will be coming.

 

 

At first I painted the edges pink but after deciding to do pink on the glass (the area I'm going to use for dry-erase board) it was too much pink so I painted it gray and painted the inside pink.

 

 

 

 

I nailed it up (didn't take a picture of it) and I HATE those coat hooks but since we're renting, I'm not even going to mess with taking them down because our landlord is pretty proud of them.  LOL!

 

Now the style of this command center isn't my normal style of things but I wanted it to be bright, colorful and cheerful for the kids.

 

I can't wait for my Thirty-One stuff to get here!!! 

 

 

Uggghhh...CONVICTION!

Hi, my name is Christina.  I've been walking with the Lord for about 9 years now and you'd think I'd have learned this lesson by now.

I'm kid-free this afternoon and instead of doing my power cleaning like I usually do when I find myself alone I took full advantage to work on a project (I'll blog about that later).  Anytime I'm alone I blast music.  Confession time...most of the time, when I'm alone, I like to listen to secular club/dance/hip-hop music on Pandora.  Don't get me wrong, I love my praise & worship and contemporary christian music and 99% of the time that's what I listen to BUT when I'm home alone and working on something, the beat of club/dance music keeps me motivated to continue working on whatever it is I'm working on. 

Sadly, most of today's dance music has awful lyrics.

It's close to the time that my children should be returning home and a song is playing and most of it is about sex and I found myself worried that my friend was going to show up and hear the music I was listening to and think that I'm an awful christian.  Seriously. 

Then...I heard it...the Lord!  He's always so loving and gentle with me when He convicts me even with things that He's convicted me about in the past.  Uggghhh...  You see, I go in spurts.  When I started walking with the Lord 9 years ago, I came home and threw out EVERY.  SINGLE.  cd I owned!  My poor husband (who is not a believer) thought I was nuts but I didn't want anything filling my head that wasn't about the Lord.  Fast forward to now.  Over the years I will find myself listening to secular music that talks about things I shouldn't be filling my head with.  Then the Lord will convict me about it and I'll quit listening to it.  Then I'll start wanting to work out and add dance/club music to my ipod to get me moving.  Then I'll get the conviction and quit.  Then I'll hear a song somewhere and look it up on itunes, add it to my ipod, hear more songs, add those.  Then the conviction...on and on.  I've always been pretty good about not listening to it around my kids.  I mean come on, have you heard a 5 year old singing lyrics to a song that made your mouth drop?  Yeah, I have and I don't ever want it to be MY kid singing those words.  If you haven't, all you have to do is look on youtube and people have posted videos of their kids dancing and singing to some songs that they shouldn't have been listening to in the first place, let alone memorizing!  YIKES! 

Anyways, back to my conviction.

As I had my little panic, the Lord ever-so-sweetly spoke to my heart.
"What about me?" I heard Him ask.

Here I am, worried that my friend would hear me listening to this music when all along, the Lord has been by my side all afternoon, listening to it with me.  :(
O-U-C-H!!!

Why am I listening to music that I won't allow my kids to listen to?
Why am I listening to music that I don't want my christian friends to hear me listening to?
WHY AM I LISTENING TO MUSIC THAT I WOULDN'T WANT JESUS TO KNOW I'M LISTENING TO?

If I could physically see Jesus in my house, would I have EVER turned on that Pandora station?  HECK NO!
It's so easy (sadly) to forget that He's here all the time.  He sees everything.  It's not like I can hide it from Him.
I want desperately to have my whole life bring nothing but glory and honor to my Savior.  We can only pour out what we take in and if I'm listening to these inappropriate songs, what am I thinking about and what is going to pour out of my mouth?  Inappropriate stuff, that's what!

Alright, so that's my big conviction of the day! 
This goes for movies & tv shows too.  I shouldn't be watching anything that I wouldn't sit down and watch with Jesus. 

Time to weed some stuff out!!

Home Sweet Home wooden sign

I am totally obsessed with wood signs.  Pretty sure my house is going to be plastered with them at some point.  Maybe I'll dedicate a whole wall for them.  :)  Ok, probably not but I do enjoy making them! 

 

For this sign I decided to go with the good ol' "Home Sweet Home".  I swear, figuring out which font to use is the hardest part!  I chose a few different ones and then took a vote from my Facebook friends on which one they liked the best:

 

 

 

Forgive the poor picture quality, most of these are taken with my cell phone.

Most people liked the 2nd set.

While I was still figuring out which one I wanted, I decided to start painting the base coats.  I went with cream and a red color.

 

 

Decision time!  Which font do I go with??? 

Most voters liked the swirly fonts the best but for me, it was a little TOO much of swirly so I decided to actually go with the font in the 2nd picture for the words "Home" and the font from the 1st picture for "Sweet".

 

 

I thought it was a good compromise!  :)

This was after one coat of black.  After it had dried I went back over it to make it smoother.

Painting words is hard for me because I'm naturally a shaky person so I get a lot of squiggles where I don't want squiggles so I have to try to go very

S L O W L Y.

 

I then used my trusty antique glaze after I sanded down the edges and scratched up the words a little bit, to give it a more distressed look (my favorite).

It was hard deciding what exactly to use to hang the sign but I ended up using twine.  I then added a burlap flower and some cute bakers twine to give it more personality. 

 

 

I think it turned out SUPER CUTE! 

I'm hoping the flower stays on good!  It sticks out a little ways but hopefully it's hung in a spot in my hallway that won't get bumped or rubbed against too much to knock it off. 

 

 

 

 

 

My Scentsy booth display at the County Fair

I was so blessed to be able to have a Scentsy booth this year at our local county fair!!!

In previous years it's been a couple of ladies from a town about 3-4 hours north of my town and not even in our county and it seemed as though no one from our county was going to get a booth.  When I had called and asked if someone from our county could have a booth I was told that the other ladies had first dibs because they'd had the booth the year before.  Last year our Scentsy Convention was held the same week as the fair and I assume the ladies attended Convention instead of having a booth because there was no Scentsy booth to be found.  Finally...I had my chance!  :)  WOO HOO!

The ladies from the fair office called me in March and asked if I'd still be interested in having a Scentsy booth and HECK YES, I jumped all over that!  Hee hee!  I was so nervous about the whole thing just because I'd never done such a big event before and wasn't sure how much stock I'd need.  I also spent countless hours searching Pinterest and Google for display ideas.  Scentsy colors are usually purple & green with some black but that's not really my style.  I'm more of a shabby chic/rustic/country type girl so I decided to go with that.  I've shared a few of the projects that I worked on in previous posts so thought I'd share how everything turned out!

 

Since there was a booth right in front of me it was hard to get a straight-on shot of the booth but you get the idea.  :)

 

The metal display stand on the right, in the back is one I ordered online from a store that sells display stands for stores.  I can't remember where I got it exactly but it's come in handy for every event I've done!  I think I paid around $60 for the stand and 30 hooks.  The black shelves in the front I got at Home Depot for $24.

 

 

I loved this table!  My hubby built the wooden crates and the birdhouse and I painted them cream with antique glaze.  I made the burlap banner and the tablecloth was a great find at a flea market for only $15! 

 

 

 

See my handsome helper in the back?  Isn't he the cutest?!  :)

The black stand here is one that my Director's husband made and gave to anyone on the team that sold at least $2000 in one month.  YAY!  I love it!

My super fabulously talented friend, Heidi from Everyday Cookies made the chalkboard toolbox which was PERFECT for holding my catalogs!  Go check out her blog!  She makes the cutest wooden signs too!

One of my warmers was broken so my husband took out the electrical insides, covered the bottom and then I used it for a pen holder!

The tablecloth is the one I posted about earlier that I stained using tea bags.  I love how it matched everything so well!

 

 

My husband built me this little shelf and the wooden signs.  I used chalkboard paint on the signs and they ended up being perfect for my display!

 

 

 

It was a VERY long 5 days but totally worth the 13 hour days and very little sleep!

I got to see so many of my wonderful friends, made some new ones, sold almost all of my stock, got lots of new customers, a new possible recruit, lots of people wanting to have parties and Lord willing, I'll do it all again next year!  :)

 

I'm a mean girl!

So I've heard it said in a few sermons that the longer we walk with the Lord, the more we realize just how disgusting we are...and boy isn't that the truth?!  I used to think that I had it pretty together I mean I was polite to people, mostly upbeat & optimistic, joyful, had good morals, didn't cuss people out or punch them even when they deserved it (LOL), showed love, spent daily time with the Lord, etc.  The last few months I've really prayed for the Lord to show me things that I needed to work on that I had been oblivious to and He's been peeling away the layers and showing me just what a wretch I am!  I'm not a nice person...at least not as nice as I had fooled myself into thinking I was. 

Those moments when I'm alone, usually doing routine, mindless things like taking a shower or washing the dishes or painting...that's when I've come to realize that my mind starts to go on an ugly, ugly journey!  It's like satan sits back with a remote and just starts clicking through the tv of my mind and showing snippets of things that really set me off on a rampage.  I never say it out loud but in my head I'm screaming at people that have ruffled my feathers, done me wrong, hurt me or just plain drive me nuts.  You'd be amazed at how much time got spent on these clips and I had never even realized it.  BUT...God is good and daily I have to pray for help in stopping my thoughts, meditating on scripture and refocusing my thoughts onto what is TRUE, what is GOOD, what is PRAISEWORTHY and not on the anger, lies and ultimately hatred!  It's a daily struggle, several times a day but it's getting easier.  I am able to notice what's happening much quicker and really get myself turned back around.  Another thing that I've learned that helps even stop the first click of the remote is to turn on praise & worship music and just focus on the words of the songs and sing & dance around while I'm doing those activities!   

Another area that I struggle with is while I'm driving!  Music doesn't help so much with this one! 

The other day the Lord totally smacked me!  :)

I was singing along with my praise & worship music, praying intermittently and then someone cuts me off.  I mumble some comment about them being a stupid jerk and imagine being able to "bump" them with my van like a game of bumper cars...to teach them a lesson.  Then after a minute or two when I've cooled off I go back to singing music to my Lord.  Then another car comes along and won't let me into the lane I need to get into so I can turn down the street to my house and I say out loud what an inconsiderate a** they are.  Yes, *hanging head low and ashamed*, when I get mad, every once in awhile a curse word comes out.  I'm not proud and I certainly hate that I do it but it's like a reaction that happens before I even think about it.  A dear sweet mentor friend of mine said on a few occasions that whatever we are filled with will come out when life "bumps" us.  Yikes.  I'm so not full of very much goodness then!  :(  The Lord was gracious enough to really speak to my heart about how much of a contradiction it is that one second I'm singing about how much I love Him and want to be like Him (empty me Lord and fill me with You) and then the next second I'm cussing out a fellow human being for inconveniencing me or whatever.  Funny thing is that if it was someone walking next to me, I'd NEVER say it to their face because that would be rude and ugly but it's just as bad to say it privately in my car or to even think it in my mind!  God hears my thoughts and sees my ugliness!  OUCH!  The real clincher for me is that I have noticed my kids make comments about other drivers.  DOUBLE OUCH!  I don't want my kids to have this "road rage" and struggle with ugly reactions to other drivers.  I'm so thankful that the Lord has brought this to my attention and that through the power of prayer and meditating on His Word, I'll be able to beat this sin down and I pray one day that I don't even have the ugly thoughts in the first place!

So there you have it.  The ugly truth of Christina.  I'm a mean girl!  But praise God for never giving up on me and helping me in my weakness! 

Tea Staining

I bought this adorable material at Joann's today.  Thankfully I had a 50% off coupon because it was $16.99/yd and I bought 2.5 yards to use for a tablecloth for my Scentsy booth at the County Fair.

 

I've got more of a vintage/shabby chic/country theme going on and this bright white wasn't going to match and I had heard about tea staining things to give it an older, vintage look so I figured I'd give it a whirl!  I soaked the material in the sink while I worked on the tea mixture.

 

 

I wanted to make sure it was all wet so it would stain evenly.

 

I then boiled a big pot full of water and put in 15 tea bags. 

 

 

I used this tea:

 

 

One blog I read said they used like 50 tea bags so I bought this big ol' package of tea and then other blogs I read used like 4 bags so I figured I'd try 15 and see what happened.

I boiled the tea bags for about 10 minutes, drained the water out of the sink and wrung out the material.  I then dumped the tea into the sink and let the material soak for 15 minutes.

 

 

Everything I read suggested different soaking times so I thought I'd try 15 minutes and see if it was right.  Worse case I could soak it again to darken it up.  Every 5 minutes I turned the material over to make sure it was all getting covered.  After 15 minutes I drained out the tea, rinsed the material in cold water, wrung it out and then hung it to dry in my bathroom.

The color was just what I wanted!!!   

I can't wait to get my booth set up and see everything together!

My husband built me 3 crates out of pallets tonight so I'm going to paint them and then I'll blog about it tomorrow!  :)

 

 

 

My Scentsy burlap banner

 

I am having a Scentsy booth at the Coos County Fair in Oregon next week and I'm frantically getting things together and trying to figure out how I want to decorate my booth.  I found this super cute eyelet ruffled tablecloth (well, it's actually a bedspread but I'm using it for my table) at a flea market type store in town for $15 and fell in love!  It doesn't really go well with my black Scentsy tablecloth so I set out to make a burlap banner to hang from the front table.

 

I cut burlap into about 5" x 6" squares (they don't have to be perfect, that's the beauty of the project).

I then googled "star template" and printed it out and painted white stars onto each piece.

 

Next I printed out the word using the "MTF Jumpin' Jack" font which you can download for free HERE.

I cut out each letter and used it as a stencil.

 

 

I used a multi-purpose acrylic black paint (Martha Stewart) to paint on the letters.

 

 

When it was all dried I took some twine and thread it through each piece so I could hang it from my table.  I think it turned out awesome!  Can't wait to set my booth up!!

 

 

 

 

What has two thumbs and the world's best husband??? THIS GIRL!

Last night the kids & I went to church and hubby stayed home which is usual for us (someday it won't be *wink wink*).  I came home 2 hours later and hubby surprised me by working on a display stand for my Scentsy booth at the local county fair coming up this month.  The awesome thing is that I forgot that I had mentioned wanting him to build me this stand but he remembered and built one for me!  What an awesome guy he is!!!  He finished it this morning with the help of my stepson, Taylor!

 

 

It still blows me away that Taylor is now 16 and a head taller than both hubby & I!  Josh & I started dating when Taylor was just 2 years old so I've been in his life from almost the beginning!  Man, I feel old!  LOL!  We don't get to see Taylor very often so it was a HUGE blessing getting to spend the day with him and watch him work on a project with his dad!  I still pray that things will change and we'll get to see him more!  Nothing is impossible for the Lord! 

 

So, here's what the project looked like all put together:

 

Isn't it AWESOME?!?!  I am obsessed with birdhouses and cute birdie decorations/pictures so this is perfect for me!  I even have a little birdie family tattoo on my arm, that's how much I love them!

 

 

Because I am going to use this stand to display Scentsy plug-in warmers I wanted it to be a pretty neutral color so as not to take away from the plug-ins.  I painted the stand with about 3 coats of cream colored paint.

 

 

Then I painted the "door" and "window" frames a cranberry color, sanded it down and used my favorite antique glaze.

 

 

Isn't it super duper cute?!?!  I'm in love!  :)

 

 

I can't wait to use it for the fair!  I'm sure I'm going to get lots of comments on how fabulous it is!  :)  My hubby ROCKS!!

 

***Well, decided to paint a little birdie in the "window" just to give it a little more detail.  I love it.***

 

 Sorry for the poor picture quality, I used my cellphone and we don't have much lights on in the living room right now!  :)

 

Ice Cream in a Bag

Yesterday was my sweet little girl's 5th birthday party.  Making ice cream in a bag was one of the items on our Summer Bucket List and I figured having the kids make their own ice cream at the birthday party would be fun.  The kids thought it was fun at first but their fingers were getting super cold and their arms tired out and of course the trampoline was calling their attention away so the moms and other adults ended up shaking it up the rest of the time!  :)  Once the ice cream was all shook up and ready to eat the kids were more than happy to climb down from the trampoline and eat away!

 

Here's the recipe I found online:

Prep Time 5 minutes

What you'll need

• Ice cubes (enough to fill each gallon-size bag about half full)
• 1 cup half and half
• 1/2 cup salt (The bigger the granules, the better. Kosher or rock salt works best, but table salt is fine.)
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 pint-size ziplock bag
• 1 gallon-size ziplock bag
• Your favorite mix-ins such as chocolate chips, cereal pieces, or fresh fruit.

Serves 1

How to make it

Combine the sugar, half and half, and vanilla extract in the pint-size bag and seal it tightly.

Place the salt and ice in the gallon-size bag, then place the sealed smaller bag inside as well. Seal the larger bag. Now shake the bags until the mixture hardens (about 5 minutes). Feel the small bag to determine when it's done.

 

Take the smaller bag out of the larger one, add mix-ins, and eat the ice cream right out of the bag. Easy cleanup too!

 

We used crushed oreo cookies and chocolate chips as mix-ins and my hubby even used peppermint extract for a minty ice cream flavor!