Beautiful Blogger Award

I have officially won a blogging award! YEAH! I just found out that I was nominated for this one twice! Once from the Trendy Tree house, and another from Mom vs the boys! Thank you so much ladies! I feel so honored! And thank you to Tara at the Trendy Treehouse for giving me this honor!Be sure to stop by her awesome blog, she had a fabulous contest running right now!
So in honor of winning this award I am supposed to let you know my 15 fav blogs, but I am gonna change that up just a little. I have been wanting to give some of my favorite blogs some bloggy love anyway, so I am going to combine that with this award! So here goes!

First up is Donna at Funky Junk Interiors, if you have never been to her blog, it is a must! I am inspired by Donna everyday, her blog is full of great ideas, fun, and humor! Stop by and see Donna and some of her amazing projects! She also has a great linky party every Saturday night!
These are just 2 of my Favorites from Donna's Blog!

Next up is one of my very dear friends, and the one who got me addicted to this love of Junking and has helped me learn to be more frugal and use what I have on hand, it is Krista from Snowman Hill!!She does all of this with her very talented mom Dana, they make a great team, and I am so excited about their new shop that will be opening summer of 2010, but for now, you can buy their fabulous refurbished goodies at Old Town Antiques in Duluth! Here are just a few of my favorite things from them! I am still waiting for Dana to be ready to part with this so I can buy it!

My next choice is going to the girls at Shanty 2 Chic, another amazing blog that will fill you with so many fun ideas, and the step by step instructions on how to make things! I love that!

These Joy plaques won them a huge contest and a trip to See Martha Stewart on NYC!

Next I would like to feature Making the world Cuter! Such a great variety of handmade projects, you are sure to take something away from this blog!

She hosts a fun linky party every Monday so be sure to stop by!


And last, but certainly not least is Patina Soul. I just recently came across this blog, and I am so glad that I did! Talk about some great junk! I could browse her site all day long! She also has lots of great giveaways!

I could have easily posted about 20 pictures here! Be sure to check her out!

Now I am supposed to tell you 7 things about me, so here goes!

1. I am a HUGE Keith Urban Fan, see him 7 times in concert, met and hugged him twice, and even have his logo tattooed on my leg, I wasn't kidding about being a huge fan!
2. I am very happily married to the love of my life and we have 3 wonderful boys. ( is it wrong that I posted about keith 1st?)
3. I love fixing up things I get for free on the side of the road.
4. I work full time at a bank.
5. I take on way to many projects ( business ventures) at once.
6. I am working on going "pro" with my photography business.
7. I am on my computer way to much! ( Just ask my hubby)

Now for those that i featured here today, feel free to grab my button,

Now it is your turn to spread the love, who are your favorite blogs? And please tell us 7 things about you so we can all get to know you better! Have fun!

Finding crafty Inspiration in the things around you

Do you ever just look around and see inspiration in your everyday life? There are so many things that are in your home, work, magazines, books, stores, online, etc that you can get crafty inspiration from. Today I was inspired by my super cute new dishes from Pier 1. So while I drank my coffee, I also made a valentines card for my hubby. Here are the dishes, I just love them! I happen to have a stamp set that matches them almost perfectly. I gathered all of my supplies. Cardstock, inks, embossing powder, brayer, & stamps. The 1st step was to stamp the print on cream card stock with Versa mark ink. Sprinkle clear embossing powder over image, remove excess powder, and heat with heat gun until it is a nice shiny image.
Next ink up your brayer, I do this step 2-3 times to get a nice even look. Run your brayer over the image several times until it is the color you are looking for. Wipe off excess ink of embossed images with a paper towel to really make the images pop!
This step is done. Trim to desired shape to add to your card. The next step is to run a piece of cream cardstock through your paper crimper, and another strip through your crop-a-dile to get the raised dots.
Cut to fit card, and adhere with adhesive. Add any other embellishments you would like to finish your card. Now I have a really cute card to go with my dishes, and on Sunday my hubby will get a heart shaped breakfast on these dishes! What has inspired you to be crafty??

Cute as a bug!

The kids each have a valentines party at school this week, and I hate buying the traditional valentines at the store, so I saw this great idea on a web site and made my own! All we had to do was to buy suckers.I had each of the boys stand with a clenched fist holding out their arm, Zach insisted on holding an actual candy cane, I knew that it would be covered up when I was done. Once I was happy with my pictures I digitally made cute cards, the one thing I would do different is move where I put Happy Valentines Day, it ends up being covered up! OPPS!

Next I printed out the cards 4 x 6 on plain white card stock, punched a hole above and below the fist to insert the sucker and poked the sucer through, tied a ribbon and they were done!

Brick & Maps

Part if this is a re-post form my son's bedroom re-do last year. We taped off and painted a wall in his room to look like brick. It took a lot of measuring and running tape, to make a Brick grid.



Once the grid was taped out, we had to cut off every other piece to make it look like bricks, not squares. Then we painted with red and sponged with several other colors to give it some depth. Once the painting was done, we removed the tape before the paint could dry, then you get nice clean lines! Here is the finished wall! I planed to decorate the room with vintage gas station signs, and cans. It turned out very cute, but over the last year Nicholas has really gotten into maps and globes too, so I decided to incorporate some of those into his room as well.
I had this old chair, some wood pieces that were old shelves, I think the were about 10 x 12, and an ugly dresser. So I rounded up the troops to do all the dirty work for me, The kids hauled, the hubby painted, and I did very little! I was able to sit and mod podge the drawers, then I took a nap, while the hubbs finished the rest for me. I had to be the "director" today, and did not like it one bit! I would much rather be the one doing the dirty work, but at least he was willing to do it all for me!

He cleaned Nicholas' room, and got everything put together! It turned out so cool, and now Nicholas has lots of maps to look at all over his room!







So I wonder what else I will think up while I sit here on my couch...