Heavy Heart

I have no idea why but today I am sad.  There is nothing that has happened to make me feel this way, in fact I can't imagine being blessed more then I am right now.  I am married to the man of my dreams, I have the most beautiful little girl anyone could ask for, and my friends and family are the BEST.  So why am I sad? Could be my crazy hormones haha (most likely) or it could be because I realize how stagnant I have become.  I live my life day to day and don't push forward.  I have goals and dreams but they always seem to get pushed aside and my laziness takes over.  Well, I read a blog post today and it had the lyrics to the song Beauty for Ashes.  If you have not heard this song you are missing out.  It made me happy and sad all at the same time. 

"He gives beauty for ashes,

strength for fear,

gladness for mourning,

peace for despair...."

For some reason I keep choosing ashes.  From here on out I am making a pledge to choose beauty.  I know I will forget sometimes but when I do I am so glad I can look into this precious face and be reminded.

My friend Kevin wrote this on his facebook wall today and I couldn't agree more.

"I am amazed that we are satisfied to remain the same day after day. We love the idea of change, but not the practice, nor the work of doing it"

Chalkboard Table for Miss Luci Rae!

For some reason I tend to go in spurts with my energy.  Lately I have been on a spray painting and rosette making spurt.  I will go months doing a certain kind of project over and over and then bam!  I will see something else I like and get on a roll with that.  For example, I saw a tutorial about how to make rosettes... and now I have a rosette clutch, rosette headband and a rosette necklace:)  Well, this weekend was no different.  Amid our obsessive searching for the PERFECT house I seemed to find time to upcycle an awesome kid's table and make myself a pretty new accessory. 

Did I mention that we are looking for the perfect house?  I HATE renting and my husband and I are done with our lease in August.  We have been on the search for the perfect fixer upper.  I am pretty sure once we find it this blog will quickly turn from fun little projects to huge house reno projects.  For now I will have to put my creative energy into things that can be moved:) 

So I am aware that Luci is only 8 months old and that she will not actually be able to use this table for a long time to come but I just had to try out the chalk board paint I bought.  So here it goes...

Before... just an ordinary end table that my mom found at a garage sale for $3.

I cleaned it and sanded it and then painted it a light blue...

Then I attempted to paint the whole thing with magnetic paint... This did not work and I ended up sanding it and starting over.  I DO NOT recommend the magnetic spray paint.  If anyone knows of one that works please tell me!!  So then I painted the top with chalkboard paint which did work perfectly!

I taped off the center and did a white boarder... and then, because I suck at painting, I touched up my mistakes !

And FINALLY after much time and patience I stenciled on some fun designs!

And thus was born... Luci's awesome chalkboard table.  I love it.  Kyle wants me to sell it.  Why is he always trying to get rid of my awesome stuff??

Oh and here is my new favorite necklace!!

Well that's all for now.  And as always here is a little something of my favorite little person:  Luci Rae goes to the park!

Summer Time Spray Paint Fun!

Now that it is summer, and I don't live in Buena Vista any more where the wind makes it nearly impossible to spray paint, I have gone spray paint MAD!!  I swear a $5 can of spray paint can change something ordinary and boring, to amazing and fun!  This week I found this table at the Castle Rock thrift store.  It was half off day... the best kind of day... so it was only $7!!  I pretty much ran to it I was so excited.  Most people would probably not love it like I do (I have always had a strange attraction to ugly things).

 In college my now husband, at the time boyfriend actually threw out a pair of sweatpants of mine because they were so ugly.  They were fleece, and burnt orange.  They had been worn out so bad that when I wore them I looked like I had been living on the streets.  I LOVED them.  Just thinking about them being thrown out without my consent makes me tear up a little.  We finally came to an agreement that I could only wear my "nice" sweatpants out in public.  Even though I promised not to go out in public in them he threw them away anyway.  A moment of silence please :(  Ok, back to my ugly table, sorry about that side note.

Anyway, I decided I wanted a blue table.  Not really sure why, I just wanted one.  And thus was born my new blue table.  My husband says it is a Broncos table... I say call it whatever you want as long as I can keep it :)  So here ya go:

For some reason in the pictures it looks a lot lighter blue then it actually is.  Here is a better one of the actual color.

So there ya have it folks.  My new blue table.  Hope my hubby doesn't throw it away!  Oh and just a little Luci Rae update... She has started sort of crawling.  Well she pretty much drags herself around with only her arms.  Non the less, she is into EVERYTHING.  Guess it is time to baby proof the house.  The doctor told me to have a beer and crawl around on the floor to see what I get into.  I don't know about you but that might be the best doctor's orders I have ever received!

Luci in her jumping chair.  So funny to watch!

Ode to my Father

As Father's Day quickly approaches I have decided to sit back and reflect on the many reasons I LOVE my dad!  Here it goes...

Dear old dad,

Thank you for the man you are.  You taught me that it is ok to be different, that many people will come and go from my life but you will always stay steady.  You showed me how to swing a club, a bat, and even a fist.  You encouraged me when I was feeling self conscious and you punished me when I was feeling defiant :)  You raised me to be caring, but realistic, strong but sympathetic.  From guitars to golf clubs, you always took the time to teach.  Thank you for giving me the love i needed, the money not to starve, and a good kick in the butt when necessary!

The top 10 reasons you are the BEST!!

10:  You brought me into this world, and never took me out (with the help of mom of course).
9:    You give good advice and always believe in me
8:    You weren't afraid to drive with me when I was learning
7:    You buy me dinner when I'm hungry
6:    You don't tell me how far you walked to school
5:    You come over almost every Friday for our Friday cocktail hour
4:    You learned how to play In My Life on the guitar after we danced to it at my wedding

3:    You learned how to text after we made fun of you
2:    After I made you two paintings you asked for a third :)
1:    But mostly you are the best because you have faith in me even when I fail.

This quote pretty much sums it up:

"A dad is someone who
holds you when you cry,
scolds you when you break the rules,
shines with pride when you succeed,
and has faith in you even when you fail..."

Thanks for being my dad. 

Welcoming Stella June Barrett!!!

This week/weekend was absolutely FANTASTIC!!  My one and only big sis came into town with her big old prego belly.  It was so great to see her and now I only have a few more months to go until I meet the newest member of our family, Stella June Barrett.  We threw Shena a baby shower on Saturday and the rest of the week was completely devoted to crafting... or should I say nesting.  To anyone who has ever been pregnant out there you know the uncontrollable desire to nest.  Well, we devoted this week to putting the finishing touches on Stella's room.  Shena wanted to make 2 mobiles, sew curtains, and do a few other random crafts for her little one's room.  We also did a fun belly painting and photo shoot that I will show you once I have edited the photos, but they turned out REALLY cute!  Here is a little bit of what we did:

All of the ladies from youngest to oldest... sorry mom:) 

Our very own little sweatshop.  We invited my cousin Nicole and her boyfriend Luke over for "dinner" and we ended up making them cut out patterns for the mobiles!!  Sorry guys, thanks for being such great sports!

These are the birds for the bird mobile.  She will attach them to a branch and hang it over the changing table.

    And the elephants that will go over the crib.

And the flower ball thingys that will go in a vase... thought this would be a quick one and it took me 4 hours per ball and a lot of hot glue gun burns!!!  But they turned out SO AMAZING that it was worth it.
Here's how I did it:

Cut circles about an inch or two wide.  Fold them hot dog style first and then hamburger style and hot glue them to stay.  Then hot glue them to your ball... it's that easy.  But very time consuming!

So that is just a tiny bit of what our weekend looked like.  I will post the belly photo shoot and pictures from the shower soon!  You will LOVE them!  And just in case you didn't get enough of little miss Luci Rae here is one last picture:)



Busy Little Bee

I have been a very busy bee lately.  Because of our recent move to Denver I have been given the gift of time.  I am only working three days a week now and thus I get 2 blessed days with my little lady.  We no longer have cable and this makes for some creative passing of time, especially with the rain that was going on this last month.  Taking away the cable has made it so we only get about 5 channels.  At first I thought I would miss my MTV and of course my HGTV, but it turns out I don't miss it at all.  Taking away the TV has freed up even more time then I realized.  So, as we all know I take after my mother, and with all of her wonderful traits I also inherited her massive ADD issue.  I can't seem to make myself stop moving and running around.  (I think Luci has also inherited this "ants in my pants" problem).  Instead of letting my idol hands fall into the devil's play I have focused my energy on crafting.  I just wanted to share with you a little bit of the fun I have been having. 

This is my new front door welcome wreath!  It was so cheap and so fun to make.  All it is, is one of those foam circles from hobby lobby, colored rope, ribbon and paper.  I just wrapped and wrapped until the foam wreath was covered.  The letters and flower are just pinned on there with straight pins so I can change it out with the seasons.  I absolutely love it!

I have been very busy planning for my sister's baby shower this weekend.  These are the prizes I made for all of our games.  So to all you ladies out there who are going to be in attendance... get your game faces on, because you will definitely want to win!

I am learning how to sew... slowly:)  This is the little stuffed owl I made for my sisters little bun in the oven.  (I know it is kind of crappy but Shena will love it because she has to:)

Plus Luci Rae tested it out and approved!
Well, that's all for now.  I can't wait to see my sis this weekend and I will post pictures of her adorable prego belly soon!