Happy 4 years to my husband!

Four years ago I was a mere 18 year old making the biggest decision of my life. I am SO glad I made that decision and married my husband. He is my best friend. He make me laugh. He supports all my crazy ideas and dreams. There is never a dull moment. He is the best daddy I could ever hope for to our son. It has been a crazy 4 years, but I wouldn't have done it with anyone else! Happy anniversary to my love!

Yes. That is HELP on his shoes! :)

I got him REALLY good with the cake, he just got a smidge of my face!

Day 12,13,14 &15

Playing Catch up... I haven't been doing this for a while!
Day 12- Something I am OCD about.
Well.. Come to my house or hang out with me, and you will know I am probably the least OCD person there is... But there is ONE thing that drives me insane. My husband is a trained chef and used to work in the restaurants. One thing he does that drives me absolutely crazy... When his hands are dirty from cooking, he touches EVERYTHING. He will have bacon grease on his hands, olive oil, flour, whatever, and he tends to open every door there is. He gets stuff all over the microwave door, the pantry door, the fridge door. This has been probably the number one cause of fights! haha. Bless his heart, he is cooking to begin with, so I shouldn't be too mad, and he usually cleans up after himself pretty well. But oh how I hate grabbing the pantry door and getting whatever was on his hands last all over mine.

Day 13- Description of what is in my purse
My purse is a mess... Kind of showing how I am not very OCD about anything! I have TONS of coupons strewn about my purse. Ads from stores for price matching, mints from restaurants, and a few straggling socks. Why the socks? I don't know. I even have a diaper in there for emergencies!

Day 14- Photo of a person I would like to trade places with for a day.

Padma Lakshami. The ONLY thing I want to do that she does is be a food judge on TOP CHEF. Top Chef is one of my favorite shows and I would love to just be able to eat food all day long and judge people on it. She is also a model and I would NOT want to do that part of her job.

Day 15-Photo of me and a new friend

Well. Here it is! My family and Santa. Santa our new friend... I don't have hardly any pictures with me and anyone, so it was either Santa or our new dog, so you get Santa!

Link Party #3!

Last weeks link party was a SUCCESS in my oppinion, so I wanted to do another one!

Rules:
1. Link up AS MANY crafts, DIY projects, or Recipes as you want
2. Link to your specific Post
3. Put my button somewhere on your blog so others can join
4. Become a follower if you want! :)





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Thank you all!

Easy NO SEW Flower Tutorial

I love this easy simple flower that I first saw on Tatertots and Jello. I did mine a little different, but the same idea. This is also the flower I used on my Sweater Bag. Here is how to make the flower!

1. First, you need to cut a square of felt, or whatever kind of fabric you are going to use. I used felt because it is thicker and easier to use with hot glue. Then once you have your square, fold it in half and cut out a "B" shape.

2. When you open it up it should look something like this.

3. Next, fold it in half again and put a little dot of glue in th center of the flower. It will look like this.

4. Next, fold it in half again and place another dot of glue in the center.

5. This is five flowers placed together. I pushed them all together and then also placed one flower in the direct center of the other four.

You could use as many flowers as you want, but I have found that five usually make a nice little bouqet.

I also made a little headband. Since the band is so skinny, I cut out a circle of felt that I attached the flowers to first, then I glued the circle onto the headband. I am also going to try this with some shirts!

Shoe Decorating 101

I love shoes. A while ago I thought it would be a great idea to decorate shoes and sell them. Once we got Thomas, I really didn't care about selling shoes anymore! :) So now I am going to show you the supplies and steps to decorate your own shoes!

If you have an older pair of shoes that are still in good condition but you want to jazz them up, you could paint them. I use Meltonian Nu-Life Color spray on my shoes. There are tons of colors to choose from, and the paint goes onto the shoes really well. I have found that patent leather shoes take the paint the best.

After paining them, or if you decided not to paint it is time to decorate! What I have used on the examples below are mostly buttons, fabric and ribbon. Make sure when you glue the accessories on you use some form of super glue. You can use hot glue, but hot glue has a tendency not to hold as well as super glue on shoes. Feel free to copy any of my examples below or experiment yourself!

Simple black open toe with cameo button.

Ribbon with sparkly button

I left these shoes black and added ribbon to the side, a button clasp on front with matching ribbon knot in the center!

These are fun with a leather strap and buckle. Also my fantastic friend Jenna is modeling the shoes!

My feet in a painted red pair!

Black and red ribbon

Photo Deals!

It is so nice having a cute kid, because then most of the relatives just want pictures for Christmas! Even if they don't want pictures... they usually get them! :) Here are some Great Deals right now from SnapFish and Picaboo for Photo Books and Photo gifts. Just click on the links or pictures to get the deal!

SNAP FISH
Free online photo sharing and 50 FREE prints from your digital camera. Sign up with Snapfish by HP! 4"x6" Prints
HP Snapfish Buy one set of Photo Cards and get Two Mugs Free Coupon Code: BFCRD2FR Start 11/26/10 - EXP: 12/17/10
Bogo Books-Buy ANY Photobook get the second one free Code: BKBOGODL Exp:12/17

PICABOO

Sweater into Shoulder/Book Bag Tutorial

I got this idea from Make it and Love it, but mine turned out WAY different, and not as fancy! :) I started out with an old sweater I got at a thrift store for $2. I wasn't ready to part with any of my sweaters, but you could definitely use one of your old sweaters.

Materials Needed:

Old Sweater

Scissors

Sewing Machine

Felt (optional)

Glue Gun (optional)

First you start with an old sweater. I liked the pocket detail on the front, but it isn't functional

Next, Cut a square from the middle of the shirt. You can measure if you want to be exact, I didn't. Also cut off the arms.

Here are the two arm pieces cut.

Next you will cut up both sides of the arm so that you should have 4 arm pieces when you are done.

After they are cut, go up the sides to make sure they are pretty even and about the same size. Again, you can measure if you want to be exact, I wasn't too concerned!

Next you put two arms together, and sew right side to right side. Leave the cuff portion open so that you can flip it right side out when you are done. Do this with both of your arm pieces.

Next, sew the two long arm pieces together, right side to right side, leaving both ends open.

Do the same with the square piece from the middle of your shirt. Sew Right side to right side, leaving the top open.

I ran an iron on all the seams because they didn't hold down very well. It will depend on the type of sweater you are using, mind was kind of thick.

Here are the two finished pieces before they are attached to one another.

The next step I did is optional, but I wanted a little color to my bag.

I used pieces of felt to line the top of the bag. You could just fold over the edges and hem it normally, or you could take some binding tape and do what I did, or use any scarps that don't fray to seal the top.

I pinned the felt pieces to the top of the bag, and did a zig zag stitch all the way around the bag.

The final step is to attach the shoulder strap. Line up both open ends of the strap to the side seams of the bag. Pin in place, and sew a few times back and forth so that it will be a strong stitch.

I embellished mine with a little flower I made from felt also. I found the basic flower idea at Tater tots and Jello. I did mine a little different, and will have a tutorial up shortly!

So many possibilities with old sweaters and fun embellishments! Have fun!

Day 10 & 11

Well, Day 10 is a picture that makes me happy

This is my husband Gabe holding our newborn baby boy Thomas right after he was born. Gabe was the first person to hold him. Thomas's birth mom had a c-section, so they brought him out to us about 5 minutes he was born. We went up to the nursery with him, and they handed him to Gabe. Before this he was terrified of babies and didn't want to hold them for fear of breaking them, but not with his little boy! Happiest day of our lives.

Day 11 is a picture that makes me sad

This is my dad and brother. This picture was taken 2 weeks after my mom passed away, and we were in Hawaii. My dad had been planning a "farewell" trip with my mom to Hawaii, but she didnt' make it. We decided that the three of us, our now family, would make the trip instead. It wasn't the most fun trip, but I am glad we did it. This is probably the first picture of our "family" after my mom died.

FEATURES

Thank you SO much to everybody who linked up on my link party! It is still open, so if you have more things you want to link up, go for it! Here are some of my favorites so far!



First are these ADORABLE snow man ornaments from What I Live for. I am going to try this just as soon as I scrounge up some bottle caps!

Next is this cute Snowman ornament from Danielle is Nesting. She gives a great tutorial that makes this look so easy! Another ornament I am going to try!

And Last are these DELICIOUS LOOKING Oreo Surprise cupcakes at Inside BruCrew Life. I am still on my cupcake kick so these are on the list!

Grab a Feature Button, and THANK YOU for linking up!

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Day 8 & 9

Day 8- My favorite Quote

A lot of my favorite "quotes" are Bible verses, just because they give me so much hope. but one that is not a Bible verse is

It is not length of life, but depth of life.

--------Ralph Waldo Emerson

I love this quote, because it kind of makes me remember that life is fragile and sometimes short, so we need to make the best of everything. Even though my mom's life was shorter than most, she definately had more depth than people who live to be 100.

Day 9- My dream house
If the market EVER goes back up, Gabe and my dream is to buy an old farm house on acreage and fix up the farm house! Here is a picture that is similar to my dream.

Something like this that is cute, with a big porch and big trees! Gabe grew up on a farm, so he loves to be out in the middle of nowhere. I kind of like being around people, but this wouldn't be so bad. The house doesn't need to be huge, just enough room for everyone to live comfortable and enough room for my crafts! :)