Arts n Farts for Clarky’s 1st Birthday!

July 5, 2013

I have been hard at work on all kinds of fun projects that Clark won’t even remember for his 1st Birthday!

I am such a good Mom.

*Rolls eyes*

Giddy Up

This art project took me a little while to whip up but it turned out pretty cute.

I read a tip on Pinterest ( the Devil) that I should “seal” chalk projects with a little hair spray at the end.

Then it can be easily washed off with soap and warm water when you want to change the board.

Great idea!

Well, I tried it and it totally didn’t work and I smeared the chalk all over the place.

Maybe I had the wrong hairspray?

Before:

Garage Sale 1.00

After:

Next I decided I wanted to find a cute highchair for Clark to sit in when he eats his birthday cake.

I scoured Craigslist and when I say scoured I mean that I found this chair on the first look.

It was located in a town about 2 hours away, which I was not driving all the way to for this silly thing.

So, I asked my Mother in law instead!

She lives about 20 min from there and was able to get it the next day for me.

It needed a little help though, the plain wood wasn’t real cute.

Before:

Craigslist 20.00

So I painted it flat red and then stenciled a few Western things onto it.

When that was dry, I went back over it with fine sand paper and distressed the edges.

I wiped it all down with a damp rag and then sprayed the entire thing with a clear gloss to seal it.

After:

And last, we have a silly pallet.

The same silly pallet you see all day long on Pinterest.

You know, the one you can make into a sofa or table or bed or planter or …..heck I dunno, anything you could normally make out of WOOD!

Wow.

What a concept.

Let’s use some crap wood to make other things that you could make out of wood all along.

Before:

Free- Our concrete for the backyard was on it

After:

I made this project way harder than it needed to be btw.

The plan of how to make this happen was that we would wrap some wire around the rope and then shape it onto the wood.

That wasn’t going to look good though.

So we decided to painstakingly weave the wire into the braid of the rope.

Which involved two people, a vice grip and a lot of team work.

Once the rope was transformed into a “wire rope” we shaped it on top of the pallet and staple gunned it into place.

After we were done, we realized that we really didn’t need the wire at all, we could have just layed the rope out and stapled it.

Lesson learned.

Lots more to come but you will have to wait till after the party to see!

Happy Fourth Of July!

July 4, 2013

I am currently in Arizona toasting my little hiney in the 120 degree heat!

Soooo hot.

Want to touch the hiney.

Be safe everyone!

The Talk of the Funeral

July 3, 2013

Last
week

We
had the funeral for my Nona.

It
was nice…well, as nice as a funeral is…

That
night, Steve and I went to see Bad Company and Lynyrd Skynyrd with my Sister
and her Fiance’.

It
was a great show.

Especially
since we upgraded our seats once we got inside the venue.

We
originally had Lawn Seats and it was….surprise, pouring down rain!

So
we paid an extra 10.00 each and moved to real seats undercover and closer to
the stage.

Both
bands were great.

Paul Rodgers the lead
singer of Bad Company is a spitting image of Chuck Norris.

I
kid you not.

Well, at least he was at 500 ft

“Play
Freebird!!”

According
to Urban Dictionary:

Play Free Bird

1.
The thing to say to heckle a band/musician that you are not enjoying by
implying they are not playing “real music” like Lynyrd Skynyrd.

2. A surefire way to
establish yourself as the angriest and most unoriginal person in the room.

( at a Jesse McCartney
Concert)

40 year old Pedophile: Play Free Bird!

13 year old girls: Shut up Creepy man!

Jesse McCartney (giving the
finger): There’s your Free Bird

We made sure to only yell this
during Bad Co.

And that’s not because we didn’t
like Bad Co.

It’s just that, well, the joke
would have been lost had

we actually yelled it at Skynyrd.

Obviously.

The other night, Steve said ”
Clark’s upcoming party

was the “Talk of the Funeral”

I sighed.

That sounded so incredibly
ridiculous!

Then I thought ” She would have wanted it that
way”

You should shop here!

July 2, 2013

I started ordering stuff off Soap. com and have been really happy with them.

If you want to give it a try, they are offering free shipping right now and 20% off your order when you use my code!

It’s a lot like Amazon (that’s actually how I came across it.)

I had heard of it before, but I have never really felt like I wanted to order groceries ….or a Gillette razor…or Lysol wipes.

I can just get that stuff when I am out.

Since I have been changing my eating habits, I have been making a lot of new recipes.

Many of which are Paleo and / or gluten free.

They require some ingredients I don’t typically keep on hand.

I spent a good amount of time price comparing on a few staple items I needed and ended up at Soap.com

Some of their prices are pretty comparable to stores I shop at, so whatev.

But last time I ordered, since I was a new Customer, I got a great deal.

Best of all, they shipped next day and it was free!

I received more coupons in that order that I was able to use on my most recent order.

Even better, I was able to enter more than one coupon code per check out!

Which in the end, made my purchases much cheaper than I would have been able to get them for at any store I shop.

Check it out!

The Tan & Trade

July 1, 2013

Since summer is finally here I thought it would be fun to have a tanning party.

It ended up being on the first day of summer and I didn’t even plan it that way.

It was just meant to be.

I have had airbrush tanning before and loved it but it can be a little pricey.

I found a wonderful woman who does on location tanning and offers a group rate.

So I gathered some of the gals and we had a girls evening in and tanning party.

Bentley is mad she can’t tan.

I was also doing a little spring cleaning and decided to make this get together my version of a Sip n’ Swap party.

A Tan & Trade.

Duh.

Although, no one else brought anything, so it was more like Gracie emptied her closet, take what you want.

Can you believe no one wanted the Forever Lazy??

It even had a butt flap!

Air drying the fresh tan

Doni is about to give birth in this photo.

No really.

She is 9 months pregnant and ready to go!

In the middle of the mingling, my bff who has a good eye for treasures I like mentioned that on her way over she passed a dresser on the side of the road a few houses down.

Of course we made a bee line down there barefoot and braless to check it out.

( You are suppose to wear loose fitting clothes after the tan)

It had a free sign.

That’s good enough for me.

Haulin’ the sucker home.

French Provincial?

I’ll take it.

I think I will use it as a buffet for Clark’s party in the near future.

After that…some paint and then I guess you will have to wait and see!

My tan

All in all, it was a totally random night of fun.

I heart my friends!

Pump up the jams and cut up the shirts

June 28, 2013

What a Wednesday morning looks like for me.

I have a lot of shirts I don’t wear.

So I decided to start a few projects.

I have been cutting up shirts since I was 15.

And since I didn’t own a digital camera till I was 21( No one did, don’t hate)

…here are a bunch of pics from my twenty’s!

Court is such a peach

I made this shirt when I was 16.

I loved it to death…and still have it packed away.

I am sure safety pins will make a comeback in fashion one day (cuz they were so great?!)

and I can drag it out again,

Only problem is that the rivets and pins don’t wear well in the wash….so…um, yeah…it’s never been washed.

Sick.

My Darkness Top circa 2005

Believe in a thing called LoooOOOVe

In San Diego

Ballard 2009

Note: My daily drivers , if you will, George Straight and Reba shirts DO get washed !!

Anyway, what I’m saying is that shirt craftery isn’t foreign to me.

It’s nothing new.

The new part is that I cut this shirt up to work out in, not wear around in real life…..or did I?

Meow!

Here is my little tutorial

Start with a shirt.

Duh.

This is a men’s large, I really should have gotten and xl.

I like my tops baggy these days.

Start by cutting off the sleeves, neckline and bottom hem

I cut the back into a deep V and kept the front as a scoop neck

Then I thinned out the straps

The best method I have found is to keep trying it on and checking in the mirror before making your next cut.

I even put it on and make marks with a pen so when I take it off to cut , it’s in the right place.

However, doing it “freehand” like this makes it difficult to make everything symmetrical.

So it helps to fold your shirt in half vertically and make your cuts in both sides at the same time.

Then I cut the bottom hem strip so it’s no longer a loop and stretched it out till it’s edges roll.

Next I pinched the back straps together and then wrapped the fabric around them.

This part you can really do whatever you like.

I just wanted the V and a bow, so I didn’t wrap up very high but if I had kept going, it would have looked more like a T back and would have pulled my front straps in to look more like a halter.

Since this shirt isn’t huge on me, I didn’t want to do that.

Tah dah!

Like I said, it’s for workouts….

Rittershport Ah Ya! ( In German accent)

June 27, 2013

I swear, you leave them alone for one second.

ONE second….

and they steal all your chocolate!

I was making breakfast and heard a little rustling near by.

This little critter had went into the spare room down the hall and managed to pull a t shirt off the bed that had this chocolate on top of it. ( Left there by the Hubs)