craft room

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{I'm thinking a girlie pale pink for my craft room.}

How cute would this print look (held up with some pink washi tape) in my craft room on the collage wall with all the other prints I've collected over the past couple months? It's on my wish list for once the house is built and I finally have a craft room to decorate. As the move is here and the house is making progress (slow, slow progress) I'm getting even more excited to figure out how we're going to furnish it, and much to Dave's chagrin I have expensive taste-hello Arhaus. So we'll just take it slow and I'll remind myself not to be such a brat and to let things come together in time.

{plumbing in ground, slab about to be laid}

hey girl

I seem to be on a card kick lately (when am I ever not) but this was too good not to share. As I was looking around on Etsy last night I found this card which I actually purchased from the artist at Eastern Market in DC a few weekends ago. I'm always really excited when I find things online that I already have from amazing local artists. But seeing as Ryan Gosling is a hunk (but not as hunky as you Dave) I had to buy a couple to brighten up some friends days.

card

If you don't craft you might not find this Gosling "Hey Girl" funny but I know two girls that are cracking up right now.
And this is my husband's smoldering attempt at a Ryan Gosling "Hey Girl" meme. He came up with the question all on his own; he knows his stuff!

Is he the best or what?
DAMN, I'm lucky.

Craft Room

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As you've seen on this here blog, I love to craft! As I had all my craft stuff out the other day Dave commented on how he might be more excited about me having a craft room than I am. I asked him to write a post on why he was excited and him being THE MOST AMAZING husband ever he obliged.


{And of course I've been on Pinterest gathering some inspiration for my future craft room}

I do know it will have:
    ~a wire Ikea card hanger for cards
    ~inspirational wall decor
    ~a hint of girlyness
    ~easy access to everything

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So we all know Lauren is really excited about having her own craft room in our future home-to-be.  What many of you don't know is that I might be even more excited.  I love our current apartment, but I think it might be a little too small.  The dining room table doubles as an office desk and triples as Lauren's craft area.   When most people think of arts and crafts they see the finished product, the small little craft or the awesome cards Lauren makes.  However, it takes A LOT of 'stuff' to make those small little crafts.  I'm also a neat freak and I like everything to be organized and in it's place (thanks West Point).  It takes Lo a good 5 minutes to take all her craft stuff out of the closet and onto the table, so she likes to leave it out all week cause it takes a while to clean up.  When she gets crafty, it can look like a war zone.  Good thing I'm in the Army and can tough it out.  But I'm getting out of the Army and as such, it's going to be great for all parties involved that Lo gets a craft room.  I'm so pumped!!!

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Friday's Letters

Happy Friday! December is tomorrow and I still can't believe how close 2013 is. I'm home sick today trying to recuperate before the weekend and being responsible so I can get all better and let my body rest before infecting people at work. You're welcome co-workers and everyone else. Since I sit at the front I see EVERYONE so really I'm just helping by staying home drinking water, tea, and catching up on Grey's Anatomy.
Now on to my Friday's letters:

Dear Nicole, I love our friendship and I'm so impressed with how strong you are. Even though you may not feel that way at times. You're amazing, try not to forge it.

Dear tea and honey, you're so good to my throat. I love that I get to use honey given to me by a friend at work. He keeps his own bees, how cool is that?!

Dear grump cat, Oh my word how I love your little face. You seem to be everywhere on Pinterest and you seriously crack me up. However, I hope that you are happy and loved and this is just your face. I can't believe I just wrote that. If you watch big bang theory you'll get this meme. 

Dear sick day at home, It sucks to be sick and not feel so great but I'm happy to be able to take off work and take care of myself.  I'm excited to see my mom TONIGHT too so she can take care of me. I don't care how old I get my mom is the best person and really the only one I want when I'm sick.
Dear Dave, just because I said that, doesn't mean you don't take care of me well. It's just not a momma's touch.
Dear Grams, I'm excited to see you this weekend and to celebrate your 80th birthday. It's going to be fun seeing all the family again!

Dear Germany, I miss you. I miss your Christmas markets. I miss your food, your traditions and living there. I can't wait to take Dave there and show him where I grew up. 

Dear movies, I keep talking about going to see you but I'm really going to this week. Whether I have to go alone or not. I have about 4 movies I've got in mind to see. Argo, Anna Karenina, Skyfall, and Life of Pi.  

I hope you all enjoy your weekend!

Weekend

There's this tradition we have that Tera, me, and my mom see the Twilight movies together. So, in honor of tradition, for the FINAL movie in the Twilight series my mom flew up here to go with us. It was great having her in town to spend some quality time with us. Dave and I enjoyed having her at our house and can't wait to see both my parents next month.

T, me, mom.

Mom got to spend some quality time with a bunch of "her girls". While we were missing a few girls it definitely was nice for us to all be reunited. It truly is amazing how having friends know your family let's them in to a deeper part of my life. I've always felt that friends I grew up with, and the friends who have spent time with my family know why I am the way I am. I like having my family know my friends and who I'm talking about and spending my time with.

I'm also truly blessed to have Dave get along with my family as well. Mom and Dave get along wonderfully and I'm really glad they got to spend more time together this weekend. It was hard to say bye to her today but we'll be seeing her soon at my Grams' birthday party next month.

AND this might was one of my favorite moments this whole weekend. Dave made a card with me. It was a mini craft session, and it was so awesome that he took the time to do something that I really enjoy. I've entered his card into the challenge I participate in, so we'll see how we both fair head to head. 

Thanks Dave, you are the world's best husband, I love you. And I guess I'll be playing some Call of Duty in my near future!

Dave's Entry!

 I may have challenged Dave to make a card because he thought he could get honorable mention on these challenges. I told him it wasn't that easy. He also has delusions about how good my card making skills really are and couldn't believe why I didn't win every time. So he, as the best husband ever made a card with me.

The challenge sketch

Dave's card.

Personally I'm really impressed as this is the first card he's ever made. Cute little house with a picket fence and a sign welcoming home a Solider. What's not to love. 

CAS(E) Challenge #6

I'm participating in another CASE(E) challenge (somehow I missed number 5!). While talking Christmas presents for each other Dave introduced me to the Silhouette Cameo. I guess he overheard me with some friends talking about the Cricut and as the researcher he is he looked around. I am mesmerized by this machine but until I get one I will continue to enjoy making my cards without all that fanciness. So here is my entry for challenge number six.

CAS(E) challenge 4

 I'm participating in another CAS(E) challenge.

The sketch to base our cards off of. 

Seriously the only thing I came up with.

I don't know why I drew such a blank when it came to this challenge. I guess I just didn't want to be literal so I stayed away from circles, and then I  figured so many people would go for snowflakes so I didn't want to do that either. I found this fun old school paper and thought I could do something fun with the alphabet brads I've had for a while.

I'm excited to see what everyone else comes up with!

How Pinteresting

The issue with Pinterest is I want to bake everything, make everything, decorate a house I don't own, and throw parties weekly! More time than not I have tried a Pinterest project and have failed especially making me feel like the Pintester herself (hilarious blog btw). I found something on there that Dave and  I could do together that wouldn't be too hard. I love this "growth chart" ruler for a house. You don't even  have to have kids for this to make an appearance in your home, I just like the vintage charm it adds to a room.

side by side comparison

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Dave and I tackled this project together. It was great because it gave him something handy to do out in the garage with his new sawhorses and I really wanted one to hang on our wall. The process was fairly easy.

We bought the piece of wood from Home Depot, I picked out the one I liked the best. I chose one with some knots in it to give it more character. Then we stained it, and let it dry overnight. From there Dave got to work with his square  spacing out the measurements and penciling lines in. After that we used painters tape to outline them so that we could paint the marks. We let those dry overnight and then we went on to adding the numbers. That's where we ran into problems. We tried using a stencil and painting over it, but that bled. Then we tried a different stencil and used a sponge, but that bled as well. All we could come up with was to trace the numbers with the stencil and then hand paint them on. It's tedious and you have to have a steady hand but I'm really happy with how it turned out. The only real differences between the two is that our stain was much darker and that they mad it look more like a ruler by adding all the measure lines.


All in all it's been fun and I'm glad Dave and I did this together. And I'm even more glad that he did the measuring because me and math don't get along!

What do you think? Did we do ok for our first attempt?

CAS(E) challenge

It's day two of staying at home due to Hurricane Sandy and as I look out of my window there is NO rain. Ha figures, but hey, I'm not complaining. It just means more quality time with the hubby....and by quality time I mean him playing Call of Duty and me crafting. So as I was perusing Pinterest this morning for some card inspiration I came across the CAS(E) challenge! The cut off closes at noon and so I had to get to work quickly to enter.

They give you a sketch that you base your card off and you have creative reign. I've been working on Christmas cards for my friend Tera so I decided to do my first card with that same theme.

It was definitely a different for me to incorporate a cut out shape into my card. I'm glad though because this pushed me out of my comfort zone and to become more creative. I'm really happy with how it turned out. Very simple yet elegant (or so I think!).