Crazy Daisy!

I just adore my new puppy – she is the cutest thing ever! But it’s a good thing she’s cute…because she’s also quite mischievous! It’s been quite a while since we’ve had a puppy – we forgot how tiring it can be! It’s like having a baby…but this baby you can put in its crate when you leave the house! 🙂

She is growing SO fast – I decided to take a photo of her every week with the same object – a stuffed Pooh bear – to track how she’s growing. Here she is at 9 weeks:

10 weeks:

11 weeks:

12 weeks:

And now at 13 weeks:

She was 13 pounds at her first vet appointment four weeks ago – today she was almost 18 pounds at her appointment.

She’s such smart dog – I’ve started taking her to obedience classes. It’s amazing how quickly she can pick up new commands! She can now sit, lay down, walk nicely on a leash, ‘leave it’ and ‘give’.

Here’s Daisy before I took her for her first puppy haircut:

And after her bath, blow dry and trim:

We could see her eyes for the first time!

This is how we usually find her sleeping in the kitchen:

She’s such a nut (fits right in with the rest of our family!)!

Just a few more photos taken today for those who keep asking to see pictures of her…

And here’s one of my favorite shots of her and Emily:

Gotta love life with a goldendoodle!

Yardsale Finds!

So one of my favorite new hobbies is the art (and luck) of ‘yardsale-ing’. Since I’m a stay-at-home mom, I really don’t have a lot of money to spend shopping, but I do enjoy some retail therapy now and again. Yardsales are like a treasure hunt – you never know what you are going to find. And when you do find a great bargain, it’s like a true accomplishment – and you only end up spending $6 on a good day! 🙂

My friends and I go out to yardsales every Friday morning after we drop the kids at school. There are always a few people who like to start their sales early on Friday – and we take advantage of that. Every Thursday night, we take our local newspaper and map out the sales we want to visit while our kids are in preschool. You’d be surprised how many sales you can hit in 2 1/2 hours!

We also try to go out on Saturday mornings too, but it depends on everyone’s weekend schedules. So here’s what I found last weekend…

I am always looking for additional seating during my stamp clubs and stamp camps. I found these old wood folding chairs for just $1 each (I bought all six they had left):

I also bought two of these old chairs for just $10 for the pair:

The woman selling the chairs was probably in her 70’s and said that these chairs were in her grandmother’s bedroom – she thinks they may be more than 100 years old. Even if they’re not, I like them anyway. 🙂

I also picked up a beautiful and unique set of teacups and plates:

The plates have a small lip for the cup:

These are from the 1940’s – I just LOVE the colors and design! The set was $20 for 12 place settings.

I also picked up this unique set of coasters for $2:

Not sure how old they are – they are a lightweight cardboard-type material. I just liked the images – I’m sure I’ll find some project in which to use them! And if anyone knows more about what these are, please let me know.

This weekend, I wasn’t nearly as lucky and didn’t find as much great stuff. But I did find a set of eight small, old (1930’s) encyclopedias for $1:

I thought these would either make great altered books or I could use the pages as a background for an ATC or collage.

I also found an old wooden box that I’m using for storage on my front porch…speaking of which, I do have a weakness for old trunks, boxes and other storage items. I have several out on my front porch:

I don’t know who S. Rosengard is – I got the trunk for free at a previous yard sale! 🙂 The desk at the end of the room is also a yardsale find ($10) and the chair with the desk was actually picked from the trash (yes, that’s right – I’m not too proud to trash-pick!)

We just bought that couch for the porch last week – I love that it comes apart and can be used in different configurations – it was my early Mother’s Day gift:

We spend a lot of time out on our porch and wanted some more comfortable furniture for out there – this is working great!

But back to my addiction to trunks…here is a stack of vintage suitcases I found a few weeks ago at a sale – I paid $10 for all of them and am now using them stacked up as an end table:

I also have trunks as both of my coffee tables too – you can see one of them in my post about Emily’s birthday party (the dress-up stuff is stacked against it).  My husband cringes every time I come home with another box, trunk or suitcase! 🙂

And one of my favorite yard sale pieces – I got this original watercolor painting that matches the colors in my family room for only $3…

It has a little bit of water damage on the lower right corner of the mat, but it fits in perfectly in this house – nothing here is perfect!

Who knows what treasures I’ll find this weekend…

Emily’s Birthday Party

My daughter Emily turned 5 recently and she decided that she wanted a “Bratz” party. Now, I don’t know about the rest of you moms out there, but I am just not crazy about those Bratz dolls – but it’s what she really wanted, so I decided to work with it as a theme.

Of course, being the procrastinator that I am, I waited until the very last minute for an idea of how to incorporate Bratz into an appropriate little girls party…

And even though I’m a crafty mom…I had to break down and order the Bratz ‘party in a box’ from Birthday Express. It was a little pricey, but it included everything from the plates, napkins and forks to the favors, pinata and balloons. And yes…that’s right (hanging my head in shame) – the mom with all the rubber stamps used the STORE BOUGHT invitations and thank you notes that came with the set – they were not handmade this year…but something’s got to give! 🙁

So I decided to use the Bratz stuff and make it a dress-up party. I did manage to stamp all of the placecards (the placecard stands were included in the box o’ birthday stuff). I just used index cards and stamped each name in purple and pink. Then I added some jewels and stapled some ribbons to the top – here is one at a place setting:

I think the table turned out really cute – those little boots are actually cups.

I also hung streamers on the ceiling and had balloons floating in the living room and porch:

It was also convenient that my purple lilacs were in bloom – they made for a nice centerpiece!

Then I set up old trunks full of dress up clothes for the girls to play with. I also had a few small crafts (a beaded necklace and a small flip-flop shoe box) for them as well as some tattoos, body gems, nail polish and lip gloss. We also had a purse-shaped pinata, autograph books and feather pens as well as lots of stuff in the favor boxes.

Even Daisy got dressed up for the party in a camouflage shirt with a studded skull and cross bones:

We also had pizza, cake and ice cream too. So I thought the party was going pretty well and that I had put on a pretty good show.

But then my normally sweet, lovely daughter turns to me in the middle of the party and says, “Mommy, this is BORING…”.

BORING!?!?! I will hold that statement over her head until she is grown and has kids of her own – and even then I might not let it go…

But Happy Birthday anyway, Emily…I love you!

A Few Small Projects

I taught a scrapbooking class at our Scrapbooking Ministry in April where I instructed the attendees on the fine art of ‘scrap-lifting’ (also known as CASEing – Copy And Share Everything).

For one example, I took a layout sample from “Reminders Of Faith” scrapbooking packet:

And CASEd it almost exactly…but I turned it on its side to accommodate my photos:

Most of the ladies said that they never would have thought to try it that way.

I also used a sketch from Creating Keepsakes to do the following pages:

I used a scrapbooking pad from Die Cuts with a View for these pages – very easy and very cute. The theme for the month was ‘Family’, so I liked the pet/family connection with the vellum quote.

I also have a little card that I used as a make-and-take for my two stamp clubs this month:

It uses a faux-metal technique described in the Stampin’ Up! demonstrator magazine, Stampin’ Success, this month.

The metal piece is made with a plain piece of cardstock as the base. It really doesn’t matter what color – it’s going to be covered up anyway.

You cover the entire piece of cardstock with VersaMark ink and sprinkle on embossing powder (gold, in this case). You then heat and melt the powder with a heat tool. You repeat this 3 or 4 times, letting the piece cool between layers.

The last time you heat the piece, press a stamp in the wet embossing powder while it is still hot.

I have done this technique many times, but what I liked about this piece is that it used an almost solid stamp (this particular stamp is from the “In Any Event” hostess stamp set). The end result is that any design in the stamp results in a raised impression in the metal – in this case, the flowers and sentiment – and the outside creates an almost frame-like effect.

My first stamp club was very impressed – they had no idea that the piece was not actual metal when I brought it out.  We’ll see how my other stamp club likes it when they try it out tomorrow night…

Wow – It’s Been a While!

I just realized that it’s been several weeks since I last posted – yikes!!!! Just goes to show how quickly time flies when you’re a busy mom of 3 kids and a new puppy!

Things have been so hectic here and I have been so over-scheduled that I haven’t been able to sleep. I get up in the morning with a knot in my stomach because I’m afraid I’m going to forget something on my list.

Tonight I thought I was scheduled to work at the baseball concession stands but I found out that I had the wrong month – I have to work it the first Monday in June, not in May. I was SO happy that I had a night off with nothing scheduled, I started giggling and dancing around the kitchen – my kids thought I was nuts, I’m sure (and they may be right). So…I finally have some time to post to my blog – imagine that!

Instead of overwhelming you with one long post, I decided to break up my latest stuff into several new categories:

• “Family Stuff” where I’ll have news about my family, camping adventures and home
• “Yardsale Junk” where I can show you my latest acquisitions from the world of other people’s castoffs
• “Watch Daisy Grow!” where I’ll post new photos of my sweet goldendoodle puppy, Daisy

Of course, I’ll continue to share my newest crafts, techniques and tutorials in the various “Crafts” categories. 🙂

Read on, if you’d like…