A Little Bit Thrifty

Today I went on an adventure to the Habitat for Humanity ReStore in Benton (check them out at http://www.habitatsalinecounty.com/).  It is such a great little place to go in to, and everything there is donated and in pretty good shape.  All of the money goes towards building new homes for families in Saline County.  I found some great deals, and took advantage of their sale going on: put whatever you want in to a plastic grocery sack, and as long as it closes at the register, you get the entire bag for $2.00!!  I found lots of little goodies, including a glass candle stick and a plate that I will be making a pretty little serving plate out of.  Note: hot glue does not work to attach glass to ceramic (lesson learned, off to get glass specific super glue tomorrow!).  I also got two ceramic soup bowls with lids.  Unfortunately, one of them had a run in with my tile floor in the kitchen already, so I guess I will only have one to use.  I also found two cute shelves.  One I will use in my craft room closet, and pictures will come after it gets a couple of coats of paint.  The other I hung in my living room to display some of my favorite treasures from the wedding.  

I'm debating whether or not to paint it, but I think I like it the way it is.  I was going to paint it the same color as the trim throughout the house, but I'm having second thoughts now that I see it on the wall.  The bottom center you can see the two figurines that were our cake toppers.  The man, of course, has a golf bag, and the woman has a nurses hat on (medical field, close enough).  On the left shelf there are two vintage salt and pepper shakers that are painted like slot machines and show the old downtown Vegas.  On the right shelf there is a little bell that I got right before we left to come home, and the top G I found at Michaels for $1.50!

This picture shows the whole wall.  To the left is a canvas print of a picture that I had made just recently.  It is of Tim and I and both of our parents inside the wedding chapel right after we were married.  I think they all go together nicely, and I prefer it much more than just the blank wall.  Of course Macy was there to supervise the whole project!!

First Ever Fork and Talk

Ok.  So my current obsession is craftgossip.  I've talked about it before.  It is this wonderful blog that links to other wonderful blogs.  And, as I learned, they are an international site, and their headquarters are in Australia.  However, 4 of their editors live right here in Central Arkansas!!!  They got a luncheon together sponsored by EK Success, which is a great crafting company.  I really thought that they just did paper.  Boy, was I wrong.  At the end of the luncheon we got a giant goody bag of tons of EK Success brand items to try out!!  Now we get to try all of them out and blog about how awesome they are.  So that means that there will be a lot of posts about the new stuff I get to try....because there is so much it will take me forever to get through all of them!!!  It is fun though, and now I have lots of stuff to fill my craft room with (even though it is already pretty full...).  So, since I haven't been able to try anything yet (I've been in bed with a stomach bug all day) I decided I would blog about the actual event on Saturday, September 10.

So the first Fork and Talk was at Trio's restaurant in Little Rock.  Such a good place to eat.  You really need to go there.  We were in a room by ourselves and had a special menu to pick from for lunch.  There were four tables set up, and we got to pick where we sat!  There were five people plus one of the editors at each table.  First things first, we got lunch!!

 I got the Leilani for lunch which was this wonderful croissant with appricot jam, dried cranberries, turkey and avocado.  There was also a fruit salad with poppyseed dressing......it was SO good!!!  I wish we could have had seconds....but there was crafting to be done!!

We went around the room and told everybody about ourselves, what we blogged about and what the strangest thing we ever crafted with was.  I believe this picture is me explaining that I am way to OCD to craft with anything else besides what is made to craft with.  I guess that doesn't make me very creative....but what can I say.  The weirdest I heard was using tampons to apply chalk, and knitting with--wait for it--collected dog hair.  Blech.  Couldn't even imagine.  

Not the best picture of me.  But you can see behind me some of the goodies we get to play with in a little bit!!!

After we finished eating we had a challenge to decorate a hat within fifteen minutes with our table.  We got right to work and ours was a beautiful hat with pink sparkle ribbon, a big tulle bow, and a little bouquet of flowers in the back!!  We didn't win....super depressing.  But I thought we were awesome.  

So EK Success has these little kits that they put together.  I think they are pretty awesome.  Because I like things already ready to go....everything you need is in these little kits.  The ones we were trying out today was to make these flower barrettes or pins.  It has the fabric, the felt, the barrettes, and even a needle and thread!! The only other thing you need for this project is a hot glue gun (we used glue dots and they worked just fine). It was super simple and I loved making them!!!

 Here we are showing off our cute new flowers.  Funny story: Andi, who is on the right, was in school with me at UAMS! I haven't seen her in so long, how funny to come across her at this random event!!!!  

After we did our flowers we finally got to dive in to our goody bags.  And let me tell you, those things were PACKED full of goodies!!!!  In fact, there was so much stuff, that we got an additional grocery bag full of stuff!!  We got to look through and see all of the stuff we were going to get to take home with us!!

I'm pretty sure the things I am most excited about are the Martha Stewart Craft supplies.  I am a big fan of Martha.  

Okay.  Seriously.  We got mustache stickers.  Doesn't get any better than that.  

This is everything laid out so that you can see how many things we actually got!!! Can you believe it?? We are so lucky, and EK Success was a great sponsor for providing all of this to us!! I seriously can't wait to try every thing out!

This is a picture of all of the ladies that were at the event.  I am so excited that I got to meet all of them.  They all had such amazing stories, and I feel like I made so many friends who I have crafting in common with!  I can't wait to keep up with their blogs, and maybe meet again someday for more lunch and crafting!!!

After the lunch was over, I headed over to meet Tim for some tailgating.  He had been golfing all morning, and we got finished at the same time.  We had a blast seeing all of our friends!! Only thing I didn't like? I got beer poured on me.....twice....by two different people.  Oh well. I guess that is what happens!! 

Tim and I got tickets to the game from his uncle (thanks!!).  They did something really cool this year.  They had all of the people in the even sections wear red, and all of the people in the odd sections wear white.  The student section was given blue shirts.  We were sitting in section 19, so we dressed in white!!  

The stadium looked awesome, and I think it was such a great way to honor our country and the anniversary of September 11th.  I feel so blessed to live in the country that I do, the land of the free, and the home of the brave.

Oh...and GO HOGS! We won!!

Learn Something New Every Day

Well, I have decided to start a month long scrapbooking class called Learn Something New Every Day by this fabulous woman named Shimelle.  She is in England, and it is an online class.  I have gotten the pleasure of "meeting" other scrapbookers from all over the world.  The point of the class is to be aware of little lessons that you come across all day, and then scrap it!  Now, I am not the most creative scrapbooker in the entire world.  In fact, I feel pretty inadequate compared to the other ladies that are sharing their posts in the class.  But it also gives me a lot of inspiration, and hopefully I can learn from their pictures and only get better!  We started by getting our album ready.  I used a small 6x6 album that I bought probably five years ago on sale, and it has been sitting in my scrapbook bin since then.  Then, using a lot of other little bits from my stash, this is what I got.  

So now, every day, I get this wonderful email from Shimelle.  She sends us email prompts to get us thinking about what lessons we should be encountering that day.  We can either follow that prompt, or just go with a lesson that stands out with us that day.  The first day of September, I was working.  You know, I have found that working in the hospital, some coworkers lose their....feelings?  I don't know if that is the correct way to put it.  But all day long we tend to work with difficult patients.  There was one in particular that people had mentioned was difficult. I didn't know what to think when I walked in the room.  I tried to get them talking about themselves, and before I knew it I had been in the room for 45 minutes.  The patient thanked me profusely, stating that I had made them feel much better.  That is when I learned that sometimes, people just need someone to talk to.  

I had a rough day on Friday.  I don't really want to get in to all of the details, so I will just share with you the lesson that I learned.  Not only did my boss help me to learn this lesson, but also my wonderful coworkers.  I learned that I shouldn't let another person's insecurities affect the confidence that I have in myself.  This is very important in the field that I work in, because I have to be confident in the knowledge that I have when I am working with patients.  

Today was a very lazy day, as most Saturdays are when I am not working.  So when I finally woke up and read Shimelle's prompt, I knew that lesson I had already learned.  The longer that I lay in bed, the harder it is to get my feet on the floor.  When I have to work, I am on my feet by about 5:45 in the morning.  I shower, go to work, and don't leave work until about 6:45 at night.  Then we have dinner, play with the dogs, and I seem to stay awake just fine!  But my days off when I sleep in, it is very hard to actually get out of bed and get any housework finished.  So, I will try to get out of bed earlier and get things done!  I will be much happier and healthier if I just get out of bed and not lay around for 16 hours on my off days!

I am very excited for this class and I hope that I am able to finish it.  Right now I am writing my lessons on my phone, and then scrapping when I get home at night.  I will try to keep my blog updated with the lessons that I am learning. 

Why I Love Art.

Some how I have been given this creativity bug.  I absolutely love being creative in every way that I can.  I think I get it from my mother, who is an amazing water color artist.  Now, I am not a painter.  Give me yarn, I got it.  Scrapbooking? Okay.  But not painting.

I was on my favorite site (craftgossip.com, totally addicted).  I saw this blog, sorry I forget who you were or I would totally give you credit, and I saw this amazing project.  Who knew crayons could be so beautiful.  Here is my new work of art.

I started out by buying a new box of 96 crayons (they are super cheap now that the back-to-school rush is over).  I used tacky glue and glued my lil heart out!  I kind of like how the Crayola symbol is all lined up.  

I then got out my handy-dandy hairdryer, and here we go!

It took a few minutes to get the hang of it, but pretty soon we were melting away!  I absolutely love how it turned out, and it is now hanging in my craft room!!  Nothing like a little color inspiration to get you in the mood to create.  

My house is my Home!!

Well, I thought I would give you an update on our house.  Tim and I were living in my TINY 650 sq foot condo with our pup Macy.  Okay, scratch pup.  Shes a 52 pound 7 year old pointer.  So needless to say, we did not fit very well.  So after I graduated at the end of May, we had already considered looking for a bigger place.  My parents actually found this house, and we closed on it June 16th.  I have provided pictures of what it looked like when we went to see it before the offer.  This is the outside looking at it from the street.  I absolutely adore how it looks.  We have a two car garage, it looks like it is separated, but it is all big and open inside and we even have a little area for a work bench.  The big "two" windows you see at the front are my CRAFT room! Yes, I said it.  I get a WHOLE room to myself.  I picked the bigger one with the high arched ceilings for my room.  I have to have room to be creative...hehe...  The smaller "one" window is currently our guest bedroom/put all the boxes of stuff we don't know what to do with room.  It needs work.  No pictures yet.  Pictures of the craft room will come soon, I must organize since I just got a new desk for my birthday (thanks momma!!).

We have a great big huge yard! Holy moly.  It is so wonderful being able to let Macy off of her leash to go run around!! She didn't get to do that at the condo.  She is the squirrel/bunny/bird/dragonfly/anything-that-she can-chase queen.  Oh, and did I mention yet that we got a PUPPY???? A whole post dedicated to him coming very soon.  He is the dog love of my life (besides Macy, and my dog growing up Buddy who we lost last year.....*tear*...).  So he and Macy just run and play and love every second!

Here is our living room.  We are so lucky and have a very open floor plan so that the kitchen, living room, and dining area are all open to each other.  Through that hallway you can see would be our master bedroom to the left, the laundry room in the middle, and the garage to the right.  Down the other hallway (from which this picture was taken from I believe) would be the guest bathroom and two extra bedrooms.  When you turn to your left you see....

...the door going out to the back yard and our dining area.  Right now our puny little apartment sized table sits there in all its glory.  It is on the list to get a brand spankin' new table that can seat all of our parents at once (umm.....do you know how expensive those are?!?).  As you can we we have a little bar area as well as an island dividing the kitchen and living room.   

Here is one of my most favorite of places.  I absolutely love to be in the kitchen to bake and cook (though dishes I'm still not a fan of....but really who in their right mind is??).   We definitely have a fridge now, and that door you see is in to our walk in pantry.  Every SuzyHomeMaker's dream.  

We got so many wonderful gifts for our wedding from our friends and family, and they have definitely been put to use!!!  Here is a trifle I made for the Fourth of July in a beautiful glass trifle dish.  I also have been dreaming of the day that I got my VERY OWN KitchenAid.....and with the help of Dillard's gift cards, my dream became a reality!! And let me tell you, this baby does a LOT more then sit on my granite counter tops and look gorgeous.  

I feel so blessed to have found a house like this.  I knew that I always wanted a house, but as cheesy as this sounds....it really feels like home.  

Next post? Either about our new baby dog Cruz (who's not so baby anymore at already 40 pounds), or some pictures of actual furniture and decoration!!!

A Much Needed Update.

Well, life sure has been exciting over the past 6 months!  Why, you may be asking yourself, haven't I posted a new blog since February??  Well, let me just fill you in on a few events that have happened!!!

I had been working hard at finishing up my final semester of my senior year of college and getting ready to take the big board exams.  For some strange reason, my wonderful boyfriend, Tim, stuck by me and my crazy self through all of the stresses that came with school!!  Two weeks before I had my spring break, Tim popped the question.....yes, THE question!!  We were lying in bed (yes mom, sorry, we were lying in bed), and he said the sweetest thing to me, "I have been telling you every day since we started dating that I was going to marry you some day, but until we actually do it, it is all talk.  So...want to get married in two weeks??!!"  I of course said yes, and we stayed up all night talking over the details, in anticipation of calling our parents the next morning!!  I did not want a big wedding with all of the stresses, so we decided that Vegas was the perfect place for us.

In the morning we first called my parents.  I think my mom had been expecting it, because I had been hinting that Tim was "the one" for a while.  My dad and mom were very excited, and were going to be on a long road trip that allowed them to come along!!  After this we called Tim's parents (who I hadn't seen since Christmas).  They were actually shopping in Little Rock, and I think we completely caught them off guard!!  We were so thankful that they were able to make the plans to come as well.  We didn't want to tell anyone else, because we didn't want people to feel obligated to make plans to go to Vegas in two weeks, and we wanted there to be a special moment with our parents.  We didn't even tell our brothers or sisters!!  So, then began our whirlwind trip to get married!!

So, after I took my dreaded board exams (and excitingly passed, I am now a Registered Respiratory Therapist!!!), Tim and I headed out to Vegas without telling any of our friends (except for D and J who lovingly took care of our dog, Macy, while we were gone!).  We were so excited, we could hardly handle it!!  After a layover in Dallas, we finally made it to Las Vegas were my parents picked us up from the airport.  

We decided to stay at the Venetian hotel because, well, it was our wedding!!  We had an amazing suite on the 32nd floor with an amazing view.  And guess what, our bathroom even had a flat screen tv in it!!  Whoa.  Both mine and Tim's parents stayed in the Venetian as well, so we were all close by!

Here I am with my wonderful parents the night before our wedding.  We had dinner at Zeffarino's which is an amazing Italian restaurant in the Venetian hotel.  

We all had a great time at dinner!!  And we definitely ate our money's worth of food.  It was a great time for both sets of parents to get to know each other (by the way, this was the first time they had met...)

After dinner, we all took a trip to the Las Vegas courthouse to get our marriage licence!  We wanted to get it the night before so that we didn't have any problems with it in the morning.  We were getting married the next morning at 10 am at the Chapel of the Bells (which is where Kelly Ripa got married, in case you were wondering).  

The wedding was absolutely perfect.  Talk about a stress free day.  I got ready in my room with my mothers help, and Tim got ready with his parents.  Then we all met at the chapel at 10am.  It was the cutest little chapel, and the ceremony was perfect.  Honestly, we were in and out, married, and with pictures, in about 20 minutes.  Now that is how you do a stress free wedding.  All there was left to do was eat lunch and tell all of our friends!!

After leaving the chapel, we headed to the Palazzo (right next to the Venetian) for lunch at one of Emeril's restaurants called Table10.  Because it was in March, the Palazzo was decorated with all flowers!!  Perfect spot for some pictures.  

Here we are talking to Big Jeff, one of Tim's best friends.  I don't think he believed us when we told him we were in Vegas and had just gotten married!!

We sent out lots of text messages letting everyone know we had gotten married, and with this picture of our rings!  Still, people had a hard time believing it!!

Here we are at lunch at Table10.  After lunch we all headed our separate ways, to later meet up for some appetizers and to see "O", the most amazing Cirque du Solei show I've ever seen.  It was the perfect wedding day.  Unfortunately, we had to fly back home the next day.  

Because we didn't really get a wedding cake, on our layover back in Dallas, we both of Cinnabon rolls, and shared a bite!  We just had the best experience ever, and are so happy to be married.  I did end up finishing school (my GPA was .1 away from graduating with honors....but who's counting...) and getting a full time job at Saline Memorial in Benton.  We ended up having three wedding receptions so that all of our friends and family could be included in our celebration!!  It was a perfect way to start our lives together.  We have now been happily married for 5 months!  

Next update coming.....our new house!!!

Roses, Lasanga, and Coffee Mugs, OH MY!

To start off, look at this beautiful picture of my mother!!  I am so lucky!! My parents are off enjoying their retirement in South Padre Island, and having some drinks on the ocean tonight!! Lucky them!!

At about 3 o'clock on Valentines day, Tim showed up at my door with chocolates, a teddy bear, and these beautiful orange long stem roses!!  What a lucky girl I am!!

Last week, I got to spend the afternoon with my awesome sorority sister, Sara.  She is getting married next summer and wanted to make something for her soon to be hubby.  We went to The Painted Pig which the the paint-your-own pottery place I made my teaspoons!

I got a Keurig coffee maker at Christmas, and since then Tim and I have enjoyed many cups of coffee and hot chocolate!!  So, for V-day, I thought it was appropriate to make us some coffee mugs!! I think they turned out pretty well, and I know they will be used a lot!!

For V-day dinner, we were graciously invited over to our good friend's, Jake and Erin's.  They were grilling, and we had a great dinner!!  They just welcomed in to their family a new baby boy, Ethan!  They now have two beautiful amazing little boys, and we just couldn't feel more blessed getting to know them!!  We can't wait to watch them both grow up!  I made them some cute V-day themed coasters.

When Tim and I went to Savannah back in Georgia, I was offered a job at the hospital.  We were so very excited about the move!! Unfortunately, due to bad economy, the hospital had to change the terms of the job, and I was no longer able to justify moving.  So, Tim and I are staying in Little Rock!!  I was just hired at Saline Memorial Hospital in Benton, and have orientation on Monday!  I will be working on the weekends during the rest of the semester, and hopefully more after graduation.  Speaking of graduation, it is so soon!! May 21st!  I can't believe it is so soon.  I have a few big things still left to do, including taking my big exam to become a Registered Respiratory Therapist, and my senior internship.  But time will fly!!

On a final note, congrats to my cousin Joel and his wife Lora on their pregnancy!!  I am so excited for them!! I have such fond memories of all of my cousins on my Mom's side-- Heidi, Zach, Joel and Allison!  We are all gown up and spread all over the US, but I still remember all those summers at Green Lake!! Hope to see everyone there in the future!