Ketchup

or Catch Up.

I have been MIA for many reasons. 1. I have been EXHAUSTED! Naptimes used to be my time to get stuff done. Blogging, sewing, cleaning, etc. Now nap times are used for naps. For everyone! Well, except my 3 year old of course who has officially become too old to nap. But if I can corral him in his room with his Tag Reader and some books, I can usually catch 45 min worth of ZZZs. The other reason I have been MIA is because we have had the most amazing February ever! If you are not from this area, I only hope your weather has been as amazing as ours. Of course, it makes me a little nervous about our summer outlook if we're having 70 degree days in February, but for now we are just trying to enjoy it as much as possible. We stay outside as much as possible. Going to the park, the zoo, playing b-ball in the driveway, going for walks, playing in the sandbox, drawing on the sidewalks! It has been heavenly. Of course all that energy being expended outside has added to the exhaustion. Hence the naps. Hence the no blogging.

We also took a small family vacation to Branson, Missouri. Also know as "Old-People Vegas". I <3 Branson. The four of us went for four days. We saw a show ("Amazing Pets"--i highly recommend it for young kids. I was pretty entertained as well. Who knew you could train house cats!?). We also went on a dinner cruise down by Branson landing. The kids were pumped just being on a boat. The captain even let Max drive for a little bit. We also swam in the indoor pool, played putt-putt at our resort, and played on the playground. But mostly, we just hung out. I packed activities for the kids and lots of movies. As a last minute addition, I threw in a box of markers and coloring books. We soon learned that we could have saved time and money by going to a hotel near our home and coloring with markers for 3 days. You would have thought that markers were the coolest thing under the sun. We usually stick to crayons at the house, so they were in hog heaven and colored pretty much the whole time we were in our room. It was a lot of fun.  Good Quality Family Time!

As I started to write this post, I was looking back at my New Years Resolutions. How many of you have broken yours already? yeah me too.
*I had decided that if I did a load of laundry from start to finish every day, I could stay on top of things. I quickly realized that that would not be enough. I pretty much do laundry all day every day. I have been able to work it into my routine to where I constantly switch loads and all that. Then I have one or two days when I fold everything and put it away. It has worked ok.

*I also vowed not to go to bed with a sink full of dishes. ha! that one lasted 2.5 seconds. I have been doing better overall about keeping up with the dishes though, so I have to cut myself a little slack I suppose.

*I have been better about planning activities for the kiddos, thanks to pinterest (can i get an "amen!"?) We have played with aqua beads, flour, oobleck, and all kinds of interesting concoctions. plus with the aforementioned awesome weather, it is so much easier to do fun stuff besides just chilling in the house.

*The hanger thing has been awesome. It helps me see that I need about a tenth of the clothes that are in my closet because i wear the same things over and over. after a few more months, i look forward to clearing out the riff raff.

*As far as the weight loss goes, I am making progress. But after about a 10 year strike from all things related to "working out", I have joined a boot camp! yikes. I am slowly getting past the point of feeling like I'm going to die, so that's good. Hopefully, I'll be able to drop my last few pounds and tone up a little bit before I get pregnant again.

We were determined to do everything in our power to make 2012 a better year. (of course, barring a catastrophe, that shouldn't be TOO hard :). So far so good. Hope the first 1/6th of 2012 has treated all of you good as well!!

-Mica

Busy Bee (aka Craftaholic)

  I'm not exactly sure what has gotten into me. I have been a crazy crafter the last couple of weeks. After living in our house for nearly 3 years, very little has changed from how we decorated it upon moving in. Last week, I woke up one morning and decided things needed to change! I rearranged a few rooms, painted one room, and spray painted everything I could get my hands on!  My favorite thing I have done so far is the back wall of my living room. This angled wall used to have a small sofa table with some accessories on it, but I moved that table to another room, leaving this wonderful blank wall! Full of possibilities!  I'm sure that I will tweak it here and there, adding things and rearranging the shelves. But as it is now, I cannot hardly walk by it without stopping and smiling.  

<3

<3

This here is the kicker. My three little blessings. 

I cut the words out of brown vinyl using my Silhouette (if I haven't mentioned it, I <3 my silhouette!). I bought these 6"x6" canvases from Hobby Lobby for around $3 each and spray painted them red. I found my favorite baby pics of my babies and printed a 5x7 of each of them, then trimmed it to 5x5. I applied the picture with rubber cement. In my opinion, rubber cement does not get nearly enough praise! you can apply a thin layer to both the canvas and the back of the pic, let it dry and then stick them together. It creates a very secure, "permanent" bond--but you can actually peel the picture off if you want to switch it out later. I then took some scrapbooking ink and inked the edges of the photos and canvases to give it a more "lived in" look. 

Here's a close up of the edges. 

This jar is a reminder of a beautiful illustration I read recently. It was talking about how limited the days of influence with our children are. In the example, they figured out how many weeks you have left with your kids until they turn 18 and leave the nest. It suggested you take that many marbles, put them in a jar and take one out each week, leaving a visual reminder that our time is limited. I didn't have anywhere to put a big jar of marbles, plus i knew i would never actually think to take one out each week, which would kinda ruin it. But I loved this small Mason jar full of clear marbles--Everytime I see it, I will be reminded to make the most out of that day. To stop and smell the proverbial roses and cherish the days with my children before my nest is empty. :(

I love these letters from Hobby Lobby. They are a great size and font, plus, they come in a dark finish with a sort of gold-leafing on it. It is beautiful straight from the store, but if 'painting-everything-in-sight' is your thing, the original finish makes a perfect base coat for painting and distressing. Rarely do I ever paint anything that I don't glaze and distress. It's a sickness. My newest obsession is "soaping". Ever heard of it? I had not. It is so easy and effective is distressing is your thing. Simply paint your base coat and let it dry. Then take a bar of soap (I used dove--i don't think it matters). Then rub the bar of soap over your frame/table/shelve/etc on the areas where you would like to pull your top coat off. Paint your top coat, let it dry, then get to sanding. The areas that were soaped don't allow the top coat to stick as well, making it SO much easier to sand off. I used this technique on my "D" and the shelves and was thrilled with the results. The D is actually a pale blue color that doesn't show up real well in the pictures (SW Rainwashed). The shelves were painted gold (because I had some gold spray paint in my stash. any darkish color would look good), Then top-coated off-white (SW Navajo White)

Here's a close up of some of the distressing on the shelves. 

I painted (and glazed/distressed of course) this chair a while back. I whipped up this little pillow from some scraps in my stash to add some color and tie in the red. 

I was so pleased with the way this turned out and super pumped at the price! I was able to shop at 1/2 off and utilize stuff I already had on hand. 

3 canvases-$9

photo prints-$5

shelves (1/2 off at HL)-$12

pillow-$0

D (1/2 off at HL)-$5

vinyl-$0

paint-$0

jar + marbles-$2

frames-$0

vintage print (from my grandma)-$0

For a whopping total of $33. I only paid $7 for my chair so if you include that, it's still only $40!!

If there's anything I love more than being crafty, it's being thrifty!

I have been doing lots of sewing, and other crafty projects too (including my laundry room revamp!)  that I'll share with you later on. Hope you all have a wonderful week.