Scary Mantle-O

What up lame Barry Mannilow pun? Thanks for kicking this post off!

I’m only blogging about this (hey to you, too, regularly scheduled posts again!) because a dear friend asked if I was. How can I not at that point? For starters, work is throwing a Halloween Party. I’m on the party planning committee.

(holler at Michaels slicked back hair!)

So I was given the delightful task, as a design obsessed employee, to help come up with centerpieces. I basically threw together a bunch of random ideas that can be spread about the tables.

I got the skulls, crow, moss rocks, critters, moss and the insides of the ghost at the Dollar Tree. The rat is borrowed from many years ago. The vase, tea kettle, and candle sticks are from Goodwill. The sticks and acorns are from my yard. Lastly, I got fabric and flowers from Joann and went to town.

I stuffed a bunch of acorns in one silver dish, and in the other I filled it with moss and made a skull peek out of it :) The glittery skulls came pre-glittered, which is awesome for $1. The ghost insides are simply a styrofoam ball on top of a styro cone, with two twigs coming out as arms. Then I draped white knit fabric I scored for $2/yard over top and instant boo-tastic ghostness appeared. I don’t own candlesticks. I keep meaning to go shopping for some, but in the meantime I just stuck some small skulls on top of the sticks.

The vase is stuffed with moss, topped with hydrangeas, and oozing with centipedes and twigs with rings and skeletons dangling. I have more ideas up my sleeves, but for a grand total of $25 I was able to whip this mastermantlepiece into shape, an hopefully give you an the rest of the party planning committee some good ideas!

Pumpkin Patch

The fam went to the local pumpkin patch this past weekend. As always, it was so much fun. The kids can make anything fun though :)

 

The sweetest part of this post: The baby/pumpkin in her belly should be born today. I can’t WAIT to meet my very first nephew!

I bought him footed pajama’s that say Mommy’s Little Pumpkin for her baby shower:

 

I saw her sitting next to those pumpkins and thought this picture would be perfect to frame in a shadowbox with the pajamas once he outgrows them, or to hang in a frame next to a picture of him IN the pajamas ;)

I have to add that we picked a cute little pumpkin 2 years ago as well:

That would be my little niece that has pigtails in the pictures above. Oh how they grow so fast!

Here’s to hoping baby William makes it into the world happy and healthy (and mommy too!) today :)

10+11-08=13

That would be the crazy math Drew, the math wizard, did of our engagement anniversary date, and it equaled my favorite number. That’s right, it’s been 2 WHOLE YEARS since we got engaged! So happy engagement anniversary, hussy! I know I’m all about the happiness lately, aren’t I? That’s a good thing!

The scenery on the perfect weathered day:

The two young and in love:

The true photographer taking reign of the camera for a better lit photo:

The sneaky boyfriend letting me to self time a picture of us of the mountains (with the ring sitting on his forefinger!):

The proposal “will you marry me bb?”:

The crybabies:

Staged with a knee on the ground like a good fiance:

And the celebrations, apple picking and cider beer after a call to the rents :):

        

We ended up marrying on 4/18/09. For those who don’t feel like doing the math, 100% completely accidentally that date had the same math equation, with the same answer. 4+18-09=13. <3

Thrifty Thursday: Cut Loose, Footstool.

I’m sure kicking off my Sunday shoes now! My mom picked up this footstool with me, and with my sweetest daughter charm, I convinced her to let me have it. Hey mom! It was worth it! I didn’t even want to put my feet on the before. Now I can’t keep them off! Especially after a long day at my new ultra busy job :)

We found it at one of the estate sales our favorite estate sale putter-onners… put on. Then again, we’ve never attempted to crash any other kind of estate sale. But we do love us some Susan’s Selections. PSA: They take detailed pictures of every item you’ll find at the sale (if you go on the first day, and everything isn’t taken!) and post them here a few days before the sale starts. I love to do some window shopping before hand.

But even with the window shopping, and walking around the house, I didn’t even see this footstool that my mom’s eyes moved to like a MAGNET. It was $5, and I was jealous she spotted it. See, it’s not usually a good idea to go shopping with someone that has similar taste, unless there’s more than one of every item. This is not the case most of the time at estate sales. But like I said in the beginning, she decided to let me have it :)

It originally sold at Dollar General for $8 in 2004. The tag told me so. Sure I didn’t get a booming steal, but with different fabric, it would be worth all $5 she spent.

I realized something over the last couple months. I get the most excited about fall colors than any other colors.

So when fall rolls around, I go hog wild with rich warm colors.  I decided to use that as my inspiration and grabbed some scrap purple fabric to reupholster my new little foot reliever.

It sits so nicely next to my very first upholstery project: the landfill chair, and under my Diversity Thrifty vanity.

Of course, I have this obsession with curvy legs on my furniture.

 

What’s not to love (now!)?

Greetings!

Remember me? I used to blog daily, take tons of pictures, and even spend all my free time either doing projects or researching new ones.

Then life happened. I got that neat new job, that’s super busy. I love it, and I spend all day on my feet which helped me lose 4 lbs.

That wasn’t all that helped, I also started doing Zumba. I don’t know why I never tried it before! I’ve been doing it for 3 weeks  now. LOVE IT.

I almost finished painting the dining room, and I’m just one cover panel away from finishing the kitchen. Seriously, one.

We spent some time at my parent’s campsite, relaxing and enjoying life. I rode on a jetski for the first time, and got up enough courage to drive it. Again with the WHY DIDNT I DO THIS YEARS AGO?!

I also turned 25. A quarter century. I don’t feel that old, fortunately. I also don’t think I look that old. But I had a quarter century crisis and dyed my hair super dark brown. I couldn’t deal with it, so I got it professionally done. I streaked it bleach blonde and burgundy red. I love it now.

However, with all the fun new experiences and changes that have taken place since my last blog post, it wasn’t all roses. My cat, Pooky, passed away. He was 17 years old, and I picked him out when I was just 8 years old. I haven’t taken many pictures of him since I lived at home with him and my mom, so the most recent ones I have were when I was just 19. Which is weird to say, since that’s only 2 years older than he was when he passed! Here’s a few that I have saved on this laptop.

    He was the perfect tuxedo cat. Perfectly lined white, just like a tuxedo. He even had the white gloves and shoes. He looked striking with a red bowtie collar :)

This was back in a time I didn’t yet find out about the invention of makeup. I kind of miss being able to pull it off. If only in my own head.

My mom will be getting his ashes soon, so we’ll be holding a proper funeral. It was hard to take the news, but much harder to console my mom through it.

On a lighter note, she rescued another cat. Drew and I are firm on adopting only animals that need rescuing, and will be signing up in the next week or two with the local SPCA to walk puppies that are cooped up all day waiting to be adopted. I’m excited!

With all that said, not much else here to report. Well, except that the reason I haven’t been rushing to blog is because I got an Ipad. Which is frickin awesome. But I’ll be back again tomorrow with another Thrifty Thursday, so stay tuned!