Back to School Time.. Yay for parents, Boo for kids

Its that time of year when parents get excited that they can finally have some peace.. school time. Back to homework, meeting new teachers, and most importantly back to normal sleep schedules.

In this house atleast, my kids have not stayed on a normal sleep schedule all summer long. It might have started out with good intentions but it ended with my children trying to sneak around at 1am. Most of all this little toot, Hannah:

So hopefully now that either school is starting soon or your kids are already back; you are getting some much deserved sleep.

Spirit Bow Giveaway!!!!

I finally broke down and decided to do a give away. With everyone else doing cool stuff; I thought I would join in on the fun. I will make this extremely simple. All you have to do is just reply to either here, my blog; or you can go to my fb page here and click under the discussion tab.
This giveaway will run today through July 17th. Then at midnight ( EST) I will select a winner from random.org and announce the winner. The winner will have 12 hrs to respond back.

Now for the fun part... The winner will get a totally customizeable spirit bow. You choose the colors and choose the image you would like for the bottlecap. Whether its for your daughter school or your favorite team, it is totally up to you. I am pretty good with photoshop so don't let creativity slip out the door. I will work one on one with you untill you are totally satisfied with it.

Easy enough?? Then what are you waiting for.. start replying!!

Tearful..

I have been a little down in the dumps today. With next Saturday being my first craft show, you would think I would be excited; think again. I am just not feeling my perky self today; feeling like I am alone in my creative world. My husband showed today how much he is a non supporter of my shop, and that made me loose all hope.

I was talking today about what I still needed for the show or farmers market. I have tables, tent, and product but nothing to put or display them on. Franticly I went online seeing if there was a how to on a display that I could do. I found a couple of ideas but nothing that really caught my eye. Well I finally found something that did, mesh crate cubes at Walmart. They were only 19 bucks and I could use them for other things later on; good deal. But by my husbands sour smirk and huff; it suddenly turned from exciting to shattered dreams. I wont ramble on much more about this; lets just say I'm still a little teary eyed about the ordeal.

I just feel like I am trying soo hard but hitting a brick wall at every corner. I soo would love my real first sale; that I would go beg and plea a stranger off the street to buy one. I want people to love my things just as much as I do. What am I doing wrong or heck, what am I doing right for that matter??? For now I will just keep chucking away. I still have alot more things to make before next Saturday. Who knows; I might have a good day. But I feel if I have a bad turnout; it will break me.

T-Minus 8 days and counting to first show!!!

8 more days and I can officially say I know the feeling of my first craft show. With trying to stock up on items and planning, it has left me excited but fearful at the same time. I don't know whether to jump for joy or puke, LOL!!

I should really know what to expect but since my prior experience was an epic fail I have shut it out from my mind and decided to start from scratch. So going through a checklist; I have gotten most bases covered.

Now I am just praying that the good ole Indiana weather is nice to me and lets the rays shine throughout the day.

Another Stormy day in Greenwood, IN

Does this photo make you cringe or your heart start racing?? Maybe you are like me and have Lilapsophobia: fear of tornados or hurricanes. Its not fun especially trying to drive when you know a storm is afoot. When you look at this, I bet you can guess that there is no way you would drive in a storm like that.

Well today; I did and it was about as stressful as having a knife held to your throat or like a cat in water, pawing for the safety of an edge. My oldest son had his final tournament game tonight for baseball. His younger brother had a game 2 hours prior so we decided that we would just stay at the diamonds after his game was over and practice some before the tournament game. As I started the car there I saw that it looked like some dark clouds were approaching, but they were mearly low grade rain clouds; nothing to be frightened of. ( In my past I have found myself ranking clouds and knowing their intensity just by their upflow or front clouds.)
We got there and as my youngest son, Nicholas, was playing one of the other moms said loudly; " Oh my, there's a tornado warning in ..... county and it looks like its heading towards us." My heart instantly sank. Knowing that we will be here for awhile I knew there was no escaping and no where to hide. My heart started to race but I kept reminded myself that it could decipitate as it gets nearer.
After Nicks game we headed over to AJ's, my oldest sons, field and waited out for his turn to play. The players on the field were waiting for the current storm to subside and the lightening dectors were blaring. ( Each of the diamonds have lightening dectors on home plate. If there is any lightening within a 10 miles radius, it will let off a siren to warn the teams.) So as we wait it begins to get worse. We head in the car and again I hear (loud high pitch beep)"The national weather forcast has issued a tornado warning for the following counties..." Instantly my heart goes into rabbit mode and tries to race out of my chest. Here we are sitting in an open field with hardly anything to protect us. I feel cold and naked against the storm. AJ's coach runs to us and says the game has been rescheduled. okay I have 10 minutes to get home and get to safety.
As normal my grandmother wants to sit and blab and ask the same question 50 times. I holler at the kids to get in the car and quickly put them in there seatbelts, carseats. At this point I am almost at the brink of half commen sense/half flight or fight. What that means is my perception is starting to be confused, I will drive a little faster not realizing it or I may make a turn in front of a car when I would usually wait.

Stuck in traffic for 5 minutes, 5 minutes to get home; crunchtime. My stomache starts churning as I see the dark front clouds coming. I now realize that I am going to have to drive through part of the storm in order to get home. I sink, try to swallow and my back tenses up. For the first time I turn off my radio. Usually I will listen to it like a hawk, flipping through the station to hear if a tornado has touched down or how far the storm is away from me. I already could see where it was and I did not want to be reminded of its damage. It was hard enough not to try and run the red lights nor run people off the road to get home.
One more turn and I'm home and its the longest. You know on scary movies how they make a hallway extended?? That is how I saw this. I was feeling like I was going to pass out, heart racing, and shaking like a leaf as I watched the road seem to get longer and longer; snarling under the vast dark clouds. I turn and start to cry; the trees were dancing but in a scary ghostly way as they would bend to the ground and twirl. I kept watch of my speed cause I noticed that at first I was doing 55 in a 30mph zone and almost rear ending the car in front of me. I start deep breathing and making myself breath, I can do it ; youre safe. I finally whip the corner of my drive pull my kids out of the car and run in. Just as I was lowering the garage door the wind started its 60mph ghusts; but I no longer cared. I was home and safe with my children. I ran to my room turned on the weather radar and cried. So sick and tired of being controlled of fear; I had no other option than to sceram it out in my pillow.

Buy and Donating for a great cause!!

One of my dear etsian friends, Jojosart, is spreading the word about helping to fight the oil in the Gulf. We all know how ugly the BP Oil Crisis is; we see it everyday through print and television.
However, Jojosart, is the first I have seen to step up and make an outreach to contribute or donate.

For every Save The Coast Print sold, he will donate $10.00 to http://www.audubon.org which is the wonderful people that are their right now helping to preserve and clean our beautiful coasts.

Please check out his work; and donate: http://www.etsy.com/listing/49229429/save-the-coast-8x10-print

How to make recycled Bow Cards!!

Im always looking for a way to use what I have at home and with craft fairs coming up; I really didn't want to spend anymore money than I already had to. So I thought there had to be a way to make bow holders/cards and use what I already have at home. After pondering; I found a cool solution to recycle and have a unique look.

What you need:

• Cereal boxes, shipping boxes, or any sturdy cardboard box or paper.
• E600 glue, Tacky glue, double sticky tape. Anything that you already have at home that will bond well and hold strong.
• Pen
• Ruler or bow card template ( I used 2 square templates from my scrapbook pack)
• Scrapbook paper or any kind of paper that you would like to decorate the outside of your card.
• knife or hole puncher ( my hole punch was broken so I found that a steak knife still did the trick)
• hair bows
  

First things first; make sure your box is clean and free of scrap cereal or dirt. If you are using a cereal box, open it all the way up by opening the tabs and the flap on the side of the box like pictured.

Cut off all the tabs of the box, just using the front and the back of the box. Be sure when you are cutting that you are cutting inside the seam not in the middle of the seam. If you cut in the middle then the sides will not bond well when you glue the paper to the cardboard.

Next, place and mark your lines of your templates. I used 2 different sizes; a smaller one for aligator clips and a larger one for boutique bows. You can use your best judgement and make them any size you wish. I find it much easier to mark the board before you put on the paper. You can let it sit for longer without disturbing it.

Now if you are wanting some of the print to show on the back side; I suggest going ahead and cutting it out.

Make sure to glue the end that will not be showing. Apply the glue side to the back of the paper, NOT THE PRINT SIDE. I folded over the paper to show you that I have my template showing on one side and the print side on another.

I then took the pieces that I cut out, where I wanted to see the front of the cereal box. I put glue on the back side and applied them to the remaining edge of my scrapbook paper.

Now take something heavy like a phone book or novel and set it on top of your work while it dries. You can even take the book and with a little bit of pressure, gently push it back and forth on top of your work, almost like your sanding it with the book. This will help remove any air bubbles and also help seal the edges better. Give it the proper amount of time to dry please.

So when you cut them out it should look like this. The far left is the top, the middle is what it looks like with the cereal print showing, and the right is just a blank back. You can add whatever you wish to these. Whether adding more paper to the back or just adding your business card; that is up to you.

To add your bow, simply use the prongs as a guide to where you need to cut the card. Make 2 lines and either use a hole puncher or some sharp scissors and cut your circle. I did not have a hole punch so I decided to try cutting them. Precision doesn't matter on this step because your holes will be covered by the hair bow.

Just add the hair bow and your done!! Now you can either attach your business card to the top or add another hole punch to hang it. If you have nice handwritting, you can even just print your web addy on the top. Either way, create it to your liking. Enjoy!!!