Happy Fathers Day & Handmade Gifts

Don't you love it when a Pinterest project actually turns out the way it is supposed to! 

I know I do, especially since we are doing a year of homemade gifts.  

Most of the time I can find a really cool DIY gift idea on Pinterest, then read the instructions and the supplies list is twenty pages long... Seriously? who keeps that much stuff on hand?  

Maybe I'm the only one with a teeny tiny house that gets overrun by a single pile of laundry,  really there is nowhere to hide mess in this house.   Man.. I long for the days of a bigger place where I can just shove stuff in an extra closet when company is coming over instead of having to clean the whole house to make it presentable.  

Not to mention spending $30 on supplies to make a homemade gift kinda defeats the purpose of the whole doing it to save/ not spend money aspect.

Getting back on track....

I found this super cool and easy Fathers Day inspiration from Kim over at A Spotted Pony

(A step by step will be posted soon)

This was cool because it really turned into a 2 for 1 kinda deal,  the blue shirt on the far right is how the shirt is supposed to look with a cool tye-dye effect.  Since I am not one to waste good crafty things I took the other piece and made the brown shirt in the middle so that it had the opposite effect as the original.  The grey shirt on the left was more of an oops that I doctored up a bit ;) 

With all the crafting and creative thinking going on I decided to try my hand at some homemade cards for the amazing men in our family as well. 

For this I decided to leave the computer closed! 

I adore Pinterest and all of the inspiration it provides,  however sometimes I see what other people are doing and think to myself "those are amazing whatever I end up with is going to look like a preschooler made it"  normally that wouldn't be a bad thing with all the crayons and markers and giant smiley suns in the corner of the page.  Unfortunately when you're going on thirty those cute hand drawn pictures of your stick people family and chubby puppy aren't going to cut it. 

I have a friend that tells me Pinterest is "where creativity goes to die", and I hate to say it but sometimes I think she's right.  I mean I think I'm pretty creative until I see everyone else is clearly more talented than myself and lose hope. 

So with the computer closed I set to work with everything crafty one could possibly need to make a Fathers Day card, and I have to say it is so much more fun to create and imagine without comparing what your doing to someone else.  

I am so darn PROUD of these cards!!!

I am in love with every aspect of every one of them!  For a moment I totally forgot how neat the shirts were I just wanted to show off their handmade cards that I did all by myself with no Pinterest to influence me!

Of course now I will post a picture of them onto Pinterest... 

What.. can you blame me,  they are super cute! 

Every now and then we just need to step back from technology and do what makes us happy :)

*Angela*

Rainy day love

Personally I LOVE rainy days!

Especially when you don't have to go anywhere or do anything, when you have the option to snuggle up with a cozy cable knit blanket while the baby takes a nap and you can sip on a glass of sweet red wine ( noon is a good wine time for me ) and you can really truly be one hundred percent focused on that really good book that you picked up from the $1.00 table at the flea market the other day. 

Yeah I wish my rainy day was like that too...

Instead my rainy day consisted of a little bundle of joy who just wanted to squeal instead of using her words, who had no interest in taking a nap even though her eyes were bright red, and a crazy puppy dog who is very vocal as well.  

We have a lot of animal drama around these parts. 

Honestly I thought my heart was going to explode from all the pressure building up as I tried my hardest to keep my composure, patience, and temper under control.  

So what do you do when life gives you lemons? 

You tell the baby to "find the puppies" which makes the puppies go into hiding, and also buys you approximately 15 minutes of peace and quiet.  Since the baby loves the puppies more than her own parents this can work a few times as long as you switch out the words "find", "hug", and "kiss".  

In this forty five minute time of bliss, be productive! Do something positive like baking some pretty fantastic Oatmeal Butterscotch Cookies that I found on Pinterest.  

Once my brain was put into a state of calm by the sugar endorphins, we all loaded up in the truck to go deliver some happiness and lull the baby to sleep in the backseat.  

WIN / WIN 

I love delivering surprises, and lets face it while eating two dozen cookies on my own is totally possible and has been done before I'm not going to lie, 

it's really not the best idea.  

So while we were out and about in a slow drizzly rain kind of a day I went ahead and raided the chicken coop for some fresh yummies to give to the neighbors.

We never actually buy eggs anymore so I have finally ran out of my egg carton stash.  Luckily I stumbled across this cute method of turning a paper plate into a little basket

I will never again buy gift bags, everyone from here on out will be getting adorable paper plate baskets! 

Hope you have found a way to enjoy your rainy days!

*Angela*

Pottery Barn & Pinterest

Can you imagine a better combination?      

 not me!

I try not to get out to Pottery Barn very often... I love EVERYTHING in there!

But MAN when they have a sale they know how to do it right.  I always scavenge the clearance section,  sometimes I don't even go thru the rest of the store (especially if my bank account is already hurting).  

Luckily on my most recent visit there was some pretty good loot left from Christmas! I totally scored the "Colly Birds" ceramic bowl for $12.00!!!  (it was part of their 12 days of Christmas collection).  

For the moment it is acting as a cookie jar for the Chocolate and Cherry Shortbread cookies I made. 

Mmm...Mmm good and so easy... I really had no clue shortbread cookies were so easy to make (can you tell I don't bake much).   I found the recipe on Pinterest, you can see it here, typically adding walnuts to anything makes it better so that's what happened in my kitchen, but they are just as yummy plain.  

Thank goodness for Pinterest,  without it I would starve!

*Angela*