Christmas Card Pic 2012

Finally.

Our Christmas cards are done.

And OMG was it a pain getting the picture!

First: I burned the cookies (at least it prevented me from scarfing them down).

Second: Landon HATES the Santa hat. I can't really blame him, it's itchy and awkward and too big. He normally is very gung-ho about hats so I put one of his favorite beanies on and then snuck the Santa hat on over top.  This fooled him for all of four pictures, but we got it:

He has grown so much since last Christmas!  And his little mind is just soaking it all in this holiday season!  So fun!

Happy Holidays!

DIY Snow Globes

Oh how I love snow globes!! And mason jars!! And combining the two is pretty much the best idea ever.  These little guys are sold for astronomical prices at Anthropologie:

FORTY DOLLARS EACH?! ARE YOU INSANE?!?!

I came across some DIY replicas over at Whipperberry and decided to give them a whirl.  They took all of five minutes to put together.

Supplies:
Trees
Jars
Glue dots or glue gun
Buffalo Snow

I found the trees and most of the jars at garage sales.  The buffalo snow and the tall mason jar I picked up at Michael's.  I needed one more teeny tiny jar so my friend Lindsey found one for me :)

I had some glue dots on hand to secure the trees to the lids. These rock, especially if you don't want to bust out the glue gun. 

 

I like a lot of snow so I filled 'em on up.

 

 

I needed some of the trees to be taller so I glued them on various caps, this one is from a cooking spray:

My out of pocket price was about six dollars total and I'm pretty darn pleased with the way they turned out!!

Happy Holidays!

Linking to: I Heart Nap Time, Nifty Thrifty Things, Not Just a Housewife, Kammy's Korner, The DIY Showoff, The Tidy Mom, The 36th Avenue, Tatertots & Jello, A Diamond in the Stuff, Whipperberry, A Lived In Home, Polkadots on Parade
 

The Postagram App

I have a new favorite app. 

It's called Postagram.

 

It enables you to transform your Instagram pictures into Postcards and it even mails them out for you.  It's incredibly user friendly plus you get five free postcards when you download the app.  After that they only cost .99, which is pretty much the equivalent of buying a postcard and slapping on a stamp anyway. 

 

 

The Wombat and I have been having fun sending them to various relatives :) 

Thanksgiving 2012

This year, for the first time ever, we hosted Thanksgiving.

I am unbelievably thankful for the 27 family members who crammed into our dining room (and also for those who couldn't make it).  There was not one single thing that I didn't have help with, from the turkey to the clean up.

The Wombat absolutely refused to try a bite of anything, so here he is with his yogurt during the feast.

He did love the whipped cream though.

Happy Holidays!!!

Rare Krylon Colors

I love spraypaint.  It goes on quick, it dries fast and it gets all those tough spots that would be a nightmare with a brush.

When it comes to quality there's several brands I use: Valspar, Rustoleum and Krylon.  When it comes to unique color Krylon is the way to go.  The only problem is, I can never find some of the colors that I know exist.

In particular, I've been searching high and low for a lovely little color called Coral Isle.  Be still my beating  heart:

I scoured hardware stores, paint stores, craft stores, even Walmart. No dice.  So I looked online at overpriced cans with atrocious shipping fees....even Amazon came to 15 bucks a can! No, thank you! 

Then I stumbled across a tip over at Vintage Revivals and turns out Krylon is owned by Sherwin Williams.  So all I had to do was go and special order it through the store. 

They came to 4.95 each plus no shipping fees as long as I picked them up in the store. 

There was a minimum order, but I'm pretty sure I'll use up all six eventually....especially since I'm already down to five after one day.

Here is a sneak peek:

A New Oven: Sooner Than Later

We knew we'd have to replace our oven eventually.  The microwave was a hazardous, taped together eyesore that was connected to the oven (thus the actual microwave we use seen on the right).

Thinking that this purchase would transpire sometime in the far future, we've been casually looking for a replacement.

So when the oven caught on fire NINE days before we were to host Thanksgiving, at least we had already done our homework.

Here she is moving into her brand new home. 

Sometimes blessings come in disguises. 

This one came just in time. 

Nine days in time.

Now picture it with white cabinets....

No Mess Finger Painting

My toddler loooooves to finger paint. 

Case in point:

The kind we use is super easy to wash off ANYTHING, but they still make a heck of a mess!  With the rainy season around the corner I decided to try a mess free finger painting option that I pinned from The Hippie Housewife.

Here are all the supplies you need:

First introduction lasted all of five minutes.

Sometimes old fashioned finger painting only lasts for 5 minutes too so the onvenience of leaving this mess free painting option up for a couple days made it an instant winner.  He kept coming back with renewed interest every couple hours or so.

Saving this for upcoming rainy days!