Grasshoppers and Butterflies

Fourth of July Sneak Peak and a Long Day

It has been a super long and exhausting day.  We started off with an 8:30am ortho appointment.  Then we went over to a friends house to swim, have lunch and play for awhile.  Then at 3:00pm it was back across town for our consult with the oral surgeon.  My oldest has to have 6 teeth removed. Ugh!!!  After that it was back home to clean up and get dinner ready.  But I still had enough energy to start on the girls' dresses for the July 4th festivities.  Here is a sneak peak.  If I finish them tomorrow I will post a picture of the finished product.

I love my embroidery machine!  I purchased this design from Designs by Juju.  Her designs are awesome.  They always stitch out beautifully and the customer service is wonderful!  So if you do embroidery at all then check out Julie's designs.

That is all for now.  I am headed to bed!

Frugal Stamp Storage

Lately I have been trying to downsize and organize my craft room.  Part of that has included removing my rubber stamps from the wood blocks and putting them on cling mount.  You can purchase all sorts of fancy stamp storage and I do have a few of these but I was looking for a more economical way to store them since I have many (and I do mean many) rubber stamps.  I knew that cling mount would stick to plastic so I decided to try laminating 8 1/2 x 11 cardstock and then punching holes on the side so I can store them in a 3-ring binder.  Here is how it turned out.

This is just a few of my stamps.  I have a lot more to go.  But I am making progress and now the stamps take up a lot less room.  Plus it cost me a lot less than purchasing new stamp storage!

Anyways, over the last few days I have been working on moving my blog over to a self hosted blog powered by WordPress.  I still have a ways to go and the final transition probably won't take place until November (which is when my TypePad blog is due for renewal).  So if you want to keep an eye on my progress then check here and bookmark it for later. 

 

A Visit To A Local Park

I never realized how many parks there were in Edmond.  They are all over the place.  The girls and I ran across this one on the way to the first day of summer camp.  So yesterday we decided it was time to check it out.  It is huge!  I have never seen slides so big on a local playground.

On the left side is what I would expect "normal" playground slides to look like.  I think we are going to have to go back so I can try the big slide....only when it is not over 100 degrees.  I don't want to burn my backside on the way down!!  I plan on taking the girls back to this park next week in the morning next week when it is not so hot.  It didn't take them long to get red faced and sweaty.

Thrift Shopping Thursday

Every Thursday I will post my Thrift Store finds (if any) for the week.  This is what I picked up last week.  I spent a total of $5 and some change.  The white storage box had 21 Beanie Babies in it and it was $3.  The rest of the items (the file box, pitcher and photo box picture) were only $1 each.  I have a discount card which saves me 10% off my total purchase.  Not bad for $5 and the girls are having a lot of fun with the Beanie Babies.  I forgot to mention that the file box was completely full of file folders too!

I'm Testing The Waters At Etsy

I have had a craft room full of stuff for a long time!!  So now I am trying my best to use what I have to make different things to try to sell/get rid of.  It is time to DOWNSIZE!  Anyways, whatever doesn't sell on Etsy we will take to the craft shows in October and November.  If you want, take a look on my sidebar on the left of my blog.  I will be adding lots of different items over the next few weeks!

With that I leave you with a couple of cute pictures.  The little neighbor girl got a new kitten and brought her over to my house.  She seems to have found refuge here...

Isn't she cute?!  At least until they get bigger...then they scratch up the furniture!

Oven Baked Parmesan Potatoes

This is actually a recipe of my own.  I have made them a few times and my daughters love them.

Oven Baked Parmesan Potatoes

10 medium potatoes (cubed)
1/3 cup chopped onion
2 Tbsp olive oil
1 Tbsp minced garlic
3/4 cup Parmesan Cheese (divided)
1 Tbsp kosher salt

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  In a 9x13 casserole dish combine all ingredients except for 1/4 cup Parmesan Cheese (reserve for last step).  Mix well and cover with aluminum foil.  Bake for 30 minutes.

Remove from oven and give potatoes a good stir.  Re-cover with aluminum foil and bake for 20 minutes.

Remove from oven and stir one last time.  Top potatoes with remaining Parmesan Cheese.  DO NOT COVER and bake for 20-25 minutes or until the tops of potatoes start to turn golden brown.

Serve and enjoy!!

I am not an expert recipe writer but I think you can follow it easy enough.  Have a great day!!

Ribbon, Lace & Trim OH MY!

While we were in Bartlesville my aunt gave me a huge bag of ribbon, lace and trim.  It had belonged to my great grandmother who loved to sew and spent a great deal of time doing so.  In fact, she used to work for CBS many years back and did a lot of sewing for them.  I was told she did sewing for shows like Red Skelton, Lucille Ball and All in the Family.  Anyways, I have had a good time going through all of it and sorting/organizing everything.  Take a look!

A lot of the packages of bias tape range in price from $.15 to $.29.  It peaked my curiosity as to how old these actually were.  With a little research (on the internet of course) I found out that these packages were from the 1930's to 1950's.  Pretty neat huh?  I wish I knew how old some of the laces were.  Oh well!  It is just fun to go through it all.

New Tile, New Toilet, New Toy!

We finally finished with the tile and grout and put the toilet back in the bathroom.  Now we just have to tile the tub/shower area and the bathroom will be done.  This project has taken forever!!
Doesn't it look great!  My dad did an awesome job on the tile (and the rest of the bathroom for that matter).  It is nice to have two potties in the house again.  With four of us sharing one potty there have been some close calls!!

We finished on Saturday afternoon and then mom and dad took the girls home with them.  Sunday we drove up and met my parents and then headed off to Bartlesville for a Father's Day cookout at my grandparents' house.  On the way we stopped at Aldi to pick up a few things.  We had been in a few days earlier and picked up the ad that was to start on Father's Day.  On the back page there was a picture of a giant water slide.  I had thought about it for a few days and then talked to my husband about it and we decided to go ahead and get it.  It is AWESOME!  The girls love it.  My husband also went down it a few times.  Check it out!

Once we got it all set up we called a couple of friends and they came over and everyone played for almost two hours.  It got a little muddy after awhile so I think I am going to have to move the slide every time we use it.  It was not hard to set up though!  I am glad we decided to get it.  Later!

Twilight Camp

Tomorrow night is the last night of Twilight Camp! I have to say I am sort of glad. It has been really hot and all you do out there is sweat. But the girls have had a ton of fun and they are earning their Daisy Journey patch (at least I think that is what it is called). My oldest is in Brownies but I haven't been able to take any pictures because I am a leader of the Daisy group. I will try to sneak off tomorrow and get some pictures.  Oh and by the way, she is yawning not screaming ;o).

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Decorated Tins

My friend Melanie came over this morning and we worked on some tins for the craft shows coming up in October and November.  I know it sounds far off but we always seem to get started too late and wind up not having enough items to sell.

This time we are doing things a little different.  We are not buying anything new to work on.  We are only using items we already have or that we get "gently used".  So far it is working out really well.  Here are some pictures of the tins we worked on today.  Please excuse any background craft clutter pictured.

We have been working on a few other things too.  Our hope is to have a whole bunch of stuff ready so we are not staying up late the night before the show!  Later!