I Heart Shopping

This past weekend was Blake and my first wedding anniversary and so we went to Atlanta, GA to celebrate! I took pictures and made a couple of videos so I'll be sure to share them all once I get them edited and what not. But today I wanted to show you what I got while we were there! I LOVE going to Atlanta because that is where the nearest Ikea is and I'm in love with Ikea. But I'm not in love with the fact that almost none of their stuff is available to purchase online. Blake and I actually had a lovely conversation over an Ikea hotdog about why this is, but we didn't really figure out anything...sigh. Anywho! We went to Ikea on the last day of our trip and so we had already reached our budget for what we wanted to spend while we were in Atlanta so I didn't get to buy everything I wanted to buy, but I did get to buy enough to have some fun with!

I bought two sets of Merete curtains for $19.99 each (which are the same ones that I bought for the office on our first Ikea trip). Here's a picture of them:

I got them in white so that we could dye them whatever color we want! We bought these for our bedroom and I couldn't decide what color I wanted...originally I was going to go with a brown and orange theme for our bedroom, but then I changed my mind and I haven't really made it up yet. 

Right now we have a dark gray comforter that we both aren't really fans of, so we're going to make a change eventually we just haven't decided to what we will be changing. I'm leaning towards a blue and gray room...but that may change soon...so basically all of that to say, we bought white curtains so that we could dye them whatever color we want when the time comes. And I'll give y'all the play-by-play when we do, but if you want to know how to do it now, the guys over at Young House Love have already done it and you can find that tutorial here.

We also picked up this door mat for only $4.99:

The plan for that little guy is to paint it! After we purchased the new patio furniture, made new pillows, and made a new wreath, the old gray and very manly door mat just wasn't going to work anymore! So I'm going to paint this with probably some bright happy colors to welcome our guests! :)

And finally we bought four 5x7 white frames (found here for $3.99 for two) and two 8.5x11 white frames (found here for $1.99 each) so I can do some fun stuff with scrapbook paper, printables, and anything else I can find on Pinterest :)

I think I'll have bunches of fun with these things (if I can decide what exactly I want to do with all of them! That's my worst enemy! Indecision! Well, that and procrastination) :) 

So what do y'all think about the million questions I posed in this post? What colors do you think would be good for our curtains? Any ideas on what to paint on our new door mat? Or how about ideas for the frames we bought?

The Tack Attack!

A while back I found this image on Pinterest:

{From here}

It is Styrofoam balls covered in thumb tacks and spray painted. So cheap and so chic! I got everything I needed to do this project at Dollar Tree and spent $4. Now, I haven't painted them yet (because as I mentioned in this post I can't decide what color to do in that entry way) but I have them finished and in a vase on the table! Here's what they look like right now:

The how-to is pretty straight forward....Get some Styrofoam balls...

And some thumbtacks:

And just stick those puppies in a line (preferably with a movie...it gets less boring that way) until you have something like this:

I started at the bottom and moved up, but the girl that thought of this idea has also done it starting in the middle; so try it out and see how you like it! In the mean time, what color do you think I should paint these? I think white would not bring in enough color, so maybe some kind of red? I love the color that the original person used (that blue and green are to kill for!) but that doesn't really match anything in my house sooo....I guess I shouldn't do that! What do you think? What color?

A Pinterest Paper Portal of Phosphorescence

I may or may not have just looked up synonyms of the word lantern to try to find one that started with a P...What can I say? I love alliteration! :) I told you guys yesterday that I would give you the deets on this little cutie!

It's no secret that these are all over the blogosphere not to mention Pinterest but I wanted a little something to go in our entry way that would bring some color in and I needed to do it on like a zero dollar amount budget. So this was the perfect project! And I didn't want to put something cheap, cute, and decor related up in my house without sharing it with the world!!! (okay, so it's a small world whatevs! I'm gonna dream big! Because it's Thursday and that's a good day to dream!) ;)

I just got a paper lantern from the Dollar Tree (for only a buck!) and I got red tissue paper from Wal-Mart (also for a buck!).

Here's the original paper lantern (this was pre-new flash and is terribly blurry! Sorry!)

Then I just cut the tissue paper into circles/teardrop shapes (because I can't cut a circle to save my life) and then taped them around the little rings of the paper lantern!

I haven't hung it up yet. Partly because I'm not sure how to do that, and partly because I'm not sold on the red...it just looks a little...blah. It matches our living room and stuff, I'm just not sure it's right for the first thing that I see every time I walk in our house....Idk! But when I decide I'll of course let you guys know!!

What do y'all think? A little blah? Or do you think it's just right? Maybe if I change the color of the paper I'll like it better....any ideas?


**Btw, I had some setting on my blog checked that only allowed comments from other blogger users! Sorry about that!! So, if you want to comment do try! And if it doesn't work....text me/facebook me/email me! (Don't call, because I am notorious for not answering the phone...it's a phobia. Not really, I'm just a pansy. lol Love you guys!)**

Flash!

Ah cameras. They come in all shapes, sizes, colors, and levels of difficulty. I'm definitely one to learn new things when I'm on google or bored or have someone to teach me, but for some reason when it came to our Nikon D80 DSLR camera I just did not have the touch. Blake could pick up the camera and flip some switches and turn some knobs and the pictures that I took that looked terrible would magically turn into these gorgeous pictures! Talk about frustrating! But that is about to change! Well at least a little bit. I'm still learning what ISO is and what kind of white balance to use and Lord knows I still haven't figured out how to change the shutter speed on that thing, but we got something that will make automatic mode look way better! YAY! We got this little bundle of joy:

It's an SB400 flash! It wasn't too expensive (at least in the world of DSLR camera accessories; it was $119.95 at B&H Photo) and man does it make a difference! Blake took a bunch of shots to depict what a difference it makes. The photos labeled D80 flash are the pics with the flash that comes on the camera and the ones labeled SB400 flash are the ones taken with our new flash! :)

Here is Blake's dad's super cool fretless bass!

D80 Flash:

SB400 Flash:

Apparently this is used to wrangle all the cords that go inside a computer that you build..learn something new every day! :)

D80 Flash:

SB400 Flash:

I feel like this doesn't need an explanation, but it feels weird and nonsymmetrical to not have something here, so this is our lens cap! Fancy huh? ;)

D80 Flash:

SB400 Flash:

Yeah this is a motherboard, and yes I married someone who is just as much a nerd as I am...scary huh? ;)

 D80 Flash:

SB400 Flash:

More deets on this soon!

D80 Flash:

SB400 Flash:

Her name is Precious and we pet-sat for Blake's parents and she was sooo cute! I was sad to see her go, but it was nice to be able to sit in peace without having to worry about someone tinkling everywhere :)

D80 Flash:

SB400 Flash:

Our rings! :)

D80 Flash:

SB400 Flash:

D80 Flash:

SB400 Flash:

I did a fun craft with these I'll show you guys soon!

D80 Flash:

SB400 Flash:

Amazing what a difference that semi-inexpensive flash makes! It bounces light off of the ceiling and so it takes away that harsh light and shadows from a direct flash like the stock one on the D80. I would venture to say that if you are a blogger that puts pictures up on a regular basis, a good camera and flash is one of the most important investments you can make. But that's just my opinion!! :) So what about you guys? Have you guys gotten any new techy items lately?

Father's Day Gifts

We had a great Father's Day! It was so good to see our families and get to spend time with them! (It's amazing how difficult it gets to see family once you get married/get more responsibility! Or maybe it's because we moved 45 minutes away from our families...have I mentioned I'm ready to sell our house!!??!!) Anywho, we started our father's day with going to church and we had 10 babies dedicated!!! Gah they were so cute!! And our associate pastor Jim McCann IV gave an incredible sermon! (You can hear his stuff on getintotheword.net) Then we headed over to my grandmother's house to have father's day and birthday lunch (my dad's birthday was June 9th and my uncle's birthday was Sunday). So we got to eat some delicious home cooking and give my dad his presents! We got him a laptop lap desk so he can do school work (he's going to UAB for nursing) or just surf the internet wherever he wants to and have it be comfy! And we got him this cute cup:

Every time I see him he always has a cup with a straw in it! So I figured I'd make it easier to carry! This has a twist-on top and the straw won't fall out! And I heart that saying on it :)

After we left my grandmother's house, we went to Blake's grandparents' house and spent some time with his family! I'm really blessed to have in-laws that I actually enjoy being around and feel like a legit part of the family when I'm with them! We got Blake's dad a blue otter box for his iPhone! It's so cool looking...well I guess you can decide if it's actually cool looking...it looks like this:

We were a bit surprised when we got to Blake's grandparents' house and he had his iPhone in an otterbox! (We had good intel that he wanted a blue otterbox...) But it turns out that he already had one but he saw the blue one and liked that better. So he can pass his black otterbox to someone else with an iPhone (like the person who gave us the intel) lol It all turned out peachy though! He was happy to have his blue otterbox so we were happy that you know...we got something that he liked :) Then we went to Chili's (YUM!) and then we went home! (Actually, we did a little detour to get my purse that I left at my grandmother's house...oops!) lol

So we had a great father's day! How were y'all's father's days? Get your father's anything awesome? Do tell!

Let's Play Catch Up!

Hi all!
I know I've been away for a while (a whole 2 weeks! What was I thinking?!) But I'm back now! I took a little vacation from blogging to relax a bit and not bore you with the not much of anything I had to talk about! Honestly I haven't really been doing that much here lately. Now that school is out and sorority life has slowed down quite a bit, I've had so much free time that I wasn't really sure what to do with it! I had been crafting and blogging to pass the time, but let's be honest, that stuff takes dinero and if you're trying to be fiscally responsible, you should probably watch how much you spend on crafty stuff because it's so fun that it can get out of hand realllly quickly! So basically I took a break but I did actually do some stuff! Oh you want to know what I did? Thought you'd never ask ;)

I've been watching copious (read: way to much) amounts of television. Actually, I've been watching my computer screen because Blake and I don't have cable (fiscally responsible, remember?), but I've been rewatching the newest seasons of The Vampire Diaries and The Office. Which are amazing, by the way. If you are a fan of either of those shows, bravo. Good choice. And let's be friends. :) Those I watched on my own (Blake, like most guys, is not a fan of vampire love stories....and he's also not huge on watching tv episodes he's already seen and since we've seen all of The Office, I just rewatched them all by my lonesome). We did watch something amazing together though! Burn Notice. Best summer show ever! (Blake thinks it's the best show period, but the aforementioned shows take the lead in my book). I'm not sure how long it took us to watch it from Season 1 to Season 4 but we watched like two episodes a night for a few weeks, so the fact that we're all caught up and have to wait for the newest episodes to come out this Thursday (all the best shows air on Thursdays) leaves a baby pang of sadness in my heart (but it's accompanied by super excitement for Thursday so....yeah). Needlesstosay, it's been kinda weird without a two hour television event with the hubby pants every night, but we're dealing :)

Even though I mentioned that sorority life has slowed down quite a bit, my office in the sorority, Membership Vice President, hits its peak during the summer, so I've still had plenty to do as far as planning for recruitment goes. I've been attempting to coordinate a retreat, figure out cool facts about AXiD that would be cool for sisters to know, choose outfits, dances, songs, lyrics, glitter, find stuff in storage units, try to figure out what we still have and what we've thrown out....it has definitely kept me busy! :) But I know it'll definitely be worth it once we have new sisters to share our bond and secrets with! YaY! :)

I've also been trying to keep up my housewifely duties! I vacuumed yesterday! And it was epic. Not really. I hate vacuuming, but I did it! And I have to say it looks pretty snazzy :) I also have been trying to keep up the dishes and the laundry and dusting and all that fun stuff! I've actually done some more organizing, which I will probably show you guys later. But I have to say, through all the cleaning sprees I've had, there are some things that I just don't know what to do with! I read on someone's blog that it's good to have a junk drawer as long as your clean it out every once in a while, and I can see how that's helpful! There are just random things that don't really belong anywhere but I can't throw them out because I know as soon as I do, we'll need those things! Ugh! So frustrating!!

Blake and I are continuing to read through the Old Testament and we're in 2 Chronicles now... :)

I've been trying out more of Abby at My Yellow Sandbox's hairstyles, which you'll see more of in coming days :)

I've been preparing for Alpha Xi Delta's national convention that's in Atlanta in July (we have to wear business casual attire and pack extra for sisterhood events and stuff and I just don't have that much stuff! So I've been on a mission to buy (cheaply of course) cute stuff for convention!)

And I've been getting things together for Blake and my one year anniversary that's coming up this Sunday! (crazzzzy that it's already been a year!!! Holy moley!!)

So what have you guys been up to while I've been away?? Watched any cool shows? Found any random stuff you don't know what to do with in your house?

The Method To My Chocolatey Madness

I did it! I made those super cute graduation caps from Wednesday's post! It took a little longer than I expected (an hour and 15 minutes), but I think if I did them today I could do them in about 45 minutes now that I have a method down. As a recap, my youth group had a party celebrating the graduating seniors this past Wednesday and I wanted to make something cute, and I found these on Pinterest:

Here's how mine turned out:

I used the method from Bakerella but instead of Godiva chocolate squares (which are a bit too expensive for my taste) I used Hershey's snack size bars and barbecue skewers from the Dollar Tree instead of lollipop sticks! Okay, I'll start from the beginning!

First I stuck my mini-reese's in the refrigerator to try to not have gross sides. But it didn't work...I think it's because they kind of melted on the way home in my car because it is sooo hot these days! See what I'm talking about?

Oh well! Didn't bother me! But I emptied the bag of mini-reese's that I got at Wal-Mart for $2.50, wrapperless on some wax paper, like so:

Then I got my skewers out. They were quite a bit too long, so I "cut" them by making a mark with a pen, making an indention with scissors, and breaking the stick. I got pictures to illustrate! So exciting, right?

Okay, this is the actual length of the skewers...perfect for shishkabobs, but waaay too long for what I'm doing!

So, I made a mark with a pen (all at one time...I layed the skewers out in a line so that I didn't have to mark each one individually and take foooorever), then I made that indentation with some scissors (they couldn't cut all the way through the stick...pansies).

 Then I broke them with my bare hands (I'm such a beast, I know) and put the non-usable side in a pile to go in the trash (I couldn't use them because my reese's were falling apart when I tried to put in the non-pointy side of the skewer...but Bakerella's version uses lollipop sticks that aren't pointy so I must've been doing something wrong)

And put the super awesome pointy ones in the pile to be used (btw, disregard my disgusting cutting board...kool-aid is such a jerk sometimes! But not to worry, it's all clean now!)

Then I stuck the pointy side of the skewer into the flat side of the reese's mini. Then I moved onto the top part of the hat!

I cut broke at the middle seam the snack size hershey's bar so that there were two sections to one hat, like this:

Then I flipped them over and used some yellow cake icing that I got from WalMart in the ready-to-squeeze bag. Well actually, I started out trying to use it without a tip (because I'm a cheapo and didn't want to buy icing tips for one project!). I tried making a straight line with a toothpick, my fingers, everything and nothing worked! Then I got a bag and cut a tiny hole in the corner and that worked like a charm!!

See all the cute little graduation hat toppers! Way to go Mr. Plastic Baggy! :) Also, see that chocolate almond bark in the background of that picture above? That was my glue!

I put one square in a little bowl along with some milk and microwaved it for 30 seconds; stirred, 15 seconds; stirred and scooped some extra into another tiny bowl I had on hand.  Then I used the end of that spoon I used to scoop the extra, to scoop the melted almond bark onto the small side of the reese's mini and stuck the little hats on top of the reese's!

Then I stuck all of them into some packing styrofoam Blake had in the office and let them cool! Which is that picture that you saw above!

And once they cooled, I put them in those red soho cups to be transported.

Then I thought about the hour long drive we were about to make in the 90 degree weather and thought...these aren't going to make it. So I got a big pot and put some lunch freezer blocks in the bottom and put the soho cups in as well. And they made it all the way there in the backseat of my car! Well, actually there were two that didn't make it, but church members were happy to take those off my hands anyway :)

And the party was a success! Everyone liked these little thingies, and told me they tasted good (I don't really like chocolate other than reese's cups, so I didn't try one).

Here's some pics from the par-tay!

Mmmm....Pizza!

Yay! Congrats Grads!! :)

Super cute right?? And I didn't even know the red soho cup would match the decor! Yippee!

Action shot! ;)

Stacy and I manning  womanning the nachos and drinks in the kitchen! (Isn't she stinkin gorgeous?!? LOVE HER!) :)

 And I also made these little guys as presents for the graduates (they're page corner bookmarks!) (tutorial available here!)

Blake made the little beaks made of money on the car ride to the church, aren't they super cute?! Love love them! :)

So that's the story! It was super fun making all that stuff (although I had a bit of a time constraint which made it more stressful that it should've been, but that's my fault) :)

How were your May festivities? Have any graduation parties of note? Or was it all quiet on the western front (or whatever front you're in...like I'm in the southeastern front...okay I'll stop now ;) )? Hope y'all's week has been fantastic and your weekend will be even better! :)