First Day of School

I can NOT believe that my oldest child will be starting Kindergarten on Monday! It just can't be so.

I of course will have my camera charged and ready to go for the big event and one photo I know I'll need to take is the First Day photo. I want to make sure that I remember it well since that day will probably fly by in a whirlwind of emotions. She's done Pre-K and all sorts of other "schools" and MDO's but this time it's way different! Am I right? Surely those of you who've done this already can appreciate where I'm coming from.

So, in honor of her first day, I've created some printables to use to document her first day (and your child's first day!).
These are 8x10s and go from Pre-K thru 6th grade.

Get them here.
I would show you a picture of my daughter holding this so you get the idea... but she just got out of the pool with crazy wet hair. So, you'll have to imagine and come back next week to see how the "real thing" goes!

31 Winner!!

We have a WINNER

for our

GIVEAWAY!!!

57. soonerfans said...[Reply to comment]

I like the Everyday Tote!

AUGUST 15, 2011 6:38 PM

Thank you to EVERYONE who participated!! There are more giveaways in store, so don't venture too far!

Congratulations Soonerfans!! Contact us, using the email link at the top right corner of this page & we'll get your prize to you! And just to let you all know, Lindsay is a Longhorn & I'm an Aggie, so you can imagine how painful this was for us! Hopefully this is the only thing Sooner fans win this Fall :) :)

The little dresser that could

No piece of furniture in my house has been used & abused quite as much as this little dresser. It's been in all 3 of my kids rooms, at one time was our nightstand & has even served as an entry table.

But this is it's best home yet.

Right between my kitchen and living room. I've been wanting to bring more white into that area & this was the easiest (& cheapest) way to do it.

I removed the bottom drawers hoping that there would be shelves underneath.

There weren't.

No problem.

I purchased a $5 piece of wood from Lowes and made my own.

And I'm very happy with it.

Once again, my little dresser comes through in the clutch.

Coming Soon

I finally decided what will go on this long blank wall in my kitchen. Stay tuned to see what my blue tape has in store!

I'm pretty excited about it.

You've got to be kidding me...

I finally got a few new pillows for our living room.

I'm loving the light gray/blue background and still some of my 'go to' colors of red and green.
I had my eye on them for a while at Hobby Lobby.
They'd been moved to the 60% off aisle which I LOVED. But I was SHOCKED to see the original price tag.

I thought to myself, "Who would spend $100 on a pillow!!??" Not this girl apparently.
Even 60% didn't help me out here.
So. I. Waited. and Waited.
Eventually they got down to $9.99 and I scooped up three of them.

They are nice, comfy, pretty pillows. Worth $100? Not in my book.

Maybe it's a scam for me to think I got such a GREAT deal. 90% off is pretty stellar. :)

Baseball Scoreboard {Wall Art}

When I saw this scoreboard in the Pottery Barn Kids catalog a few months back I tore it out (this was before I discovered Pinterest!) and knew I would do it "someday".

Well, that "someday" has come!




Last weekend while my husband was out of town, I got to work on this little project.
First things first... Wood!
I used some scrap plywood we'd been saving in the garage.
I measured the area the sign would hang and cut the plywood to size (4' x 3') using my jigsaw.

I chose to use the knotty side of the plywood to give it a little more character & spray painted it green.
When working with spray paint your colors are pretty limited so if I were doing it again I would have hand painted with a color closer to the PBK inspiration photo. I just like it better.

Once it was dry I used painters tape to mark my lines for the scoreboard. This is where the measure twice, tape once rule would have come in handy! After painting the middle line & ripping the tape off I realized that the two 'boxes' weren't the same size. My mom had come into town and we tried it again, this time successfully!

I created stencils for all the letters and numbers using my Silhouette machine. That little machine was AMAZING for this project.

Using a sponge brush I got to work. Tip: Use a rounded sponge brush for this. I just didn't have one on hand.

For the changeable score plaques I used paper templates to figure out how big they needed to be.

Then I used those templates to cut out the rectangles with my jigsaw & mitre saw. We then gave them a quick coat of spray paint.

Once they dried, I used my silhouette again to create the score stencils and painted them on. We drilled a small hole in the top of each piece of wood for the jute rope to slip through. Mom made a knot at one end with a loop to hang on the nail.

Last thing was to tape off the edge and paint a white border all around the scoreboard.

I nailed small nails in each of the Visitor/Home sections so that I could hang the score for each inning. Once I had them where I wanted them I tied a knot on the front of the plaque and trimmed the excess jute rope. I'm wondering how long it will take my 3 year old to figure out that these things can move (and be lost!). :)

He's pretty proud of the thing and I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. There are a few imperfections that bother me when I look at it, but overall the end result was exactly what I was going for. So, don't wait... Take those inspiration photos you've been Pinterest-ing and go for it!

UPDATED:I've had several questions about this project in the comments so I wanted to try and answer as best I could.

1. Do you take orders?
Yes! I would love to create a custom scoreboard.  The charge is $325. Remember it's a large piece... So the bulk of this is for shipping. (Shipping costs over $175 will be added on to the total).

 I will also sell the stencils if you want to create your own. The charge for that is $35 (includes postage).

2. What font did you use?
It's called Copperplate Gothic

3. What's the wall color?
It's Sherwin Williams Whole Wheat

4. What are your margins/letter sizes, etc?
See the photo below... :)

Let me know if I missed any of your questions...




Linked here:

Chic on a Shoestring Decorating
Fingerprints on the Fridge
The Shabby Nest

Giveaway {Thirty-One}

Whoo-hoo!!! We have another giveaway.
I'm pretty excited about this.

Sherilan contacted me after our last giveaway and said she'd love to host a giveaway of some great Thirty-One products!

Have you heard of Thirty-One? They have a great line of bags & totes that come in all sorts of great fabrics and can be personalized! I'm a huge fan of personalizations so that is something I love about their product.

Well, Sherilan is offering up two bags for this giveaway!

The Thermal Tote is great for taking lunches to and from work, for your kids lunches at school, or to keep you little ones bottles warm/cold. You'll love having this to take lunch to the park this fall!


The thermal tote will come in the free spirit floral pattern (shown below).



The mini organizer...how great this thing is! The outside of the bag is covered in pockets to stick all sorts of things in. Keep it in your craft closet with scissors, floral wire cutters, permanent markers, tape, etc. All your necessary items in one handy location. Take it with you on road trips and keep your kid's toys in the bag and snacks around the edge. The possibilities are endless!


The mini organizer will come in a brown fabric.

So, are you convinced? Do you want to win?

Here's how to do it:
1. leave a comment here telling us you'd like to win
2. become a follower of our blog and leave a comment to tell us you did
3. become a fan on Facebook and leave a comment telling us you did
4. visit Sherilan's site and come back to tell us which is your favorite item

If you're already a Google follower, Bloglovin' follower, or follow on some sort of reader let us know or if you are already a Facebook Fan tell us. Everyone has 4 chances to win!

The giveaway begins TODAY and runs until Thursday, the 18th! Winner will be announced next Friday! Good luck to you.





Linked this giveaway to the directory at Someday Crafts.