Is it a catastrophe or an opportunity?

Until yesterday afternoon, this was what the wall adjacent to my front door looked like (well, not exactly like this because this photo is several years old but the arrangement on the wall is just the same):

I found the trio of antique oyster plates back in 2009 at a thrift store. I seriously love these plates even though I've never eaten an oyster in my life (unless you count Rocky Mountain Oysters--those I have eaten!) They have an awesome scowly Neptune face at the bottom and then mermaids around the sides. I looked high and low for the fourth plate but never found it, though it all worked out in the end because I was able to use the three plates in a nice symmetrical arrangement.

The mirror in the middle of the wall arrangement was an early thrift find when we'd just moved into this house nine years ago. The small silhouettes are actually John Derian coasters from Target that I have stuck with poster putty to some of the saucers from my wedding china.

Yesterday afternoon I was in the kitchen when I heard an almighty crash from the front room, and walked in to find this:

Somehow the mirror came off the wall and took out an adjacent oyster plate on its way to the ground. The plate shattered into a zillion pieces and the corner of the mirror made a nice series of gouges and paint marks on my wood floor. Boo!

I'm bummed to lose one of my pretty oyster plates and now my nice symmetrical arrangement is toast too. I suppose I could move the top center plate over to the side and find something new to fill its space, and I may just do that for a while but I think actually that I might be ready for a change! I'm bored with that mirror and I wouldn't at all be opposed to sending it right back to the thrift store--it has been nearly nine years, after all! I bought a new chair last weekend at World Market so I'm in the mood to switch things up a bit. I love a new decorating challenge so maybe losing one of my pretty plates isn't such a bad thing, after all!

The Minion Birthday party

 Hello, everybody! I have a husband again and I couldn't be happier! I mentioned before that he was gone for a while--he left on August 6 for a school and didn't come home until September 18. Oof, that was a rough one; really difficult on me physically, mentally and emotionally. SO glad to leave it behind. I feel 500% better in every way now that he is back again.

Porter turned 4 on September 17 and we decided to let him have a 'friend' party for the first time this year. Of course we had to to wait until Daddy came home to help us celebrate, and after throwing Maren's LEGO Friends party back in March solo (which I have just now realized that I never blogged), I was more than happy to wait for reinforcements.

I talked Porter into having a Minion party. He did insist on a Spiderman cake, and I gave in on that one because, let's be honest--the Minion thing was kind of all about me. I found some really great printable resources through Pinterest that made the party really easy to put together.

For party favors I made Minion Twinkies using this free printable, which was originally designed to go around push-up pops but happens to fit perfectly around Twinkies! I will recommend that if you make these, you buy the Sara Lee or Little Debbie versions though, because they come in clear wrappers whereas the Twinkies have Hostess printed in red all over the wrapping and that annoyed me. I used the free printable from here to make the little labels to transform tiny squirt guns into Vector's Squid Launchers. Because my guns were smaller I had to closely trim the labels and then I ran them through my Xyron sticker maker to turn them into labels. The favors also included a few Minion bandages (Wal-Mart), and some little candies and Minion tattoos from Party City. I packaged them all up in large cello bags (Dollar Tree) and tied them with yellow ribbons.

I found this fantastic printable download for Minion goggles on Etsy and it was absolutely worth the $2.99! It gives you three different sizes of goggles and mouths. For my Minion balloons I used the largest size of goggles printed onto full-sheet label paper (Wal-Mart) and cut them out and just adhered them onto the balloons.

I also used the printable goggles for our Pin the Goggles on the Minion game, though I forgot to take any photos of them. I printed those onto regular paper and just cut them out and put tape on the back--no point wasting the sticker paper for this task. For the picture I free-handed the Minion and Maren helped me color him.

And the third use for the printable goggle download was to make the faces on the bottles for our Minion bowling game! I used the smallest size goggles and I did print these on sticker paper. I used 1 liter bottles of clear flavored water, then wrapped a piece of yellow cardstock around the top and a strip of blue around the bottom. The sticker paper goggles and mouths were easy to adhere and the bottles cracked me up! We set them up and let the kids roll a basketball at them.

There is also a free printable available to make your own Minion goggles available here. I printed these out on white cardstock and then cut and assembled them. I ended up adding a piece of elastic string to the back, attached to each earpiece, because they wouldn't stay on the kids' heads with just the cardstock. I forgot to get any photos of those, darnit! Between the goggles for the kids, the ones on the balloons, bottles and for the game, I cut out SO MANY GOGGLES!

The other game we played was made also using a free printable from here. The original idea was to use a Nerf gun to shoot the aliens but don't have one of those, and instead found a 3-pack of water guns on super clearance from Target. I printed the aliens and space ships on plain printer paper and then 'laminated' them using clear packing tape on the front and back before I cut them out. I did have to tape tongue depressors to the backs to keep the aliens from flopping over. I cut slots into the top of some plastic cups and poked the tongue depressors through there so the aliens would stand up.

The plastic cup setup wasn't ideal, as our water guns were too weak to knock over the aliens but the kids didn't seem to care much and just had fun squirting water all over!

I even got to draw Minions on my cute chalkboard banner! Hooray for colored chalk. Oh, and one last thing we did was that I found Despicable Me printable coloring sheets for the kids to color as we waited for all of the guests to arrive.

The party was really very easy and fun. I made everything the morning of the party although it would have of course been a lot easier to get it ready beforehand (hello, procrastination). We had 4 little guests besides Porter, which was the perfect number. The weather was beautiful (unlike Maren's snowy party) and we were able to do all of the party games outside so I didn't have to worry about 5 excited little boys trashing my house. :)

I think Porter had a happy day! This is him exclaiming over his gift from us, a pet fish. :)

The FREE antique typewriter

Antique Royal typewriter:  $65.99
plus tax                            $5.28
total                                 $71.27
less store credit                -$73.88
Final price                        FREE plus $2.61 left over


That's right, FREE! It must have been my lucky day, right? I stopped into my favorite little consignment store yesterday afternoon and spotted this awesome Royal typewriter with a price of $65.99. Now, that really is a pretty good price by itself because I regularly see antique typewriters around this area priced around $100. But the best part is that I had consignment credit that was $2.61 more than I needed, making the typewriter FREE!

It looks like it has been living in somebody's very dusty attic or shed so I'm going to need to clean it up a bit, but I'm excited to have it. I'm sure I could throw it on Craigslist and sell it pretty easily, but I think I'm going to hang onto it for a while and have fun using it for display. Hooray for FREE!

Youth Conference carnival-themed decorations

Thank you all for your well-wishes about my big news! I have to admit that I have had a difficult time being really excited about being pregnant this time around. I don't know if I truly was more sick this time or if it just seemed that way, but June and July were pretty rough for me. Having to deal with my father-in-law's sudden illness and death, my dog's sudden illness and death, being on the road (and therefore sleeping poorly) for nearly three weeks total in a four week period and my kids being out of school and home all day was not made any easier by feeling nauseated and exhausted 80% of the time. Feeling like poo didn't make me thrilled to be pregnant--it only made me wonder why on earth I'd done this to myself when I clearly knew better?

However, sharing the news and having my first ultrasound last week and seeing a photo of my little guy have really helped, as have all of the well-wishes from all of you and my other friends and family. I think I'm finally pulling out of the queasiness and not a moment too soon because The Mister had to go out of town for work and he won't be home until late September. I am definitely looking forward to the start of school for my kids next week! Even though Porter will only be in preschool two days a week for a few hours each time, it will be a small break from kids and I'm looking forward to it.

I haven't done a whole lot this summer that's worth blogging about but I do have a few things that I'd like to share. Back in the first week of June, I got to decorate for the opening night of a multi-day conference put on by my church for 200 or so teenagers.

We decided on a carnival/fair sort of theme, and I had fun sketching and dreaming up ideas for how I could decorate a huge church gym on a budget. This was my first sketch and it was fun to see that many of the things I made actually turned out like my initial ideas!

I sewed miles of garlands from pink and yellow tickets. In the end, we decided to cut them and hang them vertically and I love how it filled up the space and contrasted with the pennant banners. I also sewed all of the miles of pennant banners--they are made of red, yellow, turquoise and white plastic tablecloths from the dollar store. I know that you can purchase pre-made plastic banners from the party store but they wouldn't have fit my color scheme so I was willing to do it myself. It really wasn't difficult at all and you'd be surprised how many triangles you can get out of just a few tablecloths!

I ordered a large roll of red and white striped plastic from Oriental Trading Company. My initial idea was to use it to drape the doorway to the gym to look like curtains, but logistically it just wouldn't work because of the way the doors open. Instead, I had my helpers use it to make bunting across the bottom of the stage. It didn't swag quite the way I had hoped but I think it looked fine in the end. I did use some of the brightly-colored Christmas lights that I borrowed to light up the front of the stage.

The giant arrow was a DIY project. The theme for the entire event was "Know It, Live It, Love It" and my original plan was to make these marquee letters spelling out the theme in lights to place across the stage. While I still believe that would have looked really cool, it would have been an immense amount of work to make all of those letters and expense to purchase enough strands of lights to light them all. Because I was using church funds for my budget, I felt a responsibility to only purchase materials that could be used again or that were so inexpensive (ie, dollar store tablecloths) that it wouldn't matter if they were thrown away.

In the end, I made only the arrow and used my own two strings of lights for it. It really wasn't difficult either and it looked really cool when it was plugged in! (I will say for anyone wanting to make these letters--with all those bulbs so close together, it got HOT quickly and I was a little nervous about the hot light bulbs up next to the foam core, posterboard and paint. We actually put it on a metal cookie sheet from the kitchen because I was anxious about it sitting on the carpet.)

My signs even looked similar to the ones I originally sketched! I used sheets of foam core from the dollar store. I cut each in half and used a piece of posterboard to make a mortise mask so that I was making a border. I used the same red spray paint from the arrow project and sprayed around the edges of the mask, then traced around the inside edge with a Sharpie to add definition. I even made the side lines wavy to simulate the torn edge on a ticket. My friend Angie used her Silhouette to cut the letters from black cardstock. The font was from the Silhouette online store and it was exactly the look I wanted!

After I made all of the pennant banners, I still had tablecloth leftover so I cut it into strips and made ruffles with my sewing machine. To make the ruffles I just pulled gently on the plastic as I fed it into the machine and it ruffled itself. We used some of them to swag on the fronts of the tables.

I even snuck in a few of my vintage treasures like this old blue canning jar full of pinwheels (made by my mom for my birthday a few years ago, but the perfect colors/motifs)

and I dug out a few of my vintage boxes and baskets to be used to hold bags of popcorn.

There was a fun photo booth set up as well. I specified red and white stripes and they used dollar store tablecloths for it as well, and it looked fantastic! I made another banner to hang across the backdrop.

 My very favorite decorations were at the front of the room. I had two big empty wall spaces on either side of the stage that I needed to fill and when I saw them, I knew just what to do!

I found scrapbook paper at Michael's in various patterns in the color scheme of red, turquoise and yellow with touches of royal blue and pink. I couldn't have done this without my sweet friend Angie, who graciously made one million paper lollies for me over a weekend.

For the backing, I taped together two more sheets of dollar store foam core to make a nice, large surface. Then I simply arranged the paper lollies to my liking and used a hot glue gun to attach them to the base and each other. I absolutely LOVE how they turned out and they were a nice way to make a big impact without spending much money (especially if you can catch the paper when it is 5/$1 at Michael's!)

I ended up spending about $125 on all the materials. It was actually a bit less than that, as there were some materials that I didn't end up using but wasn't able to return (a can of spray paint, a few more sheets of posterboard/foam board/tablecloths from the dollar store). The largest expense was the roll of red and white striped plastic (around $25) but we used it on the stage and then cut the rest of the roll into shorter lengths and used it as table runners on all of the many tables around the room so we certainly got our money's worth out of it. Also, a friend who is in charge of another church activity this fall took nearly all of the decorations home with her and she plans to reuse them then, so they will do double-duty!

In the end, I'm very pleased with how it all turned out. Our church gyms are notoriously difficult places to decorate because they're huge, have harsh fluorescent lighting (hence the bad color in all of my photos), giant tall ceilings, and a basketball court painted on the floor. I knew I couldn't turn it into a wonderland on $125 with just a few helpers, but I do think that my decorations made it look happier and more festive and hopefully made the atmosphere more fun for the kids that attended that night. I'm thankful that I had this opportunity to use my creative talents and thankful that I have friends who had the confidence in me to entrust me with the responsibility for doing it. It was fun!

Oh, and one more detail...

It's

a

BOY!!

And then there's this...

Weekend Junk Finds: Christmas in July

I haven't been doing much thrifting this summer, which is sad because it's prime garage sale season. Things just haven't lined up right to do it and truthfully, I just haven't had the desire. I did read last weekend that the local Goodwill Outlet stores were doing a Christmas in July promotion and offering 10% off any Christmas goodies you manage to dig intact out of the bins. Well, the prospect of finding even a little bit of my beloved vintage Christmas was enough to make me willing to drag my kids all the way to two different Goodwill Outlets--twice in one week, even!

I only had any luck on the first trip, making the other ones a total waste of time and gas money but this was enough to make me happy! I tried to show Maren what I was looking for and she worked hard to find me more vintage ornaments. She's still learning how to tell the difference between the new and old, but I'll turn that girl into a vintage Christmas spotter yet! She was excited to help me shop. Both kids were really well-behaved and I had no problem rewarding them with some books from the bins--at 30¢ each, that was a bribe I could handle!

The Goodwill Outlet is tricky--they roll out the huge bins and leave them on the floor for some predetermined amount of time. Then throughout the day, they take rows of bins to the back and bring out new ones. The 'inventory' is rotating but not quick enough for me. Only a small fraction of the bins on the floor even had Christmas stuff in them, so waiting around and hoping those would be replaced was just not going to happen. I'm lucky to have even found these goodies!

In other junk news, my favorite local thrift store is making major changes and I really hate it. :( It was a small chain that was apparently bought by Savers/Value Village sometime in the last year. The last time I visited a few weeks ago, I noticed that they had changed the pricing structure and brought in new tags that look like the ones they use at Savers.

When I stopped in the other day, I found the entire store had been rearranged and reorganized. This thrift is housed in a former grocery store space so it is HUGE but for some reason they squished all of the clothing racks together. Now you literally cannot pass two carts down an aisle. Heck, even if you don't have a cart yourself, if somebody is standing there in the aisle with their cart, you have to ask to squeeze by them and run into the clothes on the racks to do so. For all the bric-a-brac stuff, they went from having 4 rows of shelves with LONG, wide aisles to turning the shelves perpendicular and creating about 20 short rows with narrow aisles. It's a total pain in the bum and will be even worse if you're trying to use a cart. It's all just so squished together and I can't figure out why because there is a ton of empty, wasted space all over the store now, except for where the actual merchandise is.

That thrift was my favorite--it was also the closest to my house, the cleanest, and had the most selection because it was so large. I'm so disappointed in the changes they made because they most certainly weren't improvements! I almost never go to the local Savers anymore because the prices are high and the selection is poor, and I'm bummed that my favorite store looks to be headed that direction if the Savers corporate offices have anything to do with it. :(

American Girl Crafts House Party

Maren and I were chosen to host an American Girl Crafts House Party and this morning was our event. House Party is a website that partners with different companies to get the word out about their products by introducing them at parties. Anybody can apply to be a host and it's completely free! Depending on what demographic the sponsor is looking for, you may be chosen to host a party and you receive a fun Party Pack with all kinds of goodies to share with your friends. This particular party was sponsored by American Girl Crafts and we were thrilled to be chosen as hosts! Maren has an American Girl doll AND she loves to do arts and crafts by herself and with friends, so it was a perfect fit for her.

Our Party Pack was filled with these fantastic My Life Scrap & Stuff books, one for each party guest.

We also received dozens of packages of cute coordinating embellishments for the books: die cuts, chipboard letters, dimensional stickers, cute patterned tapes, and much more!

The table was absolutely full of fun things to use to decorate the books. Each book has a nifty glue pen included but I also supplied extra glue sticks for the girls.

We invited our guests to bring their American Girl dollies with them to the party. Some of the girls brought more than one doll--we had quite the crowd at the doll tea party!

We didn't want the dolls to be left out, so we made tiny doll-sized scrapbooks for the guests to decorate and take home. I simply cut cardstock and colored copy paper to size and stapled them down the spine to make a little booklet.

The girls loved personalizing them with the American Girl historical doll stickers that were included in our Party Pack.

The girls happily created and worked on their books.

The hardest thing was probably to choose which of the fun embellishments to use on each page!

The My Life Scrap & Stuff book is designed to be a project that the girls can add to over time. They can journal, include memorabilia and ephemera from their daily lives, photos, and drawings--the more, the better! After they created for a while, we stopped and took a cute group photo with the girls, their books and their dollies.

The girls enjoyed lunch outside on the patio while I cleaned up the craft mess on the table. Even though they had crafted hard, there were still plenty of embellishments leftover so I divided it all up so that the girls could each take home supplies to work on their books in the future.

For food and decorations, we were inspired by this cute paper tablecloth I had stashed away with my party supplies.

Using the colors of the confetti dots as inspiration, I chose 5 different patterns of washi tape from my craft stash. Maren and I used the washi tape and striped twine to make tiny banners to hang over the table and add to the festive feeling.

I also used strips of washi tape to decorate clear plastic 'milk' bottles, then added a sticker letter with each party guest's first initial. Of course, there had to be stripey straws!

The washi tape make the bottles look so cute, and yet I can easily peel it off so the bottles can be washed and reused.

For food, we stuck with a 'tiny' theme in honor of our dollies. I made tiny sandwiches by cutting peanut butter sandwiches into small triangles and securing them with jeweled toothpicks.

We also had baby carrots and tiny grape tomatoes, blueberries, mini Oreos, mini Nilla Wafers and mini cupcakes. I loved that the confetti sprinkles on the cupcakes looked like the colorful dots on the tablecloth! We had pink lemonade in a fancy dispenser to put into the cute milk bottles.

The food was very simple; the cupcakes were store-bought and even making eight peanut butter sandwiches wasn't difficult at all (I'm a stay-at-home mom--I could make a pbj in my sleep! Probably have at some point. ;) The girls gobbled up nearly everything, so cleanup was a breeze as well.

I'm delighted that we were chosen to host this House Party and to familiarize ourselves more with American Girl Crafts. I know our party guests loved their Scrap & Stuff books and had so much fun working on them today. I love that they're a project the girls can continue to work on and a way for them to explore their creativity!

Another loss

First, thank you all so very much for your kind, sweet words about the loss of our dear Bronco doggie. They were such a comfort and I so appreciate the time you took to leave a comment and let me know that you were thinking of me and my family. In that post, I mentioned that my Father-in-Law had just been diagnosed with cancer. Yesterday afternoon, he passed away.

It all happened so quickly. On June 1, he called to tell us that he had cancer. On June 12, the oncologist confirmed that it was Stage 4 and projected 2-3 months. We thought we had all summer to be with him, but that just wasn't the plan. We went to visit him in Utah on June 21, left on Thursday June 27, and just a few days later, July 1, he was gone. His decline was shockingly fast. When we left last Thursday he could still get around with a walker and although he was under heavy pain medication, he was still lucid and could speak with his old sense of humor. In the mere four days that followed, he was rendered unable to walk or speak and his body shut down until he passed peacefully.

One of my favorites. Baby Porter's legacy of good men. My FIL is top right

I don't know whether to be thankful that he didn't have to suffer long (because he was in extreme pain) or frustrated that we didn't have the summer with him that we expected. Maybe it's both. I absolutely believe that his quick passing was part of God's plan. I don't understand it, but I have faith that there was a reason for it. I also believe wholeheartedly that this was why our sweet Bronco went so quickly too--he needed to be there on the other side when my husband's father got there. I don't think it's a coincidence that my FIL went so soon after we left Utah--I think that he saw us all (especially my children) and though we didn't explicitly say 'good-bye' I believe that he knew that we would all be okay and after we left, he was able to let go of this life and move on. It's funny--we had that trip to Utah previously scheduled, before we knew he was sick. We couldn't have timed it more perfectly. Now I don't believe that was a coincidence either.

Papa and Bronco in 2009

I am sad that he's gone. My husband's father was a man of many talents and abilities and I enjoyed spending time with him. He was an accomplished woodworker and could make amazing things out of wood. The wood he preferred to use looked rough and ugly on the outside and full of imperfections. In his hands, he found the beautiful parts inside that wood and made it into something smooth and polished and lovely. Not unlike what God can do with our lives if we let Him.

Papa meets tiny baby Maren for the first time

Bronco

This is my 1000th post. I had planned to do a fun giveaway to celebrate but that is going to have to wait because right now, I don't feel much like celebrating. 2013 continues to be a rough year for my little family. On June 1, we found out that Quin's father has Stage 4 lung cancer. Devastating news that came out of the blue.

Less than a week later, on June 7, I put Quin on an airplane to go see his dad in Utah, and on the way home from the airport I stopped at the vet because Bronco had this lingering cough that seemed to be getting worse. At the vet, I found out that our sweet doggie had cancer. It had metastasized from somewhere in his body and was now in his lungs, which was causing the coughing. I had to call my poor husband and tell him, as he was preparing to go visit his ill father, that not only would we lose his dad--but that we would also lose his beloved Bronco-doggie. That was terrible.

Quin was gone for a week. I didn't tell the kids about the dog because I wanted to wait until The Mister got home. The first night I found out about Bronco, I laid on the floor next to him and sobbed and begged him to last until Quin came home, so that he could say good-bye.

After a very emotionally difficult week for both us us, Quin came home last Friday night, the 14th. Bronco had been doing sorta okay the week previous, but on Saturday he quit eating and we knew that meant that he didn't have long. Each day he got worse and worse--I am still surprised at how quickly he turned. I truly believe that Bronco did what I asked--he waited until Quin came home, but that was all he had left.

Partners in crime

On Sunday afternoon, we had a photographer friend come over and take a few last pictures of us with our doggie and once she left, we broke the news to the kids. It was something I'd been dreading and it really was a heartwrenching as I had feared it would be.

Yesterday we had to make the difficult decision to let our sweet Bronco doggie go. We both know that we did the right thing, as he was suffering, but it was still the most difficult thing I've yet to do. It was horrible. Waking up to an empty house this morning has been heartbreaking.

Meeting a newborn Maren

Bronco came to live with us in January, 2005. I was very pregnant with Maren and we wanted to get a dog before she was born so that we didn't have to deal with a brand-new dog and a brand-new baby at the same time. We found him through a local lab rescue and I do not exaggerate when I say that the minute we met him, we knew he was ours.  Labs as a breed are known for being good with kids but Bronco was exceptionally patient and kind and loving with our children. He truly loved being around kids and was so happy when he got to go outside and play with all the neighbor children. He was THE BEST DOG EVER and I'll fight anyone who says otherwise. Our hearts are broken to lose him.

And yet, the heartbreak is not over for us. Sometime before too long, we will have to say good-bye to Quin's father. We're headed to Utah this weekend because we need to spend time with him while we can. We have many difficult times ahead of us, not the least of which will be telling our kids about their Papa.

My one consolation in all of this: Bronco and Quin's dad loved each other.

I believe that the death of our mortal bodies is not the end. I believe that our Heavenly Father loves us and wants us to be happy. I believe that we can be with our families for eternity. I believe that a loving Father in Heaven would not give us stewardship of animals, let us love them and make them part of our families, and then never let us see them again. I just don't think a loving God will operate that way. I truly believe that we will see Bronco again. And I like to believe that when Quin's dad leaves this mortal life, there will be Bronco's furry head and  waggy tail waiting for him, to make the transition easier. I know they can take care of each other and that is a comfort for me.