Perspective

Is it just me or does everyone get the urge to organize and purge after Christmas?? The playroom was the first to get tackled because I was tired of looking at piles of toys in my foyer.  Forever ago I bought a gutter to make a rain gutter bookshelf, so I FINALLY dusted to off and put it up, LOVE it!  It's so much nicer to have to books facing out so she can see the covers, plus it frees up some bookshelf space for puzzles and such.

We also added some shelves to the closet, easy and cheap!

While cleaning out her room I came across a scrapbook my Mom made of us when Miss M was a tiny little baby.  I almost cried when I saw this pic.

Wow. I obviously knew I was heavy, but seriously this was shocking to me! Lately, I've been really hard on myself, I see pictures of myself and think about how much weight I still want to lose.  I gained 2 pounds over the holidays and push myself to workout out longer and harder at the gym.  I enjoy working out, but over the last few weeks I've been feeling like it's a chore.  This is dangerous!  I don't want to slip back to where I was and I need to make some changes to keep my motivation up.

Resolutions may be cliche, but I rarely make them and this just happens to be coming up on the New Year :)  

I'm going to be happy with myself, I will not freak out over a half pound gain on the scale, I will not obsessively weigh myself every morning,

 I will sweat for fun, if I miss a workout I will not punish myself the next day. 

 I'll be proud of the body I have and the athlete I have become. 

Oh and just because she's too young to make one for herself I'll do one for her :) Miss M and I will run her first 1k in 2012!

DIY Photo Blocks

Is it Christmas yet???  I'm exhausted from all the running around and being gone everyday from sun up to sun down {I'm sure it has a lot to do with shopping with a crazy 2 year old!}.  I'm happy that starting today my Hubs is off for 2 weeks, bring on the toddler free time!

I've been eating out a lot and devouring every Christmas goodie to come my way, which is not great for the scale.  Even after shopping all day I've been forcing myself to hit the gym for 2 hours every night, hopefully it will keep the bulge at bay :)  I'm definitely doing a cleanse after the new year, you will find me curled up in a corner, shaking, while going through sugar withdrawal!

I've been crafting in what little free time I have for friends and family, I've wanted to make these photo blocks for a while!

I started out by going to Lowe's and finding the thickest wood I could.  Not that easy, the only one I could find that would work {They have to stand up on their own} was in the decking section.

Then I cut them into 10.5 x 7.5 but you could do what ever size you wanted.

Next I painted them with black craft paint {spray paint wont work, trust me}

I distressed the edges with sandpaper.

Next I covered with Modge Podge and added some pretty paper.

Then remove the crazy toddler from your work area.

I added some clips, I could only find silver so I sprayed painted them and distressed with some glaze.

The bow is some ribbon and sparkle tulle.

Hope you all have a Merry Christmas!

Last one!

Christmas is fast approaching and I have yet to finish shopping, crafting, and wrapping! My Aunt is coming to stay for 2 weeks and she's a pro wrapper so hopefully I can talk her in to helping :) I'm pretty much the WORST present wrapper ever, I prefer gift bags!

What I am done with is decorating, so I thought I would share the rest of my decor.  I like to look back the following year and see what I did.

My mantle is my favorite part, I heart those glitter houses and have been collecting them for a while.

Miss M is fascinated with the fireplace this year so fires are few and far between.

The pink garland was from some antique show I went to years ago and the stars hanging from them are for Miss M from Home Depot {They light up and play music when you clap, but she can't clap loud enough to set them off so she screams at the top of her lungs instead!}

My fabulous Mother also donated some of her pretties for my hutch.

I also did my buffet, of course with a touch of pink and some cute penguins!

This is just an upside down vase with a little vignette inside!

And of course let's not forget the wreaths! There are only a billion or so in blogland right now.

I'm loving this white one with some holiday picks in it.

This is my favorite, and no I didn't make it, sometimes you just can't pass up store bought! The greens are so pretty with the pink....hmmmm maybe an idea for next years tree?

Happy Hump Day!

Cookie Swap Party

Do you love sugar? Having a great time with your friends? I totally recommend throwing a cookie party, it's was crazy amounts of fun and at the end you get to take home some ridiculous amount of yummy cookies!

Thanks to Pinterest we had lots of great ideas and recipes!

The skewers were from Wal-Mart and just put a cute ornament on it. {of course AFTER you make one of your guest shave them down to fit and give herself a splinter}

This Cranberry Margarita recipe is delish! I'm not sure I've ever mixed tequila with cranberry juice, but it's quite tasty!

This is everyone who made a recipe they found on Pinterest :)

We played a reindeer game that was a lot of fun and made for some great pictures! You divide up in to teams and for 5 minutes you blow up balloons and stuff them in to pantyhose for your head reindeer.  The team with the most balloons inside their antlers wins!

The winning team! {Oh and how cute in the Rudolph nose! I think it's from Target}

Christmas socks were worn by all :)

There were some many amazing treats, like these Red Velvet Sandwich Cookies. We didn't run a contest for best cookie, but because my Mom did so much hard work I made her the unofficial cookie judge :) And the winner is.....

Jen! {She also blogs over at Life, Crafts, & Whatever} Her cookies were delish, she HANDMADE the dough!

How cute are those stars! Recipe found here.  She told me they were a lot of work, but I'm going to go ahead and say it was worth it!

I made everyone a cookie tin with some spray paint and chalkboard paint from, where else, Pinterest.

I bet there were some very happy boyfriends and husbands who got a crap ton of cookies that night :)

If you want to throw your own cookie party check out the Cookie Exchange for rules, tips, and ideas!

Yes, I'm crafting!

School's out! Whew, one more semester under my belt :) I'm looking forward to a month off, so to celebrate I broke out the glue gun.

I happened to have some cute ornaments that didn't have a home and a board laying around the garage.

I gave it a light brushing of Martha's silver metallic paint.

Pulled off the tops and added some hot glue.

I think it's darling with my pink Christmas sign!

I tried to get a picture of Miss M's cute chevron tights from Hanna Anderson because they are so awesome I wanted some too, but she wasn't feeling getting her picture taken :)

Off to Home Depot because where else would I go on my first day off? ha!

Happy Wednesday!

Soooo not a traditional tree

First, I need to preface this by saying that I chose exactly the right man to marry.  Not only is he a wonderful husband and father, but he's just a great guy! He gets me.  I need lots of 'me' time and he's ok with that and I have a deep need for a white and pink Christmas tree.  He gets that too :) So if you are reading this O, thank you for letting me put shabby chic 'crap' , as you call it, all over our house!

We had a pretty tree, but after taking it out of the attic the top half wouldn't light up.  I listed it on Craigslist for free and a very nice lady who didn't have a tree came and got it.  She was so happy and hugged me twice!  A little searching online turned up a super affordable and cute tree, in WHITE! I highly recommend Hay Needle, great prices, free shipping, and it came in 3 days! {no I wasn't paid to say that, but if someone wants to send me a free tree I would love a silver one!}

I'm undecided on this star, I really wanted one that lights up but Hobby Lobby didn't have any.  I was trying to make it by Target today, but that didn't happen thanks to a soccer game in the RAIN.

I heart these glitter birds!

Every ornament has glitter, I just can't help myself when it comes to sparkle :)

The tree skirt is pink satin with sparkle tulle, from H. L.

Miss M has done really well about not playing with the tree, only 1 ornament lost so far.

The cat's another story!

I'll be showing the rest of my house in another post soon.

Hope you are having a wonderful weekend! They are calling for a 'wintery mix' in Dallas this weekend...I'll believe it when I see it!