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Monday, December 22, 2014

New additions to the ETSY shop

Hello all!
Are you ready for Christmas? I have to say that I'm super excited to see my kids open their gifts and I am beyond thrilled that it's almost time for the Christmas feast!


I added a few more resin pendants to the ETSY shop.
All pendants are available in 4 shapes: circle, oval, rectangle, and square.
All chain is 18 inches long but can be lengthened or shortened to your preference.

Here we go!

'Abyss'
Inspired by the movie The Abyss. The glitter in this pendant shifts from blue to purple when you move it around in the light. Photos do this one NO justice. It's really gorgeous.
(I wore mine one day with matching earrings, which I'm working on for the shop. While I was driving and the sun was coming in the windshield, my husband made a comment about how shiny and cool they looked.)



'Buttercup'
Inspired by the movie The Princess Bride, this is Buttercup! This was a nail polish that I made for the 'Reel Brides' Collection when I made polish for Red Carpet Lacquer. Silver glitter suspended in resin and finished off with a beautiful shimmery blue.



'Clover'
Inspired by the movie Bring It On, this is Clover. This pendant pays homage to the East Compton Clovers and contains green, orange, and yellow glitter suspended in resin, finished off with a beautiful bright green.



'Colonel Mustard'
Of course this was inspired by the movie Clue! I love, love, LOVE that movie. And then the television show "Psych" paid homage to it on their 100th episode. Brown glitter suspended in resin, finished off with a mustard yellow. It's always reminded me of spicy mustard. The Colonel Mustard nail polish was part of the 'Clue' Collection through Red Carpet Lacquer.


'Delicious Flavor'
That's right, Psych fans. I AM, in fact, a fan of delicious flavor.
Inspired by my everlasting, ever-growing love for the television show 'Psych', this is Delicious Flavor. Suspended in the resin are green and gold glitters of varying sizes and it's finished off with a bright green.



All of these pendants and more can be found in the ETSY shop.
I'll post again with more goodies and info.







2014 Christmas decorating at my house

I am SO late on this post. Most of my Christmas decor has been up for weeks but I was slow to get photos of everything. And taking the time to watermark every photo is time consuming.

Without further delay, here's our Christmas decor, 2014:

A few years ago, I saw a commercial for Home Depot and fell in love with the idea of an ornament frame. I showed it to my husband (thanks, DVR pause feature!) and he made one for me! He built it, I painted it. He also added rope lights behind it using clear hooks.

This is the same frame, in the evening, with the rope lights turned on:


I've had these apothecaries since 2007 before I moved to MN. While in the tundra, the apothecaries were wrapped up in our storage unit because there wasn't a single place where they could have been used in the old house. I finally got them out and have started using them for different seasons.

I filled the apothecaries with foam filler balls and garland from Micheal's and a few ornaments from Hobby Lobby. The snowmen on the left are from Pier 1 Imports. Also from Pier 1 are the fairy lights (they call them Glimmer Lights) filling the apothecaries.


This house came with a fantastic space above the front door. I knew the minute that I saw it that our 4ft tall Disney tree would be up there. My husband built a box to prop it up, I added empty wrapped boxes, and glass light boxes to finish it off. I LOVE IT.


Our big, fat tree is back in full swing this year. Our living room in MN was just too small and rectangular to use it. We tried a new light design this year, using two different sizes of light strands. I love the look. It gives it so much more dimension. (Yes, that's a Winne the Pooh angel. I've had that for years.)                                                              


Outside, I FINALLY got to hang the wreath I made a few years ago on my front door. In MN with the storm door keeping out the storms, the wreath wouldn't fit so we had to hang it on the INSIDE of the door. Very few people ever saw it. So I love that it's on display now. I worked hard on it!


I also got to use garland around the door this year and was lucky enough to find ornaments that matched and/or coordinated with the ornaments on the wreath. I am loving the look. I found the planters in town and used Christmas floral pieces from Micheal's to create a topiary item.





Monday, December 15, 2014

Busy times behind and ahead of us

It's already mid-December! How did that happen? 2014 is drawing to a close and it's freaking me out how fast time flies. My grandmother always told me that the older you get, the fast it goes.
She wasn't wrong.

We've been living in Tennessee for over 6 months already. When we pointed that out to the kids, they flipped out. That 6 months has gone by so quickly.

Here's a run down of what we've done and what's to come:

On Thanksgiving we had a feast! I made my cornbread dressing, baked mac and cheese, mashed potatoes, and deviled eggs. My husband was in charge of the turkey which turned out great. My mom asked where the green was in the meal. I pointed out that there was celery in the dressing. (Honestly, we brain-farted on the green beans this year. Whoops.)

The Saturday after Thanksgiving, I participated in my first craft fair as a vendor. It was decent but there just weren't hundreds of people in the venue.

The next day, we drove down to Duluth, GA and took the kids to see the Northeast Atlanta Ballet Company perform The Nutcracker. We all had a blast and the ballet dancers were wonderful. I thought Peanut was going to explode from excitement.
                                                                


On the way home, we hit up The Container Store since Chattanooga doesn't have one. And then we ate dinner at Buca di Beppo before heading home. Oh, Buca... how we've missed you.
                                                                


I turned 29 (again) on the Monday after Thanksgiving. For my 13th birthday, my parents took me and a group of friends to dinner at Kanpaii of Tokyo for a birthday dinner. We did this every year for years. Since this was my first year in Chattanooga for my birthday in over 6 years, we picked up the tradition again.
Dinner that night included myself, my husband, Peanut, Button, my mom, my step-dad, Manda, and Bug. Sadly, Noodle was at home with a crappy fever. (But we took her a to-go container full of food and even hand delivered a cupcake.)
                                                             
And of course, we've been decorating for Christmas! (I'm so far behind. We usually have it all done before Thanksgiving.... hush. Yes, I'm one of THOSE people. With all that we do, we do it early to actually enjoy it.)

I'll have a new post featuring all the decor soon!



Friday, December 12, 2014

Christmas mani and TSO

I finally painted my nails again. I do believe the last time was back in November...a month ago. Wow. That's longer than I was thinking it had been. Between the resin work, messing with Christmas decor, and other stuff I just didn't feel like painting them when there was a huge chance the polish would chip of in an hour.

Thursday night, we had tickets to see TSO in Atlanta. I wanted a festive holiday mani since TSO is all about Christmas this time of year.

My husband and I have seen them twice before up in Minnesota but this was a first for the kids, kids who absolutely love their music.
The show was fantastic and the kids had a ball. They've decided that they'd like to go see the show every year.

If they come to a town near you, GO! (You'll most likely have to wait until next year. They do this show from mid-November to early January. Tickets went on sale in September? And they DO sell out shows.)

So, for my Christmas spirit mani, I chose to experiment with free handing an animal and using striping tape which I have but never seem to bother with (mainly since I'm inpatient and the tape is tiny).


I found a tutorial from Blanket Print Nails for Rudolph and I thought I could try it. I did a Scotch Tape Christmas tree a few years ago (wrote this post of it a few months ago) but I wanted to do it again since it's easy as heck.

I present.... my Christmas nails:
Polish bottle shown- Zoya Holly


I was very happy with how Rudolph turned out. The candy cane nails took the longest because I'm not that great getting striping tape to cooperate. (I need decals.)

Colors used:
Zoya Holly, Darcy, Trixie, Flynn, and Louise
OPI Big Apple Red and Angel with a Leadfoot
ORLY Liquid Vinyl


Polish bottle shown: OPI Big Apple Red



Polish bottle shown: Zoya Trixie



Polish bottle shown: Zoya Flynn





That's all for today! Hopefully this mani lasts a few days because I don't think I feel like doing anything else yet.