Pin & Win: The Scripted Wall

I was thoroughly inspired by the beautiful calligraphy and ironic sentiment of this print:

and I thought to myself, well that’s sassy.  While I feel I could have picked a more…positive statement, this one cracks me up!  When I look at it, I smile!  The people who have seen it wonder about it for a sec- it takes them a moment to make out the scrolling letters, but when it hits them, they laugh, too!

So, 5 hours, a bit of paint and one brush later…

What I liked about this project was that I got to use some of the left-over paint testers from when I picked the gray to paint the actual room.  I hate waste, so I have been looking for mini projects for those little testers for a while!

Yay for me, painting is fun!

Holy Sheet!

Well, I have a new obsession: sheets.  I mostly got into vintage sheets because they feel so much…crisper.  They also have super lively colors they are a CHEAP way to add color to our bedroom!  I have found sheets from .75-$3.  Most are around $2, but if you get them on a day where the thrift store is 1/2 off or something, you score big!

For this reason, I’ve added ‘vintage sheets’ to my list of ‘things I can buy with a price cap.’  For example, I don’t pay over $3 for a board game, I don’t pay over $9 for pants, I don’t pay over $20 for a dress, and I don’t pay over $6 for a shirt.  These rules have helped me become a crafty consumer! Yes, I have been known to pay above my limits, but only if the cost is within $3 of my limit and at least 50% off the original price tag.

It’s a wonder I paid full sticker price for the car I bought in 2008.  What can I say, all that paperwork confused me.

Anyway, back to these sheets.  There are so many cool things you can do with vintage sheets!  I’ve started pinning them to a new ‘project’ board in my Pinterest account.  You can look here: http://re.pn/b/LpFa.

I have discovered a world of vintage sheet-lovers, who do amazing things! I’m just going to list a couple of my favorites, but there really are too many to mention!

First up, In Color Order…and she’s got an Etsy shop with tons of sheets and sheet pieces! She’s also got a Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/jenib/.

Next up, The Vintage Sheet Blog– yes, it does exist!  It is super adorable, too.

Then, Sew She Sews– she’s got a great mobile tutorial, that I added to my projects board. She’s got a Pinterest, too!

Last, Diary of a Quilter, check out her Pinterest and Etsy homes, too.

I only have a handful of projects on my ‘Projects Board,’ so far…but they do all seem a bit ambitious.  For now, I’ll keep scouring for other cute things and build a stock pile of vintage sheets, for some future quilting project!

Junk Mail(box)

Well, it happened.  Our mailbox has been murdered.

To be more precise, it has perished due to the crazy daily rain Orlando gets, on a nearly-precision schedule.  No joke, it rains here for about 3 hours every day during the summer.  When we moved to Florida, my dad said people called it ‘liquid sunshine,’ because the sun is still out and shining while it rains.  To this day, I haven’t run into anybody that calls it that.

In any case, our mailbox is no more and it’s time for a new one.  Since we rent, our landlords will most likely just dig-out the bottom half of the post and re-plant what’s left of the mailbox post into the ground, thereby making it a full 2 feet shorter.  Though, I’d like to think we could replace it with something a little more…whimsical.

What about these fun options?

Evie’s Party: Paper and Plates

For Evie’s party, food was easy because we went with a Mexican theme.  We had a taco-fajita bar!  We also made strawberry-lemonade and watermelon paletas (a Latin American style of Popsicle), and cake pops!  For the cake, I made sugar free angel food cake with Polaner’s sugar free raspberry jam and cool whip.

Sugar free is the way to go!  Plus, it’s delicious (and my dad can eat it because he’s a diabetic).

Birthday Cake for Diabetics (and awesome parents who don’t want to over-sugar their babies!)

2 c. sifted cake flour
2 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
6 tbsp. softened butter
1 1/4 tsp. vanilla
1/4 tsp. almond extract
1 c. sugar
1 egg
3/4 c. milk
1/2 c. sugar-free strawberry jam
1 c. nondairy whipped topping

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line two 8 inch round cake pans with parchment paper or waxed paper. Sift together the flour, baking powder and salt. With an electric mixer at medium speed, cream together butter, vanilla and almond extract until fluffy. Gradually add sugar, beating constantly. Add egg; beat until mixture is fluffy. Then, stirring with a spoon, add the dry ingredients alternately with milk, stirring after each addition until batter is smooth.Turn into the prepared pans. Bake 25-30 minutes or until done. When cool spread the strawberry jam between the layers. Spread whipped topping on the top. Store in refrigerator until just before serving. If you want you can add a drop of red food coloring to the whipped topping before putting it on top of cake.

That’s the face of a happy baby, and a delicious cake!  The paletas were just as delicious! The recipe is really easy- You basically cut-up some fruit, mix it with a juice base (like apple or lemonade), place your mixture in little containers and freeze!  Check on them a couple hours after you put them in the freezer, so that you can put your popsicle sticks in. We did ours in layers- strawberry lemonade (or watermelon) and then after that had frozen, another layer of straight up lemonade.  DELICIOUS- and completely refreshing for a Florida/July birthday, as Evie’s is!

Last, like every other DIY gal who throws a party- I made some tissue paper pom poms!  The directions (below at the right) were from Martha Stewart’s site, and they couldn’t be easier.  I used the left-over bits of tissue (reduce, reuse, recycle!!!) and made those cute mustaches. 

Next year, we’re going to keep the same cake, keep the paletas, but move onto another theme…Maybe we’ll do “silent comedians” and put a trunk of bowler hats, mini staches, pork pie hats, canes, and some other hobo-type outfits. Uh oh, wheels are already turning!

Blue in the Face

Quick little post on the face masks we made for Evie’s 1st birthday! Very easy, so just look at the photos and move on.

1. Use thick paper to create your base- I used Variety magazine. Reduce and reuse, people!

2. Get some tissue paper out! These are from Evie's baby shower (they are over a year old!)

3. Modge podge some designs on that beast.

4. Don't ignore little helpers.

5. Test it out! (this is one of the Joel faces I printed for his Father's Day!)

Put them all together and you get some super fun face masks for holding and taking awesome photos in!

Evie’s Lucha-Themed Birthday Party!

This baby is turning 1, just 17 more years left! I have been pretty busy picking a theme and accompanying color scheme for her first party.  We definitely want it to be memorable, so here is what our party goers have in store!

So first, we took a poll on Facebook about themes and lo and behold, some body submitted a winner!Big thanks to my girl, Carri, who suggested the winning theme: Lucha!  The next step was super simple, and quite possibly my greatest talent- research!  The Lucha theme was great because it came, as most themes do, with its set of colors, foods, and fun stuff.

Here’s what we were looking at:

1. standard, well-known color combinations (think Nacho Libre: sky blue and bright red)
2. Mexican food (is there anything easier?!)
3. decorations and fun stuff (piñata, lucha masks, etc)

Pretty easy, so far!  The next part was a little tougher- picking a date.  July is kind of a busy month in casa de Kauffman.  Between birthdays, the Fourth of July, my work schedule, etc etc- it’s hard to find one free weekend!  Evie also shares a birthday with my bestie, Grant- they are birthday buddies!  My other awesome friend, Kevin, has a birthday the week prior, which I, of course, want to attend.  All in all, it’s crazy busy.

I finally picked a date, which I messed up in the email…but no matter, the invitation is below:Very simple, but fun, right?  I emailed it out to people so I could better badger them about attending!  The invitation was a real easy play on circus/western fonts and a sunburst vector background, both of which are often used in lucha posters.  A quick photoshop lucha mask and voila- done.

So, how did these colors come into play?  Enter my research!  Also, my research tool: Pinterest.  Pinterest is a program you can use that helps you “pin” little bits of inspiration you find online.  I created a specific Evie’s Party board and started pinning things like colors, food ideas, decoration ideas, etc. It’s pretty cool.

You can look at the whole board here.

Lots of blog reading and pinning later, I had very clear image of what I wanted- which you’ll see soon!

Holy Mow-ly: Mower Prices (Part 2)

So, the final step: pricing! We want to keep it under $200, but have to consider additional costs in terms of sharpening needs and general maintenance. Thankfully, reel mowers don’t need oil, batteries, spark plugs or any of the other things that make having a power lawn more time-saving and easier. Even still, that knocks the Mascot out, since it retails for nearly $300! Yikes.

Here are my starting points, from Home Depot.  I’ve had great experiences with the Home Depot and there is one right by my house, so they’re my go-to source for all things home.

Both of these fit within our budget- just barely. Let’s see if we can find them for less…or find a coupon! I usually check-out bizrate.com for a list of retailers and pricing. As you can see, we’ve got some options right off the bat! As long as they make a big difference (taking into account shipping), buying online could end up saving us around $30! Might not sound like much, but that’s my internet bill- or water bill- paid! :)

What I like about bizrate.com is that it also takes into account eBay and Amazon- so no need to search there! Target is a good place to pick this one up… it’s only $10 cheaper, but we’d have it pretty quickly, and we can return it pretty easily, if needed. Plus, we have 2 safeguards: Target’s policies and Scott’s policies. Pretty good!

I also checked for the mower on Amazon, and they have it for $108, but when you add the shipping and tax, it comes to $125 and some change, so less than HomeDepot, but not than Target.  Plus, it’d be a hassle to have to mail-out, if something were to be wonky.  Last, I’m wary of having larger appliances shipped to me because if it gets dropped or wedged in an especially forceful manner, it could damage the product and then what!?  THEN WHAT!?!?!?!?

Ok, looks like we have our Scotts winner: Target, for $124.

Now, onto the Fiskars!  I didn’t get any returns using bizrate.com, for some reason, so I’ll check the usual spots: Sam’s, Target, Lowe’s, Overstock, Amazon, etc. (Also, the thing is $250 on the Fiskars site, damn!)  Actually, you know what?  I’ll try Bing.com/shopping- they present all the results with prices, too!  Unfortunately, I couldn’t find anything outside of the $190 range for online and I’ll go way over budget with shipping, so if we want the Fiskars, it’ll have to be from a close store.

Let’s see if there are any coupons out there!  Nope…none.  I guess that settles it!  The only thing that’s left is saving the $124 to invest in our new Scott’s mower!  Yay!