Home Improvement and festivity!!!

Hmmm...I've always liked halloween, but never really got super into it. Well I've been on this crazy crafty-decoraty-repurposing-thrifting- kick the past few weeks. I'm a spray painting NUT, I have been sewing really really fun things, trying out some new skills, expanding my horizons if you will, and I have been having a blast!!! And doing some general decorating too :)
Mom, as promised here are pictures of what I've been working on, and believe it or not, this certainly isn't all, I have much more to blog about, but this will do for now :) ENJOY!
Made this peice of Yo-yo's to match a quilt I am making for the living room, I just learned how to "Stipple" that's the pretty design on the white part of the fabric :)
Learning, learning learning, I LOVE the look of this stuff! I was just dorkin around with some scraps and made this festive little wall hanging piece, I have a thing for owls right now....


Put the huge mirror up...

My favorite peices, these vases! Got them at COstco, I am obsessed, I just like to look at them, John let me get them for our anniversary...or something :)
The speakers on the left and right used to be ugly gray, they really stuck out, so I painted them covered them in fabric and now they don't look so gross :)...ooh also the candles on the right are from DI, they have a gold leaf on each of them, PRETTY!
A work in progress, still picking out some pictures to go in these frames, but I love the collage look, any picture suggestions??
I LOVE this picture of The Savior, John and I got the print for our house soon after we were married but we never framed it or anything, I finally bought a frame at the DI, painted the mat brown adn the inner mat gold, and the frame dark brown, I LOVE how it turned out!
Thrifted the vase, it's really pretty, you can't really tell in this sideways sad pic...but I wanted this tall grassy grainy stuff at the craft store, but I couldn't bring myself to spend 10 buck for weeds. So I made John help me cut some on the side of the freeway (Adorable mental pic right???) when we went to Logan for our anniversary {more on that later}...annyway, I love how it turned out, with my 1.00 vase and free ninety nine grass :)

Finally put up some decor, perfect spot for keys, mail etc...Another sideways pic, but I just painted the basket thing, covering a lovely rooster...and stuck in some fall foliage:)
Haven't quite decided what to do on top of the table...

I thrifted this table, painted it black, thrifted the bushels, grew the pumpkins and squash, and made the boo banner out of scraps of thrifted wool blazers! Broom from the dollar store :)
Got these frames at DI fro under a buck each, painted them all black with spray paint, and downloaded some vintage halloween art, printed it out, and tadaaaaa! Also the mirror in the bck is a DI find too! Can you tell I LOVE the DI??? Click to enlarge this picture so you can see all the prints up close, they are ALL my favorite :)
I made this adorable tree out of a stick (I have been eyeing these babies at the craft stores you know, they're like 20 bucks and you cna put different ornament-ish things for each season etc) I found in my backyard, painted it brownish black, stuck it in a can and voila! I made the candy corns and steamer.banner out of felt, LOVE IT! and it only took me like 30 minutes from start to finish!
Got the clock on clearance, the candlestick for .75 at DI, the candle for .50 at DI, and the candy dish is from my BFF AMY from my bridal shower :) Love you!
POTION BOTTLES! I had originally planned to label these with some creepy clipart potion labels, but I like how they look together like this, got them all at the DI! I love the colored glass! The purple one is hiding in the back, but the shape is SO cool!
Got the little owlies at the DI too, used some old looking books, and stuck in a vintage picture of a cat and pumpkin into this painted DI frame. Cute no?
Bah, I can't figure out how to rotate these pics, sorry! This is the display when you walk in the front door :)

The BALL, some crafties, and update

The Military Intelligence Ball was fun, it was more fun to get all dressed up for a "for reals" BALL!!! Here's the thing, I didn't know WHAT to wear...so I went shopping...had I not waited till the last minute I would have considered sewing myself something, but I didn't want to put that kind of pressure on myself so late in the game. So...what do Adults wear to a Ball? It's formal...the servicemen and women wear their dressiest duds, bowtie, shiny shoes, all their decorations etc... Now I went to a Ball in Jordan, but I was told that the Ball here wasn't as formal...well...okay, but still what to I wear??? SO I went shopping, only to run into the same problem as I did in high school, slinky, sleeveless, strapless, loads of glitter (Which is WAY fun and adorable and appropriate for the Prom...but a ball? I don't know!) So everything i found was too teenager-ish, immodest, expensive etc. So I decide that I should wear black, anything in black looks classy, right? Well, long story SHORT (ish) on a whim I stopped in at Ross, and tried every.single.black.dress. in my size. (like 15 dresses) and told myself I wasn't even going to look at price tags, John told me I could spend like 60 dollars...generous no? So I tried on dress after dress...and found one that was fun to wear, black, sassy, and something I felt dressed up in. It is in NO way a ball gown, but I'm okay with that, I felt pritty:) I wanted to do a pretty up do, and I fell in love with Taylor swift's hair at the CMT awards, and I did my best to re-create it. It was fun. I wore some jewelry I had (Emily, do you recognize my necklace???) I bought a Belt and some shoes to dress it up some more.

Doesn't my prince look SO dashing AND charming?!



Turns out I fit in just fine with my not-a-ball-gown dress :)
Our "TEAM" We love hanging out with these great guys and their wives! Always a hoot!
This is another dress I made with my favorite pattern. I usually don't take this long to get ready for school, but it was picture day! :) I forgot to take a picture close up of the print, it is beautiful! It's my new favorite!
Oliver turned ONE!!! (And Nate had a birthday too...)
I was itching to make something with applique, I didn't know it was SO fast and easy! YEAH!!!
I wanted to do long sleeves since we're heading into fall and winter, I LOVE the stripey tie!

And the "look at me I'm ONE" shirt. Applique is such a satisfying project!
I added a comfy pair of brown pants to the set. It was so cute all together!

I bought this dress for 2.oo...that's right, 2 bucks, on super clearance at TJ Maxx...to tell you the truth I don't know that I would have picked out the checks over like a flowery print, but you know, when there's a dress that's my style for 2 bucks, do I say no? No. So I decided to bedazzle it tonight :) It look all of like 15-20 minutes and I did it while i was watching women's conference :)
Added this trim I happened to have, to girly it up a bit... it also added 2 inches of length, which I am grateful for, I'm tall :)
And I made this flower out of the trim, and a matching one for my hair




All the girls in my class on picture day:)

Labor Day...I know.

Sheesh. I just uploaded a boatload of pictures, now I'm too tired to Narrarate them...ugh, I'll do my best! We went to Yellowstone for Labor Day, camping with James, Miekka, Seth, Jacob, Lia, and Joe. It was so much fun! It was a good camping trip. Beautiful things to see, at night we could hear the wolves howling, and elk bugleing...it was outstanding!




What would a trip to yellowstone be without some close encounters with Buffalo?! Massive creatures.
Prism Pools....a.maz.ing.

Old Faithful!
A beetle-Bum (Bumble bee) I just thought this shot was super artsy and cool. posted for Dad...:)
Miekka James and Seth., Seth did the Junior Scientist AND Junior ranger programs! It was fun,a nd reminded me of when I did the junior ranger program at yellowstone when I was younger :)
Again, Old Faithful! (Does anyone else think of Dennis the Menace when they say "OLD FAITHFUL!'???

CUTE SETH
CUTE LIA
We lovingly crammed into the mini-van the majority of the excursions in the park, there was a lot of driving. I tried to stay awake but I slept a lot of the distances...
These two boys have the BEST imaginations, also, Jacob didn't take of his "Robin superhero cosyume the entire trip! SO hilarious, he even had a mask much of the time, Seth of course was Batman. :) Robin was capturing Batman...or maybe he was a bad guy, I never can keep them straight.
Lia was my snuggle buddy, she kept me so warm all bundled up, and I promptly became her favorite entertainer :)
JACOB...LOL...poor kid ran right into a pokey-outie tree branch that was halfway broken off...look how close the scratches got to his eye!!!
We had a GRAND time! Thanks Lances!

True story...rated PG-13 for a swear word

It's too late...12:23 am...I had parent teacher conferences tonight. We are going camping to Yellowstone tomorrow, John is still up and will be all night working on unpacking LOADS of junk from boxes we brought from our storage unit...

Today was entertaining. I teach reading for all the low readers in third grade. I love them. They are adorable. They really struggle and I have to try really hard to motivate them and get them to have fun in reading because most of them hate it. I don't like doing things I'm not good at either. I came up with this game on the fly today: teams of three kids per team. Personal white board, marker, one person is the writer to write the sentence, a reader to read and make sure the sentence makes sense and a speller to make sure the spelling word is spelled right. So I say, your first word is 'lamp' write a sentence using the word lamp. They do, they get points accordingly. Their sentences went like this: The lamp is pink. She turned on the lamp. etc etc. The next word, black, write a sentence using the word black...the cat is black...I have black shoes....and then one group is taking awhile to show me their sentence, I can tell they are arguing, I give them time. They bring me their white board. They look at me frustrated because they can't figure out how to spell one word, I look at the sentence:

"I have a black sh!t"

True story. They wanted to write shirt...ahhhhh...awesome day.