My Hiatus

So, it has been too long right?

Truth be told the last 4 weeks of my life have been quite the whirlwind. It always seems that when it rains it pours both in the good and the bad. So with that let me give you a break down of my life over the last month.

Trent and I went on vacation while he had a break in school (Me, I still had a final I was finishing up during our two week vacation, but my school is via internet so it is always nice to see other places while working on school). We started off going to Trent's parents house for a few days, Haywood became a star there at the Dog Days of Summer dog show. He won best overall! As well as many other ribbons for the day. Could a mama get any more proud? I don't think so! While there we had a wedding in Fayeteville, AR. It was beautiful wedding! Congratulations Kayla and Jeremiah! Right after the wedding, Trent I and Trent's parents and sisters began our "actual" vacation to Colorado. We drove a good portion of the night and made it to Pagosa Spring, CO by about dinner time the next day. Believe me we were all ready to get out of the car!

The reward of arriving there was fantastic! It is so gorgeous there. The mountains go on and on and the trees and grass are all so green. Quite the contrast from our flat and brown, drought ridden Oklahoma. The weather was amazing as well. There was a high of 86 degrees F and then in the mornings we would wake up and it would be in 40's. Amazing! The place we stayed was Bruce Spruce Ranch. The cabin we stayed in was a great little one room with a wood stove to keep the place warm. Very reasonably priced as well. Less than $300 for T and I to stay there all week. We fished some, I caught one and only, but I call that a success for me and fishing. Trent's dad, sisters, Trent and I all went ATVing up into the mountains and it was so much fun! One night we went to the hot spring in Pagosa. The rest of the time we spent reading, sleeping or taking walks. Which is not a complaint by any means. I loved it! While we were there, there was a antique fair, which sealed the deal on the vacation for me. I got a dough bowl, which I had been pining after for months now. It is great and sits on the table with lavender in it. I will add pictures of all this stuff on another day.

After our journey back to Oklahoma, we quickly did laundry and packed back up to head to Kansas City, MO. I have a very close family member who has been diagnosed with terminal cancer and she was in the hospital after a surgery. She was diagnosed with Papillary Serous Carcinoma, a form of cervical cancer. After spending four days with her and my family, life necessitated that we head back to Oklahoma once again. It is hard being torn between to places when such troubling things are happening, but life has to go on and a paycheck must come in. If only we could live off love, we would be rich!

Oh I forgot to mention that during this time I took a final exam and wrote a 12 page paper for my pharmacology class. I proudly announce that I passed that Pharmacology class! PRAISE JESUS!

When we got back, we of course had two weeks of catch up to play. Bills, house work, yard work, and laundry (AGAIN!). I of course had to go back to work, but I am in a different area right now. The nursery is great. It is offering a whole different type of skills set that I never thought I would experience so it is good! Helping babies make their big debut into the world is never a bad thing!

Now, school started up again. I had one week off. The blessing is that the sooner I get started with this year the sooner it will be over. Then I don't ever have to go back to school ever again if I don't want to. :) Trent also started school this week. I am so proud of my half doc! Only 2 more years left and D.D.S. with trail his name for the rest of time!

So that is the short story of the last 4 weeks of my life. I will post again with some projects. I have quite a few up my sleeve, I just need to get settled into the semester. I also will try and post pictures from our Colorado pictures. I would bank that those go up before a new project does.

I pray that you all be well and blessed.

Second Shooter! Happy Gunther!

So, as I mentioned earlier, I had the pleasure of being the second shooter in a wedding with my dear friend Lacey (check her blog out at Lacey Crough Photo). She is an amazing photographer and it was such a treat to spend the day with her! Also, it was a pleasure was to spend the day taken pictures of beautiful people at a beautiful location! Congratulations, Sean and Kayla Gunther! My new header came from a shot that snuck-in, in between the ceremony and reception.


The location is at Lone Summit Ranch in Lee's Summit, MO. (Gorgeous location for any of my K.C. people! :) This is not all of the photos by any means, so I wouldn't be surprised if I post more as I go through them, but these are some of my instant favorites.





You know it is a good location and the lighting is perfect when I only like a couple photos more in black and white than I do in color. I am a sucker for black and white but I think these pictures speak for themselves.




The setting is obviously in the country (right where I am at home!).

However, I was tasked with taking the photos of the men for the day. Great group of guys, really! On our trasping through the fields the men were all joking how funny it would be if a snake slithered over the top of my foot since I had sandals on...funny right? No, not really, because that darn near almost happened! The boys thought it was great. Me not so much, but the records state that I did NOT squeal, run or chicken out! We pressed on!

We got the shot on the hay bails and that was what I was going for...SWEET!

This place was absolutely romantic and fantastic! Beautiful couple! Great friend to shoot with and overall great weekend with my family! Who could ask for anything more? Ok, I could have done without the snake but that is neither here nor there! Ok it was there, but not here now, praise the heavens.

I've been FEATURED!!!

Hello Friends!

I have great news! I was featured in another person's blog. Who may that other person's blog be? It would be Michelle A. Graves! Visit her blog PRIMP here!



I am so honored that someone else thought my idea of my mason jar chandelier was cool! Then was willing to tell others about it! Thank you so much Primp!

It is a busy time of year right now, but I can tell you all that I just got done second shooting a really stellar wedding with my dear friend Lacey Crough you should visit her website to admire her beautiful work!
Hopefully I can get some of those pictures up ASAP!

Also, I haven't forgot the duvet cover, it has just been delayed.

Thanks again for stopping by! And also thank you to PRIMP for the feature! I am ecstatic!

Inspiration leading to UBER frustration...

Do you ever start a project and then part way through you are so sick of it you can hardly force yourself to finish?

Well welcome to my world (at least for this weeks project).


I fell in love with this Anthropolgie lovely about 3 months ago. I cannot afford this gem (I say gem because I am pretty sure that diamonds and rubies cost similar to its price tag). However, the longer I stared at it the more enamored I became. So from those long hours of drooling in front of my computer I came up with the idea that I could make it (HA!). The blue prints were laid in my brain and I would not stop thinking about it.

This week I took the plunge. I got the fabric. I cut it up and I started sewing. And sewing. And Sewing. And seam ripping. And sewing. You would think after all that I would be done, but you would be wrong...I am still trudging away at my Anthropologie lovely. I would say currently I am 1/2 way there...(sigh...). But at this moment I could throw in the towel and say "Peace Out" without reservation. Which leads me to why I am posting this, I need duvet support. Hopefully by posting about this project it will keep me motivated to continue on. (Fingers crossed and prayers sent up!)
Maybe, this post will save my brown scraps of jersey from making it into the garbage or re-purposed into another project. After all, the greater the challenge the greater the reward right?

Mason Lit Dining

I have had this room done for a while now, but I felt like it was still missing something. I am not sure what it is. Maybe a really stellar burlap table runner? Maybe something shnazzy for the table or something more on the shelves? I am not sure, so how about you let me know if you have an idea?!

So for the longest while I had been wanting a round pedestal table. I had swooned after them in magazines and on websites. And then one day the stars aligned and I found one on Craigslist for $35! SOLD! After borrowing a friends truck to pick it up (THANKS CODY)! I had the little lovely in my home. But I wanted to paint it and I wasn't sure what color I wanted to paint it. So...it sat in our living room, waiting for orders. Two weeks later I had time and an idea so I went to work. Here is what I came up with. Let me know what you think!

I painted the table a robins egg blue color. Then did some distressing to it. It has such a wonderful farm kitchen feel to it and I LOVE it!

The curtains are made out of painters drop. I put the stripes across them using textile medium and an acrylic paint color of your choice. I used painters tape to tape of where I wanted the stripes. (My stripes are not straight or perfect and I am okay with that. I think it adds to the vintage feel.) (This idea was borrowed from Diana, you should visit her blog!)

The chairs were black and I painted them "Almond". Then did the same distressing to them. The cushions are recovered using coffee sacks. They all have a different pattern on them.






The shelf on the wall is just an old book shelf that I found at the Goodwill for 10 bucks and then added baseboard to it and then painted white. Then hung on the wall using brackets. Make sure when you get the bracket you know the test weight that it is supposed to hold. This shelf isn't heavy, but I played it safe and go a 100 lb. test weight bracket. You can find the brackets at Home Depot or Lowe's in the hard wear department. (Diana gave me this inspiration, you should visit her blog)

The bushel in the corner with the red reed sticking out of it is one of my finds from the swap meet it was just $2. I LOVE the color don't you?

Found at the swap meet for $3 each. I love the blue glass Mason Jars!


Napkins that I already owned and wrapped with packaging string for napkin rings to add some color on my all white shelf.




The oar in the opposite corner is from the swap meet as well, it was $10. I love how it brings summer into the room. The black box behind it is an old type writer case. I found it in the storage shed clean out. The crate that is underneath this is very special. Throughout my whole life it has been called the camping box. It was the box my family took camping that had the plates and cups that we used for camping. My parents have had it since they got married and I feel totally honored that they let me have it!

The big project for the room was the light. I saw something similar to this at Anthropologie and loved it. So, I tried recreating it. Apparently after googling it, so have quite a few other people. So google mason jar light and you can find tons of tutorials. I took 5 pendant lights that were on sale at Lowe's for $5 each and got rid of the light cover. Then drilled a hole in the top of mason jar lids. The pendent the just screwed onto the Mason jar (perfect!). That was total of the design the next is the technical...The ceiling mount cord hole needed to be enlarged to hold all the wires so my dad helped me drill a hole bigger in that. Then, my dad helped again by wiring it all together. Now he progressively wired it, meaning he didn't wire it all together in one clump but more like braided all the pendents in one-by-one. I love it and I am forever more indebted to my pops.

We are loving the new room. It is much more comfortable than before...Oh, I guess you might want to see the before. I am not good at taking these so here is one that kind of gives you an idea of what we had to do.


See the black chairs? The plum curtains? This just didn't flow with the rest of our style! It needed a redo! Oh and by the way this glass table is for sale, if interested shoot me an email!

Do you like my redo? Do you think it needs anything else? Let me know! I would love to hear your comments!

Ruffles and Bubbles!

Hey! I hope you all had a great week! I know I am loving that it is Saturday!

This week I finished up a class for the summer. Goodbye Nursing Ethics, I will not pine after you! It is good to have it out of the way and one step closer to Master's degree, but I sure will not miss it. One more year ladies and gentlemen and I will be doneskies with schoolio...no biggie really I have only been in for the last 18 years ;)

Speaking of school, I thought I would try my hand at teaching you all something that I did for my bathroom. Let me know how you like it. Now you have to bear with me, I have never done a tutorial or a before and after reveal, so I am taking on a lot here. Be gentle with your judgement!



With that let's get rolling!

First the Before shot...this is a curtain I picked up at Wal-Mart one day for 8 bucks and thought...ehh that could do and it could not. I was never satisfied with it and in hindsight it was a total impulse buy without regard to the actual design...fail. I hate it when I do this. Oh and you may think that this curtain was never washed or ironed and you would be wrong. These wrinkles are resilient and horrendously irritating...





This is the after...



So what I did to the room and then I will give you a tutorial on how I did the shower curtain.
I painted the walls artic blue by Glidden in semi gloss. I also had to paint the ceiling because we were having some mildew issues (YUCK!!!). So I Kilz'ed that.

The box is one of my finds from the swap meet that I talked about here. It was $20, which is a little steep, but my amazing mama bought it for me for my birthday!


The mirror actually is nothing new to our home. I found it when T and I first got married at a garage sale for 2 bucks! It was a splurge when we first got married as we had NO money. It was a standing dressing mirror. When we moved down to Oklahoma the stand didn't fair well and then it was just a mirror...I had it sitting around the house despite T's asking me over and over again if we could take it to the Goodwill...I am sentimentally attached to it.




It was originally a dark cherry, but this bathroom is so small I thought it needed lighter colors to make it feel bigger. So I painted it antique white and then antique glazed it.



The little stool is perfect for when I soak in the tub, it is great for a drink or magazine to rest while you get situated :) It was one of our finds when we cleaned out those storage sheds.




So that's that with my before and after. We really love the change and the room does feel bigger despite the fact that it is so so small and our only bathroom in our house.

With that, let the tutorial begin!

I began by purchasing a shower curtain liner from Target just like this one...


I washed the shower curtain and dried it, no ironing required on this bad boy it didn't need it! Wrinkle FREE!


For the ruffles, I scored and found some old fabric in an off-white at the thrift store. SCORE!!! I cut the fabric into 3 inch strips and it look like a big pile of this...


Then I began making all those strips into ruffles...this may look daunting, but it isn't hard just time consuming. To make it easy on your sewing machine, set your tension high and your stitch length long and the work will be done for you. If your machine is not cooperating with you on this, you can make a modified ruffle by going slow on your machine and crumpling the fabric as it goes under the presser foot. (Not quite the same look but it is pretty darn close!)




When this is done you should have a big long strip of ruffle that looks like this...



Choose how many rows of ruffles you would like on the curtain. I chose 5 because that is all the ruffle that my thrift store fabric would make me, but I really like just the 5 rows to so it worked out for me. Then let the pinning begin...




Pin the ruffles to the curtain starting at the top of the curtain where the hooks go in making sure not to sew over them (you will end up making it so that you can't use the hook hole if you do this). Now this is where I learned a lesson in the project, only pin one row at a time. I thought I would save myself some time by doing them all at once...fail. It just made it hard to sew and I kept poking myself while sewing on the other rows of ruffles. Nothing major, just really annoying.

So you have pinned your first row, now you will sew right over where you made your ruffle stitch, in the same color you did your ruffle stitch so that the stitch will blend in.

Repeat these last two steps for as many rows as you want on your curtain. Then hang and enjoy!

Total cost of room?
Paint in Artic Blue by Glidden...$5 (It was a paint return at Home Depot)
Shower Curtain...$10
Thrift Store Fabric...$0.50 (It was half-off day at the thrift store)
Crate Box on Wall...$20 (Gift from my mama) so that make it $0
Stool...Free (Thank you Grandma McCord and Family!)
Mirror...Already had so we will call it free too!
Towels...Already had so we will call those free too!

Total cost...$15.50 with out the Crate, or $35.50 with it...either way a steal of a deal!

Oh and credit must be given to my stellar helper, Haywood. Thank you sir for laying on the curtain during the pinning process and pretending that the ruffles were squirrels. It helped so very much!

Let's Swap!

I have been meaning to post this one for quite some time now. Actually, I think it might have been what pushed me over the edge to start blogging. (Yes, what I am about to write about is that cool!)



There are many things in life that I love, but this event may possibly go into the book of all time favorites for me. Are you ready for it....? Jacob's Cave Animal Swap Meet! Don't let the name discourage you. This is a place for fun and adventure. It is culturally awakening as well.







(In case you are wondering, yes, those are car seat benches on the trailer being pulled behind the four-wheeler. This was not the only one of it's kind either!)


So what is it? It is a swap meet, that has animals and other really old and cool stuff! It is held 3 times per year in Versailles, Missouri at Jacob's Cave. There is SO much stuff here it is incredible. There is over 5 miles of vendors. When we went it was about 102 degrees outside and we were not able to make it to all the vendors, but no worries, I will be going back in the fall. It is already in my date book!







There are vendors that are selling anything and everything. I found some really cool stuff. At least I think that it is cool stuff. Here is one of the cool things I decided to take home. I will leave you hanging for the other lovelies. I plan on revealing them with room make overs, so keep checking back!

Mason Jars of course (love the blue glass).




An old tool box crate, that will be making an appearance quite soon I hope. I will tease you with the fact that it goes with a DIY project. (I hope you are sitting on the edge of your chair now with anticipation!)


This little man was so sweet, the dog he is holding is named Moon-Whisperer. Also, he worked my camera. Every time I would have my camera to my eye he would strike a pose with that pooch! ADORABLE!
This little girl was working her way to be the next Carrie Underwood. Note the box at her feet, she said she would take a tip!


Though I love all the treasures that I found on this hunt the best part was spending time with my family and friends. This swap meet is about 3 miles from my parents lake house. So, I was able to spend time with my parents AND my best friend from high school and her husband came too! It was great to spend time with great friends. It makes my heart hurt to be away from them all the way in Oklahoma! However, we will always have the swap meet!



Tell me about your finds? Where do you find your treasures?