Here's To Busy Weekends...and Our New Picnic Table!

Happy Monday everyone!

How was your weekend?  My was SUPER busy, but it was beautiful outside and I was with my family.  You can't beat that!  We did a bunch of stuff in our backyard (2.5 tons of mulch, adding lattice to our deck, staking pavers, planting mums...) and my husband built us a picnic table!

We have a patio table on our deck, but we needed something that's a bit smaller that our boys can sit at, and that gives us more seating and a place to put stuff that's close to our fire pit (directions on how to build one coming soon).

I printed this out from a Google Images search (find the picture here) and we went to buy the lumber.  Seriously-he's one of those guys that can take a picture, and make it into this:

Checking for fit for the boys before securing the bench seats.  

(and Jacob is coloring on the table with a pencil.)

But for $45.00 and a little less than an hour, we have a solid (for real-it's about 150 pounds) picnic table!  During the Summer, I've seen these at Lowe's for over $100.00, so it's definitely worth it to make it yourself, if you're interested!

However, unless you're a carpentry genius like my husband, I'd spend some time on Google looking for free plans-they're EVERYWHERE.

I'm going to paint (Robbie is cringing-he's offended by any finish other than stain on wood) the table a bright blue color...just 'cuz!  I'll post pictures soon!

Happy Monday again, and I hope you have a great week!  If you have any questions about the picnic table project, leave me a comment and I'll ask Robbie and get back to you!

Layout: Trick or Treat 2011

The weather was so nice this weekend-which is a big deal in North Carolina (it's not unusual to be in the 90's going into October).  So I thought I'd celebrate by scrapping a Fall-time layout!  Halloween 2011 ya'll!  Be warned: my boys are absolutely adorable in the upcoming pictures...just fair warning.  :)

I've tried keeping up with all the brands I use while scrapbooking so I can write them up with my posts (see here and here and here) but truly, it's darn-near-impossible.  It's just not how I scrapbook; I use lots of bits and pieces from my stash-really whatever I think looks good together.  But if there's something you see, and you'd like to know where it came from, leave me a comment, and I'll do my best to find out!

AHH!!  I could just squish my little Jacob (bottom photo)  SO flippin' cute!  But here's the whole layout: I loved the green and purple background; I thought it was a nice alternative to all the orange that's usually on Halloween pages (not that I didn't make up for the orange later, but it's not so over-powering)

 Little spiders with googly eyes?  Can't go wrong.  I used black and white baker's twine for their strings instead of plain black-I thought it was a little more eclectic...kind of in that whole Halloween vibe.

LOVE the picture of Liam walking with his daddy up the street...I thought this side of the layout needed a little something to balance out the text on the right, so I punched a circle and used some Halloween-y words.  It brought the balance of text plus some more color.

So that's it; definitely getting into the Fall spirit!  Ready for s'mores (who am I kidding-I make those year-round), a nip in the air and jeans!  How about you?  Ready for the cooler weather and holidays on the horizon?

Yay! for Friends (and Crafty-ness!)

Happy Monday everyone!  (I'm not really 'happy' for Monday but give me credit for trying to start off a Monday on a positive note...)

Anyhoo-a couple weekends ago I went to a glass fusion/inclusion/slumping class (all technical terms that I'm doing my best to remember from what our instructor said) with my bestie Amanda (check out the Teacher Appreciation 'Cake' we made here).  We bought seats in the class through Groupon and had a fanTAStic time!

Those are our shards of colored and clear glass in the bottom right-hand corner!

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So Amanda got her glass bowls back last week, and they look so awesome, I can't wait to get mine back!!!  Fingers crossed for this week!

I can't chose which is my favorite...I'm partial to greens, blues and purples, but I love the colorful confetti one...what do ya'll think?