It feels like I've been neglecting my blog lately. I've been so busy trying to get the nursery done. Plus my husbands birthday is coming up and I've been working on his gift. In other news, my dad visited us recently which was great! Gotta love my dad. He likes to get things done and help around in any way he can. He recently scored us some free tv by installing an antenna on our patio, so now we get the news! Hooray! I took my dad to Folsom Prison while he was here too. Let me tell you, it is a nice facility for a prison. I love brick walls and old gates.

It wouldn't be Folsom Prison without Johnny Cash.

I recently scored some new items for the nursery which saved Matt and I a fortune. While my mom was here I had found a glider chair for $12.50 at the goodwill. We went back the next day to see if it was still there and it was marked down to $9.50!!! So we grabbed that sucker and threw it in my moms little sedan and took it home and cleaned it right up. My neighbor is going to help me re-upholster it so it'll look good as new!

Our next steal was an solid oak crib and new mattress that I got off of craigslist for $75. I polished it up and threw the mattress in and I am loving it! It took me a little over two hours to put together since the lady who sold it to me didn't have the directions. But I got it all put together!

Matt and I made a separate trip earlier before to a yard sale to look at a crib and didn't care for what we saw. The sellers though were super sweet and had a ton of baby clothes and told me I could have at 'em since they were going to drop them off at good will anyways. I got over 48 pieces of clothes! 

A little too pink for my taste but I'll take it!

One of the last things that I got for the nursery was something that my parents had gotten for me when I little; a changing dresser. It's in great condition! It was originally sitting in brothers closet, but my dad brought it up here and it goes perfectly with the glider chair and crib. So glad to get all of these important items for so cheap!

I don't think Mr. Polar Bear minds his sleeping arrangements that much either...

Tea Party Success

 For the past couple of months my sister and my mom and I have been planning up my baby shower. I was super excited to have this thing since I've never had a baby shower, let alone a baby. Everything came together to a T! And the fabulous thing about it was that we didn't have to pay for any of the silverware, chairs, tables, linens, and flowers. The only things we DID pay for was the food, pom poms and the gas to deliver the all of the tables and chairs. How do you accomplish such savings? Well, it's called doing it yourself ladies!

• Since my sister works in a catering office at a golf course, she was able to get all of the linens chairs, and tables for free! Hook-up number one! It's always great to have a friend (but even better, a sister) that can score you awesome deals.
• Silverware is something that was a combined effort between my mom and my sister. They had whole sets of silverware that had been sitting around, never been used. It was great to not have to run to a party supplies store and pick up plastic cutlery.
• The fine china was provided by a family friend. He had everything that we needed and in the perfect color too! Everything was brand new in boxes. He was so very sweet to let us borrow as much as we needed. We used some of my moms china as well, so we had the perfect amount.
• I made the centerpieces all by myself by finding stuff that we had laying around the house. We were going to buy fake flowers at Walmart, but in a last minute scramble, decided to go with some fresh cut white roses that we had growing in our front yard. More savings! 

• We had an old silver tea set that was my Grandma Shirley's. It only needed a little bit of polishing up, and it was ready to go. 
• My dad had dug up his old rocking chair that he had used when he was young to let me use for our baby's nursery. So I decided, "why not use it for the shower too?" So I polished it, and threw a teddy bear in it, and it turned out to be adorable!
• My sister had thrown together a fishbowl, my baby shower invitation, and some ribbon to make a "Diaper Fund" bowl. 
• She placed all of the prizes, party favors, and what not on some back-yard tables covered with a blue bed sheet and an old table cloth. She also used two candelabras that she had purchased as centerpieces for her wedding. These things have come in handy more than once! I also used them at my bridal shower!

• I made all of the party favors myself. I bought a pack of tissue paper (20 sheets) which cost $2 dollars, and bought around 9-10 pounds of taffy which cost $12 dollars, and wrapped everything with some string that my great grandma had given me. I then made 20 flowers made out of white felt and safety pinned them on to the favors and also made little tea bag name tags to put on each favor. 

         

• I also made the pom poms which are super easy but redundant to make. All you need is 9 sheets of tissue paper per pom pom, scissors, pipe cleaners, a ruler, and some fishing line. I bought the tissue paper at Walmart for around .98 cents for a pack of 9 sheets. HERE is the tutorial that I watched on how to make pom poms.

• Food was handled mainly by my mom. Nothing was catered! She worked so hard to make cucumber tea sandwiches, meatballs, fruit salad, egg salad sandwiches, and a delicious family recipe of punch. I had decided a while back that I wanted to make the cake. I hate store bought cake and I don't want to spend a fortune on nasty fondant cake either. So I found a recipe for Lemon Meringue Cake in a Martha Stewart baking book that sounded delightful and possibly something that everyone would like. Some people don't like chocolate... crazy right? It took me several hours total to complete this cake! But it was well worth it. Everyone loved it. 

 That's all that I have to share today. I can't wait to see my baby Heidi Geraldine! Lord willing, I will have a safe and uncomplicated delivery... I'd like to give a big thanks to my sister for throwing the shower for me and to both of my parents for all their help in throwing this event! They made everything so perfect. I couldn't have asked for more. I love you guys! Cheers!

one of the things i miss about home....

is the endless supply of craft utensils. "Hey mom do we have any more hot glue sticks? Thread? Yarn?" And of course, my mom would go up into her crafting room, dig around, and find what I needed. That's the bad thing about moving out. You have to buy all of your own stuff! But hey, we gotta start somewhere right? I'll tell you a secret my friend.... that somewhere, that I just mentioned.... is Walmart.

I may have splurged just a tinsy little bit. But I know myself. I make use of everything.

DIY: Nursery Decor

This is a little project that I just threw together today without doing any shopping or any driving. It's low budget and doesn't require a lot of materials. You can't beat that!

Here's what you'll need:

• 1 frame
• butterfly hole puncher
• 1 sheet of card stock
• 1 grocery size brown paper bag (I got mine at WinCo)
• wheat grass or anything similar
• glue stick
• scissors

The easy steps:

1. First cut out the paper bag to match the size of the glass in your frame, then crumple a couple of times and then stretch and flatten out on the back base of your frame.
2. Next, arrange your wheat grass on top of the brown paper until you have your desired look complete (I found that less wheat grass looked better since it emphasized more of the leaves against the paper bag)
3. Place your punched out butterflies behind the wheat grass and then glue down on paper bag.
4. Now set your glass over the arrangement of butterflies and wheat grass and trim any excess grass sticking out from the side with your scissors. Now you can finish by placing the glass and backing in your frame and viola!
 

p.s. If you look closely you can see my silhouette in the frame. Have a lovely day!

Matt being a good sport and getting it done. 

 We also finished the mobile that I've been working on and got it hung up.

 Also found some more treasures at goodwill recently, such as:

1. A yellow blanket to go in the newly painted nursery. $4

2. A key rack. I'll make some use of it somehow. $2

3. A cloche. Might fill it with fake lemons or something. $4

4. Two heart-shaped cookie cutters. $0.49

p.s. paint may look really yellow, but when I was editing them on my laptop (which is super dim) I brighten them up a lot. So the paint isn't as bright and bold looking as shown in the pictures above.

Jacob's Graduation Photos