March Card Club

I just joined a card club in my new neighborhood.  I love it, it's so fun to make some new friends who share my interests.  We each make 9 cards (one of us, and one for each of the other 8 women), then get together to exchange cards, eat and chat.  I haven't made cards in so long, since my things spent months in storage until we moved into our new house.  I still had to ransack all my still not unpacked craft boxes to find what I wanted.

Yikes.  Good thing this is an extra bedroom, so there is no great rush to take care of this disaster.

Anyway, here's the card I made for this month:

Dry embossed using my Cuttlebug and the Perfectly Paisley embossing folder, Stampin' Up Fun Filled stamp set, Fiskars Eyelet edge punch.

Life happens....and here's a wedding gift.

So part of the reason I've been moving S-O  S-L-O-W-L-Y with regards to getting my kitchen done is that I still have a life.  I have two small children who need/want their mommy, I have friends and family that I like to see and communicate with, I have my little family whom I want to feed good meals, I have husband who likes to hang out with me, and I've had a few other projects to take care of.
So, on that note, my sister (who lives an interesting travel filled life, currently situated in Alaska) was in town for her best friend's wedding last week.  She asked if I would make one of my wood signs for her friend.  I was more than happy to do it, not only for my sister, but for the bride.  My sister and Julie have been friends since they were in elementary school.  So we sat down together and came up with a design I am very happy with.

A 1X12 pine board cut roughly square, painted with Apple Barrel acrylic craft paint in Kelly Green, clear coat Krylon Low Odor Clear Finish.

White Oracal vinyl cut with my Cricut, using the following cartridges:

A Child's Year

Opposites Attract

Plantin' Schoolbook

Home Accents

(oh, and a note of explanation: in my church, we refer to each other as Brother or Sister -last name here- because we believe we are all God's children and thus siblings in the grand scheme of things. Julie was particularly excited to be Brother and Sister Drake, so that's why we put it on the sign.)

Bow remake

Hey there folks....I haven't got much of interest going on, since I'm still plugging away at those cabinets (and repainting our banister so I can put the gate up and no longer have boxes barricading the stairs).  But yesterday I did whip out my glue gun, so I thought I'd show you what I did.
We were getting ready to leave for church, and I was ransacking my daughter's bow collection.  She got a set of five bows for Christmas.  I believe Faded Glory makes them, sold at Walmart.  The bows themselves are cute, but I never cared for the rosette on the top.

So I started ripping them off as my husband was calling for me to come get in the car!  Later that afternoon, I raided my quite extensive button stash, and hot glued some of those babies on.

So easy it barely qualifies as crafting, but I think they look much better.

Maybe I'm a snob...

But I don't like having things that are just like what someone else has.  (I suppose that isn't surprising, coming from a girl who goes shopping and can't bear to actually buy anything, thinking, "I could make that."  Whether that is really true or not.)  This applies especially with regards to our home.  And even more especially with regards to the curb appeal of our home!
The previous owners had these tacky tacky tacky adhesive numbers in one of the bedroom windows.  You know, this kind:

Horrifying, I know.  So needless to say, replacing those numbers with something else was HIGH on the priority list.  Like as soon as possible.
But I just couldn't find house numbers I liked.  I didn't want the same kind of numbers everyone has.  No way.  I want the outside of our house to be charming and unique...just like us (pardon my husband's laughter in the background...though he's probably right, we may be unique but not charming).
So I went to Etsy.  And oh, did I find what I was looking for.
Winfield Designs (shop name: metalgardenart) will cut out the numbers you need in any font you want, steel and 8 inches tall.  $7.95 a piece, plus S&H.  Very reasonable, as some of the more unique house number designs I found online are $11.95 each!!!
So after much downloading of new fonts, playing in Word and deliberation, I decided to go with the Melanie font.  With this font, the numbers are not of uniform height, and Winfield Designs noticed and asked me if I wanted the numbers to stay in their original sizes relative to each other, or if I wanted each number to be the full eight inches.  So considerate of them, and great attention to detail!  (I chose to have the numbers stay in their original size...I think they are cuter that way!)
They arrived nice and clean, ready to paint:

And I painted them with Krylon Oil Rubbed Bronze spray paint.

Don't they look great?  They will look even better once they are up on our house!!!
Thanks Winfield Designs!
(and no, I did not get any form of compensation for this post, I just wanted to share a good find.)
(and the cabinets are a comin' I promise...)