Birthday time!

We celebrated my big bro's birthday a few days ago at my parent's house.  I love our family birthday parties.  My mom always makes something delicious, and my dad makes a huge birthday sign with the special person's face front and center.  It was a blast hanging out together and getting to play with his adorable kids.  Seeing my niece belly laugh when her big brother dances for her reminds me of just how special the sibling bond is.  I'm lucky to have the best big brother (and also best big sister) in the world.  They are my built in forever best friends.  I wish I would have gotten a picture of the yo-yo I gave him as a tribute to the Yomegas we used to have as kids.  One of my fondest memories is of us practicing and then going to a yo-yo class to show our skills.  The prize?  A leather yo-yo holster that fits on your belt.  We had mad skills back then (and weren't dorks at all).  Love you, big brother!  Hope you know how much we all love you and how proud we are of you!

delicious cake made by my mom

getting excited to blow out the candles

aforementioned huge sign

adorable family

minus one little sweetie that wasn't happy with her uncle

best big brother

DIY: Valentine's Day Wreath

Who doesn't love a seasonal wreath?  I had never made one before, but I always thought about how cute yarn covered wreaths were and such.  So as I was cleaning up this weekend, I saw a wreath mold stuck behind my desk covered in dust balls that I had bought at Target for $1 a loooong time ago and thought to myself, "Today's the day!  Today is the day I'm going to utilize that impulse buy and pretend that it was a necessary purchase all along!"  Because who doesn't sift through the dollar bin at Target and buy stuff just because it's a dollar and there is a sliver of possibility in the future that you'll use it?  I had some extra scrap paper, felt, and butcher paper that I hadn't thrown away and realized they had been saved for just such a project.  Now I could make a cute wreath and get rid of my trash in one fail swoop.  Done and done.  I wouldn't say the workmanship of this wreath is top notch, but it's kind of cute from a distance and makes me feel like I tried to decorate for the appropriate holiday.  The instructions are super easy.  Just wrap the wreath mold with whatever you have lying around, secure with hot glue, and stick something cute to the front of it.  I chose to make a fabric rosette to give it a little extra pizazz. 

I'm curious, does anyone else make impulse purchases and then find them months later collecting dust?  Do you end up using the items for projects?  Sound off in the comments below!



Dinner date

This weekend we went to dinner with my awesome brother and beautiful sister-in-law.  Can't you tell we're related?  No, you say?  He's too tan and good looking?  Well, I'd have to agree.  I always tease him for secretly going to tanning booths, but he still vehemently denies it every time.  One of these days I'll catch him.  Maybe I should just let go of my angst of being the sibling with pale, see through skin.  What was I talking about again?  Oh yeah!  Dinner!  They have two adorable little ones who my parents graciously agreed to watch so we could have a fun night on the town.  We were free to go anywhere!  Sky was the limit!  So where did we end up?  Drumroll please.......Cheddar's!  For those of you not familiar with Cheddar's, it's pretty good.  It's like an Applebee's or Chili's.  We just all laughed about it, because we're all too old to care anymore about going to the new trendy restaurant.  It didn't matter where we went, though, as long as we got to hang out.  The funny part I wanted to talk about were the drinks.  You can see in the picture above that my brother got a beer....with a straw!  Hi-larious.  Then, my sil ordered a dry martini.  We should have known something was wrong when the waitress asked if she wanted it on the rocks.  It cam over ice in a short glass.  I've never seen a martini like that before, but maybe that's the cool new way to serve it.  It sure gave us all a chuckle.  It was a blast, and I can't wait until our next dinner date.  Below is what I wore.  I'm seeing a trend now with my wardrobe.

Sweater/shirt/socks: Old Navy   Jeans: Gap   Shoes: Sperry  Specs: Ray-ban  Necklace: By me!   

Life lately

Pretty fabric, right out of the oven cookies, and wishing it was summer already sums up my life right now.  It helps that I have an entire room that looks like it's Florida year round or I don't know what I'd do in the dead of winter.  Better keep working on that scarf.

Shop update

Just added a new necklace to my shop.   I fell in love with this salvaged fabric that I found in a little place in Lawrence, KS.  It has a lot of great colors that you wouldn't normally expect go together, but mix really well.  I know I say this every time, but this is my new favorite.

Style

Style is a tricky word.  I don't feel like I have a lot of style, but I do feel like I've been honing in on what I want my personal style to be.  Ok.  I'm going to throw out the word hipster.  I'm not cool enough to be a true hipster, but maybe saying I'm not cool enough there in fact makes me cool enough to be a hipster?  I may never know.  Regardless, my new glasses and recent acquisition of true skinny jeans has really brought me closer to the style I've been going for but have been too chicken until now to try out.  I like the look of boots with skinny jeans, but even though I have relatively comfortable ones, they still hurt my feet and knee after a while (yes, I'm old now and have knee problems).  So I wanted to do a rolled up jean look with argyle socks and boat shoes.  I guess my look here was more nerdy librarian, but I loved it.  Let this be a lesson to myself--have more self-confidence and wear what I like. 

This is....my time

Saturday morning I woke up early (well early for me) and went into my craft room to knit. It was nice to just sit there peacefully, not feeling like there was anything I had to do. Not to say there wasn't a lot for me to do like clean the kitchen, mop the floors, blah, blah, blah.  But those aren't fun things, so I like to pretend they aren't necessary.  Anyway, that's what 3 day weekends are for, right? Being able to put chores off until the next day since you have one more day to finish them (but don't ask me if I accomplished everything on my to do list, because I don't want to lie to you and say I did). The sunshine streaming through the window warmed my face and tricked me into thinking it was summertime. I put on a couple records by The Lumineers and Bright Eyes and was completely content. Man, that was superb. I need to do this more so maybe I can finish my scarf before next winter.