dear followers!

Hello... It's been quite a while! my life got completely flipped upside down, lol. I am single and living in China now. If you want to follow my new blog, which is lots of fun, please come check it out. Here's the latest post, fresh off the press! It's about some of the foods I've been eating here. I have a tiny little studio now, and because I'm crafty, there will be fabulous decorating projects to follow. I'm also the poorest I've ever been in my life, lol, so they will be very creative on the cheap type projects! Cheers! Hope you'll come check it out! My new life is exciting!

10 Pins Tuesday- DIY FAll

I think I'd blog more if I didn't have black holes like work, Dr. Who, and pinterest sucking up all my time... eh, probably not, lol, oh well.

For this 10 Pins Tuesday, I found a bunch of cute fall inspirations.

1. Hello cutest owl I've ever seen.

2. This cowl tutorial is cool and EASY... basically you just hack off the bottom of a sweater and hem the cut end.

3. I love these recycled leather leaf earrings.

4. cute and EASY string wrapped fall wreath idea.

5. love, love, love this modern dream catcher!

6. I'd need to learn some new embroidery skills... but isn't this awesome!?

 7. My favorite fall flavor? Apples! These "peanuty apple wraps" look delicious! I would probably substitute the peanut butter for sunflower seed butter.

8. YUM! description- Delicious breakfast: Apple Rings Dipped in pancake batter. Cook on a griddle and add cinnamon and sugar!

9. CUTE! and probably very yummy too!

10. Annnnnd, hopefully by our next bonfire, we will be drinking from these (recycled beer bottle glasses) Justin just ordered my first bottle cutter... hopefully it comes quick, I can figure it out, and I can go bananas cutting bottles, lol.

10 Pins Tuesday- Wish List

I was going to do another upcycling themed 10Pins, but then I thought I'd change it up. My birthday is fast approaching... and this, is my wish list :)

1. I still really want a card catalog!

 2. and THIS coffee table!

3. and this AH-mazing print. It's the entire book. Pride and Prejudice.

4. or this Pride and Prejudice scarf... cute!

5. I sooo want to stitch this!

6. Mama is getting me a bottle cutter, so I can make these!

7. Fall is almost here, and I LOVE sweater tights.

8. OH MY LANTA! I LOVE THIS!

9. If I had a color printer, I would have made this already! (If you have a color printer, this is what I want from you!)

10. These rings! I would sooo wear them!

AND! For my party, I'd like to do this!

who's with me???

10 Pins Tuesday- Upcycle!

I found some awesome projects this time that can be done on a broker-than-broke budget.

1. doodle outlet... LOVE IT!

2. buttons bow cardi, so cute... two of my favorite things.

3. upcycle a building with graffiti, this is so cute!

4. tutorial for wrapped chain jewelry, love it!

5. wine crate coffee table, so much storage!

6. world's coolest lunch box! it's a picnic in a box, lol.

7. sassy pants!

8. or chop them in tiny bits and stitch them into art

9. old record + plant stand = awesome table

10. bottle cap back splash

so excited!

I'm going to start working on an epic project! How epic? So epic, I'm afraid to even talk about it much because I don't want to get your hopes up in case I a. run out of money and can't do it for a while b. start doing it and realize I'm in way over my head c. start doing it and realize it's going to take forever, and lose your interest. (don't worry I know how it is)

But here's what I can tell you without running any of those risks.

• we are finally going to convert the sun room into a play room (nope, no buns in any ovens, just too playful nieces who come over a lot... one of which doesn't pick up after herself very well, and currently all their "Aunt Clare" toys are in my living room... not a great mix)
• I'm going to use 10, that's right 10 colors of paint in there and finally do an AWESOME focal wall.
• There will be some upcycling, but of course.
• We've started!

Found this awesome inspiration photo a while back and pinned it... I'm kinda afraid to blog it for above said reasons, but I needed paint colors... lots of paint colors. I followed the lady's advise and made a swatch of all the colors we've already used in our house. Who knew I had almost a full can of the perfect shade of grey?! Bonus! I popped in three bright shades (yellow, orange, and pink) and a darker grey for the trim work. There is a lot of trim work.

These will make up the focal wall, which is the most exciting and scary part of this room redo.

Technically, I don't think I can call this a room redo, because all we've ever done with our sun room is store crap in it, lol. We pretty much had it decluttered and ready for a very deep cleaning, when a summer pop up shower ruined everything. We'd emptied the whole room and taken everything out onto our back patio when "CRACK, rumble, rumble" thunder broke out and it started pouring. We had to scrabble to get everything back in.

Today, I measured, priced, picked out my extra colors AND bought something super cool I intend to upcycle (no details yet... could be an epic fail on my part... metal is not my favorite medium to work with.)

I also went to visit my kids from my previous class. I MISS THEM! (and I was glad to find out they've been missing me too!) I got hundreds of hugs and Kiki gave me a million "moochies" her word for kisses. I hung out with them for about an hour, and if we hadn't found that huge earth worm, I might have never gotten out of there, lol. I miss the kids and teachers at my old job, but I much prefer the atmosphere at my new job. I'm making new friends little and big, and I feel like I can breathe again. It'll also be nice to be part time for a while... I'm ready for a little less stress in my life.

I will keep you updated on the playroom (and those sweaters I felted) as it unfolds. I hope you are getting to do all the projects and such that you've been dreaming about!

Love, Clare

new

hello again :)

Life is settling down for me again. I have a new job, which is significantly better than my old job. There are a lot less hours right now though, which is a bit troubling. I took a leap of faith with this whole process, and now I'm stepping out in faith everyday.

Yesterday, I was on call, but did not get called in. The DH and I got a lot done. We cleaned out the garage, took a lot of stuff we didn't need to goodwill, and started the conversion of our sun room (clutter room, more accurately) into a play room for our nieces.

This weekend, I painted our front door "totally turquoise" and I love it!

the first pic is my door before, the second is with two coats of primer, the third is with the insets and trim painted. 

ta-da!

Also, I felted some sweaters yesterday with the intent of upcycling them. The gray one didn't felt as well as I'd hoped, so I will have to play around with them.

so yeah, I'm still here, and I'm still my crazy crafty self... and hopefully, I'll have more time to let you in on what's going on in my life. 

21 songs in 21 minutes... I hope!

Well, I should have known better than trying to do one of those 25 day commitment things right now. Life is nuts again... I'm trying to push through. Today is a day to get things finished, like...

• the laundry
• one of my book ideas
• my resume
• and of course, this music thinger (I haven't forgotten you!)

day 5- a song that is often stuck in my head- Wallace and Gromit Theme Song

 This is pretty much my happy song... if I'm in a good mood, I kinda march around humming it, lol.

day 6- a song that reminds you of your best friend- Keep Fishing, Weezer cover by Julia Nunes

Thanks Tara for the exposure to life, lol.

day 7- a song that reminds you of the past summer *edit* a song that reminds me of the best summer ever- Suds in the Bucket, Sara Evans

WHAT WHAT! Dr. Who!!!

day 8- a song that reminds you of your first "love"- Crazy for this Girl, Evan and Jaron

Holy crap, I'm old. (I used to sing crazy for this boy, with my friend Lori... turned out we were both singing about the same guy. He dated both of us... ahhhh, junior high, lol.)

day 9- a song that makes you hopeful- Dog Days are Over, Florence + the Machine

day 10- a song by your favorite band- Don't Stop Me Now, Queen

day 11- a song on the soundtrack of your favorite movie- Hedwig's Theme, John Williams

day 12- the last song you heard- Pizza, Julia Nunes

day 13- a song that reminds you of a former friend

 

day 14- a song that reminds you of your husband-  Pumped Up Kicks, Foster the People

Justin loves this song right now.

day 15- a song you love singing along to- Ain't No Sunshine, Bill Withers

day 16- a song that has made you cry- Someone Like You, Adele

The first time I heard this I was driving and started sobbing, lol.

day 17- a song that makes you dance- Say Hey, Michael Franti

just try not to dance, it's impossible not to dance along... also one of the cutest music videos ever!

day 18- a song you love but rarely listen to- Sunburnt Hand, Julia Nunes and Danny Tieger

day 19- first song alphabetically in your Ipod- Aberdeen, Cage the Elephant

day 20- last song alphabetically in your Ipod- 8 Days a Week, The Beatles

day 21- your favorite song- I don't have just one... all of these are my favorites. Sorry, I know this seems like a cop-out, but does anyone really have just one favorite song or one favorite movie? There are too many wonderful things in this world to pick one favorite, I'm lucky most times to narrow it down to five :)

day 22- a song that someone has sung to you- You are my Sunshine, Johnny Cash

Justin sings this to me in the shower, lol.

day 23- a song that you cannot stand to listen to- Hey Soul Sister, or whatever it's called by the nasty chest stubbly guy... (untrimmed chest... means he usually does, but didn't this time... so instead of chest hair, he has chest stubble... and that is gross.) I can't listen to the whole song because the imagery is not romantic at all.

day 24- a song you have danced you with your bestfriend

day 25- a song you could listen to all day without getting tired of- If You're Lookin' for Some Lovin', Pomplamoose

So... it's the next day already, lol... BUT... I did get this done, I did get some laundry done, and I finished my resume. I started working on my book idea, but did not get finished. I'm going to need a second opinion.