Don't tell anyone, but...

...I totally copied this idea, I was just too cheap to pay for it...

Far from perfect (I didn't hold the stencils down well enough on the first line so the letters turned out globby...hence my black "shading"), but I'm still happy with it.  A new tshirt out of an old 99 cent goodwill tshirt, using fabric paint I just picked up from goodwill (5 brand new large bottles of Tulip for $1.99!). 

I've been pretty productive today...It only took me an hour to wake up after my alarm went off, Atticus has been walked, I gave him a bath, laundry is almost done, I cleaned up my "craft station" so I can continue a project, the bathroom is halfway cleaned, and I recleaned most of the dried up junk out of my brushes (that I couldn't seem to get out no matter what) with a new non-toxic brush cleaner. 

All in all, I'm pretty pleased with my day.

We cannot waste time. We can only waste ourselves.

~ George M. Adams

A clean Josie

Three other girls and I got together to have a carwash. 

Only we just washed, vacuumed and cleaned the crap out of OUR cars. 

Only took four hours.

:)

My car....

My name in soap  :)

Sweat cleanses from the inside. It comes from places a shower will never reach.
~ George Sheehan

Predictable and Non

Sometimes, I'm way too predictable. 

I went to Goodwill the other day, and didn't realize til I was washing my clothes what I had done..

Yup.  I bought 4 brown sweaters.  To join the other 5 brown sweaters in my closet. 

My clothing is 95% brown, gray, black and blue.  With an occasional shot of dark green in there to liven things up. 

Othertimes, I'm a little less predictable.

My dinner creation tonight (thanks to Trader Joes)....

Organic 3 cheese pizza on which I placed artichoke hearts, one of the few vegetables I like. 

Yup, thats right.  I like artichokes.  Not always, but usually. 

I bet you didn't know that about me!

When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him.

~ Jonathan Swift

A sneak peak

I recently finished up making a birthday present for someone and had some extra materials, so I made this....

A wire wrapped ring with glass beads.  It took less than 10 minutes to make and it is way too cool for words.  I'm pretty excited about the possibilities. 

Of course, I don't have a ring dowel so I estimated size on the handle of a mini rolling pin, so...the size is a tad off.  Not so bad though. 

I saw a ring kind of like this on etsy a long time ago and showed it to my sister.  I recently found a tutorial.  I don't have a link for the Etsy ring, but here's one for the tutorial if you're interested.

I have weird elephant skin.  I don't understand it.

Off to zumba and aqua zumba (I haven't gone to the gym for 5 days.  I need it!)

If you want to be happy, be. ~ Leo Tolstoy

My own reasons for buying local

Remember this...?  (I bought it at urbancraftuprising)

Well, I'm almost out.  It is wonderful stuff.  It took me awhile to get used to pouring out the liquid (without making a mess), but I think I finally got used to it. 

Why do I like it so much?  Well...

#1.  It works just as well as other dryer sheets.  I'm not sure how it could work better. 

The thing is, I've used Bounce for years...probably since college days.  The other day, I was doing laundry with my eyes barely open and decided to use Bounce instead of my liquid stuff.  I pulled the Bounce down off the shelf, opened up the box, and was almost bowled over by the smell of it.  It smells super strong, and weirdly, super chemically. 

#2.  My liquid stuff does not smell like chemicals.

So, I decided to order some more.  While I was paying for shipping, I included some unscented laundry soap.  I haven't had a chance to use that yet as my Tide is still 1/4 full.  Believe me though, I'm excited.

Never have I been so excited to open my package of laundry soap:

In it was a thank-you card.  A thank you card!!!!!!  What?!?!  Can you imagine buying a box of Cheerios and having a hand-written card inside?  Umm...no.  Never. 

I got a free snack bag just for ordering.  How cool is that?

Here's a picture of my laundry soap.  They don't have the same scented soap as my dryer sheet system so I went with unscented.

Anyways, if you want a thank-you card just for buying soap, go to pepperjackhome.com

No, I didn't receive any compensation for writing this.  I'm just an impressed consumer.

As a side note, I came home one day to my plants from my plant stand on the floor and Atticus looking guilty in the corner.  Nothing a little vacuum and paper towels couldn't fix.  I found a broken stem to my angel wing plant on the floor and decided to put it in water to see what would happen....

Another week or two and I'll plant it!!! 

Nine-tenths of the people were created so you would want to be with the other tenth.

~ Horace Walpole

The blackberry festival

Another local festival today...

I actually spent a fair amount of money buying local things - I bought potpourri and oil, a dog bone, ginger marinade (I tried it on fried mushrooms - it was delicious!  And I hate mushrooms), and blackberry wine.  The blackberry wine is the exact same I buy at the local grocery store, but here the proceeds benefited the festival and the city, so I bought some more. 

Plus, fair food!  I had a hamburger with extra pickles, a blackberry milkshake, and blackberry soda.  Awesome. 

Today is my Sunday.  I only had 2 days off this weekend, and I spent 20 hours of my first day off sleeping.  Yes, you read that correctly.  Apparently I was very very tired. 

You can clutch the past so tightly to your chest that it leaves your arms too full to embrace the present.

~ Jan Glidewell

In town for an hour

Fate laughs at probabilities. ~ E.G. Bulwer-Lytton