Transcending

While I prepared for a Sunday of making multiple amounts of capes to get done before a busy week ahead I stopped in to check on one of my favorite blogs www.theletteredcottage.net.  (If you haven't checked them out yet... What are you waiting for?)  Anyways.. Layla shared a youtube video that I had to share as well... Take 5 minutes out of your day today to listen, giggle, cry, and transcend with this video. 



Happy Sunday and every day!
xoxo

TIPsy Tuesday: Butterfly Mobile

Hey guys!  So this is my guest tutorial post that was featured on www.craftionary.net last week.  I was so excited about Hani asking me to do a guest tutorial and so grateful that Meredith from www.themomoftheyear.net was so kind to guest post on our TIPsy Tuesday last week.  I decided to share my tutorial once again this week and post on some linky parties.  Thanks for always reading!!!  Enjoy!

What you'll need:  pencil, scissors, ruler, hot glue gun, string, tissue paper, double sided paper, a dead branch, ribbon

First we will make some butterflies.  On your double sided color paper (I recommend  using thin paper - I learned that the hard way), make 6"x6" squares and cut them out.  You can pick and choose how many butterflies you would like to add according to the size of the mobile you are making.

Fold your square in half both ways.  Flip the square over (make sure to do this because it will help with the next step) and fold diagonally both ways.

Pinch in the folds on the side into the middle to form a triangle ending with the point facing up.

From the bottom left and right corners, fold the top layer of paper up into a diamond shape.

Flip your triangle over so that the point is now at the bottom and you are working with the other side.  Fold the bottom part up and fold the tip of the point over the flat top.  You'll want a little more of the tip folded over than I have pictured.  It will help stabilize your butterfly better. 

Give the butterfly a good fold in half and Ta Da!  Pretty butterfly.  Now prepare to hang it by using a needle and string.  Knot the string at the end, but let the end going through the needle hang loose.

To get the butterfly to hang nicely I poked holes in the top diamond layer in the middle and then pulled the string up from the inside on one side and down through the top on the other side.

Once you knot the other side and cut the excess string off, with another piece of string knot it at the center of the piece going across the butterfly.  The lengths of these pieces will depend on how you choose to hang and balance the butterflies.

Now we will work on the tissue paper cherry blossoms.  I used two different color pink tissue papers.  Lying one on top of the other I drew out different flower shapes.  They do not need to be perfect (that's the best part).  Cut them all out.  You can pick and choose how many you'd like to make.

Take whichever color you want to be the inside layer and place a dot of hot glue in the middle.  Pinch together.  Place some hot glue on the middle of the second piece and place the first piece inside of it and pinch together.  Easy!

Next you'll be tying the butterflies onto the branch and gluing the blossoms on.  I was fortunate enough to have my husband find the perfect branch for me!

Tie the end of the strings connected to the butterfly to your branch (check the weight and balance as you go for placement).  Using my hot glue gun I glued the cherry blossoms over where I tied the string on the branch to hide the string.

Lastly I used a piece of ribbon to hang the mobile.  I was able to loop mine around, but you may have to be a little more creative depending on the shape of your branch.

Ta Da!  You have a beautiful Butterfly Mobile!

Thanks for following along!

xoxo,

My entry into Craft and Tell @ Cherished Bliss is sponsored by Appliances Online and the Bosch Washing Machines

Triskaidekaphobia - No this isn't babble

Triskaidekaphobia - The fear of the number 13.  Not me!!!  It's Friday the 13th!  Woo Hoo!  While some people freak out and are skeptical and fear the day... I enjoy it and bask in it!  I love anything and everything spooky.  When I was a kid I would watch scary movies (without my mother's knowledge.. Thanks Dad!!!).  I also revel and the wonders of the most spooktacular day.. Halloween.  My house is THE house in the neighborhood that even parents are scared to go to.  Friday the 13ths are usually pretty lucky for me... My dear husband knows me so well that he proposed on a Friday the 13th.

So with my love of Friday the 13th, I give you some fun facts (facts according to the world wide web) about Friday the 13th:

1. Butch Cassidy, notorious American train and bank robber, was born
on Friday, April 13, 1866. (Side Note: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid is one of my favorite movies.  It was this movie Jarret told me he loved on the first day we met.. He has never actually seen it, lied to impress me. Ha)

2.  The most times that the 13th will fall on a Friday in any given calendar is three, while the longest period without it is 14 months.

3.  Fear of Friday the 13th is called friggatriskaidekaphobia.(Try pronouncing that)

4.  On April 13, 2029, a Friday, the asteroid 99942 will make its closest encounter with earth.  (I thought the world was ending before then? Lol)

5.  Friday the 13th may not be as unlucky as people think. A 2008 Dutch study showed that fewer car accidents, fires and crimes occur on the said day, especially since superstitious would-be victims make an effort to stay out of harm's way.

6.  According to CNBC, the US market has been up 80 times out of the past 140 occasions when the 13th of a month landed on a Friday.

Have a lucky and spooktacular day!

xoxo

The Birds and the.... Crafts?

So I was visiting with my mom the other day and she (because of me and my addiction) is addicted to Pinterest.  Who isn't, right?  Well she called it one of the funniest things I've ever heard... "Craft Porn"!  For those of you who enjoy any kind of crafting and are addicted to Pinterest.... You will probably think that phrase is the funniest!  If that's not bad enough... I was reading a post over at our blog friend, The Mom of the Year and she mentioned StumbleUpon.  Well... It just brings multitudes of craft websites to me after I clicked crafts as my interest.  StumbleUpon introduced me to a different "pinterest" type of website called Craft Gawker.  Now I'm addicted to that because I'm seeing craft ideas I haven't seen on Pinterest.  Because of Craft Gawker I am also finding new craft bloggers that I haven't seen on Stumble Upon or Pinterest.  Seriously?  I am never going to get any work done with all this "Craft Porn"!!!!!

Top 6 things that make my life more simple...

I'm a "semi-homemade" lady!  I love Sara Lee and her semi-homemade meals.  I'm also a convenience and make it easy lady!  Like everyone else in the world I don't have as much time as I wish I did to get things done like I would like to, SO I decided to share 6 (I was going to do 5, but remembered 1 more) things that have been making my life quicker and easier...

My Tassimo single serve coffee maker - So quick, so easy... Barely any cleanup!!! LOVE!

"My Fitness Pal" app - You can also use it online, but I have the app on my iphone... Helps me keep track of everything I put in my body and exercise.. Really helped me get in shape by tracking the bad things I did! 

My JoAnn's Fabric app - If you are at craft stores a lot... This app for JoAnn's Fabric is helpful.  They have coupons in it and you can use multiple coupon codes at checkout!!!

Knorr Roasters!!!!!  - Yes the idea of cooking chicken in a bag probably doesn't appeal to some, but me?  What the heck!  It gives it great taste and makes the chicken juicy!  LOVE!!!

My Shark iron!  It's the only brand we use for irons!  Jarret just bought a new one and I love it!

Last, but not least... my absolute favorite kitchen gadget.. The Magic Bullet!  I use it everyday!  Make healthy delicious smoothies and it is the easiest thing to clean up!  Makes so many other great stuff too!

Have a good and simplified day!

xoxo

TIPsy Tuesday: Guest Post: Online Bargain Shopping - Get it Delivered and Get it Cheaper!

I am so excited to share with you that I have a guest tutorial post at www.craftionary.net today that I am so excited to share.. BUT I'm just as excited to share with  you our first guest post ever from Meredith at www.themomoftheyear.net.  Meredith started out as a shopper at our etsy shop, but I noticed her email address @themomoftheyear and decided to do a little online snooping and ever since then we've been blogging friends!  She's fun, witty, and has a great tip to share!!!  Enjoy!

When Sabrina asked me to guest post for Tipsy Tuesday this week I was totally honored—and totally terrified!  See the thing is, when I say, “I’m not crafty”, I mean I’M NOT CRAFTY.  In fact, I’m completely DIY-impaired.  She quickly explained that any “tip” would suit—cleaning, home organization, what have you.  This felt better because I am organized, but what of my anal-retentiveness would fit well into a blog post??  After sufficient overly-dramatic agonizing, I decided to focus on what I do best—online bargain shop.

My motto is, “Get it delivered and get it cheaper”.  I make it an art form to get stuff shipped for free to my home and to pay less for it than I ever would in a store.  I do this with everything ranging from coffee filters to dog food to furniture.

I follow three basic steps:

1. Start at www.ebates.com.  If you aren’t a member on Ebates, become one.  It’s free and it gives you cash back on every purchase you make by linking to the store site through ebates.  Then every 3 months I get a check in the mail.  Every store gives you a percentage back on each purchase. At times, that 3% at Target may seem like nothing, but it adds up!  And be it a few cents or a few dollars, I am not one to scoff at free money!  Plus, getting that check in my mailbox is sweet!!

 2. Open a different window (this is important b/c to get your Ebates credit, you must purchase through the link opened through ebates), type “(store name) promo code” into google and see what pops up.  There are tons of couponing sites.  After doing this for a while now, I only bother checking out what is offered through www.retailmenot.com.  In my experience,this site has the best and most reliable promo codes.  But if you have extra time, you must be crazy poke around online and see what comes up.

3. Place your order, entering the promo code at checkout.  Don’t be afraid to try to use more than one. Most sites don’t allow this, but when my daughter was born, I scored 100 birth announcements on Shutterfly for $7.41 by entering 5 different promos!  It let me enter them all.

There are loads of other money-saving tips when purchasing online…

I almost always order enough for free shipping.  For example, I was ordering vitamins the other day and I had the choice to add $10 in product to my cart (to get vitamins my family would use anyway) and qualify for free shipping or spend  $6.95 on shipping.   No-brainer there…

Put stuff in your online cart and leave it there—stores will often send promos to your inbox.  DHC (my fav skincare product company) gets “grouchy” if I leave stuff there for a few days and almost always ends up sending me a promo for an extra 10% off (along with numerous annoying reminders to order what I left in my cart)

Even if you are going to the store anyway, still check out the situation online.  Some stuff just can’t be shipped for free, as was the case with our purchase of a patio set this week.  Even though we were going to have to go Home Depot to pick it up, I suggested we look first to see if we could order online(and thus buy through ebates and get cash back).  Ebates ended up scoring us $9 and then we also found a promo code at Retailmenot for $10. So we saved $19, but the real bonus was when we got to Home Depot and discovered that the sale price of $299 was an online special only.  If we had just walked into Home Depot and purchased the set, we would have paid $600!  By ordering it online before going to pick it up, we only paid $280—53% savings works for me!

Don’t ignore rebates.  Can seem like a lot of work, I know, but really, you just print and fill out the form and mail it in with the UPC code and receipt.  I ended up making (yes,MAKING!), $5.64 this way when I bought a cake pop maker at Kohls using ebates and promo codes.

Compare, compare, compare.  For example, before buying any common household item (as happened a couple days ago when I panicked, realizing were out of my beloved crisp linen-scented Lysol), I do a quick check on all of my top 4 online-shopping sites for such things: Target (the Red Card gets you automatic 5% off and free shipping on any item), Walmart, Drugstore.com, and Amazon (you often get the better price using Subscribe and Save, but as soon as your order ships, you can go in and cancel your subscription and re-subscribe in the future as many times as you want).

        
             MOM OF THE YEAR
a less serious look at the world of parenting...
       www.themomoftheyear.net

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Date Night, Deviled Eggs, Guest Posting, and a New Website....

Having been so busy lately, my husband and I decided we needed to go out for a real dinner date on Friday night because we never get to just relax with each other.  We had a great time!  We went to a restaurant named CowFish. It is delicious!  They have a mixture of hamburgers (cow) and sushi (fish).  Yummy!  We saw other people taking pictures of their bento boxes and each other eating, so we decided to "jump off the bridge" and see what the fun was!  I will share in this food photo taking fun:

My bento box.. You can see I had already started to dig in before I noticed the picture taking fun.

Jarret enjoying some of his edamame.

Mmmm.. Slider!

Mind the blurriness - This was my camera phone, but the mirror globe on the wall was asking for a picture of us! :)

Dinner was yummy and we shall return there one day when some time is much needed again!  We also went to my mom's today for Easter... She made these adorable.. and yummy deviled eggs...

For someone who says she doesn't know where my "crafty-ness" came from, she does a very crafty job at things!

This weekend wasn't just full of fun eating.. I have gotten a lot done with Neverland Nook work!  I'm excited to share that I will be guest blogging a fun TIPsy Tuesday tutorial on the Craftionary blog!  I am so thrilled Hani asked me to do a guest post!  With that, Leslie or I won't be posting a TIPsy Tuesday this week, BUT we are so EXCITED to share that Meredith from www.themomoftheyear.net will be sharing some very great tips!!!  I can't wait to share her post with you!  Also, I have been working on our new website {www.neverlandnook.com} and hopefully it will be up and running very soon!!!!  I still have some work to do to tidy it up, but overall it is looking great and I can't wait to share it!  Thanks for tolerating my absence!

xoxo

PS - Our new blog will not be a blogger, so please follow us on Linky Follower.  It is linked to our new website and will update you (you'll see the sign up on the right side of the screen).  Also, if you are signed up on our RSS feed we will be carrying it over and updating to our new website soon..
Thanks!!!!

I miss you blog!

Hi!!!

I've missed you blog!  I know I am usually the one who rambles on and on online, possibly to myself, and I haven't been on in a while.  I have been SUPER busy!  I can't tell you the number of capes I have made!  We are really busy lately so please bear with us.  We have upcoming appearances on other blogs, PR blogs, been doing home shows, working, creating, crafting, working on our official website (soon to come, so please follow us over there when we make the transition!!!).  Once the new site is up and running I'll be on there all the time, because trust me, I am now...  So thanks for reading our TIPsy Tuesdays and staying faithful readers!  See you soon!!!

xoxo