Airplanes and a BABY!

In the morning, myself and two of my children, will be flying to Kansas to visit my oldest daughter.  My biggest baby, Heather, is having a BABY!  I feel WAY too young to be a grandma.  So, I will be going by something else.....I just can't face that word yet.  Her daddy, however, cannot wait to spoil the baby princess (when he gets to see her for the first time in July).   We are so excited, especially Hago, who keeps asking Heather, "What times that baby coming out??!!"  He also insist that the baby's name will be Hot Dog Cheese Baby.  Surprisingly, he has stuck with this name for over a month, so unfortunately, I think it's going to stick.  Heather had a nickname when she was younger, French Fry Toes (because, duh, her toes looked like french fries), and I think our little baby princess has already been christened with her nickname.  I can't wait to be with my daughter when she has her daughter.  Dammit!  I'm already tearing up.  Oh geez....it's going to be an emotional, happy week!  I only wish that my husband could be here..poor guy is missing A LOT this year.  

The point of my post tonight is to let everyone know that I will most likely not be updating my blog until May 2nd.  I'll be too busy sniffing yummy baby smell and pampering my daughter :)  

Also, could you please send "Hagan behaving well thoughts" to me in the EARLY morning hours???  Hago's first plane trip and I'm a lot nervous on how he is going to behave.  See, Hago thinks he's famous and that all people should acknowledge him and engage in conversation with him...it's cute to a point, but you know, not everyone wants to have a meaningful conversation with a three year old.  Also, he sometimes acts like a Tyrannosaurus, with grunting and roaring, all hunched over with his "special" claws.  What am I thinking taking him on a plane trip???  Oh yeah...I'm dying to see my biggest baby and her newest baby....YAY!!!!  I will breathe deeply and find the humor.  That's the only choice I have right??  Right??  Do you think they would let me check him with the baggage??  JUST KIDDING!

Have a great week!  Talk to you soon!
Libby :)

LIZ at BON TEMPS BEIGNET is my HERO

After my failure with trying to make a subway sign for my husband for our anniversary, Liz came to the rescue!  Liz has an awesome blog called Bon Temps Beignet that I stalk...I mean follow.  I found her at a link party when she featured this wreath. 

The fleur de lis caught my attention (I'm a huge lover of all things fleur de lis) and her great ideas and style sucked me in!  After reading her blog, yes, all of it, I discovered the link to her etsy shop.  AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH (that's me singing like an angel is descending down upon me, c'mon people, imagine it!)  Isn't this the face of an angel???

  I fell in love with her designs.  It was exactly what I needed and imagined for my gift.  BUT THEN!!!  I discovered that she could put an image in the background!  Perfect! 

Liz created my poster once I provided her with my picture and everything I wanted it to say.  It was such an easy and fast transaction, really painless.  At least painless for me...she might have another story :)  I had the file within a few days!!  She did all the hard work for me (I am really computer illiterate) so she gets ALL the credit!  She also gave me great advice on how to mount the poster and where to get it printed.  She makes the customized posters, any size, for 20 bucks!  It cost me $5 to have it printed in an 18 x 28 size at Kinkos/Fed Ex.  That is a DEAL!!!  I went ahead and had them mount it to a poster board in store which was $20, but that was because I wasn't sure I could get it home unharmed.  Once home, I mounted it on wood and put a layer of Mod Podge over the top to protect it.  My husband loved it!   Home run BABY!

Please check out Liz at her blog and etsy shop!  You gotta see how she made these

And these

She's funny and creative and she's seems like a girl that I would have beer with any time!  Ooohhh, beer and crafting................that's a great idea!  Seriously, check her out!

Thanks for saving my ass and creating the best anniversary gift EVER! 
Libby :)

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY BABY!!!

Happy 18th Anniversary Baby!!!

20 years ago I met my husband, CW, while we were both working at a nursing home.  (Him in maintenance with his dad and me in the kitchen with my boss sister).  It was not love at first sight.  I jokingly say that he grew on me like a fungus...I'm only slightly kidding :)  He chased me for awhile, but somehow, after our first "real" date, he just never went home.  One evening, him and his friend, took me and the friend's girlfriend out to the country because they "had something to show us."  This made me very nervous, I never knew what to expect with him.  Turns out, they wrote on what we call a bridge, their love for us.  CW wrote, "I (heart) Lora, CW."  I honestly can't remember when I added my side.  It had to have been after we were married because I signed it "LW"  Oh, by the way, we only used a chalk rock picked up off the gravel road.  Every time we would road trip out that way, we would stop and go over it.  Sometimes, with all of our moving, years would go by before we could go out there again.  Every single time, it was weathered, worn, but still there.  Our friend's declaration of love was gone within a month.....and so was their relationship.  Strange, right?  I always say, as long as our writing is still there, we are meant to stay together.  Not that I would get rid of the guy anyway, but it has a nice sentiment.  In the background of my anniversary gift, is a pic of our bridge.  MY side of the bridge.  A few years ago for our anniversary, CW, while deployed, had an artist paint our bridge with watercolors.  It is beautiful and is my most favorite gift I've ever received.  Since CW is deployed once again for our anniversary, I wanted to do something special for him and incorporate our bridge.  So, the background is a pic our bridge and on top is my favorite line from a song that we listened to over and over again while he was home in February and every street and state that we have lived on and in since we've been married.  Well, except the first two streets, those are the streets where we grew up.  I know he's going to love it!

This pic was taken in December 2010.  That is what it looked like before I went over it again.  The last time I was able to visit was in September 2009.

 This pic is the background.

In my next post, I will tell you where I got the poster from and how I mounted it.  A big shout-out coming to an awesome lady! 

Happy Anniversary!

I love you!

Have an awesome day,

LIBBY :)

*Disclaimer*

Please don't go out and vandalize any property.  Keep in mind we started this tradition at the ripe old ages of 18 and 19.  We used CHALK rocks, nothing intended to be permanent (although it is now after all these years).  My children have witnessed this and have not grown up to be graffiti artist or vandalizers.  I cannot say that your children will be so lucky, so please don't share this blog post with them.  :)

 

Sconces, shelves and wall holes....OH MY

Mean people suck!  So, if you are a fellow blogger and have ever received a nasty comment or just someone who reads blogs and leaves NICE comments, please visit My Favorite Hate Mail.  This blog was started by Mandi at Vintage Revivals and Vivienne at The V Spot (you remember Vivienne, right??  She was my blog crush that I linked to Vintage Revivals Who Is Your Blog Crush Linky Fiesta).  They are my two most favorite bloggers out there and to have them together on a blog makes me want to jump up and down and squeal!  I seriously almost fell off my chair laughing this morning while reading this.  Check them out!

Ok, now on to sconces, shelves and wall holes.  I have been collecting sconces and shelves from thrift stores and yard sales for a few months now.  I chose to do a wall in our pool room.  (No, we don't have a pool inside our house, it's the room that houses the pool table.  Kind of like a "man cave."  Except, it's the room you walk into when you enter our front door, blah.  We normally convert our garage to the man cave, but not in Florida!  Too hot and too humid!!!)  Unfortunately, I do not have much wall space in my house, so some stuff had to come down so others could go up. That means filling previous nail holes, ugh, and measuring, BIG UGH.  I'm a pretty well-known sucky hanger...well, well-known between me and my hubs.  And he will not be disappointed to find out that I still suck at it, but I am promising to fill and paint all my holes that are kinda, sorta hidden right now.  By the way, I suggest NOT slathering on a ton of spackling if your garage looks like this and you can't actually get to your wall paint.

Yea...*sigh*....we moved into a smaller house...this is the result.  The wall paint is located to the left, in the corner, and quite honestly, I didn't feel like climbing a mountain today.  So, at the end of my project, I very neatly scrubbed off the excess spackling around all my little holes.  These are the sconces and shelves pre-spray paint and what the wall looked like before.  Excuse all my craft supplies on the floor...I TOLD you we moved into a smaller house.

I sprayed them all with Krylon Satin Black.  Then, I used that pool table to lay them out and figure out how I wanted them to go on the wall.  Let me just say, I have a really big wall right in the entry that would be perfect for this project because I am going to continue collecting sconces and adding them, BUT that wall has my husband's map picture hanging on it and I'm not sure how he would feel if I took it down.  Especially while he's gone.  I don't want to hurt the man's feelings.  Geez, what I do for love!

 The main focus of the wall.  The first shelf up with only a few extra holes.  I hate keyholes!  They make my hanging shelves really, really difficult.  I'm sure that's just my problem though!

Yes, I'm leaving this plain, black board there.  No, it will not stay like that.  By the end of the week it is going to hold the greatest, sappiest anniversary gift EVER!  And no, it isn't this.  I'll blog about that later this week, but let me say, I'm so, so, so excited!

Here's my little man helping me decide what should come next.  He had his own set of tools helping me and I'm pretty sure he got the pen behind the ear thing from Handy Manny.

 Before I realized that I didn't want to climb a mountain.

After scrubbing off the excess spackling.

OH WHY, oh why, can I not take great pictures?  Not even good ones!  The lighting always looks horrible in this room.  I think I see a photography class in my future....

Obviously, I'm not finished.  A little too much black for me right now and after the "black board project" is finished, I'll be able to fill it in a little more.  It's growing on me.  I'm not the type of person who likes to leave something like this unfinished, so most likely as soon as I post this, I will be back in there staring at it.  Thanks for visiting and please leave a comment.  Unless, you want to be negative...then I DARE you to leave a comment.  I have the perfect place to call you out now.  Hee hee hee :) 

I'm linking up to these linky parties

  Funky Junk Interiors
The Girl Creative
Hazel and Honeysuckle
The Tattered Tag
I Heart Naptime Sundae Scoop 
Sisters of the Wild West

Libby :)

EVER HAVE ONE OF those WEEKS?

I have a super awesome friend.  My BFF (yes, I'm in my very late 30's and I still say BFF), Kelly, has known me since Kindergarten and we were inseparable throughout middle school and high school.  This chick knows EVERYTHING about me....like all the stuff that seals your friendship forever because she would be too dangerous to have as an enemy with all the material she could blackmail you with.. kind of everything.  I love her.

This is her with my little guy last summer.  She might kill me when she finds out that I posted a pic with her in a bikini....but then, maybe not.  She looks damn good!  I love this pic of her though, because she is laughing, probably snorting actually, and I think I love that most about her.  She loves to laugh.  So, she is a certified life coach and she has taken me on for FREE....I was psyched about that until I realized that she may be offering because she believes I need direction in my life...but that's okay too, I do.  Actually, I could use a cheerleader and whip-cracker, which she accomplished in our first session.  I accomplished two of the goals we set within four days.  I think if my husband found out about her power, he would use it towards me for evil.  Like, calling the insurance company.  

I wanted to make her something really special.  A thank you gift, if you will, for being my friend for so long and putting up with me and offering me guidance through a time where I'm not sure which way to go.  Kelly has the strongest faith of anyone I know.  Her daily Facebook statuses can really lift me up and put things in perspective.  Most of the time I think she puts them there just for me....see, that's my ego...that's why she deserves an award just for admitting that she knows me :)  I decided to make her a sign. 

This is one of my Ikea boards.  It had a hole right in the middle, so I added some spackle, let it dry, then sanded it down.

I put on a coat of vanilla craft paint.

A coat of mustard yellow.

Finally, a coat of aqua that I darken with a walnut brown.  I was not careful with the paint because it didn't matter what was showing through since I wanted an old sign look.  My friend, Sarah B. and I were playing with her Silhouette (or Silly, that's what I named her) and printed out a saying in vinyl.  It didn't really work out how we thought (those are tricky when you're just beginning!) so I used it as a stencil.

 

Unfortunately, I don't love it.  Heck, I don't think I even LIKE it.  I'm digging the layers of paint, but the script is too dainty and doesn't match the colors.  Boo.  So, this morning, I tried again.  Here are the materials and steps:

I used, well, tried, the mad podge transfer technique.  I've tried this before and I'm never really happy with it, but this time was okay.  Afterward, I decided that it needed more, so I added the corner details.  

Once again....don't love it.  It actually looks better in person.  Maybe it will grow on me.  This is how my week has been going....it seems like everything I try doesn't come out how I want it to and it's a little discouraging.   I won't give up though!  Craft paint can't keep me down!  

BUT, right now I'm off to the hair salon with Haley.  Tonight's PROM!  Her senior prom...sad face...  

Have a beautiful Saturday everyone,

Libby :)