a giveaway!

Time has flown by so fast lately... and as my husband pointed out, this blog has been just a teensy bit ignored. Well what can I say, life happens! I still have about a zillion projects around the house but I have no free time anymore. I'm no longer unemployed (thank goodness!) so I work all day, and I bake all night for Killer Zebras Bakery that I mentioned in my last post! Killer Zebras is still only in it's infancy, but I've got lots of exciting things coming up! If I ever find a good balance that allows me to get back to doing projects, I'll most certainly start posting again here... but for regular updates head on over to Killer Zebras, especially over the next few days as I'm hosting a great giveaway! For those of you who haven't checked it out yet, here is a little of what I've been up to:

 

I've been a busy girl, even if I've been completely missing around here for a while. Don't miss my giveaway, and thanks for being such great readers!

Click here for the giveaway!



killer zebras - at last!

I've been pretty much MIA lately... some of that is just life (and a 2 year old!), but some of that is because I've been starting up a new blog! Bowl of Oranges has been fun, and I'm going to keep it up... but it was only ever a just for fun thing and often times I just don't get around to updating it. I'll still update when I get projects done, but if you'd like to see what I've been hard at work getting started, check out my new blog:

I mentioned in my last post that I have been thinking about selling cookies and so I decided to get things started! Killer Zebras is all about cookies, and just cooking in general! You can expect regular updates over there, so come check it out!

Killer Zebras

and be sure to check out my Facebook page!

valentine cookies

Matthew helped me make Valentine cookies this year...

...and by helped, I mean he didn't try to steal too many while I baked and decorated!

I've decided I want to open up an online store that sells cookies (and perhaps some other goodies down the line a bit). I've got plans in the works (so hopefully it won't be to long before I  can announce it here!) but I'm really stuck in one area: a name. I am really horrible at naming things! I want something cute and memorable, but there are so many bakeries out there that it also needs to be unique!

A little help, please?

 

 If you come up with a good name - and I use it - I can promise you a dozen free cookies!

In the meantime, have a sweet Valentine's Day!

christmas coupons

Normally I struggle with posting Christmas ideas or projects before Christmas, because most of my friends and family check out my blog (right...?). I'm fairly certain however, that my 7 year old nephew won't be reading this.

{full name blurred for their privacy}

My sister came to me a little while ago and said she'd had an idea to do a coupon book for her son for Christmas. She wanted to include things like game night, his choice of a special dessert, "get out of jail {timeout} free"... that sort of thing. I think the picture she had in her mind was of a pretty basic homemade book, and she came to me and asked if I could help her with some designs. I had an immediate picture in my mind and ever since then... this has evolved into something much bigger! There are 38 coupons now, some of them from other family members. Since money is tight for everyone these days, she told the family about it and mentioned that if they wanted to add a coupon as his Christmas present this year - that all they had to do is let us know what they wanted to do for him and we'd put it in.

I think the pages turned out really great! We uploaded them to Shutterfly and they are being printed as a photobook. I'll do a post on that when it comes in, because we still have more work to do on the book! Some of the pages are being turned into scratch tickets - any page you see that has more than one option is going to be one. More on that when the present is completed! As for the ones from family, each page that is from someone other than mom or dad, has that person's name/s along the right hand side.

A quick disclaimer:

Designing stuff like this is a hobby of mine, but we really only had a few weeks

to put this together (and in our spare time at that) so I didn't have time to do all of

these from scratch. A few I made on my own, and the majority of them were taken

from either Minted or Tiny Prints card previews and then edited by me to fit our

needs. I've lost track of which are from where, but check out those sites

for some great designs!

I'd like to post up all of the pages here, but as I said there are 38 (not counting the cover or first page!) so I'm only going to post most of them, and I'm going to try something a little different. I'll hide the last half of my post so that this page doesn't take a year to load - if you'd like to see the rest, continue on to the rest of the post by clicking the link at the bottom of the page!

In which frames are made and possibly given away

I started making frames several months ago. They are quick and easy, and add a little something to any room! There are so many options, but here is my own take on a quick frame you can do yourself.

Materials you will need:
- A raw wood frame like this one at Michaels
- Some type of printed paper such as wrapping paper or scrap booking paper
- Mod Podge, or something similar
- Blade: box cutter or x-acto knife
- Paint in a coordinating color
- Paintbrush
- Sandpaper (optional)
- Ribbon and stapler (optional)

1. Start by painting back and sides of frame. If the paper you've chosen for the front is translucent, paint the front as well.
2. When paint is completely dry apply generous coat of Mod Podge. If the paper being applied is thin, slightly water down Mod Podge.
3. Press paper onto front of frame so that the design is centered the way you want it.
4. When glue is dry, use sharp blade to cut around inner and outer edges of frame.
5. If desired, use sandpaper around edges to soften the look of the paper.
6. When paper is dry, seal entire frame with 1-2 coats of Mod Podge.
7. If you are wanting to hang on the wall, staple 2 pieces of ribbon on top corners of the back side of the frame. Tie a bow and hang!

I've given some of my frames away, so the only photo examples I have are the ones I kept. This one was done using scrap booking paper.

This one was made out of the gift bag my sisters gave at Matthew's baby shower. I used black paint after the paper was applied to give it a dark hazy look around the edges.

The plaid gift bag again, and the white polka dot was from the tissue paper inside the bag. I left the wood to show through a little on the tissue paper frame.

This frame was hand painted, and the M is raised using a mold I created from foam.

This is a nice quick, inexpensive project that anyone can do. However if you would like a frame but don't want to make one - I'm going to offer a free frame - design and color are completely of your choosing - to whoever refers the most followers to my blog. I currently have a whopping... 4. And they are all family! I appreciate the support, now let's get more people to this blog! I should have a time limit on this but as my numbers are so measly right now, I'm not sure how long it will take to get any followers! So lets say in the next 3 weeks. All they have to do is follow the blog, and leave a comment with the name of the person who referred them. Thanks you guys!