Decorating-Vintage Revivals Style

Hey all,

I know that I usually blog about Jared and myself but today I hafta give a shout-out to Mandi atVintage Revivals.  She is pretty much an amazing DIY-er and has freaking amazing ideas.  (Even if her style isn't really your thing, you still can't admit she is just an amazing person.  Just check out her real life story.

Anyways right now she is helping us newbies find our decorative style and personalities through a series of challenges.  (All of us participants are part of the FFA (Fearlessly Finding Awesome club)-see my button to the right).  So right now we are on challenge 2 in finding our style (so its not too late to join up on the fun) which is to take an amazing quiz by store Homegoods.  I mean, she said it was freakishly accurate and so I tried it out and it is.  I hafta say its quite nice to have everything finally summed up nicely.  Here is mine and jump on over to her post and see what your style is defined as!

Jennifer, You Are A COUNTRY CLASSIC

You have a naturally refined sensibility with an appreciation for tradition and history. You value beauty, craftsmanship, and family heirlooms, but you like to open things up with pretty, easy-going pieces like painted wood or distressed furniture, lovely florals and other patterns, and bunches of fresh flowers that give your home a breezy, relaxed feeling. You love unique finds, have a thrifty, creative side, and can make these things work together.

You value order. You feel happiest if your home is well organized. You understand that when your house is in order, your mind feels clearer. Rather than a lot of meaningless objects or overly-designed items, you are happier with a few well-placed things. Your home is your respite from a busy life. Try to avoid letting things into your home that you don't really love.

First time for everything

I know, I know. I have some catching up to do on here.  Besides have a wonderful time with family and friends this past Holiday season, not much has been going on (holidays take up a lot of your extra time) haha.


However, this past November and early December, Jared did two tings he never had before: grow a beard (No-Shave-November) and went hunting with my father and myself.  They were both quite their own adventures in and of themselves so I wanted to document them as well as I could.  For the beard-growing process, I ended up taking a picture about every 3-4 days for the entire month and here is how it went:

(before hunting)

(after hunting-seems like is brings out the ruggedness in a man)

The shaving process-had to take a picture of the mustache!

All clean again!

Jared enjoyed the experience but doubt he will grow another soon.  He didn't like the itchiness (or the fact that my hair was constantly stuck to it) and he hated the prickly feeling that he got when the hairs hit is lips.

Hunting was another interesting experience.  Jared calls it 'a nature walk in the woods with a gun'.  Though I wouldn't necessarily call this year's experience a 'nature walk' and you can see why:

I don't know if you can see that thermometer but it says 25 degrees...

Basically it snowed at least a foot and a half, so practically all the wild life (aka elk) were gone, bedded down where we couldn't find them.  We were both disappointed for a failed hunting trip (number 4 for me) but we had a lot of fun with my dad and it was nice to see the snow again after 2 years.
Maybe this year we will try again!

Just a little addition....

Hey all!

I just wanted to update you on my wreath thingy.  I took my sister's advice and added an "N" to it (for our last name) and it turned out great!  I'm very happy with the results:

Though there is always room for improvement, I am very happy :)

I also went to SAS today (an awesome whole-sale (by the pound) fabric store off of Apache and McClintock) and got some fabulous fabric that I want to make into a maxi skirt.  It is going to be awesome, but I am just hoping I will have time to make it soon because school has been crazy!  Well thats all for now.  Love ya!

Fall Wreath

So, I really love Fall.  Even if things don't really change around here, the weather still becomes amazing and there are so many fun things to plan and do!  So, we don't have a whole lot of room to decorate for the holidays (and in general) so I wanted to at least make a wreath for our door.  So while I was browsing Pinterest, I was inspired by this:

http://www.bluecricketdesign.net/2009/12/chrismas-paper-mache-ornaments.html

I loved the simplicity and the ability to make it all by being thrifty so I set out.  I grabbed a 1 dollar frame from Goodwill and waited until Michael's had a sale to get my fall foliage.  I don't have any pics of the beginning, but what I did to make my frame interesting and seasonal looking was I followed this crackle tutorial (found viz Pinterest as well):

http://makethebestofthings.blogspot.com/2010/05/crackle-finish-with-elmers-glue.html

It worked really well but I started off putting WAY too much glue on and since my frame has a slant, it would collect and I had to wipe it off and reapply it in areas that were drying too fast.  Next time I will probably buy a sponge brush to help make the glue spread better.  I used a dark brown base coat and a lighter orange-y color for the top (each of my own mixing) and I got this:

Not bad for my first try huh?

My crackle paint supplies (I used acrylic paints)

With the foliage I first unwrapped the base so I could snip them off there.

What I harvested. The extra grass was too green for what I wanted so I didn't use it.

My crackle paint technique wasn't flawless (the top of the frame wasn't that great) so I flipped the hanging mechanism so the top became the bottom and the bottom became the top (so I could hide the not so great parts with the foliage).

I pulled out all the pins that are used to hold the back of the frame in because I didn't want a back drop.

Rewired the wire to make my flip complete! :)

So I gathered up my foliage in a bundle formation that I liked and bound it together using brown thread.

It took my awhile to figure out how to attach it though.  At first I was thinking of doing it in the front and using a ribbon or something, but I felt that it was all to busy and that the ribbons were the wrong color.  So I nailed the bundle to the back of the frame and I really liked the effect.

Side view of the nail.

And there we go!  I kind feel like it needs a little bit more, so I am open to suggestions (ribbon? burlap? word message? pumpkin?) but I love how it has turned out so far!  Yay for my first try at being cool and crafty!  Love ya!

Behold the glory of Frankenfoot

Hey, you all have probably just been dying to see my stitches right?!! Well wait no more, cuz here they are:

This is just a couple of days after (like one or two)

Same day as above

I took this picture about a week after.  I wanted to see how the wound had changed.  And it has a bit, the skin has stuck back together almost completely (as you can see the left side is being a bit stubborn).

Well, thats all for now!  Next up time I want to show something I made recently (with a mini tutorial too!)

Midnight Adventure (and back from hiatus)

Hey everyone!  Sorry for not updating all summer!  Jared and I just worked cuz he wasn't qualified to get time off until August but then school started so we just got creative and had fun mini adventures.

But enough of that, I need to talk about our adventure last night in the ER.  Thats right, the ER.  But lets start at the very beginning, cuz you know, its a good place to start :P (note: all pics are from my cell so they arn't the clearest)

So in our shower there are little shelves that are just made out of a piece of tile.  So I was trying to move some of the conditioner around in its bottle and I ended up not thinking (I admit it) and I smacked the bottom of the bottle on the tile shelf and this is what happened:

And thats not all, because you see, my foot was under that large piece of tile and the tile won.

I didn't realize I was bleeding for a bit but when I did we hurried and got out of the shower and wrapped my foot in one of our towels.  We feel that the Lord really blessed us because, somehow we got the bleeding to stop quite quickly.  We got dressed as quickly and carefully as we could and ran out the door to Banner Desert's ER. (I had conditioner in my hair the whole time).

We got in pretty well enough (around 10:30), though we totally had a Brian Regan moment when we realized that the ER didn't have valet parking and I couldn't walk....it truly is one of the biggest oversights of our universe.  But all was ok, Jared just wished they had gone a bit faster because I had an open wound, but I felt that everyone was nice enough (especially after they gave me some Vicodin : D).  After around 45 min and a lot of information giving, we got back into a room.  During all this we felt so blessed again because one of my classmates from school is a ER tech and was there and we really feel that he helped speed things up for us.  So they took X-rays to make sure nothing was broken or severed.

After that my friend came in and asked how we were doing and if we had seen a doctor yet.  Since we hadn't he went and got some stuff he knew they would be using (saline and a suture kit) and he went and got  the PA on the floor.  She was really nice and numbed my cut (which hurt but was way worth it) and then explored it a bit to make sure again nothing was severed or really injured.  There was some white tissue exposed but is was just the covering of the muscle, not a tendon so she then left and my classmate (Ben) used a liter of saline and cleaned my cut.

 Sorry if I gross you out...

I really realized when he was cleaning it, how lucky we were to get it to stop bleeding as fast as we did.  He estimated it to be 2-3cm deep (about an inch).  After he finished cleaning the PA came back in and stitched me up.  I got two catgut stitches inside (catgut is biodegradable so they will dissolve after 5ish days) and 5 outside.  The stitches hurt cuz my skin wasn't really numb but it I didn't want to get stuck with a needle again (they already had done it twice) to get stuck with another needle so I just toughed it out and it wasn't so bad.  

Ben then came in and wrapped me up and after getting my prescriptions for pain meds and antibiotics we were gone!  And it was only 1 o'clock!  Yay!  

 The end result (forgot to take stitch picks)

The towel we wrapped my foot in.  Luckily not too much blood, eh?

We got home and in bed around 2 and Jared (bless his heart) got up at 7 to go to work.  I slept alright but in the morning my foot was so sensitive it felt like it was burning.  My lovely Mom came right over and got my meds for me and took me over to her house cuz I almost fainted while she was at the pharmacy.  So here is sit.  Drugged up and on my bum.  

I am very thankful for the little blessings we were given, because we really feel lucky that we live close to a hospital, I didn't cut a tendon, I didn't bleed too much, and we had a friend in the right place.  We had a crazy night but don't worry, all is well.  All we have to do now, is be patient and tell the story of our midnight adventure.  Hope you enjoyed :)

Spring, Spring, Spring!!!!

Hey all! Lots have been going on with Jared and I this past couple of weeks so let me fill you in realy quick.

We planted a tomato plant and here is our first tomato! Yay! I can grow things.

Sadly, I do have a problem with breaking things. I was terribly distressed about breaking one out our bowls....at least it didn't shatter everywhere.

Oh look! our tomato plant again! Here he has two tomatoes but he actually has 5-6 now. We are very excited to have fresh tomatoes. Oh and we named our plant Timmy, the Tomato Plant. :)

For our date night last Friday we dyed Easter eggs! It had been awhile for the both of us so it was a ton of fun making the colors and drawling on them with a white crayon to make designs. (Jared had never done that before!)

Here is a close up of our eggs. Jared gets to eat them all cuz I dont like boiled eggs (yuk!)

Well, other than that we have just been studying like crazy (finals and MCAT are in 2 weeks), working hard and enjoying having the Easter Pageant right outside our door! (though we are glad its over, traffic=nightmare!)

Love you all!

Jennifer