Have a Happy Happy Weekend!

First off, welcome to all of you that hopped on over from Better After yesterday! I'm really glad you stopped by and hope you enjoy reading! I have lots of fun sharing my projects and adventures with all of you!

OK, now on to another random Friday post. :) So did everyone see SYTYCD on Wednesday night?!? Can I just say that I. Love. This. Show. So. Much. It's amazing! These kids are so talented it blows my mind. I can't wait to see what else the season has in store. I'm especially glad they are going to have two winners this year (one boy and one girl). It seems more fair that way since women and men are so different in dance. You guys have any early predictions?

This weekend is a busy busy weekend for us (honestly, when have we not had a busy weekend lately?!). Tonight we are celebrating our anniversary with dinner at Purple Cafe & Wine Bar and then going to see Les Miserables! Ahhhh! I'm looking forward to the lobster mac & cheese at Purple (it's my favorite :) and I can barely contain my excitement to see Les Mis. Supposedly I heard that maybe it's pretty decent or something. :)

Let's see, what else? Saturday we are celebrating Zach's Mom's 50th 29th birthday! It's going to be awesome. I can't wait to give her her awesome present (and then I can share it with you guys too). She's pretty awesome as far as mother-in-laws go and I can't wait to celebrate her.

Then Sunday is my sister-in-law, Katelyn's birthday and we are celebrating some more! Lots of partying! 

What are ya'll up to this weekend (that's right, I said ya'll)? Any big plans? Any 29th birthdays to celebrate?

Four Years + Lobsters

Four years ago I married my best friend and eight years ago I saw his '65 mustang and fell in love. I love this guy so much! It's kinda crazy how much. You know when you just have so much fun with someone you never want it to end? Or when no matter what you do or where you are you are just happy to be with them? Well that's what I've got and it's pretty sweet. 

One of my new favorite traditions is when Z makes me a handmade card for every birthday/valentine's day/anniversary. He is so thoughtful and comes up with some pretty creative stuff. Today, it was lobsters. That's a little girl lobster (complete with purse) on the left and a boy lobster (complete with watch) on the right. Yeah, they're holding claws. Sweet, right? Inside it says Did you know lobsters mate for life? and then a bunch of other mushy stuff that made me cry and wonder how lucky I got to have the best husband ever. He also surprised me with some flowers this morning (the same flowers we had at our wedding - pink gerbera daisies!). Husband done good.

I'm feeling like a pretty lucky girl today. :)

Happy New Home Gift Idea

Last week as part of the wedding festivities we met up at Meghan and Eric's new house for a little get together. They have cute little home with a great yard (and garden!) in Seattle and it was so fun to see it with all the new paint and furniture (last time we saw it they had just bought it). As a housewarming gift I used this inspiration from, where else, Pinterest!

I love this idea. Especially since jars are so big right now. Plus, you don't have to deal with all the wrapping, but instead they have a jar they can still use (not that I don't love a pretty bow or two). I shopped around and found some cute stuff to plop in the jar.

Since Meghan and Eric's new kitchen is gray/white/yellow, I thought I'd keep with the yellow theme for all the goodies. First, at Target I picked up a yellow candle, a yellow cow creamer and yellow kitchen towel. Then I stopped by Ross and got the two soaps. 

Then came the fun part... putting it all together. I thought I had it planned out but the poor little yellow cow didn't stand a chance. He was too awkward to fit in the jar.

Everything else fit quite nicely though.

I added a little scrapbook paper and voila! A cute and functional housewarming gift. The whole package cost about $20 and was the perfect way to welcome the happy new couple. 

What fun gifts do you like to give as housewarming presents?

Magic Mike

One of my best friends, Kim, scored some free screening passes to see Magic Mike yesterday! I was so excited to go with her. Who would want to wait a minute longer to see Channing Tatum in that movie? No one. Certainly not the large group of older guys that was ahead of us in line waiting to get in to the movie. It was quite a diverse crowd at the screening - I would have expected to see a bunch of women, but there were actually quite a few guys filling the theater. Who knew?

Now to the movie. Mmmmmmhmmmmm. Channing Tatum did it again. Delivered a movie that is both heartwarming and spellbinding. Haha. Well, mostly spellbinding because you can't take your eyes off him, but heartwarming... not so much. The story was fine but I think we all know why you should go see the movie. Channing. Tatum. Dancing. Without. Clothes. He's such a good dancer! 

Plus, there's also Matt Bomer (from White Collar). And Alex Pettyfer. And Matthew McConaughey. The list goes on. In a nutshell, you should probably go see this movie pronto! It was funny and made me (and Kim!) giggle and I liked it a lot. You don't need me to tell you do go see it though. Because there's Channing Tatum. Without his shirt. Dancing. OK go see it already! :)

Photo Source

Country Wedding Weekend!

We had an awesome long weekend celebrating the marriage of one of my best and oldest friends, Meghan, and her husband Eric! The wedding was amazing! It was held at the Tazer Valley Farm up in Stanwood and had a fun country theme. All the decorations were so pretty, complete with burlap, mason jars, and an ice cream sundae bar! It was the perfect day (besides a little rain...). We had so much fun catching up with old friends, making new ones and celebrating Meghan and Eric! We also had a fun bachelorette day doing a little scavenger hunt around the city. Here's some pics from the weekend.

Kerry Park.

Aurora Bridge.

Gasworks Park.

Discovery Park.

Congratulations, Meghan and Eric!!! 

It's wedding season! Have you been to any awesome weddings lately?

So... I Made Another Pillow

Apparently I have a thing for pillows and frames. So I made another pillow. Maybe I need to make pillows like Snooki needs to go tanning. I don't know. I found an extra pillow form in our junk room office and thought I should make a quilted pillow. When my mom came over to help me with this project a couple weeks ago I asked her to bring her Accuquilt fabric cutter so I could, yes, cut some fabric. It's the coolest machine. Very simple but gets the job done.

I didn't actually use fabric. Instead, I used two flat sheets from Wal-Mart for $5 each (actually, I had to buy the navy twin sheet set for $9.99 because they were all out of the plain flat sheets). A lot more yardage for your money, although the fabric was not great quality. Since this was my first real "quilting" project in a while, I didn't mind using fabric that wasn't great. I considered it almost a practice run for other future projects. :)

The Accuquilt is pretty sweet. You can put up to six layers of fabric on the dye-cut to roll through the machine. I wanted to try out the tumbler pattern to make a sort-of honey comb pattern, but they also have tons of other dye-cuts in all different shapes and sizes that you can buy as well. Here's how it works...

It's so easy! After I got enough navy and white tumblers I started sewing them together like so.

Once each strip was finished, I sewed all the strips together. All together it was eight across and seven wide. It was a little tricky to get the colors to line up exactly, but luckily it didn't end up too wonky.

For the other side of the pillow, I decided to do classic nautical stripes. I cut strips of fabric about 1 1/2 inches wide and sewed them together. I don't have any pictures of this process, but it's pretty self explanatory.

I ironed all of the seams flat before I turned it inside out leaving a good sized open seam to stuff the pillow in. Then I stitched it up by hand after the pillow was inside.

I like the tumbler side of it, but I really like the stripes. I think I must have a thing for stripes too. I mean, I already have two green striped pillows! Who needs any more? I do. That's who.

And it even looks pretty good with my new Wing Back Lady. Have you sewed any pillows lately? Or is it just me? Pillow lady... just add it to the list along with crazy dog lady. :)

Half Way There!!!

That's right! Zach is officially half way through medical school!!! He finished his second (of two) board exams yesterday. I almost can't believe it. These past two years have gone by so fast. It seems like just yesterday we were packing up our lives, moving down to Arizona, getting our puppy and then moving back a year later. I'm so proud of my awesome husband! He's worked so hard to get this far. Half way there babes! I love you!

Centralia Antiques

Happy Monday (I think)! This week is a short work week for me (yippee!) because one of my oldest friends is getting married on Saturday! It's very exciting and we can't wait to celebrate with all the wedding festivities for Eric + Meghan! 

Father's Day was this weekend so we went down to Centralia to visit my parents for a quick night. The boys went golfing Saturday morning and the girls went shopping (typical, right?). We decided to look at some antique shops, and to my surprise there are quite a few in Centralia. Like a few as in 20 or so in the little downtown. Who knew? I was in heaven. You all know I have a new obsession with thrifting, right? It's so much fun to find old things and try to make them into something new and useful again. 

Here's some photos of some of our finds. These vintage letter stamps were really cool. They also had individual scrabble tiles for 25¢ each that I was eyeing.

I loved this filing cabinet (only about 3-4 feet high). I can picture it in a fun bright color, perfect for a little craft storage. It was about $40 and I'm kicking myself that I didn't grab it!

I liked this cute kelly green chair. It would be fun in a little kids' room.

I'm also kicking myself for not getting this old box. The grid would be perfect for a bunch of different succulents!

I did end up buying one of these vintage aqua mason jars for $6. I liked the wire clasp and the shape.

I saw a couple of these chalkboards with reclaimed wood frames. They weren't vintage, but still great. I think I'll use them as inspiration for an upcoming project...

Of course, I loved the color of this dresser!

I really wanted to get a globe for Zach's office, but resisted. $24 for this baby.

Check out this orange tandem bike! Love it!

This two story shop had the coolest ceiling!

And also had these cute yellow canisters - Tea, Coffee, Sugar, Flour, Cookies.

Another vintage box I'm kicking myself I didn't buy.

My mom and I had so much fun! So much to look at. It's kind of overwhelming at times with so many small items in the antique stores, but next time I'll have a better plan and maybe get some bigger items. Now I have something to do when visiting Centralia in the future!

What did you do this weekend? Find any unusual treasures?