vol.25

you only live once

New art completely inspired by a comment or two tess left me here on the blog. Thanks Tess! After "talking" back and forth with you... I was so inspired to create this print using a vintage thunderbird.... that I worked on it all afternoon yesterday! It is now listed in the shop, and it feels good to finally add a little bit of automobile-ness to my shop. :) 

Well, the work is continuing on the bathroom today. Will see how far we get with it today. :) Have a great weekend!

Shop Update - Birth Announcements!

Hi there! If you received the June newsletter, you already knew that these new birth announcements were in the works. Well, I am so excited to have finished these up quite a bit earlier then I had thought. :) Although, I just submitted the design to the printing company... I really cant say for sure when they will arrive in the shop. I am already really excited about trying to photograph them, I have a few ideas already rolling around in my head. But, thinking and doing are two completely different processes. :) It took me forever to get the "we are shaped" postcards listed.

I am going to "hope" that it doesnt take me as long to get these photographed. :) This image is the front of the card, they are sized at 4 1/4 x 5.5.

and here is the inside of the card. The hearts carved into the trees are left blank for you to write the details of the baby... height, weight, length, date, time etc... 

I also have white linen envelopes (just shipped!) on order to complete the set. I finally got the birth announcements for our baby designed, and these are very similar! :) I did add the deer to these, but in my announcements it is left open for our baby's name. Hope you enjoy!  As always, you can expect an update just as soon as they come in. :)

I've been tagged!

Lyndsey and Julie over at coveiter tagged me a couple days ago... and I am just now getting around to posting! Yikes!! :) Sorry girls!

What did you do 10 years ago? 10 years ago I was just getting my drivers license. My parents had paid a 1,000 down on a white 88 LX 5.0 Mustang convertible all for me. My very first car! This meant I also got my first part-time job to make the payment, at our local athletic club.

Five items on your to-do list:
- Finish designing the birth announcements
- Finish addressing and stamping birth announcements
- vacuum and dust the entire house
- Scrapbook mine and Trins morning routine
- Bake and freeze at least three casseroles

(hopefully I can get all these done before baby comes!)

Snacks I enjoy:  Wow...  it would probably be easier to list what I *dont* like. :) I do have a few favorite snacks though... Tillamook chocolate Peanut butter ice cream, hostess mini chocolate donuts, yogurt covered raisins, oranges, the chocolate grandma's brand cookies you see at the gas stations.... :)

What would you do if you were a billionaire? I would buy my own oil company, and sell the gas super cheap. lol really though, we would build a new house, with super high ceilings, and my very own studio/hobby/scrapbooking room. Would also make sure and make life financially easier for our family and friends. Oh- and I would also buy a brand new Shelby mustang, and my husband would insist we needed a new camaro instead. Then, we would end up buying both....and I would have the shelby all to myself. We would also travel... alot! But in the same car lol :)

Places I would live:  My husbands family are all in Oklahoma, so spending some more time with them would be nice. I have personally never lived outside of Washington state. Colorado is also nice and Jaydon lived there prior to moving here... so that is always a consideration as well.

Jobs I have had: This question always makes me laugh. My very first job was at a local burger place here in town at the age of 16. They put me on the driveup the very first day, and I was not used to counting back change. Well, I was sSOoo nervous that I couldnt do anything right! I was sure I had messed up the till so bad, that when anyone gave me a tip I put it in the register. About halfway through the day and right after the high school rush crowd, (I had been home schooled) the owner said "jessica, you know you can go if you want to."  I was so relieved! I said "I can?! Thanks" and she smiled and said "not everyone is cut out to work in fast food. Maybe an office job would be good for you."  I was so excited, it took me awhile to realize that being fired from your first job the first day was probably not good... but I was still so happy to be not having to go back the next day.

After that, I did find an office job at the athletic club, and then working as a secretary at our local Chevrolet Dealership. Since I have always been somewhat of a car person, I really really enjoyed the job at the dealership and worked there until I met Jaydon. After we got engaged I worked up until the month before the wedding. That was my last physical job. So there you have it... a little bit about me. :)

{ 3 People I am tagging }

- Shannon S. { Artistic Image }
- C Rushton { The Rushton family }
-  jenna lou { Jenna lou Loves you }

I am changing it to only 3 people from the original 5. I hope thats ok! I have such a hard time tagging people... I am always worried someone will be too busy. :)

{ Rules: Each player answers the questions about themselves. At the end of the post, the player then tags 3 people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know they’ve been tagged and asking them to read your blog. Let the person who tagged you know when you’ve posted your answer. }

do all things with love

whoops! I almost forgot to deliver the post I promised earlier this morning. :)

So.. here it is. "do all things with love" new art, and listed in the shop. I am pretty sure this print will be offered in different colors. If you have a color suggestion let me know! I also think this will be a first in a new series titled "no tree was harmed."  Of course each print will feature sweet love quotes, without scarring a tree. ;) Well, my dinner needs to come out of the oven... so I am off! Have a nice evening.

oh-wow designsponge!?

What a terrific surprise! Last friday I submitted my newly listed "we are shaped by our thoughts" postcards to Grace over at designsponge. I really really didn't expect it to turn into a feature... although I must admit I was sure hoping. You may know by now where this is probably going... YES! I have now been seen on design*sponge. While I appreciate all the exposure and support from every blog feature I receive... designsponge seems like the ultimate of features, and I am sooo thrilled!

 

Believe you me... it was ALL I could do to sound someone professional as I tried to compose a thank you e-mail to Grace. Although, I am sure she gets a ton of "weird jumping up and down thank you typeish e-mails"... Well, I fear mine was no exception. :)

A BIG thank you to Grace for the mention.... it completely made my entire year. :)

Then to make the morning even better, projectgrabbag sent me a conversation this morning alerting me to etsy front page exposure! Yay!! What a good day.

I also listed a new piece into the shop last night. I'll be back later today to post about that. :)

New goodies for July's giveaways...

Hi everyone! Well, now that the first newsletter has officially been delivered...(it was scary pushing that send now button!) its time to announce the new giveaways for the month of July.

Love is everything is the new print being offered for the love my customers giveaway. Every purchase made for the month of July enters you into the giveaway to win this print: Click HERE for a past contest describing all the details...

and come the end of July.... current subscribers to the newsletter will have a chance at winning this print with the e-love contest: Click HERE for all the details, and to see last months contest.

I hope everyone enjoyed the newsletter! As June closes to an end... I look forward to seeing what the month of july will bring. :)

OH- and without further ado... (however you spell that) the winners for both contests! I did announce them in the newsletter, but I will also post them here.

love my customers giveaway: Emily from Orem, UT. A
e-love contest: Meredith J.  (I still need your address, so be expecting an e-mail from me!:)

I already have the prints packaged and ready to go, just need to fill out the addresses. I hope to have them in the mail tomorrow morning. :)

Thanks everyone for reading the blog and participating!

odda wardrobe update...

Here is another post that I have been meaning to get around to posting for way too long now. Remember back when I posted about how excited I was to cover the odda wardrobe from ikea with vinyl decals? Well, I finally decided on a set I really really wanted. oneupdesigns on etsy has been in my favorites for almost a year now, so I immediately went there for inspiration/ideas, and The perched wall decal really seemed perfect.

Although I could choose two colors, one for the lines, and one for the birds... I decided to stick with black for both. I plan to accent with maybe some pink or brown mini hearts above the birds. I just cant seem to stay away from hearts... :) I think it will add a little playfullness, and make them appear a little more childlike. Although, I really need to take a better more recent picture, here is how the wardrobe currently looks in Trins room.



and here is a little mini mock-up I did to check the dimensions and sizing...


I managed to do this with just one set/order of decals...but I needed them to be just a little longer in order to make it work like above. I sent James an etsy conversation, asking him how much extra he would charge me to make them a little longer... and he was so nice about it. He told me I wasnt needing them longer enough, to worry about charging me extra. :) Yay! I was so glad I had asked. I just received an e-mail notification letting me know my order had shipped via fedex, so it looks like I will be testing my mathematical skills very soon. I sure hope I managed to calculate this right. Guess we will see. :)

progress has been made...

Yay! Here is a little peek at the progress made over the weekend...

 

the trim in the bathroom has been primed but STILL needs painted.

 The wall has been cut, and the floor has now been built up to be level with the kitchen now. How exciting! Jaydon will be working on the walls, taping, and textureizing this week. Hopefully this will be wrapped up before baby decides to come. If not, I suppose it wouldn't be the end of the world. :)

Also: Another good design blog you may not have heard of yet....rearranged design. Its another good one I have bookmarked. :) and Ana just posted an interview with me today. She has some older pictures posted of our house, and it was kinda neat looking at them again. :) Thanks for the interview Ana! Love the blog...

June e-love contest closing to an end a little sooner....

 

Hi everyone! Just a short post to let everyone know  that the June newsletters (vol25's FIRST!) will be going out a little early. I will be finishing them up hopefully in the next couple of days, and they will be arriving in your e-mail box without a hitch. Well, I am keeping my fingers crossed that there will be no problems.... you will have to bear with me as I learn the process. mailchimp appears to make it very easy to send out a newsletter, so I am staying hopeful that someone like me should be able to manage the whole thing! :)

One thing is for certain, you can look forward to hopefully seeing your name as a winner to either 1 of the 2 contests. If you purchased a print from me in June, you are eligible for the June Love my customers drawing where I will be mailing you your very own copy of "stacked to perfection." Or, if you have signed up for the mailing list... you are eligible for June's e-love contest. The very first of its kind, and only available to current e-mail subscribers. :) If you havent already signed up, nows your chance! You have just a few days left before June's e-contest closes, and July's contest opens. You can subscribe HERE. 

 

The reason for the earliness is the hopeful soon to be arrival of our second baby. :) I imagine July will be a busy month for us, and you will no doubt be reading alot less from me. This also means the June Love my customers drawing will be coming to an end a little sooner as well. Lets say any purchase made before or on June 24th will allow you to be eligible. :)

btw- I am still enjoying reading how you found me, its super exciting, and also giving me a new idea for a future giveaway. :)  Also to anyone curious, my newsletter subscribers has now grown to a whopping 32 subscribers. yay! Not a large amount... but certainly more then I started out with a few weeks ago. Well, we are heading out for the evening. Enjoy whats left of your weekend!

weekend warriors... kinda sorta

Our plans for the weekend... are exciting! Well, I think they are... my dad and husband may think otherwise. Simply because they are doing all the work, well I guess thats not entirely true. Let me explain, when we moved into our humble abode little over a year ago, one of the top things on our "list of things to do" was to brainstorm another way into our only bathroom. Currently you must go through our bedroom to get to the bathroom, ( I must admit though it has trained me to make my bed every morning) and this as you can imagine is not the most comfortable situation for our company. For over a year we have friends and family very graciously deal with this situation... but finally finally... we will no longer have to deal with this!

 

Tonight Jaydon is going to start tearing a hole into our bathroom wall, a few doors will be moved, and our master bathroom will now be a super master bathroom. I am also excited to finally get a linen closet out of the deal. woohoo, the simple pleasures in life. I will be sure and post some pictures come monday/tuesday of the work in progress. I am sure it will take a little longer then a day and a half to complete.

please excuse my dingy towel, I am afraid my favorite towel is a little stained. :)

So my earlier comment about them doing most of the work, well... my dad is getting some homemade lasagna out of the deal (his favorite) and Jaydon is getting his absolute favorite dessert, 2 of his mom's vanilla creme pies, made by yours truly. :) Hope you all have a great weekend planned.