Help!

We leave in 2 days...for a 10 day trip. This is all I have packed. Help!!

I can't pack on Thursday because we "have to" go to an Astros game. I guess that can technically be the start to our MLB portion of the trip. =) So, technically I have only tomorrow to pack. Again, I ask, HELP!!

Road Trip 2012

Jerome & I have yet to go on a vacation just the two of us since we've been married. Much less a road trip. Of course, we've been taking road trips twice a year since we have became a couple in 2006. However, they are not the "Let's go visit a new city!" or "Let's see this part of the map in person!" road trips. They have been to drive the 518 miles from our dorms/apartments in Stillwater, OK to visit my family in Houston or the reverse: Houston to Tecumseh, OK to see Jerome's family. This trips are always worth the 8 hour drive to see family...always. But my idea of a trip deserving the title "road trip" is the one where we drive to a certain area of the country, check new states off of my "I need to visit all 50 states before I die" list, and go to all of the MLB (major league baseball) parks & DDD (Diners, Drive-ins, & Dives) locations in that area too. (Can you tell I'm Type A and/or slightly OCD?)

Well, this "Road Trip" fits both categories so I'm calling it our Road Trip 2012!! I'm so excited if you can't tell. =) I WILL be taking my camera and using it every day to record everything. This is your warning. haha. You do not have to read every detail of every blog on this trip if you don't want to. I understand. I am mostly going to be doing it to have the memories for Jerome & I. I am also hoping that it will help get me used to using my camera to document everything & keep blogging on a more consistant basis.

Here is a general itinerary of what we plan on doing (mostly for me but you can know if you want):

• June 8-10 - Visit Oklahoma & family there
• June 9 - Wedding in Stillwater
• June 11-13 - St. Louis, Missouri
• June 12 - Cardinals vs. Chicago White Sox
• June 13-15 - Kansas City, Missouri/Kansas
• June 14 - Royals vs. Milwaukee Brewers
• June 15-17 - Arlington, Texas
• June 16 - Rangers vs. Houston Astros 

This idea of visiting baseball stadiums was a dream of mine & one of Jerome's growing up. I am so thankful that God put us together & that we have some of the same dreams. I cannot wait to spend some alone time with my hubby while starting to check something off of our bucket lists...together.

Here are a few google pics of where we will be going & hope to be going!

Busch Stadium, St. Louis

Kauffman Stadium, Kansas City

Ballpark at Arlington, Arlington Texas

I cannot wait until I have my own pictures that show up in a Google search! Let me know if there is anything we should see/do in these cities!

Decor: Peeps Vase

Do you remember this vase from my Thanksgiving display?

I knew I would end up using these vases for multiple things. So I bought 3. Ha! 

This new project was an Easter vase using themed candies and flowers.

You will need:

• 2 vases, one being able to fit inside the other
• jelly beans - I got only orange...to match the flowers.
• peeps (the bunnies are better) - I got yellow bunnies.
• flowers - I went with orange tulips.

I found a drinking glass that fit inside of the vase. I would recommend (because mine didn't) a glass that is NOT wider at the top of the glass. When we get to the next step, you'll see why.

I emptied out the popcorn kernels, put the glass inside the vase, and put the jelly beans between the vase and the glass. It was hard because my glass was wider at the top, leaving a small space to pour jelly beans into and not getting any in the glass.

Next, I took my Peeps. This picture is to prove to my mom that yellow bunny Peeps DO exists!

Again, I wish my glass was skinner at the top. It took a lot of maneuvering to get the Peeps to fit between the vase and glass without completely mushing them. I was proud that they almost covered the top of the glass!

 I found these gorgeous, blooming, orange tulips at Kroger! For $9.99!!!! Aren't they gorgeous?!

As you can tell, I'm still learning and exploring picture angles and lighting with my new camera. What do you think of the last picture of the tulips?

The last step in making the vase was to put water in the glass ONLY and trimming the tulips to fit!

 Am I just bias or is this fun & gorgeous or what?!

 Here they are in my Easter display. Go here to see where to get the details on that display.

Printables: Easter Display

This Easter ended up being more low key than normal. Everyone came to the ranch that normally comes. But, everyone left by Friday afternoon. Odd right? I was able to throw together a quick display. 

 How cute! Right?

The eggs are real ostrich eggs that my mom has hand painted. Isn't she great?!

Do you see the vase on the right? With the tulips, peeps and jelly beans? It's so easy! Go here to see how easy.

I found this printable at Eighteen25.

I found this printable at A Night Owl Blog. She has it in multiple color options!

This is one of the first printables I found when I started Pinterest. I honestly have no idea where the text came from any more. If you recognize it, let me know. I printed it on a piece of scrapbook paper I already had.

Simple and cute. Enjoy!

How Many Are There?

In one of the classes that I work with, they are working on writing their numbers after counting a group of objects. The assessment that they had was a little dated and it did not have some of the numbers that they  really needed to practice writing. I created a How Many Are There? sheet. A big thank you goes to KPM Doodles and her wonderful graphics. I have fallen in love with her style of graphics. The description for how to use it are on my TpT page linked above.

Thanks for checking it out!

DIY: File Cabinet Makeover

First things first: I bought a new camera! Well, new to me. My brother got a digital Canon Rebel XTI in high school. I just bought it from him since he 1) needs money and 2) doesn't use it anymore. This was my first project with my new camera. Hopefully, this means that some of the angles I took pictures from turned out cool. Well, they look cool to me and I hope you like them.

So, I acquired a file cabinet a few years back when I was doing my student teaching. Of course, it was the terrible putty color that most file cabinets come in nowadays. I took out the drawers, took the parts outside, and sanded down all the surfaces that I planned on painting: the outside of the file cabinet, the inside & outside of the drawers.

See? Cool angle! You can see the marks the sandpaper made.

Then, I spray painted all of the surfaces that I had sanded.

This is the spray paint I used. I needed 2 cans.

The cabinet itself needed at least 3 coats on each surface.

The drawers needed 2 coats on the inside of the drawers and 1 coat on the outside of the drawers. 

The outside of the drawers won't be seen unless the drawers are pulled out.

See how much cleaner & better white looks compared to putty?! I didn't paint the drawer faces because I wanted to Modge Podge Scrapbook paper to them.

This is the first paper I picked.

From this angle, you can kind of see the piecing job I had to do to fill up the whole drawer front. 

I had to cut around the lock as well.

This is the second paper I picked. After two coats of Modge Podge, I cut out the area to put the handles back in the drawer. Please excuse the ugliness of the Modge Podge job. I'm relearning.

I started to cut out the handle area before the Modge Podge had dried completely. Oops!!

Finished top drawer with handle.

Finished bottom drawer with handle.

File cabinet with drawers back in it.

I'm in love!!!

Welcome to my craft corner!!

See why I wanted the file cabinet white & not putty?

I would LOVE to know what you think! Thanks for stopping by.

DIY: Menu Board

So, I'm lame. I hardly update on here, choosing to veg after work instead of letting you know about all the fun things I've been doing.

I'm behind on posting. So behind that I actually made this before the new year so that I could start using it on January 1st. Well, after using my menu board for 2 1/2 months, I can say that I LOVE IT!!!!!!

This was my inspiration found here.

Robin was amazing and even sent me all of her recipe cards and menu labels. Once I bought my calendar, I realized that it was smaller than the inspiration one. I had to cut down all of the menu labels in order for them to fit in each day's box. Also due to my smaller calendar, I couldn't put the desserts and the color code labels on the calendar. I decided I just "had" to make a cute cork board to go with my menu board. Twist my arm about it why don't you! =)

I found a piece of cork, with built in hangers on the back, that was as tall as my calendar. So, this picture shows the cork going side to side not up & down.

Sad picture I know but I wanted you to see the empty cork board.

The first thing I did was pick my ribbon for the border around the cork board. I decided to go for the obvious and make it Oklahoma State colors, officially my favorites now. Haha. Actually, I already had these ribbons for that reason, the colors and patterns. The black and white gingham was leftover from my BOO Jars. The white polka dots on orange ribbon was purchased on a whim because of the wonderful colors and pattern. =)

I bought these at Hobby Lobby.

I took the gingham and used it to frame the cork board. I used a hot glue gun to make sure that it would never move. I wrapped the ribbon over the sides to hide the cork all the way around. I did this on all the sides except for the top. I'll explain in a second.

Wrapped around the edge.

Once I did the short ends, I wrapped the long sides. I just put the gingham on top and just kept gluing.

The corner.

Ok, now why I didn't wrap the top over the edge. I wanted the full width of the gingham ribbon so that I could layer the polka dot ribbon on top. If I wrapped it over the edge, you wouldn't have been able to see the gingham at all. I centered the orange ribbon in the middle of the gingham and used hot glue to secure it.

Don't they work so well together?

I then created a bow out of the orange ribbon. I learned this trick making a college-themed light box as a Christmas present for my brother's girlfriend. (tutorial coming - will include the bow)

I forgot the picture until it was all done. Oops!

I then added the color code menu labels onto my completed cork board. I also put the two desserts that I wanted to make first onto the board.

Yes, I'm slightly OCD. But I love the colors fading into each other like that.

This is a picture of my menu board. I printed all of the things Robin sent me. I printed them on card stock according to the color code in the above picture. I then randomly (as random as I could with my slight OCD) placed recipes on the board. The push pins at the bottom are where the recipes would hang (sorted by recipe type/color) if I was going to hang the board on the wall.

Dark Blue (Scrounge Night) is Leftover Night.

This is how my board looks right now. Since I'm still at my parents house, Mom doesn't hang much up on  walls. Mom is a little scared of bright colors so this is sitting on the built-in desk next to the kitchen. It works really well for us, which kind of surprised me. I know what to go shopping for every weekend. Mom (and everyone for that matter) knows what's for dinner and that we have everything already to make it. Sometimes, Mom even has dinner started or prepped when we get home from work. That's one of the perks of living with your parents and you do the part they don't like, grocery shopping!

I hope you guys find this helpful!