Love Is.

I'm not gonna lie. At one time, my views on love were verrrry different than they are right now. But after seven years together, four years of marriage and one daughter later, I have a little different opinion on what love looks like. 

When Marty and I were dating and newly married, love looked like a nice dinner and a movie. It looked like driving around and talking forever about anything that was on our minds. Flowers for no reason. Buying me jewelry. Sweet love notes. PDA. Grand gestures of love. 

Now, it looks a little bit different. Love looks like running through a drive thru so I don't have to cook. Buying me a Dr Pepper because he knew I had a headache and we were out of caffeine at home. Holding my hand in Walmart.  Finding time at the end of the day to talk about our days and spend some time alone. Asking if I'd like to sit on the couch and watch the Big Bang Theory with him. Taking the trash out before I even ask. 

I know those of you that are newlyweds are probably shaking your heads and laughing. Don't get me wrong, we had our honeymoon stage. But now, it feels different. Now, Marty telling me that he's going to take Avery out of the house for the afternoon so I can get some things done and then take a nap is just as romantic as a bouquet of flowers (sometimes even more so, depending on what I need to get done!). I don't need the public displays of affection and the expensive gestures. Are they nice? Sure. Are they appreciated? Absolutely. A dinner alone is needed every once in awhile. But I don't need it every day. Because I know that, in his own way, through his actions that my husband is telling me he loves me every single day. And that's hot. :) 

Grand Reveal!

Whew.  Long time, no blog.  I've had massive writer's block, y'all.  And considering I write about my life, maybe that just means that life has been super boring lately and I've had nothing to talk about.  Either way, I haven't posted.  Fixing that! :)

I posted the other day on Facebook that some changes would  be coming to my painting business, formerly known as Rustic Elegance.  Nothing personal, Rustic Elegance, but I just wasn't feeling inspired by that name anymore.  Since I kick started my painting again, I really felt like I needed to start fresh.  First decision, new name.  I'm super creative when it comes to paintings and seeing pictures in my head, but when it comes to thinking of creative names for things, I'm pretty terrible.  I did know that I wanted it to be something personal.  Something that meant something to me.  So, after a pretty intense brainstorming session, talking with some friends and getting advice on Facebook, I have a new name!  "28th and Hudson designs!"  28th, being Avery's birthday and Hudson, being the address of our first home, where I began creating so long ago...(actually, three years.  so not all that long).  Not only do I have a new name, but I stayed up until well past midnight the other night creating a new logo.  Ya ready??

I'm ridiculously pumped about this.  I have lots of things in the works for this new shop.  New FB page, new BLOG!!, new Etsy shop, new Twitter, new everythings!  I won't reveal anything yet because it's all still in the "I'm-working-out-the-kinks-and-I'm-not-totally-happy-with-it" stage, but it'll be coming soon!  You'll be able to view all my designs on my blog, keep up with me on Facebook and Twitter, hopefully enter some giveaways and more! 

I needed a new start because I was feeling completely uninspired to paint.  If I start fresh, it's a brand-new business almost.  New name, new logo, new me!  I'm organized and ready to start creating all kinds of wonderful things for you.  So check back soon for all things "28th and Hudson!"  Yeehaw! 

Closet Conqueror.

New house.  New problems with my closet. Oy.

This weekend, Marty took Avery for some daddy-daughter time and I got a much needed, toddler-free afternoon at home.  Normally, I would have taken that opportunity to eat potato chips (alone without a toddler begging for some) and watch a non-Disney TV show.  This weekend was a different story.  I decided to do something that I would NEVER be able to when Avery is home......clean out my closet.

When we moved in our new home, we quickly realized that our master bedroom closet was not going to be enough room to hold both mine and Marty's clothing.  Since Marty has twice (that may be a conservative figure) the amount of clothes that I do (sorry, Marty), it was a no-brainer to let him have the walk-in.  Which means I got the closet in the 3rd bedroom....a.k.a. Avery's playroom.  The room itself is an explosion of all things Avery--stuffed animals, books, Little People toys...basically just crap EVERYWHERE.  It's stressful enough just walking into the room to get my clothes.  Then I open the doors to see this: 

Ugh.  Where do I even start?  My closet was filled with clothes I basically hate.  75% of this stuff is never worn.  It's clothes that I have an emotional attachment to (i.e.  That shirt is an Ann Taylor Loft.  It's too expensive to give away....even though I NEVER wear it).  Everything hanging could be justified in my mind about why it needed to stay there, even if it hasn't been worn in a year.  All of my summer and winter clothes are mixed together in one tiny closet, creating jam-packed chaos.  

My purses are packed in a storage bin, with multiple spill-overs just sitting in the floor.  Since I have so many clothes hanging, I have no room for hangers.  So they're left to litter the closet floor and the top shelf.  It's madness, y'all.   Now you see why I chose to organize my closet instead of propping my feet up on the couch.  

I started weeding through the clothes first.  I pulled everything that I haven't worn in awhile.  I got rid of some things by telling myself that I would try to sell some of the higher priced items in a yard sale instead of sending it right to the Goodwill racks.  I removed all the winter clothes and put them in a tub to go into storage until cooler weather.  Afters!

 HUGE difference, right? 

Previous to the closet-redo, my accessories like belts and hats were in our master bathroom closet.  I finally had the room to bring them back into my closet with all their clothing friends. I put all the reusable totes I've collected (fun fact:  I'm a sucker for reusable totes.  If they're offered at a store, I'm probably gonna buy one.  I own no fewer than 4 from the Disney Store) into one big tote and put them in the corner.

 Again, before the organization, my pants and shorts were located in the master bedroom closet.  Basically, in order for me to get ready on a regular basis, I needed to visit three different places to put an outfit together.  No more!  All my pants and shorts are neatly folded at the top of my closet.  I bought some wire baskets for SUPER cheap at Ross a long, long time ago and never had a reason to use them.  Well, now they're in my closet holding my floppy purses that have no shape and would fall if I tried to stand them and all my clutches.

For my bigger and nicer purses that have shape to them, I didn't want them to be squished and just laying in the floor.  I simply took a hammer and nail and made a place for them on the wall.

My final step in organization was to make sure I don't keep a bunch of clothes I don't ever wear.  It's my goal to pare all of my clothing down and end up with only the things I really, really love.  I had multiple pep talks with myself while cleaning out this closet ("Yes, Devan.  I know that neckline is really pretty.  But you hate the way that shirt accentuates your Avery weight and never wear it.").

I'm sure you all have seen this method on Pinterest....I turned all of my hangers around backwards (drives me a little bit crazy, but I'll deal).  Anything that's still turned around the wrong way in 6 months gets donated.

 Here's to a small slice of organized heaven in an otherwise cluttered child's playroom!

One last look.  *contented sigh*

Invitations at last!

I have a dream that one day my daughter will tell her friends that she's so thankful that her mother put so much work into making her birthday perfect. 

Probably won't ever happen.  But hey, I can dream can't I?

You'll be happy to know that the Great Pooh Invite Search is finally over.  But it ended in a very time-consuming, sticky conclusion.  For those of you that want to make your own special Winnie the Pooh invites that are different than everything else out there on Pinterest and Etsy, this post is for you.

After I wrote about not being able to find anything I liked for Avery's party invites, I literally went to bed and dreamt about them that night.  As soon as I woke up and got to work, I grabbed a piece of computer paper and whipped up a quick idea of what I wanted it to look like:

A hunny pot!  Not just any plain old hunny pot, but one that, when the lid is lifted, it reveals the invitations!


Hooray!!  I'm so pleased with how these turned out.  If you like them, here's how I did it...

Originally, I was going to cut out all the shapes by hand.  Such a stupid idea.  I'm incredibly blessed with parents that love me a whooooole bunch and got me a Silhouette Cameo machine for Christmas.  And I gotta say...a Silhouette Cameo is God's gift to the crafting world.  It's fantastic.  If you have a project like this that's going to take a lot of cutting, find a friend that has a Silhouette machine and see if they'll let you use it.  SO much easier than cutting everything by hand!!  Obviously, if you don't have a Silhouette, hand cutting is also an option--it's what I did with Avery's 1st birthday invites.  Not impossible, just takes longer.  So!  Let's get to it.

I found a honey pot shape on in the Silhouette store and downloaded it.  I figured out what size I needed the honey pots to be to fit into my envelopes and resized them accordingly. 

I continued doing this with other shapes until I ended up with all the shapes I needed.  When all the cutting was done, I ended up with two drips of honey, a honey pot and lid, a square for the invitation, bee wings and a body, and the word "hunny."  To ensure that I could put the invite down into the honey pot, I made sure to cut a line going across the top of the honey pot.

I made sure to pick a glue stick that would dry clear because I would be applying a whole bunch of it.  First, I attached the honey drips near the cut I made towards the top.  Then, I glued the "Hunny" words in the middle of the honey pot.  I attached the invitation I printed towards the bottom of the yellow square and then glued the lid to the top of the yellow square.  Finally, I glued the wings and the bee's body to the top of the lid and attached the RSVP information to that.

I slid the square invite into the slit at the top of the honey pot and voila!

 

Normally, when I have a creative idea in my brain, the finished project doesn't turn out like I envisioned it.  But this one was EXACTLY how I imagined it.  Pumped.  Best part about these?  Every invitation I found on Etsy that I halfway liked was like $3 apiece.  These invites (not counting postage or envelopes) were only 30 cents apiece.  Hooray for being cheap!

 

Hot Mess Revival.

I've been a terrible gluten intolerant person (really, there's no better word for that...I tried).  I haven't been eating right and as a result, I've felt LIKE. CRAP.  Not only that, but I've gained back all the weight I lost by being gluten free.  I tell myself that the macaroni that my daughter is eating is worth a stomachache later.  Or that choosing a chicken sandwich with breading won't be all THAT bad for my tummy.  Or that I'm not a full blown Celiac, so I can tolerate a little bit of bread.  All of that is false.  And all of that is really, really stupid.  Take last week, for example.  I was running late, I stopped at McDonald's for breakfast and I ate a bagel.  I told myself that it would be worth it.  It wasn't.  I was in extreme pain the rest of the day--stomach cramps, shooting pains, the works.  No food is worth feeling like that.

I'm not sure how it happened.  Maybe it was just one time that I decided I could have a dinner roll with my meal.  Or maybe I just sampled my daughter's dinner (because I don't make her a gluten free meal...it's not good for a growing toddler).  Or maybe I just thought that all this work to be gluten free wasn't worth it.

I'll be honest.  Being gluten free is a gigantic pain in the rear.  It's meticulous menu planning before I even step foot in a grocery store.  It's reading labels while I shop to make sure I can eat even a simple dollop of ketchup.  It's spending three times the amount for gluten free items that I would on regular ones.  It's not being able to just walk up to my pantry and whip something together for dinner because a meal has to be planned out in advance.  I hate it.

But it doesn't matter how much of a headache it is, it means that I won't be in pain anymore.  And isn't that worth it?  Being able to live pain-free and enjoy my daughter, instead of asking her to play quietly in the floor by herself while I roll myself into a ball on the couch.  What I was doing was stupid.  Food isn't worth being in pain.  Food isn't worth sacking on the extra pounds and having zero energy.  No amount of creamy mac and cheese is worth not feeling good and not being able to spend time with my family.  Isn't it the same way with dieting?  Just say no. Put down the bread and walk away and tell myself that it isn't worth it.

SO....I'm bringing back HOT MESS MONDAYS!  I was losing so much weight and feeling really great about myself when I was doing that.  I was holding myself accountable and eating right.  I was tracking my meals and I was seeing results.  Time to feel good about myself again.  Time to be able to stand in front of a mirror after I get out of the shower and not feel disgusting.  Time to stop feeling like I need to hide every inch of skin from everyone...even my husband.  I don't want to live like this.  Time for exercises and gluten free menus.  Wanna join??

Starting weight:

 Now, before you bite my head off, let me explain.  I weighed myself and posted it to show you that weight is just a number.  I weigh the least amount I ever have, post-Avery, and I feel horrible.  My stomach is flabby, I have no energy and I'm not eating right.  Weight is just a number.  So, instead of having a "goal weight" that I want to reach for, I'm going to have a "goal lifestyle" that I'm going to work for.  I want to be able to walk up a flight of steps without being winded.  I want to walk around my neighborhood (which I've been trying to do with Avery most nights) and still have energy when I get home to clean my kitchen.  It's about a way of life and not a weight number for me.  Heck, 125 was my GOAL weight whenever I was doing my first round of "Hot Mess Mama!"  Shows that I'm not living healthy, no matter what I weigh.  So it's time to bring the Hot Mama back and feel better about myself!   Hot Mama and gluten free (again!), here I come!

Oh, Pooh.

This Winnie the Pooh party will be the death of me.  They'll write on my tombstone:  "The Pooh did her in."

I had a mini-crisis earlier over Avery's birthday outfit.  That's been solved.

Now I've moved on to the invitations.  I'm seeing a lot of this kind of stuff....

via etsy

via etsy

Just kind of basic.  Easy (I really wish I knew what my aversion was to easy things...it'd make my life much simpler).

I know you're making fun of me.  And that's okay.  I love party planning.  I want everything to scream Pooh (without being cheesy overboard style) and I want everything to show that I worked hard on this.  That I cared enough to sit down and work on these invitations and didn't take the easy route.  I mean, did you SEE the invitations for Avery's first birthday party??  SUPER time consuming.  But so worth it.  I'm still getting compliments over those invites. 

So then I found stuff like this. And I die.

via etsy

At $55 for 8 invitations, this is not even an option.

via etsy

Again.  $44 for 8 invites?  Not gonna happen. 

I could make these myself.  But I have a Silhouette machine, which, unfortunately, doesn't have licensed character shapes for purchase yet.  So I would be hand-drawing all of the pots and Poohs and everything.  Doable....but very, time consuming.  

Sigh.  I need someone to make creative invites...and sell them for really, really cheap.  Is that too much to ask?

Yard Sale Finds Are My Friends

Yard sale finds, castoffs, items hidden deep in my mom's basement storage room....these are my friends.  I never thought I'd be the type to say that I loved junk.  I enjoy looking at an item and finding a new use for it.

Like these old shutters my mom had in her basement.  They were black, nothing special about them at all...but I felt like they needed to be displayed somewhere and out of the bottom floor of my parent's home.  I took them to our house in Bardstown, where they hung out in our storage shed for awhile.  I was unsure of the perfect place to use them.  As a picture holder?  As a decorative accent on a wall in our home?  Nothing sounded just right.  Until around Christmas time, when I decided to take a shelf off the wall and it left a HUGE mark where the brackets had been.  Oops.  I searched frantically for a solution to hide the eyesore and finally came up with one of the shutters.  I displayed it on the wall and hung our stocking from it for a couple of months (oh, you don't take your Christmas decorations down until March either??).

Soon after, we moved and I haven't found the "perfect" place to put the shutters back up in the new house.  I've been trying to decorate very deliberately and with purpose and not just throw crap on the walls just to have decorations.  But one day, while I was watching TV, it hit me.

Duh.  These shutters make the perfect frame for our TV!  When Marty mounted the TV, it left quite a bit of open spaces on the sides that I always felt needed something.  I didn't want to hang pictures because I felt like that would distract from TV viewing, but I didn't like the idea of leaving it all blank though.  Marty complains that they make his TV look smaller, but I don't mind a bit.

I'll leave you with some other TV wall inspiration that just make me drool:

via thelaurenelizabeth

^ I literally have dreams about this wall I love it so much.  Maybe one day.

via

Love these colors.  And the frame around the TV.

via

I'm geeking out over this.  I want sliding barn doors!

Do you have any creative ideas to make a TV wall look prettier?  Share!