12 ON THE 12TH: JUNE

I am an awful cheater when it comes to my 12 on the 12th. By the time I've realized the day it's already gone and I've missed my opportunity to photograph what I've done. Right now I am setting an alarm to go off the night of the 11th so I am ready.

We've had a busy day though, and here's my best shot at capturing it.

1 - Apartment shopping! We moved into the tiny apartment last September and will be moving into something bigger as soon as the lease is up. Texas apartments require a 60 day notice, so we started to check out what our options might be for Chad that are close to work and will give us some extra SPACE!

2 - Sonic happy hour : )

3 - It's not open on Sundays, but yesterday I experienced the craziness that is Sam Moon. It was a little overwhelming and since it's so busy on Saturdays they don't even allow strollers in the store. But I'm excited to go back some morning during the week.

4 - Loving out engagement pictures ....

5 - Car shopping! Long story short ... right now we only have one car, but hopefully not for long. With Chad starting his job this week we'll be able to go pick something out soon because juggling the van between us won't work well for long :S

6 - Laid by the pool today, it was great. We even went for a little swim.

7 - Making cosmetic bags (or whatever you wanna use them for). Have a few down at SOBO Fashion Lounge and a couple of them have sold already : )

8 - Diet, diet, diet. We're getting married in 2 months. Major cutting down on the carbs and more picking up some weights to tone these arms up!

9 - Happy Birthday to Chad!! He's the big 3-0 today!

10 - Hunger Games Series ..... I read the 3 books over a week and am waiting for more movie details to come out ...

11 - Craving MRPCo ....

12 - The 10 day forecast .... nothing less than 95!

SUMMA WHAT?!

Oh my, it's June! What the heck happened to May?

There's so much to do in the next 3 months ... this month ... this week.... today ... and I am taking a little break to catch up on some blogs I like to check in on and with my latest favorite thing - pinterest ; )

I found this on there today .... so I'm not really wasting my time, right? It's a fun place to keep track of all those little things you find online and want to remember. I think it could be a little addicting.

I was mildly productive today. Yesterday Chad got his new drivers license and I figured since I don't have plans this morning today I would go get mine. Except the lady told me that I had to register my vehicle at the same time, but first you have to take it to pass an inspection test and blah blah blah. So I found somewhere to take it and sat there for an hour while they checked it all out and replaced my back brake light that was out.

By the time I got home to retrieve all the other info I need to bring in to get set up here I didn't want to drive back to the DMV where there were already about 50 people waiting when the first opened. Will be super prepared tomorrow I suppose.

I've got a couple different to do lists going. One of course for the wedding. And since I made it I've started having nightmares about something not being done (bridesmaid not making it to town, flowers not ordered, no one ready and the wedding is about to start). It's mostly just smaller details now, we've got to come up with some fun favors, print some engagement photos, plan the rehearsal, etc. I can't believe it's just over 2 months away.

A friend of mine here is getting married in 2 weeks. This weekend is her bachelorette party. We're gonna spend some time at a lake house and I'm way excited to get some sun! We went and bought new swimsuits earlier this week. I'm ready for a Texas tan : )

Chad is finishing up his review in class and will be employed again June 13th! His birthday is the weekend before so I'm sure we'll be doing something to celebrate.

We've been doing a little house hunting, although we need to come up with a timeline for when we think we can go approach a bank about a home loan. There are some beautiful places here that are going to make the decision hard. I am ready to get out of the tiny apartment, but it's not super practical to move somewhere else for another 6 months if we'll be packing it up to move into our first house (fingers crossed!). It's a lot of fun to look though and we'll have a good idea of all the things we need/want when the time comes.

So, I'm off to enjoy the rest of my quiet morning (the apartment is a disaster, but that's getting ignored today too) before work and will start running around again tomorrow!

POPPY SHAPED LEMON COOKIES

Picked up the latest Martha Stewart in an airport along the way because it had super cute poppies on the cover. Inside I found this fun decorating idea. I made some sugar cookies over the weekend (minus a cookie cutter! will be buying one for next time!) and already made cookie icing to decorate. I think it dried a little too quick, so next time I better just make them like Martha did!

ENGAGEMENT PHOTOS

We finally got to see some of our engagement pictures and they are amazing!! We got to work with a super fun photographer, Morgan, who I knew before we even were engaged I wanted to have do the photos. To see a couple more from the perfect evening we got in Montana click on the picture above. To check out more of Morgan's stuff click on her logo!

ZIPPER SUCCESS

I've been pretty intimidated to try sewing anything that needs a zipper added to it, but there's so many cute things that just work better with one... plus you can get them in pretty much any color and that just adds to how fun they can be.

So here is my first successful zipper attempt! I looked at another little bag that I'd bought to see how it was put together and did my best to repeat it. And I hate using the seam ripper when I screw up so I was looking at it every 5 minutes to double check my idea of what order to sew everything.

Found the fabric on my most recent Joann's trip. It was the "don't know what I'll make with it but I have to have some" kind of purchase. I have some left so maybe I'll make a little set?

Very happy with my results : )

FIVE WORDS TELL A STORY

Came across a fun site, called Five Words Tell A Story, that daily uses 5 words to convey something. Then they dress it up a little bit and put it out there to share. Not sure when this one was from, but thought I'd throw it up here.

12 ON THE 12TH: MAY

1 - Arts Goggle happening this weekend in FW. It's a music festival/art gallery/local business fun!

2 - My brother just finished his graduate program at IU, so I spent last weekend in Bloomington drinking wine helping him celebrate!

3 - Think I may be hooked on Glee ... have watched a couple new episodes, think I need to start from the beginning ...

4 - The weather has been so wacky that there is an umbrella packed in my bag at all times!

5 - Makeup/Hair appts for wedding day made!

6 - Check out the frog exhibit at the Museum of the Rockies in Bozeman. It's there until September.

7 - Part of Chad's training involves a few trips riding trains. All I can think of is the Thomas the Train song ...

8 - Wine arrived from Oliver Winery in Bloomington! I wasn't able to pack any in my bag home since I only brought a carry on. Will enjoy soon ....

9 - My friend Kelly spent the last several months in India volunteering at a school. She just returned home to Alaska and sent me some beautiful fabrics from her trip!

10 - Waiting to get our engagement photos back. Refreshing our photographers blog every night to see if they've been posted yet : )

11 - Most of our wedding invites have gone out, there's a few addresses that we're waiting to get back and the last couple invites to cut and assemble.

12 - SweetTarts for breakfast!

CAKE ON THE BRAIN

Back in Fort Worth after a trip to Montana for Easter/wedding planning/catching up with friends and to Indiana for my brother's graduation. Both were a lot of fun and the perfect little break after being in Texas for nearly 8 months!

We got a lot of stuff done for the wedding. It was super great to meet with everyone helping put together our big day. And we had a perfect evening for our engagement photos after having to postpone to windy and gloomy weather earlier in the week. Can't wait to share a few of those here ...

So far we've not put a lot of thought into our cake. The chef we hired for the reception asked about it and we threw out a few ideas. Very excited she's willing to do the cake as well, as that cuts down on the running around we'll have to do or worrying about another vendor. We decided on a few other things, but lately I've been looking at lots of pictures to get an idea of how it should look.

Here's a few of what I'm liking right now and have a few others in mind too. We'll see in about 3 months what the final design is!

CHECKING OUT ....

We will be out and about the next few weeks here and there doing a lot of "vacation" and some other important stuff too : )

SUMMER BOTANICALS

My second set of paintings! Here's the Pottery Barn inspiration for $49 a print. My knock offs cost whatever the canvas and paint was. I think it would have been fun to paint the background instead of leaving the canvas white, but I wanted to sketch out my flowers first and the walls in the room they're going into are blue, so I thought the white might look nice against it.

I had a super fun time painting them! I've been perusing websites for other ideas I can try imitate and thinking of places I could put them : )

ROCK N ROLL BIRTHDAY GIRL

Made these for the cutest girl turning 7 in April that I know! Also sent her a pair of jeggings to wear with these fun tops : ) I'm in love with the black and white one. Thinking of making myself something like it that would go great with some killer black boots!

12 ON THE 12TH: APRIL

So, I totally didn't ever to 12 on the 12th for March....oops! Here's part of my life from today.

1 - Another little hat I'm knitting. I actually did pretty well up at the bazaar in Sitka last weekend and sold 1/3 - 1/2 of what went up there : )

2 - Sneak peek at one of the paintings I'm working on

3 - The power went out the other night here during a thunderstorm, so we lived by candlelight. It's been awhile since I did that, probably as a little kid in Haines.

4 - This pineapple's days are numbered, tomorrow I will make myself cut it up and enjoy!

5 - I'm brunette again

6 - For the next 5 weeks I have a crazy schedule with getting to Montana, Indiana, lots of work and missing Chad while he's gone for some work training

7 - I think the Albertson's in Saginaw is quite nice. And right now there's a Monopoly game going. I get very excited about putting new pieces on the gameboard!

8 - Fabric for the next bag I'm gonna work on

9 - I didn't feel super great when I woke up this morning and luckily my morning plans canceled, so I curled up on the couch and sipped on some squirt

10 - Found these in my purse from some weekend fun. Ended up going bowling and had the best time. Had to stop and pick up some socks on the way since it wasn't preplanned. Great reminder of my 174 bowling score!

11 - After flipping through my catalog in the mail have decided a trip to Crate and Barrel is definitely in order for our wedding registry. I already started on online since the flatware I want is from there. We already use it but need some pieces replaced. Why not add some more C&B fun?

12 - Getting into the habit again of making the bed in the morning. Makes the biggest difference when I get home later for thinking the bedroom is picked up : )

SURE, I CAN PAINT?

I don't remember being super into art class in school growing up. There's a few projects here or there that I remember that turned out well but not many of them were paintings.

My last big attempt to paint art work was inspired by Color Splash on HGTV. I was pretty confident that I could make something for our living room and we had the perfect size piece of plywood. I'm pretty sure what happened is that I bought the wrong kind of paint and went a little crazy spraying it with a water bottle, along with not being patient enough to let paint dry and the colors started mixing together in a bad way.

So instead of painting works of art I had Chad built me a wood frame and then wrapped fabric around it. It works great. And it's easy to change when you want something new.

One of the families I sit for has a little girl and are wanting to do some decorating in her room since she's not a baby anymore. I was super excited to help. Her mom bought some canvases and paint and has given me the freedom to paint whatever.

I looked googled things like art for girls room and what not to get some ideas. Pottery Barn Kids had some cute stuff that I'm gonna do my best at imitating. Right now those are just sketched out to paint this weekend. Two I already have done. Check them out!

She was born in New Orleans and the fleur de lis is a big symbol there. And a whimsical owl (that still needs the bee painted in)

SCD VERSION 2.SOMETHING

First the apartment, then the van, then my craft supplies, even the cupboard beneath the kitchen sink is not safe from reorganization. So it was only a matter of time before the {scd} site got it.

I've been making a lot of things lately, for the Rainy Day Bazaar in Sitka, AK, for coworkers or families I sit for. Or people see things like my own bag or hair clips. And everyone always asks if I have a website that they can share with their friends. I was embarrassed before, because I didn't think the pictures were that great that I'd taken or that I didn't have enough to show. And the time that it took to do the site on my own how I really wanted it done was beyond my own skills.

When it comes to website and html I think I've been decent enough about navigating my way through what I'm trying to accomplish, but it was time for a new idea and some help. After a few "free template" searches that come up with mostly blog layouts I found Wix.com -- such a fun and easy site to use. I even found a template that offered an online store. So last night I spent awhile playing around and created my new look. And at the end found out to use the ecommerce option you do have to pay. But it was easy to take out since I'm not prepared to pay monthly fees for my own online store front yet. I'll just need to kick it in gear and list some things on Etsy.

So, here is it! A more professional {scd} online that I am very proud for anyone to see -- it doesn't have everything I've done so it may be more of a portfolio kind of site, but it is so much better!

SCD: PEE PEE TEE PEES

Comes in two sizes (these are the smaller sets) to avoid
getting "showered" when changing your little boys!