So back last March Lisa and I went to paint at the Wine and Easel. My first trip was pretty fun and I have the coffee cup hanging in my kitchen.

I had bought a groupon type deal for another trip and decided to book it before it expired (in March). I kept looking at the calendar and waiting to see one I liked, and I saw this one and fell in love with it. I just thought it was pretty and I have taken this photo from their website, so any credit of the picture is not mine, it’s owned by them. Go to http://www.wineandeasel.com/ and check the Feb calendar to see it (or others you could try to paint too).

It was my wedding anniversary day, but I had a groupon to use and my friend Leslie said she’d go too. Then she didn’t go, so my mom was in town and she wanted to go paint. I found a coupon and reserved her spot and we headed into Franklin to paint.

Oh did we paint.

When we got there it’s a mostly blank canvas with some paint on a plate underneath. Not too bad and the crosses were on there (though, one of mine was outlined very strangely). The first thing we did was use black and outline the crosses.

After that we painted the clouds. I was ok with the clouds, until I realized a few things.

1.  I totally painted over one cross. Everyone did but still… it’s hard to freehand a cross. Well for me it is.
2. My blue “peek through” clouds look like stars, blimps, possibly Africa, but not really like blue sky.
3. The original colors were a grey and not brown clouds. I haven’t seen brown clouds before, but these are the colors he was telling us to paint. Not as dark though, I was failing on my clouds, it seems.

I wish that I had taken another during photo, I really do. The godlights were not too bad, but I was getting frustrated by the end. The instructor was really trying to hurry us along. I asked if we could make the clouds more grey and not brown and so that’s why two sections of the top are darker. Sadly, the weird brown on each side is what he was calling a “brown wash” or something. It was supposed to be a light very watery brown that’s just barely on. Well, memo to newbie over here – that is not faint.

My third cross was just freestyled in and sadly I like it the best. Do you like the ground hills? No? Look like a kid did it? Again, I was spent and over it. I see the merit in some of this but all in all I was very disappointed.

Now here’s my painting and my mom’s painting is on the right. I like her crosses and her ground better. I like my God lights and left top dark cloud. I don’t like either of the clouds anywhere else. Check her cross’ shading though, I have to admit that if I could have somehow merged these and got new clouds I’d have been happy. That’s not an option.

Oh and here’s the one we were looking at as a sample from a previous day and mine. Wait, which one is which? SO kidding. My crosses look super fat, but that’s the only way I could get them to look even. Sadly we left the paintings there. I didn’t want to have to throw it away at home and didn’t want my hubby to laugh at me. I wish I had kept it but more as a joke and a testament to my non-painting ability.
Laugh if you will – he said that they’ve considered putting a warning out there because this is one of the most difficult paintings. Um, that would have been great info because my coffee cup wasn’t too bad. I like my coffee cup, I hope one day I can look at crosses and lights shining on them without remembering this experience. Seriously.

Until then I think I’ll stick to the artistic ability I have when it comes to frosting cakes. Oh wait, I haven’t shown you Cheech’s Monster High cookie cake yet. I free-handed a skull and it looks like a strange blob. Kirby was an easier to do blob. Photos up soon as I can for those.

My second trip to the Wine and Easel was nowhere as nice as my first (….or why I’m NOT an artist)

I just signed up to participate in another giveaway – this one in March. If you are a blogger and you want to play too, you will need to go and Sign up to participate.

The event will go live on March 10 at 12:01am EST thru March 17th at 11:59pm EST. This is in line with the celebration of St. Patrick’s day.

Tell them that Crazy for a Deal sent ya, please.

Luck of the Irish – looking for bloggers to participate!

Not sure how I missed this but we’re on day #2 of a woot off!!!

Woot will sell something until it runs out and then sell something else. They’re all supposedly deals worthy of purchase, but I guess how worthy they are all depends on the eye of the beholder. Either way, woot-off song and waiting on a BOC, woot!

You know I’m always on the lookout for another bag of crap! Anyone else ever get one? What’d ya get?

Woot-off!

I have bought this deal twice – I love printing with Vistaprint. In fact I’m waiting on my new business cards to take with me to Blissdom (HURRY UP!)

Living Social has a $50 Vistaprint voucher for only $10.

That’s super awesome!

$10 for $50 to spend at Vistaprint

I’m so excited! Blissdom starts Thursday!!!! Opryland Hotel will never know what hit it! I have nothing to wear so I’m heading out to do some shopping to see what I can find.

This past weekend was busy, so I didn’t get to be online much. We had both kids a birthday party (they had a family one combined this year like usual), we had family in town, then it was mine and the hubby’s 12 year wedding anniversary.

I was looking at our wedding photos and oh my eyebrows! Seriously. This is from the year 2000. Which was a great year to get married since we can always figure our wedding anniversary year easily – oh it’s 2012, so boom – 12 years! We went to dinner and had a good time, but we were both pretty exhausted from the kids birthday party that we came back home right after. Darn everything is this time of year for us, so of course Blissdom is too. My son’s birthday is in less than 10 days, but at least there’s no party. We have plans already, but those don’t start until I get back in town.

I went and did a painting class this weekend with my mom at the Wine and Easel. Um, last time it went well, this time – a disaster! I’ll post photos soon, I promise. You can promise not to laugh too much at my mad painting skillz.

Just a few short days until #Blissdom and our busy weekend

We have a winner now for the $25 AMC GC (2 movie tix) from You Never Lose.

AND THE WINNER IS…

results powered by Random.org

Winner posted for You Never Lose drawing

The Total Money Makeover winners have been announced on the rafflecopter!

AND THE WINNERS ARE…

Winners announced for the Dave Ramsey Books

Have you ever heard of Clipix? Let me tell you, it’s pretty neat! It’s like webpage where you can bookmark articles you want to read or keep handy for later. Suppose you’re reading something on the internet and there’s a link you’re dying to click and read, but you know that you’re short on time. You either do it anyway and make yourself late for something, you  attempt to go back later to read it but forget, or you want to find it later and can’t remember what it was called. I’ve had all three of those happen and this is where clipix comes in!

With Clipix I was able to read and come back to an article about the 50 things to do in Tennessee with young children – and bookmark it so that I remember to go and actually do those things. I hope that I will knock a few of those things off my list soon. 

Another way I have started using clipix is by clipping the contests I’m hosting or entering to a board so I can easily go back and enter again or check on their progress. I love having these all on there organized so it makes my time online spent much more efficiently.

I suggest you look into clipix today. You will so want to join and keep all of your online articles together. What’s cool is you can log in from any computer or device and still see your clips. This is way better than using bookmarks on your computer – those don’t move with you they stay on one device. This, well this is cool as you take your bookmarks and more with you. They even have an iphone app! You can snap photos and share them or you can keep track of all of your clips on the go! 

You can control the privacy which I like, share with as many or as few people as you want. Check this out…

What would you use clipix for? Planning a birthday party? Shopping online? Friends recommendations? Planning trips? Please tell me in the comments what uses you can think of for this site.

I started out with like 2 clips, but the more I thought about wanting to read more or come back to an article the more I clipped it and well – you will always find new uses for it!

Promoted Post

Have you tried Clipix yet? It’s pretty neat!

Dave Ramsey’s giveaway for the book The Total Money Makeover is ending tonight!!!!
Please consider entering and checking out Dave’s ideas on money. I know it changed my life and I pray that it will change yours too!

We started Dave’s plan through the Financial Peace University during the summer of 2010. I can not express how differently I see things now and how much more ready I am for my future. I have been mostly using cash since the class and for a while I thought, envelopes? What? That would be darn near impossible. And starting out was not easy as pie, but once we set our minds and hearts on doing it we got there. I can’t imagine NOT budgeting and paying with mostly cash ever again. It really really changed our house for the better.

You know when I realized my kids were starting to understand a little about our changes with money? When I was paying at the grocery store my daughter was 4 and asked me, “Why are you paying with money?” I was perplexed what she meant. I told her that I always paid for our groceries with money and she said, no you use that red card. Ouch! She knew at age 4 that I paid with my card most of the time. She didn’t associate it with money. I explained that I always had to pay money for my groceries, but now we’ll be paying with cash and not with our cards. I told the kids about debt and about cash and I really dug deep in talking about Dave’s plan to them even at ages 4 and 6. I sure hope that they never get into debt and they can win with money. I know when they’re old enough for their first job they’re taking the Financial Peace University classes because I’m dragging them to all of the classes.

Anyway, if I feel that strongly about Dave’s plan I suggest you at least look into it. Everyone I know who has tried it has been pleased with the outcome. Not everyone I know still pays with cash, in fact I feel very odd man out when I whip out my Dave envelope system to pay for something, but the longer I have done it the more normal it seems for me.

So, if you want to win The Total Money Makeover be sure to enter to win. If you don’t win, please google and read more about the philosophies, find a class at a local church, or listen to your public access radio station to hear what he has to say. It’s worth a look into at least.

Last Call!!! Win Dave Ramsey’s Total Money Makeover book!!

I haven’t tried this yet, but wanted to share.

I saw this over at  commonsensewithmoney.com and wanted to pass it along.

This week Walgreens has Chapstick on sale for 99 cents.

Well, the monthly coupon book you pick up at the front has a coupon for $1 off Chapstick in it. The picture shows another type of chapstick but it supposedly works here just fine.

This is confirmed as working on Chapstick Vanilla, regular, mint, apple, and cherry.

Free Chapstick at Walgreens?