Measure Once, Cut Twice

Circus Party Ideas

2013-05-18T07:00:00.000-07:00

I've mentioned before that we like to throw each other birthday parties at work. One of our employees went to Reno to celebrate his 30th birthday and mentioned that he was going to stay at Circus Circus. So naturally, that became the theme of his "party". And by party I mean that I made the three things in the image above.

I made cupcakes and stuck little clown cupcake toppers in them. I found these toppers at Marshall's a while back, so they were perfect. I also had blue and yellow striped nut cups on hand in my nut cup stash {ya, that's a thing}. I grabbed some animal crackers from Target and filled them up.

I couldn't pass up the perfect opportunity to make him a "30 Blows" present. I got the container from the Target dollar section and put a block of styrofoam in it. Blow Pops come in packs at Target as well, so I just stuffed 30 of them into the styrofoam. I made the tag using drawing pens on my Silhouette and wrapped it around with red and white twine.

Do you know anyone with a major birthday coming up? Try making them your own version of this!

Friday Favorites: Mason Jar Meals

2013-05-17T08:00:00.000-07:00

Summer is right around the corner and mason jars are all the rage. At our house we've started incorporating mason jars into our dinner parties by serving lemonade and root beer floats in them. I'm seriously considering hosting a Memorial Day party {I should probably make that decision soon.} and really want to incorporate mason jars into the theme.

For today's Friday Favorites, I've gathered a list of drinks, salads, main courses and desserts all packed into mason jars. These jars are cheap, reusable and, best of all, dishwasher safe!

Drinks

pre-poured sweet tea and lemonade

Watermelon lemonade slushy

Sake Champagne Mojito

Salads

Caprese salad in a jar

Corn and chickpea salad

pre-packaged salads for the week Main Course

Mason jar corndogs

BBQ Sundae: Comfort in a cup

Lazy lasagna

Chili and cornbread

Pastiera di pepperoni

Chicken Cordon Bleu Desserts

Frozen ice cream jars

Rainbow cake in a jar

milk & cookies

cinnamon rolls to go

Are you drooling yet? I sure am.

Three Things Thursday: My Favorite Quotes

2013-05-16T07:00:00.000-07:00

It's Thursday again, so that means I'm linking up with Carolina Fireflies and Pretty Living PDX for their Three Things Thursday link party.

Today's topic is 3 of my all time favorite quotes.

I just posted my favorite quote the other day as part of my #blogeverydayinmay post, but there are tons of great quotes, so I'm totally on board with doing this again.

This is on the desktop of my computer at work. As I face my daily challenge of being a successful woman in a man's industry, I glance at this quote and remind myself that they are just intimidated.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it :)

This is the quote that is on the desktop of my laptop at home. It gives me inspiration to stay up late and work on this blog, to sign up for craft fairs, to someday open my own shop.

This is a quote from my girl Carrie Underwood. I literally listen to this song over and over again driving home from work sometimes. It's off the Blown Away CD and is called "Nobody Ever Told You". I saw her and Hunter Hayes in concert twice on that tour, so I'm kind of obsessed.

Happy Thursday everyone... we're almost there!

Day 15: A Day in the Life

2013-05-15T07:00:00.000-07:00

May 15, 2013 Topic of the Day:

A Day in the life

7:00 Wake up on my 5th alarm and lay in bed reading and responding to any urgent work emails. I should probably pretend that I wake up earlier than this in case anyone from my work sees this. However, I'm not going to since I am legitimately reading work emails from the second I wake up in the morning until the time I go to bed at night. This is when I make a purchase from Pick Your Plum if applicable that day. Then I rush to get ready so that I can attempt to be at work on time.

8:00 Drive to work. My neighborhood is surrounded by a golf course and I'm always so impressed with people who are out being active so early in the morning. I just can't get over this view.

8:00am to 5:00pm

{usually more like 8:30 to 6:00}

Work, work, work all day long. This is my office where it all goes down. I have about a million people coming to me for about two million things per day. It's really ridiculously stressful and I clench my teeth all night thinking about it.

But it's pink, so that's fun, right?

6:00 Dinner and TV time. We usually watch a TV show while we eat. I end up laying on the couch with the little dog in my lap soon after that.

7:00

At some point I get my butt up and do the dishes.

{John cooks, I clean.}

Then I end up either replacing the dog in the picture above with my laptop on the couch or go in my craft room to blog and work on projects. My craft room is literally 5 steps from the couch, so it's kind of like I'm spending time with John, minus the watching sports aspect of it.

10:00

Bed time routine. Here's a sneak peek of my bathroom. It consists of huge ugly brown curtains that we have yet to change out, along with a gold shower door that I need to figure out how to spray paint.

10:30

In my big heavenly bed. John usually falls right to sleep and I catch up on my social media from the day.

And repeat.

Day 14: 10 Things that make me REALLY happy

2013-05-14T07:00:00.000-07:00

May 14, 2013 Topic of the Day:

Ten things that make you really happy.

1. my husband

2. food

If I'm in a bad mood, my favorite foods will make me snap out of it right away. Pancakes, ice cream, raw cookie dough and many many more. John knows this best.

3. presents

{This is me crying over my Louis Vuitton on Christmas.}

4. my dogs

Modok in his purse

Fifi and all of her limbs

5. Kristen Wiig as the Target Lady on SNL

{if you haven't seen this, you HAVE to watch it!}

{bare with me through the commercial}

6. e-cards

{some are just so applicable to my life!}

7. music

Cranking Taylor Swift's first album driving down the freeway with the sunroof open.

8. Home Goods

I get butterflies when I walk into this store. Seriously, it's such a treat when we go there {since it is 2 hours away} and makes me SO happy every time.

9. crossing things off my to-do list

I'm obsessed with lists. Sometimes I make lists of things that I need to do just to cross them off. I didn't need the reminder, just the joy of running the pen across the paper.

10. giving

I love giving things to people. I love seeing their face light up as they open a present that they weren't expecting to get. Sometimes this means I get a little carried away, but it is just so rewarding to me.

Laundry Room Sign Tutorial

2013-05-13T07:30:00.000-07:00

Happy Monday to you! I hope you had a great Mother's Day yesterday. We hosted dinner for nine including John's Mom and Grandma. I haven't shared this yet, but we made a dining room table for our new house and tonight was the first time we completely filled all of the seats. It was a tight squeeze, but we confirmed that ten people would easily be able to fit around our table! I sort of live for hosting dinner parties, so I'm super excited about this. {My Facebook page has a sneak peek picture of the table in the cover photo.}
So today I'm sharing some crafts that I made directly based off of some ideas I saw on Pinterest. Not too original, but I tried to put my own spin on these fairly simple ideas. The original "Seeking Sole Mates" idea can be found here. However, instead of using wire and canvas, I glued clothespins to wood.

This project was really really easy. I used acrylic paint, which dries super fast so this project took me like 30 mins to do. The hardest part was cutting the vinyl {which isn't hard at all}. Start by painting your board {or canvas} completely with the color that you want your letters. Then apply vinyl letters and cover everything with the color that you want most of the board to be. Wait for the top coat to dry and then peel off your vinyl.

Since I did two layers on wood, I was able to sand down the top coat of white to expose the yellow I had painted underneath. The clothespins are just glued along the bottom of the sign to hang my socks on. Not shown- I used a picture hanger to hang this on the wall.

Here is the final project again. Such a great addition to our laundry room {closet}!

Original idea can be found here.

While I was at it, I decided we needed a trash can in the closet for lint, dryer sheets, garbage, etc. I had this paint bucket that I bought from the Home Depot a while ago and just threw some vinyl on there.

The fact that I got these two projects done this weekend means I'm almost ready to do my laundry closet reveal!

5/12 Sunday Social

2013-05-12T07:00:00.001-07:00

1. 1 year ago I was doing ….

2012, Age 23:

This was the year that we were determined to pay off all of our debt. My student loans came due at the beginning of the year and we owed money on a car that I bought the year before. We went into ultra-saving mode and saved over 50% of our net paychecks. Not only did we pay off all of the debt in 8 months, but we also ended up with a lot in savings. Good thing we did that, because little did we know that we'd be selling our house and looking to buy a new one by the end of 2012!

2. 5 years ago I was doing ….

2008, Age 19:

Finishing my second year of college and only 4 classes away from earning my Bachelor's in Business Management {I got that information from FB}. I was still living at home, working for the meter company, babysitting for multiple families and apparently being really skinny.

3. 10 years ago I was doing….

2003, Age 14:

John and I started dating in July. We pretty much spent every day together that summer with two of our best friends. This picture sums up the year 2003 for us. You won't understand, but we turned his Dad's garage into our main hang out and had so much fun.

4. 1 year from now Ill be doing…

2014, Age 25:

John will be finishing his student teaching and will hopefully have a teaching job lined up for the following school year. I'm probably going to be doing the same thing as I am now {working, crafting, nothing} but I will admit that there will probably be more talk of a certain 4 letter word around our house...

5. 5 years ago ill be doing….

2018, Age 29:

We'll have two children and John will have his dream teaching job. I will hopefully have the same job that I have now. It would be pretty cool if I had my own side company too. Maybe a craft/gift shop on our Town Green?

6. 10 years from now ill be doing…

2023, Age 34:

Wow. This is really weird to think about. The year 2023 seems so futuristic to me and age 34 seems so old. However, I know time will fly by and before I know it, 10 years will pass. I think I'll just be focused on our family by then. I still plan on being a working mother. Hopefully I'll be running my own company by then, but even if I had the same job then as I do now, I would be grateful.

Day 11: About me, in 10 words or less.

2013-05-11T10:21:00.000-07:00

May 11, 2013 Topic of the Day:

Sell yourself in 10 words or less.

I was having a hard time with coming up with words to describe myself with, so I asked my husband for his opinion. Straight from his mouth...

Isn't he lovely?

Friday Favorites: Doilies & Lace

2013-05-10T07:00:00.000-07:00

I've recently become obsessed with lace and doilies. There are so many things you can do with them! Whether you are lighting up a room or hosting a party, these materials are perfect for spring and bring elegance to every project.

Check out some more ideas on my {lace&doilies} Pinterest board.

DIY Doily Cocktail Stirrers

Doily Place Cards

DIY Lace Lamp

DIY Doily Envelopes

Doily Wrapped Napkins

Doily Serving Cones

Pastel Themed Party Ideas

2013-05-09T07:00:00.001-07:00

My co-worker and I are really obsessed with each other's birthdays. Since we're both crafters, we take advantage of the opportunity and go all out to decorate our conference room table for our office lunch birthday celebrations. Do you remember when she transformed our office into a popping pink party zone for my birthday? I was having a really hard time coming up with ideas to top hers, so I went with a random springy, pastel-y, girly theme for her party. I sure didn't come close to outdoing her decorations, but I think mine turned out pretty cute :)

I covered our conference room table with kraft paper from our warehouse. Then covered the kraft paper in homemade doilies that I cut from all sorts of pastel scrapbook paper.

I wrapped floral washi tape around clear cups and put some cute paper straws from Pick Your Plum in them. This was harder than it seems since the cups aren't perfect cylinders, but the small pattern helped hide the creases.

I re-used some pinwheel candy tins that I had made for a different party. They came in handy to bring more color to the table. And of course, I had to fill them with Laffy Taffys because my coworker and I are obsessed with Pick Your Plum and make purchases from them daily!

P.S. If you didn't know this existed, you're missing out. It allows you to cut your own doilies out of any type of paper you want! Plus you can buy cartridges to cut different shapes and sizes!

Colorful Summer Garden Box Tutorial

2013-05-08T07:00:00.001-07:00

I don't know about you, but I hate working outside. I hate being hot and dirty and I despise the bugs that I inevitably run into while gardening. We had a gardner at our old house, but now we've decided to become better homeowners and take care of our yard by ourselves.

John is really into designing and building things and I'm really into him making things so that I can post them on my blog, so this project was perfect for us!

First we started with some 2x4's and cut six 12" pointed stakes.

Then we cut two 2x4's the width of our planter box and four to the size of the depth of our box. I forget what those lengths were, but it doesn't matter because yours will be however wide and deep your backyard will accommodate. Lay out your stakes evenly across the boards, then apply wood glue and screw them together. We created a 3 sided box to drop in the ground.

We marked off the grass with some spray paint, dug a hole and laid down some mesh weed block.

Make sure to get your mesh weed block down tight so nothing creeps through. Then cover it in mulch. We found some cool black mulch from Home Depot that really made the blue paint pop.

Once the garden box was ready, we drilled holes in the bottom of three galvanized drink tubs from the Home Depot.

Place the tubs in your garden box and pour in some gravel to help drainage. The potting soil gets poured in on top of everything.

We found some colored tomato cages at Home Depot and popped those babies into the tubs. They were perfect for bringing color into our new garden!

I had these little chalkboards from Pick Your Plum and used a white chalkboard pen to write each different type of tomato plant on them.

Here is a picture of the final product one more time.

As usual, Modok is photobombing.

Day 7: The things I'm most afraid of...

2013-05-07T07:00:00.000-07:00

May 7, 2013 Topic of the Day:

The thing(s) you're most afraid of.

If this were a simple question, I'd probably answer:

jumping wolf spiders

plastic bags in the road that might just fly into your windshield, get stuck on your windshield wipers, blocking your vision and causing a huge crash. {it could happen!}

driving too fast at night, because who knows when a deer will run out in front of you.

Since this answer is supposed to last an entire blog post...

It's not that I'm afraid of failure, it's that I'm afraid of not taking advantage of opportunities given to me. Why? Because that might lead to failure.

What is failure anyway?

I think we all have our own definition.

My version of failure is not being the best that I can possibly be.

What if I had taken a sip of alcohol in high school?

What if I didn't work 3-4 jobs when I was 16 years old?

What if I didn't graduate high school early?

What if I didn't work hard to graduate college in 3 years so that I could start a full time job?

What if I didn't go to grad school directly after that?

What if I didn't question authority and push boundaries in the workplace?

What if we never had the courage to buy a house?

What if we never had the courage to sell our house?

Where would I be now?

Honestly, that's what I'm afraid of. No matter how perfect my life is, I'm always looking for more. I'm always taking on one more project than I can handle.

I'm always saying yes.

So I guess that's what I'm afraid of.

You can never fail as long as you are doing your best.

Solution for an efficient grocery list.

2013-05-06T07:00:00.001-07:00

Have you used Google Drive before? I did on school projects, but never for practical real life situations. Serious ones... like sharing a grocery list with your spouse.

I don't know about you, but we have a whiteboard on the side of our fridge and add to the list as we think of items we need. It sure is a real bummer when we are already out and about, ready to attack the grocery store, but don't have our list on hand. Sometimes we keep notes in our separate phones, but that never works out either since we can't see each other's lists.

We recently discovered a solution that made our lives SO much easier!

Google Drive... the iPhone app. It's so easy! Just push the little "+" in the upper right corner to begin a new document.

My husband created and shared three separate documents with me. These are lists of items that we need to purchase, so when one person is at a specific store, they'll know what to pick up.

Once the document is created, just click on it in your app and you'll be able to start making edits. Those edits will instantly show up on the other person's phone.

I usually walk into certain stores thinking

"What did I need here again?"

Not anymore!

P.S. We also found that this is a great way to remind each other to use a coupon!

All opinions stated here are my own. I am not being sponsored by Google, I just really like this product!

Sunday Social

2013-05-05T00:27:00.000-07:00

In my attempt to blog every day in May, I'm joining the Sunday Social this week!

This Weeks Questions:

1. 4 favorite things to do on a weekend:

sleep

not shower

eat cereal
{I don't eat cereal during the week, so this is something I wake up looking forward to every Saturday & Sunday!}

accomplishing a DIY project

2. 4 favorite things about your best friend:

We've stayed besties since we were like 3 and the only school we have ever attended together was pre-school. I love that we have always found a way to stick together!

Her name is Michelle {Mich}, my name is Hilary {Hilla}. We have little saying "I Hilla Mich You". It's my fave. Isn't it perfect?

When we were little {ok... like 6th grade} we used to have these matching outfits that we wore. Picture this: Blue beanies, blue long sleeve shirts, blue camouflage pants that looked like MC Hammer pants, but with a higher crotch, and blue fuzzy slippers. SERIOUSLY!?

She was the perfect bridesmaid. From my Tiffany & Co. themed bachelorette weekend in San Francisco, to taking the lead planning my bridal shower, to showing up at the wedding with some amazing dance moves. Not to mention, look at how passionate she is about life. And those muscles? Well let's just say I'm lucky to have her on my side.

3. 4 things you would do with $100,000:

I would apply it to the principal balance on our house and pretend like we never had it. That way I wouldn't be tempted.

Oh, and I'd keep some out to apply to taxes at the end of the year. Because nothing is free and that tax bill wouldn't be pretty.

No joke, I really am that ~~practical~~ ~~fiscally responsible~~ lame.

4. 4 favorite books you’ve ever read:

Hunger Games series

Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants series

Something Borrowed & Something Blue by Emily Giffin

I honestly can't think of a fourth book/series that I've loved as much as the top three. I need to take this as a sign that I should start reading more...

5. 4 favorite snack foods:
This is kind of hard because I don't usually "snack", but if I were to walk into a mini mart, I'd probably buy...
baked lays or baked BBQ chips
sweet treats like sour gummy worms, milk duds, skittles
crackers
ice cream

6. 4 things that you must do daily:
Read emails on my phone.
Catch up on social media. {heaven forbid I miss something...}
Drink a Diet Pepsi before a headache kicks in.
Communicate with John.

Day 4: My Favorite Quote

2013-05-04T07:00:00.000-07:00

May 4, 2013 Topic of the Day:

Favorite quote and why you love it.

Song title: "Ours" I've never been one of those girls who applies music quotes to every aspect of her life. I actually came to the realization one day recently that none of Taylor Swift's love songs apply to me whatsoever. Mainly because they always end poorly. Yet I'm still totally obsessed with her.
This is the one quote that has stuck with me for a couple of years now. The rest of the song doesn't really apply, but this one line couldn't be more true. I've gone through a lot of situations during my years in the "real world" where I needed to just put this song on repeat. I can't tell you how hard it has been for me achieve the successes that I have without gaining "enemies" or losing friends. Why can't people just be happy for others?
In my professional life, it has been really hard for me to climb the ladder as a young woman in an industry of older men. Men who think that it is literally impossible for a woman to be as good as them at a job. But guess what? I did it guys. Just don't give up, don't let anyone's gossip or their rude remarks bring you down. Just be the best you can be and prove them wrong. So wrong that they have to like you because you will become better at their jobs than they are.
In my personal life, I have legitimately lost multiple friendships because they couldn't handle that I was achieving my own goals and they weren't. I'm not saying that in an egotistical way at all. It's fact. And it sucks. True friends should be happy for your success, not throw rocks at you. I would never consider myself better than any of my friends. I would never look down on them for what they have or haven't achieved. We are all on different paths and I totally understand that.
So lets just be happy for each other, no matter what. Okay?

DIY Framed Chalkboard

2013-05-03T07:00:00.001-07:00

I made an amazing discovery while walking down the lumber aisle at Home Depot the other day. Sheets of 2' x 4' black chalk board! We were there for a completely different reason, but I couldn't leave without it. I'm in the process of decorating my new craft room, so the idea for this instantly came to mind. I ran to the crown moulding section and grabbed some pieces to frame it with. I'm really excited to start practicing my chalkboard art. #heyrhonna!

Tools:

- Black Chalk Board {Home Depot}

- MDF Fluted Casing {Home Depot} {I'm going to pretend these are called base boards}

- Corner Block Moulding {Home Depot}

- Wood Glue

- Saw

- Pencil

- Tape Measure

- Picture Hanger

Step #1: Measure & Cut

I started by putting the corner blocks on the chalkboard and measuring edge to edge so that I could get the exact measurements for the base boards.

Your cuts should look like this when you are done.

Step #2: Paint

I used my old standby paint and put a fresh coat of white on the boards and blocks.

Step #3: Glue and Dry

Once the paint was all dry, I glued the baseboards and blocks directly to the chalkboard with Gorilla wood glue. They created a perfect frame around the board. I used clamps to keep the boards in their place until everything dried.

Step #4: Hang

I just used two standard picture hangers to hang the board. Make sure to use a level {correctly}, otherwise it will never be even!

Story of my life: Measure Once, Cut Twice. Seriously.

TaDa!

Here is a little sneak peek of my craft desk rearranged. Oh, and since I still have absolutely no chalk art skills, I just put a cute little bunting up there until I learn.

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Day 2: Today, I'm going to educate you.

2013-05-02T07:00:00.000-07:00

May 2, 2013 Topic of the Day:

Educate us on something you know a lot about or are good at.

Ok so this is an odd post topic for me. I feel like I don’t really know many things about anything. I mean, I’m not stupid, but I’m not an overall expert at most topics. I suck at cooking, I pretend to be good at crafting {thanks Pinterest}, I don’t exercise, and I was a business management major in college {broad and boring}. So today I’m going to tell you about water meters.

What?!

Yes, water meters. WTF is a water meter, you ask?

It’s that little cash register that sits under a box in your sidewalk {or sometimes in your basement} that tells your city how much water you’ve used so they can send you a big fat bill every month {hopefully not after you read this post}. Sometimes it has technology attached to it, sometimes the city reads it manually.

Why am I telling you this? Because this is really the only thing I can claim to know a lot about. I'd also like to think I'm pretty good at it. I’ve worked for a company who sells water meters to cities and municipalities for about 8 years now. Water is an incredibly precious resource and we provide tools to help promote water conservation. Tools that no one really thinks about. I don’t blame you.

Q: How would you know if you had a leak? For example, say you were in your backyard with a shovel digging a ditch one day and hit a sprinkler head {that happened to us this weekend}, how long would it take for you to find out that your money was just getting poured down the drain?

A: Right away, you say? Because you'll see water spewing skyward if there is a leak?

WRONG. Not all leaks surface. In fact, it is very likely that you won't find out about that leak until your next water bill comes. Boy, that bill is going to be expensive. And the worst part? The city that you live in probably* has the technology to detect it within the first few days. They probably aren't going to tell you that though because, as I described above, their cash register is flowing as every drip of water spews out of your sprinkler undetected.

Trust me, there is a point to this...

I'm here to tell you that your water meter isn't just installed for the sake of your local public works department. IT COULD SAVE YOU A TON OF MONEY.

Here is the solution: Be proactive. Check for leaks by turning off all of the water sources on your property. Then walk over to your meter and see if anything on the dial is moving. If it isn't, then you should be in good shape {Should is italicized because some leaks are too small for even the meter to pick up. Luckily those probably won't break the bank until they get bigger.} Some meters even offer an extra feature called the leak detection indicator, which catches even a lower flow than the dial can pick up. If that's spinning and you know your water is off, then something is wrong. DO NOT wait for your bill to show up to take action.

*Not all cities and municipalities have this type of technology. It is also possible that you live in a city who bills on a flat-rate structure, which means you can waste as much water as you want without it costing you an additional penny. If that's the case, please be good to the environment and don't do that.

I can't believe I just wrote a whole blog post about water meters. I promise not to do this ever again!

Day 1: The story of my life in 250 words or less

2013-05-01T07:00:00.000-07:00

I decided at the very last minute {5:49pm on April 30th, to be exact} to participate in a blog challenge called Blog Every Day in May. The challenge and link party is hosted by Jenni at Story of my Life. She has provided her readers with blog topics and prompts to get our minds flowing to provide you, our readers, with legitimate content for you to read. SO. Bare with me people, as I respond to these prompts and attempt to share more personal details about my life over the next 31 days. For those of you who really could care less and don't want to read paragraphs about my life... then I assume you're here just to check out my awesome craft projects. I thank you for being here either way. I won't let you down, because I am really excited and proud to show off my recent projects. I'll try not to disappoint. Without further ado... May 1, 2013 Topic of the Day: The story of your life in 250 words or less (or one paragraph... no one will be counting your words... probably)
I grew up in Northern California with my sister, who is a year younger than me, and my parents. My life hasn’t been too thrilling overall. I'd like to think that I was pretty much the perfect child, no broken bones, no fun stories of being a rebellious teenager. Like literally… I snuck out of the house once to get ice cream at Baskin Robbins. Wild child, this one.

The most memorable part of my life was the summer of 2003 when I started hanging out with some kids from my best friend’s high school. I was 14 years old and those “kids” were boys. Little did I know {actually I knew pretty quickly, but it took a few months to admit} that one of those boys was going to be the first and last boyfriend I ever had. Luckily he {John} was more obsessed with me than I was with him. {lol! I still make fun of him for that.} So then we started dating and never ever once “needed space” from each other. We turned into an old married couple pretty quick and stuck with it all through high school and college. Then we got married and lived happily ever after. The end.

Just kidding. I still need to write 50 more words…

Once we graduated high school, we went into turbo letsseehowfastwecangrowup speed and graduated college, bought a house, got our masters degrees, had a beautiful wedding, sold our house, bought another house and now we’re for sure living our happily ever after.

The end, for now.

This little town we live in: Windsor, CA

2013-04-29T23:47:00.000-07:00

Thank you to the CALIFORNIA ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS ® for sponsoring this post.

It all started when I was 20 years old. John and I had been dating for a solid 6 years at that point, we were both in college and both desperately wanted to move out of our parent's houses. If you know either of us at all, you'll know that John and I are planners. We are not spontaneous or care-free in any way shape or form. We started brain storming on how we were going to move in together, how we'd be able to pay for it and where we wanted to live. All through high school and my first part of college, I dreamed of living in some new apartments that were just built in my hometown. That just seemed so grown up to me at the time. We quickly realized that renting an apartment would be a total waste of that hard earned money we had been saving up for so many years.

Our town hosts the Sonoma County Hot Air Balloon festival every year.

Then we realized... What does it take to buy a house? We had some savings built up between the two of us and we both had steady jobs. However, we had no idea what it took to purchase a house, how much it would cost {especially where we live in Northern CA}, whether we'd qualify or not, and how the heck we would go from living under our parent's roofs for free, to having a whole house and mortgage of our own.

But guess what... we did it.

This picture was taken {by the passenger} in Sonoma County, CA

I decided to Facebook message a friend of a family who I used to babysit for. I knew she was a successful realtor in our area and a member of the CALIFORNIA ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS®. I was secretly really scared that she wouldn't take me seriously. Some young kids with $xxxxx saved up want to move out of mommy and daddy's and play grown up. Or at least that's what I assumed all adults thought of us.

I couldn't have been more wrong! Debbie was so great to us. She explained the steps to take to see if we could even qualify, told us about the First Time Homebuyer Tax Credit and signed us up for MLS alerts for homes in our price range.

A picture of the storefronts in downtown Windsor, CA

Full disclosure: the whole point to this post was to tell you about how much we love love love living in Windsor, California! Sorry for the little side story there...

Ok, so picture this: Rolling green hills everywhere you look. Miles of vineyards surrounding your city. A Town Green where the community gathers for events like farmers markets, movie nights and live concerts. Where all of the commercial entertainment is within walking or biking distance and every neighborhood is built around a park.

After living in Santa Rosa our whole lives, we were always under the impression that the little town just 3 exits north of us was "ghetto". WHAT? Clearly anyone who thinks Windsor is ghetto has never been to Windsor.

John and Modok in downtown Windsor eating ice cream.

We ended up loving it so much here that we purchased our forever home just a mile or so away from our first home. This is such a wonderful community with a small town feel, yet only an hour {or so} from San Francisco, less than an hour to the beach and about four hours to Lake Tahoe. Perfect weather, perfect location.

I mean, yeah, our house prices are like double what they should be, but just visit here and you'll fall in love with our little gateway to Wine Country.

Oh and if I've successfully convinced you to consider purchasing a home in Northern CA, please be sure to contact the best realtor around. She didn't even pay me to say that. She's just that great. It's like getting to work with your BFF all day for months on end.

{Clicking this picture will lead you to her website}

Oh you know, just an average conversation between realtor and client :)

I was selected for this opportunity as a member of Clever Girls Collective, and the content and opinions expressed here are all my own.

DIY Dollar Store Serving Trays

2013-04-29T07:00:00.000-07:00

You may or may not remember me mentioning that I was in charge of decorating for my sister-in-law's bridal shower back in September. I made the mistake of not taking any pictures of my work before everyone showed up, but I did manage to get some cute pictures of the buffet table.

Before I get started, someone wants to say hi. This is my little helper today. His name is Modok and he will be sitting in my lap while I write this post. He's not very comfortable, but he's too cute to put down!

Her shower was rainbow and mini-food themed. Random, but those are two things that popped into our heads when thinking about the best theme to describe her.

So anyway, today I'm going to show you how I made a boatload of serving platters for really cheap. Like... really cheap.

Tools: Dollar Store platters, E-6000 glue, spray paint

I started with a whole bunch of platters from the dollar store. As you can see, they aren't all the same. I mixed it up by using the "fancy" trays, pizza trays, square trays, martini glasses, candle sticks, wine glasses, etc. to create unique platters. I stood in the aisle of the dollar store for about an hour designing all of these to make sure I had all the correct pieces. The three-tierd platters go from smaller to larger at the bottom.

I used some E-6000 glue to attach everything together. The glue comes out clear, but I still glued mine before painting to make sure none was visible.

Once everything was built and the glue was dry, I sprayed them all with white primer. I mainly did this so that I didn't have to use as much colored spray paint.

I didn't get a great picture of them all complete, but here is a shot of the different colors I used.

And here is everything with the food displayed on them. Since everyone was in charge of bringing their own mini-foods, I brought cupcake liners from Pick Your Plum so that they could transfer their mini foods from their mobile platters onto my serving trays.

I used scrapbook paper as my doilies on some of them so that food could just be set onto the platters. I didn't coat the platters with anything special, so I thought this might be a bit safer and tastier than putting the food directly onto spray painted metal. Yum.

And there you have it! So easy to do, and you can customize them to whatever your theme is!

P.S. Check out my rainbow wall decorations!

Three Things Thursday

2013-04-25T07:00:00.000-07:00

Today I'm linking up with Carolina Fireflies and Pretty Living PDX for a new link party they started called Three Things Thursday. I randomly came across one of their posts from last week & thought it would be fun to join in!

Topic of the week: Three things you love to eat!

Alright, so for those of you who know me in real life, you know that I loveeee to eat. Like real food, not salad and that fancy healthy stuff.

Here are some of my top 3 favorite foods:

#1: Pepsi and Candy Corn

Ok, I know this is actually two things, but I sure love the combo! I look forward to this sweet treat every year around October. I tend to go a bit overboard on the candy corn around Halloween though, so I usually don't eat it during the other 11 months. It seriously is my fave though.

#2: Alpha-Bits Cereal

Do you remember this cereal from a long time ago? This was my FAVORITE cereal growing up and then one day it vanished from the shelves! I Googled it for years, but couldn't find any suppliers. UNTIL, one day I got a text from my sister announcing it was the greatest day of our lives. AND SHE WAS RIGHT. I ran to Target that afternoon and bought four boxes. That was back in 2011 and I have yet to be without Alpha-Bits since.

I was so excited that I wrote a blog post about it that day.

#3: Macaroni & Cheese with Applesauce

I try not to post pictures of food very much on Instagram and Facebook, mainly because I know people don't really care. One day I was eating this at work and decided to snap a picture of it. That sparked a whole debate over whether this meal is gross or not. {For the record, it's amazing, trust me.} Ever since I was younger, I always poured applesauce on top of my blue box Kraft Mac & Cheese. I recently discovered shelled Mac, which tastes even better with applesauce!

{You know you want to try this now..}

Happy Thursday!

Start Fresh Buy New: The benefits of purchasing a new home

2013-04-22T07:00:00.000-07:00

When we started our home buying process, we thought that we wanted to move back to our hometown and into one of the two neighborhoods that we grew up in. After looking at dozens of homes between our hometown of Santa Rosa and our first home in the Town of Windsor, we quickly realized that Windsor was the place to be. Why? Because the houses in Windsor are much newer.

Our first house wasn't very old, but it still had its fair share of issues. All manageable, but boy did it cost a lot to fix them. We did everything from replacing the roof within the first year of living there, to remodeling the bathrooms and adding modern touches like new light fixtures.

{Our first home, built in 1989}

When we were getting ready to put our house on the market, we went through the process of home and pest inspections. Do you know what my least favorite term is? "Section 1". That statement alone is why I am SO relieved that we ended up purchasing a newer home. If you aren't familiar with this term, it means that you have some existing dry rot, fungus or pest issues that need to be addressed before the transaction is complete. The house we sold wasn't too bad, but there was about $5,000 worth of work that needed to be done to clear Section 1.

{Our second home, built in 2007}

Fast-forward a couple of months to the day we got inspection results on our new house. Not one thing showed up on the report. We were THRILLED! That meant we were able to spend our budget on aesthetic repairs that we WANTED to do, not that we HAD to do.

One of the other reasons we decided to purchase a home in a newer neighborhood was because of the large square footage and open floor plans. The houses that are being built these days are being designed with the modern family in mind. Tons of storage, open floor plans, and a more spacious design overall.

{Even our stairs are a spacious five feet wide}

Case in point, our new house was built in 2007 and is 2500 square feet. I would have thought that I was living in a mansion if I grew up in a house that big 20 years ago! {Anybody living outside of CA probably thinks this is small… I wish!} I will be forever grateful to whoever designed the closet in the master bedroom of my house. It literally has more square footage than one of our bedrooms. And the cupboard space? … to die for.

{I actually have EMPTY cupboards in our house. This is just extra storage that they added downstairs. So. Much. Storage.}

Did you know that, on average, newly built homes offer 3x the closet space, higher ceilings and offer twice the bathroom space? Check out some other reasons on why home buyers prefer to buy new homes vs. used homes. The best part is that new homes don't necessarily cost more than older ones. In fact, ours cost a whole lot less than some of the older homes we were originally looking at. BHI's Start Fresh Buy New website has great information and resources on how to go about buying a new house, where to find them and facts on why to buy one. The fact that we didn't have to put money into fixing things up since our house was completely move-in ready, makes me so excited and a total believer in purchasing newly built homes!

I was selected for this opportunity as a member of Clever Girls Collective, and the content and opinions expressed here are all my own.

Friday Favorites: All White Everything

2013-04-19T07:00:00.000-07:00

When we started the design and decor process in our new house, we agreed that white would be the main color. Linens, furniture, accessories...all white everything.

{ZGallerie}

One of the main reasons we decided to do this was because we changed up the decor and purchased {and repurchased} multiple bedspreads and pieces of furniture in our old house. We had dark wood furniture and rod-iron accents. It wasn't horrible by any means, but it wasn't what I wanted.

{Target}

White is just such a clean and bright looking color. It also matches everything. I was so tired of trying to match pieces of wood furniture from different stores. It never worked out in my favor. That's what I love about white: white at Target is the same as the white at World Market.

{Pottery Barn}

The biggest decision we made was in the linen department. We don't have kids, but we do have dogs. Little monster dogs that jump on everything, whether they wiped their feet off at the door or not {usually not}. Now we have white towels in all of our bathrooms and white linens in our room. So next time John comes home bleeding after a soccer game, or when Fifi runs across our bed with quarter-sized muddy footprints, all I have to do is pour on some bleach and throw them in the wash.

{World Market}

All white everything may sound really boring to some people, but think of all the patterns and accent colors you can bring into a room full of mostly white pieces. Throw pillows, lamp shades or the color of the walls will pop against white and make everything look incredibly elegant.

{Wal Mart}

My final note on this subject is regarding curtains and blinds. Most of the blinds in our house are white, except for the ones in our bedroom. Wood blinds make a room so much darker than it needs to be. It also makes our light grayish white walls look violet. Weird. So it is safe to say that I really support changing out all blinds to white ones like these. Brightly colored curtains can be a great accent to a boring wall, but consider what sheer white curtains would look like as well. They sure pop against any color wall.

{Home Depot & Urban Outfitters}

You may or may not be able to take this post as a hint to what my house looks like. I can't wait to show you some of the things we've done so far!!

Transforming Your Kitchen Cabinets From Drab to Fab {part two}

2013-04-17T07:00:00.000-07:00

For part two of this transformation, I decided to make a major change to the cabinets. I painted the insides of them bright white.

As I said in part one of this reveal, I found these totally trendy drawer liners a couple of months ago and just held on to them waiting for the moment where I had a house of my own to use them in. They come in two packs for $11.99 from Amazon and are available in amazing patterns and colors. {They are on sale for buy 3 packs, get one free right now!}

Trust me, I went to every store possible looking for cute drawer liners, and these are by far the cutest ones I've ever seen! They are also incredibly affordable, especially considering how much square footage you get compared to a single roll of contact paper that you would find anywhere else.

I had this Behr pure white eggshell already on hand for some other projects, so I decided that this would be the perfect addition to our cabinets. The pure white paint really made the brightly colored chevron patterns pop.

Start by pulling out all of the shelves in your cabinets. It sure makes life a whole lot easier! There is no need to paint the shelves since you're going to cover them up anyway.

Just paint away, making sure you cover every part of the cabinet. Don't miss a spot!

Apply your adhesive drawer liner to the shelves while the paint dries in the cabinets. {My lazy quick tip: apply adhesive to the bottom of the very top shelf because that's the only side that will show!}

P.S. Don't attempt to paint the front of your cupboards with this method. The wood on the inside of your cupboards is a totally different texture than the front doors. At least in my case they are, which is why I didn't have to do any prepping or sanding beforehand. Don't forget to check out part one of this transformation reveal!

Guest Post: Lauren from The Crafty Ginger

2013-04-15T07:00:00.000-07:00

I am so excited to introduce you to my new blogging buddy, Lauren, today. We just recently "met", but have already figured out that we have so much in common! She has some really genius ideas on her super cute blog, so please go check it out and show her some love for me!

xo. Hilary

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Hi All! My name is Lauren & I post over at The Crafty Ginger. I am a wife, hairstylist, zumba instructor, DIYer & shopping addict. I am also on Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook & Twitter, I would love it if you stopped by & said hi!

Today I will be showing you how to make your own dates cavas!!! I found a few ideas on pinterest, here's one that I based mine off of, here's one that's simple but super cute & the last one you could just print up & stick in a frame.

So, all you need is a cavas, paint & all your special dates!!! It might be better to use a stencil or something. It's hard to make sure it's all even & the paint is even thickness.

A big thank you to Hilary for letting me do a guest post over here!

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Very, very cute! I'm thinking this would be a great anniversary gift for my husband in July! Happy Monday everyone :)