WIP

Just a peek of a project I'm working on...if you are the recipient (you know who you are) - act surprised!

Giveaway!

Natalie is participating in a blog giveaway carnival, so I figured, there are 400+ people participating, I'll be generous, too!

Here are the rules:

1. Leave a comment on my site with your name, and if you don't blog/have an account, leave your email address.

2. Leave only ONE comment. Multiple comments will be deleted.

3. This is open to ALL people, any country.

4. Please visit my Etsy Store and see if there's anything you can't live without! I love being marked as a favorite. Also, product details for what you'll win are there!

Here's the winning part:

I'll use a random number generator to pick a winner. Again, enter only once or I might just delete all your comments! Comments must be left by 11:59pm MDT on Feb 2nd. I'll pick a winner on Feb 3rd and notify the winner.

I'm giving away this AWESOME Quiet Time for Little Ones Finger Puppet Bag, which I made from a Martha Stewart Template (hard to find!). As you can see in my shop, that's a $20 value, FREE for one lucky person.


Good luck! and visit the Bloggy Giveaway site for a list of others being SUPER generous.

Before and After (and a little more)

BEFORE

This is our old entertainment center
AFTER

This is our new one. Makes the room seem so much bigger (and more bare, actually...hmmm)

aren't they lovely floors?

new entertainment center - we're working on getting a piece of carpeting bound to cozy up the floor by the couch.

the living room

from the hall

I overproofed a batch of cinnamon rolls on Wednesday night and my bowl wasn't big enough. This was the mess I found when I went to add the last cup of flour:



Also, Tuesday afternoon one of my coworkers came inside with this monstrosity of an icicle he chopped down:


Okay, all for now. Kronk out.

Bargain Maven

I'm happy to share as many deals with you as I can, so I have a few that I just emailed to a friend and thought, eh, everyone could benefit:

1) www.retailmenot.com

I'm all about coupon codes for ANYTHING I buy online. This one seems to have a great number of coupon codes. Usually if I can't find anything just through a google search, I try Retail Me Not. which leads me to #2

2) www.ebates.com/doublebonusoffer/index.htm?id=33318165

If you sign up through the link below:

www.ebates.com/doublebonusoffer/index.htm?id=33318165

I'll get $10 when you sign up and YOU'LL get $10 when you sign up through my email address: chelseacc@hotmail.com and then make your first purchase. (Typically you get a $5 bonus from a referral but they're running a promotion.) So Ebates is an awesome site where you go shopping online at the same stores you usually do, but if you go to ebates and then to another site (overstock, for example) and follow the link to Overstock, you'll get an additional 4% rebate on your purchase. AND you can use promo codes (retailmenot.com) in addition to this option. The $10 referral is only available until Feb 14th, so sign up your first account with my email address and then send out referalls to all yours and get bookoo bucks after they make their first purchase through Ebates. *if you want more details on why they'll give you money, go here: http://www.ebates.com/help/how_ebates_works.htm?navigation_id=18452

I gave my sis this bargain yesterday and instead of spending $420 on an armoire, she got it for $379, PLUS she'll get a check in the mail from Ebates for $15 from her purchase at overstock and $10 referral signup: she's getting it for $355! How sweet is that - I should be the favorite sister.

3) http://www.todaysdod.com

This is an awesome site that shows all of the hot bargains of the day from a number of sites, including Woot and Ihavetohavethat.com. They tell you how many hours are left for the deal, what the sellout likelihood is and how hot the link is.

So, I hope these help all you bargainistas out there on saving a little bit more money. AND, please use my email address (chelseacc@hotmail.com) when you sign up for ebates! then you can send out to all your contacts and get some sweet sweet signup bonus action.

Wants vs. Needs

So I've been browsing blogs and found a link to Urban Outfitters, stumbled upon this beaut.



Details here.

Maybe someday when I have a studio where I can create and craft to my hearts' content, this would be the perfect addition (and perfect COLOR) to the room.

Sigh.

A Week Later...

It's Saturday night and my lovely husband is on his way back home from a long (for him) and stressful (also him) weekend in Nebraska. From our conversations it sounds like things went well with his graduate school interview(s) and his chances for acceptance are good. Of 100 applicants, they asked 13 to come interview. Of the 13 they will accept 7-10 candidates. Of those 13 that interviewed, he was 1 of only 3 men. His chances are pretty good, but still, cross your fingers and keep us in your prayers!

He said the city (Lincoln, NE) was small and quaint, reminding him of Provo. Good and bad things, in my book. Remember when you were in school and you were tired of being in school and just had to get out of the city? That's how I've been with Provo/Orem. Orem's actually not that bad. But man, I had to get out of Provo :)

Anyways, our floors are done! I need to take a few pictures, but I'm going to wait until all the little details are done and put away. I am going to repaint our baseboards and add some shoe moulding and THEN it'll finally be done.

After my parents left this morning I started vacuuming up all the sawdust, tossing the leftover wood/cut materials, and SWIFFERING. Oh my gosh, I think I've gone over this floor 3 times already. Finally I grabbed my trusty old kitchen broom and did a lap around the floor, vacuumed up the pile and used my Swiffer Vac (Thanks, Hill!) one last time.

So, after I finish adding felt pads to all the kitchen chair legs and our ottoman, I need to hurry and put away the laundry from our bed and straighten up the house before Ryan comes home and just collapses from exhaustion.

I'm Tired

My mom has been such a saving grace for this flooring project, I tell you. (it's not finished and we're running into so many problems it's starting to get funny) She and Ryan have been such troopers - I, on the otherhand, have had enough of everything.

I think really I'm just ready to be creative. I'm ready to set my own hours and make pretty and useful things. I'm ready to make my house a home. I am ready to be a mom, dang it.

Ryan's heading to Nebraska on Thursday evening. He has his first grad school interview Friday and we're crossing our fingers. Pray for us - I think I have a few things to start fasting about! This is the number 3 school in the nation for his program. The cost of living is significantly less there, meaning I could probably stay at home and start being a stay at home wife, if we can buy a multi-plex and rent out the other units, fixing one up at a time. (sorry for the terrible grammar -I'm not in the mood to think about what I type)

I have so many projects on my to-do list. Ryan commented the other day when I told him about said list that there's not enough time in my life to do everything I want to do. I have ambitious dreams but they rarely get passed that. Although, I think my problem is that I get bored of one thing easily and jump from project to project. Etsy's been great for that. If I want to sew one say or papercraft the next, who cares?! It makes me happy just to be creating.

Okay, this post really makes no sense and has no connecting points, but oh well. That's how my mind is today.