instagram - happy little squares of our life ..

From the first time I found Instagram - I was in love.
Pictures of our lives in happy little retro squares; what's not to love?


well - I found something I don't love ...
In today's world of cellphone cameras, i-pads and computers; more often than not - our pictures live their lives forever on Facebook, a hard-drive, or SD card somewhere.


I wanted to be able to display our favorite little square pictures as well as change them out, periodically.  So, I decided to do something about it ... 

I pulled out a large 'glass-less' $2 thrift store frame from my storage and printed out way too many some instagram pictures.



I didn't like the original color of the frame, so I applied an 'espresso' stain and I couldn't be happier.
Ok - I could have been happier, had it not taken 2 days to fully 'cure.'  but .. whatever.



I stapled string to the back of the frame and attached the pictures with mini-clothespins I had bought specifically for this craft.  I hated the pins because they kept breaking, turning sideways and just pissing me off in general ... but I really loved how the craft turned out .. so it's all good!!

Where it hangs is directly underneath one of our many 'sunlights' in our house and it lights up the frame ever so nicely.   

I like it .. I like it, a lot.

toes in the water ...

Over the last year or so we've had a few friends move away.
more specifically .. they've moved to the water.
not near a lake or some river .. but to the OCEANS!!

I'm not jealous .. or as my 16 year says 'jelly.'
actually .. I lied.
Sorry about that.
I'm totally jelly.
I'm jelly beyond belief !! (haha ok I swear not to use jelly like that, again)

On our vacation to San Diego last year; as soon as there was a hint of salt in the air - we swore every single hill was going to be the one that would reveal the blue waters of the ocean.

After an hour of  "OOOHHH this is the hill!" we finally laid our eyes on the much awaited coast. :)   Yes .. we were that excited.

I know that there are cool watering holes and places to swim around Moab; but it's not quite the same as the smell of the ocean in the air and the feel of seaweed in your toes making you scream like a girl.

I see my friends on Facebook fishing and boating and swimming and tanning in the ocean breeze .... ahhh!!  :P  Jelly OVERLOAD !!    (sorry about breaking the jelly promise ... lol  I was weak)

my point ?

• I love the smell of the ocean
• I want to go back to the ocean
• one day I'll live close enough to regularly visit the water 
• and I'm a little envious of my family/friends on the coast

why ?
Because life is better at the beach ..

I made this print out of one of my favorite pictures from
our 2012 vacation to San Diego.

ps .. it's Mother's Day in 2 days - don't forget your mamas, grammas, and sister wives.  (LOL)

click here for the print quality version of the print above

Red Rocks and Classic Cars .. yes, please!!

This year marks the (I believe, but could be wrong) 21st annual April Action car show in Moab.
Since moving here in 2008 - we haven't missed one :)

For the record - I always love living in Moab.
However - the car show is my favorite event ALL. YEAR. LONG.
I don't have a jeep anymore - so I could sleep through Jeep Safari.
I don't rock climb, because I'm a big baby ...
we go hiking/biking/camping a LOT .. so it's fun - but not super special.
But car show .. oooohhh car show :)
sexy cars
hot people
money being spent
classic engines rumbling in the distance as far as your ears can hear.
.... what's not to like ?
horribly long lines at the checkout...
bumper-to-bumper trafficmakes you scream, despite the cool cars..
having to elbow your way through the grocery store for a loaf of stupid bread...
... ok fine !
it's not all happy grins and unicorns puking rainbows.
..  but it's worth it - I PROMISE!!

I even have pictures as proof .. :D

Happy Spring, everyone
season is here ! :)

don't forget to be awesome ..

I'm most definitely classified as a fan of awesome.
I guess anyone prefers awesome to mediocre, so that ^^ is a redundant statement.
I can also admit that maybe ... just maybe I use the A word a little too much.
It's o.k. if you're judging me as you read this ...
I'm awesome enough to forgive your judgmental ways ;)

some of my favorite awesome things ..

my awesome family & friends
awesome books I refuse to can't put down.
awesome food from my awesome husband
awesome weather with more sunshine than pollen
awesome 27 lb. kitty foot warmers
awesome squirrels worth stalking from my kitchen window
awesome orbee eating ladybugs
                          and
awesome lego girls on awesome cork boats ... ?

Ok. I'll admit the last four sound a little weird when I read them back. 
LoL, but in my opinion - they're made of awesome and I brought pictures as proof!

This is our cross-eyed ''little'' kitty
despite being the youngest - he's the biggest kitty we own
I would hope he's the biggest, considering he is 27 pounds

he's been deemed 'the world's best foot warmer'

---

After her feet were sufficiently toasty she wanted to make mini cork sailboats.
[ corks, hot glue, foam craft sheets (for sail), & skewers ]
I didn't drink all that wine, I promise we ordered the corks from Etsy ;)

 Nobody is ever going to be able to convince me that this little lego lady
and her awesome one-piece swimming suit weren't made for this corkboat :)

---

For Christmas, she got a remote control ladybug that eats orbeez
Nugget is NOT a fan.
LoL he kept very slowly 'chasing' it down the hall

---

this is my new buddy - 'squirrel'
he comes to 'say hi' after I feed the finches

he stands off 'in the distance' .. staring .. waiting for me to go inside
only then will he come down his 'hill' to feast on seeds / nuts

---

So, in honor of the 'word of the day' - I made an awesome print. ;)
(in case I have to hold your hand and draw a picture for you - the word is awesome.)

 click here for the full-size Printable version of "Don't forget to be AWESOME."

I put it into a frame on our fire place and I just LOVE IT :)

So, don't forget to be awesome AND even more importantly, I think - don't forget to recognize the awesome that surrounds you.  It's everywhere !! :)

don't eat the multi-colored snow ...

Actually, you could totally eat the colored snow in our yard; but I wouldn't suggest it. 

I know the last post I made about the snow was kinda sorta whining about it; but we did have some fun with the white stuff.

There's always the obvious snow play : sledding, snowball fights and snow angels.

Today, we added snow paintin' to the mix .. water bottles with water + food coloring.

 You just know there's hours and hours of fun and/or mischief to be had. ;)

I even got to write my name in the snow ...
why should the boys get to have all the fun ?!?! LOL

 

I don't know what compelled me - but I made this printable.

the picture is from one of our camping trips this year

we all need to remember there IS good as well as BE the good

click here for the downloadable FULL SIZE image

a frozen desert ...

If the title of this post had ONE MORE S, we'd be discussing malt chocolate milkshakes and the magical power they hold inside their delicious frozen walls of cocoa.

Unfortunately my spelling is fine and I did, in fact, mean to put desert.

I'm not a stranger to the freezing cold but I could never be mistaken for a fan of the winter, either.

Our town hadn't even seen any snow since 2010, so most of us were pretty enamored with the winter wonderland bestowed upon us right before Christmas.

In the beginning, I didn't find it completely annoying.
It was even kinda charming on Christmas day.
Now it's 2 weeks into 2013 and I'm ready for the white stuff to be gone.

I much prefer sunrays and leaves over icicles and shivers.

our driveway ... what a difference 2 months can make.

I know the 'before/after' photographs of our seasonal driveway appear backwards; but I did it on purpose.  I am looking forward ... 

In 2013 I'm trying to focus more on the positive ... so I'm at least grateful for the fun we had and the beautiful pictures I got to take; even if my fingers almost fell off in the process.

Nugget got to play in his first snow fall and the girls bought their first sled.  They stayed out until their noses were cherry-red and Nugget was shivering through his fur.

Of course we still had to force them to come in ..

After playing in the snow with new sleds and taking pictures of the kids in a sea of the dreadful pretty powder; we also wanted to get crafty.  We decided to make birdfeeders since our winters in Moab aren't usually so cold that your face feels like it's gonna freeze off.

The girls didn't want anything to do with the project, leaving G. man and I to save the world one cold bird at a time. 

We found some stuff lying around the house  and crafted together a plan for feeding our feathered friends. Creating all three 'hangers' only took an hour and cost nothing, since we had everything 'laying around.'

bird feed hanger # 1 .. milk jug

G. man cut out the side panels of a milk jug. 
Poked a hole on each side of the jug, underneath the cut outs
placing the twigs through for a perch. Then, poked 

2 holes through the top and laced the twine to hang the feeder.

bird feed hanger #2 .. spaghetti holder + a plate

We glued an old saucer to the bottom of the spaghetti holder
then, we drilled two holes through the top (for twine, to hang) 

as well as two holes through the bottom. (for seed dispensing)

 

The milk jug and noodle holder were the 'original' bird feeder projects.

After hanging the 'originals' outside; G. man ran into the mud room, grabbed some firewood and threw together the third bird feeder in less time than it would have taken me to get my camera back out of it's bag.    

ssooo .. needless to say - I didn't get any pictures of the 'process' for this one.

bird feed hanger # 3 .. got wood?

G. man drilled 4 holes in the corners of the firewood,

looped some twine through the holes ..  done.

 He's so cool.

The birds love the feeders and we love the birds - so it's a win-win situation!

Now, to work on gettin' rid of the damn snow ...

our photo gallery wall

As soon as my hands were big enough to 'wind up the camera' - I've had a little more than a slight obsession with pictures. Not the type of obsession that includes being IN the pictures .. not at all. *shakes head adamantly*

In fact, I'm usually 'that girl' who holds her hand up to block the well-meaning person from taking her picture. It's not that I'm completely hideous; I've just got an uncanny knack for making some strange, constipated face when the camera snaps.
Nobody needs to see that .. so I hide. ;)

As I was saying, before I was so rudely interrupted by my rantin' and ravin' off topic - I love taking all kinds of pictures. I used to be a huge fan of objects in nature, but since becoming a mom .. there's not a lot of 'still life' around these parts. ;)

I won't lie; there has been a time or two that I've wondered if I 'did that' for the experience .. or the photo opp ... but that's neither here nor there. :)

Back to the wall !
You'd be hard pressed to find a flat surface in our home without one of our goofy faces plastered onto it. 'Pinspired' by the 9322384 picture walls I've seen - I decided it was time to create one of these 'collage walls' for our shabby little shack.

The first step in this entire process spanned almost 2 weeks. >_<
That 'wait time' had 3 totally legitimate reasons

• I'm a thrift store addict
• I'm forgetful
• I live in a tiny town

I emphatically refuse to pay $7-$10 for a new frame, when I can snag one for $0.50 at my favorite thrift store. I tried to remember to visit daily to check the stock .. but with everything else going on in life; I forgot at least 3 or 4 times. Sometimes even after missing a few days of checking the stock - I'd still see nothing new added to the 'collection.'

Even though I'm painfully reminded how itty-bitty my town is, every time I'm trying to make something crafty .. I craft on !

a new love ...

over the last couple weeks while stalking reading blogs, I found myself becoming increasingly jealous. One might think it was over a luxury home or creative crafts or a wicked cool blog layout ... ... it wasn't!  

I'd been seeing all these cute little vintage / retro photos and I wanted some of my own!
 
After a day or 4, I gave in to the bratty, screaming voice inside me and off to google I went.

I found a bunch of the images that were similar to the type I'd become recently infatuated with.  As I sifted through them I noticed a buncha them were tagged/labeled as 'instagrams.'

awesome ...
google : what's an instagram? 

apparently it's an iphone app widely known for it's retro/vintage special effects

- cue inner brat again, screaming this time about not having an ianything -

awesome ... my phone is vintage .. stupid irony.    -__-
google : how would a girl go about making an instagram if she has no stupid iphone?  (wording may have been different ..)

pc world answered the call !! The link showcases 5 free websites with software that will let you 'instagramize' your photos without an iphone.  Yay!

They all have completely different user interfaces and levels of complexity.  I looked through all of them &  found my favorite.

the one that I found to be the best was the very first one they featured -> http://pixlr.com/o-matic/.  

• easy
• fast
• allowed me to use my full-size pictures
• save the pictures to your computer
• free downloadable version for non browser usage

So .. onto the pictures ! :)
as you can see .. I got a little carried away.
I love it ! :))   thanks for reading my ranting .. carry on!

have a coffee and a coke ..

"red rocks are the coolest rocks"  according to the coolest 8 yr old I know

our 2011 picture montage

I spend way more time reading blogs than I should; I won't lie. One of the favorites out of the many blogs I read is Meet the Dubiens. It's the blog of a craft-loving Canadian mom who cooks & takes even more pictures of her food & kids than I do, of mine! (I didn't think such a thing was possible ..)

When I stalked read her end-of-year blog the other day, her 'farewell 2011' picture forced me to drop everything I was doing to make one of my our own.

As per my usual, when wanting to get creative; instead of a bang, I started out with a putter. The first step was to download the template ... but, that didn't work. I downloaded it, but when I tried to open it - got an error box that said something about my computer not being able to open the document with the assigned program.
So, I chose to open it using my paint shop .. it barely showed me the document before the computer shut down paint & changed all the icons on my desktop.

ERROR ! ERROR ! ERROR !

Everything went haywIre :/

I tried restarting .. nothing !
The desktop still had weird icons and wouldn't open any programs EXCEPT for paint shop. :/

I was desperate ... it was time for a system restore - ew!

fast forward to everything being fine .. :)

I wanted the same layout as the original, so I need to fill 81 blocks (9x9).
4 blocks for 2011 and half a dozen blocks .. so 71 pictures.

This was the MOST fun of the entire project.

Rummaging through file after file of pictures from the year gone by.

Every journey, field trip, gathering, school function, etc. and randomly picking the 70 pictures I thought could represent 2011.

One really great part was picking some of those fun random photos that never 'get seen.' (cue the onion ring "heart" picture)

I made a file with a copy of each of 'the chosen' - so I could have a version to crop into a square.

I wasn't about to retry downloading/opening the template that almost killed my computer. With no better idea in mind for obtaining the layout - I borrowed Mrs. Dubien's original image for a layout. I then used my brilliant powers of deduction (cropping/sizing tool ..) and figured out that each picture needed to be 600 x 600 pixels. I cropped/resized each picture accordingly.

Enter a tiny panic phase "what if my layout of the pictures isn't really random?"
despite my wanting to claim that I am random; I'm pretty lined up, OCD, and predictable.

so - I organized my pictures ...

• 11 of the teenager
  
• 11 of the 3rd grader
• 4 of the hubby
• 3 of sir Nugget
• 4 of just the hubby and I
  
• 5 of the kids together
• 2 of yours truly
• 6 of the family
• 25 random photos
  

then, I scribbled a 9 square x 9 square graph to represent the montage layout.

I then blindly pointed and filled in squares randomly with all the labels (teen1,fam1,etc).
Saving the random filler photos for last, I was done - I had a layout.

Then came the tedious task; perfectly lining up all 81 of the 600x600 squares over the pictures onto the stolen borrowed layout.

fast forward 2 hours later - I had this .. I love it & we're going to have it printed into a giant picture for the wall.