I love you because ...

I won't lie; ever since making our  "_____ is awesome because.." boards - they've seen more than their fair share of ridiculous remarks.

"... because she doesn't pick her nose ... anymore."
"... because she screams when she sees Justin Bieber."
"... because she doesn't want to brush her hair.   Ever."
"... because she farted at dinner."

Haha - I know I probably cherish our sarcastic and smartass moments, a little too much.
Judge me all you want; it won't matter. 
I'll still be a smartass, tomorrow .. :)


"I love you, because ..." dry erase frames were on the agenda tonight and they were just as easy as the last ones.  
I revamped a picture frame, painting it and embellishing it with Washi Tape and a homemade button flower, replaced the glass, printed out a simple "I <3 you because ..."  and done.

for this 2nd frame all I did was cover the edges with 2 different types of washi tape 

it says 'you don't need batteries' because she spent hours playing with a toy we found at the thrift store, before she asked if we had batteries to see if it worked.

my kids rock and I must remind them why - a lot. :)

lost socks and drunken cork boards ...

Today was one of those stupid days.  

Within 20 minutes of waking up I'd decided I was going to do nothing productive. 
NOTHING.

I fell asleep early last night and somehow woke up late, this morning.
I woke up, scared from a strange dream that I couldn't remember.
I forgot to plug in my cell phone & it was an unhappy 94% dead.
My cinnamon rolls didn't turn out anywhere near as delicious as I had planned.
The teenager didn't complete her homework as she had promised.

It was very obvious that today was to be a day for crafts, the whole crafts and nothing but the crafts.   So help me crafts.

- home of the lost socks-

-we painted a thrift store wood plank
-we washi taped clothes pins

-we gorilla glued 'em onto the now avocado plank

-I created a 'LOST SOCKS' print out of alphabet letter art
-we embellished the sign with awesome metal flowers and brads from Pick Your Plum

-  DONE !

one happy little lost sock sign for our Laundry room

nobody wants to be alone

even if you are just a sock ...

 

-a drunken cork board-

this one's easy
.. drink a bunch of wine
keep the corks and glue them into a frame
decorate frame
DONE ! lol

but don't craft after the third glass of wine.
friends don't let friends drink and hot glue.

washi tape letter of love ..

This wooden 'K' followed us home, not all that long ago.
If you ask the G. man, though; you'd think we'd had the "K" since 2000.

He swears it's been around our house forever; but I clearly remember finding it after I'd fallen in love with washi tape. (.. I think??)

So I know it's only been here, taking up that valuable 8 inches of space for a month or THREE, at the MOST. (maybe 4)

We found the singular letter  out thrifting and it was a buck.
$1.
who says no to that ?
exactly.

So - I bought it and washi taped it up for our almost 17 year old. 

In fact, she liked my finished piece so much, she hung it up on her wall and told me I was 'cool.'     
COOL, guys!! 
I'll take it!

now to gather the other letters of our 'family alphabet..'

this posts made me reminisce on posts of the past ..
"letters of love ... and yarn."
and
"we'd like to buy a vowel."

do you celebrate the letters that make up your name ? :)

what's for dinner ..

how did that get in there?
 
didn't we just buy toilet paper?

are we there yet?

how could you forget?

where the Hell did I put that?!

what's for dinner?

some questions are just so much easier to answer than others ... :)

I printed a simple menu template
put it into a $ 0.50 thrift store frame
covered the frame in washi tape

glued on bananagram letters

done - cute, simple dry erase menu :)

if only thinking up dinner was so easy ...

wash dry fold .. repeat.

Just in case you didn't get the memo - there are parts of our day as a Mom that leave us feeling less than glamorous. 
Weird, right? 
You'd think after spewing forth a child from our loins, we'd get some sort of voucher redeemable for an eternity of effortless fabulousness.  The powers that be clearly didn't get that memo - so we still have to do things like laundry and dishes.

After years of fashion consultations and early-morning tangle fights; my girls are finally beyond the 'I don't care what I wear or if I brush my hair all week' phase and have traded it for an equally-annoying  'I'm changing my clothes 142 times a day' phase.  

I've always considered laundry and dishes to be the bane of my existence.  Crusty dishes and dirty underwears gross me out plus both chores chip my nails - double fail.  My distaste for the two chores may or may not have been a major part of the reason I had children, to begin with.    Free labor.    I'm kidding .. right ? :P  

There really is no help for my hate of dishes .. but I figured we could put some pretty junk up in the Laundry room as I find it slightly less annoying. 

Eventually I plan on making a lost sock board - but for now I've made 2 prints.

The Subway art (below) was the most fun, because the girls and the G. man chipped in; sharing their own creative laundry words. Our (almost)17 year old pointed out that if people aren't familiar with a couple of the brand names we put on there 'SNUGGLE' and 'SHOUT' - it's going to look like there's a crazy person washing laundry while hugging and screaming at people.   LOL

 

My favorites were 'endless' and 'repeat...' but one suggestion that didn't make it was "whites" and "colors."  A totally innocent suggestion by the G.man that led to us giving him a hard time for being racist. (haha-we're jerks). :P     If we can't laugh at ourselves .. we laugh at our loved ones ! :P

I put Washi Tape on the frame and it says "Made with Love."       I guess it's a little reminder in case you forget half way through a 20 pound pile of laundry how much you love making memories and dirty clothes with the smelly people in your family.    :) 

And here's the framed word art along with the scariest door-knob in the house.
I don't like to open it for fear of what lurks behind ...

washi'd up mini-notebooks

This week, the girls are earning cool points like nobody's business.

On top of all their schoolwork, soccer practices, book reports, and living life as an awesome kid; they've also managed to use Washi tape a few different times.
They even wrapped my Mother's Day presents in the sticky cuteness.
In and of itself; that isn't really a feat.
But, because of their crafty adventures - we've managed to begin to justify the $100 I recently blew on a Washi tape spending spree.

good girls.    good times.   good tape.    bad $100.

team pretty - team washi

I like to pretty.   

I've always decorated around me.

rewind  - I'm 3.
My mom bought a brand new bathroom 'cover set' ..  one of those awful 80's sets of shag carpet covers for 'prettying' bathroom stuffs.  One on the toilet, one onto the back of the tank, and a couple matchers on the floor. Then, BOOM!  your bathroom is totally matching .. totally hideous

As a toddler and lover of anything colorful - I found her new pure white pieces offensively boring .. so I decided I needed to decorate for her.   

what can I say ? 

I've ALWAYS been a giver.

I took her brightest, prettiest, reddest nail polish and flung the liquid stain EVERYWHERE!  Making sure to not miss a single spot on her lovely carpet decor. 

WHAT?!?!?

I thought it was pretty.  However, she screamed and cursed a lot more than I would expect coming from someone who had just received a free bathroom makeover.

fast foward - I'm 6.

My mom hasn't changed the curtains in my room since I was a toddler.  

I don't LIKE Winnie the Pooh, ANYMORE !! So ..I randomly poked 42 billionty holes with a metal nail file.   

Voila!  

Now they are 'fancy' and let the sun into the room. Clearly not the kind of 'fancy' my mom likes.  I know this, because the next day she went out and purchased me 'whole' curtains again; throwing away my 'refashioned' curtains; without regard for all my efforts in redecorating.

fast forward 30 something years later : 

 we laugh about these stories, until we cry and/or snort.

it's apparently just in my nature to pretty :) 

and yes - I sometimes use 'pretty' as a verb .. don't judge me.

so, in my recent efforts to pretty the world - I joined the washi tape movement. 

I'm a little late on the 'craze' - but I'm Danielle and I'm far from trendy.

so what if washi tape was ''cool'' last year .. that means I'm cool this year !! right!?!?! >_<

wrong - but who cares?

moving on ..  I know someone just said - 'What is washi tape?'

it's a cute, fancy, japanese tape with the feel of masking tape. 

I may or may not have gone a little mad after seeing so many Washi crafts on Pinterest ..  which may or may not have led to me ordering a box filled with $50-60 worth of washi tape ..

special thanks to both WillowWashi as well as Consumer Crafts for contributing to my craftaddiction.

Once I opened up my box of pretties, I realized I needed somewhere to store the sticky cuteness.