Great day...

As days have been going for me, this was a pretty good one!  I work at a furniture store and it is not always an ego boost for me.  It is REALLY hard to work straight commission and you can get really down on yourself if you have gone all day and not made one sale.  That was not the case today, I did an OK job in selling today.  It was by no means record setting but it wasn't a big fat goose egg either, so that was my first big good thing for the day.

My second big good thing was that I came home to a package that I ordered from my friend Jenny in California.  Jenny and I have know each other for longer than I will mention.  Her BFF and my BFF were cousins so we all hung out on occasion and had a lot of fun along the way. Thanks to Facebook we have reconnected.  She is now a proud owner of a wonderful company that makes soy candles, lotions, soaps and fragrances.  You can find her products at

J Bella Boutique.  Become a fan of hers on Facebook and you will see all the famous people she gets to meet, selling her products in LA.

Here is all my great loot.  I got a candle, of course, some soap and a fragrance.  LOVE THEM ALL!!!

The candle and soap are called Healing.

The little mini soap is called Zen Blossom.

The fragrance is one of her new ones called Bella Mia.

Check out her stuff and tell her Karie sent you.

My third great thing that happen today was my new friend, Amy made me a great necklace.  I met Amy through another friend.  She make wonderful jewelry.  You can check out her website at Little Fish Designs.

I had so much fun at her house tonight looking at all her creations.  She is an amazing person who juggles three little guys, a graphic design business, her jewelry making, a husband that builds custom motorcycles in their garage, and one BIG dog.  She is busy getting ready form the Junk Bonanza in September.  I can't wait to go to see her wears.

Here is my way cool necklace she made me.

Here is the closeup.  She put my kids initials on it.  So excited about this!

(excuse the quality of the pictures.  there was no light in my kitchen at we are in the middle of a thunder storm)

Guess I better call it a night. 

As always, Karie

The white table

This is what I have been working on this week.  You saw a preview of in on the pink table post but I will show a few more pictures.

We had a bit of an accident in the back of my truck on the way home from the thrift shop.  The table tipped over and sorta fell apart.  I scrubbed it down with Simply Green and glued it back together.

Here it is put back together and painted an antique white.

Here it is all finished.  I think it turned out pretty good.  My daughter said it's not her favorite...  humm what does she know... :-)

As always, Karie

Driving through Iowa

People joke with me about being from Iowa.  There is no place I would rather have grown up.  Yes, I must admit driving down I-35 is not like driving  through the Rockies but there is one thing my kids love to see...
Wind Turbines!  Especially my 5 year old.  He has a book that explains all the parts of this massive piece of machinery.  He likes to tell me all the parts and how they are made.  I think I have a little engineer on my hands.  I am glad this keeps them busy on our 6 hour drive back to see my parents.

Here is the scenery on our trip through Iowa on I-35.

Are we the only ones on this road???

Look at the bugs on my windshield eeww

More bugs, more wind turbines...

My next trip, I will have to take some pictures of the area of Iowa where I am from.  It truly is beautiful in the Loess Hills area of Iowa. 

As Always, Karie

Pink table

Here is a little piece that I picked up one my favorite store, Unique!  I didn't get a before picture but I am sure you get the idea.  It was dirty and stinky! This is what it looked like after a coat of paint.

More on the white table later.  As you can see, from this picture of my garage, I have a few projects in the works.  I chose the hottest day of the year to start all of these.  My husband kept coming out to the garage to check on me to make sure I hadn't passed out yet.  It was HOT!

This is the water after wiping it all down with Simply Green.  YUK! and the veneer from the bottom shelf pealed off.

Here it is now!  Think she is kind of cute!

This was my first time using chalkboard paint and I am hooked.  Wonder what else I can apply it to???

As Always, Karie

Stop the Baking...

As I have stated before, I am not a baker.  Especially when it comes to cakes and decorating them.  They always taste good but they are on the bad side of UGLY.  

While at my sisters last weekend, the kids wanted us to make a Big Top Cupcake.  I thought it would be a piece of cake (pun intended)

My Brother-in-law won a mold from one of his company things.

It stated in the directions that if you want a bigger cake that you can use 2 cake mixes.  I went for it and did the 2 mixes and even left some out to make cupcakes.  I don't suggest you use 2 boxes.  Stick to one because this is what happens...

you get a MESS.  Mine didn't bake even and I would have had to cut most of it off to make it look right.  So...  I thought I could make one of those I'm Topsy Turvy cakes.  Trust me when I say, they will NEVER have to worry about me putting them out of business...

Still not very cute...

BTW, Like my cake plate I made.  See here for instructions on how to make one.

Even adding a flag didn't help.

Look at these happy girls with their sad cake.

  They even tried to blow it up with a sparkler :-)

The summer birthday girls didn't care, they liked it.  I guess everyone else did too since there was nothing left after 8 adults and 7 kids were finished with it.

 I will try harder next time.

As always, Karie

Today's Project

Today I had most of the day off.  I say that with a little bit of a chuckle...  I did a Home Staging consultation for about 2 hours today and came home in time to run the 8 year old to her softball game.  When we got home I cleaned the kitchen then she decided it was time to redo her room.  I put my foot down on painting the whole thing AGAIN, so we did a few cosmetic things.  There was a floating shelf that was hung on her wall and had fallen off a few months ago.  That went back up (I really don't like those things by the way, all the measuring and toggle bolts, aarrgghh) I then decided to get the supplies needed to make her a coat rack.  I have seen some really cute ones in blogland and thought I could copy them.

Here was the first one I saw at 9 o'clock Dance of Joy

Then I saw this idea at Drab to Fab

And this one was my favorite at From My Front Porch to Yours

Off to the Home Depot I went to get my supplies.  I spent a total of $20 and some change.

I already had screws, sandpaper and paint to finish it all off.

This is the Cool Tool of the day.  I had them cut my 2x2 in to a 5' piece and I cut the other pieces.  I got a 4x1 and a 3x1 and cut 2 pieces each of 4x4 and a 3x3.  I then drilled a hole in the center of each of them and ran these bad boys through.

Don't know where they came from but thought they would work for this project.

progress...

Put the 8 year old to work since it is for her room.

The finished product.  I will say I should have used a 4x4 to make this.  I now need to go back to the Depot and find something to make this more stable.  If you notice all the pictures that I was so crazy about, they all used 4x4s.  Lesson learned...  I think it is cute anyway and you wont even see it once she gets all her bags and hats on it.

I can check this off my to-do list but need to add stabilizer brackets to a new list... The list never end here.

As Always, Karie

ps. I will have some pieces left over so stay tune for what I will do with them. They are cut and ready for me to find  more patients to get through another project.  Since I tackled two (hanging shelf and coat rack) I am in patients deficit right now.

Linking to From my front Porch to yours , Drab to Fab and 9 o'clock Dance of Joy

We are back!

The kids and I just got back from our Griswold vacation across Iowa and down to Kansas City.  We started our trip last Thursday and headed to Logan, Iowa, my home town.  The kids LOVE going to Iowa and the whole small town vibe.  Every time I talk to someone there I get reprimanded for talking to strangers. I have know all these people for my whole life and the kids don't quite get that concept.  Now they just ask me how I know everyone.  I love my hometown.  My dad was also in the hospital there so we got to get him out and take him home on Friday.  He was a happy boy!

Waiting, not so patiently, for the discharge papers.  The kids were trying to entertain Grandpa.

After we got him out, we took our customary tour of Harrison county.  It is so beautiful there.  Growing up there, you don't appreciate how pretty it really is.  You only concentrate on getting out of the small town.  Now I want to go back to a simpler life...

After our tour the kids and I hopped in our family truckster and headed to KC to stay with my sis.

Teaching the 5yr old how to spit seeds.

What is the 4th of July without watermelon and seed spitting.

The cousins in their Red White and Blue.

My brother-in-law and I had a salsa making competition and I WON!!!  Whoo Hoo, I can now add award winning when talking about my salsa.

The award winning salsa is on the right :-)

That is some of what we did this weekend.  I have more to share later.  I am off to work...

Hope everyone had as great of weekend as we did!

As Always, Karie