Projects

On Saturday Tim and I took on what I thought wasn't a very ambitious project but which turned out to be a touch longer than I expected.  Why does painting always take longer than you think it will?

For Christmas the kids got a little playhouse for outside.  We put it together fairly soon afterwards but it's been sitting there, unpainted for months.  So, I decided it finally needed to be completed (remember my post about unfinished projects?)  Unfortunately I decided this on a hot, Arizona summer afternoon.  (I know, what was I thinking???)

Tim and I were out there for about 4 hours baking in the sun, painting, watching Hannah and Tommy playing in the wading pool.  I nearly got in there myself!

The obvious downside of this endeavor was the heat and the amount of time it took.  However, we now have a nice, completed playhouse, and the paint took only a few minutes to dry!!

Disclaimer:  The pictures of Hannah are not from our painting adventure, but from her helping Daddy with yard work a few days earlier.

Wedding!

So, my brother, the last of the Strong clan, has donned the ring and gotten married!  Congratulations Justin and Tanya!  We had a fun weekend with family to celebrate their nuptials. (I'm so glad I got to use that word.  How often do you hear nuptials?)  Unfortunately, I was terrible at taking pictures during the festivities and got my camera out only once during the weekend.

On the upside, their photographer, Lindsay Silsby, took some beautiful pictures and posted a handful on her site.  So if you want to see some pictures of the happy couple, click here.

We were able to have my brother and his family stay at our house during the wedding.  It was really fun to have them.  Tommy and Hannah both loved having cousins to play with first thing in the morning.  And I loved having Dallin and Lauree to talk to after kids were in bed!  It also made leaving Grandma's house a lot easier for Tommy when he got to bring cousins home with him.

Hannah absolutely loved having Savannah read to her.  And I absolutely love that they are both known as "Nanna" and look like they could be sisters in this picture.

One morning I let Tommy get down his little video game.  It was cute to see all 3 boys crowded around such a little screen!

Unfortunately those are the only pictures I took.  I know, totally lame.  But that just goes to show how much fun I was having seeing everyone!  

Anna, This Is For You . . .

To make this tray, we used an 11x14 frame, hardware, scrapbook paper, ribbon and stamps.

We took the frame, opened the back and removed the glass and paper they had in it.  We used the paper that was in the frame to glue our scrapbook paper onto.  That way we could make sure that our "design" would be the correct size.  The scrapbook paper we had wasn't long enough, so we had to use two pieces.  Make sure you match up the design so the seam is hidden.  (I tried to show a pic of this below.  It turned out fuzzy, so I hope you can still see it.)

We then added a ribbon to separate the two different patterns of scrapbook papers that we used.  Next, we added circles of patterned paper to add "umph" and 2 circles of neutral paper--one for Santa's plate and one for his glass of milk.  (They were already stamped with the circle and words when we got there)  We antiqued the paper by adding yellow and brown ink to it.  I'm trying to remember exactly how we did that.  I think we took a paper towel, kind or crumbled it up, dipped it into the stamp pad, then onto the paper.  We added stamps to decorate (flowers) and letters to spell "Santa" and "For."

Finally, somebody drilled holes into the wood part of the frame and we put our hardware on.  We put the glass and paper back in, and voila!  A cute little tray to put cookies and milk on for Santa!

(Anna, call me if you have any questions.  Hopefully it will help to see the pictures.)

I've changed!

Welcome to my new blog!  I've decided to follow the masses and change to a blogspot account.  Enjoy the new look!