a little junk in my trunk...

i love the blogging community.

i have 'met' some cool, fun, crafty, thrifty people that are my heroes.

im gonna' tell you about one who saved me.

dee has 2 blogs...a little junk in my trunk (love that name!) and september the march.

dee loves to shop at the g-dub and has had some amazing finds. in fact, i want to move to colorado just to shop there. of course, id have to race her to the g-dub because if there is a deal-she gets it.

you'd almost want to hate her if she wasn't so awesome.

i follow both of her blogs and have another reason to almost hate her...

there isn't anything she cant refinish to make it look amazing.

(case in point)

people like this make me look bad.

please check out her blogs and see what i'm talking about.

and thank you dee-you know what you did.

xoxox

my 'little' brothers

my 'little' brothers have an obsession with the steelers.

kinda like my thing with balls.

i came across this at joanns and got a quarter yard knowing exactly what 2 people are getting for part of their christmas gift!

then i was at ross and found some hand towels ($1 each).

the 'maters aren't staying.

remember way back when when i made a cool packers towel?

well, pretty much the same thing here. although this fabric was a little harder to work with.

ta da!

oh, and here is a photo of my 'little' brothers....

aaron in green is only 6' tall (and 30) pat is 6'7" (and only 37).

im the oldest and the shortest.

but the cutest.

and the favorite sister.

but still short.

U-T-A-H! fight fight fight!

i married a football crazy man.

don't believe me? in this photo, there is chris and one of his good friends c.o. samuelson holding a hatchet.

yes, i don't see my dear chris most saturdays in the fall.

unless it is an away game!

i love away games. not just because i can see my dear husband, but because then we will be headed somewhere for a football party.

and when there is a party, there is FOOD!

here is one of my favorite things that chris brought into this marriage. don't let the canned clams freak you out. i wouldn't touch it for years because of the canned clams and now i wish i could have that time back.

clam dip

2 packages of cream cheese (yes, you can get the low fat...wussies)

2, 7 oz cans of minced clams. 1 drained, 1 not.

1/2 t worchestershire sauce

2t lemon juice

put the cream cheeses in a kitchen aid mixer with the paddle attachment and just let it go to town until nice and smooth. add everything else and just let mix for a few minutes until it is pretty combined. (you will notice a 'smell'. DON'T LET THIS TURN YOU OFF FROM TRYING IT!)

let the dip sit covered in the fridge for an hour or 2.

eat with potato chips, preferable ruffled because they hold the dip better.

sorry!

sorry-i have been gone all weekend!

we went to jackson wyoming.

1. i asked my mother in law to be sure to get all the arch in and not so much of our feet and legs. oh well.

2. i wore my cowboy hat all over idaho and wyoming and i totally looked like a local. in fact, i bet people were asking themselves why a local would be hanging out with these 3 city slickers.

3. i have a baad sore throat that i PRAY is from a sinus thing and not strep.

4. thank you dee...you know why.

5. i will get to answering emails and checking on your blogs asap. i really missed you guys! but right now i have a hallway full of dirty clothes to attend to!

what can YOU spell?

a long long time ago i got a bunch of these wood 2x4 square blocks. the person who donated them to d.i. had panted and sanded all these, and then i come along and buy them for 25 cents each.

so worth it!

so i primed them.

then painted them black, but not with black spray paint. that was my original plan, then modge podge some letters on the blocks.

i used chalk board paint. 

can you see where i'm headed with this?

so this is kinda halloween-y.

this one worked out well too.

then my nate came home from school, picked up the chalk and wrote this...

yes friends, that says 'poo'.

very typical nate.

although, poo can be very scary. so maybe i will leave it up.

franny franny bo banny banana fanana fo fanny fee fi fo manny franny!

we have a dear family friend (franny if you couldn't guess from the title) who is having her 14th birthday here soon. so OF COURSE i had to make her something awesome!

some of you might remember this post where i made a bag for niece.

i wanted to do something similar, but not exactly the same.

i ran to d.i. for some cargo pants.

these are from aeropostal but were kinda worn out.

i just wanted the pocket and the button.

i decided to make the size of the bag around the pocket size, so i cut out around it.

then i was rudely interrupted by this HAIL STORM. (turns out there was quite a bit of flooding that happened after the hail stopped and had clogged all the drains. thankfully, we were ok.)

i basically followed the instructions that i used for the big bag, just making it smaller.

i lined it in purple, because franny loves purple. i don't know if this is her favorite shade, but it is purple.

and here is parker, who didn't want his face shown, modeling it.

turned out pretty good if i may say so!

happy birthday franny!

nate's new tie

it all started with me innocently buying a tie for nate at kohls. it was a christmas clip on tie, but it was like $1, so i got it.

the next thing i know, he wants to wear it to church.

with a striped golf shirt.

in july.

he gets his fashion sense from his daddy!

the next time i hit d.i. (a local chain of thrift stores),

i found this men's tie for $2.

the little man on it is a stripling warrior (don't know that story? check it out here)

first, i had chris tie it around nate's neck to see where i had to cut it off at.

then i seam ripped the tie to expose the 'guts'.

i had to make the 'guts' skinnier since the tie had to be skinny for nate's neck.

then i cut the tie shorter and just eye balled how skinny to make it.

then i realized that i couldn't just sewing machine this shut. DARN!

i hand stitched it closed and told nate that every stitch was me saying 'i love you' to him.

(he bought it)

the final product!

this little shirt was also from d.i.-a whole $2!

 i think he looks very sharp!

and a special thank you to steve sokol for re-tieing the tie saturday night for me! (chris was out of town and i don't know how to tie ties!)