Sending Jose's Roaring 20's out in Style

My mom and I in our 1920's gear

Some of the girls, I could not have pulled this off with out them!

My father in law, Jose, and mother in law

Our wonderful photographer and my bestie!

Jose and his mom

My wonderful sisters in law, and beautiful niece 

The Guys, these guys have been friends since high school and now they are all 30!

my silly coworkers, so happy they came out for this!

The Awesome and wonderful photographer and her fiance!

So if you can't guess from the title, Jose turned 30 on May 17th. I have been planning his party for quite a while now (since January) and am so excited that if finally came and went. The theme was a roaring 20's style party complete with prohibition drinks and a small casino. The best part was this was a surprise party. And surprised he was!!!

I have been so excited for this party to happen. Do you know how hard it is not to tell your best friend that you are throwing them a party? Also I tell Jose everything crafty that I do, so for this I could not tell him about the things I made or had sewn for the event. I think the pictures speak for themselves on this one and hope everyone had a great time!

Thanks to everyone who helped make this party possible. I could not have done it without you! And also for a shameless plug, if you guys are in South Carolina and looking for a wonderful and professional photographer you should check out Joni Hammond Photography.

That is all and I hope everyone has an excellent end to their week!

So two posts in one day is not the norm around here. (Maybe one day it will be) Anyway Sarah Mae of www.sarahmae.com is doing a 31 days to clean challenge over on her blog and I am joining in. Our house desperately needs this and my hope is after these challenges I can photograph our house to show you guys. Right now there are rooms that I just keep closed off so I don't have to see them, so I certainly do not want you guys to see them. Here's to hoping this helps and if you are in need of a challenge to get you moving why don't you join in!

Thank you Mr. Ramsey

So this post I would say is about ten months in the making. Jose and I are like most semi newly married couples and we have debt. Things that we both brought into the relationship and since hind sight is 20/20 wish we could go back, do over, and make smarter financial decisions. Cue in Dave Ramsey's Total Money Makeover.  I picked up this book as well as Financial Peace University from our library when we were about a year and a half into our marriage. We had begun, as most couples do, disagreeing about how money should be spent/saved. In our case we were both in school and had only one full time income, so at first this task seemed impossible. I would love to say that at this point we buckled down and started our Total Money Makeover, if we would have this post would have been much sooner. Instead we deemed the task too daunting and continued spending money and some months barely scraping by.

Fast forward six months and I bought Total Money Makeover this time and reread it. I also insisted that Jose read it as well. This time he jumped on board with a vengeance and I did too. Just to see him that excited about planning for our financial future was amazing and inspiring. We set out a plan to have his vehicle paid for in as little time as possible. (At this point we owed around 15,000 on it.) Well that was last August and today I wrote the check that will completely pay off that vehicle. I'll be honest here and say that we had some rough patches where we rebelled against "the Plan" and that is why it has taken us until now to pay off his vehicle. It is just amazing to see how when two people finally get on the same page financially what can be accomplished. 

We have gotten a little off track lately with our spending/ budgeting habits but we are trying to get back to it. We have seen what we can accomplish and could not dream of going back to the way it was. 

Anyone read any of Dave's books? Have you put them into action? If not why? I would love to hear from you guys and I hope if you have been considering putting Dave's plan into action then this post inspires you to get on it with "gazelle intensity".

Spray Paint, picture frames, and windows OH MY!

So I finally got around to finding, purchasing, and painting frames for our gallery wall. And I must say I am ecstatic about the results. It is by no means finished but its a great start.I started out with a bunch of thrift store frames. I chose these because every time I had been about to buy enough frames to complete this project I would back out. I could not justify paying the price for new frames. So to solve that problem I went to our local thrift store and found a handful of different frames and painted them white.

I also lucked out at a yard sale this weekend and got an old window for two dollars. I spray painted that and I am planning to hang that on the gallery wall as well. So with out further ado here is our gallery wall...

Its not finished yet but I am enjoying it. I think if fills the space much better than the previous two small frames we had on there. What did you guys start your week off with? Any craft projects, or was it just back to work as usual?

Mother's Day Sewing Projects

First let me start by saying Happy Mother's Day to all those awesome moms out there. Two moms especially deserve a great big happy mother's day and that's my mom and Jose's mom. They have put up with a lot over the years as well as always been there. Just for fun here's a pic of us with the two of them.

So I have been at my sewing machine again. I am happy to report the yelling and temper tantrums that normally ensue when using my sewing machine have slowly dwindled. There are only a few times now that I have to step away because I am getting frustrated with the good ol' singer. Anyway I just wanted to share with you guys these cute clutches that I made my mother and mother in law for mother's day this year.

It all started with wanting to hand make them something meaningful but use able. Both moms are the type that tell you they need nothing when asking what they want for gifts. So you have to get crafty (in either sense of the word, sneaky or literally crafty). I chose the latter and decided a handmade clutch would be the best option for both of these awesome moms. My Mother in Law already received her clutch. My mom has not so I guess, surprise mom, here's your gift! Anyway once again Happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there, hope you had a great one and got to spend lots of time with family.

What did you guys do for mom this year? I would love to hear...

"The SHRED"

So I am at it again, the Shred, that is. I have gone through this on two other occasions and have seen my body do amazing things but convincing my self this time has been hard. I think the difficulty comes from knowing that I have been actively on a "diet" for the past four years. FOUR YEARS! That's a long time to feel restricted and to be actively losing weight.  It all started when Jose proposed and I as most girls turn into this bridezilla that has to lose hundreds of pounds before I will even consider walking down the isle. I did manage to lose twenty pounds before our wedding in 2009 and was told to stop losing weight or my dress would fall off. (it had to be safety pinned to my bra...) Over the next three years I dropped another 20 pounds and have just had this last 15 pounds to go. I know four years sounds like a long time to be trying to lose weight and it is but I took it in stride. I did really well in bursts and then I would get tired of it and binge on french fries and brownies. So I tell you all of this to say that I am going to need a swift kick in the buttocks to get this last 15-20 pounds off and would love any words of encouragement/motivation you would like to throw my way!

What about you guys...anyone been dieting for what seems like forever? What about being in that maintenance phase, any pointers there are appreciated as well?

Long Time No See and a Oopsy

So as usual I have been horrible about posting, but I intend to turn over a new leaf (for real this time). I have a bunch of exciting projects planned for this summer. I have also gotten more into sewing and will hopefully be showing some of those projects very soon as well.

But first just a little mishap in my decorating world. I am almost done decorating our living room to where I would like it to be. Just need to complete a few more projects and hang some pictures on our bare walls and it will be "complete". Until I decide to change it again. Anyway one project that I had finally worked up the courage to tackle was sewing drop cloth slipcovers for the sofa and chair. You see I have been drooling over this Ikea karlstad sectional for months but it's not really in the budget right now so I must improvise. Well on Sunday I finally conquered my fears about dyeing fabric and attempted. This is the part where I would love to say that it went smoothly and I have gorgeous gray fabric just waiting to be sewn.
You see I started with this:

and instead of gorgeous gray fabric I now have this:

a great splotchy mess!
I followed the instructions for HE washing machine dyeing to a tee but I am guessing the dyeing gods were not on my side with this one. Oh well. I have decided that our current navy blue slips are doing a wonderful job and why fix what isn't broken (at least not until we can afford the karlstad sectional.). So I just thought I would share a blunder of mine in this decorating ride that I am on. I am guessing my lesson learned is that sometimes what we already have works just as well as trying to change things.

What about you guys. Anyone have a terrible dye job in their past? Or maybe you are a dyeing diva. I would love to hear about that too.