Starbucks Gift Card Winner

First of all, I'd like thank everyone who commented on my Starbucks Gift Card Giveaway post for your kind words!  I also really enjoyed reading about your favorite holiday drinks.  I have some new recipes to try out this week:)!!

And without further ado, the winner of the Starbucks Gift Card is.....

Congratulations Judi!!  Your gift card is in the mail.

Judi also wins the award for best Christmas Card of 2011.

Hilarious.  I want to be just like you when I grow up, Judi!

And as a consolation prize for everyone else, I'd love to direct your attention to a wonderful new children's CD called Songs from the Songshack available for FREE download here!

The music is written and performed by the talented and charming D.B. Rouse, who happens to be my brother.  He's a Texas ranch hand by day and a musician by night.  His life takes him on one adventure after another, which provides great material for original lyrics and music!  If you have young children you'll appreciate the fun, kid-friendly songs like Celery Cake, which is about the importance of eating vegetables and Skunk Song, which is about the importance of taking a bath.

My personal favorite song, however, is Humming Birds Have Feet.  I laugh so hard I cry when I hear it because as a child I once asked my dear mother (who was probably distracted for a moment making dinner or doing laundry or an IEP report) if hummingbirds had feet because I'd never seen one land before.  She said, 'No.'  She swears she doesn't remember the conversation, but it was just a one question/one answer conversation.  I think I realized that hummingbirds had feet sometime in high school.  It took that long because my mom was never wrong, and I just trust her that much.  And I guess if she had to be wrong about one thing, I'm okay with being led astray in the hummingbird foot department.  With D.B.'s song, Humming Birds Have Feet, I know that my children won't be in high school when they realize that hummingbirds do in fact have feet:).

Love you Mom and D.B.!  And Merry Christmas to all!!  Bill has the entire week between Christmas and New Year's off this year, so my posts next week may be sporadic at best while we enjoy some rest, relaxation and family time!!

Christmas Traditions: Gift Exchange

Growing up, Christmas Day and Christmas Eve were very busy days for my family.  Every Christmas Eve involved taking a trip south from my hometown to visit relatives on my Dad's side of the family and to attend mass.  We'd drive back late at night and jump in our beds so Santa would come, and wake up early Christmas morning to an exciting and magical morning with stockings and presents galore.

Later on Christmas Day we would celebrate Christmas with my Mom's side of the family in a town nearby.  When I look back, I remember the holiday as being a wonderful family filled and present filled time.  Now that I have my own young children I have to wonder how my parents pulled that routine off year in and year out.  It must have been exhausting for them.

Back then, the one thing that we were not able to do on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day was to have special time with our immediate family and exchange our special gifts for one another.  There simply wasn't enough time.  The tradition that we developed to alleviate that problem was to start exchanging presents, one per night starting December 20th (4 days prior to Christmas Eve since there were 5 members in our family).  For four consecutive nights we had a bit of family together time.  It was really nice.

Moving forward to this year, my family will continue the one gift per day exchange, even though we don't have nearly as busy of a celebration schedule on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day compared to the days of my youth.  Our kiddos will receive more than enough presents from Dear Old Santa, and we'd really like them to enjoy the presents we give them and that they give each other.  I love that we can extend the holiday this way.  Here is a chart Lucky and I made to keep track of our exchange:

I made the chart in Microsoft Word and she typed the names and numbers!

Our numbered days break down like this:

Day 1: December 21st

Day 2: December 22nd

Day 3: December 23rd

We've already given the first day of gifts last night and Bill opened this package of surprises from me last night:

And he found this personalized art display inside (which will probably end up in our master bedroom):

This silver frame was a clearance score from Target for $3.24.  I put some of my faux bois wrapping paper as background and then printed, traced and cut out 'b + b' letters out of white card stock.  I used double side tape to stick them on top of the wrapping paper background and now it reminds me of an initial tree carving.  

Even though Bill has seen this faux canvas already, it was originally a surprise for him, so I wrapped it up for him as a surprise for a second time.

Bill loves the song Arms by Christina Perri, so I printed off the refrain on cardstock and painted a little heart with craft paint and stuck it in yet another $3 clearance Target frame.

I have seen prints on Etsy with this saying on it, and I love it, so I decided to recreate my own version.

This wood sign started out as a simple wood plaque from Michael's.  I believe it's full price was $2.49, but I had a coupon, of course.

I painted the plaque blue and then worked to get the font size and word layout that I liked the best.  I taped the paper onto the plaque once it was dry in the exact position that I wanted the words painted.

It's hard to see in this image, but after I traced around each letter with a sharp pencil, indents were left in the wood.  I filled in each letter with brown craft paint to finish it off.

The square frame was 100% inspired by this post by Young House Love:

They made key art for each of the places they called home since they met.  Our frame includes the condo Bill lived in when we met, the apartment we lived in when Lucky was born and the two houses we have lived in since moving to Minnesota.

Here's Bill opening up one of his frames:

Since I like to break things down cost wise, all 5 art pieces set me back a little over $35 (roughly $7 per personalized piece of art).

'b + b' tree art $11 including frame and wrapping paper (lots of paper leftover still!)

Faux Canvas $10 with a coupon

'You put your arms around me' sign $3.24 for the frame

'Happily Ever After' sign $2.10 (with a 15% off entire purchase coupon)

Key Art $10 for the IKEA frame

Total: $36.34 

The kids have some special presents coming their way as well, but I'll probably post about them another time (I don't want anyone to spill the beans before gift giving time.)!!

Okay...here's one picture that I have to include!  Sailor Lucky!  I picked up a whole bunch of costumes at Target once they reached 90% off after Halloween.  Our kids love to play dress up, so Bill gifted Lucky with a sailor girl costume and the pink outdoor bunny chair seen behind her.  The chair was another clearance find from Target.  The total for both items was less than $5.  What are we going to do when the kids have more specific Christmas wish lists:)??

As for the presents that Lucky and Charm give to Bill and me...it has become a tradition to take them to the dollar store and let them choose whatever their little hearts desire to purchase.  It's so much fun to bring them, and it's such a safe environment to give them the freedom and flexibility to make an independent gift choice...after all, whatever they choose will only set us back a dollar!  While I'm not sure what dollar store treats are coming my way, I do know that Bill will be unwrapping some keepers!  All the presents have been chosen and wrapped with love and love is really what Christmas is all about!

I'll be back tomorrow with a quick post to announce the winner of the Starbucks Gift Card Giveaway!  Can you believe Christmas is only 3 days away?!

Seeing Chevron

Way back in April, when I first posted about our dining room, I had mentioned wanting to add a touch of chevron in the form of either curtain panels or a large dining room suitable rug.  For now, I decided to go the chevron curtain route since we already owned a set of plain white Ritva panels from IKEA that would make the perfect blank canvas for a little chevron painting fun.

Here are our supplies:

I color matched a beautiful rich, deep chocolate brown paint color (I have since misplaced the paint chip so I'm not sure of the exact color...sorry!) to a flat 'One by Olympic' gallon of paint that we picked up on sale at Lowe's.  We also used textile medium in our paint (1:2 ratio of medium to paint) to make the paint more flexible when dry.  The curtain would be washable if I heat set the paint/textile medium combo with an iron, although I'm not sure I'd trust it in my washing machine:).  

In the future, I'd love to do a mini test to see how much impact the textile medium has on fabric flexibility and prevention of cracking, although the medium was not that expensive.  I used about 1 1/2 bottles of textile medium, and I stuck closely to the 1:2 ratio (medium to paint) recommended by the manufacturer.  Full price the bottles are $7.99 each at Joann's (located by the acrylic paints), but I used coupons on both bottles making the total for 2 bottles around $9.

When I first added the textile medium to the paint, I was worried that it would affect the color of my paint because the medium is a thick, white product, but my dark, brown paint color was not changed with the addition of textile medium.  I mixed the paint and medium together in a blue plastic cup:

We save our Red Solo cups for other things:).

And then I poured the paint into a paint tray within a cardboard box (to be safe since I was painting on the floor in our great room):

As for decisions on the size of the chevron stripes we wanted to make, I looked to this tutorial from the blog A Drop in the Bucket:

via

Shalynn used this spacing to create her bold chevron stripes (painted on a huge $20 drop cloth...brilliant!)

For our purposes, I decided that the 6 inch stripes would be a bit too thick for our space, so we decided on 4 inch stripes but kept the 12 inch spacing between peaks in place.  (In retrospect, I wish I would have drawn out our proposed spacing on a big piece of poster board so I could get the feeling of the stripe size.  I think I would have landed on an even smaller stripe size...like 3 inches or maybe even 2 inches.  Next time:).)

My amazing husband marked and taped out the curtain panels for me:

We just used the tape we had on hand, although it was much easier to paint when 2 pieces of 2" tape were placed side by side to create the four inch 'white' sections of the chevron pattern because there were no gaps, thus no opportunites for a roller to sneak over a tape line into the wrong section.

After taping, Bill needed a break so he laid down for a minute in Charm's room.  The kids created a colorful Daddy mountain while he rested his back and knees:

That's Bill under the pile of rugs, blankets, pillows and stuffed animals.

.,

His left hand is under this carefully placed pile of feathers.

The Daddy emerges...and a 30 minute feather pickup ensues.

And now back to the curtains.  Here is the second panel that was taped using 2 inch painter's tape:  

Painting it was super easy, since I didn't have to think about what parts needed to stay white versus being painted.  Any exposed part of the curtain got painted.

Here is the same curtain panel after I applied a second coat of paint:

I painted 3 or 4 stripes at a time and then removed the tape around those stripes to give me the best chance of having clean lines.  It worked well!!  Here are some more pictures:

And for a little fun, here's our dining room last year:

Add a basket wall, a chalkboard menu, wall art, a homemade curtain rod, a new dining bench (and table), new to us dining room chairs, a settee and now chevron curtains.  Then takeaway 2 booster seats, and here is our dining room now:

It's amazing what a difference a year makes!  Is anyone else chevron happy?  

Don't forget to enter my Christmas Starbucks Giftcard Giveaway if you haven't done so already...your odds are really good for this one:)!

Linking up to The Shabby Nest.

Linking up to Passionately Perfect.
Linking up to Thrifty Decor Chick.

Starbucks Gift Card Giveaway!!

Would you like to know what I turned this pile of diaper package codes into?

One $15 Starbucks Gift Card courtesy of Huggies Enjoy the Ride Rewards Program.

I thought about putting it my husband's stocking, but since his stocking already has lots of goodies in it, I thought it would be a nice Sunshine Surprise for one lucky reader...a Christmas present if you will.  It also gives me the opportunity to say thank you to all the people who take the time to read my posts!  Your comments keep me going, and I really, really appreciate it.  This blog and the home projects that we have tackled this year have been incredibly therapeutic for me.  I'm so glad I stumbled into the blog world!

So without further ado, here are the giveaway "rules":  In order to enter to win the Starbucks Gift Card, you must already be a follower OR sign up to be a follower of this blog.  Also, you must leave a comment to this post and include your favorite holiday drink in your comment (if you forget the drink part...no biggie:))!

A winner will be pulled at random from a Santa Hat and announced on Friday morning, so check back to see if you've won.

P.S.  This giveaway is not sponsored by Starbucks or Huggies.  It's sponsored by me and my stockpiling of diaper coupons and codes:)!

Christmas Wish List

Even though I'm a grown up, and I realize it's terribly silly to make a wish list for Santa, I'm going to do it anyway.  Although I wouldn't mind receiving a couple of these surprises under the Christmas tree, I mainly want to make a list so I remember some of the things that caught my eye this year.  And speaking of year, did 2011 fly by or what?

On to the list:

1.   Design Sponge by Grace Bonney

I'd love to get my hands on this book!

2.  Express Eva Jean

I love how these fit, but I'm used to Target priced jeans so these are a total splurge!!

3.   Old Navy Mittens

I think these are just adorable!  I'd take the hat and scarf too:)!

4.  Anthropologie Branch and Twig Colored Pencils

These are awesome.  I want them for my soon to be redone office or maybe for Charm's Room or both:).

5.  West Elm Alphabet Mugs

It's no secret.  I love these mugs.  And even though I just received an email saying that my backordered 'O' mug that was ordered in early November won't be shipped until December 21st, I still would love to complete my alphabet collection with P, Q, T, V and F.

6. Pier 1 Cool Chevron Yarn Pillow

The colors on this pillow are even more amazing in person!

7.  Open Season 3D Movie

Santa came early to our house just after Thanksgiving when we received a 3D LED TV for our basement courtesy of an amazing sale at Walmart.  Since we don't own any 3D movies, I'd love to get this family friendly Blu Ray which got great reviews online!

8. Anthropologie B & W Wall Hooks

These hooks just might be perfect for our entry area.

9.  Target Fair Isle Cardigan Sweater

This sweater plus leggings and boots (see below) would be lovely!

10.  Nicole Ranger Riding Boot

I've loved these boots for over a year now.  I may need to break down and buy them.  I may have already.  Turkey day sale plus Shop At Home rebate plus a coupon code = a deal I couldn't pass on!


11.  Silhouette Cameo

This would just be handy.  I could make very pretty things:).

12.  Dwell Magazine

  

I'd love to add this one to my monthly reading list!!

And that wraps up my wish list for 2011.  Lots of good stuff, in my opinion:)!!  Is it too late to send this list to Santa??:)  Does anyone have any fun things on their wish list this year?

Check back tomorrow to enter my very first ever blog giveaway!