Announcement!

We have an announcement to make! Alan and I have decided to adopt!  We are in a situation where we could financially handle a baby, and it truly feels like the next step in our family.  We have been blessed to have many wonderful examples of adoption in our lives, and are thrilled at the idea of finally becoming parents. 

We know that the journey will be hard and may take some time, but we know without a doubt it will be worth it.  Despite all the love and joy we have had as a couple, children have always been the missing factor - the thing that truly makes a family.  Complications have prevented us from having children, and we are thrilled to have this option available to us.

Right now we are in the process of getting signed up with LDS family services, and are also contacting Utah Foster Care to become Certified Foster parents.  We would prefer a child under the age of two, and would love a child of either gender.  At this point we are open to all options, and are working on getting our paperwork completed to qualify for international as well as national adoptions.  

Even with all of the options we are pursuing right now, we know that all of you will be out greatest asset.  The most successful adoptions are via word of mouth, and we hope that if you hear of someone considering adoption, that you will think of us.   Additionally, if you have had any experience with adoption, we would love your advice

We are so incredibly excited for this opportunity, and cannot wait to welcome a little boy or girl into our home and hearts!  

We have started an adoption blog here.  I haven't finished all of our bios and such, but this is the address for it:

http://achingforanarmful.blogspot.com/

Ideas

This is a high image post, so beware.  I just joined Pinterest, which is probably one of the coolest sites I've ever seen!  I follow a ton of blogs, and find a bunch of amazing tutorials that I love, but organizing all of the tutorials so I can find them again is a pain in the butt.  I have just been creating bookmark folders for them, but then I have to constantly export and import my bookmarks to other folders, which just adds to my troubles.  With Pinterest, you can "pin" items that you see into folders that you customize.  Now no matter where I am, I can look up my favorite sites an tutorials!  

In order to add an item to Pinterest, it does have to be posted online, so I am posting some of the craft ideas that I have gathered over the years.  I am not sure who made them, so if you know please reply so I can give them credit.

Pearls of Wisdom

I was reading Along for the Ride and thought this story was too perfect not to share.

via pinterest

The cheerful little girl with bouncy golden curls was almost five. Waiting with her mother at the checkout stand, she saw them, a circle of glistening white pearls in a pink foil box..

"Oh mommy please, Mommy. Can I have them? Please, Mommy, please?"

Quickly the mother checked the back of the little foil box and then looked back into the pleading blue eyes of her little girl's upturned face.

"A dollar ninety-five. That's almost $2.00. If you really want them, I'll think of some extra chores for you and in no time you can save enough money to buy them for yourself.. Your birthday's only a week away and you might get another crisp dollar bill from Grandma."

As soon as Jenny got home, she emptied her penny bank and counted out 17 pennies. After dinner, she did more than her share of chores and she went to the neighbor and asked Mrs. McJames if she could pick dandelions for ten cents. On her birthday, Grandma did give her another new dollar bill and at last she had enough money to buy the necklace.

Jenny loved her pearls. They made her feel dressed up and grown up. She wore them everywhere, Sunday school, kindergarten, even to bed. The only time she took them off was when she went swimming or had a bubble bath. Mother said if they got wet, they might turn her neck green.

Jenny had a very loving daddy and every night when she was ready for bed, he would stop whatever he was doing and come upstairs to read her a story. One night as he finished the story, he asked Jenny, "Do you love me?"

"Oh yes, daddy. You know that I love you."

"Then give me your pearls."

"Oh, daddy, not my pearls. But you can have Princess, the white horse from my collection, the one with the pink tail. Remember, daddy? The one you gave me. She's my very favorite."

"That's okay, Honey, daddy loves you. Good night." And he brushed her cheek with a kiss.

About a week later, after the story time, Jenny's daddy asked again, "Do you love me?"

"Daddy, you know I love you."

"Then give me your pearls."

"Oh Daddy, not my pearls. But you can have my baby doll. The brand new one I got for my birthday. She is beautiful and you can have the yellow blanket that matches her sleeper."

"That's okay. Sleep well. God bless you, little one.. Daddy loves you."

And as always, he brushed her cheek with a gentle kiss.

A few nights later when her daddy came in, Jenny was sitting on her bed with her legs crossed Indian style.

As he came close, he noticed her chin was trembling and one silent tear rolled down her cheek. 

"What is it, Jenny? What's the matter?"

Jenny didn't say anything but lifted her little hand up to her daddy. And when she opened it, there was her little pearl necklace. With a little quiver, she finally said, "Here daddy, this is for you."

With tears gathering in his own eyes, Jenny's daddy reached out with one hand to take the dime store necklace, and with the other hand he reached into his pocket and pulled out a blue velvet case with a strand of genuine pearls and gave them to Jenny ...

He had them all the time. He was just waiting for her to give up the dime-store stuff so he could give her the genuine treasure. So it is, with our Heavenly Father. He is waiting for us to give up the cheap things in our lives so that he can give us beautiful treasures.

God will never take away something without giving you something better in its place. 

Freezer Paper Stencils and Baby Onsies

Today's tutorial is on Freezer Paper Stenciling.  I's seen it done on some adorable blogs as of late (Especially this one and this one), but had never attempted it before, and I was super surprised at how easy it was to do.  I was mostly surprised that I actually LOVED doing it.  I decided on a whim the night before Shambray's baby shower that I was going to make her some onesies and this is the result. 

Adorable?  Naturally.  You wanna learn how to do it?  Do ya? Huh?  

Ok, you talked me into it.

Freezer Paper Stencils.  

You will need the following:

-Fabric paint (I got this multi-pack of puff paint at Walmart for $10)

-Clothing item of your choice (I'm going to do some of my shirts next)

-Freezer Paper (NOT WAX PAPER or you will never get the stencil off your clothes.  Freezer paper is dull on one side and kind of shiny on the other side, and it is the same type of paper your butcher wraps cuts of meat in.

-Iron

-Your design

-Cardboard cut to fit inside the clothing you are stenciling to prevent the paint from bleeding onto the other side.

-1in foam brush (these are about 60 cents at Walmart)

-small dish for your paint

-Something to cut it out with.  I used my Cricut Machine with the program Sure Cuts a Lot.  You can read my opinions/reviews on such here.

1. Iron your clothing item

2. Lay your Freezer Paper shiny side down and cut out your design.  Remember to save any inside pieces as you will use them.  As a side note my settings for cutting freezer paper on the Cricut were Blade 2, Speed 1, and Pressure 3.

3. Lay your design shiny side down on your clothing item and iron in place.  Make sure that all of the edges are ironed down tight.  Do not use steam.

4. Squirt out your paint and dip your foam brush in it.  Less is more and you can always pour out more paint later.

5. Paint on your color making sure your paint does not go over the sides you don't want to paint.  Apply as many coats as needed for nice, even coverage.  Allow paint to dry (at least 20 minutes)

Another nice thing to note, this stuff is a lifesaver when it comes to cleaning your brushes, or cleaning it off the carpet if you happen to knock the brush off the table.  I'm speaking from personal experience here.

6.  Once the paint is dry, remove the freezer paper, making sure to get all of your little inside pieces out.  I find tweezers and a needle are the best tools for the tiny ones.

7. If you are doing an image with multiple layers, paint the first layer then wait for it to dry and remove the freezer paper, then iron on your second layer.  Make sure to iron on all of your little details. 

8. Paint on your second layer, allow to dry, then remove the freezer paper.

These were so popular that I got a request for another one.  It's one of my favorites.

If you think of any other cute sayings you'd like to see please comment below.  These designs are for sale at my Etsy Store, though if you live in Utah feel free to email me your request and I'll waive the shipping.

Cricut Product Reviews

As some of you may know, I own a Cricut Personal Electronic Cutting Machine like this one.

Sadly, I can't exactly say it was love at first sight.  I had read up on the Cricut online, and was disgusted with it's need for cartridges.  When you spend good money on a machine, no one wants to be told that they have to spend $30-80 a pop to make it usable!

I was pretty much set on getting a Silhouette, which is far more expensive but does not require cartridges, until Christmas morning, when I opened the biggest present to find that Alan had bought me a Cricut Personal Electronic Cutting Machine.  I'm sad to say that I was not as enthusiastic when I opened it as Alan was hoping I would be.  I was really impressed with him for getting it at such a deal - $180 marked down to $80 at Roberts.  They hold that sale about twice a year, and it's very much worth waiting for the sale, especially of they will let you combine coupons with it.

After receiving some other cute cartridges I finally decided it was time to stop whining and start using my Cricut.  Now I personally HATE cutting with just the Cricut.  I'm more anal than I am a perfectionist, so not knowing EXACTLY where each letter and swirl is going to go before I waste my pretty paper or vinyl is frustrating enough to prevent me from cutting with it at all, and doing a test sheet on scrap paper is just wasteful.  Cricut offers two different options to help out with this.

1. Gypsy - $210 on sale now for $100


The gypsy is a cartridge storage device that allows you to upload all of your cartridges.  You can then design and customize your design, and see it on the screen BEFORE you cut your precious paper.  You can create your images using multiple cartridges, and transform and move them any way you want.
As far as the negatives you can only use cartridges that you have uploaded to the Gypsy, and you cannot import outside images, text, dingbats, or true type fonts.  Additionally the screen is pretty small, so it is not ideal for the vision impaired.  It does have a zoom option, but I can imagine it would get pretty tedious to keep zooming and scrolling, especially if you're using a 12x24in mat.

2. Cricut Design Studio - $60

The Cricut Design Studio is a program that you install on your computer, that has the entire Cricut library listed.  However, you can only cut the designs you own the cartridges for.  You have to load the cartridges for each project you use, but you can design using the entire library.  I liked that you could use the entire screen, and that I could test drive any cartridge before I bought it.
Negatives are that despite it being loaded onto your computer, you still cannot import outside images, text, dingbats, or true type fonts .  You also need to load the cartridge each time you want to cut the design, so it limits you being able to share cartridges with friends (though you can share your design files).

So the total for everything that Cricut has to offer:
Sale     Actual
$80       $180    Cricut Personal
$100     $210    Gypsy
$60       $60      Cricut Design Studio

$240     $450    Total not including cartridges.

CRAZY!  For all of it's marketing Cricut is really not good at making it so that you can do anything you can imagine with their machine.  I understand why they don't.  If people could use fonts and images from their computers there's no way they would spend $80 on a Cartridge no matter how cute it was.  It's all a marketing strategy (and a rather good one at that) which is incredibly frustrating to me, but I digress. I had the Cricut out of the box, and no marketing strategy was going to prevent me getting the most out of it!  So I searched for other options and found a glorious program.

Sure Cuts a Lot - $50

Can I tell you how much I LOVE this program?  If you are using a Cricut make sure you purchase the Sure Cuts a Lot 2.0.  Craft Edge (the makers of SCAL) was sued by Provo Craft (the makers of the Cricut) and as part of that lawsuit the newer versions (3.0 thus far) are not compatible with the Cricut, so if you own 2.0 do not upgrade it!  The program allows you to use any true type font installed on your computer, as well as any imported image or dingbat.  You can download true type fonts everywhere (my favorite place to get them is DA Font) and I have yet to find a project that I could not download what fonts and images I needed for  it for free.
The only negative is that there is no way to import your existing Cricut cartridges directly into the program, but if you can cut the image with your cricut then scan it into your computer, or if you can find the image online, you can easily import it into SCAL.  I only have two cartridges, so that's not a big negative for me.

Overall, with SCAL installed I use my Cricut a bunch, and it does everything I really need it to.  The biggest difference I see between the Cricut with SCAL and the Sillouette is the price.
Cricut personal 12x6in cutter $80 + SCAL $50 = $130.  The Sillouette SD 9x24in cutter = $300.  The sillouette does not have a smaller edition, so if you are looking for a cheaper alternative, the Cricut works quite nicely.  Even at the full purchase price of $180 plus $50 for SCAL the Cricut is still cheaper than the sillouette.

I hope this review has been helpful!

How to copy your DVDs to your computer

I have been working on backing up all of my DVDs to my external hard drive as of late, and it's been quite the process, but so worth it!  I can rest assured knowing that if Cleo chews up a DVD or if it falls onto the floor and gets scratched, we have a backup copy of it.  Plus, it's a lot easier to carry around our laptop and hard drive than it is to tote around our massive DVD case, and that's even with them out of their individual cases!

Currently they are all sorted according to rating (I couldn’t find my PG-13 tag, so you’ll have to imagine it. 

Imdb.com was a great resource for finding out what the ratings were, as I got rid of my cases a long time ago, and not every DVD has the rating right on it.

After they were sorted, I used three different programs to get them into the format I wanted.  All of the programs below I downloaded for free, and they each have their download link attached.

Craft Table Envy

I really like the idea of  a craft/sewing table that doesn't have to look like a craft table.  I love these two designs from Walmart.

If I were going to this one I would go with the lighter wood.  It would match the rest of my furniture so much better.

Or this one.

I love all of the extra storage space in this one, and I am amazed at how small it's "footprint" is when it's all folded up.  I would also rather have this one in a lighter wood, rather than the white paint.

Which one do you like best?

Music list

Here are 100 tunes I've been rocking out to as of late.   All of these were tagged using one of my favorite apps,  SoundHound Infinity. Artist Song Title Ace of Base Don't Turn Around Aerosmith I Don't Want to Miss a Thing A-Ha Take on Me Alan Menken Something That I Want Billy Joel The Longest Time Billy Joel The River of Dreams Brad Paisley Anything Like Me Breathe Hands to Heaven Bruno Mars Just the Way You Are Carrie Underwood Before He Cheats Celine Dion My Heart Will Go On Cher After All Cher Believe Cindy Lauper Girls Just Want to Have Fun Cindy Lauper All Through the Night Dan Fogelburg Leader of the Band Daniel Powter Bad Day Daughtry September Deniece Williams Let's Hear it for the Boy Dixie Chicks Landslide Elvis Presley Burning Love Extreme More Than Words Fergie Big Girls Don't Cry George Michael Careless Whisper Grace Potter I Want Something That I Want Heart Alone Howard Jones Everlasting Love Jason Mraz I'm Yours Jefferson Starship Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now Jefferson Starship We Built This City (On Rock and Roll) Jerry Lee Lewis Great Balls of Fire Jimmy Cliff I Can See Clearly Now John Mayer Say John Mellencamp Hurts So Good John Michael Montgomery Life's a Dance John Oates Kiss on My List Jordin Sparks Tattoo Katy Perry Firework Keith Urban You'll Think of Me Kelly Clarkson Breakaway Kool and the Gang Celebration KT Tunstall Suddenly I See Lee Ann Womack I Hope You Dance Lifehouse You and Me Loggins & Messina Danny's Song Lonestart I'm Already There Madonna Into the Groove Madonna Vouge Madonna Crazy for You Mark Cohn Walking in Memphis Martina McBride In My Daughter's Eyes Matt Nathanson Come on Get Higher Matthew Wilder Break My Stride Men at Work Down Under Michael Buble Everything Michael Jackson Thriller Mr. Mister Broken Wings Mr. Mister Kyrie Naked Eyes Always something There to Remind Me Pat Benatar Love is a Battlefield Pat Benatar We Belong Patrick Swayze She's Like the Wind Peter Cetera Glory of Love Phil Collins You Can't Hurry Love Phil Collins You'll Be in My Heart Pink Raise Your Glass Plain White T's Rhythm of Love Red Hot Chili Peppers Otherside Red Hot Chili Peppers Snow (Hey Oh) Reo Speadwagon Can't Fight This Feeling Richard Marx Hold on to the Nights Richard Marx Now and Forever Rob Thomas Sleep Til the War is Over Rob Thomas Someday Rod Stewart Forever Young Roxette It Must Have Been Love Sara Bareilles Love Song Sara McLachlan Angel Savage Garden I Want You Savage Garden Truly Madly Deeply Smash Mouth All Star Smash Mouth I'm a Believer Taylor Swift Love Story The Cardigans Lovefool The Cranberries Dreams The Dream Academy Life in a Northern Town The Goo Goo Dolls Iris The Jackson 5 ABC The Proclaimers I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles) The Rembrandts I'll Be There for You The Swinging Blue Jeans Hippy Hippy Shake Three Dog Night Joy to the World (Jeremiah Was a Bullfrog) Timbaland Apologize Train Marry Me Uncle Kracker Smile Vanessa Carlton A Thousand Miles Vanilla Ice Ninja Rap Vertical Horizon Everything You Want Wilson Phillips Hold On Yello Oh Yeah