Where the MaGiC happens...

This past Monday I had the day off and luckily I was in one of those cleaning/organizing moods because I spent the ENTIRE day cleaning, organizing and decorating my desk in the craft room/laundry room.

Being creative is my favorite thing to do along with laughing, dancing and eating chocolate.

I worked at a scrapbook store in California for nearly 3 years and have accumulated quite a lot of fun stuff. Making things with my hands and paper crafting is an outlet for me. It makes me happy. Lock me in my craft room by myself, play inspiring music (ingrid michaelson, adele, mindy gledhill) and give me a bowl of peanut butter M&M's and thats how I invision heaven to be. I have big dreams for myself when it comes to being a designer. Will they come true? I have no idea, but its fun to dream.

Now that my desk is clean, organized and cute its where I want to spend all of my time.

what it looked like before...

...and now.

My brother and sister in law had a little metal shelf that you put in your cupboards that helps with giving you more space. Well, I got extremely creative and used it to store my paper. Now they all stand up and its easier for me to thumb through them. I organized my papers by company and made these little dividers. Really proud of myself for thinking outside of the box on this one (sorry the pic is a little blurry).

I found these old vintage jars at a thrift store in California. They are old peanut butter, coffee, tang, cottage cheese jars and I fell in love with the lids and shapes. I use them to hold my inks, stickles, buttons and twine. I also got those cool goblets at a thrift store here in Utah and they hold my glitter.

A closer look at my "Create" banner. Kinda in love with making banners right now..obviously. You can also see one of my frames. Its a picture of my Grandpa and my mother as a little girl. Two of my favorite people.

I created this little piece of artwork and framed it. I loved this paper so much and felt like it was cute enough to frame on its own. I just added a quote I love so much, " Nothing happens unless first we dream..."

Another project I am proud of... I took this chair from my grandma when I visited her in Idaho. It was dirty and had a nasty white plastic seat. I ripped it off and recovered it myself with some old fabric I found at a thrift store. I am SO pleased with how it came out! Looks professional, right?!

Now I just need to get in there and start creating!

All Hallows Eve...

I LOVE Halloween.

Its one of my favorite holidays.

I love the weather (more so in California--when its not so cold) , the changing leaves, carmel apples, trick or treaters, costumes, scary stories/movies and I love the decorations.

(does that not look heavenly?)

Aleksi and I have been watching scary movies a lot as of lately in the spirit of Halloween. Which is pretty gutsy for two single young girls living in an old creepy house by themselves, but its fun.

We also have decorated our little house with a few halloween decorations.

I cut out a silhouette of a little witch on my Cricut and framed it.

I made this Halloween banner to hang over our fireplace. I used really old dictionary pages, inked the edges, mounted them on some black patterned paper and glittered the hand written letters. I then tied little scraps of black fabric inbetween the letters to jazz it up a little.

I really like how it turned out.

Lex, got her papercraft on and made these pictures and framed them.

We painted our front door yellow. Not for the season, but because we wanted too.

And of course we had to get pumpkins.

Not too shabby for some poor girls...huh?

Happy Halloween All!!!

Aleksi

There are a few things I already knew about Aleksi prior to living with her:

She loves the beach.

She loves to shop.

She LOVES her family.

She likes to play the "would you rather.." game

Her favorite chinese student is Dave.

She likes to have her hair in braids while eating peanuts in her underwear.

She loves watching movies as much as I do

She "jeffs" (long story that needs to be told in person)

She thought my name was Aubrey even after knowing me for months.

After being reunited and living together for 3 months I have learned a few more things:

She is ADDICTED to shopping.

She cries when she thinks about Bentley

She likes to tap you on the shoulder and wake you up in the middle of the night to tell you things like "cortney, its thundering outside" and "cortney, do all mountains have names or just the big ones?"

She goes for 3 minute jogs

She doesn't cook...ever.

She is THE MOST boy crazy girl I have ever known

She can't say no to people

She likes to try on and plan out her outfits before she needs to wear them (came home on a saturday to find her trying on outfits for sunday).

She loves her accessories

She has Unicorn hair ( a piece of hair that without fail is always shooting straight forward like she is ready to stab someone)

(case and point)

She has the craziest bedhead I have ever seen. But seriously. No person/stylist/professional could mimic the way her hair looks in the morning if they tried.

She is very artistic

She wears a mouth guard at night and its my favorite thing about her.

She can't whistle

She cuts corners to close while driving and takes chunks out of her tires

She loves my family like her own

She has a huge heart

She thinks I am really funny...because I am

She does a really good impression of the Target Lady from the SNL skit

She hates cats--like a lot

She likes to leap off our front doorstep (don't ask me why)

.....

This list will get bigger and bigger and so will the reasons why I love her so much.