Baby Bliss, Yo Gabba Gabba

I'm currently battling a sinus infection. I thought it had come and passed but it's back. Back with a vengeance.

I have a few, quick things to post about and then it's back to the couch for me. Well, technically I'm already on the couch but that's neither here nor there.

I'm really excited about these printable iron-ons for the show Yo Gabba Gabba. Rylee (and just about every other kid I know) is totally into this show. To be fair, most parents I know love it just as much. (including myself)

Anyway, the only merchandise they have for sale is made by Kid Robot, and while Kid Robot is definitely AWESOME, it's not exactly the most pocket-book friendly. I imagine that's why they made the printable iron-on's available. I was really excited to learn (from several people) about these.

We made a shirt for Rylee last night, with "Foofa's" image on it. The total cost of the project was $12, which is not too bad. Plus I have additional transfer sheets now. Next time I will just have to buy the t-shirt. In fact, I plan on making a "Plex" shirt for my nephew Miles, for his upcoming 2nd birthday. I bought a shirt for Rylee from Target to use - it's Cherokee brand, and perfect for this sort of project. It's got little poofy sleeves too so it looks cute with a long sleeve shirt underneath. (maybe only for girls though, poofy sleeves don't looks so hot on little boys)

I do have pictures but I am just toooooooo sick (lazy) to upload them right this second. I will definitely do it though. Either tonight or tomorrow ;)

Baby Bliss

I checked out this great new store over in Southlake Town Square
earlier this week. It's kind of awesome.



They've had a location over in Snyder Plaza (Dallas) and recently opened the Southlake shop. It's great, they carry everything. All of your favorite lines, Dwell, blabla kids, Small Paul, and so much more. The best modern furniture, products, linens, clothes, maternity, toys --- all under one roof!

If you live near Snyder Plaza (near SMU) or over here in the suburbs of Grapevine/Colleyville/Southlake/HEB, definitely check it out. Great addition to Southlake Town Square.

Okay gotta rest now. I'll be back soon with pictures of the "Foofa" transfer and also to let you guys know about a fantastic restaurant I tried out today! I'm still thinking about it!

A Nod

Thanks to Eva for posting this little nod about yours truly on Evite.com! I feel special today!

shu uemura

My friend Paul works forshu uemura at Neimans, in North Park Mall. There are only 6 locations in the state of Texas!

shu uemura is a really great make-up and skin care line that uses deep sea water as the fundamental element in all of it's products.

These cleansers are some of my favorite products they offer



It really gives new meaning to the expression takes the day off. You put it all over and then splash water on your face. This causes the cleanser to foam. Scrub your face as usual and wash off the excess. Voila! This cleanser feels so natural on your face and you can literally FEEL it softening your skin.

All of their makeup feels just as good. It's very lightweight and soft on your face. It doesn't feel heavy or oily but it still gives great coverage and hides all of those little imperfections we all have.

I picked up this foundation the other day. It's perfect for me because it's easy to all apply when I'm headed out the door and it looks GREAT. It litearlly looks like I just spent an hour on my makeup when I really only took about 2 minutes!



shu uemura recently unveiled their new spring line, including this great new shade of eye-shadow.



I picked up this shade per Paul's suggestion. He said it would be a great color for me, for everyday wear. He was totally right!



I love the cute, clear, compact case!

If you haven't checked out shu uemura, you definitely should! You won't be disappointed!

LoveLoveLove

Busy Bee's

Apologies for the lack of posts. We had two pretty big cakes last week and they took up pretty much all of my time.

Lots of other crazy stuff has been going on as well, but we'll save that for another day.

Saturday we had planned on swinging by the Nasher Sculpture Center but it was raining and cold so we decided to save it for another day.

We did go to Northpark, catch a movie and grab some lunch. We weren't able to do much for Valentine's because we had to work on cakes so Saturday was our day together. I did receive a flower arrangement that looked like a cake though. That was pretty thoughtful and creative.

Anyway, I was on a mission to find a backpack for Rylee (she starts preschool this week) while we were at Northpark. I'd seen this cute little pink one with a pig on it at Babystyle a while back. We stopped in after the movie only to discover the last one had be bought just hours before. We called the Plano and Austin store but neither had any in stock.

Later when we got home I searched the internet for hours trying to find what I was looking for. I was also looking for a nap mat. Those things are MUCH harder to find than I expected. I found several that I really liked on Etsy but didn't have time to wait for shipping. So I ended up purchasing one at Kid to Kid. Not as cute but cute enough.

I found this backpack/lunch tote combo at Pottery Barn Kids.





Cute, matching, seems to be pretty durable. Rylee digs the backpack too.

While we were there I discovered this super cute bed set. You can purchase it for a crib or a larger sized bed. I know I just bought Rylee a new quilt but...





Check out the matching wall art!



While in Target today (picking up a few Global Bazaar clearance items and looking for a new table runner) I passed by an end-cap that had some of the new Dwell Kitchen Linens. I guess they are in the process of rolling out the new stuff and this is what they started with!

Table Runner





Kitchen Towels/Napkins





I picked up the grey table runner and some napkins. I'm so excited about Dwell designing a line for Target. It's about time!

Oh yeah! I shipped off the first custom cookie cutter that was ordered from me the other day! Here are the results!

More Etsy

I made my first etsy sale! I've been working on packaging today (along with some pretty big cakes), more to come!

Mod + Mini

This one's for all you modern mama's in Dallas.

Mod + Mini is located on Preston and carries all of those great modern pieces you see all over the internet. They even carry litto kids and Murge Designs - one of the only stores in Texas to carry both!

litto



Love the Owl print!



Murge (they sell matching bags, bibs and stuffed animals)





Check out Mod + Mini either online or in the store!

Etsy

Well, I did it. I created an Etsy Shop for selling custom cookie cutters. I'm still smoothing out the page and trying to get it exactly as I want it, so it's not perfect just yet! Nevertheless, feel feel free to check me out!

Komen

My husband works for a post production house in Dallas as an assistant editor. What they do at this post house is edit tv commercials. They put it all together, mix the audio, do the graphics -- all of it.

For the last 8 months my husband has been part of a project for the Susan G. Komen For the Cure foundation. The foundation held a global summit in Budapest this year, uniting more than 50 advocates and announcing it's expansion into 10 countries. The goal is to reach women across the world who don't have the education concerning breast cancer - like we do here, in the U.S. To provide people regardless of race, religion or economic status the means to beat breast cancer.

More than 1 million men and women are diagnosed with breast cancer each year with 400,000 dying because of it.

For the last 8 months a production company with the company my husband works for has been traveling the world filming different conferences, runs, speakers, doctors offices, affiliates and advocates for the new campaign. The project has earned him many late nights loading footage and making dubs. It's also grown very dear to his heart. He's come home several times and asked me to check my breasts, when my last OB check up was, what my family history was like...

For the new campaign, CharlieTango has created an inspirational piece for advocates to share with and educate people.

Rodney showed the finished project to me last night. I made him promise to wait until it was completely finished to show it to me. I'm glad I waited. It's definitely a moving piece, to say the least. You can't help but tear up several times throughout the 7 minutes.

Tomorrow they will take the video to a leadership conference that is being held here in Dallas to make it's debut and kickoff the new campaign. They will get to meet Nancy Brinker, founder of the foundation and talk to several other advocates. Rodney's pretty excited, it's been a long process working on this project.

Most doctors agree that you should start getting mammograms at age 40 - though you should get them earlier if someone in your immediate family has had breast cancer and there are new studies out suggesting that women start getting mammograms at the age of 35. If you're younger than that (like me), make sure you keep up with your yearly pap smears (my OB checks my breasts at my visits, most should do the same) and check your breasts once a month on your own starting at the age of 20.

Check those breasts!

Quick Post

Quick post about two items I think are pretty neat!

This food grinder is pretty awesome. It was created by a pediatrician and is very affordable too ($10). I really got into making baby food for Rylee when she was in that stage of her life and this sure would have come in handy at the time! It's portable and even comes with it's own carrying case, for vacations or road trips. There are other accessories sold here, including storage trays for the freezer and a nifty little plate that allows you to transfer the stored trays right onto the plate. Check out the site for some really good recipes too!



Continuing on with the food/feeding bandwagon, I really love these plate/bowl sets from notneutral. The colors and prints are great and they're made from a really durable material for all of those times your toddler happens to toss his/her plate up against the wall.



Speaking of notneutral, have you checked their site out? I'm loving it right now!


These blocks are WONDERFUL!



Wooden coasters, I love them!



Pretty cocktail napkins!



These vases would look great on my dining table, the bright white really makes the brown pop!



How's this for some original trivets? Certainly a step up from using pot holders!



There's only one notneutral store, in LA. Though, they do sell in other retail stores if you'd prefer not to purchase online. A search for the nearest location is provided on the website!

Projects Galore

This weekend I decided to take on a few projects. Projects which meant we had to take a trip out to Ikea, woo!

Project #1 - Use last years Chinese flower calendar to make pictures for the house.

I really wanted to find a way to keep my wall calendar from last year. I love the artwork but I thought it was kind of silly to keep the calendar once the year was over. That's when I thought it might be kind of neat to take the artwork from the calendar and put it in frames. While we were at Ikea this weekend, I picked up a few sets of these because they can be painted pretty easily.

The calendar:



The frames I purchased:



I pulled the binding out of the calendar (staples in this case) and picked out the pictures that I favored. I then used the "glass" part of the frame (which is actually plastic because the frames are from Ikea) and traced around it on the part of each print that I liked best. After that, all I had to do was cut and put everything together!



The result!



Pretty simple and easy project! I also like to think that I wasted a little less paper this way too! I'm pretty sure I'm going to spray these frames black, I think the colors in the prints will pop a little more with the black border.

Project #2 - Create my own desk/working station

I got a pretty crazy idea in my head that I needed my own desk. We have the office and it has a desk in it but that's pretty much Rodney's territory. My laptop stays on the dining table (where I plug it in at night) and I wanted a better place to store it, along with a better place for my cell phone, iPod, all of my crafting stuff ( yes I do other things besides bake!)...

I needed something simple, something small. I found just the thing I was looking for at Ikea this weekend. I purchased this desk. It's perfect and fits nicely in the corner of our room. Most of our bedroom furniture is black but I decided to go with a white desk for a little bit of contrast. Rodney thought this was a strange idea but I think it looks pretty neat. We also bought two lack shelves in black to go above the desk. I grabbed a few white boxes and various other things to fill the shelves.

I'm still getting it all together but I'll be sure to post some pictures in the next day or two!

My Gym

I started taking Rylee to My Gym this week and I have to say, I'm pretty impressed. It's a really great place for kids to learn gymnastics and get some good playtime in as well. The kids get an hour long class each week and are allowed to visit the facility three times a week for "free gym." This is going to be great for those the days that it's raining or too cold to go outside and we need to expend a little energy. Check out their site and see if there's a facility near you, the first class is free!