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!