Easter

Thursday, June 30, 2011

"more agt," you ask?

comin right up (:

some crazy talented magicians:



with a side of jump-rope enthusiasts:


a dish of snip-snappy dancing:


a serving of unexpected talent:


[my personal fave:]



with some rock band daddies:


and topping it all off with a reminder to enjoy every moment of life (: hahahahaha reminds me a bit of daniel kron's dancing if you ask me (;

Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Custom Framing

Our custom framed historical documents
When Jon and I were dating we spent the fourth of July in two different parts of the country.  He was on the eastern seaboard with his family on a trip and I was in Michigan with my family for my sister Maggie's baby shower.  While hanging out at "some historic hill near Boston," he spotted these replica historical documents.  The Bill of Rights, Constitution, and Declaration of Independence.  Jon loves history, especially the the History Channel.  To fill the void of me not being there with him, he purchased the replicas with plans to use them in decorating our home someday.

Fast forward 2 years.  Jon and I are married and ready to start decorating our home.  We checked around for prices on custom sized frames at Michael's, Joann's, and a few other shops.  All of them wanted to charge $50 or more per document, and that was just not an option.

So... we went to Tai Pan Trading.  We were given a giftcard to Tai Pan for our wedding and thought we might find some fun frames, plates, or wreaths.  What we found were the perfect huge size frames!  They were bigger than the prints Jon had picked up, but... they had mod-looking WWII pictures in them.  They were on super clearance for $19 a piece.  Way better than $50 a piece.

We came home with the frames and dissected them.  Pulling out the mod stuff and cutting it down to the same size as the documents to help them stay rigid and unwrinkled.  We then headed over to Joann's with a 50% off coupon.  Jon wanted rich colored fabric.  So deep red or deep purple.  We found this.  We bought a few yards, a sharp pair of scissors, and some spray adhesive.  Here come the steps to custom framing...

1.  Using the spray adhesive spray the cut down mat from the "mod" picture or picture that used to be in your frame.
2.  Carefully press your item onto the mat.  Pulling on the corners to ensure that there are no bubbles.
3.  Using the backing of the frame, spray this with adhesive as well.
4.  Stretch the cut down fabric over the freshly spayed backing.
5.  Once both of these have had sufficient time to dry, carefully spray the back of the joint mat/document and set it down centered on the fabric.
6.  Let them sit before putting them into the frame with the glass (or the glass will get gooey.)

Simple as that.  Sorry if the story in there took forever to get through.  And don't forget, this is try me Tuesday, so now you have to try it for yourself.

Sunday, June 26, 2011

there were more verses?

i was hiking around rib mountain with sean a few weeks ago when i found myself singing.

this is strange for a few reasons, mostly because i don't really sing (usually he does). but also strange -- i hadn't heard / sang the song in years and for whatever reason, it was all i could think about.
i guess being in the middle of the woods will do that to you.

to me, spider's web song = girls camp.

Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Reupholstering

Okay,  so I've skipped a few weeks.  I feel pretty bad about it.  But... I've been working on some awesome projects that can be posted on here.  Sadly, I haven't uploaded the pictures of them to my computer yet, but I will do it during my morning off tomorrow.  I would do it tonight... but I'm working on one of those awesome projects as a birthday present for my sister Maggie.

So the try me this week?  Try reupholstering something.  In the past I mentioned following tutorials and making carseat canopies and piddle pads.  Well, this time I took it a step further.  I found the same kind of carseat that my sister-in-law owned (for free) on KSL.  It was expired, but it didn't matter because all I needed was the padding.  Using the instructions I found on this amazing blog, I took apart the fabric and used it to make my own pattern for a new cover.  I got some really cute fabric at Mormon Handicraft.  The middle part looks like this and the edges look like this.  I'll add the real shots tomorrow.
This is what the carseat looked like originally.  Sage with Winnie the Pooh.
This is what it looked like when I seam ripped the whole thing apart.

This is what the canopy looked like all seam ripped.
Look forward to the completed pictures tomorrow...
And here they are.

This is a picture showcasing the redone canopy. 
Here is the whole seat redone.  It took a whole day of sewing, but it was totally worth it.

Monday, June 20, 2011

Did it stop? Oh. Nope.

1/2 hour of learning & matching outfits later...

Eh! Now do the Pretty Girl Rock!


Sunday, June 19, 2011

the golden rule.

yesterday, i tried to go to a baseball game with these guys:
instead, we got rained out / flash flooded (yikes!) and everything kind of went crazy after that.

luckily, we all made it out safely and we had a fun time (i'll explain more here later this week). maybe the best part was when jayson (on the left) told me to sit between him and bryon (on the right) so they wouldn't look like they were "together." luckily, bryon and i knew of a song that captured the moment perfectly...

Thursday, June 16, 2011

so. much. talent.

my favorite summer show is america's got talent.
so you can fully expect my posts here each week to be amazing and agt-related in some way, shape, or form.

here are my faves [aka the best acts, obviously] from the first two weeks! i am still a week behind, but i need to save some for next week, right? (:

[ps these are in no particular order]

first off, some stellar impressions:


and then some ILuminating:


followed by some african-crazy tumbling:


and we can't forget some hiding behind the scenes:


top that off with a bit of Echo-ing:


and a dab of death-defying russian stunts:


and then just a personal favorite. (: she is the definition of "totes adorbs":



see?? told you i wouldn't disappoint.

Monday, June 13, 2011

my delayed scrumptious saturday. SUPER YUMMY BABYCHEEKS.

I am a Mormon, & DANGIT!

Tony awards were last night. BOM won 9 out of 14 nominations.
I'm sure we've all heard of the BOM Musical.
But have you heard anything from it?
Quick synopsis: Mormon Missionaries are sent to a poverty/AIDS ridden part of Uganda where a War Lord is murdering a ton of people.
(From last night's Tony's...)



For the most part it seems pretty factual, right down to the hair cut.
Personally, after watching many interviews (below) with the writers & listening to the soundtrack, I wasn't really offended. I can see why people think we're a little weird. I understand why this musical would be funny & fascinating to people. I admit, I laughed a ton...but I can see why people would be offended. Particularly one anti-God song sung by the Ugandan people who in the musical blame God for (their) AIDS, rape, murder, poverty, starvation, & genital mutilation...Yeah, I couldn't listen to that again (but that was more offensive to Ugandan's than it was Mormons) It really wasn't as bad as everyone is making it out to be (at least the music wasn't, I haven't heard the spoken dialogue.)


In the interviews I've seen they always seem to praise Mormons for our family values, optimism, & happiness overall. One of them said (talking about the song 'I believe' above) that although to outsiders our beliefs seem so silly, they're amazed at how deep we believe & defend & shout them from the rooftops (which is kind of the ending message of the musical - we don't care what people think of us, we're strong in our belief & we are a happy, positive people because of it...we'll even walk into a War Lord's camp & proclaim "I BELIEVEEEE!")

What do you think? Is it offensive? Would you see it?

Sunday, June 12, 2011

the dolls are back.

can i just say how happy i am to see these ladies again?
if you missed tonight's episode, you need to watch it.
so many kardashians = so much awesome.
^ ruth, sarah, me
(duh)

Thursday, June 9, 2011

domo arigato

just try and tell me that this isn't totally awesome.
(p.s. making it full-screen = that much more awesome)

Monday, June 6, 2011

Wock & Woll

I've listened to this every morning since I discovered it.
Sometimes, a little optimism from a little boy is all it takes to get you through the day.



Sunday, June 5, 2011

mya-haha.

remember this?

here's a way more adorable version ( :
(don't forget to watch the last few seconds...)
(it's his kid. LOVE IT)

Friday, June 3, 2011

we're buying anna a netherland dwarf.

don't worry, it's a kind of rabbit.

not this kind..


not this kind either..


but THIS kind:


oh ps if you somehow aren't one of the 20 million people that have already seen this vid.. watch it now. it will be the cutest thing of your ever life. promise.