Vision board magic.

For the past few months, my cousin Lyndsay and I kept promising each other that we would sit down and make vision boards together. I had been hooked in the idea for a while; she learned about it after a spa retreat last summer.

Last night, we FINALLY sat down with my mom, some sangria, and a crazy collection of magazines and got to work.

As most impromptu girls nights are, this was an escape from the stresses of life and an instant mood lifter. Work has been insanely busy and I was running dangerously close to empty in the emotional/spiritual sense. This was very necessary, and to top it off, I'm in love with the board I created.

Working (and chatting).

Finished product!

Favorite quote.

Favorite image (yes, that's T-Swift but it was included because of the pink sparkly dress).

If you've never made a vision board, I highly recommend it. Just flip through some magazines and tear out what speaks to you, even if it doesn't make sense. You can always toss some out, but I found that somehow everything gelled together effortlessly - it took two hours to find the images and only about two minutes to lay them all out.

Happy Friday!

Closet Re-Design.

Before I repainted my room, my closet had photos taped to the door in a grid. Everyone really liked it, but it was difficult to trade old pictures for new ones and all the pictures I took down had sticky residue where the tape was. I was trying to think of a way to easily swap photos and, thanks to some internet inspiration, came up with a clothesline-like setup.

As you'll see, I also pinned up a few non-photo things, like ticket stubs and things like that. My plan is to eventually print out all the pictures I have currently and put them in some albums or boxes, so that I can easily switch photos when I get tired of the ones up there.

And now, for the pictures!

that time i beat martha stewart to the punch.

Martha Stewart's Gumdrop Pops project, published in the December 2008 issue of her magazine:

Please note, specifically, the Christmas tree:

The Christmas/Hanukkah Gingerbread Fortress, constructed by the members of the Residence Hall Association executive board '07-'08, in December 2007:

Please note, specifically, the gumdrop Christmas tree with sprinkle accents (my personal brain child):

Commence freak-out at the fact that I totally came up with this idea before Martha Stewart (or at least thought of it before she ever published it somewhere... which might then suggest that we share a brain).

To further prove my point, these are the Snowman Guards of our fortress that my friend constructed compared to Martha's:

It is, however, completely clear that I trumped Martha Stewart on gumdrop figurines with regards to fortress-moat-inhabiting alligators.

Boo-freaking-YAH.

my history with pumpkin carving.

Twitter and the blogosphere have been buzzing with Halloween-type activities, including the ever-popular pumpkin picking and carving. As I scrolled through posts and clicked on picture links that had been tweeted, I realized the number of times I actually laid hands on (or in) a pumpkin was very small. In fact, after some careful research – flipping through old photo albums – I came up with an exact number: two.

1993, 6 years old.
This one barely even counts, since my dad probably did 99.99% of the work.
(Also? Matching haircuts! That my dad did! And I cried! /hate)

Yes, there have only been two times in my life (at least that I can remember and/or have been documented) that we carved pumpkins in this house. And, as far as I know, I’ve never set foot in an actual pumpkin patch. The closest thing I’ve done is gone on a haunted hayride.

1997, 10 years old.
I can safely say that the only reason I carved this one was because it was a Girl Scout or Boy Scout project.
(To clarify, the reason it could also be a Boy Scout project is because my mom was den mother, so I got to take part in all the cool craft projects).

Needless to say, for the past few years I kept meaning to at least go over to Shoprite and pick up a pumpkin, but it never happened. I even bought a kit that I thought was cool – it wasn’t to carve the pumpkin, but instead turn it into a Light Brite-type display. After passing over the kit for at least three years now, I decided it was time. I picked up a medium-sized pumpkin to use with the kit and three baby ones to decorate with my yet-to-be-used Martha Stewart glitter set.

My camera died right as I was getting started, so I there aren't any 'before' pictures or ones of me pulling the insides out of the pumpkin. To summarize the experience, I didn't realize how hard it is to cut through the pumpkin, had fun gutting the pumpkin, was unsure of how good the end result was going to luck, and completely forgot that the light that comes with the kit I bought changes colors. Here are the results.

My bat, which was the only decent-looking stencil from the kit.


My fiber-optic pumpkin in action!


Glitter pumpkin!


Spotty glitter pumpkin!

Overall I'm very pleased (read: extremely giddy). Any craft project that includes glitter is automatically amazing in my book, and the fiber-optic-type kit that I used ended up being really cool!

I'll be back on Sunday with a picture of me in my costume, but until then, have a fabulous Halloween-y weekend!

some scrapbooking.

Last weekend was my grandmother's 80th birthday bash, and as I mentioned, I made her a wonderful scrapbook. My mom gathered pictures from our stash and my aunt's, then scanned all the pictures in and had them printed. At that point, the bulk of the work was placed in my hands because I am the Martha Stewart Scrapbooking Queen of the Family. So I got to work.

Yes, I own quite a lot of Sharpie markers. And I love them.

Scrapbooking is such a time investment. You have to cut out pictures, figure out where they'll go, glue them down, add flare with handwritten things and stickers... I was creatively drained at the end of it. We did the bulk of it the week before the party and by the last day, I was letting my mom make decisions because I simply didn't want to figure it out myself anymore. But, it got finished.

I don't want to overload this post with pictures, so here are a carefully chosen few.

My grandparents on their wedding day!

My mom, aunt and uncle, who all look ridiculously adorable.

Everyone gettin' hitched. That's my mom and dad on the upper left!

The cutest grandkids: my brother and I, obviously.

All the cousins in our toddler years.

My grandparents.

If you'd like to see the rest, they're up on my flickr. They're in reverse order, so if you want to go from start to finish, start here and go backwards.

Both of my grandparents adoredthe finished product, which is all I cared about. It was also fun to see everyone else's reactions to the old photos. Overall I felt the project was a little rushed and that I was too much under the direction of my mother, but it came out good for what it is. (Basically, I could do better. Sorry mom!)

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Do me a favor and click through if you're not already viewing my actual blog, because I added some banners off to the side that are of extreme importance. One is to vote for LiLu to be the very first MTV TJ, which she clearly should be because she's amazing. (If you're on Twitter, you should also follow her @LivitLuvit.) The other is to vote for Emily in the WeddingBells blog contest because she is also amazing and definitely deserves the grand prize, which includes a very lovely honeymoon for her and her hubby-to-be. So go be The Awesome Internet that you are and get voting!

birthdays, birthdays, and more birthdays!

Oh, there have been too many birthdays lately. Not that there could ever be such a thing - because I love birthdays - but every time I turned around I had to start prepping someone else's gift. In true Cait style, I got a little crafty and, in one case, did some Target searching for cute things for the birthday celebrations.

First up was Melissa's birthday in April. Hers was a very last-minute, spur-of-the-moment idea, although you would never know it. It turned out amazingly, if I do say so myself. I mean, I always set out to do really good work, but I'm a huge critic and it's rare that it passes my own standards. I'll let you decide.

'Basically just 4 years of pure insanity' is the new tag line to our friendship. Also, PIPE CLEANERS AND FOAM DEALIES.

Next up, at the very beginning of May, it was my dance twin Ashley's 25th birthday bash. Since the first project went so well, I decided to go the same route and I was equally as impressed with myself.

Penguin love!

Finally, my BFF Danielle's birthday was two days ago, although we surprised her with a little birthday celebration during our reunion last week. Natalie and I set up my family room with leftover luau decorations and some delicious drinks, and we ordered in from Chili's and watched Hairspray. It was fabulous. I went scouting for gifts at Target and wound up with an adorable stationary set, picture frame, and jasmine-scented candle.

Yes, I bought three. One for me, one for Dani, and one to use as an emergency gift for someone.


Perfection.

I've got one major birthday left - my cousin - and I'm at a loss because she and I have done everything crafty for each other. I made her a scrapbook and gave her several picture frames and collages, she's made me a big collage and gave me a lovely speech at my graduation. Her birthday's next week and I'm totally going blank. Any ideas, crafty or not, are appreciated.

So that's what I've been up to craft-wise. I'm saving up all my creativity for my grandmother's scrapbook which we'll hopefully get started on soon - we only have about a month to go!

{Also, as I finished up this post I realized that today is also my friend Kyle's birthday! So, happy birthday!}

why my family calls me their little martha stewart.

My lovely little desk where I am clearly multitasking like crazy.

I've been crafting up a storm the past few weeks. First I made a lovely autumn banner for my cousin's dorm room. Using some pretty scrapbook paper, I cut circles out of patterned paper and some heavier card stock and glued them together.

I debated about the lettering - I was just going to print the letters out in a pretty font, but quickly realized that would mean a lot of intricate cutting. And although I am the Queen of Cutting Things Out, that would probably prove to be too tedious, even for me. So, I practiced a bit, told the perfectionist in me that it would all be okay, and hand-drew the letters.

The 't' didn't come out all that swell, but I think the rest make up for it. I forgot to take a picture of the finished product before I sent it out, but I punched holes in the top of each card and strung them with some sheer maroon ribbon.

My second project was to make customized binder clips as place card holders for Thanksgiving. These were pretty simple, as I just cut out scrapbook paper the size of the binder clip and glued it on. Still, I was thrilled with the end product.

All this crafting has planted the seed in my head about opening an Etsy shop, but I have no idea if I have the time and dedication to give to such a project. Although, since I'm pretty much in limbo with my job search because I've been sick, it wouldn't be such a bad idea to get it started while I'm trying to get better. It would at the very least give me a reason to get out of bed at a decent hour if I spent a good chunk of my time crafting.

Still, I'm worried about getting in over my head. I guess we'll see. Any thoughts, especially from those who have an Etsy shop, are welcomed and appreciated.