Moving Day

Tomorrow is Moving Day! Anyone who wants to burn a few calories and sculpt those flabby winter-arms.....come on over! We cleaned our little place yesterday and we're very excited to move in and enjoy our little Love Nest.

Beads Galore!

Crafting just couldn't wait people! I was supposed to be studying (hehe reoccurring theme here? Quite possibly.) and while browsing the newest addition to my "Blogs-To-Stalk" list, I discovered a new obsession: eco-friendly bead making! You see, I love those adorable bead-watches that everyone seems to have but when I went to the local bead stores, they wanted$0.59 per bead. Rip off anyone? I'm sorry, I can't justify spending that much on a single bead. Solution is simple: make your own! So below are images of my very first beads!



These are my magazine beads--recycling that pile of old fitness magazines. It's so easy!

*Cut a strip of a colorful page about 5/8" at one end and all the way to a point at the other.

*Start rolling from the fat end to the skinny end.

*Apply a small amount of glue to the

skinny end to hold it all together (gluesticks work great!)

*Paint a little Mog Podge onto the bead and let dry for 15-20 minutes.

*Spray with an acrylic finish.


These I used colorful scrapbook paper which made a larger bead and let me choose the color patterns.














These chunkier beads were made using old newspapers!

*Tear old newspapers into small pieces and put in large bowl.

*Pour boiling water over newspaper pieces and stir. Keep them in warm water for around 30 minutes or longer until the paper goes mushy and you are able to stir it up.

*Drain all the water from mush.

*Mix a little glue with small amounts of mush and form into desired shapes and sizes. I coated mine with a layer of Elmer's glue--worked great!

*Allow to dry until hard. (Since we live in the polar ice caps, it took a couple days. In warmer conditions I would imagine a couple hours would be sufficient. You might also take a blow dryer to them...)

*Using a tiny drill bit, drill a hole through the center.

*Paint desired color

*Apply Mod Podge and acrylic sealer.

NOTE: My mommy suggested sanding them to make them smoother. I tried these without sanding. I think on my next set I'll sand them down a little with a nail filer to smooth out the edges a little.

These are a great idea for little people because you get your fingers all gluey and sticky--I'm sure they'd LOVE it! Some of the advantages to these beads is they are cheap to make, you can design any color you like, and they are very lightweight. I'll post pictures of my bead watch as soon as its complete!!

Give them a try and let me know what you think! I love feedback!

Home Sweet Home

GOOD NEWS!!!! We are moving into our sweet little LoVe ShAcK on March 15th! I'm very excited to move in and have our own place where we don't share walls with anyone else. It will be so nice to have a garage and a yard as well. I have quite a few fun things on my list for this spring and summer--any and all are invited to participate! I've been holding my crafty-cravings at bay for almost three semesters and this summer will finally be the time I can break free of the textbooks and release the beast :)

My List is as follows:

Gardening
Scrapbooking--Our little group is trying to decide on a day, Come join us!
Photography
Decoration Crafting - Ash has motivated me!! Her decorations are so cute!
Card making - Its Cricut time!
Curtains
Pillows
Jewelry Making
Skirts
Quilting - Peggy has agreed to be my mentor YAY!

And the final category is definitely the one that excites me because I get to be crafty and make my home comfy and cozy!

Furniture Making!!!! Yes I said Furniture Making :) See, I flip through my Pottery Barn magazine and I have so many ideas floating around in my mind. The only holdup is the sweet pricetag on each item. Its a little more than what I feel could be called "reasonable". Chatting with my Mommy today, she mentioned a blog where this lady checks out designer furniture and then makes a knockoff for a fraction of the price! Being a fan of sweet deals I googled her and I found Knock Off Wood !! I highly recommend checking her out, especially if you are a do-it-yourselfer and enjoy getting good deals.

So I've got my work cut out for me and it looks like its going to be a blast! I would love company in all the categories above so let me know if you wanna play!

Say CHEESE!

I have to say that I love my little pregnant friend Chelsea! She has introduced me to the world of Photography :) She gave me a sweet little deal on a nice little camera and I'm very excited to get started and build my portfolio! Right now I'm learning my camera features and playing around with Photoshop to get more comfortable. I would love to take pictures for anybody who wants them!! I'd especially love to try more with the little tykes! Give me a ring, drop me an email, or throw a comment our way and let me know if you wanna take a chance with a beginner!! Any new ideas or suggestions would be great as well! Here's a couple of my last shoot (haha so fun saying that!) Enjoy!!


A Mother's Love -- Stephanie and Kylee Marie
Ever wonder what they see when you come at them with the Booger Sucker? Welp. Now you know! Thanks for that amazing photo opportunity Nick! Sure do love you!










Miss Sage Ann...absolutely Gorgeous. That is all that needs to be said!







I'd love to see what you think!!!

Our Nomadic Ways

Big surprise! We're MOVING haha I know you thought we had planted roots at Grammy and Grampy's but we've once again decided to pack 'em up and move 'em out! We've been able to save our pennies and we're up and chasing the dream yet again! We cruised around Logan ( now keep in mind that our version of cruising involves Kyle looking out the passenger window, Me squinting out the driver's window going a speed of approximately Old Man River. Doing this through residential neighborhoods could also be confused with "Prowling". Oops. Good thing we kicked up our speed to 25cent Krispy Kreme's and outran the PoPos. Phew! ) looking for our Love Shack and voila!!! WE FOUND IT! I just kept coming back to this one and it looked so inviting! I could really picture us there and after ups and downs over another place we decided to get a key and check out the house again. Ends up being a cute little 2 bedroom 1 bath with an unfinished basement, garage, cute yard with a big old tree (YAY). We put in our application so everyone cross your fingers, toes, legs, hair, eyes....Whatever it takes!! Hopefully we will get some good news tomorrow and we'll be Livin' the Dream once again on the 15th :) Let us know what you think!

Of all the secrets...

Don't worry! I'm multi-tasking....my lecture is playing while I blog! I would never forget my school duties :) It's been awhile since I have put anything on here due to our not having internet in our home. Ok, that's a lie. I discovered that I get a fair connection in the far west corner of the house....on the counter right next to the giant jacuzzi tub. The only problem is I start out doing homework and balancing the checkbook but once the hot water starts to relax my muscles and the aroma therapy bubble bath calms my nerves....I'm like jello. Eyelids start to flutter and before you know it I'm half-snoozing in the bottom of the tub, too far away from the computer to continue. My study skills have thus been less than up to par. But I'm glad to report that I am recharged, recommitted, and ready to go!! The cause of my sudden burst of motivation? The Secret.

Ok ok before you laugh you seriously need to check this out! I firmly believe that these concepts are true...please remember to consider and integrate the gospel principles while listening to it! But this "Power of Positive Thinking" (those of you who know me are probably rolling your eyes since you've heard my slogan spoken quite a bit lately. Put up your skepticism for just a moment...) has such a wonderful impact on everything in my life! Kyle started listening to it and actually starting using the principles it teaches and da da da DAAAA: He's a believer!

I really hope you all will consider checking it out! I have the 4 discs if anyone wants to borrow them. Also you can go to TheSecret.tv and check it out more. It really is a wonderful concept!! I'll let yo know when I receive my $50,000 check in the mail and maybe I'll come visit you in my brand new Dodge Cummins. I'm just sayin... :)

A lesson in Faith, Family, Prayers, and Tithing

Kyle and I had a fabulous Christmas and we hope you all did as well! We have a lot of changes in store for the New Year! We had an experience this week that taught us so much about faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the blessings of Family, the power of Prayer, and the importance and blessings of Tithing.

These first 7 months of being married have proved to be just as hard as everyone had promised! We always teased that you can live in love for at least 6 months. Well, that is partly true. We have found this adventure into Married Life to be especially hard financially and our 6 months of livin' on love is spent! We hit a point where we had a choice to make which involved either paying rent, or paying tithing. After many prayers and lots of pondering we decided to pay our tithing. We also decided to downsize and move into a cheaper apartment to save some money. We called our landlady the Monday before Christmas and asked her to post our apartment for rent. We are in a contract until May and she was willing to help us fill our contract which was very sweet of her! She put up the sign on Tuesday and warned me not to get my hopes up because this is a very slow time of year. She said don't get discouraged though, she was sure we'd be able to get it rented eventually.

While Kyle was working I decided to go look at an apartment. It was.....well.....ok. It was absolutely NOTHING fancy. It was a 1 bedroom 1 bathroom tiny tiny little place. But hey, we don't need much and *gulp* we'll just make it home-y-ish, right?! (Just keep repeating that last sentence to yourself over and over and over...it starts to kinda sorta sink in....or at least that's what I keep telling myself!)

Well about four hours after I'd checked out the, uh, apartment (if that's what you'd call it) our landlady called and said "I've got your apartment rented!! When will you be out?" Well I frantically got back on the internet and starting hunting for something cheap but not too ghetto or scary. I decided the apartment I had looked at was our best option. Kyle and I went to see it again and we decided we'd talk to the landlords after Christmas. Well, we prayed to know what to do and for some sort of guidance to know if this was the right decision to make.

Wednesday morning my Grandpa Bangerter called and invited me to lunch with him (Kyle was already at work.....that seems to be how it works out lately....but don't worry I take half of my lunch to him on occasions like this one!). While at lunch my Grandpa commented on how hard it is to find my apartment. I proceeded to tell him not to worry about finding it because we were moving. After explaining our financial (or lack of...) situation to my grandparents they said the most profound thing "Move in with US!!!" The next hour and a half consisted of them telling me every reason why it was a perfect plan. This was definitely an answer to our prayers. So only one week after deciding we should move, we are packing our things and shackin' up with Grandma and Grandpa Doug in North Logan!!

Our families have been such a blessing in our lives! We are so thankful for all the help we've received from EVERY single member of our families! Without them we would be homeless, starving, naked, and we would have terrible manners :) Our families are our strength and we want to THANK everyone for their love, prayers, and all the wonderful things they've done for us. We love you all so much and we are go thankful to share this life with such amazing families!