Our 1st Christmas

As Lee and I are approaching our 3rd Christmas together as a married couple {7th otherwise!}
I thought it would be fun to take a look back at our first Christmas together.
We were living in my sister's basement apartment because we were about to move to Grenada!
I was thrilled to decorate for our 1st Christmas.... all our decorations came from the Dollar Tree or were handmade!
{I'm so glad I took all these pictures even though I didn't blog then, whew}

Mom loaned us the tree :)

ignore the rustic fishing lodge boarder, this room was formerly my brother-in-law's man cave before Lee and I took it over for 4 months :)

my Willow Tree Nativity set my mom got me for Christmas that year!
& you can sort of see my awesome vintage mirror I got for $5 behind it! Can't wait to have house where I can use it someday.

Our ornament we bought on our honeymoon in Mexico.

I worked at Pier 1 Imports this Christmas and when it was slow I would select ornaments I liked, like the elf boot and the birds, and trace them on scrap paper!
Once I got home I'd re-trace them on cardboard and cover with scrapbook paper!
haha! sneaky!

I was also inspired by a wreath I saw at Pier 1 and decided to make my own!
The silver ornaments are all from the Dollar Tree and I hot glued them to a metal wreath form and stuck tinsel in to fill any gaps and covered up all my glue marks!
This may be one of my favorite things I've ever made.

Oh and the outside looked like this....

should I mention that my husband is 6'5? 

I'll share some of our "Christmas in the Caribbean" pictures soon! :)

almost copy-kat art

One of my character flaws is that I don't like to copy things (hence my love/hate relationship with pinterest) 
I want to be creative all on my own. be original.
But the truth is.... I'm not really all that one of a kind.
Many of the ideas I have seem original to me, but someone else has already thought of it.
To deal with this I'd like to call myself the "almost copy-kat"
I see something I like and then try to put my own spin on it.

I am a supporter of trying to re-create art for yourself.
Art is so expensive. eesh.
I'm that over-confident person who refuses to buy anything that I think I can make myself.
Sometimes it turns out good... and sometimes it is just an outlet for when I get that urge to paint or draw.

Last week I tried my hand at re-creating a favorite image of mine from pinterest.
that sea horse I used for inspiration for my sea glass sea horse.

Source: printshop.urbanoutfitters.com via Angela on Pinterest

I used some really thin sharpie markers that my friend from college Tiffany gave me when I was home.  She donate SO much awesome stuff to our after school program - the kids love the books she sent and I've been getting lots of use out of the sharpies! and not just for art purposes ;)
Tiffany has a super cute blog - Teach.Run.Love.
If you like running (she's about to do her 4th half marathon), teaching 1st graders, or cooking check her out!

ok end of commercial break.
back to sea horses.

my version.  It is draw on 8x10 paper.

But I couldn't stop there.  I was loving this so I decided to draw a fish in a similar style.

But you can't stop at 2.  You need at least 3 for a "collection"
So I drew a little jelly fish!

The similar style and colors makes them a beautiful grouping!  I cannot wait to frame and display them on a gallery wall when we get an apartment in America!

She's here!

My online blogging buddy Cat is finally here in real life person!
Many of you may be Budget Blonde readers already, remember when I guest posted over there?
Cat's husband is in the MPH/MD program at the same school as my husband and I sorta met Cat online,  baked her husband a cake, soon became friends, and this week finally met each other face to face!
In case anyone is wondering... she is every bit the lovely southern lady she portrays on her blog :)


I wanted to do something nice for her upon her arrival in Grenada, so I baked her a loaf of banana bread.... but when I was pulling it out of the oven I sorta dropped it & the bread fell out of the pan! I was scrambling to get it, burnt my arm, and the bread fell apart. and there were no more bananas. fail.

So I decided I'd make something for her apartment... but I couldn't think of anything until I remembered a post she did about a painting she liked of a ballerina.

I got out my sketch pad, charcoal, and chalks (no paint or canvas) and went to work.... I was happy with how it turned out until I got back on my computer & realized that I need to scroll down, the whole image wasn't showing on the screen.... I didn't give the ballerina feet.  isn't that the most important part? fail.



poor footless ballerina.
Helpful tip - if you make a drawing out of chalk or charcoal you can spray it with aerosol hairspray afterwards and it doesn't smudge!  Good thing a friend had some I could borrow!
we all know I don't fix my hair in Grenada :)