Coaster Set

Several months ago The Frugal Girls posted a tutorial to make personalized photo coasters, and it was a super cute idea!

So I immediately went out and bought all the supplies to make them with the perfectly good intention of making a set of them for my mom for Mother's Day.  Yeah...

That definitely did not happen.

Then I thought, "I'll just make her a set for her birthday [in January]!"  Yeah...

That definitely didn't happen either.

Don't get me wrong, I love my mom very much, but I couldn't seem to get pictures to make the darn things.  I wanted individual pics of each of us 4 kids - aren't we cute?! - ...

(Photo by Robby Wilson)

*Notice my beautiful mom in the background.*

...but I had a hard time trying to arrange those individual pics to get taken because I live in Washington state, and the other three live in Texas.  Sorry, mom.

Then I saw this tutorial a couple of weeks ago and had an aha! moment: I can use paper instead of pictures!

So here's the outcome:

I think they're absolutely awesome.  And, mom, you'll get your photo set eventually...

Long Update -- But Lots of Pictures!

So much has happened since I posted my last life-update on here.  Where to start???

Boring stuff first...

I still haven't found a job.  However, I have had several interviews in the last week, which has been such an answer to prayer.  One of them asked for a second interview, and the others went very well.  I'm praying the Lord opens up some doors so that I can start making some money.  I have decided that if I haven't found a job by the end of August, I will be moving back home to Texas.  I feel really at peace about it either way - staying here or moving home - because I know that God has a plan.  My parents, Chewie, and I all feel this is probably the best plan of action at this point.

Now for not-so-boring...

Chewie & I celebrated our 3 year anniversary on July 2nd.  He had been at kids' camp all week and got home that day, so I planned a quiet dinner for just the two of us.  And by "planned" I mean that I actually prepared a full meal for him as my anniversary gift, something I don't do...ever.  I made this Chicken Enchiladas recipe from I Heart Naptime.  Our side dish was a rich mexican corn recipe from allrecipes.com.  And our dessert was the ever-so-rich-but-delicious Homemade Snickers Bars from Mrs. Bettie Rocker.  I wish I had taken pics of our dinner, but we were too hungry to be patient.  Everything was delicious - thanks, ladies, for the amazing recipes.  After our dinner we decided to see a movie - it was stupid, unfortunately - and then take a walk along the Port Orchard waterfront.  It was perfect.  :)  (And, unfortunately, the only pic we took of us turned out grainy and awful - sorry.)

Last week, Chewie & I and 2 of our friends, Megan and Robbie, camped out all day (we were the first two cars in line) to see the midnight showing of Harry Potter 7 Part 2 at the local drive-in.  The drive-in always has a double feature, and that night only they showed Part 1 before Part 2 so that we could see the movies in sequence.  It was such a fun experience.  We froze our butts off, but it was worth it...  Oh!  And what do you do while you wait all day for a movie that doesn't start until 9:35 pm?  Why, worship practice for Sunday morning, of course.  Yep, Chewie, Robbie, and I pulled out our music and a guitar and practiced for Sunday's worship service since we had nothing better to do.  Good times.  Here are some pics from that day:

Snacks for the movie

Waiting in line

Me & Megan

Chewie & Me

Robbie & Chewie - such weirdos :)

Robbie showing off his snuggie

My holy popcorn

My cell phone had literally 1% service by the end of the night

The whole night was absolutely fantastic, even if we didn't get home until 3:00 am.  And, because Chewie & I are obviously gluttons for punishment, we had previously made plans for a day trip just hours after the movie. So at 9 am, Chewie and I packed up the car for a trip to Rimrock, WA, on the the south-eastern side of Mt. Rainier - an approximate 3.5 hour drive from Port Orchard (one way).  We ended up off-course a couple of times - blame it on the sleep deprivation - and even had to pull out a legit map to figure out where we were.  But we had so much fun and ended up at our destination on time.  The drive was absolutely beautiful, and it was an overcast day - I can't imagine what a clear day would have been like!  Pics from our excursion:

Chewie & I at a roadside look-out

A cool graffiti-ed wall along the drive

An epic dam

Pulling out the actual map because we were off-course

All-in-all things around here have been pretty exciting.  And next on the agenda?  Youth camp - departing this Saturday.  Lord, give me strength!

Clothespin Refashion

After I made my super awesome Clothespin Mirror, I had some clothespins left over that I decided needed to be utilized somehow.  I saw this tutorial for Paper Embellished Clothes Pins over at DIY or Don't! and knew it was the perfect way to display some of my pics and stuff on my wall without destroying the wall with nail holes.

The only problem is that I get a lot of my creative juices flowing at the most inopportune time - late in the evening - and such was the case with this craft.  And this project required Mod Podge - one of the most awesome craft mediums created.  If you aren't familiar with Mod Podge, you probably have more brain cells remaining than I do because the stuff is incredibly fume-ish.  Therefore, using the stuff inside a small room at night time is not an option.  And when I found the tutorial, I was way too impatient to wait for the next day to make these things.  

So I did the ghetto-rigged version.  I simply cut the paper like she says to do and hot glued them onto my clothespins.  I realize this won't last forever, but neither the clothespins nor the paper was expensive.  So I don't mind if they get messed up.  

Anyway, these clothespins now hold pics and whatnot on a ribbon hanging on my wall:

Turned out pretty nifty, don't you think?!

Anniversaries, Spiritual Gifts, & Nostalgia

Happy Monday!  I can't believe June is almost over already.  Time is just flying away. 

This particular week is an interesting one, to say the least.  Kids camp is this week, which means Chewie's gone.  And my small group host family, which makes up about half of my small group, is in Michigan this week because their daughter/sister is getting married on Saturday.  Therefore, most of my friends are gone.  :(  On a good note, however, one of my good friends from small group is still in town, and I suspect much girl time to be had.  :)

Chewie and I will be celebrating our 3 year (dating) anniversary this Saturday.  Oh.  My.  Goodness.  It's so hard to believe we've been together that long.  I'm thinking about making a special dinner for him.  If you know me, you know this is a big deal because I don't cook.  In fact, it's usually Chewie who does the cooking for us.  But I have a few ideas in my back pocket that I'm thinking about trying for our anni.  Oh, and don't worry about him reading this and finding out - he doesn't have internet access at camp and, therefore, will not be able to read this until after he gets back on Saturday (the day of our anni)!

I'm still looking for a job - story of my life, it seems.  I get asked all the time how the job search is going and if I've heard anything back from anyone.  And I have heard back - my inbox is full of rejection emails.  Haha.  Ordinarily, I think this would disappoint and discourage me, but, for whatever reason, I'm not sweating it.  I know that God has a plan.  

Which leads me to something I've been thinking about recently.  Our church puts out a weekly Bible reading plan that I read every morning.  And one of the recent readings in 1 Cor 12 was about spiritual gifts and using them in the Church.  It got me thinking about my spiritual gifts and how the Lord has confirmed to me time and time again that these are the things he's given me for ministry.  There are two that I know I have for sure: administration & faith.  I can definitely see how I can use my gift of administration in the Church.  However, I'm struggling with how I can use my gift of faith.  Is it a gift that is to be used in more of an oral capacity?  Like speaking about faith to others?  I'm not entirely sure, and I've been praying through it for some guidance.  

I also finished "Lies Women Believe" and really enjoyed it.  I think I might post a more comprehensive review of it on here soon.  Since I finished that book, I started reading "Experiencing God" by Henry Blackaby.  And I'm finding it's one of those books that says simple things that I already know but somehow really convicts me anyway.  It has really challenged me to get back to the basics of what I believe and build on that foundation.  Then I'm reading one other book about fasting that has been an interesting read, to say the least.  It's a subject that doesn't receive a whole lot of attention, and this book is more of a study about fasting than a way to apply it, if that makes sense.  I've learned a lot about fasting from a historical and biblical perspective.  Definitely look forward to a review of that one.

One last thing before I go - my pastor is leaving for vacation soon, and we have a guest preacher for the month of July (as well as this last Sunday in June).  He is a college professor and is doing a series on the book of Colossians.  When he started to preach yesterday morning, I thought I was going to burst with excitement because it was as if I stepped back into one of my college religion classes.  He preaches very much like my religion professors taught, and it was so exciting to hear a sermon/lesson like that again.  Don't get me wrong, I love the way our pastor preaches - his style is definitely easy to love.  But yesterday's sermon was almost nostalgic for me.  It made me miss the days of my Prophets class or Biblical Interpretation classes.  It brought joy to my heart!

Hope you are all having a great start to your week!

Tutorial: Origami Flower Mirror

One of the websites I browse frequently - as in, more than once a day - is Craftgawker.  The whole premise of the website is inspiration for crafters.  I check it out to get ideas and try some of the tutorials that are posted.  Or just to put myself in a better mood.  :)

Anyway, I ran across a tutorial at Nifty Thrifty Things for an origami flower while browsing Craftgawker one day and decided to make some out of some of the millions of magazines I have floating around my room.  This is what I ended up with:

I got so excited about them that I decided to make a bunch of them one night while I watched Hotel Rwanda with one of my roommates - amazing movie, btw.  As I was making them, I discovered that I could cut off the back pointy end so that it would sit flat without messing it up.  Genius, I know.

I originally planned to arrange mine around a round picture frame but couldn't find one.  So I opted for the mirror instead.

So here's how you make the mirror (one day I'll remember to actually take pictures as I'm making this stuff):

• Buy a mirror.  I'm pretty sure the one I have is a 10 in.  I got mine at Michael's for $4 or $5. I'm sure I could have found it cheaper somewhere else, but I had a gift card.  

• Make eight of the origami flowers using the tutorial in the link above.  You might need more or less based on how big you make yours.  I made mine out of magazine pages.  I didn't measure the squares of magazine paper, but they were probably about 4 in x 4 in. 

• Once you've made the flowers, cut off the back end in such a way that it sits flat.  It's not hard to do.  Just be brave and snip it.  If you made them correctly, they shouldn't fall apart.  

• I put a dab of hot glue on the back side where I made the cut just to make sure it doesn't fall apart.  

• Once the hot glue dries, arrange them - evenly spaced - along your mirror's edge, and hot glue each one in place. 

• Add a loop to the back so you can hang it on the wall.

And you're done!  Pretty easy and definitely cheap!  I especially love that it has a certain tropic feel to it that rings in the summer.  Happy crafting!