Tag Archives: challenge

08.29.13

Holiday Lamp Challenge...rebounding

Posted by Christina // 10 Replies

Yesterday I told you all about my grand plans for an early Christmas victory.

I also revealed my excitement that Lamps Plus and Hometalk got together, gathered some bloggers and gave them each a fillable lamp to make their own. There is nothing I love more than a crafting challenge, except maybe procrastinating….which explains why last night I spent the whole night try to be creative on the spot thanks to that first fail.

I knew I was heading in the gold direction. There is no better time to mix metallics than during the holidays, so I embraced it a little early. When I found some pretty gold fabric I knew that had to be the shade cover. Unfortunately, since I am not a professional photographer I had a lot of trouble showing you how pretty this fabric really is. I wanted to avoid anything predictable for the base, but guess what I fell in love with….the definition of predictable. Throw a quirky quote in and I am sold. I know it looks a little plain in that picture up there, but that’s because you can’t see all the glamour of that fabric. In person, it’s like Jessica Rabbit walking straight through my living room. You know it’s all about the details anyways. I fell hard for the clear ornaments, and ate my words on not wanting to use them. I just love how they reflect the light and sometimes look like bubbles in the lamp. I think I will keep them forever. The gold glitter adds that extra something, the oomph to my oh la la.

The best part is, I can change out the base any dang time I want. This is my kind of ever-lovin-mind-changing lamp. Maybe one day I will figure out the sand, one day.

Do you think I made a good rebound from yesterday’s fail?
Did you get my “bright” joke?
What would you have filled this lamp with?

08.28.13

Lamp fail...

Posted by Christina // 13 Replies

A little while back I got way too excited to take part in a makeover challenge….especially considering I wasn’t on an episode of Jenny Jones Geek to Chic….I was just taking a very classy lamp from Lamps Plus and giving it some holiday glitz. You know how I love a crafting challenge.

The fine folks at Hometalk (have you been there….if you haven’t what the heck are you waiting for) and the sweethearts at Lamps Plus were kind enough to send us a snazzy fillable lamp to makeover just in time for the holidays. What? Don’t tell me that holiday preparation can’t start in August, Scrooge….I say bah humbug all the way to the ornament aisle with that nonsense. I could start Christmas crafts in March if Tim would let me.

So I began brainstorming. I let my Christmas creativity creep all up in my head. I came up with a brilliant plan, no ornaments, no pinecones, no lights. I wanted to fill my lamp with a glorious Christmas scene for everyone in our home to admire. Our dogs are totally into Christmas scenes.

I would put snow in the bottom and take those old Christmas figurines that old aunt Edna gave me and give them the razzle dazzle. Then I would doodle some pretty gold dots for the daytime effect and when you flip that switch BAM…you have snow falling on our little town. It was going to be the Christmas lamp trifecta, well…doublefecta since it really only had two looks.

Here is a sneak peek of us brainstorming our pretty city pre-gold dots. It sort of looks like a Halloween town so I feel like we were killing two birds ya know. We give love to all holidays, no discrimination. So I scavenged for fake snow. Seriously, did you forget it is August. Finally settled on white sand and got to work laying the fancy down on my little people. Then the unthinkable happened, I tried to put it together. How do I put sand in from the bottom and keep my little people all adorable. Well, I left that part up to Timbo.

See we will just glue the people to the foam see. And then see we will just pour the sand in the top see, and then I will just use these here tongs to perfectly place your little people. Oh wait…how will I do that without the sand coming out the bottom? And this long rod will make it very hard to maneuver in there. Well, actually…this isn’t going to work. Come up with Plan B.

Literally, after spending hours hand-painting figurines and taking photos and searching for fake snow…I was told to, ahem, and I quote, “scratch that”. Squeeze me?

If you need me I will be at home, rocking back and forth while I try to think of some sort of Christmas miracle.

06.17.13

Make Monday Matter.....don't honk

Posted by Christina // 2 Replies

We had such high hopes this weekend…such big plans. Instead, we just sat at the window watching the rain wash away our big-project plans. I hope your weekend was more fun and less wet than ours. Maybe you were sipping Mojitos on the beach, and if you were why didn’t you bring us with you?

Today’s challenge seems like just a nice gesture, but there’s a bigger picture. Get this, sounds is measured in decibels (dBA) and of course there are different levels. Normal conversation is about 60 dBA unless you are laughing with Fran Drescher. That noisy restauraunt will run you about 85 dBA. Your car horn is typically around 110 dBA. At 110 dBA, the maximum exposure time is 1 minute and 29 seconds before hearing damage occurs.

Yea, you can damage people’s hearing with car horns. We have all heard that hearing loss is starting younger and younger, thanks in part to blaring tunes in your ear buds to drown out all that other noise. Did you know that 28 million people have impared hearing caused by noise?

So today, give your horn a break unless you are in some serious danger. No friendly good-bye honk. No HEY I am here honk. No YOU ARE AN INSANE DRIVER honks…just blow them a kiss as you drive by.

Are you a honker?
What is the ~~honkiest~~…~~horniest~~…ummmm nevermind.
Ever been to Philly? They honk a lot.

03.18.13

Make Monday Matter....eleven

Posted by Christina // 10 Replies

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My ears are still clogged….can you believe it?

I thought this Monday’s task would be impossible, but since I am still under the weather I am now thinking it might not be so bad. You ready for this… I know, I know…it’ll be hard. If you’re like me then your phone is attached to your hand at all times. When I forgot my phone at home a couple months ago my whole day seemed off kilter. I was all “the world needs to see this perfect frozen custard…the girls who are dieting will be so jealous ohhh wait”. I get it.

But really think about how often our phones are glued to our hands, and how much we are missing. I wonder about all the beautiful sights that pass me by while I am checking Facebook. I mean what if P. Diddy is throwing white party invites out and I just walk on by staring at my little screen packed with gossip. I could be hanging out with the Beibs instead of stalking who Selena is snuggling up to nowadays.

Can you think back to when we were tots and roamed the streets with no way of contacting anyone, those were the days. Aliens could have abducted us and no one would know until we made it back home for dinner. Now you can check-in on the spaceship, and show breaking photos, and get their digits while you’re at it. Holler for the little green guys.

So today, and only today because I may go through severe withdrawals (sad, but true) I am leaving my phone home. I have plenty of gasoline, and if I do break down I feel like at least one car will have a cell phone that I can borrow after promising I don’t have bird flu. I wonder how much Tim is going to miss me blowing up his phone with dreams of goldendoodle puppies.

Are you addicted to your cellular?
Can you go a whole day without it? A whole week?
Will Facebook file a missing persons for me tomorrow?

01.31.13

Holler for thrift shops....

Posted by Christina // 28 Replies

I do believe everyone has caught on to the awesomeness of thrift shops.
Macklemore has helped, but so have DIY blogs.

The blogs that inspire you to take on the horrid dresser and paint it kelly green and change out the hardware and voila it’s gorgeous. Oh c’mon it’s just that easy, right? Yea right.

Obviously I was delighted when one of my favorite blogs decided to host an unofficial thrifting challenge. The challenge was to basically live out the song…if you have ever seen the video then you know I was dying to run across the recliners. All for the challenge of course, but T wouldn’t let me. What a buzz kill.

There was also a scavenger hunt to find the things they rap about.
I wish we would have tried harder for fringe and green gator boots. I would say we did pretty good finding all the randomness.

We also found a couple other favorites, look at my boyfriend wiggin out.
He was so excited about that oversized hand. My favorite find was a little more realistic…and if I would have known that a nice clean person took care of these before me then we’d be eating off them tonight. But there wasn’t a full set and what if a hoarder used to own those in a drawer full of cat poop? These are the things that go through my head people.

On top of finding all those sweet spoils….we stayed under budget too.
I think those are Tim’s favorite words, “under budget”.
So what did we splurge our $18.98 on?

Well, as much as I loved that pink suit….it did not make it home with us.

I have big plans to jazz up most of that stuff. Especially the vase and utensils.

What thrift store gold have you found lately?

01.14.13

Make Mondays Matter....two

Posted by Christina // 14 Replies

So a few years ago, one of my best friends got me a book.
I liked it, and I read it….but it just kind of sat on my desk.

Mocking me.

The book is “Every Monday Matters” and it gives you an assignment each Monday to help enhance your life. I always wanted to jump right in, but I never actually did. You know how that story goes, right?

This year, I decided, is the year.

Tim and I started last week with the first Monday, the assignment was to make a list of the most important things in your life. As I was making my list I thought, why not share this with all of my friends? So if you would like to join us….you can find the book at most stores and online.

It is chock full of interesting facts and mind-blowing statistics that get your brain gears grinding. Did you know that the average person spends 100 hours a year commuting to work compared to 80 hours of vacation time, which is why we need someone to get on that who time-travel thing.

I will also be posting the weekly challenge right here for anyone that wants to get down on the challenge with us.

Or tell us how hard this week is going to be. “Instead of watching reruns of Friends….go make some”

We would love to be ambitious and say we are giving up TV for the entire week, but let’s be honest here. Tim and I often have the TV on for background noise when we are working. We always eat dinner over the coffee table while couching it up to Law and Order (which we vow will change when there are kiddos cobbing onto our mac and cheese). We even leave the TV on while we sleep. That’s my fault because I can’t turn my brain off…did I do the dishes, what do I have to do tomorrow, how many calories were in that triple-chocolate-devil-creamy-mocha-cheesecake, I should work out more, that Gillian Flynn sure can write, yada yada yada.

So today, we are tuning out.
All TV’s will stay off and instead we will talk to each other….wish us luck.

Kidding obviously, but maybe we will like it so much that we will sell all our TV’s.

Have you ever gone without TV?
Think we can manage a whole day without Honey Boo Boo?
Will you be joining us?