What A Sexy Beast

Want to see what I find incredibly sexy?

This man right here:

Forgive me for the poor picture quality.  I took this picture on the sly, through a window that I don't remember when I cleaned last, during a small snow storm from quite a distance away.  Had to be sneaky!  Knowing all that it looks pretty good huh?!?

Anyways... This is a picture of my husband crafting in his own way.  He is so creative.  I'm pretty sure this little something is for me because he got that "I'm not doing anything" smile that he gets when he's trying to be sneaky.  I could make a guess at what it is but I don't want to jinx it so I'll just wait to be surprised.  Now you can wait with me :)

The Cutest Ribbon Storage EVER!

I am WAS constantly loosing track of my ribbon.  Seriously, it would disappear never to be seen again.  I even began to suspect some creative little bird found my random pieces to decorate her nest.  Or maybe the racoon in the field next door was trying to steal more than just dog food.  To this day I cannot find the ribbons I've used in past projects.

I saw this idea from the wonderful blog The Idea Room and had to make one for myself.  It has been probably one of the fastest and easiest ways to organize my crafting supplies so far.  I went to DI in search of a container and came across the cutest glass box/jar thingy with a glass bow on top.

Here's my ribbon storage... ahhhh...

Check out this cute little bow

Now I catch myself checking out the ribbon at stores just to see if there's anything that catches my eye.  I never used to buy ribbon without it being needed for a project in the works because I knew I'd loose it (or those pesky critters would steal it).

Now I have ribbon to do fun things with at a moments notice!  If you know me, then you know I spend more time reading than I do thinking about fun things to do around my house - which speaks volumes for the amount I read.  In a bookclub I'm in we do bookmark exchanges and I always try to make one.  Here's one I just made for a friend of mine using ribbon that would've been lost forever without my new ribbon jar.

Magnetic-Chalkboard Frame

One of my goals for 2010 is better menu planning.  I'm horrible at it and we often end up scrambling at dinner time to figure out what to eat.

One of my biggest problems is that after the initial menu planning before going grocery shopping I don't think about dinner.  Here's an example of a common conversation between my hubby and me:

Hubby: "What's for dinner hun?"

Me: "uh..."

I check my menu and see that I should've pulled stuff out of the freezer hours ago. Now we're left with either peanut butter and jelly sandwiches or hot dogs... but oh wait... no hot dog buns....

Me: "uh..."

So, my first step is to force myself to think about dinner before dinnertime.  I have this little wall between my family room and kitchen that I pass a bajillion times each day.  It's plain, boring and in need of some attention.  PERFECT!

I found a frame, hunted out the perfect spray paint and had my husband cut me a piece of steel (because he has stacks of it laying around in his garage and if I'm going to have to deal with it being everywhere then I should get a piece of it - right?).  I pulled out my chalkboard spraypaint and came up with this beauty.

I know Mustard Yellow isn't for everyone but I LOVES IT!  See,

Besides the location it's really not much more useful than the paper menu I keep by the stove.  This is where I got excited about the idea... and the reason I had my husband cut the steel.

I typed out all of my family's standard meals, printed them up & attached magnets to the back. 

Now I can move meals around when I need to without re-writting the whole thing.  That shouldn't be a problem anymore though - the menu is so cute I can't stop going over to check it out.  No more "uh..." moments for me!

If you are into Mustard Yellow this is actually called Cat Yellow - as in Caterpillar Machinery.  After searching through several stores for the right color of spray paint with no luck I came home to find out my husband had 8 cans of it in his garage so I commandeered one (after asking of course).

(For the font on the magnets I used 'Hand of Sean' from dafont.)