in the thick of it

i carved a pumpkin/jack o' lantern stamp collection. if you follow me on instagram you will know that i carved these awhile ago and have recently (as in yesterday night) finished an autumn leaves collection as well. i have been posting things seriously late on this blog, but maybe someday i'll catch up... we'll see. anyway, my little ladies have been having a blast with these stamps and i plan to share some of their creative work soon... along with that leaf collection.

was hoping to give this sweet little thing some love and a fresh coat of paint. i planned to paint it all summer, but i couldn't decide on a color (mostly because i'm just not sure where it will end up in the house). i finally just decided to go with white paint and iron hardware, but now i'm loosing the weather... once again... we'll see.

our bunny... i feel things are going well. i am constantly surprised how much there is to learn about these little critters though. example, i have been finding some strange white stuff in his litter box and thought something was wrong with him... then after some research found that this is normal they just pee out extra calcium and that i should switch him from alfalfa pellets to timothy hay pellets... but since he's still so young alfalfa should be fine for now... okay.

 the chicken tractor is borrowed from my in-laws. the bunny loves it. and yes, we do put his litter box in there. that thing goes everywhere he does so that he always uses it... we clean it out every other day. it has pet litter made from paper, and always fresh hay. did you know that they need hay in their litter box? another one of those strange things... they need it to stimulate their digestive system.

alright... enough bunny talk.

we are officially pet sitters for our big white friend. he is so sweet and so beautiful. we all adore him. i feel like it's the perfect situation. we are going to get to watch him a couple weekends a month (if it works out for us), and get our dog fix.... it really builds up that dog need. then we also don't have the full commitment of a dog, which these dog sitting visits show us we are not quite ready for. 

oh, i sure love him though. doesn't he look like a polar bear?

we are also in our second cycle of the tooth fairy.

our older two went through a cycle together... although layla does still have a few baby teeth. now though, eislee is starting the cycle all over again and i know ollie will not be far behind her. eislee lost her second tooth last night... and the tooth fairy may have forgot to come, ahem. luckily the tooth had fallen to the floor, so i pointed out that the tooth fairy probably just missed it since she was expecting it to be under the pillow and that we should try again tonight. 

this houses' tooth fairy is a bit of a forgetful type, but she has been known to give stickers if she misses two nights in a row... sometimes they almost hope for a miss. 

when my son lost his last baby tooth, the tooth fairy actually missed like five nights in a row. then, the last night before he headed up to bed, he stopped and asked me... "mom, do you think the tooth fairy will actually remember to come tonight?" with a raised eyebrow and a hint of sarcasm in his voice. i just laughed and said "hopefully" with a wink. just another reason i am learning to love my babies growing up. these kids... what would i do without them?

big metal tanker desk(top) remodel : : before and after

well, i finished my desktop... what do you think?

i layered brown craft paper in between the glass and desktop, and i decorated the brown paper with my hand carved stamps. the mushrooms are from geninne's book "making an impression" and are in white ink. the arrows were inspired by an image i saw online and are stamped in a brown ink (circling around the outside of the mushroom prints). as you can see below... with all of the light coming in from those windows and the way it reflects on the glass... the mushrooms are actually really subtle. 

it was a bit hard to photograph the rubber top in this light. i feel like i didn't really capture how awful looking it is with these photos... but you get the gist. that white looking square in the photo below is actually where the rubber is all cracked and faded. 

ordering the glass cut to fit the top solved the usability problem (that rubber was not going to clean up easy with my creative messes). but i wanted a little more... i wanted it to be "pretty" too. although i was not sure how i wanted to accomplish that. then i was inspired by a scrap of brown paper i found with white scrolls and flowers on it. i wanted that under my glass. then it hit me... i had brown craft paper... i had white ink and stamps... i could make my own pretty paper!!

i rolled the paper i had on hand across my desk and it was the exact depth of my desk... perfect. so i cut it and taped down the sides. i tested out a few different inks, stamps, and patterns on a scrap piece. then i went for it. after the ink dried, i placed the glass right on top with the paper still taped down, and then i took my exacto and ran it around the edge of the glass.

now it is done... it was really easy... and possibly the best part... i can change it any time i want.