Snapshots: Weekend Edition

This weekend was packed full of adventures.  We did a little traveling with some of our bandmates and played tourists in our old town.  Johnny and I got to take them to a couple of our favorite restaurants and we hit up the candy shop.  These are a few snaps from the weekend:

*Taking walks in the neighborhood and finding little fallen branches to stick in your hair.
*Hope has jumped on the rubber band loom wagon and has been making bracelets for everyone.
*Johnny and I had a breakfast date on Saturday morning and stopped by to see our friend Grant play some music after.
*Oh, just the sweetest girls around.
*Taking the bandmates to our favorite Lake Ozark diner.  Stewart's is always a good idea!
*Taffy!
*Tourists, man.  ;))

I hope you all had a great weekend!  Happy Monday!

Farewell, Favorite Shoes

I had another post planned for today, but then my ol' trusty glitter flats broke and I fell into a deep sea of sad shoe shopping.  I'm sure I could find another pair, but usually I figure it's good to let a favorite pair of shoes run their course and then be done.  Otherwise I'd become that person who wears the same pair of shoes for 10+ years.  And really, who wants that?

Shoes:  1  //  2  //  3  //  4  //  5  //  6  //  7

How do you deal when you wear out a favorite pair of shoes?  Do you (sadly) let go like me, or do you search eBay and Zappos for an exact replacement?  I wanna know!

Our Camping Trip Craft Day

We recently had the opportunity to try out KiwiCrate, a monthly kid-crafting box.  They ship the box of activities to your door (2-3 in each "crate") and it comes with all the supplies.  This is great for someone like me who always seems to be out of one important component EVERY TIME.  "Let's do this really fun project where we glue collected leaves to some construction paper.  Oh.  We're out of glue.  Just kidding."  This box came with every single supply needed and I especially appreciated that.  The crafts were simple enough for Poesy to help with and interesting enough that Hope wanted to join in.  There's a new theme each month such as camping, dinosaurs, gardening, etc, so that's pretty cute.  Oh, and they're educational.  Win!

We decided pitching a blanket in the yard would make our "camping trip" feel extra authentic.

The little campfire even lights up with the help of a little tea light!  Talk about cute overload.  After we did our craft and Hope read Poesy the story from the activity book, we brought our lunch outside and had a camping picnic.  The girls had a really great time with all of it!  All in all, our KiwiCrate experience was a really fun one.  :)  

 KiwiCrate is offering 25% off the first month's crate to the first 20 readers to use the code SB25.   Happy crafting!

DIY Photo Frames

I've been needing to getting around to rotating Poesy's toys again for some time now.  Rotating has been a great way to keep her interested in the toys she currently has in her room, which helps with her need to always want new toys.  When I feel her losing interest, I simply pull out the (large) box of stored toys and switch things up.  It's a great system, except for the part where you are basically rearranging the bedroom every few months.  After this month's switcharoo, I found myself with a big, ugly, blank wall.  So, today I'm teaming up with Canon USA to bring you a simple and fun way to fill a large wall!

The first thing I did was set up a large white poster board and had a photoshoot with Poesy.  I love shooting photos of kids because it's so easy to get real emotions from them.  "Poesy, how do you feel when someone takes your toy?  Poesy, how do you feel when it's bedtime?"  I had SO MANY adorable pictures, it was hard to choose just six!

After I made some decisions, I printed my photos out with my Canon PIXMA iP8720.  This printer prints large photos!  I used 13"x19" photo paper to make these prints!

Instead of spending a bunch of money on frames, I went the cheap route and bought canvas stretchers at the craft store. I trimmed the photo to fit the back and used a staple gun to secure them.  I added an additional staple at the top for hanging.

The nice part about these canvas stretchers is that you can make them lots of different sizes and each frame only ended up costing about $4!  I love budget friendly projects.

I'm super happy with the way this project turned out!  That wall has been needing something special for quite a while and I think this was the perfect fit!  So much personality!  xo.

Weekly Wears: Bowl of Cherries

I planned to do a couple of outfit posts while we were in Costa Rica, but I honestly just never felt like it.  Hey, it was vacation and I wanted a real break, I guess.  ;)  It feels good to be getting back into the swing of everything.  I don't love rigid routines, but I do like a little consistency.

Dress: c/o Black Swan via Nordstrom;  Shoes: Swedish Hasbeens;  Necklace and Bracelet: c/o Shlomit Ofir;  Purse: ModCloth (sold out)

It's officially summer and we are excited!  I love swimming, but CANNOT do it when the water is even remotely chilly.  That means I only swim when it is sweltering outside.  I'm ready for some pool parties and a million bowls of cherries.  Cherries in the summer make me so very happy.  They are one of my favorite summer traditions.  How about you?  What's your favorite thing about your current season?

Garden Soulmates

My friend Michelle is kinda my gardening soulmate.  She has a pretty impressive garden and whenever I have questions about my own, she's the first person I ask.  It's nice having someone like that around-- especially since I think gardening is one of the most fun things to talk about.  You have to be able to release that somewhere, otherwise you may just exhaust the rest of your friends who don't really care about gardening.

In celebration of summer, we took a little trip out to Funtiques at Green Gallery for some plant and vintage shopping.  We came out with almost identical boxes of plants and a few little vintage pieces (I bought a hamper).  All in all, it was an excellent morning.  You can see more Funtiques goodness on the Great Dates post I did with Elsie.  It's a wonderful place!

I hope you all had a super weekend!  We had a weekend packed with friends and BBQs and concerts.  A+++!

Necklace: Shlomit Ofir; Backpack: Bali ELF;  Dress: Urban Outfitters