String Lighting Loveliness

I love, love, love string lights! Last year we had some round Christmas lights up over the patio but they were strung kind of wonky and then somehow half of them stopped working (still blaming the tree trimmers for that). But there is a silver lining to that story now! I've loved the bigger globe string lights for a long time. Starting with this picture I spotted a long time ago, before pinterest was around, to be exact.

Picture from here

Then I started seeing similar pictures all over pinterest, but could never quite think of a way to get them strung properly for our particular set up. The house is just too far away to be quite right, the fence is a different height, on and on. We thought about a pergola, but that would be way too much work and too expensive. Long story short, I finally spotted this picture from Southern Living and had that "ah-ha" moment.

Picture from here

Luckily, Joe was totally on board with the idea and was the brains behind the execution of the project. We wanted a semi-permanent set up, but also loved the idea of being able to take it with us to our next place. We basically cemented our bamboo poles into our buckets using the beams in the garage to keep everything straight while the cement dried. Then Joe used eyelet hooks and "s" hooks to hang the lights. I keep forgetting to take pictures during the day, so here's some slightly blurry evening shots :)

Project Life: June 3-9 & June 10-16

Got caught up with my project life book last night, still continuing to find reasons to love this project! (Jenn, you were so right!) I don't know why I have a tendency to hold out so long on certain things. Now, I need to stop buying stuff for it! I ordered the big packet of page protectors and the clementine album a few days ago. I was hoping to get the grid cards but its looking like they will be out of stock for awhile. The core kits are also out of stock but I've decided to just make my own "kit" to try to make a dent in my stash. I've decided I officially have a "paper problem". I've got a bunch of other goodies on the way too, will share some pics once they arrive. I've decided to try doing a weekly blog post on Mondays or Tuesdays with my pages to keep me procrastinating ;)

June 3-9

Had fun making my own "his" and "hers" stickers. Also loving my new little label maker!

Had to add the chopstick instructions from the sushi place :)

First insert, front and back. Map from the visitor center and camping pictures! Used up some old stickers!

June 10 - 16. Inserted Hannah's invitation using an 8.5 x 11 page protector, stitched around invite, couple extra zigzags and cut off the excess. Extra stitching was primarily to keep the invite centered, also like the texture that it added.

This week is totally out of chronological order, the first column of pics are all from Seattle, 2nd column from Spokane and the other page is all from Hannah's graduation party. Like having the freedom to just put things where they work and not get to serious about it all being in exact order. 

Mostly pictures here, I've been using Picasa to make 4x6 size "collages" of two vertical pictures which works out fantastic for printing but takes a little extra time. Letter stickers are both from AC, Dear Lizzy line, other labels are Martha Stewert. The stamp was in the dollar bin at Michaels.

These Days

It's been nice having some extra days off this week. Got a chance to catch up on some sleep and now actually getting some stuff done around the house, hanging out with friends, relaxing and enjoying the now nice weather that has finally decided to show up. This is going to be a little picture heavy... 

Starting inside...My curtain material turned into a body pillow cover.

Kitty being interested in everything, per usual.

Hemming the curtains finally, 2 down, 4 to go.

On the fridge :)

Sleepy kitty

Getting back on the chapter a day thing, figure I have til the end of summer to finish.

Moving outside...Alliums, such cool flowers!

Neighbor's yellow roses growing all over our fence.

Cilantro growing.

Dill plant, took the flowers off to see if it will grow better.

Mint doesn't even have a dent in it, after a good trimming/harvest. Hooked on the T shirt skirts, they are awesome!

Hostas leaves are gigantic!

So many buds on the hydrangea this year! Yay!

Window box with pink geraniums and bacopa starting to fill out.

Lovely pastry celebrating the start of summer!

Out and About ... Finally getting some SUNSHINE around here!!

Joe hitting some sweet jumps at Beacon Hill. I hiked in and took pictures :)

Perfect "northwest" smell here! Warm dirt and pine needles. Ummm... makes me smile.

Summer Manifesto

Everyone else is jumping on this bandwagon, so yesterday, I thought why not? it's the first day of summer. Ali Edwards issued a challenge on her blog awhile back. I love the one Elise put on her blog here. As you can see mine is very similar, I loved the idea of putting it on a photo that can go in my project life album. And to me the essence of summer is a bright blue sky with a few wispy clouds floating by. Summer has always been my favorite season. I love the long warm nights, being outside more, all the fresh produce, yummy fruit, barbecued ribs, cold drinks. I kind of miss the lazy days of summer since I've started working. This summer, in addition to the crazy amount of trips we have planned, I also want to slow down and enjoy the little things that make summer so wonderful! 

Week One

Hopefully will have week two done soon, have all the pics printed out and cut up, will probably have to make my first insert too for our little camping trip. Thought I would share week one though. Having fun so far! It's great getting pics printed out and into something so quickly! Hope everyone is having a good week. We're having lots of rain and thunder and lightening storms the last few days. Looking forward to seeing some friends soon, summer plans and getting a new mattress! We ordered a TemperPedic, eek! that was expensive, but hopefully will be sleeping good and maybe feeling better soon. 

Lake Chelan

We went on a quick overnight camping trip in Lake Chelan on Saturday. Super windy but dry and sunny!! Nice to get out a bit and just take it easy! 

 Cute little cafe in Chelan

Creek running along our campsite

View from the dock, you can see how the wind was whipping up the water.

Camp number / "Dog food" for breakfast

"Fun Flames", packaged salts that turn the fire fun colors.

Hanging out at camp...

Project Life

Yikes! I can't believe I'm actually starting project life... so exciting! My friend Jenn finally talked me into it over Memorial Day weekend. Seems like a good time to start, the first half of the year was a little rocky, but that's over and I'm looking forward to the rest of 2012! I like how project life lets you "scrapbook the little things" which is hard to do with the regular 12x12 format. It will be so cool to see seven months of daily life all together in an album at the end of the year!

I finished the cover page today, cover pages are always a little intimidating, so it took me a little while to figure it out. I'm really happy with how it turned out. I was inspired by Jenn's and Elise Blaha's cover pages. For the rest of the book, I'm not planning for it be that detailed. Just get it in there. It will be a challenge from my usual slow mode of scrapbooking. 

I'm enjoying a lazy "saturday". Hoping to finish week 1 soon!