Dress Envy

MayI just say....did you see this dress?

Um, hands down one of the most beautiful dresses I've seen.  Ever.  Did you see all those buttons?

It's right up there with my all time favorite.  Sigh.

{Almost Easy} Birthday Cake

We celebrated my belated birthday this weekend.  The Bionic Man and our children were off the hook for cake making, because I needed a good excuse to try out a cake recipe I found.  The original recipe and accompanying gorgeous photographs can be found here.  The original recipe, however, seemed a little tricky to me, so I modified it and came up with a somewhat simpler version of my own.

Pretty, hmmm?  And, admittedly, very tasty, too!  This is how I made it:

The cake layers and frosting were made of some basic ingredients

and a very few not-so-basic ingredients.

Spring Decor: Burlap and Birdies Wreath

I made a spring wreath today for my front door.  Want to see?

It was pretty easy, once I worked out a few details.  These were the basic supplies:

1 large styrofoam wreath form

Burlap 

Fabric Quarters

Something Special Saturday - 4/16/11

It's Saturday.  Again.  Seriously, wasn't it just Saturday, like 2 days ago?

There just weren't enough days in my week, this time.  That's the only explanation.  Can I get a refund for that?

Alright, friends, I am going to freely admit that this is kind of a slacker SSS.  I spent the morning writing for The CSI Project, the afternoon trying to be crafty AND supervise bedroom cleaning simultaneously (bad, bad idea), and the evening trying to re-celebrate my birthday (also bad idea: we didn't know it was prom night--all the restaurants were packed).  So, instead of linking you to all the things I had fun seeing this week, I'm going to show you my Pinterest pages, where I keep those fun things.  If you want more, go get a Pinterest account.  (I have a tutorial for you, here.)  Mmmmkay?

Celebrating:

Of Omens and Amens

I woke up bright and early on Tuesday, April 12, 2011, to the beginnings of a glorious day.  The sun was rising in a cloudless sky, the birds were singing, the trees were blooming, and my husband and children were smiling.

It was my birthday, and I had big plans.  I was going to sing, and dance, and make little crafts, spread a little mulch, and bake this beautiful cake.  (I recently discovered the recipe for it, here.)

In short, the day of my--I'm proud to say it--35th birthday was going to be mah-velous, darlings, simply mah-velous!

Something Special Saturday - 4/9/11

I don't know if it is because I just came back from vacation, or what, but I have to confess something.  I've become obsessed with maps.  Specifically, maps used for decoration.

I've been finding super fun ways to decorate with maps, lately, and I'm just about ready to roll up my sleeves and put together a map room.  (We're all about going places, in this family.)  I've never really done anything to decorate our basement rec room, maybe that's because it needs to become the map room.  Check out what I've found, so far:

Vintage World Canvas from Etsy shop LilyGene's

Budget Travel: Details on the Trip to Florida, Part 2

Like I said yesterday, if you aren't interested in thrifty vacations, feel free to skip this one!  This is my second post about

A Trip to Holland's Trip to Florida on a Budget

Yesterday, I told you how lots of planning and some creative thinking help us to keep our travel costs down.  Today, I'm going to tell you about how we find ways to save on expenses that occur during the vacation, like travel, activities, and souvenirs.

It's important to consider the daily expense of food when you plan a vacation.  For any trip we take, one of the ways we cut down on food expenses is to bring a lot of food with us.  It is simply less expensive to buy food at the bargain prices you are used to finding at your favorite close-to-home store.  It's also a time-saver to bring things along.  We usually bring a large bin of non-perishable items with us, as well as a cooler of perishable foods.  Even if the hotel room doesn't come equipped with a kitchenette, we find that keeping a cooler of food in our room  filled with ice from the machine down the hall works well.