Thriftable Thursday!

Today's thriftable thursday is one I have been putting off for quite some time, not because I had better things to post about or because I didn't have time to post about it but because I could not find the item I wanted to post about!

I have been hunting for one of my favorite pairs of boots since November when it was officially acceptable to wear boots again, and I was heartbroken when I couldn't find them anywhere.  They weren't in the crawl space in a box full of winter clothes. They weren't at the top of my closet with the rest of my boots.  They weren't under my bed in my Shoes Under - yup, I said it, I use an as seen on TV product to organize my shoes and I'm damn proud of it.  My favorite boots were missing, never to be seen again!

Photographs by Marisa Pellerin Photography
Check her out here.  She's an awesome photographer!

Come to find out, they WERE under my bed, in between my two Shoes Under shoe organizers.  I found them not too long ago when my husband and I were doing a complete cleaning of our room. We removed our mattress and box spring to sweep under the bed and there they were!  They were right there the whole time! But you know what they say, and I can honestly say it is a truth that absence makes the heart grow fonder and I have officially fallen for my boots all over again.

This pair of boots was one of the first items I purchased at a thrift store that wasn't a joke or part of a Halloween costume. I got them for $15 dollars at Plato's Closet which is a thrift store that specializes in "younger" clothing such as Abercrombie, Aeropostale and American Eagle.  It's a really great store but they don't sell their stuff for super cheap, but it is very reasonable for the type of clothing they sell. You can also sell your clothing to them which is pretty cool!

I purchased these boots about 2 years ago and I still wear them several times a week.  Actually, I wore them today and noticed that they are finally beginning to show some wear and tear which made me very sad.  I've received tons of compliments on them and people ask me all the time where I got them.  I always answer honestly so I can tell people about the awesome deal I got. I love telling people about my thrifting adventures!  It never gets old!

Happy Thursday, everyone!  

Anyone doing any thrifting this weekend?  If so, please do share!

The Honeymoon Period - Fact or Fiction?

This post was inspired by Karla over at Forever Newly Wedded.  As I was catching up on some blog reading today, I read her post about how incredibly lucky she feels to have found her husband and that he chose her.  I feel the same way and a lot of times it's attributed to the fact that I'm a newlywed.

In fact, just yesterday someone asked me how married life is and I responded with "it's amazing".  She laughed and said "Awww that's cute.  You're still in the honeymoon phase."  I know that it's a common joke about marriage - you're only happy as a newlywed, in the honeymoon period but I have to say that I find this statement a little pessimistic and also a little insulting, as if the only reason I'm happy with my marriage is because I'm a newlywed.  I know the person who said it didn't mean it in that way but it really got me thinking.

Now, I'm no marriage expert.  I haven't been married for a decade or even a year.  I haven't celebrated a silver anniversary or a golden anniversary.  But I have been with my husband for six years and we've been incredibly happy for that entire period.  It's because we take marriage seriously and not as something that can be terminated when something goes wrong (coughKimKardashiancough).  We put our relationship as a top priority in our lives.  We don't scream at each other or let ourselves get irritated by the little things. We treat each other with respect always.  We think about each other's feelings.  We talk through our problems.  We learn from our mistakes and we don't let them happen a second time.

I'm not happy with my husband because I'm a newlywed, because if I really look at our lives, nothing except my last name changed when we got married. Our living situation is the same.  We have the same dogs, jobs, cars.  If anything, our lives have gotten more difficult since our wedding with the Sandy Hook shooting and the fact that Jeremie just started back to school for his masters.  I'm not happy because I'm a newlywed.

I'm happy because my husband is my best friend and because of all the reasons I already gave.  I am incredibly lucky to have him in my life and I am so lucky he chose me.  Like Karla, I'm not sure how I got so lucky but I hope I never forget it or take it for granted.

I hope when I ask someone how married life is they say it's awesome just so I can respond with "I totally agree!"

Perfect Penguin Presents!

In November of  2011 I was a Pinterest virgin - those were sad times.  Needless to say, as soon as I was on it I was completely and utterly addicted to it.  I began pinning just a month and a half before Christmas which was prefect timing for me to get some really awesome present ideas.  One of my very first pins was a picture of these super cute penguin ornaments:

I believe this is where that pin originated from.

I'm sure many of you pinners have actually seen this pin as well. Maybe many of you have even tried them out.  Last Christmas I made about 15 of these for my family as stocking stuffers and they were such a hit. Even this year, people see them on my Christmas tree and say "I want a penguin ornament!"  So I made a few more this year and I want to give a brief tutorial with some little tips about how to make these fun, personalized ornaments.

Here's what you'll need:

• 1 60 watt light bulb (white or clear - the nice thing about the 

clear bulbs is that if the paint chips a little 

you can't really see the glass underneath)

• An assortment of acrylic paints including black, white, red, orange, and blue. 

• Various size paint brushes

• Hot glue
• String or ribbon

First things first:

Take your light bulb and make a bowling pin shaped outline on it using your black paint.

Tip: I also found that using a highlighter to make the outline first makes it easier because you can do it over and over until you get your outline right. Then you can trace the highlighter outline with your black paint.  The glass of the light bulb acts like a dry erase board so you can just wipe the highlighter off after you're done!

After you do a few ornaments you'll really get a feel for it and you won't even need the highlighter.

From there:

Fill in the entire area of the light bulb outside of the bowling pin shape with your black paint.  Be careful around the metal part at the top!

You'll need two coats of black paint to really make them look nice.

Tip: Make sure the paint has dried completely on your first layer before you begin your second coat.  The wet paint slides off the glass easily so if you start painting over it before it's totally dry the paint gets pulled off and it looks clumpy and sloppy.

Next:

After your second black coat has dried, begin your first white coat in the bowling pin area (or the face and body) of your penguin. Make sure you take some time to even out the edges of his body and make them look nice and smooth.  Also, check that the sides where his tummy gets fat and round are even.  Meaning, the left side of the body should get fatter in the same place that the right side gets fatter.  Otherwise you'll end up with a lopsided penguin!

Again, wait for your first coat to dry and apply a second coat.  Take the time to make the edges of his body as nice as possible!


Finally:

Using your colored paints make two small blue eyes, an orange beak and two small rosy cheeks (I used my red paint with some white mixed together instead of buying a whole thing of pink acrylic).  To do the names and date I freehand it.  If you don't feel comfortable doing that you could probably print and cut out a stencil and then paint over them onto your penguin or possibly even try a light colored chalk to write them out first!

Tip: The end of your paint brush works really well the eyes, beak and rosy cheeks.  It's teeny and it leaves perfectly round marks!


Last but not least:

Throw a glob of hot glue on top and stick a string/ribbon loop on it. 

Tip:  Check out how big your loop is before you glue it on by holding it to a tree branch and seeing how low your ornament will hang, keeping in mind that your penguin will weigh it down a bit.  The first time I did it, I just estimated (I don't know what I was thinking because I'm really awful at guessing lengths) and it was such a huge loop that I didn't have enough space between tree branches to hang my little guy!

Wedding Weekend!

This is a post that has been sitting, ready to go for 3 weeks now.  It was supposed to go up on December 15th, but for obvious reasons that didn't happen.  I've been excited to start posting some wedding craftables for a while now and I've been waiting to post this for so long that I'm extra excited about it!

I have been waiting and waiting and waiting for my wedding photos so I could start blogging about all the DIY stuff I did for the wedding.  So, I'm pleased to announce I have my wedding photos back and I'm publishing the first official Siriusly Craftables Wedding Weekend!

J. Fiereck Photography, LLC

This weekend I want to highlight something really simple we did that was fun and helpful!  I LOVE Instagram, and let's be honest, who doesn't?  We knew there would probably be a bunch of Instagram pictures from the wedding and we really wanted to make sure we got them all.  So we, of course, did what any rational people would do - we made a hash-tag to go with our wedding!

In addition to my husband reading his vows from an iPad and my sister reading her toast from her iPhone, this was just another thing that really shows how much weddings in our generation have changed!

We posted our hash-tag on a board full of photos near the entrance to the reception, so that everyone could see it. The sign in the middle read "If you Instagram, use #Hitwedding.  We'd love to see your photos!"

Done and done.  It literally took me about 5 minutes to make and print this sign and I was able to get a bunch of fun Instagrams because of it. In all the chaos of planning a wedding it's so nice to have something that's actually easy to do!

While I'm highlighting this particular little project and because I'm such a huge fan of anything and everything thriftable, I'd just like to point out that I got this board from Goodwill for $2!  Honestly, this whole board probably cost me less than $10 to put together.  This DIY project is fun, simple and cost effective if you do it right and the Instagrams we got as a result are awesome!  Here are a few of my favorites.

Woohoo it's my wedding day!

Everything is ready to go! We had to move our ceremony
inside last minute because it was POURING outside!

Here we go!

A little fallish decor.

Our beautiful cake!  

And finally, the morning after breakfast!
What a crew!

Moving Forward.

It's been a long time since my last post. These past few weeks have been ones full of grief and sorrow, anger, frustration, restlessness, sleepless nights, and so many other emotions it's hard to name them all.  How can we possibly wrap our minds around the terrible events that took place here, in a school I went to, in the town where I grew up, in the place that is possibly my most favorite place in the entire world and how can we possibly start to move on?  But it is time, whether we're ready for it or not.  Not time to move on, but to move forward.

I've seen a lot of people over the holidays and so many of them have told me they have been reading my blog and how much they enjoy it.  It's been very encouraging and I have felt bad that I wasn't ready to return to writing quite yet.  I'm not really ready now.  My mind is still filled with relentless thoughts about Sandy Hook and how sad I am about it.  But it's time to try and get back to normalcy.  Not to forget but to move forward.

So, I'm going to start by posting some pictures of my beautiful town over the past few weeks to give me, my blog, and my readers some closure to this event.  My town is amazing and that's never been quite as clear as it has been since December 14th.  There are no words to describe any of the things that have happened, everything is too cliche and not nearly powerful enough.  This is especially true when I am trying to describe the strength Newtown has. I have never seen the level of love I have seen in Newtown and from people around the world as I have seen recently.  It's.....amazing (again, a word too weak to describe the proper emotion)

Without further ado, here is Newtown:

This is my church, St. Rose, seen on the night of December 14th. Hundreds upon hundreds gathered outside to pray for the victims of this terrible tragedy.  Later, this church would endure funeral after funeral for the beautiful lives that were lost.  The world knows this church only because of this tragedy but it is also a place of joy and happiness.  It's the place where I made my first communion and my confirmation.  It's the place I hated going to once a week for CCD, and it's the place I attend Christmas mass, my favorite mass, every year.  I hope that the world will know this church not as a place of sadness and grief but of remembrance and happy times to come.

One of the first memorials set up in Newtown, at St. Rose.  26 candles for 26 Angels.

This is the entrance to Sandy Hook Elementary School.  The world knows this place as the site of a horrible crime, an unspeakable tragedy.  I remember this school as the place I sang Baby Beluga in my Kindergarten concert for my mom and dad, the place I attended SMART camp every year until 8th grade, and the place I had one of my first color guard practices. It's hard for me to wrap my mind around the fact that I have all of these beautiful memories of this school and the kids who attend it now will probably only remember one day.

But I hope the world knows that despite the awful things that happened here, it is a wonderful place and it had many days full of happiness for everyone that attended this school.  And I hope it is a place that our angels in heaven can visit everyday.

One of my favorite items placed outside Sandy Hook.  Dear Mr. President....please, please, please!

26 christmas trees donated from North Carolina.  This was early on, just a couple of days after the shooting.  The amount of items that would collect here in the following days was truly unbelievable.  

No caption needed here.  God Bless the families.

My sister's beautiful contribution to the Sandy Hook memorial.
 "Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil for thou art with me."

Sandy Hook center.  Make 1000 paper cranes and you get a wish. Sadly, the only wish anyone would make on this day is one that cannot come true.

Finally, a throw back to the wonderful days I spent at Sandy Hook School.  This was during my Kindergarten halloween parade.  Apparently, I was the only one who took Halloween seriously.

I want people to remember the lives lost on December 14th, but just like me, everyone needs to start moving forward.   I think the best way to do that is to remember all the wonderful things about Sandy Hook and about our town.

Things like our two dollar movie theater, the general store where you can still get bacon, egg and cheese sandwiches for 99 cents before 11 o'clock, the fact that all the stop lights in town go on blink starting at 10 p.m. because nobody is on the roads, the flag pole, which is the most iconic thing in Newtown and also the most dangerous intersection because theres a giant pole in the middle of a main road, our Christmas tree lightings, and most importantly, the fact that when you walk down the street or go to the grocery store you're likely to run into someone you know.  And even if you don't, you'll end up saying hi to someone just because it's a nice thing to do.  Don't remember Newtown for this tragedy.  Remember the lives lost and the amazing town that is Newtown. Most importantly, tell your loved ones that you love them everyday.  It's a phrase that never gets old and life is short.

 Newtown strong.  

Newtown proud.  

And that's all I have to say about that.  I'll get back to my regular blogging within the next couple days!

Love,
Stacy - Proud Sandy Hooker since 1986 :)

A Day of Sorrow.

Today, in my home town a tragedy occurred.  As all of you know, Newtown, Connecticut was devastated today when a gunman opened fire and took the lives of numerous people, many of them children.

I grew up in Newtown, CT.  It has been my home since I was 6 months old. I attended Sandy Hook Elementary as a Kindergartner.  It is a place where I could walk down the street as a child and feel safe.  It is the place I plan on raising my own kids.  It is a community I know and love. And today someone walked in and destroyed that within minutes.


In this time of sorrow, there are no words that can take away our pain and hurt.  However, Newtown is a place where everyone supports one another.  We know and love each other.  And while these horrific events have torn us apart today, we will come together as a community, as we always do, and we will recover.  We will walk together, hand in hand, as we begin to heal.  We will hold up the parents and loved ones of the victims when they are not able to stand.

We will pull together and we will heal.

One day, we will live in a world where our children can go to school safely and where our loved ones are not torn away from us by acts of violence.


Love you Newtown <3


"So our hearts are broken today for the parents and grandparents, sisters and brothers of these little children, and for the families of the adults who were lost.

Our hearts are broken for the parents of the survivors, as well, for as blessed as they are to have their children home tonight, they know that their children's innocence has been torn away from them too early and there are no words that will ease their pain." - President Barack Obama

Thriftable Thursday!

My Thriftable Thursday this week is an awesome find! Let me tell you the story behind this before I get to the actual purchase itself.

For quite some time I've wanted a pair of cowboy boots. They are super cute and honestly, when I go line dancing, I just feel a little ridiculous in my converse.  My problem was how much it would cost me to purchase a pair of cowboy boots.  Seriously, do you know how much they cost?  Who can spend that much on a pair of boots?  Certainly not this frugal girl.

I searched and searched for a pair of cheap boots that were still high quality and I had no luck at all.  So I finally broke down and just asked for a pair for Christmas and Santa spent a small fortune buying me this awesome pair of slouch leather cowboy boots.  I won't deny it, they're pretty freaking amazing.  They are super comfortable, they have a nice low heal so I'm not towering over my husband (who is the same height as me) and I can wear them for hours and hours of dancing when I want to.  But again, this came at a significant cost to poor old Santa.

You know that saying...you find what you're looking for when you stop looking?  It's true. I went about my life with my new best friends on my feet and just five short months later I came across these at a Goodwill.

They were a size 6, sturdy, REAL cowboys boots and wouldn't you know it, they were 18 bucks!  I stood there debating whether or not I should buy them because I already had a perfectly good pair, but really they were mine the minute I picked those babies up off the shelf.

I rationalized it by telling myself that it's worth it as long as I get use out of both pairs.  And I do. Even though they are both brown they're quite different from each other in the way they are built so I'm able to pair them with different outfits.  

I find boots to be one of my favorite thriftable items because in stores they are usually expensive.  It's hard to get a good deal on a pair of boots unless you luck out and find a pair on clearance.  So I always check the shoe section of a thrift store just to make sure there's nothing I can't live without!









Happy Thursday everyone!