Minted Business Card Challenge

My friend, Cassie, introduced me to minted.com when I was designing her wedding invitations, they had very sweet, airy letter-pressed invitations. I looked over the site at least once a month after that just see what was new. Some how I missed the contests, until now! They have one about once a month, this month was to design a stay in touch business card. 

Here's mine, it was fun to work on something outside of my day-to-day and I'm really looking forward to next months challenge. If you'd like to look at the other entries and vote click here.

2011 Calendar

For the past two years the creative team at work have put together a calendar as a gift for the account team. I'm always impressed with what we all come up with. To check it out click here.

It's been a while...

Wow! I kind of fell down on this job. It's been a busy 5 months since I posted last. I had a birthday, we bought a new car, Hayden started the fourth grade, Allen and I had our 10th anniversary, Hayden played soccer, and Allen had a birthday. In October we drove to San Antonio for a long weekend, it was a LONG drive. We went to see the Alamo, the Riverwalk and Sea World. I loved, loved, loved the Riverwalk! It was kind of a grown up thing to do with a kiddo and Hayden wasn't as impressed as we were, she was a good sport though. We walked through the Alamo, Riverwalk and the Mexican market all in one day, by the time we made it back to the hotel we were pooped. Here are a few of my favorite photos that I took with my phone.

112th Tontitown Grape Festival

Allen has worked at the Tontitown Grape Festival every year since we've been married. Hayden and I finally decided to go see what it was all about. Whew! It was H_O_T_! They serve fried chicken and spaghetti dinners that must be incredible because people stand in line for hours to buy tickets to dinner and then stand in another line for more hours for the food. The line is too much for me! We listen to some music and then Hayden rode some rides and I took some pictures.

Glasses!

Hayden had to get glasses this week. She was SO excited about them she tried to take the pair from the doctors office without the right lens in them. I went and picked them up yesterday, so far so good. She looks super cute in them.

Giant Moustachio

I love him!

Grilled Cheese and Goat Weed

This Saturday night Cynthia and I went to Fayetteville for a girls night out. We went to Hammontree's to eat dinner, a restaurant that specializes in grilled cheese! How brilliant is that? I have had the Where the Wild Things Are and it was awesome, but Saturday I tried the Caprese Melt, also good but not AS good as the other. After that we went to Kingfish, a new bar off Dickson St., probably my new favorite. We stopped at a gas station on our way out of Fayetteville to use the restroom and I snapped this picture with my phone.

Yeah, I don't know what it is but we sure got a laugh out of it!

Flea Market Art

When I go treasure hunting at flea markets there are a couple of things I'm always looking for, number one on that list is original art. (dishes would be the rest of that list) One day Cassie and I went True Treasures in Bentonville on our lunch break and I found this gem. It's taken me a while to spiff it up. I painted the frame and put a matt on it, then I had to figure out where to hang it. I think I might have spent a totally of $40 on it and I LOVE IT! My favorite parts of the drawing are his eyes and their hands.

Super Olive

To give you some reference on this amazing jump, Hayden is 5' and Olive might be 20" on all fours. She's a jumper! If you look closely you can see her tongue.

Orchards Park

Bentonville has a new park! Orchards Park, it's across the street from the future Crystal Bridges. Very nice park and they have live music out there every once in a while. Tonight Travis Kidd played, for those of you that have been in this area for a while you probably heard him play somewhere on Dickson St. in the mid to late 90s. He plays a little bit of everything and was lots of fun to watch.

The Sinful Life of Lucy Burns

If you're looking for a fun, quirky book to read I recommend this one! I enjoyed it so much I read it in two days. Click here to read the synopsis and reviews.

Flea Market Finds

This weekend was a rainy, rainy weekend! Friday night Hayden and I went to see Toy Story 3 so today she agreed to go to the flea markets with me. Yay! We went to two of my favorite flea markets, The Rose and The Rose, Too. They are both packed full of all kinds of treasures. 


I ended up with some Anchor Hocking "Manhanttan" depression glass, two glasses and a berry bowl. My mom gave me two "manhattan" salad plates that belonged to my grandma and I fell love with the pattern, if you can really call it that. I think it's elegant and timeless.


And a Pyrex baking dish the pattern is Butterprint in Turquoise, which I love because it's so retro. Someone I work with has the mixing bowls and maybe more and I covet them. He's not selling, I asked. :)

Flowers or No Flowers?

One weekend in May, I was invited to go to Chris Olsen's house with Amanda. He's a landscape architect in Little Rock, and he has an open house a few times a year. Needless to say his yard AND his house were amazing! The design of it all was very finished and he had lots of fun art. In his sun-porch off the back of the house he had hung neat plastic flowers all over walls and ceiling, available at Urban Outfitters. I decided, like I do, that I could make those, easy peasy. HA! 

Well, this is what I have so far and I think I either need a few more or I need to scrap the idea. What do you think? Not as perfect as the plastic ones, but handmade? :)

Broadway Baby

Hayden has officially accomplished something I have never done and will never do, she was in her first play at Rogers Little Theater. An even bigger deal, she tried out for a part! She sang a song in front of all the other kids and some of their parents.


She and 52 other kids along with the help of the Peacocks put together a collection of  songs and skits from various Broadway musicals. They did a great job and it was lot of fun to watch...twice. Mom, Dad and Allen went to the second performance with me, thanks for coming Grammy and Pop!! Next time I'll get a picture of all of us.


Hayden had so much fun she wanted to be in the second session that started the following Monday. We decided that it would be best to wait and maybe try the fall session in August. For now we're moving on to swim lessons.


(I couldn't figure out why the photos were so fuzzy and I thought maybe the camera hadn't adjusted from being inside, then I found little fingerprints on the lens. :) 

My Big-Little Garden

Here's an updated photo of my garden. It's grown sooo much! The plant in the front growing over the side is the burpless cucumber, it probably could have been in the container all by itself. The tomatoes have lots of blooms but not tomatoes yet. The okra has a baby okra and the bell peppers have babies but the leaves don't look so hot. I sure hope we get at least one veggie from each plant.

Oh, the Drama

So, I'm sure you all know that Hayden is full of drama. She's been in a drama camp at Rogers Little Theater for about a week and a half and loving every minute. I can't tell you how many times I've heard, "You can't stop the beat". Her performance is Friday and Saturday and the parents are in charge of the costumes. The rules we were given were, it has to have a black base and any other color had to be sparkly. This is what we've come up with. I pretty proud of it! Me, Allen and the house are covered in pink and purple glitter.

Deep-Fried Creative

A friend of mine found this blog, Monsters in Real Places. I thought it was super cute and would be fun to try. I challenged the rest of the crew at Deep Fried Creative to make some monsters of our own. Here's mine.

Check out the rest of the monsters at Deep Fried Creative.

Olive

This is Olive, she has lived with us for a little over a year and we love her very much!

My Little Garden

I have a friend that built a raised garden earlier this summer and her garden inspired me. Allen and I talked about it for a while and he had the great idea to use a galvanized, livestock water tank.

He drilled holes all along the bottom and then we put pea gravel in before the dirt.

I planted the plants 2 weeks ago and they've grown so much already. You can't tell it in these

pictures, but one of the tomato plants has a flower on it. :)

Memorial Day Weekend at Silver Dollar City

Allen unexpectedly had a few days off this weekend and we decided to go to Branson, MO. We went to Ripley's Believe It or Not and Silver Dollar City.

We took the tour of the Marvel Cave. I got a little nervous when the tour guides went over the reasons not to go through it.

The list included:

• over an hour long with no restroom
• over 500 steps
• your afraid of the dark
• your afraid of bats
• your claustrophobic

It was actually kind of fun, but I won't be spelunking with out a tour guide ever!

For some reason the first ride Hayden decided to go on was Wildfire. I am terrified of roller coasters. (I've only been on one my whole life, the Texas Giant, and I'm pretty sure I had a panic attack during the ride.) I waited in line with them and then went to observation deck.

You can't tell it from this picture, but she's was really excited. She was green when they got off the ride and I'm not sure she'll ever get on another one.