Glassybaby...

Have you heard about Glassybaby?  My mom sent me one the other day (thanks mom!) that looks like this:

I thought they were kind of expensive ($40) for a votive holder, but it is so pretty with a candle burning in it-- warm and colorful.  I really love it!

Valentines...

We got our dog Chica last year, two weekends before Valentines Day.  Because of the timing, I thought it would be cute to send valentines from the "3" of us. Our families all have dogs so Chica has some canine cousins.  I bought Papersource boxes, made valentines, and packaged them in the boxes with cutout pink  heart cookies for the humans and heart shaped bones for the dogs.

I used mini-marshmallows for padding, which the dogs also loved.  A fun debut for Chica!

Winter home improvement...

Around this time last year I started working on a big garage improvement project. The homes where we live are relatively small and extremely expensive, so really using the garage makes sense (it is California, so a lot of people don't park in their garages). Ours, however, was not very pleasant:

The idea was to keep it as a functioning garage so we could park in it when we want to, but to make it a nice workroom that didn't feel like such a dungeon the rest of the time.  We decided to paint it white, epoxy the floor, and install some storage cabinets.  It took 3 coats of primer and 2 coats of semigloss paint to get all that wood covered, but it made a huge difference:

Then we applied Rustoleum Epoxy to the floor. It was only $120 and was another huge improvement from the bare concrete. You have to prep the floor properly, but it is really pretty easy and you can finish it in a weekend.  This is the floor before and after:

The white cabinets are actually the most basic kitchen cabinets from Ikea.  They were about the same price as the garage cabinets you can get at Home Depot or Lowes but much better quality.   I got a big craft table there too.  We also hung some white pegboard for tools and outdoor equipment:

This is the total before and after.  We love it and use it all the time.

Baby Bee gift...

All of our friends are starting to have babies, and it seems that most of them get so overwhelmed with hand-me-down baby clothes and stuff that they barely need anything by the time the shower rolls around. I read somewhere about blabla dolls and thought one would be a perfect present since that is not the type of thing one would usually receive as a hand-me-down. So I ordered mini Clochette the fairy.  She is so soft and squishy... it seems like the perfect first doll for a baby girl. You can also wash them, so it seemed great for a really little kid.

I also made a set of baby bee onsies with the bee logo to go with he.  I used fabric paint for the letters and the iron-on transfers left over from my Thanksgiving project for the bee logos. A set of 3 onsies was only $6 so this was a very affordable and super cute project. This is the front:

And this is the back:

First harvest...

Well, it is actually just one orange, so it is not exactly a harvest.  But it is the first orange I've ever grown so it's kind of exciting.  My sister gave us a blood orange tree for Christmas when we moved into our house two years ago.  Nice gift, then she said "it is supposed to bear fruit in 8 to 10 years."   Hmmm...we're patient, but that seemed like a long time.  However, two short years later, look what we have:

 It is tiny, but juicy and delicious!  Thanks Meg-- glad we didn't have to wait 8 years to tell you!