Mid Week Thrifting

So on Wednesday I decided to go to Montana Rescue Mission (MR.M) to see what I could thrift... and when I usually go there I look for new planters and mason jars because I am OBSESSED with planting and gardening... not sure if that is even a strong enough word!  As I was meandering through the crowed isles I have have my arms full with a jar and a few gardening books when I see a fish tank...!! SO EXCITED.... I immediately relieve my arms of its clutter and start examining the tank and all of its parts!...

You must know that growing up my parents had a large saltwater fish tank.... it was so beautiful and i guess somewhere deep inside me had really missed having a fish tank! When we moved to Billings we didn't take the tank with us.. way to much work to try and transport fish and all... but we did have a smaller tank for the rest of my growing up.

Funny story... when I was in the third grade my school had a "SCHOOL CARNIVAL" and each room was a different booth and the hallways were decorated and there was a cake walk ... and this particular year there was a FISHING BOOTH... it was set up in the main hallway between the upper grade classrooms and the gym by the bathrooms... I don't know why I can remember all that but I do... so don't judge.. And this booth was a kiddie pool filled with goldfish (you know the feeder kind.. not the real nice looking ones) And you would pay like 4 tickets to play an activity and then the prize would be a gold fish.  Well my mom was so  against us getting fish that we couldn't play that one... but as the evening progressed my Grammie had come with us and we all know how good Grammies are at spoiling their grandchildren.... and I was pretty good at asking hehe...  She took my sister and I around the booths and when we passed by the Fishing booth we got to play... but because it was close to the end of the carnival we were each given 3 goldfish as our prize! haha YAY For awesome Grandparents.

We took them home and then put our smaller tank together and named our fish... and they went on to live a long life... my mom had thought that they would be dead in a week but she was wrong..dead wrong.  They lived at least until I was a freshman in high school!  However, all of my friends' fishes were dead within a few days. I secretly wonder if the only reason they survived was because my mom was so against us having them in the first place....? But it was probably due to the fact that our goldfish lived in a heated 20gal tank with a filter and air.... but I am going to believe that God had a little lesson in there too :D

OK Sorry... big bunny trail..AND now back to MR.M.

So I decided to buy this $6.99 2.5 gallon tank and take it home. I thoroughly scrubbed it and cleaned it up good... but I was so excited to find that the air pump and tank filter worked beautifully... So I dove my little self down to PETS MART and bought a male beta and a moss ball. I spent a good amount of time wondering the fish section trying to decide on the perfect fish for our tank... but all of the ones I really wanted were schooling fish and they need bigger tanks so I decided that one beta would get to have the best life in a whooping 2.5 gals all to himself..

YES... a MOSS BALL... he is a little green round puff of moss that rolls around to the warmest parts of the tank filtering out alege by eating.  I named our  Mr. Marvin... he is a party animal! (not really)
And our beta is BOB... David named him. He swims around and attacks his reflection so I think I am going to try and paint a cool background poster for his tank... So I spent a total of $20 and now we have a cute little low maintenance pet/room enhancer! and I LOVE IT. I just hope I can keep him alive..

on the shelf at MR. M

All Clean

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Its March Already?!

Wow its already the middle of March and I feel I haven't blogged in FOREVER! The last couple of weeks have been so LONG but they have gone by so FAST! I am never sure how that works... I mean time is constant... there will always be 60 seconds in a min, 60 min in an hour, and 24 hours in one day....  but it sure seems to have sped up dramatically the last few months! Does anyone else feel that way??

I was attempting to do the February Photo Challenge to take one picture each day.... I WAS Doing so good but then I just didn't do the last 2 days!! WHO DOES THAT?  I am going to blame it on the fact that the picture we were supposed to capture on 28  (money) was the picture I was most excited to take. I had been waiting and looking forward to it ... well the 28th came and I went to go take a picture of all  the foreign currency I had been collecting from my various trips to Brazil and Ethiopia..... AND IT WAS MISSING!!!  AHH i was so upset that I just didn't take the picture at all... thus I didn't complete the challenge.... Now I am pretty sure the money isn't gone... it probably just got moved out of place when we moved upstairs... But here are the 27 pictures I did take :D we will never know what the last 2 would have been.

Since we have moved...

We have painted the kitchen and it looks way better! I chose "sunken pool" for the top half and "seal gray" for the bottom! I love painting and making things look WAY better! I still need to do some touch ups but I haven't had the time or energy to make that happen. I did, however, buy some fabric to  make cute retro kitchen curtains! Now if I only had a place to set up my sewing machine....and then learn how to thread it.  BABY STEPS People!

I have also become semi-obcessed with plants and gardening! I don't know when it happend excatly but I so LOVE watching things grow. I feel like having house plants warms up the home and makes it feel like there is life! So I bought a tropicalish tree at home depot when I was looking at paint a few weeks back! I'm not exactly what type of tree it is because my mom threw her tag away when we were planting her... yeah its a her and WE named her Pippy Long Leaf! hehe... She is super cute and green.... and looks magnificant next to our BIG window and entertainment center!  if you look up at day 25 of february you will see a picture of her.

I have also turned our "dining room" into a gardening room haha.  We don't have a table for our dining room so I put a wire shelf next to the window in there and have started seeds for our vegetable garden...(that is if we can still use the back yard).

~side story: the way the agreement is in the house that we rent is that the bacement apartment has the use of the back yard and the upstairs uses the front... but when we moved upstairs we offered to do all lawn care for less rent and the took it... So I am thinking that since we are the lawn care providers we will be able to still put the garden in the back like we were planning last year.  However we have to ask Doug.. (the new guy downstairs)  if he cares... but I really don't think he will because he works like 10-12 shifts all week!! SO BRING ON SPRING

these are the cucumbers.... arn't they cute :D

I planted 4 different kinds of tomatoes, zucchini, gourds, cucumbers, green beans, broccoli, and herbs.... and it has to be one of my favorite  things to watch them grow!  When the seedlings come up you are supposed to thin them out by pulling out all of the weak plants and allowing only the strong ones to keep growing.... AND this is the hardest thing for me to do! I feel like a murderer... plant killer..plant killer... plant killer!!  And i couldn't go through with it..

 SO I decided I would separate each on and plant them in their own spot and then give them away to my friends who want to try their hand at gardening! One of the Best things I have found on Pinterest is using old news papers to make your own!!! SO AEWSOME... when I was growing up my paretns and I would always start seeds and then when we had to transplant them we would go out and by peat pots.... but that gets expensive so this is like the best idea ever!!!! So my mom and I did that last week and my plants are going to be so happy to be moved into them and have a little more room to stretch their roots!  If you want to check a tutorial on how to make your own go here!  I used a soda can instead of a soup can but it works the same :D... haha then I post  a picture of the ones my mom was doing with a soup can haha !!

 Well I hope that you all are having a wonderful March... and I hope to be posting some more book recomendations soon.  Blessings on your weekend :D

Color Valentines

I have been browsing Pinterest for awhile now and I have made long list of projects that I HAVE to do! (but never ever seem to do) Well I decided that I would try one today with the little guy I babysit on Tuesdays...

I had given him and his sister a GIANT bag of my old craft supplies and crayons when I got married so I wouldn't have to move it all AND because I only use my old stuff with these amazing kiddoes so it was a Perfect Plan...

Today Jantzen and I made Valentines for him to give to all of his friends out of old broken-up crayons! Last week I told him to make a pile of all of his old crayons that he didn't use or they were broken..etc. and Save them for me because I have a fun project for us next week... LOOK at that.. ME planing ahead!

SO when I got to their house today, Jantzen was all excited to show me all of his broken crayons. And we got to work right away..  Peeling away the paper (not the most fun).... Chopping them into smaller pieces....  filling up my silicone heart trays.. (ps I found them at Target in the cheap section)... Then you place them in the oven (on the middle rack) for 15 mins at 200-225 degrees.....

When they are all melted CAREFULLY take them out using hot mits and place them either on a cooling rack to cool... or if you want to speed up the process like me.. place them in the fridge... BUT Caution... the crayon gets really liquidy(i think I made that word up) and can spill all over the floor and then you have a not so fun clean up... and it makes the Craft a LOAD more stressful... (maybe I am speaking from experience...) But I am AN AWESOME CLEANER UPER and the floor looks sparkly and new! :D

While ours were cooling we made cute little paper cards to tap our new heart crayons on so Jantzen can hand them out on Valentines day to his friends. ... I don't have pictures of this process.. but if you are going to make them use your imagination!  I had Jantzen trace his flashlight for the circles and then we folded the paper in thirds for the squares.... I cut them out and then he used a glue stick to paste the circle and square together... then I wrote across the top of the circles... YOU COLOR MY WORLD! ... but HAPPY VALENTINES DAY... or HAVE A COLORFUL VALENTINES DAY would also be good. 

Now once they are cooled they can pressed out...Carefully people.. we don't want to have to chop up our new crayons because we weren't patient enough....
Then we used a piece of tape rolled to stick our hearts to our Valentines. I would have liked to use double sided tape but you use what you got... :D


Jantzen "decorated" them with more crayons.. and they are now ready to hand out... it took us all morning to finnish but we had a great time and I LOVE when we get to do something crafty and not have to play cars all day long ;)...  What are some of the Crafts you are doing for Valentines day?

Tuesday FUN

Well its Tuesday Again!! And I am babysitting.  This morning we went on a wonderful fall walk!! look at these beautiful pictures... I love how fall is so colorful and the temperature is mild !! It totally puts me in a crafting mood!

From my earlier post you will remember that I have been Crocheting like crazy this past week and I even was able to make a Puffy Slouch Hat by following this Pattern. It turned out really cute... but I think I used a larger gauge yarn than she did because mine is so BIG! haha and maybe its because I have a small head that it looks so big.... So then I decided to try it again but just decrease it by a few stitches.... Bad Idea ... i can't even get the hat on!! So i think I will stuff it and make it a really cute throw pillow! haha I will update this post with pictures sometime soon So you can all see it.  maybe it will turn into a really fun mess up!

Today while Babysitting I decided we needed to do a cute Halloween Craft...

Earlier this year... sometime around Spring.... I cleaned out all of my craft drawers and put together a bag of "stuff" for the kids I babysit!  It was great... because 1) i got rid of lots of things I never used... and 2) I have a great pile of craft supplies when we are in the mood to make something on Tuesdays! it was a WIN WIN decision.

Back today... I dug through the bag and found some pipe-cleaners, googly eyes, and then some paper cups from my Bridal Shower... hehe..

Because Halloween is right around the corner I decided it would be fun to make "cute" Scary Spiders!

• First I poked 8 holes around the lip of the cup... 4 on each side for the legs.
• I wanted to have him decorate the cups with spots or mod podge scraps of paper on the cups to make them cuter... but Jantzen isn't really Big on crafts....
•   Then I cut 4 pipe cleaners in half to make the legs and inserted one into each hole in the cup. 
• I twisted the legs together on the inside of the cup so they wouldn't fall out
• Then I had Jantzen put on the googly eyes and then we drew faces!!

This was a really quick and easy project....HOPE YOU LIKE IT

Fall Wreath

 Yesterday I was on a mission to create something that would make my house feel more like fall! I took a trip to our local Hobby Lobby and this is what I came up with!

Most of the wreaths that were premade were way too much money.. like $50. I'm on a smaller budget so I had to get creative. I found these cute flower picks that were on 50% off and a grapevine wreath (also 50%  off)  and then went to my Mom's place because she has a hot glue gun.... and put it together... My mom helped me make the bow and now I have a beautiful Fall Wreath to hang on our door! YAY....  and all for under $10