In this Home ~ pushing paint

I love to push paint. Do you?

I love the feeling of slippery paint being pushed by a brush on canvas. The bumps of the canvas make me happy. Sometimes I will use a brush smaller than necessary to paint the canvas so I can feel the bumps and sliding of the paint longer.

It just may be a sickness, I’m afraid. Aren’t all those nooks and crannies awesome?

I’ve seen this saying floating around blog-land for a while and KNEW I had to have it in my home. I do have a mild obsession with houses so I had to put a house behind the saying. Also, I know usually you see this as subway art, but I’m not the subway art kind exactly. I like a handmade thing that looks a little imperfect. I am imperfect in a big way so this was more me than subway art.

 

Anjeanette

String quilt and hex log cabin pillows {spinning some webs for Halloween}

I wanted to make some spider web throw pillows for my couch. When we moved, we purged a lot of things that now I’m wondering why we purged them. We had a 9 foot Christmas tree that never made it off the moving truck. Of course we didn’t figure it out until Christmas last year. I fear that some of our decorations didn’t make it to our new house either. All of our holiday decorations are quite …uhm lacking.

I had a lovely idea to make a string quilt block into a spider’s web. I made wider white strips and teeny colored strips.

 

The strips ended up being 1/4 of an inch. If you can imagine, when you put them together, there was quite a bit of bulk. I pressed them every way I could and still it just seemed a little bulky to me. My kids loved it though. I added a button spider to the web. Of course, those same sweet kids that love it, also told me that my or “Spee-I-der” is missing two legs.

 

I fussy cut another spider out and hung it on the back. The kids approved of that guy.

Since my first one was a bit too bulky to make me want to make another one just the same way, I decided to fussy cut the center spider in a hexagon shape. Then I did a kind of Log Cabin pattern.

 

I love the way this one came out!

Together, they are quite the pair!

How are you decorating for Halloween?

 

~Anjeanette

My exciting news…and a Giveaway!

     I have amazing news!  I’ll get to that in a minute but how was that for a nice long summer break from me?  I had a wonderful summer with my kids.  It was great to spend some down time with them before school kicked into high gear again!  And WOW has it kicked into high gear!!  My awesome news is that I have started Student Teaching!  I know that Anjeanette already spilled the beans for me on this one, but I’m so excited about it that I wanted to tell you all about it!  It has always been a dream of mine to be a teacher.  When I became a Mom, I put that dream on hold to be a stay-at-home Mom (which was my number one dream).  I have loved every minute of being home with my kids.  While I have been busy raising my kids, I have also been busy going to school to be a teacher.  There is finally a light at the end of my tunnel.  I am Student Teaching Kindergarten and could not be happier about it!!  Seriously, I have a grin on my face ALL DAY LONG!!  I already have so many stories I could tell you about the amazing kids in my class!  I just adore them all!
     As you can imagine, this is a HUGE change in my life.  I have run a daycare out of my home for the last 10 years, but that is from the comfort of my home, with myself as my boss.  Now I am venturing out into the outside world and it is exciting, intimidating, and overwhelming all at the same time.  I have never had to worry about getting myself and my kids ready for school every day.  For now I am loving that I’ve had to step up my dress attire.  I do have a love of shoes, and to have HAD to buy new ones for work has been quite fun.  I was lucky enough to have an amazing BFF who has given me a work wardrobe (seriously amazing, right?).  To complete the polished look that is now required of this new step in my life, I was lucky enough to get to review COVERGIRL LashPerfection Mascara.  This could not have come at a better time for me, could it?  As a stay-at-home Mom, and in-home day care provider, I mostly went with the au natural look, and hair pulled up into a ponytail.  It’s a scary thing going into any field right now.  So, I need every advantage that I can get as I’m stepping into a new career.  I think that looking and feeling my best will certainly help me as I am interviewing for my first teaching job soon, and even right now as I am trying to make a great impression during my Student Teaching.
 
    COVERGIRL LashPerfection Mascara works great.  I went with black because I have really dark (and full) eyebrows so my eyelashes really need to step up to be seen against my eyebrows! HA!  It goes on great, with no clumping (which is a pet-peeve of mine!).  I’m so glad I got to try out this product right now, when it was the perfect time for me!  While we’re on the subject of make-up and looking great, you might want to check out the “Looking Your Best” posts in the Life Well Lived section of BlogHer.com.  There are some great application tips and ideas for switching up your look for fall! 

Want a chance to win a $50 gift card to drugstore.com?  In the comments, tell me about a time when using makeup gave you the added confidence you needed for an important event in your life.
 Sweepstakes Prizing will be a $50drugstore.com gift card.
The Official Rules are available here.  Enter between October 4th-November 4th.

Rules:
No duplicate comments.
You may receive (2) total entries by selecting from the following entry methods:
a)      Leave a comment in response to the sweepstakes prompt on this post
b)     Tweet about this promotion and leave the URL to that tweet in a comment on this post
c)       Blog about this promotion and leave the URL to that post in a comment on this post
d)      For those with no Twitter or blog, read the official rules to learn about an alternate form of entry.

This giveaway is open to US Residents age 18 or older.
Winners will be selected via random draw, and will be notified by e-mail.
You have 72 hours to get back to me, otherwise a new winner will be selected.
The Official Rules are available here.

• BlogHer.com Promotions & Prizes Page:(aka Round-up Page):http://www.blogher.com/life-well-lived-covergirl-reviews
• Sweepstakes Rules:http://www.blogher.com/covergirl-lash-perfection-sweepstakes-official-rules
• CoverGirl’s Website:http://goo.gl/qHO5q