Merry Christmas!

Wishing you and yours a very Merry Christmas!

Yep, those are our cats...don't judge. 

Happy Christmas!

Love, Kami and N8dogg

New Look!

Hey!
 Have you noticed my Blog's new look? 

 Well, what do you think? 

 Personally, I am kind of in love with it.

 I especially love my new header.

 Believe it or not it actually started out as N8dogg and I's Christmas card. 

Funny story. 

So, like most people I have always wanted to do the "cute family picture on your Christmas card" thing. I just love the idea of a cute personalized Christmas card, and I swore this year it was going to happen...

Well, fast forward a few months, vaguely remember N8dogg's hatred of pictures, come to the realization that it is never going to happen, and you basically have the mid-November scenario at our house this year.

Complete disappointment...until I found the cutest Etsy Shop ever!

Jell + ink is an amazing custom card, stationary, and invitation shop owned by the very talented Jes Elliot. I absolutely loved every image in her shop, and decided that I had to have one of her creations for our Christmas card this year.

I chose to do a Christmas card with Myself, N8dogg, and the cats on it. (Yes, I know, pathetic). I just answered a few simple questions about how I wanted the image to look, and then submitted my order. I only had to wait about 5 days before Jes emailed me my image; and instantly I fell in love!

I loved the image so much that I asked Jes if I could use it as the header on my blog. She graciously Okayed my request, and with the help of a couple of simple tutorials I was able to give my blog a mini makeover.

Quick Note: Always ask before using something you did not create, and make sure to give credit where credit is due. Not to be harsh, but bad things can happen if this rule is not respected. 

Okay, moving on.

I first started with the How to Make Graphics in Word Tutorial from MADE.

Dana does a great job on this tutorial, and after a little trial and error, and editing in Picnik, I was able to come up with this:

 Cute, huh! I am seriously in love with it!

So, after I put my new header up I realized that I was in desperate need of a new background. I decided to head over to The Cutest Blog on the Block to find a new background that would match my cute new header, and this is what I found: 

 

I really like the simplicity of it, and I think it gives my blog a simple and clean look. Which is exactly what I was going for. :o)

Okay, so after putting up my new background I was pretty much done until I found this tutorial at I Am Momma - Hear Me Roar. Do you know what at Favicon is, because I had no clue? Which is probably why I was shocked at how easy it was to create one. After a couple of misses I came up with this:

Very simple, yet very appropriate. 

I love it!

So, there you have it, frame by frame of my Blog's mini makeover. 

What do you think? 

I think that it still has a long way to go before I am completely happy with it, but for now I am pretty much in love with it. 

(Just thought I would reiterate that in case you weren't sure how I felt). 

:o) 

Happy Thursday!

What? It's already Thursday!

Are you ready for Christmas? 

I'm NOT! 

Ha! Had to vent that. I feel a little better now. 

Thanks! 

Happy Thursday!

Awkward...

So…I haven’t had much time for Christmas crafting lately…but I have definitely been doing some crafting... 

Interested? Well, you might regret that after you see this… 

Yep, that is a framed picture of my cat BB. 

Oh and here’s another one of my cat Cow. 

  OK, before you think we have officially lost our minds, let me explain. I made these as a gift. 

Yes, a gift.

I made these for The 3^rd Annual Awkward Office Decoration Party.  

Quick definition: An Awkward Office Decoration Party is kind of like an extreme White Elephant Party. Basically, everyone brings the most awkward, ugly, embarrassing thing they can find, and then we exchange them White Elephant Style. However, the catch of an Awkward Office Decoration Party is that you must proudly display the present you receive in your cubical for an entire year. Yep, no matter what it is you have to claim it as your own all year long. 

(BTW, sorry for the lack of photos in this post...they were kind of an after thought).  

So, N8dogg and I brainstormed for months on this one, and finally came up with the idea to frame pictures of our cats. Because seriously, what is more awkward than framed and matted pictures of your cats?

I started by asking my local print shop to enlarge some pictures of our cats (believe it or not, we actually had these pictures on hand...pathetic I know). The picture of BB is an 11x17, but since the picture of Cow was square it is only and 11x11, it's still plenty big though.
They just printed them on the normal printing paper that they use, and it cost me about $2.00 for both prints.

The original idea was to Mod Podge the prints onto foam board. However, that did not turn out at all like I had imagined. I bought my foam board from the dollar store for, well a $1.00, and it ended up being too hard to cut with my exacto knife. The prints ended up looking OK, but it was apparent that they needed to be framed in order to cover up the edges.

 

My search for the “perfect” frames started at the DI, and it did not disappoint. I wish I had taken pictures of what was originally in these frames because they were awesome. It cost me $7.00 for both frames, but the look on they guy’s face that checked me out was priceless. 

 

I had the red mat on hand from another project. It's just a poster sized picture mat that you can find in the framing section of the craft store.

I have you ever had one of those days…

You know, one of those days were nothing turns out quite like you want it too. 

 Well, I had one of those weekends.

Yep, everything I planned on doing basically just never happened. 

The Christmas shopping I was supposed to finish…Nope.

The presents I was supposed to wrap…Nope.

The projects I have been trying to get done FOREVER…Nope. 

The house that I was supposed to clean…Yep, another Nope.

The Blog I was supposed to update…Again, another big fat NOPE! 

I am not sure what my problem was this weekend? 

Everything I tried to complete turned out…well wrong. 

I finally just decided to give up on everything and watch Netflix all weekend, which would have been fine, except now it’s Monday and I have a lot MORE to do this week…

*Sigh*

Hopefully, I will be back soon with fun and exciting posts about some fun holiday things I have been trying to get done…hopefully. :o) 

Happy MONDAY!