Big D & Me’s Favorite Things Winner is…

Here’s a quick recap of the items someone

is about to win in Big D & Me’s Favorite Things….

1 bag of Stacy’s Pita Chips!

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1 bottle of Butter’s polish!

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1 package of Roll-Ups!

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and 1 container of this face scrub!

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I’ve enjoyed hearing about everyone’s favorite things right now. I’ve listed what I’m going to try from each of your entries

#1 – From Katie: I will have to get some Mike & Ike’s next time we go to the movies (I don’t think I’ve ever tried them)

#2 – From Mindy: I’m going to have to try the Maybelline Baby Lips in Peach Kiss

#3 – From Michelle Paige: I want to try the microwave kettle corn and read the books you suggested.

#4 – Kelly – Loved your sun dress from Target – maybe you could send it down to for a weekend for me 🙂

#5 – Amanda – Love crab cakes also and your sweet baby girl!

#6 – KateC – I’m going to need to try the Burt’s Bees eye cream for sensitive eyes. Of course, in my case, I’m just using it for old tired eyes 🙂

#7 – Dyan – Crackle nail polish would be fun, I’ll have to give it a try.

#8 – Jenny – I had never heard of BB cream but after reading about it I’m definitely going to have to try it.

#9 – Jess – You crack me up with your accordion. Can’t wait to see you next featured on “America’s Got Talent.”

#10 – Christina – I must try the cookie butter, another item I had never heard of.

And the winner is…

Drum roll please…..

RG

Katie you are the winner!

Congratulations! You’ve got some goodies headed your way!

I’ll email you and get your information so you can receive your prizes!

To everyone: have a wonderful weekend enjoying some of your favorite things!

My Favorite Things – Day 5

Welcome to Day 5 of Big D & Me’s Favorite Things!

You know what #5 is?

It’s YOU!

I want to thank all of you who support Big D & Me both professionally and more importantly personally.

All of your kind comments and encouragement really do lift me up.

I know you’re saying so what, you appreciate us. We wanted something good today.

Well…..you  are in luck because you could be a big winner!

You could win items from Day #1, #2, #3, and #4.

Ha! Fooled you.

See I’m just like Oprah!

You see, I’m giving one lucky reader this from Day #1

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this from Day #2

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this from Day #3

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and this from Day #4

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So go ahead and…

Leave me a comment sharing an item that is currently on your favorites list.

Just by leaving a comment you could be a winner!

One person will be announced as the winner on June 28th!

42 Pains in the Arse

I’ve mentioned a few times about a project my husband and I were working on, one that nearly drove us over the edge.

This was the sneak peak.

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Now here’s the story.

My daughter’s preschool had a school auction to raise money for an outdoor cover on the playground so I decided to donate a gift certificate to my etsy shop.

I tried to think of a way to make an eye catching display and settled on a picture frame with chicken wire.

I found a large detailed frame, spray painted it black, and had my  husband add chicken wire to the back. I then spray painted some clothespins and hung up information about my  shop.

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It looked something like this (I, of course, forgot to take pictures of the actual frame):

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I also had a book of products with the frame:

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After dropping off my donation, which I valued at just under $7,000 (or slightly less), I received an email from the school director asking if I could make 40 of the chicken wire frames for her staff for their end of the year gift.

“Jackpot!”

“Yippe!”

“Who needs Powerball?!”

We do, that’s who.

My husband and I jumped at the opportunity to make a little cash. Boy were we fools.

After saying “yes,” to the job, I scowered area Goodwill, thrift store, resale shop, and garage sale for about 3 weeks. I’m fairly sure there are no more 8 x 10 inch frames left in the DFW area.

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After sanding down and spray painting about 9 of the frames, we decided to add the chicken wire. That’s where we ran into TROUBLE.

Out of the 9 frames, only 2 didn’t break.

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At this point, we were a week out from the delivery date and freaking out a bit.

We were using a hand stapler and it just was not working.

050800 So I decided to buy an automatic staple gun from Home Depot for $59 and hope that would help.

Thankfully, it worked (most of the time) and we were back on track.

Each frame also had glued on ribbon on the back so that the chicken wire scratch anyone.

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Texas received quite a bit of rain during this time which under different circumstances would have been wonderful, though when you are trying to spray paint 40 frames, it really is awful.

Mix that with room mom meetings, field days at two schools, and a soccer tournament weekend and we were sprinting to get the frames completed.

A lot of the spray painting occurred in our garage (with the door up) but we are fairly sure we were high for two thirds of this project. Complex math was not our friend at this time.

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In the end we finished on time (even providing an extra 2 frames, hence the 42 pains in the arse title), although I was drying clothespins with a hair dryer 30 minutes before the drop off.

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Turned in, done!

A little money was made and a lot of learning too.

You would think I’m done with renovating frames but I’ve actually got some bigger frames just waiting in my garage. I’m going to start spray painting those soon.

Maybe next week.

On second thought, maybe next month.

Halloween Estimation – Printable

This weekend we pulled out our Halloween stuff and started decorating the house. I found the following printable which we used at our Halloween party last year.

Just find an empty jar, count candy corns as you fill up the jar, write down the total somewhere you will remember, and let the party goers guess away.

Click here to download the Estimation_Candy_Corns Page

Enjoy!

A Clever Container Giveaway!

I have a great giveaway for you today.

Molly from Clever Container contacted me about having a giveaway and I jumped at the chance. Molly just happens to be my good friend who I taught with for several years so this is extra special for me.

Yesterday I mentioned my recent car organizing failure which involved me trying to make a holder for the kids’ junk. Look, I could call it toys or books, or figures, but when it’s on the car floor it’s just called junk.

My piece just didn’t work so I was looking for another option. Molly sent our family the Backseat Entertainment organizer to try out.

Well, so far, everyone thinks it’s awesome.

The inside top section is filled with little notebooks, Mad Libs, pencils, stickers, and pens while the outside section holds snacks (or toys if you want).

The bottom two sections are used for toys and are within reaching distance. The bottom section has a string on the bottom which allows for the bottom section to sit tight against the seat.

For our books I decided to place them in a basket in the backseat since we usually have tons in the car. And yes, that’s my O magazine sticking out – those car pool lines can get pretty boring sometimes.

Clever Container is committed to providing top quality, unique products and solutions to reduce the stress of an organizational task. They have products for the kitchen, crafts, closets, drawers, children, storage, offices, and more.

Remember when I said there was a giveaway for you?

Pay close attention now. This will be good.

Molly is giving one lucky Big D & Me reader 1 item of their choice from the Clever Container catalog!

Yep, I know amazing. You get to choose your gift.

Here are a few items from Clever Container that make the organizing bug in me gitty…

Items for your kitchen

 Wraprack

Over the Cabinet Towel Bar

Items for your Bathroom

Blown Away

Make Up Manager

Items for Out the Door

Handbag OrganizerI need this one desperately!

Items for the Closet

Scarf Hanger

Handbag File

Aren’t you inspired to get organized?

The winner of this giveaway will be given their choice of 1 item from the Clever Container catalog.

 Here’s how to enter the giveaway:

1. Visit the Clever Container online catalog. Come back to Big D & Me and leave a comment telling me which product you think would be most useful to your family.

2. Buy a product from Molly at Clever Containers and get an additional entry. Leave a comment letting me know you bought something.

3. Blog, text, or facebook about this giveaway. Leave a comment telling me what you did.

4. Follow Big D & Me and leave me a comment telling me you do.

The winner of this giveaway will be chosen by Random Generator.

This giveaway will be open until Tuesday August 28th at 10:00 pm.

Thanks for the giveaway Molly! Can’t wait to see who wins!

A Car Organizing Failure

The problem with being crafty is that you think, “I can make that,” no matter what item you may be looking at.

A Halloween wreath? I can make that.

A wall clock? I can make that.

A rebuilt car engine? I can make that.

The problem is, at least with me, I cannot make half the things I think I can.

 Way back in February I had a goal of organizing my car.

The main issue seems to be toys, books, and snack containers everywhere.

(This is what was recently cleaned out of the car. It fills an entire IKEA bag and that’s huge)

Because my kids seem to be in intense training to be on the show “Hoarders,” our car is constantly a mess.

Apparently it is just not possible to get into the car without having 2 stuffed animals, 3 books, and 6 random objects.

And what goes in our car, never comes out.

 So I thought, I’ll make a car organizer with material I already have.

Here’s the sad and final product.

Don’t you just love how it sags, how the velcro won’t stay closed, and how it’s too flimsy to old anything over 8 ounces?

Yes, this was my car organizing failure.

But I have found another solution to help me with keeping my car clean…and no, it doesn’t involve threatening my kids with spankings…although let’s not rule out anything just yet.

Come back tomorrow so I can show you how I fixed this problem

Hint – It involves a giveaway for you!

Superheros

I have blogged before about my love of Katie Moon’s art and today is the same but with a fun twist.

While Katie offers free downloads each week on her blog, she also has a business illustrating families.

Back in March I entered our family into a contest for her to draw our family. I had to give a little bio about each of us and hoped she would choose our entry.

Well, the good news was that Katie chose our family to illustrate!

I requested that we be drawn as superheros since that’s what the kids are often dressed up as and here’s the drawing…

Click here to see the post Katie did about us and our bios.

I especially love the way she was spot on in her depiction of my thighs 🙂

Thanks Katie, we love the illustration!

Free Downloads that I LOVE

Wanted to let everyone know about an amazing free download going on right now over at q.a.design.

Jenna is sharing her state/country prints which she normally sells on etsy.

Kentucky

Michigan

 Illinois

I have actually not so secretly coveted these prints for a long time.

I made some copy cat ones (since she didn’t have Ontario) using canvas and paints for our office/playroom over a year ago and still love them.

From left to right the pictures are 1) of Ontario, CAN where my husband was born 2) where we live now and (3) the state I was born in.

Click here to go to the free downloadable prints from q.a. designs

 Do you see any prints for your house or to give as gifts?

Pet Peeve

I am a party pooper and I don’t care.

In fact, I wish more moms felt the way I do.

I have a pet peeve which goes against my love for crafting.

I hate gift bags, goody bags, and here’s a bunch of crap bags.

I know it’s expected now at birthday parties and showers but I just struggle with it. The goody bags at my kids’ parties are probably the worst around – a lollipop, stickers, and a tattoo – and the tattoo is only if I really like the kid.

Goodie bags are expected at parties now and I have learned to deal with that.

What I cannot deal with are the expectations for goody bags at school.

Preschool at that.

My daughter’s preschool sent out a message stating that bags would be placed in each students cubby “in case we were going to bring treats to share with our friends.”

They are two. They don’t need any extra goodies. A costume day and fall festival was more than enough to celebrate Halloween.

I refused to prepare any treats. We went to school empty handed.

This is the goody bag my daughter came home with.

Let’s just take a peek at what was inside.

Nice haul for a five hour school day, huh.

This bag was from one kid.

Here are the contents of the bag:

Impressive but ridiculous.

Isn’t anyone else tired of plastic trinkets littering their car and the “I get something” expectation that now comes with going to a party.

Now we are going to have the expectation at school.

I stand firm by my decision to not bring anything.

Plus, some of the goody bag contents were not labeled so no one else knows I didn’t participate. – ha!