Just a few Canvas Shoes! ;)

Love painting canvas shoes!!

Some acrylic paint!

And then a coat of sealer!

Easy Peasy!! Super fun to do them for family and friends that want a unique look!
I also paint leather boots, read farther into the blog for them, but be prepared, they are bright and crazy!!

ART, ART and more ART

Just more paintings done to avoid laundry and ignore stress or at least relieve it!!

Big Daddy T's birthday present. The kids all wrote down five things they loved him for and I painted a bike and then painted their thankfuls onto it. He loved it and we love him!!

Serious obsession with color!! Looks super duper cute in a zebra print frame!!

The shark is just motivation to just keep swimming through life!

pretty for a nursery.

I copied a pinterest painting I saw. Wonderful quote.

It is HUGE! and different.

over 60 inches in length, four canvas to make 'fluffy's sister'

Got SWAG ;) This one was super fun to do!

Crayon Art Madness!!!

I am a tad addicted to pinterest. I find fantabulous ideas and HAVE to try them. I came across the super fun crayon art craze and thought I gotta give it a go!! So much fun, so easy!

Here is how it is done: 1. Protect your surface this can be messy! 2. Grab a cheap canvas.  3. Hot glue crayons to board wherever you want them. 4. Use a hairdryer and melt those puppies! This step takes a bit of time. So be patient. If you have a handy dandy heat gun it will go faster. Just have fun with it!! I tilted the canvas against a chair so that the crayon would melt in the direction i wanted.

Here are a few pictures of our fun!! The flag one at the bottom, I used an iron to flatten the crayons first (make sure you put some foil between the iron and your crayons), then i used the hair dryer.

Have FUN!!!

First go at it, not to shabby!

Little bit's firecracker! She was the bomb at this project!

Little bit's "Blue".

This is my try at a heart, kinda nifty!

My favorite one! Melted crayon flag!!



Debt Update!!! Whoop Whoop!!

We paid off the house repair loan!!!!

Progress baby progress. We started paying double on the car this last month, so hopefully that $8000 will be knocked out in no time!! Then all we will have left (besides houses) is student loan and wells fargo!!

We have seriously been kicking butt. Once we started a budget and gave a place to every penny, things have just been amazing. Shocker, right?? We have also been able to give a bit this month which has felt pretty great.

Our bratty tat tats have become little savers.Their savings jars are filling up. We are probably going to open savings accounts for them pretty soon. This is money we will make them save for that car they are going to eventually need. I can just imagine how much they will save by then. Big Daddy T and I have agreed to do a match for that up to a certain amount. They are learning that in order to get paid you have to work. We only pay them on commission, so they HAVE to work to make ANYTHING! We used to just give them a few bucks here and there and let them do with it what they pleased. Now they have to put 10% in giving, and then split the rest between saving and spending. The results have been astounding. Little bit is a major shoe shopper and we seriously couldn't keep up with her "need", lol. This has been awesome in teaching her that she has to save for what she wants. She has actually bought two pairs of shoes herself with her spending jar!! I know!! I could hardly believe it myself. And all three of them get a major kick out of taking their Love (giving) jars and deciding who or what they are going to give it too. What an awesome life change for our children, to recognize others needs and to help fill it!! WOW!! It is an amazing feeling as a parent to watch your 8, 9, and 13 year old make those choices. It truly has been life changing.

We have a pink zebra print coupon book (thank you missy) that we now use as our envelope system. Nothing makes me happier than seeing my husband carry that in the grocery store. He's a real man, he can handle it. Besides he looks pretty trendy, zebra print is in!!

So, so far so good!! YAY

God Bless

Welcome to the 1%, That is if you DO IT!

And by DO IT, i mean get OUT of debt. Follow us on our journey of living within our means and less. How many of us as Americans actually do that? I know that in our family buying what we want has become a way of life. Then when the bill comes we have absolutely nothing to show for it.

I mean besides the added pounds of McDonald's takeout and our already outdated six month old gadgets. Oh and those lovely zero percent for six month statements. AWWWW, such a beautifully painted picture of wealth. SWEET! right? right? Come on admit it, the majority of you do the same thing!!

Let me give you some background (and please no pity, I already feel sorry for myself). We had a nice nest egg of debt! Some 10k in student loans (for a degree I didn't get). Credit card debt of a few hundred. Which was fabulous! I mean it was ONLY a few hundred dollars! We had become pretty great at paying off our cards as we used them. But that temptation was always there!! Because we have several department store cards, a Lowe's card, and more. And we used them! Especially Victoria's Secret!! I will spare you that though  (wink, wink). Just kidding people, but not really! Let's see we borrowed something like 10k extra when we bought this house. Sitting on a good 'ol card or what are those things (lines of credit). You know where you can always go back and get some MORE when you want to. We used it to fix (hahahahaha) a water problem in our basement. It still leaks, and the guarantee they gave us for five years has meant squat. Live and learn people. We have a car payment to the tune of money every month. I purposely left that amount out! Still have $8900 left on that! And then a 2nd mortgage on our current house. Still owe $9900 on that. Our mortgage, we owe 55k. Then we have an additional property in our name, which we owe another 49k. OKAY NOW, you can throw your pity our way. Just kidding again, although this time I mean it.

My husband has a good paying job. I quit my job a year and a half ago, because I NEVER saw our kids. We have three angels! Awww, angels! I hear them singing, the angels not our kids, as I write this. They are cheering us on!! Listen close you can hear them as well!! Go Tommy, Go Lacy, Be Debt Free, That is where You wanna Be, So you can GIVE, GIVE, GIVE to really LIVE, LIVE, LIVE. (You know angels say 'wanna' and not 'want to'). I don't know if you have noticed by now but I REALLY LOVE parentheses!!

So here is our rundown:

Credit Card: $575
Home Repair: $7036
Student Loan: $6565
CAR: $8960
(2nd mort): $9930
House: 49K
Another House: 55K

It is truly sad that it has taken me that much explaining to get to the point! We started Dave Ramsey's program. We have already completed baby step one: Got our mini emergency fund done!!! We have already paid off the credit card.  We have also already shoved another $1500 on the home repair card. We sold my husband's bike and the Ipad2 I so BAD wanted! Knowing that it WILL all be worth it. Listen this was all in the last couple of weeks!! (No my husband doesn't make THAT GOOD of money.) We are learning to live with less now so that later we can truly LIVE. We were spending an ungodly amount of money every month just eating out! It was ridiculous. I knew it was true because my sweat pants and I have a very close relationship since I can't fit into my jeans.

  We are trying to follow Dave's recommendations to a T!! We are still selling things, because I would rather that stuff be gone and my debt to leave with it. WHOOP WHOOP! We have a dual reasoning for all of this! We want to retire wealthy, I mean really who doesn't! But more than that we really really really badly want to be able to GIVE! Give and not expect anything in return EVER. How awesome would it be to be able to just give someone the money because you could. Because you care. Because you realize what it was like to be in that situation and now you CAN help. We are so gonna help a ton of people someday. So take that you negative nancy's out there that are saying they will never do it. We have bigger goals than money, we have better help than mere people (That would be the good Lord), and we have a boatload of determination! Watch and learn, or just watch.

We are on our way!! True it will take time but we are on the same page. Our kids are on board and are excited about Saving, Spending and Giving as well.

I took a couple of pics of our first couple of weeks . . . Enjoy!

Our kids helped us cut up all those cards!! It is freeing!

We are using the envelope system, because it forces us to live within our means! Something we need but everyone might not need!

The kids have three jars each! A Love (Giving) Jar, a $ (Spending) Jar, and a Jar with their initials (saving) Jar. They each HAVE to put at least ten percent of whatever they make in their giving jar and then most of the time they choose to put half and half of what is left in the other two jars. We make them put at least one dollar in their saving jar each time they get paid.

Now to all you thiefs out there, that are thinking "I need to find her house so I can steal her wee little ones money." I believe in Jesus, and I own a couple of Guns. I will use JESUS AND THE GUNS. LOVES!!!

Artsy Fartsy

I paint to relieve stress, or to ignore people, or to avoid doing housework. And I think all of those reasons are FABULOUS reasons to do almost anything!!!

I might have a slight obsession with color as well, but eh, no one seems to mind. That or they are too nice to say anything. ;)

New Addiction: Painted Boots and Shoes

I have a serious obsession with painting boots!

I use leather acrylic paints.

Then I seal them.

I can't seem to stop myself.

I love taking an old pair of boots, and make them new again.

So cute for little ones.

Or weddings.

So Fun!

They add personality.

A great expression of yourself.

LOVE!

Love, Love!

Monkeying around!

Today I bring you greatness, or at least some mediocracy!

I have decided (for now) that I will post all the things we don't do! ;)

So today for your viewing pleasure . . . We made cake pops!!

Cake pops!

Try to ignore that two of them are missing. I do have kids and they do LOVE sugar!

Anyway I got the idea from good ol Martha Stewart. She has awesome ideas, never underestimate a convicted felon, jk (kinda). Super fun and messy to make.

My only recommendation would be to make sure you follow the directions on the chocolate melting package. I didn't! And they didn't quite set up right. But they were still delicious.

Not following directions reminds me of the fifth grade. We had this fabulous teacher, who I suppose was tired of us not following directions. So he gave us a pop quiz, telling us to make sure and follow the directions. The entire class worked tirelessly and whined a ton about the quiz! Turned it in, only to find out we all FAILED! Hello, I was devastated!! We failed because not a single one of us read the directions. It was a three page quiz and we wanted to get DONE. So he handed the test back to us, read the directions to us out loud, and boy were we shocked. Directions: Write your name at the top, turn in the paper! Whoops!! Point taken! I read the directions from then on!! Of course, until I made these cake pops, hehe!

Guess learning has taken place once again!!

Directions:

1.  Make any cake mix as directed, let cool!
2.   Once the cake is cool, crumble it into a large bowl and mix in an entire can of frosting!
3.   Try not to go ahead and eat the entire bowl!
4.   Cover and put in fridge (if you are patient) or freezer (if you are me) and let the mixture get cold.
5.   Once the mix is cold, roll into balls, place each ball on wax paper on a cookie sheet!
6.   Put this in the freezer til cold, cold! (cold, cold is a cooking term in my house)
7.   While waiting for the cake balls to get cold, cold, melt your chocolate (refer to package directions, IMPORTANT).
8.   Take the cake balls out of the freezer, push some sort of skewers, or Popsicle sticks into the balls.
9.   Dip into the chocolate, sprinkles, or whatever else you like, then place back on the wax paper.
Do this over, and over, and over, and over!
10.  Place back in the freezer. Don't place in the fridge, they will sweat if you do that. Put them in the freezer.
11.  Wait til the chocolate cools. This only take 15-30 minutes. Then pig out!! YES, this is my favorite step! Of course I only made it here because I didn't eat the entire bowl after mixing. See that, patience pays off!

Art Auction = SUCCESS

Had an awesome experience last Sunday afternoon!! I donated a couple of art pieces to an auction to raise money for Jerry's Kids. Dalton Black of Kiowa, Kansas has MDA and has a fund raising campaign every year. Dalton is just a kid himself, with a ginormous heart!! Love it!! Jamie Terwort, of Barefoot Art Studio helped organize and set this auction up to help Dalton in his fund raising efforts!! I was just so moved and touched at the outpouring of love and support he received!

I actually went to the auction to watch. Jamie is a great friend and I wanted to support her by being there. She had told me that she would be thrilled if the auction raised $500. Well, it far exceeded that!! I want to show you the two pics I donated. I wish I had pictures of some of the other amazing, amazing, far more amazing than my art, that was there.

"Bob" An acrylic on canvas, 18"x24"

"Just Getting Started" acrylic on sprayed canvas 18"x24"

Sorry for the cruddy pictures (taken with my phone). I was pretty excited that Mrs. Jamie Terwort called and asked me to donate some art. Who would have thunk it!! I was super stoked! Both pieces sold for far more than I would have sold them, so I thought that was cool!

On to the good part. You all ready for this. An auction in a town of less than 200 people (there were less than 100 people at the auction), raised . . .  over $10,000. Yes, that is the real number over ten thousand dollars!!!!!! Isn't that just super, wonderful, great and awesome!!! Give the good Lord some praise people!!

I SUCK AT BLOGGING

Well, I think the title covers it. It has been a few days since I last blogged, okay, okay, a few months. Seriously though, I don't know how these women, who work, have a house load of kids, make it to the YMCA to workout three to five days a week and get together with the neighborhood ladies the other few evenings, have time to blog!! I mean really!!! I check out all these blogs and see ALL the things these people do daily and I am OVERWHELMED, big time. Not to mention all the crafts, cooking, housekeeping, family issues, blah, blah, blah they keep up with! AND they have time for mani/pedi's . . . REALLY!!!

Just so you know (sure you have already figured it out), I am not one of those ladies. I am however going to try to get better on this blogging thing though. Mainly to see if I can still type.

I will keep posting info. about my super fabulous and wonderful family and the multitude of things we don't get done ;).

My babies, Emerald, Harley and Liberty!!

She didn't REALLY hit him! But really this is how they act sometimes :( Sibling Rivalry

You seriously have to try picnik.com! Super fun easy way to edit your photos!!

They really are!!

Through the long road of life, may they always have each other!

Okay, so the pictures with the canvas' were super simple. I had the kids take pictures holding a BLANK canvas. Remember a blank canvas, I suppose you could have it any color you want though. Anyway, go to picnik.com  (it is free) and play with the editing features. This is how I added the text onto the canvas. I typed what I wanted, added it to the image, changed the font and color like a hundred times, til I got what I wanted, then TADA, customization baby!! It is very user friendly, had to be if I used it!! Try it out and let me see your masterpiece!!

Did anyone but me notice how flipping much I used the word "really" in this post!! I mean REALLY Lacy, find something else. I read through it and it just reminded me of those people who always say the words like, umm, and, well, all while talking to you. They seriously use those words every other sentence, sometimes every sentence. I have become one of those people only I type it!! I will try to get a grip on that!