Happy Bday to me! A few weeks ago...

I have a pretty awesome husband. On my birthday I woke up to a bunch of balloons filled with messages all over the house. The last one was filled with some moola as my birthday present (as per my request :) )

J thought the popping balloons was hilarious.

 It was pretty much the best day ever. My mom took my kid for the day while I went and did whatever I wanted. I'll share with you in case you need some inspiration for your own birthday or the bday of someone you love.

I started the day out at the yoga studio and then went on a quest to get as much free stuff as possible. I went out to lunch a Joe's Farm Grill with one of my favorite friends and then she treated me to a fancy cupcake next door. Then I went shopping with my sister in law at H&M (LOVE that place) and got my free lipstick at Sephora. I picked up a free sub at Firehouse Subs for the next day then headed out to Red, White, and Brew (my favorite restaurant in Mesa) for dinner and a free slice of cheesecake.

The birthday fun didn't end there though. Over the next few weeks I've claimed my free car detailing at Cobblestone, a free cream slush at Sonic, a free large pizza at Grimaldi's, and this weekend, $30 at Benihana's. Thank goodness for the internet for telling me about all of these awesome free things and a husband to make me feel special!

Wall Art

I finally decided on what to do with my blank canvas that I've had hanging on the wall for two years. I used this post as inspiration. I use Gimp because it is free. You just go up to Colors on the menu bar then threshold. You can increase it or decrease it to whatever you want. The less detail you have, the easier it will be to paint. This picture was a little difficult because my daughter is so bald. Any less detail and her head disappeared.  I started out with this picture

And turned it into this image in Gimp

Then I took it to Big Sis's classroom and put it on the projector to trace the outlines.

I was a little nervous because the traced lines didn't look very nice. I printed out the picture and used that as a guide for the details. The hardest parts were my necklace and Husband's glasses because they use so much negative space and I couldn't trace them because the resolution of the projector.

A few hours later, I finished all the details and bunched up a paper towel to make the textured parts. I'm really happy with how it turned out.

The sheer size made it a bit more demanding than I anticipated. Here is a picture to see the relative scale of it's 3feet by 4 feet

Buying a piece would have been for more expensive though. I bought the canvas at Hobby Lobby for about $25 on a half off sale. and spent $4 on a tube of acrylic. Way cheaper than buying anything custom or even something at Ikea. 

Seattle 2012

Now that triple digits have settled upon us here in good old AZ, I'm pining away even more for the lovely state of Washington. I'm finally getting around to posting these pics from when J and I went up in March. J LOVES coats almost as much as Lil' Sis loves buying them for here. Check out her modeling skills.

Then we entertained ourselves by sticking nerf darts to J

Since we did all the touristy things last trip, we just hung out and watched Korean dramas on netflix mostly because J gave us all pink eye. I am now hooked on K-dramas. They are amazing! Super funny. I recommend Boys Over Flowers and Lie to Me.

Then we worked on some of the sites from the Goodnight Seattle book we got last trip since is a bedtime favorite and I have the darn thing memorized. I couldn't help but laugh how accurate the pictures were at Gasworks park.

Low Expectations Exceeded

 I thought I'd share with you what the garden looks like now.

Here is a before with more pictures here

And here is what it looks like a months, one dog, and a 1year old child  later.

I love Canna lillies. Well pretty much anything from the lily family, but this one especially since it likes full sun and 115 degrees.

This is what was supposed to be a lovely herb garden. It is the only area without chicken wire protection and is prime real estate for golfer greeting. It also provide lots of entertaining sprinkler removal fun at a height my daughter can climb.

This was the original space allotted for a garden.

 The zucchini, cucumber, and watermelon have been fighting it out. This was the harvest from just one day. There have been many more before and since.

I also had a couple strawberries too, but someone stole them.

 Add that to the canning adventure and I've got produce coming out my ears.