Gratitute Fridays

Hello everyone....or no one. Well this sure was a busy busy week! My friend, that I have known since high school cam and stayed for awhile since the hubby had to take a long trip. I had,what was supposed to be a few cavities filled, but turned into a horrible mess because I waited to long. I now have to get a crown, and maybe another one after that is done. What sucks is I don't have dental insurance ;( anyway, I started getting a million orders from my ETSY shop
and I couldn't figure out why...until someone had sent me a message telling me I was on a highlight from Etsy's website..they call it the storque...I have no idea why, and I never "hang out" online to read all the crap they say anyway. Of course I looked, and it was a great article, but I had already seen it on the Martha Stewert show like last year or something...so it isn't totally original idea for them to feature it...but still good! AND THANK YOU!
Anyway I though I would show you some pictures I hung up awhile ago on my stairway. We have lived in this house for over 2 years now, and I haven't really decorated that much because I figured we will live her for the rest of our lives, so I have plenty of time to decide exactly where I want things to go. In our old house, we had for 5 years, I painted every wall at least 2 or 3 times...the living room had about 5 to 6 colors of paint on it until I decided...right before we sold the house, that I would paint it a textured sand paint by Ralph Lauren....It truly was awesome! Expensive, also since i had to do alot of coats of it but it looked so rich and fancy, and really fit the house well....I havent painted this house still- except my daughters room,playroom and our bedroom because they use to be poop colors! gross! ( it was that color when we moved it!) anyway I thought I would show you some newly decorated walls from my daughters room with some art prints from The Black Apple on her yellowish walls.....


and then a pic of the hall way....



and a close up of a picture I LOVE which is my husband when he was a baby, and his father...which also shows why I had to buy this print from the black apple below it....look similar? anyway I will put that in my son's room when it is ready for wall decorations.




ALSO if you can see the plant that is there...that is a plant I have had since I moved out of my mom's house when I was 17 years old...I'm 31 now, so it's been awhile..It was part of a plant my mom had since she was in her school days...It lives and grows, I have since took a piece of it and gave it to our old roomate- who will be moving into their very own first house! I hope they pass the tradition on to their kids too, if they have some...they better!

Pirate flag cupcake toppers

Pirate flags...for cupcakes and cake parties, are not just for the boys!
Add these to your birthday party decorations, for a super girl pirate party...ARRRRR
I also handmade some pirate flag cupcake toppers, check them out here SHIVER ME TIMBERS

Fun with pinwheels and cupcakes

I figured I would show a new picture of things me and Regan have been making the past few days, pinwheels...and cupcakes.
I have lots of new cute cupcake liners and cupcake toppers to put in my shops so of course we had to take pictures of them all in action! We got handmade happy birthday flags for cupcakes, we got pirate flags, not just for the boys by the way!

I love coupons!

Ever since I watched an episode of Oprah with the coupon mom on, I have been hooked on saving money with coupons. At first I only saved like 10 bucks here, then the next time, the savings kept going up and up... I keep breaking my record of money saved every time I go shopping. This last time I figured it was good enough to share with you...Since, I, unlike other people online, ONLY buy food that we normally eat, I don't buy things just because they are on sale, and I don't revolve my dinner plans around what is the cheapest. That is probably why people save more on their bills, because they only buy things on sale. I am just trying to get what we normally eat, for a cheaper price.

It has been great, because I read that you are supposed to "stock up" on the things while they are on sale for the lowest price. I have been doing that with the foods we eat on a regular basis and it has been awesome. I couldn't go shopping for a whole month because with a newborn, and a 4 year old it was just too much to handle. But it didn't matter because I had such a great stock pile of food that I didn't need to. We drink soy milk so I had 3 or 4 cartons of it, and I might have told the hubby to get bread on his way home from work once.
Anyway it really makes a difference too, when now, I go to the store only when the stuff I want is on sale, even if I don't really need it at that moment. I no longer have to budget a huge amount of money for grocery shopping, because now I only have to buy necessities, (bread, milk, or fresh fruit and veggies)

SO here are some pictures from my best grocery trip to date. My bill was 191 and I saved $58.76! almost 60 bucks!! You can do so much with an extra 60 bucks! like buy really expensive formula for my little guy..oh well, I can start putting the saved money in a savings account when he's done drinking formula, wouldn't that be a great way to put money into your savings account. Because it's money that you would have spent anyway!

Gratitude Fridays

I know it has been a little bit since I wrote. Today I had a little surgery, I am totally fine, just a little thing to deal with. Anyway being at the hospital makes you realize how worse things could be for you. I am truly thankful that for the most part, I am very healthy. Also, I am happy to say that Cupcake Social has been a success! Over selling Truly Outrageous by far. But it is alot more stressful! Someone straight up ripped me off! That is what I get for being a nice person. I guess there are some crazy people out there. ALso, I have been sending almost every one priority, so that is stressful, I didn't really want to go to the post office everyday. Especially the other day when it was down pouring and I have a 4 year old and a 6 month old to drag out. Of course my 4 year old loves it, because she has a hello kitty umbrella, and she loves stomping in the puddles. Of course I let her, who cares if she gets a little wet.
Anyway I got these polka dot cupcake liners in, oh so much fun! We made banana cupcakes...not so yummy. Oh well, we will try something else next time!

New Stores "CUPCAKE SOCIAL"

First Iwould like to say this is why Etsy sucks....because it sucks all your money before you even make a sale. herre is what I paid this month Total payments: $117.03 BOOOOOOOOO!
Anyway on to more positive things :) I just opened a new Etsy and Art Fire store called "Cupcake Social" Obviously selling things having to do with cupcakes. I finally invested in a scale to weigh my packages accuratly so I can ship more things from home. Unfortunatly things have been going from at the post office so if I ship with tracking at least there will be some record of it. My buddy at the post office tells me they are doing alot of lay offs and things are backing up and getting delayed. I had a recent package take over a month to get to its owner which is a little crazy. Another one got lost, I think, I sent her another one which she should have gotten but she is probably so mad at me. It sucks that it makes me look bad when the packages go through so many hands before it actually gets delivered. Did you hear about the post lady that got a storage locker to put all the mail she was supposed to deliver in....She forgot to pay the storage fee 1 month and they opned it up and found thousands of undelivered letters and packages! I think it was like Indiana or something. That sucks! AANYWAY I am totally excited about the cupcake store. I am planning a cupcake decorating party on sunday with my friends to test all the products and take cool photos to list online. So here are a few pics- we got the mini pink danish baking cups with shiny gold designs, There are one of my favorites- Pink floral shabby sheik cupcake liners and then super cute red, blue and orange swirl cupcake liners!

www.CupcakeSocial.artfire.com

www.cupcakesocial.etsy.com

Of course I prefer the artfire store...NO FEES!!