Stagecoach

 The girls leave today for a long anticipated event called Stagecoach.  It's a three day concert event featuring country music in the desert.  Alyssa and Greg bought Katie and Delaney tickets for Christmas.  Because Alyssa was at work during the buying process, I sat by the computer for two hours with 4 windows open trying to get the tickets for her, in the end she got three.  It has become an annual sister event!

Love those girls!!!

Proud to be an American!

Transferring Video to DVD

 My friend Marie bought this Roxio system and transferred all her videos to DVD.  What an inspiration!  My family has been harassing me to do this for years.  It became quite the sore subject.  I didn't know where to begin and it was going to be really expensive to transfer them all.  It was overwhelming.  Then Marie told me how easy it was with this Roxio software.  She bought a VCR and the software and began to transfer all her tapes - then she was done - Viola!  Easy Peasy.  So last week I borrowed all her stuff.  I set it up - super easy.  I began the transfer process - super easy, but time consuming.

This is the task I have before me.  So far I have 4 hours transferred to disc.  Some of it is totally boring, so of it is hilarious.  I wish I would have sat down and watched these videos a long time ago.  I could have got some "what not to do" tips on videoing.  I'm going to tell you right up front that we are horrible videographers.  I'm the worst.  Here are some of my problems and things you should avoid.

1. Make sure your subject is in the center of the screen, or here's an idea, you can see their face. (I have so many frames where my kids are way off to the side  and I'm looking at furniture or their head is cut off!

2.  Make sure you turn the video camera off.  Seriously, I have minutes of footage with nothing but the ground or the side of my body.

3.  When on vacation, don't spend so much time just getting the scenery and none of the family.  This is   some of the most boring footage.  I live for that 3 seconds that I see a shot of my kids.  Who cares about the scenery if no ones in it.  I might as well be watching TV.

4.  During sports, zoom in on your child.  Who cares about the big picture later, I was searching desperately to find my kid in that far away, big picture shot.  

5.  Let everyone be in the scene.  When Delaney was learning to walk, I kept trying to get the other girls out of the shot and focus on her.  I should have just let them be.  

I have several more hours of transferring to do and while I love looking at my family, I hate seeing and hearing myself.  

This system is really easy to set up and use.  I'm doing just a direct transfer, but if you are creative, you can use your imovie (I have a Mac) to edit.  I'm just not there yet.  

Pinterest

Stylehandler.blogspot.com

I love pinterest.  It helps you save pics that inspire you without having to cut out pics and store them. I pinned this photo of a bathroom for the chandelier.  I would love to have a chandelier in my bedroom, but the Handsome Husband is loath to give up the ceiling fan, seriously!  Everyday 3 or more people repin this pin.  One day, I had 31 repins.  This is definitely the most repined pin I've ever chosen on Pinterest. 

This is my own backyard that I decorated for a family dinner two years ago for Memorial Day.  It is personally my most repined pin, especially now that the holiday is upon us.  

I often refer to Pinterest for inspiration and go back to it over and over to find ideas I have saved and want to use.  It has almost replaced magazines for me, so I guess you could say it saves me money! 

Katie's Quilt

I've finished the top of Katie's quilt and I am now taking it to the backing.  Hopefully, I will be done by the weekend.

Easter Pots/Baskets How To

I made these little Easter Pots/Baskets from plain terra cotta pots found at Home Depot.  

You will need:

Terra cotta pots

Terra cotta saucers

Modge podge

brown paint

cream paint

sponge tip brushes 

scissors

burlap 

white pom poms

tacky glue

Easter candy

about an hour

I bought some paint at Joanns and first painted them brown and them painted them cream to give them that worn look. I then cut out simple little bunnies freehand out of burlap.  Burlap is really hard to cut into a specific shape because of the loose weave.  It moves a lot, so I didn't try to make precise bunnies.  I folded the burlap in half and cut a big circle and a little circle and then at an angle for the ears.  This insured the bunny would be symetrical. 

Sometimes I would have to alter it once I opened it up to make it the precise shape I wanted.  A little snip here and there.  It probably would help if you made yourself a pattern. I wanted all my bunnies to be unique so freehanded it was.  

Apply a generous amount of modge podge, more than you think you need because of the texture of the burlap

Position the bunny on the pot and generously apply the modge podge all over the bunny and up onto the ears that stick up off the pot (this will make them stiff).  Put so much modge podge on that you think it couldn't possible dry and look normal.  Apply a thin coat around entire pot to keep the finish uniform.

 This is one after it has dried.  I did mine outside (cutting the burlap is super messy) and it was a sunny day, by the time I finished the last one they were all almost dry.  Last step is add the little white pom pom with a dab of tacky glue. 

 After they dry, just add easter grass and candy.

 Easy peasy!

Easter Tablescape

This Easter I wanted to concentrate more on Jesus and less on the Easter Bunny.  I think I found a way to mix the two.  On pinterest, I found this beautiful little handmade twig cross with a scripture verse.  I loved the simplicity of it.  I made some for each setting. See end for link.

 I used my new everyday dishes from Horchow and some willow placemats from Nell Hill along with a burlap runner. The center piece is a simple bunny and some flowers from my garden.

I got to use my silver place holders from Layla Grace that I received from HH for Christmas.

I made little Easter baskets out of clay pots and added burlap bunnies.  I will show you how to do these tomorrow - super easy. 

The crosses have a huge impact on the plates.  They are simple and fragile and speak directly to your heart.

 I wrote the tags by hand because I bought pre cut tags, but you could easily run them through the printer and cut tags yourself.  I had to pick out bits of verses to emphasize because my handwriting is messy and big.  

 The picture doesn't really relate how beautiful these crosses are.

This is the original pic I saw on pinterest that sent me combing the backyard for sticks.  Head over to gratefulprayerthankfulheart.blogspot.com for directions.

Eating in Vegas - Yum!

After we arrived from Orange County, checked into our hotel and had a look around, we decided to get a bite to eat.  The Handsome Husband has been talking about The Capital Grill a lot lately (he goes there with clients) so he decided to treat me to one of his favorite restaurants. It is a short walk across the street from the Wynn.  

 Inside is the usual manly look of a steakhouse. It is situated right on Las Vegas Blvd. and has lots of windows so you can watch everything going on outside if you want.  It makes for interesting conversation.  

I had the Filet Oscar and HH had the Dry Aged Steak Au Poivre with a Courvoisier Cream Sauce, we ordered au gratin potatoes and cream corn with bacon to share.  The potatoes were enough for 4 people easy.  The whole meal was delicious.  We couldn't decide which chocolate dessert we wanted, so our waitress gave us both and didn't charge us for one.  Can you say Big Tip?!!!  The chocolate desserts were awesome.  

 The next morning we had breakfast in the Terrace Cafe.  Reasonable for a hotel.  $10 oatmeal (that just kills me) and $18 eggs, pancakes and bacon.  Room service was twice the price and there was no where close to walk to, besides WE NEEDED COFFEE!!!

We ate dinner at The Society Cafe in the Encore.  It is considered casual dining and was only $80 for the both of us.  I ordered the flat bread pepperoni pizza appetizer and tomato soup for dinner and HH had the caprese salad (he raved about it) and crab cakes.  We LOVED the food.

At the Society Cafe they serve you soft, fresh, warm pretzel sticks with gourmet mustard as an appetizer/waiting for you food treat.  It was incredible.  HH liked them and he doesn't like pretzels.

We were looking for an inexpensive lunch so we asked around and was sent back across the street to Stripburger.  It was sooooo gooood!  

 I had the basic cheeseburger = mmmmmm

 I also tried the fried pickles.  I've never had these before.  I liked them a lot, more when they were hot than when they cooled down.  Also, the fries were sooo good.  Crispy and delicious.

There are so many restaurants that I saw that I would come back to Vegas just to eat at.  Something to look forward to.

Wynn Resort Pt. 2

This is the passageway from the Wynn to it's sister hotel Encore.  Red is the dominant color in both resorts.  These beautiful chandeliers line the shopping passage from the Wynn to Encore.

 Once you reach Encore, it is red all the way.  Beautiful solid red chandeliers everywhere.

I loved these huge ceramic flowers and rhinestoned dragonflies and butterflies throughout the two resorts.

These chandeliers mesmerized me.

 Beautiful

 This was the beautiful vignette by the elevators.  Loved it!

Because we don't gamble, we shopped and shopped and shopped.  HH got some new Prada sunglasses, some Harry's of London blue suede loafers (they are awesome), and I got a new Louis Vuitton purse.  It was a big weekend!

BTW we went to the City Center shopping center and it was so ugly.  They had all the high end stores there, but the mall itself was a huge let down.  South Coast Plaza in So. Cal has it beat hands down.  The Wynn shopping esplanade was beautiful compared to City Center.  They need a design team to come in and beautify that space.

 We saw Le Reve which was visually STUNNING!!!  I loved this show.  The trick to any of these Cirque or Cirque like shows is to sit back and up away from the stage.  That way you can see everything that is happening on the stage.  If you are too close, you can only see what is right in front of you and you miss all the visuals from the air and on the full stage.  

Worth every penny!

Don't bother.

I love the Beatles so I wanted to see this show really bad, I had to talk the Handsome Husband into it.  HH wanted to see a comedian, but I wanted to hear songs I loved by the Beatles and the visual show that went with it.  Everyone we talked to loved the show, they had seen it multiple times.  

I HATED IT!!!

The music was weird Beatles: revolver and every unheard track out there.  The few good songs that I liked were mostly just sound bites.  I got the overall feeling of war and sadness.  Empty tricycles with little empty galoshes, mom gets hit by car and child runs to see her and she is carried up to heaven, but it did have great moments.  I liked the Octopus' Garden, Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds and a few others.  It ends happy go lucky, but there was a lot of dark moments that stuck with me.  There is enough sadness and dark moments in real life, if I'm paying to be entertained, I want to be HAPPY!