LATELY.

Hello hello, friends! I have been meaning to jump on this blog all week but let me tell you--life has been super non-blog worthy lately.  No vacays, no trips to Six Flags, no house renovations, no adorable little kids or cute dogs to give me some blog-worthy content. Nothing. (Why am I basically telling y'all to just leave now? 😂 Please don't.)  Our dog hunt has hit a snag and I'm trying not to be super bummed--and super annoyed--by how much harder it is to rescue a dog than I thought so I'm going to give it a few more days and then I'll fill you in on things next week. And I thought we were going to get to go to a wedding last Saturday but Craig's emergency tooth surgery got in the way of that. He's fine now but he was a mess on Friday and Saturday.

 So here's a little bit of life lately around here.

The boys are wrapped up in their friends and video games with some pool time thrown in in the evenings. I was looking through my phone for recent pictures and have about a million...but they are all taken from this angle because I'm in my favorite chair and the boys are doing exactly what they do every day. How many pictures do you really want to see of my two tween boys doing this? 😂

They sure are sweet though and definitely keep me entertained.

The other night, I was out in the sunroom watching TV on my computer, and Matthew wandered out to come hang with me.  He said he was bored so I went inside and grabbed this game.

It's sort of like the What Do You Meme game if you've played that before (hilarious) but in this you pick a prompt like "My biggest source of embarrassment is _______?" and then you pick the funniest card in your hand that would answer it like "Puberty." or "Becoming a Kung Fu Master".  Sometimes they don't make sense but that makes it even funnier.  We didn't play by the rules really, we just kept pulling cards and finding funny matches.

We wrapped up the game after a while and I went inside for a few minutes and when I came back out I found him like this.  Of course.

Can't leave my laptop unattended for even a second or someone will jump on it and start playing games.

The other day I posted videos to my IG stories of the boys using this slip-n-slide.  We hadn't pulled it out since last summer and after their first slide, it ripped down the middle. I feel like they always overestimate how fun slip-n-slides really are.  I always hear lots of grunts and groans and "ow"s. It just doesn't sound all that fun. 🤷‍♀️ I think they are realizing that the bigger they get, the harder they fall!

Their sliding fun lasted about 10 minutes before they were over it and they jumped in the pool with dad while I (once again) sat myself in my comfy lounge chair and tried not to get splashed. I do get in with them sometimes but honestly, sitting in my comfy chair once the sun goes down but before it gets dark is my favorite time to read so I prefer that.

They boys were all playing horse and Craig decided you had to make the shot from inside the float.  The boys thought for sure he was going to get stuck. (I'm kind of surprised he didn't!)

We usually don't venture out to the pool until 6 or later so that it's not so hot.  And until then, I'm typically in my little craft room filling Etsy orders.  I'm trying to remember to stop and take more pictures of orders that are about to ship.  I snapped this pretty pic of one of my favorite travel tumblers the other day. The opal vinyl is so beautiful and I love how the color changes depending on which angle you're looking at it from.

The top has a lid with a little slider so your drinks stay hot (or cold) and don't spill on the go. I have these available in light pink and a seafoam blue as well!

And all of these went out yesterday.

The mermaid tumblers with the water tracker are always a big seller (#watergoals) but you can get your name or monogram instead of the mermaid tail if you want.

And everyone needs a good personalized stainless steel tumbler! They'll keep your drinks cold in that summer heat! (All of the ones below come with a matching straw and I just got the ones on the left and the right in a gorgeous glitter blush color this week too! (Find them here and the skinny one here!)

If you've been waiting on the skinny can coolers to be restocked...so have I!!  The estimated in-stock date keeps getting pushed back by the supplier and I'm so anxious to get them back!  The latest estimate says a few of the glitter colors will be back on Friday so we'll see if that's true.  I'll be sure to update you on my Etsy shop's Instagram when they are back! I have gotten so many messages asking about them!

Remember that you can check out all 160+ items in my shop HERE! Turnaround time is 1-2 weeks for most items except earrings which ship within a day or two.

And I'll talk about this more soon but I've just signed on as a Chalk Couture Designer on a complete and total whim after stumbling up on a video of theirs on Facebook the other day.  Have y'all ever heard of this?  I hadn't until two days ago.  I watched one video and was like "hook me up".  It is the EASIEST WAY to make wood signs, chalkboard signs, (and more!) I've ever seen.  Work smarter not harder, am I right?!  This is a hundred times easier than how I currently make my wood signs. I'll still be using my regular method for all the signs that I have in the shop but I thought it would be such a fun new addition since it's a different method with a different type of paint. (It's actually chalk paste instead of paint.) Plus I don't have any chalkboard type items in the shop so this will be fun!

 I'll also be able to show you how to DIY your own cute signs at home! ANYONE can do this method with their easy transfers (stencils) and chalk paste. It takes zero artistic skill, friends.  Zero. I'll dedicate a whole post to this once I get all my goodies in and create a few things to show you but if you want to see what I'm talking about, here's a quick video.

So simple, right?!  You can purchase all these things to make your own stuff at home.  They have everything on the website from different boards (chalkboards, wood boards, frame, not framed, etc), to a ton of different stencils (transfers) that can be reused over and over again to the chalk paste you'll need to use with them. I love finding new ways to create cute things!!

You can check out the website HERE if you want and feel free to ask questions! Can't wait to show you more of this!  So fun!!

That's it for today, friends!

Happy Thursday!!

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