Froggy Feature Friday #1

As most of you know, I own an etsy shop called The Framed Frog in which I sell my customized nursery artwork, photo frames, memo boards, custom name trains, wall art, and signs. I realized that although my blog is mainly about my family and the crazy mishaps we find ourselves in on a regular basis, I need to include more about my other passion - my art.

So every Friday, I am going to feature something that either I made for a customer or something new for the shop. Every artist likes to show off a little, right? :)

So here's a set of custom frames I did for a bride to give as gifts to her ring bearers and flower girls. These have actually been quite popular this fall - I guess brides are attracted to the vintage children silhouettes and the custom wedding color matching.

This bride's evening wedding is featuring bold red, black, and white as the color scheme. With two ring bearers and two flower girls, she wanted to make sure that each child had a unique frame.

This was the first time I have done frames for flower girls; so I came up with the silhouettes of a dancing little girl, a toy tea set, a girl chasing balloons, and a rocking horse for the frames.

On the other hand, I have done many ring bearer frames, and the drummer boy, sailboat, tricycle, and boy chasing a ball are pretty popular.

It's nice to think that each child now has a special keepsake from the wedding that will last for a long time.

Found It Friday - Daisies

It's time again for a breath of fresh inspiration. Welcome to Found It Friday, where I (and other awesome bloggers) share how we were inspired by the simple yet beautiful flower called a daisy. In case you're joining us for the first time, each week I post a theme for inspiration. All participating bloggers come up with five things inspired by the theme. You can read more about how you can join in on the fun with this new meme here.

He loves me, he loves me not. . . let's explore this field of daisies together.

1. I love the cheerful effect that giant Gerber daisies have. I couldn't think of a more appropriate place for my daisies than my big sunny kitchen window. I bought adorable hourglass vases at IKEA, filled the bottoms with white rice, and then inserted the Gerber daisies (which I cut down to the height I wanted.) Instant happiness!

2. Perhaps if you love flowers but have trouble keeping them alive (I have no green thumb whatsoever!), this steel daisy chain may work perfectly in your garden. It is made entirely out of recycled propane tanks by Shining Sun Garden Works. Gorgeous!

3. The Drama Queen and I were so inspired by the shape of daisies that we made our own monogrammed daisy hair clippies. (tutorial)

4. Daisies are just lovely at weddings! Here is a very chic and easy way to make your wedding favors memorable - just add a sweet daisy to the top of a standard wedding bubbles container. (daisy wedding ideas)

5. And speaking of sweet, make edible daisies like these charming beauties to decorate cupcakes for your next garden party or bridal shower. (Puffed-Up Petal Cupcakes by Wilton)

And finally, as a little bonus this week, I made a daisy-inspired treasury at Etsy, highlighting items featuring fresh yellows and clean whites. It's easy (and addicting!) to make your own treasuries at Etsy.com. It's strangely exhilarating to organize a group of your favorite things and make it look beautiful. You can see my entire treasury here.

So, show me your daisy love! Link up with your Found It Friday daisy post below, and be sure to visit everyone else's posts to kick up the creativity this weekend!

Next week's inspiration is: Sand and Surf . Start gathering your wonderful finds now and wow us with a beautiful post next week!

(and if you came visiting through Follow Me, Chickadee Fridays, welcome! I am so glad you dropped by!)

Summertime. . . and The Livin is Easy

We had the privilege of attending my husband's uncle's wedding this past Saturday. The Nerd himself was out of town on vacation (yeah, we take separate vacations - more about that in a later post. -grin-) I then was in charge in three lovely littles by myself at an outdoor wedding on a very large property. My in-laws were awesome and helped as much as they could, but it was all I could do to sneak a few photos here and there. Here are a few of my favorites:

The Beast: "I am so over this tie. and all the smiling. Can we go now?"
The Drama Queen: "Hmmm...how can I come up with a new way to ask Mom and Dad for a puppy?"

The Spud: "You got to be kidding me, right? I don't see any cheese! What am I supposed to smile about? Now if you had said, 'Say Cookie' or 'Say Mass Destruction', I would have been all over that."

The Spud managed to drink his soda out of the can on his own quite well. Well, if you don't mind several streaks down the uber cute tie and a brown puddle on the porch. (no, it's not beer, people! It's cream soda!)

The Beast paused long enough for a cute shot with the man of the hour . . . and his soda. What can I say? I knew it was going to be a tough gig - allowing the kids to have soda helped me maintain some of my sanity.

Other random facts about the day:
1) please note the Spud's adorable loafers. I found those on sale at Wally World for just $3.
2) the Drama Queen picked out her own dress because it "sorta matched Momma's." (also a great bargain for $6 at Burlington Coat Factory!)
3) the sun and crazy activity had really gotten to me, so naturally I had to stop on the way home and get a Northwest Chocolate Cherry shake with expresso from Burgerville. Have you all noticed they have started printing the nutritional information on your receipt?? My splurge of the day ended up costing me 1100 calories! (guess who didn't eat dinner that night!!)
4) a HUGE thank you to my in-laws, who despite their exhaustion too kindly took the littles off my hands for the night and brought them to church the next morning. ahh sweet no-kid time. It was glorious!