Hospitality Basket for Guests

(What are you saying? You mean EVERYONE doesn't have a guest room like this? Just shocking! {"shocking" what a funny sounding word, shock, shock, shock, it even looks funny})

My parents are coming for Easter weekend and I'm excited about it because this time they'll be staying with us. With our new house we have an extra room (our office) where guests can stay. (And no it's not pictured above.)

I did not like for people to stay with us when we didn't have a room or a bed for them to sleep. My in-laws stayed with us once before, they even shipped out their own air mattress. However they ended up on the couch and recliner the whole week because of bad backs and bad knees. It was too hard getting up and down from the floor where the mattress was. Thereafter everyone stayed at hotels.

In preparation for their visit I picked up some things at the store. I wanted to make a hospitality basket full of stuff they might forget to pack to make up for the lack of incredibly nice guest room pictured above. (You know the things when you start unpacking your suitcase and go, "Oh man, I forgot my _________!")

Some hospitality baskets include items like snacks, water, pain reliever, etc. but I've kept mine simple. I know they more than likely will not forget anything (my mom is big with lists for packing we all got our own list to check off when we went on vacations, camp, etc.) but these will also be for future guests into our home. I have a large square wicker basket that was given to me by a visiting preacher and inside it I've got their towels for their stay, his/her shaving cream, toothbrushes, toothpaste, body wash, soap, shampoo and conditioner, hairspray, his/her razors, lint roller, lotion, his/her deodorants, q-tips, and a body puff.

I received this whole basket idea from a class I took in Bible college called "Ministry Mates". My friend Tammy and I took that class together (we were the only two married girls in the class). The teacher gave us a cute poem to put into the basket but I couldn't find my notebook from the class because it's buried in the garage somewhere so Tammy kindly found hers for me and emailed me the words.

A Note to our House Guests
If in this basket you can find,
An item that you left behind,
Please help yourself to what you need
Because we count you friends indeed!

If you have someone coming to stay at your house, try making up your own basket of goodies and improvise, put some stuff in there that you know they like (my dad likes a certain type of gum and later this week I'll be adding it to the basket).

Valentine Bookmark

My friend Tammy has a shop on Etsy called Treasures by Tammy. I recently purchased a heart bookmark from her to giveaway at our Ladies Bible Study. I thought it was pretty in the pictures I saw but the pictures don't do it justice!

It is so delicate to hold and it's just so beautiful! She still has a couple left in her shop so you'd better hurry to get your own! I want to get another one for myself!

Thanks, Tammy!

Super Sale and A Dream Come True

After Church tonight I went with our Youth Leader's wife, her sister, and two teen girls to Mervyn's for a super sale that they were having. Their clearance racks were buy one get 2 free! One of the teen girls who needed some new clothes got armloads of stuff for under $50!! While the sales I took advantage of were not nearly that good they were good enough. I ended up buying my husband some new shirts that he really needed and some stuff that I really needed. There was one pair of shoes that was dressy casual but they weren't on the sale that I was looking for so back they went.

It happened!

Today all my dreams came true as we drove up to the house the mail lady was leaving and there on my door step was $1,000,000 THE package. The package that I knew had to contain my (cue the angel choir) Pink Lemonade Boutique Bag that I've been wanting for a long, long, very long, oh and did I say long? time.

Following are pictures of that beautiful bag.

There are so many different fabrics to chose from but I finally after a couple of hours of decision making decided on this one.

It has 3 very nice sized pockets on the inside.

For an example on how roomy they are I've put my wallet in one of them. My wallet is big and it fits very nicely inside!!

Finally, here I am stylin' my new bag!!

(Can you tell I'm just a little bit excited?)

I had it with me at Church tonight and they were on me like vultures the excited ladies they were. I knew I told people about how cute these bags are and how much I wanted one but I didn't realize it was that many! One after another, "Ooooo, is that the bag you were talking about? How cute!"

I'm already loving this bag like I knew I would. It can carry all the stuff that I take everywhere, diapers, baby food, kitchen sink, wallet, Bible for Church, small children, pens, hand sanitizer, refrigerator, and anything else I might have with me at the time.

I also have one more thing that I'm expecting but it hasn't arrived yet but I'll let you know when it does!

Pictures Are Fun

I love to take photos. I love to "mess around" with photos in any photo software I can get my hands on. I am by no means a professional. I need all the help I can get. So when I was browsing today trying to do some research on some different cameras that might make it a little easier to take nicer pictures I came across this article: Tips for Using a Point & Shoot Camera. It inspired me to check out some different things on my camera that I could change to make my pictures better.

Here is one example of how it helped out.

This is a picture of my girls room which I finally cleaned today (pay no mind to the pile of clothes on the bed.) As you can see it came out pretty yucky.


Now, after changing one of the settings on my camera here is how it turns out. Not perfect but much better!


Now I finally know what to do for all those pictures that would come out so dark in our church auditorium. I'm looking forward to playing around a little more with different things and settings.

Favicon

I now have my very own favicon for my URL! I finally found a site that was easy to follow instructions and gave lots of help on how to get one for my blog. If you are interested in making your own favicon for your blogger URL then visit Tips for New Bloggers.

Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder

We were gone again. This time we went to Seattle to visit my in-laws. We had a great time! The flight was so much better than the last time we flew. Especially because of a Ride on Carry on seat that someone gave us for Christmas last year. If you haven't seen one of these or if you have little children and travel often one of these is a must for you!! You can find them at http://www.rideoncarryon.com/ . We didn't have to worry about keeping track of Sissy while in the busy international airports and she loved the seat!

I am so excited about the blessings the Lord gives to us. My most recent big blessing is that my cabinets are finally getting stained. Woohoo!! I've been avoiding cooking like the plague because I didn't have them done yet but they are just about finished and they look awesome!!

Here's a before picture.

And this is what they look like now.

I don't know about you but I can't read what I put on there in the green. It says, "They match colors!" I walked in the house after we got home from church and "WOW" how gorgeous are these!

My other blessing that happened today was my beautiful necklace and earring set from Fussypants Designs came in today!! They are even more beautiful in person than in pictures! I got them at church tonight (long story) and immediately showed them off to everyone. Everybody loved them and thought they were gorgeous. I purchased a set of the Megan, necklace and earrings, for my M-I-L and because of great, awesome and terrific love and customer service from Mrs. Fussypants herself I got a pair as well!!! I love them, love them, love them!! Thank you, Mrs. Fussypants! By the way she even has a store on Etsy so go check it out!

O Christmas Tree

It's up! We put up our Christmas tree last night. (By the way, this is sort of a rabbit trail, I saw one of those side of the roads tree stands that are everywhere this time of year and they were touting that they were selling "Holiday" trees. What holiday besides CHRISTMAS do we put up CHRISTMAS trees for at this time of year?) We've gone artificial as of last year because of the mess a real one makes. I love the smell of Christmas trees but the mess is too much for me. So I get some nice tree smelling candles. The tree we have is so easy to put up too. Once it was up I couldn't believe that Christmas is already here. Didn't we just start 2007? The years seem to go faster and faster.

I've already gotten some Christmas shopping done. I've gotten a bunch of Turner Tags from Sunthings Charming they're so cute and needed for us moms who need a reminder about protecting our babies and ourselves from the sun. These are for all of my friends and family with little ones. I've also gotten a beautiful custom photo necklace and earring set from Fussypants Designs as a gift for my mother-in-law. I've been enjoying finding all these mommy sites where I can do my shopping at instead of braving the outside world of shopping with my 3 little ones in tow. What great places to shop have you found online?

Have you Etsy'd today?

What's an Etsy? Etsy is a place where you can find delightful treasures and gifts to buy, buy, buy from people and places all over! If you haven't been there yet I highly recommend it. I first discovered Etsy when my friend over at Tammy's Times opened up her own little shop called Treasures by Tammy.

Another fine thing about Etsy is that you can also sell, sell, sell! Geared more toward the crafty people of this earth from what I could see Etsy sellers make the product that they sell. If you're thinking that this stuff is something you might find in a thrift store that some first timer tried to make you'd be completely wrong! There are vast amounts of beautiful items that would take you a lifetime to go through.

Why am I writing this post you ask. Do I have an Etsy shop of my own? No. I have just enjoyed my trips to this delightful place and wished to share. Also if you would like to learn more about Etsy my friend over at Tammy's Times has a post talking about her Etsy experience. Just click here and scroll down to the post entitled "Etsy".