By the way...

I forgot to mention that I have a new post on the family blog. Go see it HERE.

My new project... and also some past ones:

I like to share my projects online because I'm proud of them. Ya know... it takes a lot of work to make things and I LOVE to do it... and I also love to show people what I accomplished. Is that prideful? I sure hope not. I guess my intention is not to show how good I am (because my crafts are very amateur), but just to share my successes and say to the world, "man... I really didn't think I was going to be able to do that. BUT I DID. And I feel good."

I love the blog world. I learned everything I know (with the exception of a few informational gems from my grandma and mom) from crafty blogs. It's so the best.

Here's my current project. It's an advent calendar for Christmas! I know Christmas is over and past, but I wanted this for years to come, and if I'm going to have it ready by next Christmas... I better get going. It will be my most ambitious endeavor yet. It's hard! And time consuming! But worth it. I think. I like it so far and if I do it really similar to the gal I got the inspiration from... it should turn out ok. Go here for her version.
Here is the pottery barn version I'm trying to duplicate. I saw this picture originally:
I've only finished cutting out my squares, the felt pieces, and glued the big pieces on the squares. My next step is to do all the stitching on each square. Then cut out my tree, then stitch my squares on, then stitch the numbers and snowflakes, then... it goes on forever. That's why I'm starting now. :)

And here are some other things I've been doing in the past month or two...

A plastic bad holder. I love it. I just used scraps and got the idea from Make It and Love It.

A little blanket I made for my nephew Dallin for Christmas. He's way into Mickey Mouse. Although, he's already merging to Goofy... so maybe I'll have to make him a new one.
I also made him a mr. potato head. This idea is also from Make It and Love It. There's quite a few more pieces I could have made... but alas... it was hard enough as it is!

here's a little purse I made for my niece Ashley. I think it turned out quite nice. I might want one for myself! :) This tutorial is at Crafty Daisies. I also made the little pink stripped blanket for her little dolls. That one was not my best work. haha.

A cute hair clip. Tutorial at A Hoot and a Holler.

All in all... I had tons of fun doing all this stuff. It was way worth it... and very rewarding. Tutorials make all this possible. I'm learning tons of new things and my creative outlet is finally fulfilling my creativity needs! Woo HOO.

Two new posts!

I've posted two new posts on the family blog! They're all about Christmas! :)

Click HERE for Christmas Eve and HERE for Christmas day.

The Famous Cinnamon Rolls:

Last year Josh's life changed after he was given a cinnamon roll from heaven. He has been actively trying to obtain the recipe ever since... and now our friends were gracious enough to not only give us the recipe, but also feed us a yummy dinner AND give us a live, hands on demonstration of how to make these beauties.

This was right before we left to the highly anticipated cinnamon roll baking night. We're happy.

The two little pixies patiently waiting for the yummy rolls.

Kelly did one batch while Josh followed along with his own batch.

Mmmm... dough.

The cinnamon and sugar concoction. Oh yeah... and mounds and mounds of butter. :)

Josh is oh so happy.

pre-baked rolls.

putting the rolls into the pan... the anticipation is killing us!

Melissa and I trying to get an artistic photo at the same time.

Josh, still trying to kneed the dough enough. :) He got pretty gooey.

THE FINISHED PRODUCT. Kelly's great-grandmother's cinnamon rolls from heaven. And, yes, they were definitely heavenly.

What a fun night we had. We ate a yummy dinner and then we watched So You Think You Can Dance while the rolls were rising. Great fun! Thanks Peterson family! I'm sure the fantastic cinnamon roll recipe will be used for years to come. Mmmm... and hopefully next time my oven doesn't do freaky things... *wink wink*

New POST ALERT!

A new post on our family blog!! Go Here to view it. Enjoy!

A small thing that made my day:

I just got back from the laundry room at my complex and while I was piling my dried clothes into my baskets two little curly haired 3-ish year olds came in with their mom. I noticed right away how beautiful they looked. They were really pretty kids. One boy and one girl... probably twins. Well, they walked in and I looked right at them and said "Hi." That's all. Just a little hi and a smile. The little girl looked at me a little harder and then said loudly, "You look like Tinker bell from 'Tinkerbell and the Lost Treasure!'" Then the boy piped in and said, "yeah!!! You're so pretty, just like tinkerbell's friend!"

So, I'm standing here, in my pj's, hair pulled back, no make-up on, pulling laundry out of the drier. And these two little toddlers thought I was pretty. :) I'm not sure if they would have said that to anyone they saw because they had just watched the tinkerbell movie or something (because I'm no Tinkerbell... I have dark DARK hair and freckles... that's not tinkerbell). But it still made me feel good. Little kids are candid. They are blunt and truthful. That small little comment made me feel so happy inside for some reason.

After this little exchange, they started jabbering about hannah montana or something and I just said goodbye and left. :)

On a side note... We're going to my favorite place in the world today. The River!!! It will be Ethan's first time and I have NO clue how he's going to do during the 4 hour car ride. The longest he's been in the car is about an hour. Oh boy. Wish me luck.

Family blog post! It's a big one too!

I finally posted on our family blog!!! Go HERE to see it.

We are blessed:

I just wanted to say it. Heavenly Father has blessed us, is blessing us, and will continue to bless us. That's just how He is. He ALWAYS follows through. I love Him.

I Stand Corrected:

THIS video of "Party in the USA" is much less scandalous (compared to the original) and makes me feel even more happy. I love his facial expressions! I'm not sure if this is the one you meant for me to find Trent. But either way... this one is pretty awesome. THANKS!

Sometimes I laugh at myself:

... sitting on the couch...
...eating some scrumptious goodies...
...watching little E play on the ground...
...listening to the OCMCO "That Easter Morn" CD... (go HERE for more info because there's a concert coming up on Wed.)
...beginning to get teary and feeling warm fuzzy things inside...
...beginning to fully cry and become enveloped in the music...
...nearing the "boo hoo" cry because it's so beautiful...
...trying to get a hold of myself because I think I'm being dumb...
...failing miserably until the song ends...
...laughing really hard at myself. REALLY hard...

Katie and Kendra's book give away...

If you're looking for a fun homemade book give away... GO HERE to my sister-in-law's blog. Katie and Kendra (my sisters-in-law) are giving away a book bundle SPECIALLY made by Kendra. She's SO talented. It's intense what she can do. HERE is her website where you can see some of her creations. She also teaches classes... too bad I don't live in Utah! Blast.

But I hope I win it. Maybe if I begged her for some books she might give them to me anyway... maybe the one's she has laying around her house or something. That way if I don't win the give away I won't go and cry about it. I LOVE Kendra's stuff. We have two of her books. One parchment like journal that I love to write in and the one that she made for Josh and my wedding. It was our guest sign in book. SO FUN and so cute. We loved and still love it. I hope I get some more books. YES!

I'm not sure why... BUT I LOVE THIS SONG!!!!!

For some reason, this song is totally a "get up and move" song for me. It gives me good feelings inside. Like, the kind of feelings that tell me I'm having a great day no matter what happened/happens! Love it. And once again, this is something that was introduced to me by my lovely sister. Thanks HOTH! Oh, and ps: sorry for the not so modest girls in the video. I guess it could have been much worse.

Experimenting...

...with my new photoshop program!!!!

It's so stinkin' fun. This is kind of a dumb picture...it's something I made as an idea for place settings at Thanksgiving dinner... so I played around with the picture of it in photoshop to try and learn some things. I can't seem to figure out how to actually crop my picture so that you don't see the background green stuff. I'm VERY new though... so I'm sure I'll figure out tons of things soon. It's also TOO glowy... haha... I liked that feature. :)
This is my newest creation! I had seen a few different variations of this online... but I just came up with this on my own (using different parts of different kinds I had seen online). I wanted some place to store all my fun ribbons! And this is really easy and accessible. I decoupaged a shoe box with cool paper, hot glued some ribbon as a trim, put eyelets all along the base, and put my ribbons through them! I keep all the ribbon spools in place INSIDE the box with the long part of a wire hanger I cut to size. Anyway... sorry about the glowy/faded nature of the picture. Like I said, it's just me trying out my new program! YES!!! THANKS HOTH!

Haynie Happiness New Post

To see it... click here.

My projects this week...

I attempted a few new projects in the last few days and I really liked them! Here is my little crinkle toy that I made for little E. I got the tutorial from Lil Blue Boo here. It was actually super super easy. And I LOVE ribbon.

Little E loved playing with it. He liked feeling it crinkle in his fingers and he loved chewing on the ribbons. It makes a mom really happy to see their child like things they got/made for them. It makes it all worth it.This is a travel size baby wipes case that I made a little more pretty. The tutorial I used was from Homemade by Jill. There are some significant flaws in my attempt... but after fixing most of them... it turned out pretty good! And it didn't take long at all. Fun fun! And guess what else!!?? Josh glued the button on for me while I fed little E. So nice. :)

I've inherited some WONDERFUL fabric from some WONDERFUL women and I'm very happy. It's been really fun this weekend! I've tried a few things with my new sewing machine and my projects didn't crash and burn like I thought they would.

These are the VERY first things I made... like EVER in my life made. Like, the only other thing I've done on a sewing machine was hem a pair of pants. So, this was a LARGE step. I got the tutorial from stardust shoes and it was actually super easy. If you notice though, I made one shoe different. On accident. Oops. And by the time I noticed it... I didn't feel like re-doing anything. So my next pair I made, I did both shoes at the same time, rather than one shoe and then the other shoe. I guess I was just nervous I wouldn't be able to do it the first time so I only wanted to waist a little bit of fabric in case I messed up. This first pair looks like a couple of ducks to me. Do they to anyone else? I also didn't use fabric that I was in love with because, again, I had no confidence in myself. :) And then, I ventured some better fabric and came up with this...

I got the idea for these shoes from Homemade by Jill. I'm happy with these ones the most. They are WAY cuter on little E's feet than off of them. :) I'll have to post a follow up picture with him wearing them. So cute. All in all, I'm very happy with myself. I actually did WAY better than I thought I was going to. I guess that's why I'm so happy. Little E will be showing off his new shoes at church today... that's for sure!

JACKPOT!

Soon after Josh and I got married, my great grandma moved from her larger home to a smaller apartment. I think it was like a weekend before she was planning to get rid of everything that she offered some stuff to us... because we were JUST married. And poor. And needed things.
One of our fondest first year memories is renting a huge Penskie truck, driving all over California (it seemed), and ending up back in Utah where we lived. Part of that trip was to pick up some stuff from Grammie. We definitely hit the jackpot. She gave us AWESOME things. Like a fridge, table and chairs, and many cool cabinets (some of them my dad had made a LONG time ago). But the one thing she gave us that I'd like to focus on at the moment is this...
It's one of those OLD FASHIONED sewing machines that is built in to this cupboard thing. The sewing machine can be hidden away and everything can close up so that it just looks like a regular old cabinet. IT'S SO COOL. I haven't pulled it out to use it until now, two years after we got it. We've been carting this thing ALL over the place. We've moved 6 times with it. And it's REALLY heavy. Like, I could barely move it. Anyway... because it's so heavy and I wasn't using it, there were SO many times that I just wanted to throw it away or give it away. I was tired of carting it around for nothing. Oh how glad I am that I didn't throw it out! Thank you to all who talked me out of it during almost every relocation we made.

The other cool thing is that my Grammie gave me a big box filled with all of her sewing stuff. I hadn't looked through the box until today. I can't believe it took me that long! Usually I think it's so fun to look through old stuff and discover things I could use, etc. So, here is a picture of the box before I went through it....


Oh my... this is just SOME of the fun and interesting stuff that was in the box. If you close up on the picture above you will see how old this stuff was. You can see how they advertised back then and how much things cost. It's so funny and crazy!
This one was priceless. "I want PROSPERITY pockets!"

She had TONS of zippers. And you can see that the packaging for the "invisible zipper" is starting to look a little less 1940's. That kind of zipper was revolutionary!
And then of course all of her thread. Isn't this cool??!!

Look closely... these boxes are... yep, you guessed it... cigar boxes. :) I had to call my mom to figure this one out. My great-grandfather's (gramps) step-father smoked cigars and a pipe. So my Grammie used the old boxes to store stuff. Haha.

I was SO happy with my find today that I was literally singing and dancing around the house and not realizing it. I only noticed after Josh gave me a weird look that probably meant something like, "who are you and what have you done with my wife?" Or I guess it could have also meant "you're kind of scaring me honey." But I was and still am SO happy! Today I was able to find tons of stuff I can actually use to further my homemaking skills and I didn't know I had it! And it felt like it NEVER ended. I kept finding cool things, like a package that said, "Renu-a-bra!" over a drawing of a woman in some odd looking underwear. :)

New Haynie Happiness Post:

Click HERE to view it.

I LOVED my wedding

It has been two years and three months since my wedding day. Some people say once this much time after their wedding has gone by that they wish they would have changed something or another about that day. But I wouldn't change a thing. Not two years ago, not now, and I'll probably never feel like I wished it was different. It was perfect. Everything about it. Simply perfect. Our sealing was in the most beautiful temple that we now get to visit often. Our sealer was the absolute BEST sealer we could have ever asked for. The most important part of the whole day (and our whole lives) was made even better by such an inspiring, spiritually in tune, loving man. It was so special. I'll never forget it. And after the BEST morning ever I had the BEST evening ever at our reception. Wow... my parents REALLY outdid themselves. I still can't get over how many times I heard, "Hillary, would you rather have 'this' or 'that'?" or "what would make you most happy??" They were so SO awesome! I was so amazed by their generosity and complete love. My parents are so cool. And they certainly made my reception the talk of the town. :) Here are some pictures from one of the most fabulous days in my memory:
It was so nice to not be one of those brides who was completely tired after getting up at 4am in the morning. The temple was SO close so I didn't have to! What a great idea it was to get married there! Because, you know... the LA temple was closed (where I originally wanted to get married), and so the San Diego temple was where we were going to get married. We had the invitations printed and everything. But then I got a call from my sister that changed everything. And I'm so glad she called. Yep, thanks Heather. She talked some sense into me and I in turn talked some sense into Josh... which wasn't hard because his goal then and now has always been to make me happy.

We had a fantastic photographer! The fantastic-ness was mostly because she seemed to be able to capture everything exactly how I remembered it. And she was so creative and fun. We totally felt comfortable around her. We were SO LUCKY!

"The Tunnel of Love" as some of the guests affectionately called the entrance to the reception.

Chocolate covered strawberries. OH SO GOOD. And also pretty.

I think the high light for me at the reception was the beauty of the flowers! Wow. So classic! My bouquet was probably my favorite. It only became me favorite, though, after my mom saw a little glimpse of disappointment in my eyes after seeing the finished product. I didn't say anything about it either because I knew they were doing SO much for me and trying to make everything perfect. But she saw it in me and she jumped right on it and added some flowers to my bouquet that made ALL the difference! My special bouquet went from being pretty to GORGEOUS in a matter of minutes. All because of my mom.

Ok... how lucky am I to have a massively talented cake maker of a grandma! It was SO BEAUTIFUL!

Oh yes, more of the lovely flowers. I just loved them so much!

I thought and still think that my parents are the coolest for coming up with this design. FLOATING FLOWERS above the table area! It was so cool.

What a perfect day. Thanks for reliving this with me! It was SO FUN.
Can you tell it makes me happy???