I'm never buying invitations again. Maybe.

My friend Erika is having a baby at the end of November, and while we were planning her shower, I offered to order the invitations. Erika doesn't know if the baby is a boy or a girl, and she and her husband are huge Ohio State fans, so we planned a scarlet and grey theme for the shower.

After I got over my initial I-hate-Ohio-State disgust, I set to work finding invitations. I looked everywhere. I even looked places that are totally not affordable (cough Tiny Prints). And everything was either blue, pink, or some sort of green / yellow.  It didn't seem like we should have a green invitation and then an OSU themed shower, but I didn't know what else to do.

And then a flash of creativity came over me. Well, not really. But the invitation I liked best seemed pretty basic. Surely I could recreate it?

I am NOT an artistic person. I don't often have visions of original creativity. But give me a picture of something that someone else made and darn it, I can copy it with the best them! Shout out to Pinterest for furthering my delusions here.

Here's the inspiration invitation I was working with:

You can find the invite here on Shutterfly.

It's adorable. I might even like it better than scarlet and grey. But I couldn't change the theme this late in the game. So I worked to recreate it.

I made my version in Microsoft Publisher. I made it a little smaller than a size 10 mailing envelope so I wouldn't have to buy new envelopes. And I printed two to a page on cardstock so I didn't have to buy more cardstock.

I think it turned out pretty cute! I download all of my cute fonts from kevinandamanda.com. They have the BEST fonts and they are all free.

So my new plan is just to troll the internet for ideas next time I need an invitation, and to try to create it myself. And if/when that doesn't work, order them from somewhere.

Obviously at least half the fun of pinterest is coming up with ideas you can steal adapt to be your own. Are there any other ways you adapt inspiration to be your own?

Fingerprint Art

My neighbor/friend Clare is an awesome person to have close by. She actually was friends with my younger sister in college, and we connected through a professional association. When we found out we only live a few streets from each other, we (well at least I) were in heaven.

And this is why. Clare and her husband like art that is unique and meaningful. When Tony went away for the weekend, Clare decided to surprise him and create art based on their fingerprints. I know, you already love her.

This is the master bedroom they started with.  The floors are light wood, the walls are a cream color, and the bedding is tan. It was a whole lot of tan, and Clare and Tony decided they wanted to add some color. They had agreed on a navy accent wall behind the bed, and Clare got to work while Tony was gone!

To make the art, she first scanned their finger prints on the highest quality setting and uploaded them to Photoshop CS3. She did some rasterizing of the zoomed-in imageds (I have no idea what that means) and then digitally over each other. 

After playing around with the prints in Photoshop, it looked something like this.

She printed the images, and made them 8.5" x 8.5". This is solely a personal preference because Clare loves square art. I love square art too. And pretty much everything else Clare likes.The black and yellow represent Clare and Tony's fingerprints - this will make more sense in a minute.

She taped the image under tracing paper and...

Started painting! She painted each layer in a different color using the color scheme from the bedroom. So, brown for the furniture, cream for the bedding, and blue from the walls.

Clare called this part painstaking. She literally pulled an all-nighter. She is so cute/crazy. And she did this four times....

After the first color had completely dried, she went back through and added the second layer.

Here's the final print with all three colors added together. She made four total, so mixed the main color so that the prints felt modern and fresh.

Another print with more blue. When they had dried, she matted them on white cardstock, leaving a 1/4" border around each edge.

She matted the pictures using fancy tools like this. Y'all, I was not kidding when I said that she is a crafty fancy artist person (if I didn't say it yet, I'm saying it now). This woman is tal-en-ted.

Here's a sample of the finished product. Totally unique. Totally modern. Totally gorgeous.

Here they are matted over the bed! Aren't they gorgeous? They totally pop against the navy blue wall.

A close-up shot.

There you have it - some of the most beautiful and personalized art I've ever seen. Her husband loved it by the way... how could he not?? Be super jealous that Clare is not your neighbor/friend. Right now I'm trying to figure out how to con her into helping me make some sort of art!

Think of the possibilities with her method too - there are a lot of cool things you could paint onto tracing paper and them frame! Thanks, Clare, for sharing your creativity and talents!

I can see clearly now...

After more than 20 years of wearing glasses and/or contacts, I finally bit the bullet. Last Friday, I had LASIK surgery! This is a long and complicated story, so bear with me as I start from the beginning...

I have worn glasses or contacts for what feels like my entire life. We found out I needed glasses when I was in first grade. My parents had taken us bowling, and a few frames in, I hadn't hit a single pin. My mom said, "Tara! Look at the pins! You need to aim the ball to the pins!" I said, "What pins? I don't see any pins?"

A picture of me, pre-glasses. I'm the one in the middle. This picture is

mostly to show you that I was a ridiculously cute child.

My mom probably thinks of that as a parenting failure moment, but there wasn't any way that we would have known that my eyesight had changed -- it changed dramatically in just a few short months. The eye doctor gave me some coke bottle glasses and the journey began.

Just kidding. Those weren't my real glasses. This is just to show you that my

parents were fun and to embarrass my little sisters.

In second grade, I started to wear rigid gas permeable contacts. At that time, any young person whose eyes changed so dramatically was recommended for these. They thought that wearing them would slow down any more changes in your eyes (this has since been prove false, by the way). Anyone who has ever worn them is probably full of empathy at this point. They are rigid and hard and expensive and easily breakable and uncomfortable. Combine that with a second grader and you have years of difficulty! My mom actually put my contacts in and took them out each day for a few years. I lost more than one down the sink and my dad rescued them out of the drain. Once, we couldn't find a contact anywhere. I mean - anywhere. Because it had stuck to my shirt and we had thrown it down the laundry chute. And we found it in tact.

When I was a senior in high school, I made the switch to soft contacts. I was heading off to college and wanted to have more flexibility and comfort. I wore soft lenses without a problem until just over a year ago. All of a sudden, contacts were brutally uncomfortable, made me blink uncontrollably, and led to all sorts of watery eyes and irritation. I apparently just developed an intolerance to them. Side note - so did my friend Claire, who does not live in Cincinnati. But also, so did another friend who developed it just after moving to Cincinnati, which is when I did. Strange!

I've been thinking about Lasik since high school. When I was able to wear contacts, it was mostly an inconvenience. When I could only wear glasses, it became almost unbearable. Let me clarify that I have a lot of friends and family members who look amazing in glasses. Even better than they do without glasses in glasses. I am not one of those people. I hate the way I look in glasses. Case and point:

My aunt's crazy friend Jan, who is super fun.

It's probably because I wore contacts for so many years during the day, but I associate myself wearing glasses with being tired, sick, or going to bed. When I look at this picture (or any picture of me in glasses), I just don't like it. 

All of the people I knew in Cincinnati who had had LASIK used Dr. Varley -- quick shout out to his office for being amazing. It was pricey, but five days in, already so worth it. I did all the normal pre-procedure stuff, and then arrived on Friday for the surgery. Zac took me, and my parents came down as well. My dad said he wanted to see me when I realized I could see. Yes, he is the best dad ever.

They gave me some numbing drops and some valium. I was way more nervous than I thought I'd be. They took me into the procedure room, and Zac and my parents got to watch the whole thing.  I could wear my normal clothes, but had to wear a sweet hair cover thing. They gave me a teddy bear to hold, which made a ridiculous difference. It was great having something soft to hold on to.

Dr. Varley was wonderful, and really calming. I just had to focus on his voice, look where he told me to look,  and not freak out. Let me say that this was the strangest experience of my entire life (which I actually told him during the procedure!). It didn't hurt at all, but it was just so strange. If you have ever had a tooth pulled, it felt like that -- no pain, but you can feel it happening. Weird.

The first thing they do is cut flaps in your eye so they can laser off the parts that are making your vision bad. This is my unscientific description, by the way. This takes all of 5 seconds for each eye, but after they do it, your vision is really blurry and hazy. This is normal and the doctor told me it would happen, but it was still a bit disconcerting. 

Lining up my eye so they could cut the flap.

After they cut the flap, they line up your eye for the actual lasering (which for this post, counts as a real word). I don't really know what you're looking at here, but here's a picture of my eye, post flap cutting, but before any lasering:

The final step is the laser re-shaping your eye. Again, no pain, but super weird. I had the laser for about 30 seconds each eye, but my eyes were pretty bad. If your prescription is less, you don't have to have as much time under the laser.

Lining up my eye for the laser

One neat part about the technology is that if your eye moves for any reason, the laser stops and won't start again until it is repositioned.

The whole thing took less than 20 minutes. I got a complicated schedule of eye drops, some sweet goggles, and was sent home to sleep for as long as possible (at least 4-6 hours). I slept for awhile, woke up and had a milkshake, then went to bed for the night. I had some pretty intense discomfort the first night, but it wasn't bad enough to prevent me from sleeping.

First picture, post surgery!

When I went back the next morning, my vision tested at 20/15. Absolutely incredible!! It has gotten clearer each day sense. It's not necessary blurry, but my eyes are SO dry that it feels like it is. So far, that's been the worst part. I think I'll buy stock in artificial tears. Oh, and my eyes are super bloodshot and it looks like I do drugs. Except I told my kids at work I got bitten by a zombie (and three of them believed it). And I get to sleep in those cool goggles for three weeks (do you love how they matched my outfit that day??).

So... the verdict is that I am SO glad I did this, even though I'm not totally back to normal yet comfort-wise. It's amazing to wake up and see the alarm clock, see the tv without having glasses on, and be able to read a book in bed without having it 4 inches from my face. It's amazing not to have to clean my glasses all day, look in the mirror and hate them, or to be able to wear sunglasses in the car.  It isn't the right choice for everyone, but it sure was for me!!

Has anyone else had LASIK? Do you love contacts or glasses? Are you one of those people who has perfect vision and makes everyone else jealous?

Merry Christmas... a little bit early!

Since my life has reached a new level of crazy lately, when I saw a Groupon for $50 at Vistaprint.com that only cost me $10, I jumped on it. Um, holiday cards for a ridiculous deal? YES PLEASE!

So, it's September 7, and my Christmas cards are already here. Not just ordered. In my sewing room, ready to be addressed! It helped that we had a wedding picture to use, which made it pretty easy to get them set up.

But... in case you were wondering, Vistaprint has some great card designs! I like the flat 5"x7" cards, and they have a ton of designs to choose from. There's a lot of personalizing you can do (more than other sites, I think), and the price can't be beat. With my Groupon, I spent a total of $17 on 100 cards. But really... $57 for 100 cards is MUCH cheaper than I paid last year from another site.

The quality is really excellent, and the cards look great. Would definitely recommend it for others. Only one piece of advice - Vistaprint orders sometimes take forever to arrive, so plan accordingly and order early!

Happy (early) holidays!

What's in a name?

This Friday will be our five-month anniversary of being married, and I decided last week that it was time to stop dragging my feet about something. It was time to decide what the heck I was going to do about changing my name and actually do it. Not too hard... just had to figure out what I want my new name to be.

Um. Good question.

I have been on a multi-year journey when it comes to changing my name. First I said I'd absolutely do it. Then, there was no way I was even going to consider it. Then, maybe I'd hyphenate both names. Then, maybe I'd just take both names but use one or the other depending on the situation. Always comforting was knowing that I still had more time to decide.

Well - I'm out of time. I mean, I guess I could wait longer to change my name legally, but this has become my normal:

"Hi, I'm Tara, um, uh, uh, nice to meet you."

I have no idea how to introduce myself, because I'm not really sure what my last name is. And that just makes me look like an idiot! I needed to figure out what I was going to do, and just jump in.

I have some friends and family that would be totally appalled if I didn't change my name; I have some friends and family who would be totally appalled if I did change my name! I consider myself to be a feminist, and while that certainly influenced my decision, I have two friends who have very conservative, traditional values, and both of them struggled with the decision to change their names.

So... here's what I ultimately decided. My maiden name will be come my middle name, and I'll legally take my husband's last name. If you ask me what my middle name is, I'll still say Nicole. Sometimes I'll use both my maiden and married last names; sometimes I'll use just my married name. This works for me and my family. It may or may not work for you and yours.

But, since it was such a ridiculously long and stressful decision making process for me, I thought it might help others to share why I ultimately decided to do this:

• I couldn't shake the feeling that I wanted to share a name with my husband. I didn't want to only use my maiden name. I like my married name, and it sounds nice with my first name.
• It mattered to Zac the perfect amount. By that I mean if he had cared any less, I wouldn't have changed  my name, and if he had cared any more, it would have felt forced and I wouldn't have changed my name. It was his preference that we share a last name, but he would have been okay if we didn't. Perfect amount of caring.
• I want to have the same last name as my future children. To be frank, mostly for convenience and to avoid confusion at school and the doctor's office. 
• A friend of mine who kept both last names said to choose one or the other. It's way too confusing to find your records anywhere because you never know which last name people file you under.
• Zac's last name is shorter and easier to spell.
• People just assumed I was changing my name anyway, which made the switch easier.

Those reasons seem to be a little bit shallow, but I don't think anyone else's reasons are more or less legit than mine. It's what I've decided to do, but I think each person has to do what's right for them. It doesn't make my relationship unequal or give Zac more power because I took his name. Believe me... I still make most of the rules at our house! =)

I think Shakespeare said it best when he said, "A rose by any other name... is the same damn thing."

Or something like that, anyway.

Emboridering

I got my sewing machine as a Christmas gift from my parents almost 6 years ago. It is WAY nicer than I deserve, especially at the time when I didn't use it that often. They got it like a car at a super sale where it was the last one of last year's models... and I adore it.

One of the best parts is that it is also an embroidery machine. Using a special software on my computer, I can embroider a lot of stuff with monograms, names, flowers, etc.

I have a love-hate relationship with the embroidery part. I love that my machine can do it... I hate that sometimes it doesn't do it very well. Yes, most of this is likely user error, but I also feel like it's a crap shoot whether or not my final product will turn out well.

This time, I lucked out. I offered to embroider towels for my friend Alessa to give her bridesmaids as a gift. And then I immediately started worrying I would screw them up and kicking myself for volunteering to do it. But... against all odds, they really turned out wonderfully!

Towels usually do well in the embroidery machine, because they're big, flat, and the terrycloth is a fairly simple material for it to handle. 

So... after this, I'm officially on-again with my embroidery machine!

Derby goes to school!

Derby is a fantastic puppy. I mean, really, as far as puppies go, he's awesome. He is pretty well behaved, he's really sweet, and he's fantastic with kids and new people.

Sometimes though, he drives me crazy. And a few weeks ago, we had a few of those days in a row. I decided it was time for Derby to start puppy training, and we signed him up for a class at PetSmart.

The class was...okay. The trainer was good, but the training space was small and some of the other "puppy parents" in the class were more focused on complaining about their dogs than on working to improve their behavior.

So, in what has been a Bonistall tradition since the beginning of time, I had to snap his first day of school picture. 

Well, since I'm in it, I guess Zac snapped it. But isn't he just the cutest thing ever??

Forgot about this one!

I was downloading pictures from my camera last night and realized that I never showed you this! I was really into homemade gifts for Christmas last year, and used this fantastic tutorial to create this sweet little laptop case:

I made one for each of my sisters and one for one of my best friends. The best part is that by asking for their laptop dimensions ahead of time, they end up being a perfect fit!

I would estimate that each one took me a few hours to finish, with the first one taking way longer than the rest. I'm not very good at visualizing patterns, so I ripped out the zipper at least three times on the first one!

The sweet flower is a pin that can be taken off. 

What do you think? The possibilities with design are endless for this pattern, and you could do it without a ruffle to make it more simple or guy-ish.

I've been avoiding you.

It's not personal. Really, it's not. It's just that I don't have a lot to write about. Don't get me wrong... I have a ton of stuff going on, but none of it is really "write about it" worthy.

To illustrate my point:

1. I had no idea how exhausting having a puppy was going to be. He is nonstop. He's adorable, but he's adorable wanting to play with you 24/7. And we're taking him to puppy school which means we spend a lot of time practicing what we learn at puppy school. More exhaustion. And I don't want the only thing I do on this blog to be post pictures of the puppy!
2. I just got a promotion at work! Good, I know, but it means more responsibility and more stress! Cue additional exhaustion.
3. The only things I've been sewing are gifts, and I can't show them to you yet! Know that I'm not just a bump on a log, I am making things, but they are secret things!
4. I start a 20 hour / week internship for my MSW program next week. In addition to my full-time job. And whatever other "life" I'm going to piece together! The most exhaustion is from even thinking about this.

Don't worry, I'm not leaving forever. In fact, I might not be leaving at all. I just don't want to feel guilty when I don't update. I'll do it as much as I can - I promise.

To hold you over until next time...

Yum - Corn Salad

When I came across this recipe from Tatertots and Jello last week, I couldn't wait to try it. It looked so light and refreshing, not to mention delicious!

The best part is that it's made with ingredients you're likely to have already on hand in the summer time. I used fresh corn, and it was extra delicious.

We made it on Saturday night as a side dish for our shrip tacos. This salad definitely has a mexican taste to it, but it is definitely delicious!

As we were eating it, we actually ended up adding it to our tacos as part of the filling, and it was awesome. It is also great as a sort of salsa with tortilla chips. 

We will definitely be making this one again, and I thought you might want to try it too!