Purex Baby Detergent Review & Giveaway **CLOSED**

There might not be any more babies in our household, but I am always eager to try a new product. Especially when it's from Purex. This time I got to review their new Purex Baby Detergent. Just like all of their other products, it's tough on dirt & stains, but this is also gentle on baby' skin. Plus it's hypoallergenic and dermatologist-tested.

I was very pleased with how our clothing came out of the wash. Very fresh & clean!

Now, for the fun stuff. Three lucky readers will each win a coupon for a FREE bottle of Purex Baby Detergent!

To Enter:
1. Tell me how many loads of laundry you do a week. (too many!) (Mandatory)

2. Become a public follower of my blog, or let me know that you already are. Separate comment please. (Optional)

Please make sure that I can either contact you through your profile, or that you leave an email address! And make sure that you leave a separate comment for each entry. Giveaway will remain open until 2/1/13.

Good luck!!

Yarn Wreaths

Unfortunately, I have not been crafting regularly. And I miss it! December had me focused on getting everything bought & wrapped and finishing up my math class, and then Christmas came, followed by our vacation. Now I'm back in school taking college algebra and anatomy & physiology I. It's a tough semester. Hopefully I can find some time to craft, and soon. In the mean time, I'm going to share a few wreaths I managed to sqeeze in back in November & December.

You might recognize the rainbow wreath at the top of this post. It's not new, but since I posted it, it's been pinned quite a bit on Pinterest, and I've read a lot of  comments mentioning making it for other holidays, etc. So I decided to copy myself. This gold one above I made for Thanksgiving.

Then in December, I joined at Christmas Swap hosted by Crystal at Little Bit Funky. I wanted to send something handmade to my partner, so I decided to make another wreath. I started again with the rainbow wreath as inspiration, but ended up not copying it 100%. 

She decorates with traditional Christmas colors, which I somewhat do as well (I really loves blues & bright colors though), but it was kind of hard for me to work with these colors. The red glittery sticks were part of a Christmas pick from Michael's.

I had purchased these little trees at the thrift, but didn't like the gold bases. So I covered them with some silver glitter.

After I shared photos of that wreath on Facebook, my sister in law mentioned she wanted one. So I got busy making another. This time I used the white Christmas wreath as inspiration. This time I added a small white pearl to the center of each flower, and added a chipboard deer glittered white. I also tied a bit of red twine around his neck. Sadly, this is the only picture I took of it!

(I apologize that it's crooked. I didn't notice when I was taking the photo!). Then I decided it was time for another one for me. But it was so close to Christmas (like, Christmas Eve), that I decided I'd go ahead and just make it more of a winter theme. So I used this pretty aqua yarn.

And I bleached a few trees and glittered their bases. And this was as far as I got. I was playing around with adding a brown glittery chipboard deer, felt flowers, snowflakes... but I couldn't decide. I thought maybe if I left it alone for awhile, it would come to me. But it still hasn't. And it hardly feels like winter most of the time here anyway. It's been in the upper 70's/low 80's quite a bit. So it seems almost silly to make a winter wreath!

Any suggestions for finishing this thing? Or should I just put it away until next year and worry about it then?

Linked to: I'm Crafty Party at So You Think You're Crafty, Catch as Catch Can at My Repurposed Life, Weekend Bloggy Reading at Serenity Now, Delicately Constructed Friday at delicateCONSTRUCTION, Friday Favorites at Simply Sweet Home, Inspiration Gallery at Craftberry Bush, Friday Favs at Naptime Crafters, Weekend Wrap Up Party at Tatertots & Jello, Sundae Scoop at I Heart Naptime, Creative Bloggers Party & Hop at Homemaker on a Dime

Mid-October Finds

I have been itching to go thrifting and yard-saling ever since we got back from our vacation in December. Hitting all those antique stores made me ready to seek out more treasures. If you follow me on Instagram (I'm @WendyBrnn), you've already seen a sneak peek of what we found there. But that's another day. 

Today I'm sharing some stuff I found at the thrift back in October. Not sure why I didn't post sooner. Anyway, I am now.

 One lonely wooden spool. Which I'm kind of glad about in a way. When there is a whole bag of them, they tend to want to mark them up since they're vintage. One was cheap though.

 In several of my previous thrifting adventures, I found pieces of this lovely set of dishes. And fell in love! I've been collecting ever since, but it's been a long time since I found any. So I was super excited to find these. The set is by Taylor Smith & Taylor and it's called Boutonniere.

 I love everything about these flowers!

 And even though I really have no use for tea cups (we drink our tea sweet, with ice), I can't pass them up. The inside is the prettiest shade of aqua. 

Mike is probably going to roll his eyes at this one, but I liked him. He's still out in my stash waiting to be hung. Before I do, I might paint over that 1980's blue, but I haven't decided yet. Not sure what color I'd do any way.

Have you found anything good lately? 

Linked to: Weekly Thrifted Link Up at Young Heart

Winter Vacation - Tallulah Falls

 Once again, we decided to escape Florida for a bit and head to the mountains. I just love it there! And the fact that it was actually winter up there, as opposed to the 80° temperatures we had been (and still are) having in Florida. This trip was our third time visiting, and this time, Mike's parents went with us. The first day we mostly traveled and got settled in.

 The next day we headed down to Mountain City, GA to see Black Rock Mountain. We were hoping to find snow there again, and sure enough we did! Of course, the mountain top is closed in December, but we were hoping to go back to the Foxfire Museum, however they were closed that day.

From there we headed further south to Tallulah Falls.We've been to all these places, but we thought his parents would enjoy it. We only did the upper part of the park this time, his dad wouldn't have been able to do the stairs.

 It's so pretty here. My camera just doesn't do it justice. Layla was afraid to walk all the way over to where Blake is here. 

 After exploring there, we headed the rest of the way up to the Inspiration Point, which is almost 1000 feet above the gorge floor. Here's Morgan helping Poppie up the trail.

 Some holly we found on the trail.

  After we explored the gorge, we decided to go check out the nearby overlook.

It was on the porch of a little shop & BBQ restaurant. This old wagon was out on the porch holding cider for sale.

 It's hard to tell from this photo, but the gorge is a long way down there.

 The shop was full of things... jelly & cider, pottery and crafts made by locals, snacks, toys, soap & more. It also had lots of antiques stashed here and there. Like this old weight machine.

 These two old coolers were holding sodas. The Pepsi one wasn't cold, but the Coke one was.

 I loved this old bathtub holding soaps for sale.

 And this with the Burts Bees!

I'll be back with the rest of our trip soon!

I Love You Collage Art

When I first saw this idea on Pinterest, I knew right away that I wanted to do it. I loved the way it looked and I like doing collages, so I figured it would be super easy. Which is wasn't! I know, what's hard about a collage? But I really did struggle with getting this thing started and finished. But it's finally done!

As you can see in this picture, I started it more than once. I had a row all cut out and glued on and I just wasn't loving it. So I ripped off what I could and painted over what remained, knowing it would all be covered anyway.

Whenever I had spare time, I went through old magazines, coupon inserts and weekly store ads looking for the appropriate letters and words. After trying out just using individual letters, I realized it looked a lot better with a mixture of words and letters.

Here you can see it about halfway done, and if you look close you can see the mixture. I clipped the letters spelling out I LOVE YOU and the words LOVE and YOU. And then I just did a mixture of ways to write it. Some were spelled out in letters, some were written "I love u" or "I love you!" and sometimes I used "ou" stuck together. 

 Oh, and I just used a regular old glue stick to glue these on.

 Once I finally had everything pieced together, I brushed over the whole thing with Mod Podge, just to help seal it in. 

 Now that it's finally finished, I am really happy with how it turned out. But it was SO much harder than I thought it would be! Not only is the letter V super hard to find in magazines, but even getting the placements right was tricky. But I think it was worth it. Now I just have to figure out where to hang it.

Linked to: Weekend Bloggy Reading at Serenity Now, Weekend Wrap Up Party at Tatertots & Jello, Sundae Scoop at I Heart Naptime, Creative Bloggers Party & Hop at Homemaker on a Dime, Market Yourself Monday at Sumo's Sweet Stuff, Sunday Showcase Party at Under the Table & Dreaming, Get Your Craft On at Today's Creative Blog, Whatever Goes Wednesday at Someday Crafts, What We Wore, Read & Made at Rae Gun Ramblings, Hookin Up with HoH at House of Hepworths, Transformation Thursday at The Shabby Creek Cottage, I'm Crafty Party at So You Think You're Crafty, Catch-as-Catch-Can at My Repurposed Life, Friday Favorites at Simply Sweet Home, Friday Favs at Nap Time Crafters, Delicately Constructed Friday at delicateCONSTRUCTION, The Inspiration Gallery at Craftberry Bush

Instagram!

 

Right before Christmas, we joined the modern world by upgrading our phones to iPhones! And of course I joined Instagram right away. I had already been browsing it on Blake's iPod touch, but now I finally have an account. You can find me @WendyBrnn. Here are just a few of my recent images.

 My gorgeous new necklace from Daisy Metal Creations.

 Some of the awesome vintage goodies I found while we were on vacation in North Carolina.

 Jingle bells decorating my bathroom.

A few gifts under the tree before Christmas.

Are you on Instagram? If so, share your user name with me so I can look you up! :)