Thompson Family-Life

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I'm taking new sponsors for August! Yes, it's down to the wire. Tomorrow is the last day of July. Please email me at thousandclowns (AT) yahoo.com for more info! I have several spots still available.

You can read past and current Sponsor Testimonials here, here, here & here.

You can see past Sponsor Highlight & Giveaway posts here to see what that entails here at Thompson Family-Life. I try to go above and beyond your typical sponsor post with a thorough and well-designed post for each and every sponsor.

And the winner of the My Girl Thursday giveaway is:

Too cute!! :) Lovely aprons (the fabric is adorable!!) and such a cool idea tote-wise for us forgetful people - I'm forever writing my list on my hand or losing it altogether! :) My fingers are crossed!

Posted by: Michelle Clement | July 22, 2010 at 03:45 PM

***************

And the winner of the Wild Olive Giveaway is:

https://twitter.com/kjleah/status/19605469893 

Just tweeted. :D

and keeping my figers crossed! :D

Posted by: Kjirsten | July 26, 2010 at 03:05 PM

I'll be in touch girls!

Have a great weekend everyone and thanks for the Bedroom Redo love! :-)

Master Bedroom redo

If you've been reading my blog for a while, you might remember this photo I took of our Master Bedroom a few years ago, below. Look at little baby Campbell! Oh my, I miss that sweet baby age... (er, but not enough to want another. HA)

 

And a more recent pic...

 

Well, after many hours of blood, sweat and tears (and a whole lotta Krylon spray paint) here's the new look, with the new peachy-pink-barely-there-wall-color...

 

  

 

 

  

I can't tell you how relieved I am that this room is finally done! It was a lot of work, but so, so much fun. I love how much brighter it is. And I have to say that if it weren't for the natural light florescent bulbs I got, I wouldn't have been able to take these pics. Our house is a cave! I would've of course preferred all natural window light, but it's just not possible to get photos. I think I must be really behind the times, because it JUST dawned on my a couple weeks ago.. "maybe they make a light bulb that MIMICS natural light.. hmmm..."

Well, as you know, they do. Ha. We've been using these crappy bulbs for so long. These new ones are so much easier on your eyes (doesn't make you so tired? know what I mean?) and they are a photographer's dream. You for the most part, get the whitest whites in your photos. I did add my usual photoshop action to give them a slightly vintage tone though.

I finally tried doing a corn starch fabric wall decal. I've been wanting to try that for months after seeing many tutorials online. Well, I have to say...

It's SO EASY and will soon become addictive I fear. I have ideas for the boys' room now. (excited) This is the tutorial I used. 

The decal I did is the floral fabric square behind the three white ceramic owls up there. I love how it came out. Such a better alternative to using wallpaper that might mess up your walls. These just peel right off! No harm done.

The *gorgeous* hand-drawn cross stitched word plates are by the talented Gina Bailey over at Doe-c-doe, one of my favorite blogs! I asked her to create these custom plates and she was so sweet to turn these around super fast. Thank-you Gina!

Now it's off to photograph the Dining Room.. it's been a busy few weeks with a lot of work. So happy to see things coming together and I have to admit, if I don't see another can of spray paint, it won't come too soon. : P

        

One Buck Wednesday & Vacation Photos

Hey gals & guys, it's One Buck Wednesday again!

My "You Are Awesome" kit that I made for the JessicaSprague.com birthday celebration a month or two ago is on sale today for *One Dollar*!

 Don't miss this sale! Ends at midnight EST time tonight. Also, if you're interested in buying all of the other kits that were designed for this celebration by the rest of the Jessica Sprague Design Team, they are on sale today for $1 as well. They were all designed with a coordinating color palette, so it's like getting one gigantic kit if you buy them all!

I have sooo much to do today on the house, so I'll leave you with a bunch of photos from our vacation at Grayton Beach, Florida last week. It was a sweet time. (A lot of these photos were taken in Seaside, right down from Grayton. The last photos are of our little green beachhouse that we stayed at this year.)

 

 

    

 

Cooper was sweet enough to give Campbell a head start...

 

 
 

    ... but of course he had to win. Notice the tongue sticking out. I totally don't know where he gets his competitiveness from... (she says with an innocent look in her eye.)

;-)

*New Candy-Coated Garden Digital Kit!*

Find this new Candy-Coated Garden: Icing Flowers digital kit here!

This will be the first of a series of kits that will be baking themed and of course, full of kitsch! So very excited about this. Here are the details about this kit:

I love candy colors and flowers.. now you can have both! This kit is full of gorgeous *real* icing flowers. They have been photographed and extracted into pristine images. Add a realistic touch to your projects with these! Perfect for those birthday, graduation, holiday and celebration scrapbook pages (and more).

There are *34* image files in this kit in PNG format. There are individual flowers and also images that have "clusters" of flowers that are ready for you to drag right into your project. 

Use this kit for digital scrapbooking, hybrid scrapbooking, altered art, journals, in your blog design and more! (For your personal blog only, not for Commercial Use)

Here are some gorgeous projects by the Kitschy Digitals Creative Team using this new kit. First, a few digital pages:

By Cathy Pascual

 By Karli Plant

By Georgia Visacri

By Maybemej Sporrong 

And here is a gorgeous hybrid project by Penelope Lach. She printed out the kit elements onto textured paper, cut them out and adhered to her page.

You can find other kits that the Team has used in their projects in my shops, here & here.

I will have more inspiring projects from the Kitschy Digitals Creative Team posted over on the Kitschy Digitals Blog this week. I'll be sure to let you know when it's up. : )

So after looking at all of this delightful sugary-ness, are you salivating for the real thing?

Well you can find it over at Layer Cake Shop! All of my new Baking themed kits will be using lots of sugary goodness from their shop. If you love to bake, you must check them out. Such pretty yumminess. They're also on Twitter, so be sure to follow them for product news and more!

 

*Sponsor Feature: Wild Olive, Tutorial & a Giveaway!*

 I've been a fan of Mollie's designs, Wild Olive, for a while now! I'm so thrilled to have her as a sponsor for July. Her designs are simple yet charming and definitely have a Kawaii feel to them! She has tons of embroidery patterns and lots of cute printables in her shop as well. Be sure to check them out!

Mollie has a cute button bracelet tutorial that she wanted to share with Thompson Family-Life readers that comes with some FREE teeny-tiny embroidery patterns! (and don't miss the Wild Olive giveaway after it!):

Ever since I saw the fabric covered buttons kit, I can't think of Danielle Thompson without thinking of those buttons. Inspired by this, I made a little tutorial for using fabric covered buttons (the real thing!) to make a bracelet!

 You just need some ribbon (my piece was 13.5" long...so I could wrap my wrist twice and have a little extra), some embroidery floss, buttons, fabric, and button making supplies.

Follow the instructions on the package to make the fabric covered buttons. I've lately really loved making embroidered buttons. They work the same way, you just add some stitching. I've created a few teeny tiny patterns that you can download and use.

 
 

Sew one button to one end of the ribbon, then arrange and sew on the rest of the buttons.

At the other end, add a loop of embroidery floss.

  Wrap the ribbon around your wrist and secure the floss loop around the button.

Now for the giveaway! Mollie is giving away *3 sets* of her embroidery patterns that can be stitched really, really small for those embroidered fabric buttons you've been dying to make! (including me!)

*Edited to add: Here are some images of the patterns you can win!*

 

 

 

TO ENTER this giveaway this is what you need to do:

Please leave a comment that includes your email address (please type it in with your comment.) Also, to double your chances of winning, tweet about this giveaway (link to it) or link to the Wild Olive blog in your Twitter. Post a separate comment here with a link to your Twitter as proof that you tweeted.

I will announce a winner this Friday.

Since I've been gone so much this month, I am playing catch-up on sponsor giveaways, so I will have two more this week. Be on the lookout. : )