Desktop Dry Erase Board

Last month I entered a giveaway at one of my favorite blogs, Two Twenty One. And to my surprise, I won! We won't talk about the fact that I had my mobile network turned off on my cell phone which prevented me from getting email notifications and almost caused me to miss out on some awesome goodies...

So what exactly did I win?

A bunch of tape! But not your run-of-the-mill, plain, boring tape. Nope. This tape came with all sorts of awesome designs!

I started brainstorming what my first project would be. Of course I hit up Pinterest for some inspiration,  and found some amazing ideas like this, this, and this. But, ultimately, I decided to try my hand at creating the very project that was the inspiration for the giveaway - a picture frame turned dry erase board. I found an old 5x7 frame in our junk closet and got started.

Chelsea has a great how-to on her blog, so I'm not going to go into much detail. The only difference between what she did and what I ended up doing was that she applied the tape directly to the glass. I chose to apply the tape to the photo insert of some random family that always comes with frames. Since the tape was thin, I chose to tape the white side of the paper.

The finished product:

I started to write a to-do list to see what it would look like. But, since the Hubby and I both share this desk, having a to-do list for just one of us seemed silly. So, I decided to erase it and write a little message instead:

Dan and I are constantly surprising each other with dry erase messages on our bathroom mirror. I think it will be fun to have another place to write surprise notes and see how long it takes him to notice... :)

Overall, it was a pretty straightforward project. The only struggle I had was lining up the tape to match perfectly. To be honest, if you look close enough, you might see some gaps between the tape. Oh well. For a 5 minute project, I'm not going to complain. It instantly added a pop of color to our otherwise dark desk.

I can't wait to use these rolls of bright & patterned tape on another project. I'm thinking maybe something like this? If only I had another good frame lying around...

A big thank you to Chelsea for hosting this awesome giveaway and for the desktop inspiration!

Never Too Late

This is a post I should have written a long time ago. But as I've mentioned before, I've been a little busy, so I write whenever I have a little bit of down time and need to take my mind off of all the wedding & school chaos.

A while ago I came across this cute little blog, Oopsey Daisy, which is written by Alison, the self-proclaimed queen of oopsey daisies. At this point I'm not even sure I remember how I stumbled across it. Probably through a series of links that all started with Pinterest. Regardless, as I was looking around on her blog, I came across her weekly giveaway which featured these amazing necklaces from Tinker B Boutique (which by the way is owned by Melanie from Reasons to Skip the Housework).

She creates pendants using Scrabble pieces. That's right, Scrabble pieces! Like this adorable pumpkin pendant that would be the perfect addition to any outfit this fall.

Now I have entered quite a few blog contests, and I have never won anything. But, against the odds, somehow my name was chosen and I became the lucky recipient of two pendants. The hardest part: narrowing down which ones I wanted! Eventually I managed to narrow it down to two of them. The first is the Pink & Brown Zebra Alpha Letter pendant.

I thought this was so cute! And, it gave me an excuse to purchase something with the initial of my new last name. :)

The second piece I chose was a breast cancer awareness pendant. I couldn't find a link to it on Melanie's etsy shop. However, from this page, you can see it in the bottom right corner.

Here they both are on my bathroom counter.

I love them both! Right now I've been wearing the Hope necklace, being that October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month and all. I don't feel like I can wear the initial necklace quite yet - not until after the wedding (which is only 3 weeks away!!). But who knows, maybe I'll wear it to the wedding showers or something. :)

Anyhoo, I wanted to take the time and thank both Alison, for hosting the giveaway, and Melanie, for creating these amazing gems. I figured its better late than never when it comes to saying "Thank You!"