My First Award

I feel horrible that I haven't taken the time to thank A Girl In The Sunshine yet for giving me my first ever blog award! I've been envious of all the blog awards I see floating on the blog-sphere and I'm so happy to be part of the club now.

So now onto the award rules.

1. Thank the blogger who gave you the award....

Thank you thank you thank you Sarah!

2. Sum up your blogging philosophy, motivation and experience using five words....

My happy and full life :-)

3. Pass this on to 10 other bloggers you feel have substance in their blogs....

This Life Of Ours

Amanda + Don

Will Work For Makeup

A Bird In Boots

Keeping Up With Courtney

Lucky in Love

Faye'sbook

2Bloggeristas

Juici Life

A Little King and I

PS- If you haven't stopped my Mingle Monday you must!

Life of a Pup

I've learned to love being outside on our porch except when the screen is shut on me and I can't get back in. There's always people walking around and cars driving by for me to watch and I love the cool fall breeze that's just started in the evenings. Maybe some day I'll have a bigger porch to play on.

A few weeks ago we took our first family trip to DOG BEACH! I was a little scared at first because there was a lot going on that I wasn't used to. Tons of people, lots of dogs running around/at me, sand, water, waves, etc etc. Mom and Dad were very excited to bring me but also a little nervous that I'd freak.

Luckily they had nothing to worry about! I loved it! I'd run through the water and jump over the front of the waves. I was so entertained with the ocean itself I didn't even need a toy to chase. I was soaking and sandy in no time. I have to admit though, I'm not a fan of going completely under the water. A couple times I was caught off guard by a huge wave and had to actually swim.

Sometimes Mom drives me up north during the day to meed Dad for lunch from work. I'm a great car rider still, I just sit in my seat and look out the window. I love going new places because I get to see to many new things, I'm very curious you know. We sit outside while I try to eat their Panera and all they'll give me is ice cubes.... Really though, I can't complain.

If there's ever a pinch and we're out somewhere and I'm bored without a toy, I'll be easily entertained for hours with an empty water bottle. Just please remember to take off the label because soon I'll shred it anyways. My jaw is getting much stronger now and I can completely flatten any size water bottle now.

I also like to chew on the end of my tail. Sometimes I'll chase it in circles which makes Mom giggle. But sometimes I just want to chew it so I'll roll around getting tangled with my legs. Don't worry, it doesn't hurt me, it just makes my tail a wet whip for a good while afterwards. Dad doesn't really like it very much but I think he's getting used to it.

Speaking of Dad,we love to wrestle. (Most of the time I win, but don't tell him that.) Mom likes to wrestle too but I'm getting a little to big now for her so we usually just cuddle. I think hats are fun and I try to take off his when he gets home from golf. Dad loves it when I climb all over him.

I also learned to climb into this chair. It's much smaller and less sturdy than the other furniture I climb on so I was a little hesitant at first. But once I was up in it, I didn't want to get down. And aren't I just the cutest thing in the world? Now if only we had a campfire to sit around.

I am officially 16 weeks old (about 3 months and 3 weeks) and I weight a whopping 42 lbs now. Mom struggles to pick me up but luckily I'm more independent now so she doesn't have to very often (only when I want up or down from the bed). I eat about 4.5-5 cups of dog food a day and am pretty much housebroken at this point. I'm a very happy, mellow, sweet dog and I know my family loves me.

Freezer Paper & Go Broncos

I stumbled upon I Am Momma- Hear Me Roar recently and absolutely fell in love with so many of the neat projects she does. She is super helpful and shares all her tips so you can try them yourself if you're so inclined. My first crafty idea from her website that I decided to try was her "Freezer Paper Stenciling." You can find the full video tutorial here but I'll explain what I did too.

Supplies

Shirt or other fabric item

Tulip brand fabric paint

Freezer paper

X-Acto knife or other razor cutter

Pencil or pen

Iron

Extra piece of fabric

1. Decide what image and/or lettering you want to put on your shirt. Either print it out or draw it onto regular paper. For my shirt I drew out the 4 parts but for J's shirt I printed it since it was more complicated. I didn't take a picture of this part because it's pretty well... easy.

2. Place your image underneath a piece of the printer paper. Make absolutely sure that the shiny side of the freezer paper is facing down. This is essential for the rest of the project to work (explanation to come). Now trace your image onto the paper.

3. Once your done, it's time to cut the paper to create the stencil. The best tool to use here would be an X-acto because of it's small size and sharpness. I used a different razor we already had and it worked just fine. Try to be as careful as possible at this point and avoid as many ragged edges as you can (they'll show up on the finished product.)

Helpful tip: Avoid overshooting any line junctions (example at sharp corners) because if you over-cut you'll have more places the paint can bleed later on. Also make sure to keep the pieces you cut out because you might end up needing them (see step 5).

4. Place an extra piece of freezer paper inside the shirt to take up any extra paint that might bleed through. Iron your stencil onto your shirt. This is where the shiny side down part comes in. The paper is coated with plastic (aka shiny) and it creates a seal between the paper and your shirt. So make sure to really go over all the edges where you'll be painting to make sure they're set.

5. For my design, I needed to make sure I kept the inside piece of the bow. I just wanted an outline of the shape so I had to make sure to keep this one piece. Other instances where you might need the cut out pieces are: the inside of the letters D, O, R, B etc etc or any other images that have inside details. You'll see a lot more of this on J's shirt (all the letters had inside pieces.) Iron in your extra pieces, again making sure the edges are sealed.

6. Paint! There are many different varieties of Tulip paint (matte, pearl, etc) that add interest to your final product. The heart on my shirt was painted with pearl orange paint and it's nice and sparkly, perfect for a girl's shirt.

Helpful tip: Paint from the paper onto the fabric, edge to center of the letter/image. Even though you should have a pretty tight seal on the paper, you might want to be careful of pushing the paint under the edge just incase.

7. Let the paint dry slightly before peeling off the freezer paper. It isn't crucial that the paint is completely dry before this step, just be careful not to touch the painted parts too much. I took mine off after about 5ish minutes from finishing painting. Let the shirt dry overnight.

8. The next day, you'll need to set the paint onto the shirt. To do this, take a piece of scrap fabric/old t-shirt/dish towel and place it on top of your painted images. Run your iron thoroughly over the whole thing. When you take the extra fabric off you'll actually feel it sticking to the paint just slightly. You don't want to overdo it and pull off the paint but you do want to make it stick a little bit. And with that, you're done! You now have an awesome, home-made shirt.

My Shirt

J's Shirt

For J's shirt, each letter had an extra piece I had to save and iron in not to mention the different pieces of the Broncos logo.

Helpful tip: The paint suggests waiting 72 hours before washing which I recommend too. But it doesn't say anything about not wearing it ;-)

So now it's your turn to create something! Have fun!

Top 2 Tuesdays

Today I am too unmotivated/tired/have nothing interesting to say/have way too many other things that need to be written to write my own creative post. So instead, I thought I'd give you a quick update on things in my life and then play along with "Top Two Tuesdays"

1. Ollie isn't growing quite as fast as before but he's definitely turing into the best little dog. He's much darker than his original white puppy fur and his paws are large and awkward. He's learning his manners and is totally chill just hanging out with us in the evenings.

2. I spent the weekend getting stuff done around the apartment. I wish I could say that I got out and enjoyed the day

off yesterday but, sadly, I didn't. J took me to see Eat, Pray, Love on Saturday night so I was very happy about that. I really appreciate it when he does something specifically for me. I knew he wasn't stoked on seeing it but he did anyways and that's why I love him.

3. I have officially received four, yes FOUR, secondary applications for different medical schools that I have applied to. That means I've gotten replies from all but one school and to say that I'm excited is an understatement. I can't believe this is all happening so quickly and that I'm fortunate enough to get so many. Getting them finished and sent off is my top priority for the next few days. Now I know that it doesn't mean I'm actually in anywhere yet but hey, it's the next step in the process.

Top Two Favorite Things About Fall

1. Starbucks:

I love the variety of the Bucks all year but I specifically love it in the fall. Fall means Pumpkin Spice Lattes, cuddling up in a cozy chair with a good book and a grande hot drink, knowing that it's soon acceptable to order Peppermint Mochas with all their calories, and the best.... RED CUPS! It's so hard for me to walk by the two locations on campus, not to mention the three or four I drive by to get to campus, and not stop in for something that'll warm my heart. A good latte has a surprising effect to make classes fly by or help me pay attention when I just want to be somewhere else. Oh, red cups, where are you?

2. Thanksgiving: And not just because of the food. Okay, well the food is definitely up there on the list. I'm a sucker for a good stuffing, turkey with lots of black pepper and pie. But not pumpkin pie, no thanks to that. Give me a warm slice of apple pie with a little whipped cream on top, sigh.... my stomach is growling at the thought. But more importantly, I love Thanksgiving because we get to see our families. For me that means a good trip back to CO and a lovely, much needed, break from the semester. Plus Thanksgiving time means that Christmas is just around the corner and it's appropriate to put up the tree!

Hope you all are enjoying the changing seasons and the start of fall.

(even though it's technically still summer, oops)

Ollie and His Tail

School started this week which meant I was way more busy that I've been in a while. But that's actually okay. I like having a routine. However, I am not looking forward to textbooks, practice problems, reading assignments, and the like but I guess it comes with the territory.

Because of school starting I have been seriously lacking in the blogging world but I promise that once the "newness" of the semester wears off that I'll be back more frequently. With all of that said I'll leave you with a video of the pup. He's just getting so big and doing so many new things.