I kept being asked by my family what I wanted to do for my birthday, the big 50, and I just couldn’t decide.  I knew I didn’t want a big party, but I felt the need to do something but I just couldn’t come up with anything.  They kept asking me day after day, so I just told them my dream day… I would love a day at the spa, lunch with some friends, dinner at my house with just my family prepared by a chef and served by a waiter, and play a murder mystery game during dinner.  Sounds good right?  Well, to my surprise, those three girls pulled it all together and made my dream day happen.

I want to show you my wonderful day, captured with unprofessional pictures, some of them not too flattering, {which I am sure is going to make some of my family members irratated at me}, but hopefully it will depict the love my girls put into my special day. {settle yourself in, cause there are lots, and lots of pictures!}

My morning started out seeing this cute note made by Tiffany in front of my coffee pot {she knows that is the first place I go once my feet hit the floor}  I say the letters O.M.G. a lot, so she made sure she put that on her sign LOL  Yeah, turning 50 is OMG!

Breakfast was prepared by Shannon {and baby Carter}.  Then I was told to get dressed and meet them in the garage.  They said to bring a change of clothes but that was about it.  Here I am looking confused but dressed and ready to go

Throughout the day, I was given these cute cards made by Shannon as to what to expect on my adventure

The night before, Shannon had sneaked over late at night and decorated my convertible {Shannon has a 5 month old baby, which means very little time to sleep.  To take the time to go out late at night to do this just for me, just melts my heart} Dang I need to go get that car washed after seeing these pictures

My daughter Tara was the designated chauffeur and event director. {Daisy the dog was just trying to figure out what the heck was going on}

Then they gave me a boa and crown to wear to the spa which I reluctantly did.  I think secretly they wanted to see their mom look goofy, a pay back of sorts LOL, One lady asked me at the spa if I was dressed up for Marti Gras…guess she couldn’t read the “birthday queen” tiara.

I was greeted at the spa with a glass of champagne and chocolate covered strawberries

After my spa treatments, we all had a lite lunch.  Then I was whisked away to a Dry Bar in Del Mar to get my a scalp massage and a blow dry. I had never heard of a Dry Bar before, it is a salon that just does blow dries.  It was pretty cool.  And they served Skinny Margaritas along with the blow dry, yum.

The night before my birthday, I was given Tiffany’s surprise.  She amazingly put together the Murder Mystery game, I was shocked!  That was NO little accomplishment.  She spent 14 straight hours of figuring out the characters, sending emails and printing out the script for all of us to use for our characters.  They say to give yourself 6 weeks to do put together a Murder Mystery party, that kid did it in one day, and rocked it.  Here is the youtube video she sent all of us.  My niece Alexis did the opening line, and then Tiffany read the story.

Amazing right?  Tiffany gave me the character of Janis, the younger woman wanna be actress/model of the murdered husband.  I decided to do my best and play the part.  I searched through my closet and found a dress one of my girls had worn for their formal back in the day when they were in high school.  The dress was perfect for the part, something I would never of worn outside my house since it was a little risque for me, but I poured myself into it for the sake of the party.  When I came walking out in it, Tiffany gasped!  She said “Mom!!!  That is the dress I wore my freshman year for Homecoming!”  Even though she was horrified seeing me in her dress, I must say it felt pretty good as a 50 year old that I even fit into it lol.  Here are most of us dressed up in our characters before we sat down for dinner.

Here I am getting prepared for my part {I was just goofing off here, I don’t drink gin from a bottle…well not when people are looking that is…}

My husband opted to be the Roy, the murdered person.  So he had Tiffany put ketchup on him and took a picture.  He always wanted to be an actor, he acted well for his part don’t ya think?

My nephew Brady was the accountant

My daughter Tara, the mystery writer author

My daughter Shannon, the sculptor

My son-n-law Nate, the motorcycle store owner

My daughter Tiffany, the lawyer

My nephew Connor the house manager

My sister and brother-n-law shared the doctor character

My friend Tammy the loner daughter who still lived at home

Tammy’s husband John, the inspector

And of course Carter just hanging out enjoying the festivities.  A HUGE thank you to my niece Alexis who took all these pictures for me!

I have to tell you, we had a BLAST doing this murder mystery game.  Yeah, we didn’t have a lot of time to prepare for our parts, which is why we are always looking at our folders in these pictures, but it still was so fun!  We laughed and laughed and just enjoyed ourselves in our characters.   And not having to cook and be able to enjoy myself…priceless

For dinner the chef prepared a cream of cauliflower soup with a really cool egg in it {they gave us all the low down on the special egg but I can’t remember what it is called.  It looked raw but it wasn’t}

Then a berry salad which I don’t have a picture of.  And the main course was a Filet with a potato puree and prawns

Ending with dessert, banana foster and bread pudding

Then to top it all off, as if they hadn’t done enough, right?  Shannon made picture collages called “then” and “now” with some cute notes and stuff from over the years.  You can see in the boards in the background in this picture.  She even gave everyone a trivia test at the end of the meal.  My sister got the most correct, 12.  My husband…he got 5 correct.  LOL

{I don’t know if you notice it or not, but I say “seriously?” a lot on my blog, because I actually say it a lot.  So from now on, when you read “seriously?” on my blog, this is the look I am giving}

This party was my dream, and my girls made it come true.  I don’t know how in the world I got 3 wonderful daughters who are so thoughtful and caring, but I do know that I am the luckiest 50 year old mom in the world!

I couldn’t of asked for a more perfect birthday is a post from: Cre8tive Designs Inc.

My dream was to have a wisteria arbor like this

Isn’t that just beautiful?  My vision was to do it across the concrete walkway here

(See those table and chairs? They rotted and fell apart from the sun.  And the fireplace behind it blew over and shattered.  Such a bummer)

We have a wood bridge that connects the walkway to the bbq area. We put the columns up 4 years ago aded the Costco bbq island and some chairs but that was about the extent of it

 I was dreaming of finishing off the columns over the bbq area by adding  the dark wood beams  like this picture {but no fireplace}

Source

But I think I dream too big.  Because once I got the cost of the engineering, materials and labor it was way more than what we wanted to spend.  So there it sat unfinished for 4 years.  It did not stop us from enjoying the area and having parties, but it was time for me to come up with a plan “b” and get it done.

I decided to go with a wood beam arbor over both areas, and to keep costs down, we used aluminum rather than wood.  I really didn’t want the upkeep of wood, and after seeing the aluminum sample and how it was surprising similar looking to wood beams, I was sold.  The dark wood color in aluminum wasn’t doing it for me, so I went with white.  Not the dream I was envisioning from my inspiration picture, but it was going to be better than what was there.

So the rest of the columns went up over the walkway

And now we finally have the two spaces completed

Even though the white arbors aren’t anything like my inspiration pictures, I still love it!  Once we had the arbor’s up, you can see why it motivated me to faux finish my bbq island. 

All the furniture I have out there right now needs to be moved around or put somewhere else.    I still need to purchase hanging lights and a bigger outdoor table and chairs.  I am thinking  I could still add the wisteria over the walkway and maybe some rustic furniture to achieve a similar look to the inspiration pictures.  But honestly,  I love the new white arbors, and I am so happy it is finally done.

Update. The Apartment Therapy Color Contest is going strong!  I am in first place in the west division.  WOOHOO.  But the competition is fierce!  The numbers change hourly.  It has been exciting and heartfelt to see all my friends & family rallying behind me and drumming up votes.  It is an exciting time I tell ya!  The voting is open until Monday, November 21st.  You can only “fav” once, but any other family member or friends can vote

You can click here to vote. 

And I want to thank you all to have taken the time to vote already!  I really appreciate it.  Cross your fingers I can hold on to that first place, I have big plans for my winnings!

My new arbors is a post from: Cre8tive Designs Inc.

Have you ever been to this site?  It is a web site that has beautiful pictures of homes and gardens, mainly uploaded by designers or architects.  It is a place where homeowners or soon to be homeowners can book mark things they like.  If you see something you like,  you can add it to an idea book that you create.  {it is similar to Pinterest but only for homes and gardens} And, if you really like someone’s work, you can contact them and discuss working with them.   I have never been contacted, {sigh},  but I am always surprised on how many people have added my pictures to their idea books.  Like this one

Put into 1,212 idea books!  Wow huh?  The comments are fun to read, all are very complimentary and some even in another language!  I put in the description that this is a kitchenette but people I guess don’t get that.   There are some comments on how it isn’t functional for a kitchen. It’s a kitchenette people, not a full on kitchen.  But for the most part, everyone loves the color combination.  wasabi green and aqua.   This kitchenette is part of a whole entertainment room, so I went with decorative shelving rather than functional upper cabinets.  But there are still plenty of lower cabinets to store useful items.

Looking at this picture reminds me how much I love the wall paper I put on the back of the shelves.  It is a Phillip Jeffries glass bead wallpaper called Rock Candy, that is so amazing!  Little tiny beads of glass adhered on to the paper.  Not an easy wallpaper to install, it has to be professionally done, but oh so pretty.   Here is a close up of how it looks.

I love those glass grapes.  My mom used to make those back in the day.

Another popular picture that gets put into a lot of idea books is this one

This one has been added to 856 idea books.

It’s a woman’s bathroom in the same entertainment space as the kitchen.  I say woman’s bathroom, because there is a separate bathroom for the men, done in manly colors of greens and black  My inspiration for this bathroom design came from the wallpaper {by Osborne & Little, discontinued}  It is hot pink flocked damask print paired with sherbert orange as the accent color.  Now you see why there needed to be a separate men’s bathroom.

I just love this Caboche Chandelier, it gives off such fun reflections in the room.  The mirror I bought from Horchow.   The vanity was a thrift shop find, which really was a buffet.   I had it painted in a gloss white and added the hot pink 3 form acrylic top.  Finding a sink was challenging since the buffet was so shallow.

I just love the pink  iridescent glass tiles!

Another fun item I put in the lounge area of the entertainment room, {that I don’t have on the Houzz site},  are these foot stools from Design Within Reach {I don’t think they carry them anymore though}

They are made out of scrap foam pieces left over from making flip flops, how cool is that?

I don’t know if anyone ever noticed, but I deleted my portfolio page on my blog a couple of months back.  I took it down after the incident happened when someone was stealing my pictures and using them as their own work.  I realized I didn’t have any of my work water marked, so I took them off my blog. I haven’t found the time or energy to go back and watermark them all, so the closest thing I have to a portfolio is what is on Houzz,. and even that is minimal to what I actually have for my portfolio. {luckily they embed the pictures on their site, so I am not too worried about thievery}

Hopefully some day soon I will get that portfolio up again, but don’t hold your breath!  I am usually knee deep in other projects to sit down and do all that tidous work of watermarking.  Until then, if you want to take a peek at some of the nicer design work I have done, here is the link to my pictures on Houzz.

http://www.houzz.com/photos/users/cre8tivedesigns

Professional pictures taken by Tarasierraphotography

People are liking my Houzz pictures is a post from: Cre8tive Designs Inc.

When ever I go out to our river house, I am the main boat driver. (like the way I covered up my upper half with the label?  wish I would of made it bigger…can’t believe I am showing you this!)

But being a boat driver means you have to focus on driving and watching where you are going so you don’t get to really enjoy what fun your passengers are having.  But when I saw these pictures it made me smile, these boys were having a great time!

Look at their huge smiles!

I can be one fun driver!

And my nephew (in the middle) loves to see if I can keep him on the tube…

Got him!  They had a great time, and his friends think his Aunt rocks! That just made my weekend.

One thing I did get done this week was to buy a hutch for my kitchen area.   But by the time it was delivered it was too late in the day to take pictures, darn it!   But here is a sneak peak at what it looks like, I am going to get full pictures and details up tomorrow.

Oh and I went to an Estate sale today, I got some really neat stuff. It was really crowded and no parking, but oh so worth it!

Weekend fun & a new kitchen hutch is a post from: Cre8tive Designs Inc.

About two weeks ago, Nancy Drew took the time to email me and ask if I had help when I  did my pantry revamp.  Uh, NO!  It was just me, myself and I.  She had noticed my pictures on someone else’s facebook and recognized them from my blog.  She thought it was odd that I had not given any indication in my original post that I had help when I blogged about it.  She also noticed there were pictures of a bathroom she had seen on another blog. Nancy Drew thought it was weird how this one woman could do all this work and know all these people at the same time.  It set off a red flag in her mind, and she acted on it.    I know it was awkward for her to email me, but she just kind of had this feeling.  And boy am I ever glad she did!  No, I did not know this person.  This is what I saw when I went to this woman’s facebook link

Seriously?  Even my dog food bin? Not only did she steal all my pictures, she took my content that went with it, word for word!  At the end she adds in her own sentence “Our client was thrilled and so was her family!”  Wow, she has even created a client for my pantry.  {The funny thing is, the first thing that came to mind when I saw this was, dang, out of all my designs, she takes the pantry?  I do better work than that!}  But I was mad, how dare she?  And to top it off, she was promoting this for her business.  To get clients by showcasing my work as her own.

As it turns out, my work was not the only work she copied and plagiarized as her own and put up on her facebook page.  Nancy recognized some of them and emailed the other bloggers to notify them of the plagiarism going on.  You GO GIRL!

I decided that night not to do send a seething email like I SO wanted to.  I wanted to be smart about it, and decided to sleep on it.  I wanted to get a plan together and research how to  handle plagiarism and what  legal steps I should take.  So the next morning I went on this woman’s facebook page to do some more checking, and then I was REALLY mad!

See the last post?  That is the a picture of  the chandelier I bought showing it in my daughter Shannon’s house that I blogged about on my blog!

Once again, she copied my content word for word and then inserted her own sentence at the end.  “We shop for designer looks at an affordable price!”  Promoting her business by stealing and using my work to get clients.  Now I was furious, and creeped out,  I felt like I had been violated.

Then I got another email from Nancy Drew, who through her extensive research contacted 8  different bloggers that had their work plagiarized on this woman’s facebook page.  They of course were as angry as I was and they acted on it right away and contacted Facebook.  Facebook has now taken her page down, thank goodness.

The whole plagiarism thing has really given me a wake up call.  I never have taken the time to water mark any of my pictures, but now I know it is a must.  I am even going to go back to my old posts and do the daunting task of watermarking every single picture I have ever posted.

I was seriously debating as to whether to call it quits and not blog any longer.  I was sad and heart broken after this happened.  It just burst my bubble, leaving me feeling like I got punched in the stomach. Kind of took the fun out of it all,  you know what I mean?    But my family and friends rallied around me and have encouraged me to continue on.  {On a side note, I must say, my husband was the biggest supporter during all of this. Giving me daily pep talks to not let this person win and to continue blogging.  Which is funny since he has never read one of my posts! LOL  But he knows how I talk about it all the time and sees that it makes me happy}  They all know how much I love sharing ideas and projects through my blog and how I value the wonderful friends I have made in the blog world.

So I am taking baby steps in moving forward, publishing this post was hard for me. I didn’t want to be too emotionally charged in my writing  but yet I wanted to let other bloggers know of my situation.   It’s funny, we lock the doors in our cars and home for security,  shouldn’t we take the precautions to lock our blogs too?   No matter what size your blog is, copying and stealing can happen, we just need  to make it harder for someone to do it.  There is a lot of controversy in blog land as to whether to watermark your pictures,  it is a personal decision.  But after experiencing plagiarism first hand, I feel it is a wise decision and a small inconvenience for peace of mind. Putting a disclosure on your site that states the content belongs to you and it can not be copied is also a good idea.  I have also learned that there are sites that you can sign up for that will scour the net and let you know if your content has been used any where else.  I haven’t done much research on this, but it is something I am seriously thinking about.  To me, it is another layer of protection. I would love to hear if someone has a site to recommend for this.

But out of this whole mess there is something to celebrate.  Bloggers like Nancy Drew.  I have never met Nancy Drew, but she had my back. And the amazing thing is that she didn’t even really know me, how cool is that?  99% of us bloggers out there are good honest people, and we would do the same thing that Nancy did if we were put in her situation.  I am certain of that, and that is what keeps me going.

Jen of Madebygirl’s artwork really sums it up for me…(picture via Etsy Jenniferramos)

Bloggers, we have each others backs is a post from: Cre8tive Designs Inc.

See, there are 11 grand kids coming over tomorrow, ranging in the ages of 2-19.  It has become way too hard to buy them each a special gift.  So this year I went with the one thing I hate to give…gift cards.  Seems so impersonal to me.  But buying for all those age ranges and so many of them, this is the only time I feel good about giving a gift card.  Hand making these felt envelopes for each gift card just made me feel better.  A personal touch behind the impersonal gift.   I hung all 11 of them on a white feather tree to make it more festive and fun.  It didn’t take long at all, and I am happy I took the time to do it, I feel much, much better now about giving them a gift card.

Anyone else doing last minute projects like me?

Gift Card Tree is a post from: Cre8tive Designs Inc.

Here are the winners of my little giveaway.

I’m a new follower but love getting your new blog posts showing up in my email I would probably give the key to my 3 yr old daughter but would display it somewhere in our living room because it is just too darn cute! Thanks for all the darling ideas

The second winner is Barbara (I took it down to 11 since Caitlin had already one and I didn’t want to count her comment twice) and she left this comment

Barbara

I’m a new follower – I love this idea of the Santa key. My kids are grown and I have my very first grand-daughter who is one year old. If I won, I would give the key to my son so that he can start a new tradition w/his daughter – Thank you so much for sharing – Merry Christmas!

And the third and last winner is Sandy (I took it down to 10 since Caitlin and Barbara had already won) and she left this comment

sandyquilts.blogspot.com

I’m not a subscriber nor a follower …. BUT I track you with google.com/reader … where I have all my favorite blogs. Love the key. I’d give it to our newest GC born this summer. LOVE you site.

Have a great weekend!

Santa’s Magic Key Giveaway Winners is a post from: Cre8tive Designs Inc.

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Thank You is a post from: Cre8tive Designs Inc.

I love all those cool big bird houses people make.  I learned quickly once we built our house they would probably never get used even if I bought them. Evidently, the decorative molding we have around the outside of our house makes the perfect birdhouse.  Birds are constantly making nests and hatching little birdies. Notice the nest on the far right in this picture? {oh and the bird droppings they constantly are leaving on that beautiful molding}

Did I mention how NOISY these cute little baby birds can be 16 hours out of the day chirping for their food and mom.  I don’t think they ever take naps.  They flew the coop the same day I took this picture.  I guess they aren’t  too keen on getting their picture taken as you can see from the look on their faces.

Folk Art Primitive Birdhouse

No birdhouses needed around here is a post from: Cre8tive Designs Inc.

Two lampshades done and ready to ship for a customer. A yellow pomander,  a ribbon covered cylinder so I can do a DIY tutorial for brides later.  (I get a lot of requests on how to make these)

Painted this frame, stamped and blinged the chandelier on burlap and added a couple of my silver spoons I got at the flea market.  Just a random craft I did, I have no where in particular to put it, but I think it turned out cute.

Finished these candy box stands for a customer for her sweet table at her wedding and sent them off. (exuse the mess in my Studio, it is my cre8tive zone)

FINALLY figured out the technique of making these rosettes after months of trying.   Got all excited and  made a headband for my daughter.

I am in the process of making this wreath for my sister.  I love all the burlap wreaths bloggers have come up with, so of course I need to try one too! I am trying to make one with using just what I have.  (hence the spoons)  Haven’t finished it yet, but I like the way it looks kinda vintage. ( I made those purple flowers, that technique was WAY easier than the rosettes that is for sure!)

So…I guess it hasn’t been that lazy of a week after all.

Good Week is a post from: Cre8tive Designs Inc.