My husband makes his own laundry detergent.

If thats not a turn on, I'm not sure what is. {:> He did the test load tonight and we seem to have very clean towels. Well, I promised a picture last night and it wouldn't work for me but blogspot seems to be minding its manners tonight. Here it is. The most interesting thing going on in the barnyard. They were making eyes at each other the WHOLE time we were there. Good thing they were tied up.


This is my layout for the Design Experiment challenge blog. Thanks, Emily, for letting me Guest Design this week! I used stuff from our RVKC August Paper Kit.
The prompt was 'When you close your eyes at night or for a brief moment, what do you see?' The journaling pretty much sums it up these days. I'm so thankful for this house and all of the things we're adding to it to make it ours.

Speaking of challenge blogs, Red Velvet Kit Club is sponsoring the challenge at ScrapMojo right now so get over there and check out your competition for 'Say Hello to my little friend!'.

And since we're talking about scrapbooking today, we just relisted the July Paper Kits in the RVKC Etsy Shop for only $22.00! We still have plenty of August Paper Kits left, too.

PonyParty has been updated today with a few of my favorite finds as of late. I came home with a lot of orange this weekend. This pretty set of pumpkin colored cups was a surprise.

And then there was this pretty Japanese fabric...

And the sweetest set of plastic cafeteria trays...

But none of them were quite as exciting as the yellow Vera Neumann cloth napkins...


I've stumbled upon or been approached by some talented Etsy sellers that I've been eager to share with you.

Multiple Personality
I love her soft colors and little girl themes.

xFreshBatteryx
Anything looks sweet when it's embroidered. Even organs.

WonderThunder
I ordered this felt patch for S last week.

ThePeachPit
I have this one.

And then there is my favorite new monkey stationary.

Though summer threatens to leave us, I'm adding things to my list every day to make me feel as though I've DONE summertime. Number 1 was the county fair.



I've still got to manage to:

* Go swimming in a river.
* Make fruit smoothies for breakfast.
* Have lemonade and bar-b-q chicken on my front porch.
* Lay out and get sunburnt. (hold your comments, please)
* Make ice cream in a bag!
* Find a dining room table.
* Gather enough lanterns to keep us warm and glowy in the Fall months on our back porch.
* Make a sundress because its still hot enough to wear them through October.
* Read a good book without having to make time for it when I'm on the toilet. (I know I'm not the only one.)
* Go to an outdoor movie at Founder's Park.
* Enjoy my first Art Walk.
* Write a real letter or two to family members to thank them for their kindness.
* Figure out PHOTOSHOP!!!

The best part about the last one is that I'll get to learn it on my new MacBook! Apple is going to replace our old iBook with an upgrade to the latest MacBook just because we have had the same problem with our iBook three times. Thankfully, we purchased Apple Care with our original computer so we were covered every time it broke down. They are throwing in an iPod Nano just for our trouble. Do I really need to say that if I wasn't officially sold on Apple before, I definitely am now. THANKS, APPLE! THANKS, Steve Jobs!

I'm officially caught up on my thoughts. I hope it won't be so long before we can do this again. Thanks for reading!

~Rachel

P.S. I guess staying up late has its benefits. PonyParty was just featured on Poppytalk. Since I don't know how to do a screen shot, its the first listing for August 6th if you'd like to see. Thanks, Poppytalk!