But…if you are a Mommy and are reading this I know you spoil your children with love everyday so the purpose of Treat Yourself Tuesday is to remind yourself that it’s ok to put some effort into YOU.  Did you get to sleep in this week?  Indulge in some tasty Valentine’s Day treats?  Splurge on a mani and a pedi?  Whatever you treated yourself to I hope you did it guilt free and enjoyed every moment of it.

Like I said earlier I may have gone a little overboard this week but I’ll let you be the judge on that.  Here are some of the ways I treated myself this past week….

1-  3 words….Chocolate. Covered. Strawberries.  I bought some for Greg, he didn’t know and bought some for me, and together we ate ourselves into a chocolate covered strawberry coma.  Sadly, I’m not even sick of them and could eat a dozen more.  I’m not really much of a sweets kind of person but these will forever be my weakness!  Happy Valentine’s Day stomach ache to me!

2-  You know when I find something that I love, my favorite thing to do is share my discovery with everyone else.  You guys totally need to check out www.blueskiesshop.com.  Cara and Bryan are a sweet husband and wife team that both love quality fashion at great prices and run their own online clothing boutique together.  They only keep a few special items in stock so they can bring new unique pieces in frequently…so I had to get my hands on their Raven Sweater as soon as I saw it.  Of course it’s been in the 80s this whole past week, but this second it cools down I will be living in this. So cute right?  And totally worth treating myself to! (Can we talk about how I really need to treat myself to a haircut too…holy cow!).  The best part is Cara and Bryan are offering my readers 15% off their orders if they use the promo code “heylaurenrene” at check out.

You can also follow them at Facebook.com/blueskiesfunshopping and on Instagram: blueskiesshop (stay connected because in a few weeks they are doing a big Spring giveaway you won’t want to miss out on!)

3-  Last week we did a fun fitness gear secret swap amongst some of the members of my Advocare 24 Day Challengers Facebook group.  We set a $50 limit and everyone sent their person some of their favorite fitness gear!  There was lots of Lululemon swapping going on but something else caught my eye and I just had to get one.  Have you seen the Bkr glass water bottles that all the celebrities are toting around these days?  The company has a simple concept: “We are bkr people. What we carry reflects who we are and what we love. We don’t eat things we can’t pronounce or marinate our water in polyethylene terephthalate. We don’t accept logic like: leaching chemicals in our drinking water, awkward shaped mouthpieces during our workouts, or an island made of plastic with a 700-year zero-interest lease on development. We think three times before buying disposable. On our way out the door it’s always bkr with the keys and cute clutch. And we believe that style and beauty is part of the equation. bkr = clean design, clean body, clean world. All clean everything”  I love it!!  My awesome sister-in-law got me a gift card to Amazon for my birthday so I Primed this puppy straight to my house after seeing it.

4- Speaking of Lululemon this is where the birthday girl in me got a little carried away.  Again, I don’t wear anything but workout clothes so if I have one guilty pleasure this is going to be it.  I also had a very thoughtful and unexpected gift card sent my way to my favorite store, so last week I did a little damage.  Do you see how my Bkr bottle matches my clothes?  This is no coincidence since Bkr designs all it’s colors to be in line with the latest colors in fashion.  Check out all my new goodies…it’s only been 3 days since I bought them and I have worn each of them already.  Just a tad bit in love!

5- The biggest treat of the week was getting the chance for a night out on the town with our friends Josh and Ryann.  Greg put together a special night on my birthday to head to a place called The Wine Lab and then out for dinner and drinks after at a lounge called Mesa.  Both were such cool places and we definitely had a little too much fun.  The Wine Lab was super cool and all the wine flights were served in test tubes that you pour into wine glasses that looked like measuring cups.  They had really great wine, a whole list of craft beers, and there was definitely some cheese sampling going on.  After wine tasting we walked over to Mesa and I’m not even going to tell you what we ate….I’ll let the photos speak for themselves.  Oh and I’m pretty sure we ordered a second round of kobe burgers and mussels. At the time it was amazing, looking back it makes me want to gag a little…but hey, in the name of treating ourselves and celebrating the big 3-4 it was all worth it!  Such a fun night out!  PS- I ended up LOVING my Rent the Runway dress from my last Treat Yourself Tuesday post…that’s 4 dresses in a row I have loved from them!

Clearly it was an overindulgent week and I think I am still recovering from it all!  This week’s “treats” will be a little simpler…you know, things like taking a nap!  We are off to Vermont on Friday so I really need to get my booty in gear and get us packed up and ready for the long and cold trek back east.  Looking forward to relaxing with family and celebrating my Sister-in-law’s wedding…no better way to feel treated to something than spending time with loved ones we don’t get to see often enough.  I hope you all had a wonderful week and Valentine’s Day and were able to find some ways to show yourself a little pampering!  Be sure to treat yourself this Tuesday and make it an awesome day!

Once I got home I realized I didn’t actually buy enough to make anything so it was time to gather some supplies I had around the house.  As I rummaged through my craft bins all I kept thinking of was Glitter Deer Head project I did for Christmas.  I had the gold glitter, the paint, and the canvas…ah ha, I would make another but for upstairs in our room.  I bought the wooden L.O.V.E letters with Valentine’s Day in mind so I thought this would be the perfect project for this month.  It could also be great for an anniversary gift, or just really any occasion….who doesn’t want some year round love?

Here is what you will need:

• A canvas (mine was 12″x 24″)
• Black gloss acrylic paint and a sponge brush
• Gold glitter
• A yard stick & pencil
• Blue painters tape
• Wooden letters
• Elmer’s glue & glue gun
• Clear enamel spray

INSTRUCTIONS: 

1- Using the sponge brush coat the wooden letters with Elmer’s glue and lay on a piece of newspaper.  Sprinkle gold glitter generously to cover each letter.  Shake the glitter off and lay the letters on another piece of newspaper.  Save the excess glitter.

2- Let the glitter set for a couple of minutes and then lightly spray with the clear coat enamel spray.  Leave the letters to dry while you prepare the canvas.

3- Take your canvas and yard stick to mark off the size of the lines you want.  I did 2″ thick lines.  Draw lightly with a pencil where each line is.

4- Using blue painters tape, mask off the lines that you want to keep white and keep open the ones you want black.  Make sure you really rub the tape down so it doesn’t bleed under the tape.  Make sure to run tape around and paint the sides as well.

5- Take a clean sponge brush and lightly paint the black gloss paint on the lines you want to be black.  Let it dry a little and then go in with a second coat.

6-  Once dry, remove the painters tape.

7-  Glue gun on your gold glitter letters.

Easy peasy right?  The deer head project was definitely more labor intensive….so this gave me the same look that I loved so much about the first one but was WAY easier.  This would also totally be fun with red glitter for Valentine’s Day.  I was also thinking of buying a wooden heart and doing that in red glitter and replacing  just the “O” with that.  Had I been thinking straight while at Michael’s I may have thought of that beforehand….next time!

And there you have it…a Valentine’s Day inspired project that is super simple and classy that can be displayed year round.  Definitely give this one a try!  Happy crafting!

]]> http://heylaurenrene.com/uncategorized/diy-glitter-love-canvas/feed/ 39 http://heylaurenrene.com/uncategorized/free-printable-valentines-day-banner/ http://heylaurenrene.com/uncategorized/free-printable-valentines-day-banner/#respond Fri, 24 Jan 2014 06:02:01 +0000 http://heylaurenrene.com/?p=2221 [...] ]]> It’s been a busy week, so instead of trying to come up with 5 things I want to talk about for a Five on Friday post…I thought I would just leave you with an awesome Freebie this Friday.  I had mentioned recently that I am now a Pearista for Pear Tree Greetings and aside from being in LOVE with their card designs…they go ahead and do something like this which makes me adore them even more.  I know there are tons of free printables out there in Pinterest Land, but let’s be honest….there aren’t that many that are actually super cute (usually you need to pay for those).  Well Pear Tree doesn’t miss a beat for anything, even stuff they just want to giveaway to you!  How adorable is this FREE Valentine’s Day Printable?  I find it no coincidence that it matches our living room perfectly!  Nathan had a great time making it with me and insisted that he be the one to model it for you.  Go ahead and get yours HERE.  And while you are there be sure to check out their awesome Valentine’s Day cards….already ordered mine  Have a fantastic weekend everyone!

I searched high and low this past Christmas to find my favorite holiday card design to send out, and hands down I was going to go with something from them.  I spent a little too much time than I care to admit on researching designs….and I always came back to them.  They had the most unique designs I had come across, were extremely user friendly in their customization and I couldn’t believe the prices.  They were too good to be true so I was a little skeptical of the quality since I had never ordered from them before.  When our cards showed up I was beyond impressed.  I have ordered from EVERY company out there, and these were the thickest, most vibrant, and highest photo quality card stock I have received to date.  Pearista or no Pearista…they will forever have my business.

So for this Five on Friday I thought I would get a jump start on Valentine’s Day and share 5 of my favorite card designs they have for this holiday.  This year has proven to be a little busier than expected so my crafting days are being put on hold at the moment, so in lieu of handmade cards I am going to next best thing…some of the cutest predesigned Valentine’s Day cards out there (and for WAY less money than my craft supplies usually amount to).

{DESIGN ONE}  So I totally adore THIS design from their photo Valentine’s Day card collection.  Do you see what I mean about the most unique designs?  This is just so adorable and would be so perfect to mail out to family this year.

{DESIGN TWO}  How perfect are THESE photo booth cards for your kiddos’ classmates?  At Nathan’s school we can’t do any treats/gifts attached to their cards, and they have to be flat…so it kind of limits your creativity if you were feeling up for it.  I know Shane isn’t in Nathan’s class, but he really wants to be and he sure is cute…so he’s totally getting included too!  I’m definitely getting these.

{DESIGN THREE}   So I know I just said I can’t send any embellished cards to school with Nathan, but I was wondering if I could get away with THESE amazingly creative paper airplane cards?  How much fun would the kids have?!  I know that school Valentine’s Day cards usually make their way to the garbage but at least the kids could have fun with this one for awhile before they fly it into the trashcan ha ha.

{DESIGN FOUR}  Now if Nathan could bring a sweet treat to his classmates I would totally get THESE.  I just can’t get over how many fun choices PearTree has.  My only problem I have with this company is I can’t ever make up my mind which awesome design I’m going to pick!

{DESIGN FIVE}  THIS last card design is just my favorite when it comes to uniqueness.  You can add two photos, change the captions and colors, and string them all together for a little festive decoration.  While this design is super adorable for Valentine’s Day, I can totally picture these as a really sweet save-the-date for a wedding, or a birth announcement too.  

Well there you have it, my Five on Friday favorite Valentine’s Day cards from PearTree Greetings.  Don’t have it in you to craft up something yourself this year but still want something more unique than what you can find in the store?  Head to their website but be prepared to not be able to make up your mind :).  If it’s kids’ cards you are looking for they are offering 12 free classroom Valentine’s Day cards with the purchase of 12 if you sign up HERE.  Or you can also use the code VDAY10 at checkout and save 10% on all Valentine’s.  Happy shopping…I’m heading there right now to order up mine, once I decide on which ones I’ll get of course.

Hope this week was a great one and that you have something fun lined up for your weekend!  Cheers!

]]> http://heylaurenrene.com/uncategorized/five-on-friday-valentines-day-card-edition/feed/ 7 http://heylaurenrene.com/uncategorized/cupids-been-here/ http://heylaurenrene.com/uncategorized/cupids-been-here/#comments Thu, 31 Jan 2013 05:05:45 +0000 http://heylaurenrene.com/?p=157 [...] ]]> Holidays are my favorite excuse for getting crafty and adding some festive DIY projects to our home decor.  With February a day away, I thought it would be fun to share some of the Valentine’s Day crafts I have completed.  I think I have hit my quota for all things pink and glittery this past month, but that’s what makes this one of my favorite holidays to get festive with!  Moving forward I will try adding some of my favorite projects to my blog with the addition of some simple DIY tutorials.  I hope you enjoy them!  Here’s to spreading some love in month of February!! xo