Things I'm doing via blog

Right now I've got a lot going on in my life.

My husband is going back to school in June to be an Air Traffic Controller which requires we move upstate.
So we are trying to:
find an apartment up there,
rent our house out down here,
find him a new job up there (part time...yikes. Just wait, I'll have plenty of budgeting posts for you!),
sell our second car down here,
and the list goes on.
In fact, in order to get the house ready to rent, he used some vacation time a few weeks ago so we could work on the house.
He re-tiled our entryway with a family friend, we re-painted the bathroom, pulled old trim off (seashells...not a pretty sight), painted existing trim, and put up new trim in 3 rooms.

All of this stuff is hard on both of us.
We love our little house. It's our home. Our first one. And we've put a lot of work into it.
We did the hardwood floors ourselves which was the biggest project, and then we painted every room and all the trim and put in new carpets. And we had a lot of plans for this house. A lot of plans that will now likely never be completed. Plans to redo the kitchen, to add-on in the back, to gut our bathroom and start it all over, to add a porch to the front. And we're sad that this little old house will never be as pretty as we'd hoped it would someday be.

On top of that, I've got several family issues going on behind the scenes, which tends to add a little stress even when it doesn't have me buying plane tickets at 1am for the next morning. Don't ask.

So anyway, to reduce some stress I'm following a LOT of blogs.

Granted, it's probably not as much as some people, but this is all still new to me; the blogosphere I mean.

So it feels like a lot!

Anyway, I thought I'd share with you a few things I'm doing/learning via blog, with links so you can too!

I'm learning the basics of photography over at Shabby Blogs, as in aperture, shutter speed, and ISO.
I have always regretted not taking photography in high school when I had the chance!
I'm also learning some HTML/CSS coding over there that's a little more advanced than what I'm used to.

I'm learning how to put parties together (which I've never done!) over at: I Heart Naptime, Love & Sugar Kisses,  and many, many others but I'll just include TomKat Studio for now because I'm loving their mothers day printables! Love&Sugar Kisses has some great ideas for Cinco De Mayo by the way! Like I said, there are many more of them, but I'm sure I'll do a whole "party" post at a later date.

And I'm learning how to DIY more home projects over at Welcome to Heardmont" and at Seven thirty three.

And I can't forget the aforementioned  eighteen25 where I'm learning all sorts of crafty things...too many to pull one out of my head at the moment!

I hope you all click over and enjoy learning some new things! If only to grab some printables to decorate and share.
My little one is waking up, so its time for me to go!

Jessica at J.LiLy

Freebies and Crafty-Stuffs

I've been following a TON of crafty blogs lately (I'm sure you'll see them on our sidebar at one time or another) and I'm totally smitten.
I am definitely not a crafty person by nature. I'm artistic, not creative. Which means I can draw or paint something well, but I lack direction, I need someone to tell me what to do.
And I have found that craft blogs are perfect for that! They have tons of crafts, layouts, designs, and ideas all ready for the taking! I can take their freebies and ideas and make them my own. #Love

Freebies? What freebies you ask?
What I'm talking about here are:
Printables (so-called pre-designed cards, tags, labels, posters, and party decor that you can download free and print out at home),
and Fonts (for your computer, blogging, and graphic designing)

I have found a few AMAZING sites in the time I spend combing through blogs that offer all kinds of freebies like these. I'm bringing you my current TOP TWO faves.

My first fantastic site for printables can be found here at: It Is What It Is: Pictures, Projects, & Printables.
You can find everything on her blog from Big Sister/Big Brother favor tags, Posters, and Thank you cards, to relevant material for nearly every conceivable holiday.
Some examples:

As you can see she has some pretty darn adorable printables. But the real charm is in the crafts she does with them. Swing over to her site to grab the printables, and find out just how easy it is to create the Valentine Paper Chain, or the Springtime Candy Flowers. Your every holiday (or any day) at home can now be decorated with ease and whimsy!

My second fantastic site for printables can be found here at: eighteen25
Aside from printables they also happen to have free fonts and all kinds of crafts and tutorials for creating computer-made or home-made items.
These girls are SUPER creative. (I'm loving the emergency clutch made out of a potholder! Amazing!) And they also have some great fonts. They do a fantastic job of detailing for you (if you aren't as tech savvy as some) how to download and use them yourself.
I'm going to show you some pics of their printables, fonts, and craft ideas:

And those are all just from the 1st page! I think these sisters might just be the craftiest women on the face of the planet.

They are sponsored by the Silhouette (see my previous blogpost about it here) So they do have a lot of crafts that need it at least in part, but many of them can be improvised if you, like me, have not yet won the lottery.
As you can see, they too will keep you in decoration style for each and every holiday. For example, the picture in the top row, right-hand side is subway art in honor of Teacher Appreciation week.
And the picture in the bottom row, left-hand side? The pot-holder clutches! How cute right? They'll tell you how to make them yourself. SUPER easy!

I hope you enjoy these sites and utilize them to your full advantage. Not many places are giving out their ideas or designs for free these days. Enjoy!!

Jessica at J.LiLy