Help...I need some Disney World tips...

So I mentioned a few posts below about my quest to finish (what seems like a million) Disney movies (here) before I actually go to Disney World, but I never mentioned my freakishly weird need to plan everything before I go. I have a notebook dedicated to what I'm going see, ride, walk, eat, and probably even times for when I need to go to the bathroom (just kidding...). Since this is my first time and George's like...5th....although he's a boy, and no good at planning, I am being extremely neurotic (probably more than I need to be). Everything that I've read has told me without a plan, I am doomed, so I am following that advice and am PLANNING, hard core. Here's a little tiny peek into this disorganized and crazy person notebook:

Needless to say, despite all the planning and researching and pinning and looking up and you wouldn't believe the amount of google-ing, I still feel like there are just some things that the internet cannot help me with. I know a million bloggers have made the journey to this magical place, and I want to know some of your secrets, tips, must-sees/rides and just any sort of ideas! It's hard to find plans for people without kids (if you do have kids, I still want to know what they love because I will probably love it too), and I need all the help I can get! So this post is basically just a cry for help for whatever y'all have! You can either e-mail me at scismr@yahoo.com or just comment on this post. Thank you thank you thank you!

xxooo,

Randell

DIY Prayer Box

I pray every night before I go to bed. I sit in my bed, I close my eyes, and I pray for whatever and whoever is on my mind. Some people believe that after you pray your problems are supposed to be fixed, gone, vanished, evaporated, POOF... But the fact of the matter is, that's just not how it works. However, how it does work, is that once you pray about it, you should do your best to believe that your problems, although they still exist, are now in God's hands. You have to trust and believe that your God (whoever it is for you) will help you in some way, perhaps unknown to you at that moment.

I figured, instead of just praying in my head, where my thoughts swirl and jumble and get mixed up, I thought I could write them all down, where I am forced to actually say what I am ultimately thinking. This is what led me to making my Prayer Box. I saw a super cute one at Francesca's (here), but didn't want to pay $12, so I decided to make one for myself. Here's the final product:

The materials you need are pretty basic:

- Altoids Box

- Scrapbook Paper

- Ribbon

- Letter Stickers

- Glue gun (or glue stick)

- Little sticky notes

 * and whatever else you want for some decoration

 

 Here's how I did it:
1. To start, I traced my Altoids onto my scrapbook paper, not worrying about the sides, I just did enough to cover the top. I used the ribbon to cover the sides of it. After cutting out the scrapbook paper, I glued it on to the cover.

2. Then, I glued the ribbon onto the sides of the top and bottom. Once you do this, it may get a little hard to open and close your Altoids box. Just make sure you are conscious of the hinges while gluing. 

3. After doing this, I glued some bedazzlement (is that a word?) on to my top, along with the word "Prayer Box." These are stickers, but I glued them anyways, just to be safe!

4. Last, I printed off my little quote using a textbox the size of an Altoids box (they're 3 cm long and 2 cm high, for approximation), glued it on, glued some ribbon around, and put some mini post-its in there. You should also stick a pen in there, I just have yet to find one small enough...

There you have it, a little prayer box, for when you just need to get some thoughts out. They're also perfect for those days when you just can't remember all that you want tot pray for. Stick a note in the box, and at the end of the night read them to remind yourself! Let me know if y'all try it!

xxooo,

Randell

DIY Sea Glass Vases

So instead of doing a boring post with me just talking about things most of you probably don't care about, I'll show you a small and very, very easy DIY. After looking around on Pinterest for some pinsperation of sea glass vases, I came across these and wanted something similar to them for my room (read about the beginning of re-doing my room here). I didn't want to pay up to fourty bucks for mine, so I decided to attempt some of my own. Here's how mine turned out...

And here's how...

Materials:

- A sponge brush

- Martha Stewart's Glass Paint in Frost (I found this in the glass paint section, not with all the other Martha Stewart craft stuff)

- Vases of whatever kind (I bought the tall one from the Dollar Tree and got the small one at a garage sale for fifty cents!)

- Twine (optional, just for show...not even sure if I will keep mine on there)

This DIY literally takes 20 minutes, including drying and everything... So easy!

To start, squirt some paint onto your brush, hold the vase with your fingers on the inside, and paint from the bottom up. Repeat this process until the vase is covered with paint. Try to cover the whole thing evenly, but ignore the streaks. After the vase is covered, let it dry for about 5-10 minutes. It should be dry by then, and then paint horizontally all around the vase, and this should get rid of most of the streaks. Mine weren't completely gone, but I liked the way the ended up looking. Let it dry again for about 5 minutes, and then wrap your twine around! Voila...

Show me yours!

Randell

(Prep For) The Happiest Place on Earth...

This upcoming July, George and I have decided (against doubts from many people, cough cough you know who you are) to make the voyage to Walt Disney World in Orlando. I, obviously ripped from a real childhood, have never been. I have never been more excited for anything in my whole life! We are blowing a bunch (and when I say a bunch, I mean a bunch) of money on this trip, and I am really hoping to get EVERYTHING out of it that I can, assuming I probably won't be back until after I have kids. So obviously I am going crazy planning, figuring out which rides to ride at whatever park on whichever day, all the way down to the nitty gritty. But I think the craziest thing I've done is, at one of my weekly trips to Goodwill, buy a bajillion Disney VHS movies, trying to catch up on ones that I've missed, ones that I desperately need to re-watch, and ones that I just love and want to watch again.

So I've decided, although it probably won't be very interesting to read, to write about them as I watch. What better one to start with than Cinderella (which, by the way, I have never seen...CRAZY RIGHT...HOW AM I EVEN ALLOWED AT DISNEY?).

So, about Cinderella, I wish I had seen it when I was a little girl so that I could talk about how different it was watching it as a 19 year old compared to a 5 year old. Which now that I'm thinking about it, I probably have seen it, but just don't remember. But watching it now, there was a lot to get out of it (caution: spoiler alerts...although, I doubt that matters)...

Stand up for yourself.
When Cinderella realizes that she should be allowed to go to the ball, her stepsisters clearly oppose it, but her logic on why she should be allowed stumps them. Cinderella's decision to go to the ball is what allowed her to have her "happily-ever-after."

Always have hope.
Although she wavers here and there, Cinderella always tries to have hope. She works hard to get her chores done in order to attend the ball. It would have been easy for her to give up, but because she wanted something, she worked hard in order to get it. Because of what her stepsisters did to her outfit, she wasn't able to go (at the time) even though she was ready and had done all that was asked of her.

Find the good in your life.
Despite all the bad cards that Cinderella was handed, she managed to find beauty and friendship and happiness in many places. She sang, she laughed, and she made others life (well, mice, but they were actually my favorite characters). The moral of this is there is always something to be happy about.

Take the Initiative.
This one is easy, don't let anybody stop you from doing what you want to do. You may need a little help from the Fairy Godmother, but you can do it.

The Right Pair of Shoes Can Change Everything.
The title says it all. If you find a pair of shoes that you love, get them! Don't let the price tag stop you. They may change many of your days ahead. What puts you in a better mood than strutting something that you love, and that you feel are amazing. If you feel like you can't live without them (you definitely can, but who cares) just get them, cause you deserve them! 

Cinderella is somebody to live by. Many people believe that she had a boy create her happiness, but truly, she did it for herself. Don't let life pass you by, go for it!

And if you haven't watch Cinderella lately, watch it again...

Randell

BE HAPPY

"The art of being happy lies in the power of extracting happiness from common things."

- Henry Ward Beecher

I'm not exactly sure where this post is going to go, but I'll just start it from why I even wanted to write about it. Today when I was at work, everybody just seemed so down and negative and angry for a reason unknown to me. Maybe someone close to them died. Maybe they're having their own issues at home. Or maybe they just felt like being in a bad mood because that's the way they felt today.

I, however, was not in that type of mood today. I was in a happy mood, ready and excited to be at work, ready to engage with people. I went around saying things like, "Everybody stay positive today!" or "Just be happy! There is always something to be thankful for." And although I was just trying to lift everybody's spirits, I got to thinking about it, and it's true, there really is always something to be thankful for...

In this generation it's easy to get caught up in the what and the who of everything that we do. It's so easy to compare yourself to other people, thinking that you're not good enough or that if only you had a little bit more money then you would be as popular and cool as somebody else. I'm not saying I'm not guilty of this, because I am...probably more than I'm willing to admit, but I'm saying that it is so unbelievably sad that this is the world we live in, and the world we are going to have to raise our kids in.

I've really started to realize that there is beauty in every single thing in this crazy, harsh world. There is beauty in God's green grass in your front yard. There is beauty in the bed that you sleep in every night. More importantly, there is beauty in the relationships that you hold with the people you love. There is beauty in the fact that you can call your parents, your brother, your sister whenever you want. There is nothing more powerful in the whole entire world than the act of receiving love and giving love, and that is what we should be focusing on, not the physical things that we think we don't have enough of. You create beauty with your attitude, your behavior, and your actions. It's all up to you.

Over the past year specifically, I have started to try to appreciate the little things and not to focus so much on the things that eventually won't matter. When you are getting upset over something small, ask yourself, is it really worth it? It's probably not.

So as I thought about what I was going to say in this post, I tried to figure out the best way to explain this to people. I'm not telling you that you're not allowed to have bad days. I'm not telling you that you can never wake up in a bad mood just because that's the way you feel today. I'm telling you that even on these bad days, there is something to be thankful for. Even on these bad days, there is beauty surrounding you everywhere, all you have to do it look for it. Happiness is a choice. You just have to be strong enough to choose it.

Don't know if this was depressing or uplifting, but enjoy.

Randell

A (failed) attempt at a recipe book...

So I decided I wanted to start using Photoshop again, but I had no idea what I wanted to use it for. I looked around Pinterest some (obviously) and decided to make some recipe cards (pinsperation). So, Sunday night I naturally stayed up until two in the morning trying to design these cards... They turned out a little suspicious in the morning, to say the least. Perhaps I was half asleep... I then dedicated all Monday to perfecting these cards. Did they end up perfect? No, but I still like them. I think I ended up making about 8 different categories (bake me, cook me, drink me, etc...), but here's a photo of how one of them turned out.

If anybody (if anybody even is reading this...) wants the print outs of the recipe cards, you can just e-mail me and I can e-mail you the files. They're 5x7, which is actually super big (it looked tiny on my computer, I swear!), and I printed them on cardstock. I individually hole-punched each card and stuck them in the binder. I would have rather ordered 5x7 protective covers, which they have on Amazon, but I was just too excited to finish and couldn't wait. The card's actually front and back, but I printed it super old school. I printed first the front and then stuck the paper back in the printer the opposite way, and printed the back on the back of the paper. If you're gonna do this, do a test run first on just regular paper. It'll pay off, trust me!

So as I finished doing my recipe cards, I figured I would probably need something to put the cards in. I searched around Pinterest some more, and found this tutorial from Flamingo Toes (whose blog is super amazing and inspirational!) and made my own knock-off of her knock-off from Anthropologie (shocking). Here is my finished product and the materials I used (plus a pen, needle, and glue gun). 

Some things that I did differently than Beverly - I had to (well, my dad had to) use a sledgehammer to flatten out my spoon. I glue gunned my spoon to my binder, rather than threaded it. I couldn't get it to work, I would have rather had it embroidered in. I obviously tried to make my font more like the original instead of making my own. I used a basic font on word. Once I printed, cut, and hole punched all my cards, I stuck the dividers in and voilà! I had a recipe book filled with cards. The inside of my binder looks a little weird (you can kind of see it in the first pictures), so I may just use it as a decoration on a kitchen shelf. Who knows, maybe it'll grow on me!

Happy crafting!

Randell

One man's trash...

Is truly another man's treasures. When she first moved here, my grandma and I used to wake up around 8 or so on Saturday mornings and spend our day driving around looking for that little black and white "Garage Sale" sign in front of neighborhoods. I was probably around 7 or 8, so the things I found to be interesting and cool at these things were probably not very interesting and cool, nevertheless, I was excited to come home and show my mom the jumbled balls of yarn and old, rusty knitting needles I had spent my $2 on.

Over the past few weeks, I have been thinking about moving into my apartment in August. What am I going to use in my room? I knew my parents were not planning on buying me all new furniture, and I definitely knew I did not want to spend my own money on that stuff, so I decided to look around at some garage sales. Starting off, it was going to be just George and I, but my parents decided to tag along. Back when my grandma and I would do it, we would have to drive around and look for signs, but now-a-days there's a website that'll use your current location and find garage sales near you (www.yardsalesearch.com). This was a blessing in our search for garage sales! This first weekend with my parents, I did not find a dresser, but I did find a loveseat! Something we needed for our apartment. Super excited about that ($120). I have no picture because it is currently sitting in my garage while the cushions are in the basement, but I'm sure it'll pop up at some point. I also got a cute little bedside table. It needs some fixing up, but I think it'll work out perfect for me ($25).

I'm wanting my new room to be a "rustic" type of look, so garage sales are becoming my saving grace for old, (and what I consider to be) cool stuff. I got a rundown window (the photo's below and next to it is some "pinsperation" of what I'm hoping it'll eventually look like...I'm sure a post about that will be up soon).

The rest of the stuff is just a bunch of little things. I bought a shelf to go over my bed and am looking for some cute, random things to go on top. One of the things, the rubbing alcohol bottle, was a little pricey ($8), but I just couldn't turn it down. I thought it was one of the coolest things I have seen ever in my days of garage sale-ing. I knew it was kind of a waste of money, but I also knew I never would have stopped thinking about it unless I bought it. So I did.

Since right now I have nothing actually growing in my garden, I've just decided to decorate with cute little things. My latest addition was from a garage sale, and I couldn't agree more with what it says. Everyday when I get home from work, the first thing I do is check on my garden. I'm hoping for a sprout of an actual vegetable, but nothing yet. Oh well, it's only June. But anyways, you can kind of tell in the photo how much stuff I have going on in there, but to me, it's important to have a stylish as well as healthy garden.

  

So as I've recaptured my love for garage sales, I think I've also recaptured my appreciation for people's little items that they will probably never see the beauty in. It is crazy how some people can fall in love with something that somebody else wanted to get rid of. It's also crazy some of the stupid and useless things people have laying around (although, something I think is stupid may be something you love!). If you want one tip when it comes to the whole thing, if you really like it, just buy it, the chances are it'll be a better deal than you'll get anywhere else. Also - don't let people who won't bargain with you get you down! Offer a bargain, and if they don't take it, then so be it... Buy the stuff anyways.

This little nugget wanted to be in a photo, too. She sat there the whole time while I was taking my pictures waiting her turn... Happy garage sale-ing from Stella and I. 

Goodluck!

Randell

I guess this is where I introduce myself...

So, I guess this is my first post and where I am supposed to say who I am and all that jazz. My name is Margaret Randell. I go by Randell, although I'm not really sure why, and I'm not really sure if I can ever forgive my parents for that one... Not only is it bad enough having to always say, "I go by..." It's pretty bad to have to add "Randell" at the end. I have come to appreciate it, but not enough to make up for the 15 years of torturous schooling. I now attend the University of Georgia (where they mostly don't ask for your name, a plus for me!) where I am studying to become a Speech and Language Pathologist. I have a puppy, Stella, and a boyfriend, George. Yes, the puppy was named first. Mostly because she's always happy to see me! She is one of the happiest things in my life right now, and I am so blessed to call her mine! She's my first child, and I will always hold her near and dear to my heart.

As I started college, I realized I have little to nothing that I am passionate about, besides knitting, crafting, my puppy, and talking a lot about those things (I'm a talker), so I figured a blog would be the most perfect place for me. I hope eventually I can inspire and interest people with the things that I find happiness in. There is nothing I want more than to experience the world, and this is just the beginning of it.

Blonde Girl, Brown Dog will mostly be a compilation of the things I'm doing, want to do, and some things that I probably will never do. I am mostly a knitter, along with some (not always very good) DIYs and little projects. Where this blog will exactly go, I'm not 100% sure, but I want it to be a place I came come to whenever I feel like sharing with the world the things that God has blessed me with. I'm sure you will be hearing a lot about my happy times, sad times, annoyed times, and just times when I want to talk but have nobody to talk to.

I can't wait!

 Randell