Times Are Hard... Christmas Shouldn't Be!!

Money's tight.  That should be the phrase for the year.  Seems like everyone I know is scrimping and saving for one reason or another.  This royal family is certainly no different.

Now... while I truley despise the idea of thinking about Christmas before Thanksgiving, . . . this year, it is a must.  I swore as soon as I had the space to do it, I was going to get more thrifty and more crafty with my Holiday plans.  I truely believe that so much more thought goes into a handmade gift than a department store bargain.  Now... don't go giving me any Martha Stuart awards.  I have no intention of going all out and hand-making everything.  I'm going to mix it up with custom design gift baskets and such.

With thrifty shopping in the past, I have created better gift baskets than I could have bought... and for cheap in comparison to buying the pre-designed model.

So throughout my holiday planning, I intend to post the best and most creative of ideas as I stumble upon them.  Doesn't mean I will be giving all of them... some are just too much work... but if it's something I think is interesting, I'm going to share it with you so that you too may participate in an enjoyable "Money's tight" Holiday season.

That being said... this is the idea I've stumbled upon today.  For those of you with girly-girl daughters, grand-daughters, nieces, etc. this is by far totally awesome!!  And it's only going to cost you some common household items and packaging bound for the dumpster... oh yeah... and TIME... lots.. and LOTS... of TIME!!  Honestly I like this project much better as a "JUST BECAUSE WE WANT TO HAVE FUN" present.  It'd be a blast to do with the kids.

Brought to you by the wonderful FAMILY FUN magazine...
I bring you the PERFECT (aka totally creative and wonderfully imaginative) DOLLHOUSE... I had to add to the name because I am a very very creative and crafty person (comes from growing up POOOOOR!)... and I am in awe at the detail and creativeness in these 6 PAGES of detailed instructions!!  A MUST SEE!!!

Here There Be...

hmmmm... heretherebe.blogspot.com was already taken when I set this site up.

So I picked ... heretherebedreams.blogspot.com

But now I'm considering the misreadings that are possible...
Twice, I have looked at my own web address and misread it... which is incredibly stupid considering I WROTE IT!!

Here The Rebe(L) Dreams
Here There Bed (D)reams

psh... oh well... not the first time I've set out to cause confusion and mayhem.  After all... my daughter's name is Ellison... only... I didn't spell it that way... You see it's actually my middle name... backwards.
NO... My middle name is not NOSILLE!!!  It's Nicole... hehe... but I think I'll start calling her Nosille for the fun of it!!

Here There Be...

...A NEW CASTLE!!

My deepest appologies to my devoted bloggies. In all honesty it wasn't my fault like I'd admit it if it was because I was under an evil witch's spell.

I fully intended to have this new palace up an functioning much sooner. However, for those of you who don't already know... it's been HELL the past few months.

1. June 15th King (a.k.a. Dad) looked at a house, liked it, bought it.
2. June 30th they closed on the house and officially became Kansans.
3. About the same time, Prince Charming and I fell in love with the house of our dreams.
4. The ensuing hell that followed that is ridiculous. (Yes on the loan... no on the loan... yes on a different loan... try for a better loan... revert to the original approval... hate loan officers, paper work... and you better damn well like this house because we're never doing this again!!!)
5. While we greatly enjoyed the company of the King and Queen, July was a hectic month with trying to buy our own house and get them settled at the same time.
6. Unfortunately, the chaos was short lived because the King took his leave of us July 30th.
7. As you can imagine, on top of the house purchase, we were then overwhelmed with final arrangements and helping the Queen get her things in order like she ever has her head screwed on straight!
8. I also had to give up the job I loved because it was too far of a commute from our new house. And frankly, we won't even get involved in that discussion. Yes, I'm happy I did it... no, I have not yet found an enjoyable replacement.

That being said, I'm hoping the blog world will forgive me for the extended break in blogging. There was much to blog about... but most of it involved foul words or sobbing tears. And while the cussing doesn't phase me... I'm not the sobby mushy type.

But that is totally besides the point I'm just making excuses for myself so you'll keep reading

The point is... I nixed the blog header competition for 3 very good reasons.

1. There were only a handful of responses
2. See 1-8 above
3. I love the new layout.

That's really the side of my new house!! Don't believe me? Here's the pictures!!

And check out the footer... I saw that cartoon and had to redraw it. It's soooooo the Ogre Child! And some days... I so wish a dragon would EAT HER!!

That being said... I need to update my new blogroll... and there will be some new addtions as I progress on this... but I couldn't keep you waiting any longer okay, I could... but how mean would that be... I'm not that much of a BITCH!

So leave me a comment so I can add you to the blog roll and we can return to some sort of blog-normalness...

Yeah, I know... that's a paradox... I don't believe I've met a single NORMAL person in blogland... but that's why I like you all so much!!