Share the love

In about a month, it will be the national day of love aka Valentine's Day.

Sometimes the holiday gets a bad rap - people say it was created for the sole purpose for card stores and other retailers to make an extra buck. That may be somewhat true. 

Regardless of its original intent, Valentine's Day can be a day you set aside to give more love. Send your spouse or significant other a card to say I love you. Let your children know that you are proud of them. Drop friends and relatives a note to let them know they are in your thoughts. 

Receiving a hand made card is sure to brighten anyone's day. Order your cards today. I will be accepting custom orders by Feb. 1. Cards can be sent to directly to the recipient.

Cool Canvas Photo Art

Most of my life I have been called the wrong name and the spelling has been the worse. Chesney, Charity, Chassidy and the infamous Chastity are the ways folks have gotten it wrong. It's pretty rare for me to meet someone with my name and if I did, they spelled their name with two Ts. I have never met anyone with the same name or the same spelling... until two years ago. 


Meet Chasity Kobernusz. 

She's a young professional from North Dakota. We both love Christian rap, thrift stores, pompadours and crafts! Chasity makes these incredible photo canvases that are a great way to hold memories and decorate a room. 

Chasity's canvas have so much detail. Look how she uses screws in her artwork. 

Any project with buttons is always lovely in my eyes. 

She uses magnets or fancy paper clips to hold pictures. The pictures can be changed creating a fresh look in seconds. 

These canvases make unique gifts or nice home decor items. Chasity designs and creates canvas that can be hung in a baby's room, the living room, office and the kitchen. She recently made a canvas for a beauty salon.  

Contact Chasity for pricing and custom orders. 

Give more love in 2012 with these one-of-kind photo canvases. 

Give More Love in 2012

A lot of people are talking about what they hope to receive in 2012. More blessings. More money. More sales. More. More. More. 
   It's nothing wrong with wanting increase in your life. I want the same. But we also have to pause and make sure we give and that we are intentional about it. 
   This year I'm committing to give more love in 2012. I want to send more cards to my loved ones who I only get to see during the holidays. I want to volunteer more. I want to go the extra mile for my residents. I encourage you to look for ways you can do the same in your life. 


Here are 10 ideas for how you can give more love in 2012. 

1. Bake cookies for a friend
2. Write a letter to a high school teacher 
3. Give flowers to your housekeeper or a custodian
4. Take someone's dog for a walk
5. Give a couple of dollars to a homeless person
6. Pay someone's bus fare
7. Read to a child 
8. Talk with a senior at a nursing home
9. Call your mom and tell her you love her
10. Cook dinner and invite someone who doesn't have a lot of friends

DIY Clothespin magnets

Here's a project that's a lot of fun to make and super easy.
You only need a few supplies:

• paper
• clothespins 
• scissors (or craft knife or paper trimmer)
• magnets
• Mod Podge (or other decoupage)
• paintbrush 

This is a good project to get rid of scraps. 

Set a clothespin on top of the paper and measure how long and wide each strip should be. You'll need two strips of paper for each clothespin. 

Cut the paper.

Mod podge the paper to the clothespin with a paint brush. Press down with your hands to ensure it has a sturdy, smooth hold. If you have any paper hanging off the end, trim it. It's easier to do it now because after you put Mod Podge on top it will harden and be difficult to cut. 

Try not to have excess Mod Podge on the sides of your clothespin so that it will look neat as possible. 

Let your clothespins dry for a couple of minutes. Then, apply Mod Podge to the paper. Dry for 5 minutes. Then apply Mod Podge to other side. Dry for another 5 minutes. You can apply another layer of Mod Podge if you like. But one is usually enough for me. 

Apply a small magnet to the back of the clothespin with a dab of glue gun. When I first did this project, I used magnets with adhesive already on the backs. How horrific it was. The clothespins stuck to each other and when I take them apart, the paper ripped and my clothespins were ruined. 

Let the glue dry. I spray a coat of acrylic sealer on the front of the clothespins and let dry. I got this tip from Amy, who blogs about Mod Podge crafts. This also keeps the clothespins from sticking to each other. 

Here are some ideas I would like to try in the future with this project:

• spray painting the clothespins 
• using gift wrapping paper or old magazines or newspapers
• adding buttons for embellishments
• stamping days of the week or months for organization
• using rub on letters

I purchased my clothespins at Wal-Mart in the laundry section. I got 100 for $3 compared to 25 for $2.50 in the craft section. The clothespins in the laundry section are just as good if not better. 

I bought magnets at Michaels. Fifty or so for $4, I think. I used a 40% off coupon so I don't recall the exact price. When I first made these, I bought larger magnets. I think the smaller ones look nicer. 

Thanks for stopping by! Happy Crafting! 

You can do it!

In the last post, I gave three tips to help you reach your New Year’s Resolutions. This post continues on that theme. As previously mentioned, about 75 percent of people abandon their resolutions. So in a room of 10 people, only 2 to 3 wILL achieve their goals. You can be among the few with these tips. 

1. Lower your standards. 

This probably sounds strange and may go against some school of thoughts. From my personal experience, I am often guilty of setting over ambitious goals. For example, I would set a goal to sell four items a week in my Etsy shop. Sounds good right? What Etsy seller doesn’t want to sell more items? I would list more items, tweak my listings and market on social networks, but the sales wouldn’t increase. I would get discouraged and feel like my efforts were in vain. But the reality is, I was doing the right things but expecting too much too soon. It would have been more realistic to set goals based on previous sales data. Setting goals too high can make the task feel impossible and create frustrations that cause you to give up completely. 

2.  Break goals into bite sizes.

This is particularly helpful for goals that take several months or a year to achieve. Let’s go back to my goal of selling four items a week. What I could have done is said: I want to sell one item a week from January to March. Getting one sale a week is more doable than four. Getting the one sale gives me the encouragement and motivation to reach a little higher. Once I have consistently sold one item a week, I could raise the bar a tad. 

A lot can be said for small steps. I don’t think big leaps are what help people reach goals long term. But a few small steps is doable and means that you are constantly moving in the direction where you want to go. 

3. Focus on frequency not duration. 

Exercise is the easiest way to relate this tip. Ideally, I want to workout five days a week for 45 minutes. Realistically, that isn’t always possibly. Stuff happens and life gets in the way. I could forget exercising all together or I could find 15 or 20 minutes in my schedule to walk around the block. No, it’s not the 45 minutes I want, but something is better than nothing. Sometimes squeezing in those short workouts is what allows me to maintain a workout routine.

The key is to stay on the saddle consistently. How long you ride the horse doesn’t matter. When you fall off the horse and stay off for an extended period of time, it’s like starting all over.  Focusing on frequency allows your to retain what you have worked so hard to achieve and keeps you moving forward. 

4. Celebrate along the way.

As long as you are breathing, you will likely be trying to improve some area of your life. Recognize that this is a life long journey and, you might as well stop every now and then and pat yourself on the back. Your very attempt to improve is a reason enough to celebrate. You’re going to make mistakes and wander off the path. When you do this, it’s a just a reminder that you are human. Celebration lifts the spirits and encourages your heart. It’s a crucial part of achieving your goals. Celebrations don’t have to be big or extravagant. You don’t have to celebrate in a way that works against your efforts. So say you work out consistently for a month, don’t eat an entire tub of ice cream to celebrate. Just go out for a ice cream and get an extra scoop.

5. Surround yourself with other ambitious guys and gals. 

I am fortunate to have hard working ambitious friends. Their work ethic motivates me to step up my game. They are my cheerleaders. They are my coaches. Look at the people close to you. Do they have goals for themselves? Are they trying to improve? If not, you might want to add finding new friends to your New Year’s Resolutions. 

Go forth and conquer! 

Keep your New Year's Resolutions!

As one year is closing and another is on the horizon, many people take the new year as an opportunity to improve themselves. There’s something about a fresh start and clean slate that empowers one to make changes. 

I’m sure most of us would love a smaller waistline, healthier relationships with those we love, a cleaner house, less debt, more cash and a longer list of books we’ve read. Whatever the goal is we all have challenges in reaching them. I read a stat that said 75% of people abandon their New Year’s Resolutions. Here are a few tips to help you not become a statistic. 

1. Recognize the magnitude of making changes

If it were easy to make changes, all of us would be the people we aspire to be. Change is never easy even when know it’s necessary or worthwhile. When you set New Year’s Resolutions or goals, recognize that it is no easy task to change your life even if it’s something small. Making changes typically involve changing habits. It’s commonly said that it takes about 21 days to create a new habit. What means to me - is there a process to change. With this mind, if you fall off the path, you’ll know that’s a part of the process ad not a sign that what you are trying to change is too hard.

2. Change your mind first. 

Christian evangelist Joyce Meyer says, “where the mind goes, the body follows.” I think most of our actions start with a thought. Many times we try to make changes physically without ever addressing them mentally. You can do several things to help start changes mentally. Hang notes around your house or office with reminders of your goals. Stick post it notes in your car with motivational statements. Put reminder alerts on your cell phone or the screensaver on your computer. If you can get your mind on board, you’re body will likely follow. 

3. Tell someone your goal. 

We are more likely to make changes with moral support. Call a friend, tell a relative your goal. They don’t have to be an expert in the area you’re trying to improve or even know how you can reach your resolution. They simply need to be someone who check in on you time to time and ask you how it’s going. Sometimes someone we care about is going to ask how our exercise plan is going provides motivation to get up and hit the gym rather than the snooze button. 

I hope these tips help. Happy New Year’s! Happy Goal Reaching! 

Roasting My First Turkey

This Thanksgiving I stayed at school in St. Paul, Minnesota for the holiday. Flights were too expensive. And the short break throws off my academic swing. The Saturday of that weekend, another Resident Advisor, Anna, and I made a Thanksgiving Dinner for the students who were staying on campus for the holiday. Area Coordinator, Gaith also helped.

Here's how we roasted our first turkey.

We started by cleaning out the inside of the turkey.

Then we wiped the turkey off in Apple Cider Vinegar, lemon juice and oil. We used each one of the liquids separately. 

We wanted a non-traditional stuffing to jazz things up a bit. So, we chopped up pineapples, pears, apples and pomegranate. Gaith, who is from Jordan, grew up with pomegranate trees in his backyard.

We sliced a lemon, tossed in a few fresh cranberries, mixed all the fruit and stuffed the turkey. 

We seasoned the turkey with spices I had on hand like basil, lemon pepper and garlic powder. We then poured Raspberry Balsamic Vinaigrette on top for additional flavor. 

I wanted to see if turkey slowed cooked as well as a whole chicken so we set the oven on 250 and let it cooked for about five hours. 

What we got was a delicious, tender turkey. (We got busy getting the dinner ready and forgot to take a picture of the turkey before we sliced it, but you can use your imagination:)

This was Gaith's and mine first turkey, but from the smiles of the residents, I think we did a decent job. It's basically the same as baking a whole chicken. Try our recipe and see how it works for you.