Pink Puff Ball Day

First of all, this is just a reminder to you on this Lovely-Day.
Here was my attempt at Valentine's Day Decor. Okay plus some candles and plus some pink vases, but I didn't take pics after I put those out.
This is to show the awkwardness of this banner that I insisted on. You sort of had to duck under it every time you went to your bedroom.
The banner turned out cute, but here was the process: so I bought it last year at Target the day after for like a quarter or something, and it came with the white letters cut out and "all the necessary decorating pieces." Ya right. More like 5 small pieces of paper and a few stickers. I had to make due and turned the paper into polka dots and had to dip into my own paper collection.
And these pink puffs are my favorite. Marshalls is one of my favorite stores, and I am contemplating writing an entire book series on how to navigate and benefit from this great store (not to mention it is literally the only thing we have in Salisbury). But my friend Marshall and my friend Martha Stewart have been courting lately and I am greatly benefiting from their relationship. The stationery isle (my fav) has recently been blossoming with Martha's crafts so cheap you can't afford NOT to buy them, and these puff balls where in the mix. (I know you were wondering when the puff balls would be brought back into relevant conversation). I have bought a few different packs and they are easy to make and even cuter to hang up.

Happy Valentine's Day! Know that you are dearly, dearly loved today! (Ephesians 5:1).

Cheery Day

Have I told you that Salisbury, NC is the home of Cheerwine? It's one of our few claims to fame. It's our lil beloved hometown soft drink. I recently was stalking a blog and saw this cute idea for a lil kids' Valentine. After talking to my friend Heather, we came up with an adaptation of the idea that would fit the bill for thanking YL donors.
We took one vintage Cheerwine bottle + a card containing a picture of a current YL kid + a letter of our gratitude, all tied together with a cute red ribbon and delivered them this morning with kids and leaders.
The best part of the whole thing for me was combining the love of blogs + craftiness + a hometown fave + kids + leaders + thanking people = greatest job ever.

This weekend has been packed to the rafters, but so full of Cheer. :)

coupon diva....

... I am not... but every once in a while a deal comes around, I feel the need to share.

I really like mypublisher.com for photobooks. Actually, I really like any online photobooks because they are 100 times easier than real photo albums or scrapbooks, and honestly, I think they look nicer too. Great gifts, even better for your coffee table. Actually, I don't put any of these on my coffee table, but I digress. You would be CRAZY to ever order a photobook at full price, because every site gives them out for a dime a dozen, or at least at a discount.

My fav is mypublisher.com (I swear I am not getting any kickbacks), but now is the time to buy and why: they offer 40% off gift certificates every once in a while (right now with code MYCUPID), so buy a $50 gift certificate (about the price of a nice book) for $30. But that's not all. Don't use it now. You would be stupid to do that. Use it when they also offer 20% off their books AND a free duplicate copy- BAM. So you can make a book and give one away too. Like to a local modeling agency or your mom. Either way, it's a winner.

I'm thinking about making one entitled: Facebook Can't Even Handle These.

reality of crafting

Sometimes I get a rep' for crafting. Don't get me wrong, I do craft and like it. But I really am not that great at it. And I'm not saying that to get everyone to comment like, no Sus, you're great! I'm just saying I always have a vision, and chances are the results are just a lil off, and that's okay.

I really do enjoy seeing other people be great at things, and if there was an Olympics of crafting, I would be in the front row, cheering them on. In the mean time, I will just stalk blogs and websites like pinterest.com and craftgawker.com (thanks Adrienne!). As I admire though, there's always that sense of like, how do they do that? And where is the mess and the mess-ups? Like the blooper reel of crafting blogs.

Well over here in Suzz News, I like to be real with my faithful followers. I was working on some layered valentine cakes with a friend, and we were doing pretty well, trying to make the cakes look like conversation hearts, but I am just not great at icing cakes and using those small gel icing tubes. Some looked okay:

And then one that was supposed to look like an OWL turned into the world's scariest looking bear clown. I took a picture and threw it away out of sheer horror.

So there you guy a colossal mess up. Feels good to get that off my chest.

The Boy Next Door

So it's been a while since I've talked about our friend John Boy. And let's be honest, most of you have fallen in love with the boy next door of ours and I get asked about him frequently.

He has many lovable aspects, but he also just appears out of the darkness when we're getting out of our cars to talk for dozens of minutes about 4 wheeling, painting trucks or girls problems. We like being older sister figures for him, but you know the feeling when you're getting home from work and you're carrying a purse, lap top bag, groceries and the mail, while struggling to not lock the keys in your car? You sort of just want to get inside, dump it all and fall into the couch. But with John Boy sometimes we have to chat and chat and chat. And remind him to shower and comb his hair.

I was reminded of one of my favorite ever blog posts. I laugh so hard and this and was reading it to my roommates, when we realized, we totally fall into the last category: "Well Intentioned Social Terrorism". In the words of everyone woman in the south, "Bless his heart."

But I think I will take some well intentioned neighbors, especially since he drags our pail runneth over of garbage on Monday nights. Bless him.

Shall Wii Dance?

New Years Eve is usually lame to me- anyone else agree? It's always a big build up to have these really exciting plans, but the weather's always crappy, there are too many sequins involved and dinner out is an expensive nightmare. Thankfully we had a fun night at Amanda & Greg's that included dinner, snacks, lots of dip, Cheryl's cookies and Wii Dance 2, the greatest game ever invented, ever.

My mom bought me the game for Christmas and I feel like she changed my life. Here are a few views of the crew playing. You mirror the dancer on the game and it's not as easy as it looks, so there is lots of laughing at people involved. Not to mention, you get sweaty and sore. Seriously.
Meredith looks too cute here, I think she was still getting the hang of shaking it.
Amanda was really getting into it. Her inner-cheerleader was coming out.
And Amy wins for best expression.

We played at a YL training this past week and I swear we could have filmed a commercial for Nintendo. Please notice how many guys were doing this. So the first row would have the controllers and be competing and the rest were just in it for the moves. Hilarious.

Owl Always Love You

The title is a kick to my childhood hero, Whitney Houston. I wanted to be her when I grew up after watching the Bodyguard in like kindergarten I think (where were my parents?!). But also to the cute owl cupcakes I made for my friend Amanda's NYE birthday celebration.


I am totally admitting to be on the Owl Bandwagon right now, along with the rest of the world. But just to be fair, I started a few years ago with some salt shakers and it has gotten progressively worse and more like a old crazy lady who is hoarding owls. Okay not really, but the cupcakes were fun and easy to make. I just wish I would have made more with crazy eyes.