Friday High 5

1.) This morning I got a new dependent ID and my picture is no longer utterly terrible! This is a big thing for me because I've had to live with the most embarrassing picture ever for the last three years! haha

2.) I finally ordered our beautiful business cards this week! Whee!

3.) I found out that Russ' ship leaving later rather than sooner! Yay!

4.) I got recognized at work because a secret shopper came in and apparently I did well because I got a $5 gift card for being awesome. Not bad. 

5.) The To-Do list for the evening: Krispy Kreme and Rifftrax (the guys from Mystery Science Theater 3000 riff on newer movies). 

Happy weekend, everyone!

Carded

I've been busy this morning designing our business cards from VistaPrint.com. I got 500 business cards on matte paper with front and back color print for $30. If you've got some business cards to print, their prices are pretty good and after I placed my order, I got an offer for 500 more cards for only an additional $9. 

I'm extremely pleased with how they came out! I think my favorite is the front with the green stripes- it really pops and looks amazingly adorable.

Speaking of amazingly adorable, look at all the bakery things we've collected in the past few months. We're trying to get ready for our photo shoot for all of our products that's going to be for our website. My brother will be behind the camera and he's a great photographer with some great ideas for how he wants the pictures to look. We just need to hit up some thrift or antique stores and maybe a fabric store or two for some more props. 

We've found our items at Snohomish antique stores, World Market (square plate, forks, cup and saucer, mint canister), Target (multi-layer white metal stand), and Homegoods (ribbon cake stand). It's strange that even though we've bought most things apart, we were really able to bring together our vision because everything coordinates so perfectly. 

This is going to be an awesome photo shoot! :D

Offbeat Post: Places I've Been

Every once and a while I like to look back and think about the places I've visited in my life and how lucky I am to have experienced them. 

Since being with Russ I've visited Chicago, Pensacola, Florida, Washington D.C., Virginia Beach, Virginia, Charleston, South Carolina, Charlotte, North Carolina, and Savannah, Georgia. And now, I live minutes from Seattle! I've also gotten to live in four different states and visit both Mexico and Canada. I feel so lucky to have gotten to visit those places when a lot of people have never even stepped outside the state they were born in. 

When I visited Chicago, I was so excited to see Russ graduate from boot camp and get to spend time with him in one of the biggest and most interesting cities in the country. We went to the Navy Pier and the Sears (now Willis) Tower and got to experience The Most Awesome Pizza I Will Ever Eat at Gino's. 

When we moved to Virginia I got to visit the Old South in Georgia and feel the history of D.C. I got to watch the sun rise over the Atlantic Ocean.

And now, I've been to the famous Pike Place Market and the Space Needle more times than I can count. 

It always makes me feel happy and content to reflect on all the places I've been and things I've done, like I'm moving forward rather than just staying stationary. It's like I'm getting new stamps in my passport of life. 

I've got a ton more exploring to do: San Francisco, Portland, Vancouver, and maybe a cruise somewhere are next on my list. What better way to spend life than exploring different places? 

Rolling Along

Last Wednesday we traveled about an hour North to see an ice cream/concession truck that's for sale. It's a great price with low miles and has a ton of potential. 


I used PicMonkey to put our logo on it to see how it would look. I think the truck would have to be a color though (we're thinking a minty green because there are no mint green trucks in the Seattle food truck fleet). 

It's definitely in our price range and has a lot of renovation potential inside. We need a few more racks for our products and maybe a little counter space. I'd love to put an awning for the windows outside (because it's Seattle, it's going to rain and I would prefer my customers have a dry place to order. 

A few days later I was cruising Craigslist, just curiously searching for food trucks around the country and stumbled upon this thing of beauty. Just a few hours from where I used to live in Virginia! UGH!!

It's not fair! Why can't that truck be closer...at least in like California or Idaho or something. So... far... to... drive. We're trying to figure out how much it would cost to ship the thing here. It's a little over our ideal price range but if we could score a deal... it could work too. 

Ideally, I would love to outfit the first truck to look similar to the Virginia truck. It's got a great use of space and it's adorably cheerful inside (even if it's covered in cupcakes).

Friday High 5

I'm going to try out a new segment here on Apartment To Apartment: Friday Highday. It's basically going to be five highlights from the last week. I've seen quite a few other blogs include some little Friday segment like this and I thought it was a neat idea. We'll see if I can keep it going for more than one week!

1.) Russ will be home this afternoon after being gone underway since Monday! 

2.) I got the opportunity to capture some cute images this week:

3.) I recently discovered how awesome Jack in the Box mocha iced coffee is. Sorry, Starbucks... this wins. 

4.) I finally found a clock that I like for our bedroom. Will I keep it as is or change it? Don't know yet. 

5.) And last, but not least.... I got my tickets to see Alice in Chains in September!!!!!

Source

And it's not going to be at just any old arena... it's going to be at The Gorge which looks like this:

Source

Isn't that breathtaking and amazing?! And I'm going there! How cah-razy is that?!!?

Decorating Standstill

Guess who hasn't done much decorating around the house? Oh... did you guess me right away? Well, yeah. 

The past few weeks I haven't done much of anything improvement-wise around here. There was my Alice in Chains shadowbox that I made a few weeks ago but I don't want to call it 'done' because I still think it needs something. Too bad I don't have an AIC patch or sticker or something for the bottom right corner. I might paint their symbol to stick it in there for a little something. 

I also got this on-clearance shelf from Target that was priced at 50% off and only $10. I need all the storage I can get in our laundry area anyway.

And that was uber boring. I apologize. 

That's So Metal

There's this awesome local chain of stores called Fireworks and they have a ton of awesome things! They've got interesting jewelry, books, kitchen items, clocks, cool mugs, toys, trinkets... I loooooove this store. While there last weekend, I bought my first Metal Works model. 

Metal Works makes small, laser cut metal models. Here's a gallery of all they make including the Titanic, Big Ben, the White House, etc. I bought this little model of the Space Needle for $12.50 that's made of cut metal. It's so small and adorable and wasn't too expensive. I was worried that it would be hard to put together and with the small parts and possibly-easily broken metal pieces- it kind of was. 

Look how small the pieces are!

It probably took about an hour, but isn't it adorable?! All I needed was a pair of tweezers to bend some of the pieces into place and now it lives on a shelf in the living room. 

When I Go To The Thrift Store

This weekend I went into one antique mall and two thrift stores... and the Seattle Street Food Festival and Pike Place. It was a long day!

Here's the treasures I found:

Who wouldn't want to drink from Buddha's belly? 

P.S. Where do you pour the drink in???

This clown picture will hijack all of your nightmares for the low price of $150.

These figurines were dubbed "noodle cats."

Something I haven't seen at a thrift/antique store yet: Nazi paraphernalia. Creepy yet interesting.

This mirror was pretty cool and would have been lovely painted something more interesting than a blah brown. 

This clock is awesome, isn't it?!

I thought this clock was cute too along with the horseshoes. 

Mom's quote about these shoes, "They're not bad. You know, with the right outfit." There is nothing that could make these shoes look good. These make orthopedic shoes look stylish.

I think everyone needs a two-headed cat figurine, don't you? 

This original watercolor painting called out to me. It's a castle scene and was only $20. Reframed it could have looked even better. 

This item looks like it could have come off the set of Castaway.

This fabulous butler is standing by to help you with all of your fashion choices. 

And lastly, I found these brand new, tags still on, ottomans from Target at the Goodwill. They were only $25 too! I would have bought them but they wouldn't have fit in our couch area and I think Russ thinks ottomans are useless. Oh well, I was still startled to find them!

Thanks for shopping with me!