World Rare Disease Day

Today's post is in honor of my son, Will.  He is 9 years old and was born with a rare genetic disorder, Kleefstra Syndrome.  As a result of this, he also suffers from Lennox-Gastaut Syndrome, another rare disease.

Having a child with these health problems is devastating for a family.  It changes your life.  There are thousands of families that are living with this right now!  I wrote about how it affected mine here.


I have written about my son's rare disease alot in the past month in an effort to spread the word about the thousands of families living with rare disease.  I hope that, one day, a cure or successful treatment will be found to help a child living with these diseases.  If it doesn't occur in my son's lifetime, I hope that his "story" will help pave the way for future progress in a cure or treatment.

The Global Genes Project is an organization that has been instrumental in raising rare disease awareness.  Please take time to visit their facebook page here and "like" it.  By doing so, you can help spread the word about rare disease day and what it means.


When you visit their fb page, you will see pictures, like my son's above, of some children that are affected by rare disease.  This is a project, sponsored by Global Genes Project, to put a face to rare disease.  These kid's stories will break your heart.  World Rare Disease  Day is for them.

Random Sharing...Good Stuff!

I've been surfing around blogland lately and wanted to share some stuff I've seen.


First, look at this cute little pair of earrings for Easter.  I adore them!

These are one of the current deals going on at GroopDealz right now.  Click on the "Daily Boutique Deals" in the top of my sidebar to check them out and see the other amazing deals going on.


How about a place you can go to find out where all the good linky parties are in blogland?   Do you want to find one that features fashion? food? or holiday crafts? Or all linky parties for a certain day of the week?  Well, here ya go.

What a cool idea.  I love it.  If you host a linky party or know of a good one, let them know.  Help spread the word so all of us will benefit!  And just to add more fun to the site lauch, they are offering some amazing giveaways. You've got to check this out!  I think I set it up where you can click on the button above to go to the site but in case it doesn't work, here it is:  http://www.linkyhere.com/introducing-linky-here-a-giveaway/

OK, one more thing.  I also discovered this.  It's a mega Spring Sale at The Vintage Honey Shop.  There will be lots of sellers involved with some really good 'get ready for Spring' items.  Whoo Hoo!

Start clicking away, people!  Now, back to surfing for me :)  I hope everyone is having a great week.

A Touch Of Spring

Things are still a little crazy at my house these days but I did find time to put out a few little things to decorate for Spring.  I've got Spring fever bad and all of my flowering bushes (like azaleas) are blooming now.  It is still February isn't it?


The first thing I did was to pull out my absolute favorite Spring fabric.  I have used this for many things in the past and I never get tired of looking at it.

I hung some little birdcages from a crepe myrtle limb from my backyard.  I just suspended the limb from two shelf brackets.

I love bird nests and eggs stuck in various places.  This one is in the corner of a basket that I plan to decorate for Easter.  I love the pale pink flowers and leaves surrounding the edges, almost hiding the eggs from view.

I have two hand painted pieces that I just adore.  One is this cute little plate with flowers and a birdhouse on it.

And this beautiful hand painted gazebo.

The detail on it is amazing.  I've had it for years but can't remember where I bought it.  A craft show maybe?

The initials, KDH, are printed on back.  Whoever you are, KDH, I'm still in awe of your artwork.

I still have so much I want to do...including some gardening.  Just gotta find the time :)

Linking to:

You're Talking Too Much's Meet Me Monday

Craft-O-Maniac's Monday Link Party

Homemaker on a Dime's Creative Bloggers' and Hop

Debbiedoo's Newbie Party

Bracelets For Hope

I want to share some info about an important blog hop going on today.  The Global Genes Project and several crafty bloggers are forming a blog hop today for 7000 Bracelets for Hope.  

The 7000 Bracelets for Hope campaign asks jewelry designers and crafters to donate one jean/denim inspired bracelet to give to a child (and their caregiver) living with rare disease.  This will promote the awareness of thousands of rare diseases that profoundly affect the lives of children and their families.  The bracelets provide hope and encouragement to those that receive it. 


My son lives with a rare disease and was fortunate enough to receive one of these beautiful bracelets.  You can read more about our families' rare disease story here.

You can follow today's blog hop by going to this or this blog, two of the participants.  Once there, you will find links to other participants of the 7000 Bracelets for Hope Blog Hop.  It's interesting to see the various designs and styles of each bracelet donation.   Some amazing work!


I will be posting more about Rare Disease Day (Feb. 29, 2012) and the Global Genes Project soon.

Trying To Tame My Spring Fever

I thought that I would be posting pictures of new Spring decor in my home by now.  I'm dying to redo my mantel for Spring and I have a whole box of Spring crafty stuff just waiting for me to dig into.


But...I have to put those things on the back burner for a few days while tending to my sick little boy.  As you know, he had surgery and a small hospital stay last week.  He was recovering really well and then got hit by an ear infection this past weekend.  


We've been down that road before and knew a specific antibiotic was needed.  But it's all about timing.  It's really bad timing when your son gets sick during Mardi Gras weekend and all of his doctors are in New Orleans.  You think getting in touch with a doctor on Christmas Day is hard?  Try a New Orleans doctor during Mardi Gras.  That city shuts down for Mardi Gras...for days!  So frustrating!


Anyway, he has his antibiotic now and is on the mend.  In the meantime, I have been sitting by his side while he rests with my laptop for entertainment.  Planning and dreaming of Spring.


Everything is starting to bloom where I live (Southern Miss.)...it only increases my Spring fever, ha!  Here is a picture of my Japanese Magnolia tree.  I took pictures of it today to put on my laptop desktop background.  

Here are a few more inspirations via Pinterest:

Pinterest

Pinterest

Pinterest

Pinterest

Pinterest

I am so ready for blooming flowers and bright colors. 

Linking to:

Natasha in Oz's Pinterest Linky Party  

How to Put Social Media Icons On Your Blog

One of the things that I did during my "down time" last week was to visit some of the new blogs that I discovered during the Linky Followers Blog Hop.  I met so many great people!  And became a new follower to so many great blogs.


As I was hopping around blogland, I started noticing that alot of blogs had cute little social icon buttons.  You know, like the ones for facebook, twitter, Pinterest, google+ and so on...


Well, color me green with jealousy.  I wanted some for my blog (insert pouty lips).  


I became a girl on a mission...to learn how to make my own social icon buttons.  And I did it (insert happy dance)!  Here are the ones I made for my facebook and Pinterest pages.

They are located on the top of my sidebar and actually work!  If you click on them, they will take you to each site.  It took me all morning one day to figure this out and I want to share with you how I did it.  Especially the two sites that helped me the most.

Important Disclaimer:  This tutorial is only for blogs hosted by Blogger.  I have no idea how to do this on Wordpress (or other) blogs....sorry:(

1.  Make or upload an icon

     You can upload pre-made icons from many different sites on the web.  Just google "social media icons" and you will find tons of sites that offer free icons to download.  
     I looked at this option but chose to make my own icons for two reasons:  I didn't fall in love with any pre-made ones and I couldn't find any icons for Pinterest in the bulk of sites offering the "typical ones".  Of course, the Pinterest site offers the red circle P (in the 'goodies' section) but I wanted something different and unique.
     To make mine, I saved an image that I wanted to use as the background of my button.  Anything will work...I used a picture of one of my favorite fabrics, a blue and cream damask pattern.  I used Picnik (I'm in denial about it closing in April) to crop it and make it round.
    For the P and f symbols, I found some free social icon silhouettes from The Blog Designer Network in black.  Each one had a transparent surround and it allowed me to "layer" the symbol on top of the damask circle that I had already made.  I also resized it to 75x74 so that two of them could fit side by side in my sidebar.  I saved the finished button image to my Photobucket album so I could get the HTML code for that image (by hovering my arrow over the image).


2.  Insert the proper HTML code into the sidebar gadget.
     To put the images in the sidebar of my blog, I followed the instructions from Becca at from GARDNERS 2 BERGERS.  She recently wrote a really good post on how to create and add a G+ icon to your blog.  If you have time, visit her blog...it's awesome!
     Next, I entered an HTML code (see below) into a sidebar gadget (go to the Layout page of your blog and click on "add a gadget" in the sidebar, then add the code in the "configure HTML/JavaScript" pop-up window).  Below is the code that I used for my Pinterest button.  To add yours, just substitute your Pinterest URL (the page with all of your boards on it) and your image URL (Photobucket HTML code) for your button in place of mine (in green).

     I did exactly the same thing for my facebook button, substituting my fb URL (in the same place the green Pinterest URL is) and my fb image (Photobucket) URL (in the same place as the green Pinterest image URL).
    To make them appear side by side and centered in my sidebar, I listed one code right after another in the pop up "configure HTML/JavaScript" window.  To center them, I added the "center code" (in blue) at the very beginning and very end of the whole code.  Like this (again, my URL codes are in green).

     

I only have two social icons on my sidebar but you may want to add more.  If you want them smaller and all lined up in one row, then change the size of your button image (25x25?) and just add the codes one after another in the "configure HTML/JavaScript" window in Blogger.  Remember to put the code at the very beginning and the very end of the whole thing.

Confused yet?  Head spinning?

One of the BEST pieces of advice that I read when I started designing my blog was from Sneaky Momma Blog Design.  She said to start a practice blog to try new things out on before putting it on your real blog.  Just "hide" your practice blog by keeping it away from search engines and blogger lists.  Go to the above Sneaky Momma link to find out how to do this.  This blog has been very, very, very helpful to me in the past....great instructions!

Ahhh, wasn't that fun?  LOL!  

Mardi Gras Weekend

I live about an hour's drive away from the city of New Orleans where Mardi Gras is in full swing this weekend. 

NOLA.com

Like most people that live near tourist traps, I stay far away from it during peak tourist season.  I enjoy Mardi Gras each year from home...watching it on TV and live online streaming.  For me, New Orleans this time of year is full of traffic jams and crowds everywhere you look.  No thank you!


But I thought some of you would want to see a little Mardi Gras parade action.  These photos (and the one above) are from the Endymion Parade that was held tonight in the wind and rain.  Not much can stop the parades around here.  The Endymion Parade is one of the "big ones" held the Saturday night of Mardi Gras weekend every year.

NOLA.com

The Endymion Captain's float:

NOLA.com

The theme of Endymion this year is "Happily Ever After"...this is their title float (picture below).  Notice the ladders and stands that people stand on to catch more beads (this is a common site during Mardi Gras).

NOLA.com

The band, Maroon 5, were guests on an Endymion float this year.  Here they are riding in the rain, lol.

NOLA.com

The "Wicked" float:

NOLA.com

NOLA.com

And here is a link to the "Bourbon Street Cam".  But, a warning, it's not always G-rated so you might want to hide it from the kiddos....

http://www.earthcam.com/usa/louisiana/neworleans/bourbonstreet/

My favorite part of Mardi Gras is the King Cakes!

NOLA.com

If you want to read or see more pictures of Mardi Gras, you can go to this link:


http://www.mardigras.com/

Have a great weekend everybody!

What I Did To My Big Blank Wall...Part 2

I finally finished my "blank wall project".  My son is home from the hospital after his surgery and is doing good.  Thank you to everyone that sent well wishes.  I missed being able to work on stuff at home during his recovery but I'm happily back at it now :)


Here is the large wall mural that now covers the big blank wall.

I've never posted any pictures of my master bedroom because it's not the typical bedroom.  I would love to have a nice bed surrounded by beautiful furniture.  You know, like the ones we see on Pinterest all the time.


But I don't have the "typical" bedroom.  My husband and I share our bedroom with my 9 year old son.  He has multiple health problems and has to sleep in a medical grade handicapped bed.  He has to be monitored throughout the night so I have to sleep in the same room that he does.


His setup basically takes up about a third of our bedroom so our furniture arrangement is weird, to say the least.


For example, our (queen size) bed sits in an odd place in the room.  Here is a picture of one side of the bed almost touching the wall.

Whoever sleeps on that side of the bed (usually the Hubs) only has about 18 inches to walk in.  But we're all about adapting things to accommodate our son so that's OK.


You can see the big blank wall on the left side of the picture.  That has been my enemy for the past year.  I have tried to "decorate" it somehow but nothing has worked.  My husband's shoulders rub against the wall when he tries to get out of that small space so hanging pictures is out of the question.  Anything sticking out, even the slightest bit, gets knocked down.  I was so sick of looking at that big wall of nothing.


Since I've been on a painting kick, I taped off a large rectangle in the center of the wall and started painting a faux picture on the wall.  Paint doesn't stick out, huh?

I used two of the sample pots of Benjamin Moore paint that I had got at a salvage store for 80 cents each.

Just a little FYI,  calculate how much paint you will need before you start painting.  About halfway through painting the largest part, I realized that my little 2oz. sample pot of paint was not going to be enough.  Why on earth I thought that I would have enough is beyond me.


This is where I had to get a little creative with painting.  I put down the paint brush and grabbed a typical kitchen sponge (I get them at the dollar store).  I love to paint with them.  I kind of smear the paint on the wall to create a color washed effect.  I think it adds a textured look and in this case, it stretched out my small amount of paint.


Here is the best picture I could take of it with my camera.  The paint color that I used is a light bluish-gray color ("nantucket fog").

The base wall color (light golden tan) shows through....in some areas more than others.  I realized that this also made that portion of the wall match well with my painted headboard that I had done several months ago.  The original color of the headboard was also light golden tan and I painted over it with ASCP in Louis Blue (with dark wax sealer).  When I sanded it down (for that "distressed" look) some of the light tan paint showed through.  

wall vs. headboard

I used a vinyl wall decal (in black) for the tree/birdcage picture in the middle.  If I had to do it over again, I would use the tree/bird stencil at Cutting Edge Stencils.  I think it's much better but I already had this decal so I had to use it.  I got it a AllPosters.com and it was a pain in the %$# to put up.  I couldn't figure out what limb went where and I ended up making up the design myself.  I don't really like it but hindsight is 20/20, right?


I "framed" the whole thing out with another sample pot of BM paint (color - "hemlock").  I had enough this time, whew!  I topped that off with a thin black line to match the black color of the tree.

Now that the big blank wall is finished, I need to work on a couple of other things in the same room.   The things-to-do list never stops growing :)

Linking to:

My Repurposed Life's Catch as Catch Can

It's A Hodgepodge Life's Hodgepodge Friday

The Shabby Nest's  Frugal Friday

French Country Cottage's Feathered Nest Friday

Making Lemonade's Refresh Your Nest Friday

Happy Hour Projects' Freestyle Friday

I Gotta Create's Kiss Me I'm Irish Linky Party

Northern Cottage's Crafty Scrappy Happy Blog Hop Party
and Party Time Tuesday

Naptime Crafters' Friday Favs Link Party

Thirty Handmade Days' Pity Party

Tatertots and Jello's Weekend Wrap Up Party

Classy Clutter's Saturday Spotlight

Too Much Time On My Hands' Get Schooled Saturday

Funky Junk Interiors' Saturday Nite Special

Serenity You's Serenity Saturday

You're Talking Too Much's Meet Me Monday

Between Naps On The Porch Metamorphosis Monday

The Delectable Home's  Show and Tell Linkup Party

Color My World Challenge at Primitive and Proper

What I Did To My Big Blank Wall....Part 1

I had every intention of revealing a finished project to you today.  But my "other" life got in the way and I have to put things on hold while I take care of some mommy stuff.  My young son will have surgery in the morning and I will have to put this blog and some other stuff on hold while I take care of him.


Here is a sneak peak at what I've been working on.

It's not completely finished yet.  I only have a few little spots to touch up when I get back from the hospital.  Touch ups like this...

Ha, that's what I get for trying to paint too fast.

So, after I fix a few things on this project, I will show it to you.  And let you know what I did when I ran out of paint right in the middle of painting the main part.  That never should happen, right?  You calculate how much paint you need before starting a project, right?

Trust me, at this point, I need to step away from that wall for a few days.

While I'm away from home doing "hospital duty", I am going to take my laptop with me so I can visit some of the amazing new blogs that I discovered during Cheri's (It's So Very Cheri) Linky Followers Blog Hop.  I have thoroughly enjoyed visiting the blogs that joined in on the fun.  If you haven't "hopped around" yet, don't miss the opportunity (just click on the link to Cheri's blog above).  It's great to find a ton of good blogs in one place. 

I started using the Linky Follower tool and joined the blog hop several days ago and I love it.  Today I was thrilled to see that I had reached 100 followers!  

Wow!  Thank you to all my new followers for bringing me to three digits.  I remember when I started this blog and being so happy when ten people were following me, lol.  Now a 100?  OK, I'm officially hooked on blogging, haha.  Truly, thank you to all of my followers for listening to my ramblings.  I love making bloggy friends.

I'm off to finish packing for what I hope will be a short hospital stay for my son.  My family has done this "hospital stay" thing so many times in the past that I can tell you two things to never forget for these visits:  a comfy pair of slippers and a fleece blanket.  Hospitals get so cold at night!

Have a great week everyone.  I'll be back soon with the finished (part 2) big, blank wall project.