A Quick Weekend Upgrade

Sunday Mornings...
...are very special in my little family.  It's our only weekend day together.  We always spend a few minutes in bed together snuggling and watching cartoons before we get up.  I look forward to that time together all week!  
After we've had breakfast together, we usually have an errand we need to run.  This Sunday I needed to go to Lowe's to get a board for an Etsy Order I needed to complete (unfortunately I could not come up with a piece of reclaimed wood to use).  
I always find some amazing deal on their clearance rack, so I can't pass up looking- this visit I found these adorable mini accent lamps for only $3!!! Check out your Lowe's to see if there are any left!
Lowe's is one of Madisyn's favorite places to explore- she found a radio at her level that was super fun to the push buttons!
Anyhow, I got my wood I needed and we headed home. 

Sidetracked

Kyle has this innate need to be organized.  I do as well, but I would rather work on a project than reorganize the garage every weekend.  I know that its always my "amazing finds" that clutter the garage until I come up with the perfect way to re-purpose it, so I try to be sympathetic and work with him when he needs the garage to be organized again.  Compromising, rather than work on the projects I needed to finish, I helped him find a home for each piece of my random "junk".  

In the process I came across two casters we had taken off of a rusty old shopping cart that was left at Kyle's work.  The casters were too good for me to let him throw away- so I stashed them in an organizer drawer a couple years ago.  

I reminded him that we had them, and he reminded me that he had found two more. "Four Casters?!", I thought, and an AMAZING idea popped into my head to make life easier for me.  

We have a small garage, and I have a new car, so I try to park it in the garage as much as possible to keep it in good condition.  With our growing collection of woodworking tools and as "junk" accumulates, space gets tight.  We have our chop saw (by far my FAVORITE tool in the garage) on a wood stand we built for it.  But its heavy and hard to move.  In order for me to park in the garage, the stand has to be pushed up against our paint shelf.  So when I want to use the chop saw, I have to pull it out each time.  Such a pain.  

And a Solution

These four casters could go on the bottom of our chop saw stand, so that when I need to use it, I can easily pull it out!
10 minutes later, we had a stand on wheels!

Ta-da!

I hope you had a chance to do something to make life easier this weekend as well!  If not, make time today (just a few minutes can make a difference!)  If and when you do, I'd love to hear what your quick upgrade was- please leave a comment below!  Maybe I'll share your story!

Hunting Themed Birthday Party

This past weekend my husband turned 30.  He has been really interested in hunting lately.  In the past 3 months he's passed a hunter's education course online, purchased a rifle, rebuilt his grandfather's rifle, wrote out plans to build his own wood gun cleaning box, and passed his in-person Washington State Hunter's Course.  Kyle has spent a lot of time on this and I am proud of him.  I am also very excited for the potential meat we'll have in our freezer this next fall and winter!  

With him being so enthusiastic about this new hobby, and his birthday coming up, I thought what better theme to plan his party by.

Inspiration

To gather inspiration I, of course, created a Pinterest Board, and was pleased to find some great ideas.  Since Madisyn is not the most fun to take running around to 8 different stores to find all the supplies I wanted to gather, I decided to bite the bullet (he he, no pun intended) and just purchase everything on Amazon.  Find my shopping list below, and see my photos for details on how the supplies were used.

• Mossy Oak Camo Burlap
• Hunter's Party Balloons
• Summit Backyard Safari Camo
• Hunter's Camo Plates and Napkins
• Party Rings

Decor

I used the Camo Burlap as a table cloth (after I gifted the burlap to Kyle for future use camouflaging himself in action).  The Balloons were scattered in threes around the house and three out at the mailbox to help friends find the house.  (Madisyn thought it was her birthday when she got to ride in the truck with 15 balloons in her face!)  The Safari Camo was the perfect length for a window treatment and looked adorable.

handcrafted. stylishly

As for the handcrafted touches.... 

• Happy Birthday Banner
• "30" signs
• Tree Branch Candle Holders
• Moose and Deer Head Silhouette Glass Candle Holders
• Two Photo Holders,
• Fabulous Faux Bear Head and Antler Sticks

All this teamed up with some vintage oil lamps from Kyle's Grandma Nadine and a beautiful vintage kettle, made for a festive birthday mantle.  

I used my beloved Silhouette Cameo to cut "Happy 30th Birthday" letters and two moose and deer heads for the banner.  Camouflage printed scrapbook paper from Joann's and card-stock layers were all glued together.  To give a unique finishing touch, I machine stitched the edges of each square with a Hunter Orange zigzag stitch. 

Jute string ties each square to another through punched holes. I also made Two 3x4 inch signs and two 12x12 inch signs with the same design that just said "30".  I attached ribbon to the back of the large signs so that they could be hung- one on the front door, and one on the window behind the food table.

I also used my Silhouette to cut the same animal heads out of brown vinyl and applied them to some Votive Holders- they turned out SO CUTE!

The awesome mounted bear head and antler sticks are creations of my sister.  Emily is the owner of and designer behind Lola Floral.  Lola does floral and decor for weddings and events and has become quite the sensation in the Seattle Area!  Yeah, Emily!  I am so proud of her.   The bear and the antlers were created for a recent event Lola participated in- to view some breathtaking photos, visit Lola's flower brained blog.

I could not pass up the opportunity to make a "beer cake" as I found on pinterest.  It was fun to make and I used one of my little "30" signs with a rustic fabric bow as a topper!

Food

With everything looking so pretty (in a very manly way), its time we discuss food.  So, Kyle's birthday is February 3rd.  Which, does happen to fall on Superbowl Sunday every 7 or so years.  This, his 30th birthday, just happened to be on Super Bowl Sunday.  With that being said, this was a Hunting themed Super Bowl Party.  So our food was snacky- in traditional Super Bowl Fashion.  

I prepared Pulled Pork for Pulled Pork Sliders, and Crock Pot Mac and Cheese.  I also successfully made 3 of the 4 food pins from my inspiration board (Buffalo Chicken Bites, Milky Way Muddy Buddies and Peanut Butter Cup Brownies) and they were all delicious. I also saw a pin to put veggie sticks in a cup with hummus or ranch dip at the bottom- I thought this was a great way for people to have a self contained snack!

Thank goodness for good friends, Heather and Candace brought two items I couldn't pull off myself.  Heather made yummy Corn Dog Bites (Kyle LOVES corn dogs).  
Candace has made BEAUTIFUL cakes for parties we've attended in the past- and I knew when I saw the idea for the camouflage cupcakes that she could pull them off for me, and boy did she do a GREAT JOB!!!  She even topped them with shot gun shells and the cute hunting themed rings from the shopping list above.  The tutorial she followed can be found HERE. 

This was such a fun theme to explore, especially since there wasn't much out there already on the internet!  I hope you've enjoyed seeing all the details and found some inspiration to plan a party outside of the traditional themes!

Love this theme and don't want to reinvent the wheel?  Well, you are in luck- I've listed a Decor Set on my Etsy site HERE, enjoy!

An Introduction

First Blog....

Hello there friends!  I am so excited to be starting a blog, after wanting to inspire my friends, family and fans for such a long time, I am FINALLY doing it!  HOORAY!  This post, is no doubt going to be the hardest I write, I am sure.  I thought I would start off by introducing you to myself, my family and my business (everything that comprises the bunch).

Well, my name is Tracie.  I am married to truly amazing man who supports my junking and crafting addictions with such good sport, and even participates on a regular basis (Kyle).  He inspires me, and so does my daughter, Madisyn.  She is barely 16 months old and I can already tell she will be an artist or crafter herself, she already LOVES to draw.

the bunch is our business.  It has taken on a few different forms since 2005 when it hatched as a retail store-front in Historic Fairhaven (Bellingham, WA).  Less than a year had gone by since I graduated from college, and I decided I was going to work for myself.  I created the bunch's bath & body product line and opened the store front as a "hand crafted art gallery" with a variety of contributing artists and the Lavender Products from my Family's Lavender Farm.  the bunch's fan base grew and we moved to a prime street front location the next year and enjoyed developing the business.  

With the downturn of the economy's affect on a small shopping village, I decided to close the boutique before the business couldn't survive.  Since 2008, the bunch has been operating as an online retail and wholesale business.  We've branched out from handcrafting only bath & body products to now styling everything from applique'd onesies and boutique quality blankets to barn-wood signs and furniture.  And let me tell you, IT IS SOOO FUN!

We've been successful with our Etsy Shop, have dabbled in the Junk Show Circuit here in Seattle, and have pushed forward with our bath and body line landing accounts such as Made in Washington!

the bunch is very excited to see what the future has in store with this blog.  I have already wrote several blog posts that I am saving for the perfect time in the future to post them (such as Strawberry season).  

For now, this is us.  Thank you for reading and I can't wait to inspire you with Tutorial Galore- a little bit cooking, a tiny bit baking, woodworking, organization, design, decor and MORE!

More Soon,

p.s. Our website is having technical difficulties = ( .  We hope you'll want to check us out, but unfortunately today is not the day.  I hope to have it back up tomorrow, so please try then!