Mailbox with Attitude

Well, my bloggie friends, May has been a real humdinger!  I can't believe it's almost over and I wish I could say I'm sad about it!  I wanted to pop in really quick to share with you another quick mailbox makeover I managed to accomplish the other day.  It's my mailbox with AttiTuDe!

Remember the limey green shade I tortured hubby with back in April?  Well, the color certainly did not grow on me so I decided to take it down a few notches.  I decided to leave the pops of color up to small accents and flowers, like the topsy turvy pots we created.

I'll share more details with you a bit later, but between the wedding flowers and cake, doctor appointments, issues with baseball, field trips, school winding down... it's been so much to deal with.  Mentally {and physically} I'm exhausted and it shows.  I've fallen behind with almost everything.  I'd lose my brain if it weren't attached.

 I needed a break from drama, and the never ending demands for a little while so I locked myself in the house and decided I'd pull my new silhouette out of the box.  Now, I must say, I think I may need to get that rocket scientist degree in order to us this thing fully, but I was able to download a quirky little saying from the online store.  It pretty much summed up how I've been feeling plus that gray mailbox needed a little something.

Now if you know me by now, you know not to take it too seriously.  I love stuff like this because it gives me a giggle...  {even if the neighbors think I'm weird}

I love it!

Wonder what the mail man think?...

Tip Toe Thru Tuesday {T4}

hello lovelies!!  welcome to tip-toe thru tuesday co-hosted by myself and Andie from Crayon Freckles! 

If I have NoT yet visited your link from last week, I WiLL!  Andie and I try to visit each and every link- I've just been overwhelmingly busy with WeDDinG stuff {no not mine} and will be sharing all of that with you very shortly!

now, it's time to party!!

here are the toP 2 pOSts from last week plus one of mY faVEs.  don't forget to check out Andie's fave over at Crayon Freckles.  if you're featured, grab a fEAtuRed button from my button page,

Sensory Balloons/Toddler Stress Balls from Creative Playhouse

Homemade Puffy Paint from Making Boys Men

Pallet Tool Box from Shabby Love

PoST aNYtHiNG you've created (show me some etsy shops and giveaways!)

Feel free to share several posts

Link back to my page somewhere on your blog

I'd love it if you followed, but not required!

Stay around and check out a few other links. wE aLL LovE fEEdBaCK!

Remembering...

Remeber those who have fallen, who are actively protecting, and those who are starting on their journey as a soldier. 

Source: google.com via Kim on Pinterest

As I reflect today, Memorial Day takes on a special meaning. 

Source: bbc.co.uk via Kim on Pinterest

My nephew is currently in Texas for Bootcamp with the United States Air Force.

Source: squidoo.com via Kim on Pinterest

 I am incredibly proud of you Darryn!

Source: zsazsabellagio.blogspot.com via Kim on Pinterest

Always have been, always will!

Source: Uploaded by user via Kim on Pinterest

It's Awesome's Birthday!

Before you were conceived I wanted you

Before you were born I loved you

Before you were here an hour I would die for you

This is the miracle of life.

                                                                                                   Maureen Hawkins

Today is Awesome man's 11th Birthday.  He will always be my baby.  I look at the little man he is becoming and wonder where the time went.  Welcoming him into my arms,  caressing his silky delicate face with a feather light touch and kissing his fuzzy head... breathing in his sweet innocence... a baby's aroma sent directly from Heaven...  I remember as if it were just yesterday.

I am so enthralled with my children; all that they are and will be.

Austin is sweet, kind, and loving.  He is a gentle soul who puts his heart and soul into all he does. 
I couldn't be prouder of this little man.

Happy Birthday Awesome Austin!

I took a few moments this morning and made this printable of Austin and his Dad having a reflective moment after one of his baseball games.  I know not what they were discussing but It was a heartwarming moment from Mommy's perspective!

"The child must know that he is a miracle, that since the beginning of the world there hasn't been, and until the end of the world there will not be, another child like him."
Pablo Casals

Our topsy turvy pot!

I guest posted on Monday at Hating Martha, figured I'd share here too in case you missed it!

Happy Monday to all you Hating Martha Fans!
I'm uber excited to be here... really, I'm thrilled I was asked to come out and play!  Who am I?
Well, I'm Kim from Tiaras and Bowties.  I am the crafty queen of my castle simply painting, DIYing and living the fairy tale.  You know the one; where princess meets the handsome prince, falls madly in love, has two lovely children - one of which has a rare genetic syndrome and is a medically complex special needs child, renting a castle in the burbs, struggling to make ends meet and living hapily ever after?  No?  Well, I'd love to have you stop by sometime and get to know us all better! 

The king {lol} has recently taken an interest in all of my crafty endevours but thought I had surely gone mad when I told him about the topsy turvy flower pot I wanted to create for our front porch.  You should have seen the eye rolls when I unloaded all of the supplies I would be needing to attempt to create the fab pots which had taken blog world by storm last summer.  I  painted each pot a different color from my stash of spray paints... added some fun polka dots, stripes, and stencils for a touch of whimsey then the king stepped in to help assemble the pot!  Here's how we did it and what you'll need!

3 Painted clay pots in descending size.  Mine were 12, 10 and 8 inches. {or close to that}
1 Painted clay pot base in the size that matches your largest pot.
1 metal threaded rod from the hardware store {about 2 ft, if you can't cut metel, have them do it}
Nuts and bolts to fit your rod.
Dirt
Flowers of your choice!
child and hubby laborers if you can get them.
{just jokin}

You'll need to drill a whole in the clay pot base large enough to get your threaded rod through.  Place the rod in the whole {we are using it upside down} and place a washer and a nut on the underside.

Flip it over and place another washer on before moving to step 2.

Carefully place the largest clay pot down over the rod, sitting flat on the base.

This is the part you step back and let the family help while you snap photos.

Place your next smaller pot down the rod and tilt it.  The rod will support it.  Add more dirt.

Lower your 3rd pot over the rod tilting it the other way.  I did not like the 'tilt' on this one so we added another nut and washer to lift it up a bit.  Add more dirt.

 When you have the pots as tipsy turvy as you want them, simply add some flowers!

Love the unexpected pop of color and whimsey it adds to the front porch.
Think you'll give this a whirl? 

Thanks for having me today!  Stop by and visit the castle sometime!

hello lovelies!!  welcome to tip-toe thru tuesday co-hosted by myself and Andie from Crayon Freckles! 

3 bits of news for you! 


The lovely Ms. Alexis pulled alot of votes in the Great Bike Giveaway last week.  She ended up placing #17 out of 150 children; although she did not win a bike she did WIN a Director's Choice Award entiteling her to a $500 voucher towards the purchase of a new adaptive bike from Tadpole Adaptive.  I will have more details about that for you next week.  A special HUGE thanks to all of you who took the moment to vote!  Our family was so touched... we really did not expect such a huge turnout for our daughter.  These are the moments in life that renew your faith!

Rachel at Sun Scholars was amazing enough to let Bear and Andie review her 12 week Summer Program.  She's also letting us give a copy to one of you!  The name Summer Program fits perfectly.  This downloadable program could run a summer program for a childcare center, homeschoolers, or a mom looking for a way to keep her kiddos busy and learning.  The program can be purchased for $30.  Don't forget to click the button on the left to enter to win your own copy!

Andie's taking part in an amazing project with almost 40 other bloggers to try and raise $3000 for the American Cancer Society by June 4th.  They doing this in celebration of MaryAnne from Mama Smiles' 30 year anniversary of being cancer-free and in the hopes that it will mean 30 year anniversaries for everyone diagnosed with cancer!  They've put together a book of gorgeous children's butterfly art and projects that you can download for a $15 donation to the ACS.  You can find out all the details by reading my post about it here

now, it's time to party!!

here are the toP 2 pOSts from last week plus one of mY faVEs.  don't forget to check out Andies's fave over at Crayon Freckles.  if you're featured, grab a fEAtuRed button from my button page

In Case of Emergency- Break Glass by A Fish Who Like Flowers

Pedro, the Ombre Chair from A Girl and a Brush

Umbrella Garden Bunting from City Girl Gone Coastal

PoST aNYtHiNG you've created (show me some etsy shops and giveaways!)

Feel free to share several posts

Link back to my page somewhere on your blog- I'd love it if you followed!

Stay around and check out a few other links. wE aLL LovE fEEdBaCK!

The Queen has escaped the Castle!

This girl has been allowed out to play!

I'm guesting over at Hating Martha today {and loving every minute of it}.

I'd love it if you stopped by to see my 3 tiered topsy turvy flower pot- it was a family adventure!

Get ready for Tip Toe Thru Tuesday tomorrow and get your butt back over here!

Will you still Like Me if I just be Me?

Will you still like me if I just be me?

When this blog journey of mine started, I wanted a place of my own to share my crafts.  I wanted to show the world my painting and my DIY... make a few friends who shared that passion that I hold deep within me.  I don't have that in real life... many of my friends wouldn't know what to do with a hot glue gun if it burned them in the ass {I still love you all}.  I didn't want my blog to be about the real me.  The sometimes crazy, lonely, emotional wreck of a woman I tend to be.  I didn't want it to be about my husband or my kids... everything I do is about the kids.  I wanted to focus on perfection... a perfect painting, the perfect color, the perfect chair, the perfect recipe, perfect perfect perfect...

Source: everycreativeendeavor.com via Kim on Pinterest

The problem is {for me} is that many {not all} of the big DIY blogs are just that, all about DIY and living a perfect life.  I will not quote nor name names but one big blog I follow recently stated something like this  'us crafty bloggers just want to look at crafts and show off what we've done... we don't blog about the drama'.  Now, that's all well and good and I suppose that's what I thought I wanted too when I started T&B.  We all have enough drama in our own lives and crafting blogs may be the escape many need from that drama in real life.  Problem is, I am so much more

What do you do when you're not feeling all that crafty?  Or happy? Or you're just in a dramatic place?  When you focus so hard on making everything seem so...PerFect, there isn't much room for error!

One of the ideas that resounds in my mind from researching hints for building a better blog is this...

" Be YOU, write from your heart.  People read blogs they connect with on some level."

There are so many blogs in every genre;  chances are what you are writing about isn't exactly original.  I know that I'm not the only painter in the world and I'm certainly not the only one who blogs about it.  One only needs to see so many different ways to paint a birdhouse or sew a curtain.  What keeps me going back to certain 'must read' blogs is the person behind the blog.  A connection I've found with that person in some way... even if they don't know it!  Someone who's faith or parenting, or humor inspires me.  People who write blogs that somehow expresses who they are between the painted orange walls, hand made chatchkeys, and kick butt sensory bins are those who keep me coming back.

I have convinced myself in a multitude of ways that you do not want to hear my story.  Perhaps many of you don't and I'm sure I will lose a few followers along the way, but I'm also sure some of you do.  Seems that my idea of having a blog all about me... is well... just not working unless I share the parts of my life who make me who I am!  I am so much more Truth be told, I hadn't picked up a paint brush since high school until the birth of my daughter.  If it weren't for her I don't know that I would have even rediscovered or allowed myself to experiment with that creative side again. 

So my question remains:  Will you still like me if I just be me?

Source: fromupnorth.com via Kim on Pinterest

Tiaras and Bowties will always have DIY and paint and general craftiness and welcome those who share that with me.  You will see some changes though,  I am hoping to share a bit of what it's like to be a Special Needs Mommy- from my perspective.  It's WHO i AM!  The good the bad and the very very ugly too!  I hope you will continue to stick around.  I hope to find some other SN Mommies too so if you know any please let them know I'm looking for them!  {Regular mommies are welcome too}.

May Catch up!

Happy Hump Day!

If you've returned today for Part 3 in the Ending Bloggers Guilt series... I've had to 'roll with it' this week and postpone that little ditty for another day!  My apologies!  It's coming... it's coming.

Let's catch up a bit!  This month has been a whirlwind of crazy busy-ness!  My little assistant is still wearing his little {big} e-collar following not 1, no not 2, but 3... yes 3 surgeries in a week for a neutering job gone very very BaD! 

That was after surgery #1... done at the local SPCA neuter clinic.

Had I know then what I know now, I'd never have done this to him!

Sorry SPCA- but I don't respect you as much as I used to... humane - really?

NO pain management for the little guy and NO support- think twice about going there peeps.

{pretty little purple collar, yes he is a boy but mommy wanted purple}  

he was able to reach his incision and ripped it open!

After surgery #2- some super pain killers, antibiotics & luvin'.

Notice the longer 'vet issued' e- collar and pretty 'purple' stitches.

Mommy felt very bad as the vet chastised me for taking him 'there'.

Things went well until he ripped them out and opened his incision again.  The Vet shot some staples in there that time... poor baby.  Mommy had to profusely swear to the doc that we did NOT remove your collar and explain your freakishly long neck to the vet!  Ooohh you are so bad, BoBo!

BoBo {Orton} was still able to 'reach' that special area and this is what we resorted to:

Hey, you do what you need to do to get by...

BUT

the little stinker learned to ram him head into the walls and floor to pop the extended collar off and,

YEP- you guessed it!

Ripped them out a 4th time needing another surgery!

And the vet had to admit now that "He Hava Necka LikeA Giraffe--- and a longa tongue!"

He has 'the collar of all collars' on now.

So long, mommy has to feed him by hand because he can't get his face far enough to the food bowl.

In the midst of all of this... Ms. A had surgery on her ear too!

Wish we all could be that happy knowing we are about to have surgery huh?

She was just so happy she would be out of pain!

A simple tube removal and cleaning of the ear from a large build up of some ' ka ka' they thought was from the old tube being in there.

Yeah right!

No tube, my friend.  Docs said it's very rare to have that much tissue build up & they've never seen an ear that bad before without a 'foreign' object lodged in there!  Now we have to have a CAT scan to check the bone structure of the ear.

That's MY Girl!

She bled and had pain alot longer than usual from all the put zing they did in there.

I have a funny story for you about why my friends say I run a house for wayward souls...

another day my friend, I'll share another day!

Oh and if you're still here...

I've been up to my eyeballs in flowers!

That's just one bucket of many!

I'm helping with a wedding party... trying to keep costs low for them.

So starting in June, I'll be sharing some of my secret How to's on a 'tight' budget!

There is still time to VOTE for Alexis in the The Great Bike Giveaway!

The contest ends Friday at 4pm

If you VOTE, please leave a comment here with what # you were or on Crayon Freckles Blog,

AND Alexis wins one of the bikes...

you will get 3 months of FREE AD space HERE & at Crayon Freckles!

Love ya, and til next time

Tip Toe Thru Tuesday {T4}

hello lovelies!!  in case you haven't heard already, tip-toe thru tuesday is now co-hosted by myself and Andie from Crayon Freckles                                                                     here's the button for the party:


     <center><a href=" http://tiarasandbowties.blogspot.com/"><img border="0" src=" http://i1074.photobucket.com/albums/w402/andiejaye/CF%20etsy%20admin/tip-toebutton.jpg"/></a></center>

***before we start, i've got 2 requests for your support.

The Friendship Circle of Michigan has teamed up with adaptive bike companies to giveaway {18} special bikes to {18} special kids! The contest is running on The Friendship Circle's FB page from May 13th-18th. The top 14 kids with the most votes will win a bike, 4 others will receive "Director's Choice Awards".

As of right now, my daughter Alexis is in the 25th spot. Please take a second and vote for her. If you vote for her, come back here & leave a comment or on Crayon Freckles blog and tell me what number vote you were, We'll {Tiaras and Bowties & Crayon Freckles} give you 3 months free advertising for your blog or etsy shop if Alexis wins a bike!

                             

vote for ALEXIS here

Andie's taking part in an amazing project with almost 30 other bloggers to try and raise $3000 for the American Cancer Society by June 4th. We're doing this in celebration of MaryAnne from Mama Smiles' 30 year anniversary of being cancer-free and in the hopes that it will mean 30 year anniversaries for everyone diagnosed with cancer! We've put together a book of gorgeous children's butterfly art and projects that you can download for a $15 donation to the ACS. You can find out all the details by reading her post about it here

here are the toP 2 pOSts from last week plus one of mY faVEs.  don't forget to check out Andie's fave over at Crayon Freckles,  if you're featured, grab a fEAtuRed button from my button page

5 Ways to Help Your Newborn Sleep from True Aim: Early Education

Butterfly Footprints from Plain Vanilla Mom


Old Broken Chair by Creating Love and Joy

now, it's time to party!!

PoST aNYtHiNG you've created (show me some etsy shops and giveaways!) Feel free to share several posts Link back to my page somewhere on your blog Stay around and check out a few other links. wE aLL LovE fEEdBaCK!

Special Bikes for Special Kids

Well, Happy Mother's Day friends!

I am uber excited today... see Alexis has been entered into a wonderful contest where she could win a special bike!

The Friendship Circle of Michigan has teamed up with adaptive bike companies to giveaway eighteen {18} special bikes for eighteen {18} special kids!  The contest is running on The Friendship Circle's FB page from May 13th to May 18th.  The top 14 kids with the most votes will win a bike, 4 others will receive "Director's Choice Awards". 

We would love it if you could pop over and VoTe for our daughter, Alexis Sminkey!  Alexis is unable to ride a traditional bike like most children due to her physical and mental needs... her adult trike {Santa brought her} many years ago {adapted by the hubs} is falling apart and getting too small!  Alexis has recently lost 20+ pounds and is very interested in riding again!  She wants so badly to 'fit' in with the other kids in the neighborhood!  Our family would greatly appreciate your support and your vote for Alexis!  Only 1 vote per child per person is allowed for the duration of the week!  Look for Alexis, you've seen this photo before!  To read more about Alexis' story, check out these past posts! {here, here or here}

Please feel free to share this post and contest with as many people as you can!  It would mean the world to her {and keep that smile bright} if she came in the final 18 - but we realize each and every child there deserves a new bike!  Vote and share with your heart!

Until next time,