Saving 90% at Pottery Barn

A few months ago, my cute friend Whitney made a picnic table for her two kiddos. She blogged about it. She had found the plans for it off of a website called Knock-Off Wood, and the entire thing had cost her about $10. I spent the next hour or so on that website and noted dozens of plans I wanted to make in the future. And I started hounding C about making the Farmhouse Bed. One day, we were discussing what we were going to be for Halloween. C suggested we go as Avatars. (For those of you who don't know, I absolutely canNOT stand that movie, but that's an entirely different story.) His next suggestion was to go as a Jedi and Princess Leia, which isn't near as bad, but still not my #1 choice of costumes. I saw an opportunity here, though, and said "C, if we have the Farmhouse bed completely built, painted, decorated, new bedding, etc. I will be whatever you'd like for Halloween." And two seconds later we were price checking wood at Lowe's and Home Depot.

[The wood prices were exactly the same at both places and we ended up going to Home Depot based on its close proximity to Texas Roadhouse, where we ate dinner with my awesome Mom. *Thanks Mom!*]

Home Depot and Lowe's will cut your wood to the lengths you need. Generally, your  first 10 cuts are free, and you pay for the rest. I think they're about 10-25 cents a piece. We went on a Friday night and the store was dead, so the employee cut all of our wood for free. He saved us a BUNCH. We were cutting the wood for about an hour.

[caption id="attachment_1040" align="aligncenter" width="501" caption="At Home Depot with the guy who cut our wood for FREE! "][/caption]

We went home after dinner and the guys put on a movie. Me and Mom, however, stayed up LATE cutting out the pieces for the king-sized quilt that would be on the bed. We made a good team. My mom hates doing the math for quilting and I can't cut in a straight line. She made everything go so smoothly the next week. Couldn't have done it without her. [Not to mention she stayed up with me to finish the job when she had a 7 hour drive the next day. The woman is amazing.]

Saturday, we started building around 2. We borrowed tools from Emilee and Adam and set to work assembling our new bed.

[caption id="attachment_1044" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="Gluing the panels together. "][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_1052" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="We borrowed a friend's jigsaw and C cut that arch out for the headboard. It really added a lot to the bed. We LOVE it. "][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_1056" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="Attaching the legs. We assembled the entire thing in our Kitchen. The headboard is suspended between our new dishwasher and the countertop. Not having a garage makes you get creative. :) "][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_1053" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="C making the frame at the end of Day 1. We thought this would go together real quick because it looked so simple, but it took SO LONG! C was a trooper. I had lost interest by this point. :) "][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_1051" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="We'd left the headboard and footboard in the kitchen, but the bedframe wouldn't fit, so we went to take it upstairs and leave it in the spare bedroom. We quickly realized we were about a half inch away from getting it inside, but that it wasn't going to fit. We took it outside and wrapped it up in a tarp, hoping no one would mess with it overnight."][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_1047" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="Sanding was my least favorite job. But it sure made everything look nice!"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_1041" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="C sanding down the headboard. "][/caption]

Showered and Clean at the end of Day 1. 8 hours of work!

[caption id="attachment_1042" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="Starting to look real! "][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_1057" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="Painting. 2 coats made all the difference! "][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_1050" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="Turns out our 1x8 panels, which are supposed to be 1x7.5, were 1x7.2. Which meant that our footboard and headboard were too small to fit the bedframe. We weren't about to start over, so we made some minor adjustments and it all came together just fine! "][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_1055" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="All Put Together!!"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_1049" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="Making the quilt the next day. (Note to self: Big = overwhelming) This was a big lesson in biting off more than you can chew, but it all worked out! "][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_1046" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="The quilt was ginormous! "][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_1045" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="All finished! Major sigh of contentment. We're thrilled with how it came together. And REALLY, you can do this. I highly recommend Knock-Off Wood for saving you some serious cash! We spent $180 on the bed. Bammo. :) "][/caption]

Call Me a Tease...

...but this is what I've been up to instead of blogging/designing/calling you guys/being a daughter-sibling-friend/etc.

details on the way!

New Release: Race Day {& Inspiration!}

Happy New Release Day! This kit was largely inspired by C's marathon, but as you can see below, it is perfect for TONS of different projects.

Congratulations to Sharon, who's the winner of the Pre-Release Giveaway! Check your e-mail for a coupon code!

[caption id="attachment_1018" align="aligncenter" width="450" caption="By Deanna"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_1019" align="aligncenter" width="450" caption="By Deanna"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_1021" align="aligncenter" width="450" caption="By Me :)"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_1020" align="aligncenter" width="450" caption="By Aly"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_1016" align="aligncenter" width="450" caption="By Brynn"][/caption]

and how about this delicious hybrid card!

[caption id="attachment_1017" align="aligncenter" width="450" caption="By Brynn"][/caption]

You can snag this kit today only for 30% off.

Get it here!

Sneak Peek & a Pre-Release Giveaway!

I just finished putting the final touches on this new kit and I can't wait to show you! Here she is:



If you'd like to win this brand-spankin'-new kit for FREE, leave a comment on this post telling me one thing you're super proud of!

[Entries close Tuesday at Midnight - Winner will be selected on Wednesday.]

Collabracadabra! [Blog Train!]

I'm participating in the a-mazing collabracadabra blog train from the PDP designers. You do NOT want to miss this! Check it out:

Collabracadabra is a celebration of the magic of digital scrapping. the polka dot plum designers, want to give you a big surprise every month, with a plum designer collab! You can grab it for FREE, the first week of the month, from our exclusive blog train. follow the train, collect the freebies, and at the end of your journey, you will have a beautiful full collaboration, magically created, just for you. when the week is over, the collab will only be available in the shop, but will be free with a purchase of $10.00 or more.

This month's collab is granny's attic. a huge collection of papers, elements, an alpha, and layout templates with a vintage feel. here is a preview of all that you can collect, if you visit every blog.

As a fun added bonus, we would love for you to submit your layouts make with the new collab by the end of the month, in the monthly thread, and the last day of the month, we will vote on a winner that will be presented with a gift certificate to the polka dot plum shoppe!

AND THAT'S NOT ALL.........
There is also a full kit, selected especially for you, by one of the plum designers, for you to enjoy for FREE, if you are able to collect our special plums along the way, during your visits to our blogs. put the plums together to form a six letter code, and use that code at check out to receive your free featured kit. Our designer of the month is kreations by kami. And I have to tell you, the featured kit is TO-DIE-FOR. Seriously. I love it.

here is my freebie for you! i can't wait to see what you create with our beautiful new mega kit! [As always, if you send your LO to me, you'll get 50% off to my shoppe too!]

You should've arrived here from: Sweet Tomato Designs

[Click on the image to download]

Please leave a comment if you download and be sure to check back tomorrow for a chance to win my brand new kit before its release on Wednesday!

Your next stop is: Polka Dot Plum Designs

Designer Survivor Template Freebie

I'm participating in a Designer Survivor competition over at Brownie Scraps and would love any of the support you'd like to show! For the first challenge, I created a template for you, based on my Traffic Jam Lovin' layout from a week or so ago. Hope you like it!

To download the template, click on the image and look in the description section. The download link is in there. If you wouldn't mind leaving a comment there, I would really appreciate it! Thanks for the support!

Top 10 Perks to Being Unemployed

Yesterday, I lost my job. It's a weird feeling, being unemployed. However, I've wanted an excuse to build up my online businesses for a while, so this is really a blessing in disguise. After a long walk through the mall with C, a carton of sugar free ice cream, and a chick flik, me and C came up with a plan. I'll be working on building up my online stuff for 5-6 weeks until C starts fall semester here at BYU. That means we'll both enjoy 3 long weeks of having NOTHING. No job. No school. etc. and we'll be able to stop acting like grown-ups for a while, head down to Lake Powell for a week, and then mosey on down to Queen Creek to spend some much needed time with C's family. Luckily, C and I are big Dave Ramsey fans and have built up a 3-6 month financial reserve, so we got to skip the "panic" stage. So, aside from feeling "weird" here are the top 10 perks I've found so far to being unemployed.

Sleeping In. I am not a morning person. Never have been. Most likely never will be. I don't intend to sleep in until 10 am every morning, just today, but man oh man it felt good!

Feeling Productive. Being laid off made sense to me. I would often walk in to my bosses office 3-4 times a day asking him for more projects to work on. I had a feeling this was coming because I had nothing to do at work! It was so frustrating to want to do so much for my personal business ideas, but be stuck at work wasting my days away. No amount of money is worth feeling like your life is passing you by.

Making Leaps and Bounds Toward Working from Home. It isn't any secret that I would much prefer working from home. I am a housewife at heart and it was so frustrating for me to spend so much time away from home without really making a difference. I love C and would love to make our home a "haven" for the two of us, but my time and energy were spent outside of my control every day.

Being Confident in my Abilities. When I was laid off, we had a great conversation. It wasn't upsetting or a negative break in any way. My superiors told me they were happy to contact any potential employers to give me a great recommendation. They assured me that I did nothing wrong. I believe the word "perfect" was even used. The lay-off made sense to me. I could see it coming. Me being employed at an office that doesn't really need me was a waste of my time and their money. I think everybody is happier now.

Time with C. I just got a text from C, "Want to go do something fun tonight?" In the past, I've had to say "no" because I've had clients to get designs to, new products to get into the shop, and other obligations. Now, I have a life! I can date my husband in the middle of the week. Major score.

Two words. Digital Scrapbooking. Now I have time to not only design products for all you awesome scrappers, but I have time to get our family history designed, printed, and organized on our bookshelf.

Dinner Time. I love setting a beautiful table for dinner. It's something I get from my Grandma McGuire. Tonight, I'm going to have everything on the table before C gets home from school. Hot, flavorful, colorful. Cloth napkins. Wine goblets. The whole she-bang. And this may just become a regular occurrence at our house.

Mundane Chores. The task of keeping our home in order has fallen into C's responsibility lately. It's so frustrating to me. My mom raised me to keep my space clean. Do the dishes. Fold the laundry. etc. She taught me how to find joy in that. So, I really hate it when *I* am the one "helping" C, instead of the other way around. I'm making a chore chart today. :)

Design Clients. My clients are really getting the attention they deserve. I finished a logo order last night and started in on a blog re-design this morning. I have so much I want to do with my design abilities and I can't wait to start spreading the word! Things are really looking up, and I wouldn't be able to take on so many clients without some extra time on my hands.

Vacation. A real one. Like no obligations for DAYS. We'll be able to spend an entire week with each of our families and then spend another week just us. 3 weeks of paradise. Sign me up. How delicious does that sound?



oh. and if you want to help out with the cash-ola. Take a trip to my shop and buy a kit to show your support, OR, just click on one of the google ads!