out sick.

Wednesday I left work to go to urgent care and have been out sick since :( It's nothing major just not fun at all.
So, here are some little snippets from my sick day.

My new favorite little corner collection :) Peonies (another major favorite flower) from my parent's backyard, card from Jamie, vintage purse from my dad, bear tape measure from pretty zakka shop, screen print on wood by Katherine Jalaty.


Meet Boris the whale. Sweet Lindsay made me this cutie as a gift in my Happy Mail package this month. I love him and he live in the tee-pee. Isn't his fish face amazing? Did you know that the fish face is my most favorite face right after the gangster face? true story.

I have had a lot of time to turn my table into a hot mess of art journaling :) Here is the newest page that i created today. The prompt today was "Deep Down..."


and tonight I have had this little bag of fleas skirting around, whimpering and shaking because of the storm :(

Poor girl.
BTW- she doesn't have fleas nor has she ever, nor will she ever I just looooove that saying so much. She's my favorite bag of fleas ever!!
Blah, tomorrow's plan is to be 100% better. Deal?
I love you.
It's the weekend.
I love that.
xo
janel

3 wishes...

Here are my three wishes.
I used this prompt from the "Tell Your Story" journal class taught by Rachel and Elsie.
xo
janel

I can not get enough...

of hydrangeas this spring!
I am obsessed and I think that they have pushed tulips aside as my favorite flower.




They remind me so much of Ireland! In Ireland, the hydrangeas were seriously bigger than our heads :) The pale, soft colors are just breathtaking.
love.
xo
janel

a giveaway

As you know, I have been working on re-decorating my Craft Room. It has been three weeks of work and I have a lot of stuff that I do not have room for anymore!!
I am giving away a huge box full of all different kinds of supplies and decor from my craft room. I will also throw in some of my cute NEW buttons!!!
All you have to do is leave a comment here with your name and email!
Email is a must because I have to get ahold of you :)
The giveaway will end on Saturday morning!!
Leave a comment.
Spread the word!!
love!
xo
janel

tell your story...

As promised, I am here to share the journal pages that I have created so far from Rachel and Elsie's journal class, Tell Your Story.
"Introduction pages" (I may have shared these before)?

"A New Season"

"Today Felt"


I am loving this class a lot! Journaling has always been a passion of mine and making beautiful art journals is just icing on the cake!

I also wanted to post this little challenge from Promise's blog today:
Do all or one of the following.
1. Say something nice about something or someone.
2. Link to a cool new website or company that you have found or like.
3. Give a shout out to an inspirational person or blog that you follow.

So here we go:
1.

Nicole, you are my favorite!!! P.S. how many geocaches do you think were hidden all over that trip?!

2. I am a fan of this website :)

3. Katherine is a huuuuge inspiration for me. She is an amazing mom, her house is perfect, she's sooo original and creative, AND she is a great friend too!!

Ok, that was fun! You should play along too!! Leave me a comment if you did, so I can check it out!!
Have a great Wednesday!
It is all sunshine and blue skies here in "the Lou."
xo
janel

tuesday

(image source)
Has anyone ever tied a ribbon around their finger to remember something?
Here are some things that I want to remember today:
* to be so thankful for friends who are so willing to help Adam and I make our adoption dream come true :)
* to give a shout out to Tiphanie for sending me those awesome peg board containers from Ikea!! She made my whole month :)
* to buy like 100 glue sticks because the kids run them down soooo quickly in art class.
* to not get behind on my Tell Your Story journal pages.
* to not get discouraged by what other's think.
* Glee! is on tonight :)
* to give thanks to God
* to not wear flip flops when it's this cold outside and I have recess duty.
* that there are only 23 days left of school this year!
That sweet little bow in the above picture is my virtual reminder.
Have an amazing day!
Tomorrow I am going to post some update pictures of my "studio" space.
I am also going to post pictures of my new art journal pages.
love.
xo
janel

buttons!

I could not be more excited about my NEW iheartrunwithscissors.com buttons! They are soooo cute and so perfect! I can barely stand it :)
The amazingly talented Courtney at http://youwillwontyou.blogspot.com/ created 7 original designs for me.
and then they were made into buttons by Kyle at www.buttonarcade.com/main.html


Aren't they amazing!!
The first five people to leave a comment on this post will win a free cutie pie button!! I can get it in the mail today to you :)
Thanks!!
xo
janel

The adoption.

For those of you who don't know...Adam and I are planning to adopt :)
This is something that I have felt led to do ever since I can remember.
Fortunately, God sent me a man who also shared the same love for adoption as I did.
With that said, one of my goals for my 30 before 31 project is to start an adoption fund.
Adoption, especially foreign adoption, can be VERY costly.
I had done tons of research years ago and back then it looked close to $35,000.
Insanity.
It is very important for us to have a good chunk of that saved before we actually begin the process.
I have started saving money but there is no possible way we can come close to our goal of adopting in the next 2 years, without help.
That is where YOU come in :)
I'm not a big fan of asking people for money but I decided to have a little fundraiser of sorts.
To help us reach our goal.
Here is my idea.
My little fundraiser is going to be called "Pennies for Pita"
(Lupita is the name I have always wanted for a little girl...Pita for short).
For anyone who is interested in helping here is the low down.
After I hear from you that you are interested in helping, I will send you a baby bottle in the mail. (Or you can use your own if you already have one :D)

All you would have to do is throw your extra change in the bottle when you have some.
When your bottle is full, you will send it back to me and I will add it into our Adoption Fund.
I think this is a cool idea because that little bottle will actually be representing a little life that Adam and I can NOT wait to bring into our lives.
We feel very blessed to have so many caring friends around the world.
We know how tight money can be so we aren't expecting much BUT if you could just help with spreading the word of our fundraiser, saying prayers, and anything else we would be beyond appreciative :)
We love you and we can't wait to start sharing our newest adventure with you sometime in the (hopefully) near future :)
Again if you are interested in helping out with "Pennies for Pita," please email me at janel(dot)maclean(at)gmail(dot)com and I will send a baby bottle right out to you!!!
Thank you for listening.
This was a really hard post to share :)
I love you!
xo
janel

rain rain

(image source)
today it has rained and rained and rained.
and stormed.
and I love it.
i did get some geocaching in this morning though before it started.
Once I got home, I curled up on the couch, opened the sliding glass door and just listened to the sound of it all.
it was beautiful.
When we were little, my parents would set up lawn chairs in the garage and we would all sit there and watch the rain.
great memories :)
I think that tonight I will paint, paint, paint.
I may also start organizing all of the craft swap packages that I have received so far :)
What is your favorite rainy day activity?
xo
janel

thank you

(Image credit)
Seriously you guys, you have no idea how much I love all of you readers!!
I just noticed over there -----> that I have 606 blog followers and that totally blows my mind :)
I really appreciate your readership
and your comments
and your support....
like so much :)
Sometimes I just feel the urge to let all of you know how much you mean to me!
Thank you so much.
xo
janel

freckle juice

"Freckle juice is made from grape juice, vinegar, mustard, mayonnaise, juice from
one lemon, pepper, salt, ketchup, olive oil, and a speck of onion. 'The faster you
drink it, the faster you get freckles,"
Or so I've read :)
But seriously, I soooo wish that I had freckles. I always have and I always will :)
I also once read that, "A face without freckles is like a sky without stars." Isn't that just about the loveliest thing?
Here are some beautiful ladies rocking their freckles and making me oh so jealous:





(all images found via weheartit)
i.love.them.so.much!
I have a serious crush on freckles.
My sister just recently started getting them and she is barely younger than me so I feel like there is still some hope for me? We shall see!!
love love love you.
xo
janel

happy earth day

(found here)
Today is Earth Day!
A day to go outside and appreciate this amazing gift :)
Today with my younger students we are making Earth Day Crayons.
I thought that I would share this cute little DIY with you today so that you can maybe try it with your youngsters, or really for yourself too.
Here are the materials that you will need:
* cupcake liners
* a baking sheet
* an oven
* your old used up broken crayons (new crayons can obviously work too :D)

* Step 1: Pick out all of the white crayons and all of the shades of blue and green. Peel off all of the paper from those crayons and then break them into smaller pieces.

* Step 2: Fill a cupacake liner half way with your broken crayon pieces :)

* Step 3: Place your full cupcake liners on a baking sheet and place in an oven at 200 degrees for 20 minutes.
* Step 4: As soon as I take them out of the oven, I sometimes like to use a toothpick, or other object (in this case, an un-done paperclip) to swirl the colors around.
* Step 5: Let them cool and the paper liner should just peel right off!! (The colors stain the liners so you could also use the liner for another cute project...flowers maybe)?

* Step 6: Enjoy your Earth inspired DIY crayon!!
Have fun!!
xo
janel

thankful...

I thought that today would be a great day to list some things that I am very thankful for:
I am thankful for:
1. spring
2. flowers
3. beauty found everywhere
4. Jesus
5. my amazing family
6. my amazing husband
7. My little pup, Catalina
8. great friends (like REALLY great)
9. mail
10. nail polish
11. Wednesdays when Adam drives me to and from work
12. adhesive
13. tee-pees
14. text messaging
15. geo-caching
16. my planner
17. chocolate
18. ice cream
19. goals
20. beautiful music

So many things to be thankful for today :)
What is one thing that you are super thankful for today!
xo
janel

welcome

Welcome to my new favorite little spot of my home :)
For my birthday, my sister built me this amazing tee-pee from Rachel Denbow's tutorial.

She originally built it for my craft space, but because it's soooo big...we moved it out to the living room :)

We love it sooo much we are even considering getting rid of our table and chairs so that the tee-pee has more space to look cute.

My cute friend Katherine, sent me an amazing package full of goodies which included the vintage fabric I used to make my sweet bunting for the entrance. I feel like it is a little "welcome" banner for any visitors.
The inside of my tee-pee is filled with all of my most favorite quilts and afghans. There are also instax pictures of my favorite friends hanging about too.


Tonight, I am going to make a mobile of some kind to hang from the cieling :)
All in all, it was the perfect gift. I am in love with it, Adam is in love with it, Catalina is so in love with it that she slept in it last night :)

It's perfect!
Thank you Nicole for being the best sister ever.
xo
janel

loves

This is one of the cutest things I have seen in awhile!!


Carol Anne, you are amazing!!
xo
janel

geocache

I have had a ton of people asking me lately what this crazy new hobby of mine is.
Well, it's geocaching :)
Geocaching is like treasure hunting. It gets me outdoors, hiking, walking the dog, and spending time with my awesome family :)
I could try to explain it more but I found this rad movie trailer for Splinterheads that explains it better than I could!

loooove it.
Anyone can do it. All you need is a GPS, or even an iPhone. Here is the website where you can get all of the info, create a profile, find cache's near you, and download the iphone app.
Do any of you cache?
If you haven't done it yet but are going to try let me know!! I want to hear about your adventures :)
I am having so much fun collecting little treasures at every one I find.
Today, was Adam's first time going with me and he is a natural!
Have a great day friends!
xo
janel

flickr faves

Another favorite source of inspiration is Flickr. There are sooo many amazingly, talented people out there!
I love looking back into my "favorites" file and gushing over the beauty!
Here some of my most recent Flickr favorites:



To get a better view of any of these pictures and to check out the image credit, please click here!
If you don't have a flickr account yet, you need to get one. It's free :)
Have a great Sunday!! Today is the first day I can actually feel my allergies acting up :( My nose is stuffy and my ears are clogged. boo.
If I start to feel better (fingers crossed) my plan is to go geocaching today after church.
There are 13 different caches at the local park right by my house so I plan on introducing Adam to geocaching today. I think he's going to looooove it!!
love you.
xo
janel

studio spaces

Some of my most favorite things to image search are studio spaces. I seriously get so inspired by seeing the way other's organized their spaces.
I love seeing the colors, the style, and the items other artists surround themselves with for inspiration!
Here are some amazing studios that I found on weheartit :)















Do you know of any other great links for studio inspiration images?
Do you have a link to photos of your studio space.
I am currently in the process of re-doing my studio space so I need all the inspiration I can get!
I can't wait to get busy creating this weekend!!
xo
janel