Some quick random catch-up...

*It stresses me out to have our blog just "sitting" there when I have so many things in my mind that I want to blog about... So instead of doing a bunch of cute/creative posts about individual things, I'm just dumping a bunch all right here at once to help de-stress my life a little bit.

-We are pretty busy with picture board orders. Such a blessing! It's just hard when Curt is not able to help & it's all up to me...when I have two kids & limited time to work with. (Hence the reason for being a little stressed out & not having much time to update the blog.) Still, such a blessing so I won't complain! :)

-Tucker & Calvin are starting to really have fun together. They've been bonding over food--Tucker loves to feed Calvin finger foods, and they both have so much fun with it! The other day Tucker fed Calvin almost an entire stick of string cheese (broken up in pieces by me) for about 10 minutes straight. It was awesome! They also love "jumping" on the bed together--i.e. Tucker jumping while Calvin lays nearby & gets bounced. Tucker hardly yells at Calvin any more, and he's even been quoted to say that Calvin is his very best friend in the whole wide world. I love these boys so much!

-2 weeks ago Curt's mom came in town for our niece Ashley's first birthday party. It was a fun weekend, and both Tucker & Calvin loved seeing their grandma!

-My friend Brooke & I started a little joy school for Tucker & her son Ryan. It's super low key with just the two of them, and we only do it once a week, but it's been fun, and the boys seem to really enjoy it. It's amazing how fast they learn & just soak things up!

-Remember a while ago when I was so excited to post that Curt & I had low-key callings at church? Well, that only lasted a few weeks before we both got "upgraded" so to say. I am now the RS Meetings Committee Chairman (instead of just on the committee), and Curt is now in the YM presidency. They will be great learning experiences for both of us, it just means we're a little more busy. The first thing I got put in charge of was the big RS Super Saturday activity (nothing like being thrown into the fire from the start!). It was last week, and it went well. Curt was a huge help getting some of the projects ready & watching the boys for 6 hours straight during the activity. And I'm happy to report it's now over--minus a few projects I'm still trying to finish for people!

-Last night Curt & I got to go OUT on a date! The MBA spouse association put on a special parenting class with Linda & Richard Eyre--well known parenting experts & best-selling authors. Cory came to babysit (and even put Tucker to bed!) so that we were able to go. We learned a lot & are excited to start implementing some of the things we learned.

-Oh, and for the super exciting news: Calvin slept 12 hours straight through the night last night! He's been waking up later and later in the night/morning to eat, so I'm hoping he'll be sleeping through the night on a regular basis sometime soon! (Though by saying that I'm probably jinxing myself...!)

Picture Board Giveaways!

Quick self-promotion (sorry!) for those of you who are interested. We're gearing up for the holidays with our side business, www.ThePictureBoard.com, and we're in the middle of two huge giveaways:

Tip Junkie's "12 Days of Christmas" Event - through Sat, Nov 12th

We're giving away THREE $50 Gift Certificates!

(Plus a coupon code for 10% off site wide!)

Fabulous Fun Finds "Peppermint Giveaways" - through Mon, Nov 14th

We're giving away a Medium Bead Board Picture Board

(Plus tons of other great prizes!)

We've also got some other fun sales/giveaways coming up, which you can find more details about on our website HERE.

Just thought we'd share so you can enter! We'd love to have someone we know win! :)

Also, thanks to those of you who have put our button on your blog. We just changed to a new image, which you can get below if you're interested:

<center><a href=" http://www.thepictureboard.com "><img src=" http://i180.photobucket.com/albums/x8/curtalansmith/PBButton160x160.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" /></a></center><br />

Thank you, thank you! And so sorry for the business-y post! Cute pictures of the boys to come! :)

Random Updates & Our Winner!

First off, the winner of our totally awesome Picture Board gift certificate giveaway is...

Liz Frazier!!! 

(#13 of the 14 who commented...)

I feel kind of lame that we only had 14 comments...but that's okay. Better than zero, right?! We'll do a bigger giveaway in the future when we're not so strapped for cash & can afford to give away something bigger. :) But thanks to those of you who commented! Just send me an email, Liz, at info@thepictureboard.com & we'll get your gift certificate sent over!

Okay, now for a few random updates:

-Curt starts school in ONE WEEK!!! I can't believe how fast it's come! He has orientation from August 16-24, then an orientation/networking trip to Moab from the 25-27, and then officially starts classes on the 29th. Whew! We still can't believe he's actually going to be in school again. Crazy!
-Curt has one last big job to do with his company before shutting down for school--a big house remodel on a HUD home. Everything has just been sitting & waiting for the house to close, and after two months of waiting it's FINALLY closing...on Friday. So instead of getting this job out of the way & having a few days to relax before jumping into school, he's going to be working like crazy for the next three weeks to finish it at nights and on weekends when he's not at school. (Shhh...just don't tell anyone. He had to sign multiple documents saying he won't work while he's in school...!)
-Curt & I got to go to the temple TOGETHER for the first time since Calvin was born! We miraculously got both boys in bed by 7:30 & got to the temple just in time for the last session. It was so nice, and we're so grateful for our basement renters being willing to listen to the monitor & stay with the boys!
-Curt & I recently got callings at church: he's the new assistant to the 11 year-old scouts, and I'm on the Relief Society meetings committee. We're excited for some low-key opportunities to serve. :)
-Curt finally got his motorcycle registered so that now he can drive legally to & from school. I'm just glad it'll come in handy for something! :)
-My mom & brothers are coming into town this weekend to drop Cory off for school! And he gets to stay with us for about a week while he looks for jobs & waits for his dorm room to be available. We're so excited to have him out here!
-My birthday is this Friday, and it will be the 2nd time (in the 7 birthdays I've shared with Curt) that we WON'T be in Colorado! Somehow we always randomly end up in Colorado over my birthday--so it will be a little different/fun to be here in Utah. I'm looking forward to celebrating with dinner AND a movie (the 3D Glee Concert Movie--yes, you can call me dumb, but I'm super excited) with Curt!

Who's Looking at our Blog? Picture Board Giveaway!

After taking a few months off while we were in Colorado, Curt & I have been working hard for the past two months to get everything up & running again with our little side business: ThePictureBoard.com. Curt has been working with a shop to outsource the production of our boards (so he can focus on school), and I've been working on a new website, adding some new subway art products, and taking/editing/uploading new pictures of everything. What a project! You'd think since we did all of this just over a year ago that it would've been easier!

Anyway, after WAY too many hours on the computer (& way too much TV time for Tucker) this last week, everything is FINALLY up & running as of yesterday! (And we've already had two sales!!) We're super excited & are already working on some additional new products to add!

Just for fun & because we're so excited to have everything up, we're going to give away a $10 gift certificate to one of YOU! Just leave a comment with your name by next Monday the 8th, and we'll use random.org to choose a winner on Tuesday. We think it will be fun to see who's reading our blog these days (we've been wanting to do this for awhile), so even if you're just a random blog stalker, please comment! :)

The new & improved picture boards:

The new holidays & seasons subway art:

Feel free to check out the website HERE if you're interested. And we'll be running a different sale during each week of August, so be sure to check out our "Specials" page for all the details.

Life Lately

-I just started using the "X-Large" option when uploading pictures, and I'm loving it! Why haven't I tried it before?

-Curt's mom was in town this past week, and Curt's dad flew in for the weekend for Father's Day. We did all kinds of fun things with them and Chad & Lisa. Some of our activities included a picnic at the park, going to Seven Peaks Water Park, eating a delicious meal at Tucanos in honor of Father's Day, taking "Father's Day" pictures at the park, and going to one of Chad & Lisa's neighbor's to feed their crazy assortment of animals (including kangaroos, pigs, goats, chickens, roosters, an emu, llamas, os coxas (??), a donkey, and sheep). What a fun time!

(From my phone, so not the greatest quality)

Feeding a kangaroo, pigs, & the donkey:

-As a kind of anniversary gift, we sold our old washer & dryer and bought a new (to us) stackable set to make room for Curt to build me a kitchen pantry. I'm loving the new W/D, and I am SO excited to have a pantry! Pictures to come when it's complete!

-While we were in Colorado, we took a break from doing our picture board business. We are now in the final (hopefully!) stages of getting everything set up again--with a new website, some new products (including some subway art!), and someone to build our picture boards for us (to save Curt all the time & hassle). We're excited to get it up & running again!

-Also while we were in Colorado, our church ward here in Utah was dissolved. Ever since getting married, we've been attending (& loving) the married student wards. The Church made some changes in regard to student married wards while we were gone, so as a result we got moved/reassigned to the family ward. We've been a few times to our new ward, and we think it will work out well. However, we really miss all of our friends & the atmosphere of the student married wards!

-Curt always has fun, and sometimes very random, ideas for ways to make money. About a two weeks ago he found three old skee ball machines for sale. For some reason he's been on a skee ball kick for awhile, so he was literally bursting with excitement when he found them for so cheap. (He was more excited & giddy than I think I've ever seen him!) Anyway, so he & Chad bought them & have been fixing them up this past week. They have one ready & up for sale--and they should be able to sell the one for more than what they paid for all three. The idea is they'll fix up the other two & sell them also, and we'll make millions...or at least enough to make it worth their time. :) So if any of you are in the market for a skee ball machine (or know of anyone who is), let us know!

Here's an awesome video of Curt playing to show how well it works :)

What we've been up to:

 

Curt: designing & building them. Me: taking & editing pictures & putting them on the website. You can check them out them HERE if you'd like. We're just glad they're finally up!

Success!

So we've had a few successful things lately.

1.) Our boutique last weekend. We sold picture boards at a boutique for the very first time, and it went just as well, if not better than we had hoped! Here's a picture of our setup:

2.) Curt's massive 950 sq ft deck. After weeks and weeks of hassling with engineers & Orem city to get everything squared away, he was finally able to build it. He finished it about two weeks ago & had the final inspection yesterday! Hallelujah! Here are some pictures: (and yes, feel free to be impressed with his skills!)

BEFORE

DURING

AFTER

(without railing)

(with railing & furniture)

3.) Basement Renters. Our wonderful friends and renters for the past two years just accepted a job in California and will be leaving in the next few weeks. We are sad to see them go, but we're grateful that we've already been able to sign a contract with a new couple. (Who we're excited to get to know too!) The best part is, we didn't even have to advertise to rent out the basement this time--some friends in our ward knew we were needing new renters, so they passed our info on to their friends...and it ended up working out perfectly! Thanks again, Whitney! :)

What are YOU doing at 4:00 in the morning?

Hopefully, you're sleeping.

Last night Curt was at the shop until 4:00 am making these babies:

Picture Boards galore to sell at the Bliss Boutique this weekend. (68 to be exact.)

Tonight he's at the shop painting them. It's 10:45 right now, and I'm hoping he gets home before midnight...but I'm not counting on it.

We are so grateful and feel extremely blessed that this little side business of ours has started off so strong. Hopefully by building up our inventory now, we can avoid too many more of these late nights at the shop in the future...

Thanks babe for all your hard work! And please come home soon to get some sleep!!!

We Love Giveaways!

I apologize for another post about The Picture Board. I promise this will be the last one for awhile...

In case you can't tell, our method of marketing right now is through giveaways. It's fun, easy, and a great way to get exposure. And not only are giveaways great for us as a business, but they are great for everyone! Everyone loves free stuff, right?

Today we are being featured on two different giveaway sites:

Dang Gina Gives:

We're giving away one medium bead board picture board

(+ a FREE SHIPPING code valid through Friday at midnight!)

Open now through Sunday, May 2nd

Dandy Giveaway:

We're giving away two small picture boards

(winner's choice of flat wood or bead board)
Open TODAY only! (until 11:30 pm)

Check them out & enter to win (all you have to do is leave comments on their posts)--we'd love to give the boards away to someone we know! And both sites do all kinds of fun giveaways, so you can enter to win all kinds of different things. Both are currently featuring items the are perfect for Mother's Day, so check them out if you're needing some ideas!

We'll add more giveaway sites to our left sidebar as we find them, so keep checking back if you're a giveaway junkie! :)

Random-ness

I'm loving the spring-time weather. Tucker & I took a walk this morning, and it was so nice! I hope it lasts!


Curt's parents came into town last weekend to help celebrate Curt's birthday. It was fun to have them here! One of my favorite things of the weekend was when we randomly stopped by Toys R Us and let the kids look around and play with all the different toys. Tucker & Karli were in heaven! Tucker loved lounging in a purple princess recliner the best (he was tired, can you tell?), and Curt & Chad enjoyed themselves almost more than the kids did!

Speaking of toys, after being at Toys R Us, Curt & I have been wanting to buy Tucker a little slide. They are too expensive brand new, but it's really hard to find used ones because they go so fast. Curt has been religiously checking KSL (unbeknownst to me), and yesterday he was able to find one and buy it for only $20! And he surprised both Tucker & I with it! Who needs flowers anymore? Just surprise me with a new toy for my child, and I'm in love! :)

Two years ago for his birthday, our friends gave Curt P90X (it's an extreme workout system that guarantees results in 90 days), but he hadn't done anything with it. So for his birthday last week, he got weights and a pull-up bar, and that helped him get motivated. And then my aerobics class is on a three-week break right now. So we have been getting up every morning at 6:00 to do P90X together. I've decided that music & ambiance definitely make a difference for me--it's just hard to be motivated and enjoy myself when we're working out in our living room to music that has no beat, and trying to be quiet to not wake Tucker up. But Curt is enjoying it, so that's good!


I just got a new calling at church this past week, and it has taken a lot more time than I was expecting at first. But I'm excited, and I think it will be good.


Remember how I'm supposed to be working a few hours a week from home for my old company? They got me all hired & set up, but then they haven't really given me any work...until this week. So technically I should be doing work right now, but blogging just sounded like so much more fun.


I haven't dared say anything for fear of jinxing myself, but Tucker has been consistently taking long naps. Like at least an hour-and-a-half, usually two hours, and sometimes even longer. But of course now that I wrote that down, he just woke up. (Are you kidding me?!) And it's barely been an hour. Dang it!


As I'm sure you've all seen below (but probably don't really care about), we have had our Picture Board company up and running all week. It's actually gone better than we were expecting! Today we are being featured on www.mygiveawaytoday.com--where we are giving away two medium boards. For those of you who are interested, you should really check it out. (All you have to do is leave a comment on their post to be entered into the giveaway.) And we're even doing free shipping for the weekend ($6 or more in savings!), so if you're thinking of buying some boards, now would be the time! (But you have to go to www.mygiveawaytoday.com to get the promo code...) Thanks again to those of you who have been kind enough to buy boards. We appreciate your support!


Now I'm off to get my crying child...

(Finally) Open for Business!!!

After spending WAY too long designing our own website (not the greatest idea for a novice perfectionist...), we are happy to finally announce the grand opening of our new side business:

www.thepictureboard.com

We've had help from some wonderful friends, and we want to be sure to give them credit. Alli designed our stylish logo(s), and Adri did a fabulous job photographing and editing the pictures of the boards. We couldn't have done it without them! (Not to mention friends and family who let us display their pictures in some of the boards.) And special thanks to Curt for putting up with me and all of my perfectionist tendencies throughout this process...

We keep joking that we've put all this effort into setting everything up, and we probably won't even sell very many boards (if any). But at least we've had fun doing it!

We're running a Mother's Day special on the website, so be sure to check it out and pass the word along (if you should feel so inclined). We have a button to the left that links directly to our site, and we would be flattered if you would add it to your blogs too! We also opened up an Etsy shop, and you can check it out HERE.

Thanks in advance for your support! We've got some ideas for different sales & giveaways, so keep checking back!

And the winner is...

Michelle!

Congratulations to Michelle for winning the Picture Board Giveaway!!! She gave us the idea to start out specializing in picture boards, and she also thought up some great ways to give us some publicity. Thank you Michelle!!! Email us at thepictureboard@gmail.com and let us know what color you'd like (brown, black, or almond white) and what saying you would like at the top of your picture board (as well as your mailing address).

Now, to everyone else who commented, THANK YOU, THANK YOU! We really appreciated all of your comments & ideas, and we will definitely take them into account when we start to branch out and make more projects. I really wanted everyone to win, but Curt said that defeated the point if we just gave all the picture boards out for free. So instead, for those of you who commented or emailed, we're offering you $5 off if you want to buy one. So that makes it $15 without a saying at the top, or $20 with. If you're interested, email us at thepictureboard@gmail.com and let us know what color you'd like (brown, black, or almond white) and what saying you would like at the top (if any).

Again, thank you so much to everyone for supporting us in this--whether you left a comment or not. Our plan for now is to specialize in picture boards, making different sizes and types available (which we're adapting some of your ideas to include in this), and then when we're ready & have more time & money, we'll start with some other projects. We're still working on getting the website set up, but we'll let you know when it's ready. Thanks again!

Here's our first batch of boards, already put together and ready to be painted!

Picture Board Giveaway!!!

It all started with a table saw.

Curt recently bought a really nice new table saw (on sale for 50% off!), and he got really excited to use it. So excited in fact that he told me he was willing & ready to start on more of my craft/decor projects. (For those of you--like me--who don't really know what a table saw is used for...just know that it makes cutting wood a lot easier.)

If you're a dedicated reader of this blog, you have already seen some of the amazing things he's built. Basically, he's amazing at building anything from a small picture frame, to a media cabinet, to a whole house. (And yes, if you ever want him to build you a dream house, he will!)

So last night we had this fabulous idea to start a little business on the side: Handcrafted Home Decor. We've had a lot of people express interest in the picture boards he recently put together for some Christmas gifts--so we decided we might as well try selling them and other things like that on the side. (We're in the process of creating a separate website and getting everything set up all legit.)

So this is where we need your help. (And this is where we finally get to the point of this post--the giveaway.) We would like to know what kinds of things YOU personally would be interested in. Is there something you've seen in a magazine, at a store, on a website, etc. that you absolutely love, but is just too expensive? Is there some sort of decoration, organization accessory, etc. that you've thought of but just can't find anywhere? Basically, is there something...anything that you would like to see Curt make & have available to you at a reasonable price? Leave a comment, description, link, etc. and let us know! Email me pictures if you have them (and if you don't have my email, let me know and I'll give it to you).

Here's how it will work: the person who gives us the best & most helpful ideas (sorry, I know that's kind of hard to define...) will win one of their very own picture boards! It will look similar to the one below, but will be painted the color of your choice (almond white, brown, or black) and have the wording of your choice at the top. (The board will be 16"x16" and hold five 4x6 pictures, as shown below.)

We will take comments/ideas through next Friday at midnight (January 29th), and the winner will be announced Saturday morning.

And for those of you who are interested in a picture board but don't win the giveaway, for now you can purchase one for $20 without wording at the top (then you can customize it to look/say whatever you want), or $25 with wording. Just let us know if you want one.

We already have some ideas for more projects, but we would really appreciate knowing what other people are interested in. Thanks so much for your help! Get your creative juices flowing, and let the contest begin!

(Funny that we're making this into such a big deal--watch only two people comment...!) :)

Fun Gifts

My brothers (ages 14 and 16) have always complained that they can't get up in the morning because they either don't have an alarm clock or can't hear their alarm. So when Curt & I saw this on a deal-of-the-day website a few weeks ago, we couldn't pass it up:

A High School Musical alarm clock--complete with pink fuzzy stuff at the top :)

We bought one for each of them, and we couldn't wait to see their reactions. Unfortunately, these were the two Christmas gifts we somehow forgot and left in Utah. Fortunately, however, our friends/basement renters were kind enough to mail them out to us in Colorado. So even though it cost twice as much to mail them back out, it was worth it.

Here they are with their fabulous "tags":
(we used old school pictures from three years ago)

And here are their reactions:

They are so excited, can't you tell?
Neither of them have used them yet....

And just because I'm a proud wife, here are some picture boards Curt made for different family members for Christmas gifts this year. He is amazing, and they turned out great. My contribution was the lettering on the top, so feel free to complement me on that if you'd like. :)