Uppercase Living Give Away!

For the LOVE of Uppercase Living!

I LOVE Uppercase Living and I know you will too! So to help you get started in decorating your home with words that express who you are, I am giving away $25 gift certificate!

Here’s what you have to do -

1. Visit http://kls.uppercaseliving.net

2. Create an account or Log in

3. Look through the new Fall/Winter Online Catalog (seriously, you will fall in love!)

4. Post in the Comments what your most favorite item is!

5. This will close on September 10, 2009. I will draw a name from everyone who leaves a comment.

You want some EXTRAS? I always LOVE incentives!

If you want to host a catalog party, I will be more than happy to help you do this! I will mail you catalogs that you can pass around to your friends, co-workers, neighbors. This is a great and easy way to earn free products! Collect $200 in sales and I will give you a $5 gift certificate towards your order.

An easier way to receive free Uppercase Living products is to hold an OPEN HOUSE and invite all your friends and family to see how to express themselves throughout their homes! Like above if you collect $200 in sales, you will receive the $5 gift certificate or if you collect more than $400 in sales I will up it to a $10 gift certificate. That is in addition to all the free expressions and half off items you will earn!

There is NO better time to check out Uppercase Living! I guarantee you will love it as much as I do! If you would like an exciting way to earn extra money and take advantage of wonderful incentives, just ask me how you can become a demonstrator for only $99!

Questions? You can email me at bksims@wowway.com or leave a comment!

Uppercase Living products can warm your heart and make you smile!

glass blocks = cute gifts

Uppercase Living now sells these great clear blocks! They are easy to decorate with your favorite expression and they snap apart for easy filling. You can even fill it with a small string of Christmas lights to create a night light or holiday display! Just think of all the possibilities for gift giving! Here are some ideas that other customers have come up with!

NEW Uppercase Living Catalog

Get EXCITED.... I just received the new Uppercase Living catalog and it is AWESOME! New fonts, new colors, new expressions and new accessories!

From now until Sept. 9 you can buy two expressions and get ONE FREE! Check out my website http://kls.uppercaseliving.net and review the catalog on line! Want a catalog... I will be happy to get you one for $3 (my cost) or book a party and you can have one FREE plus a $5 coupon to use on your order!

Here is a preview....

Expressions can go right on the glass of picture frames. Uppercase Living offers a rectangle frame and new this year a square frame. They also sell extra glass inserts so you can change it throughout the year!

My niece is getting married and we are hoping to do this to her dance floor... too cool!

New... Uppercase Living sells these great glass blocks with holes in them! You can fill them with anything, lights, candy and even crayons! For Halloween you can fill it with candy corn and have a cute embellishment on the front! Or for Christmas you can fill it with peppermints and add an embellishment on the front plus the word Believe! How cute would that be?!

This took my breath away! It is HUGE but what an impact it makes on a hard to decorate space!


What do your walls say?

the Hike!

First let me say that it is another gloomy day in OHIO! A thunderstorm just went through and we should get more rain later. I love thunderstorms, but I really want that 90* day that I talked about in the last post. SO I am pouting over the weather!

Yesterday was it was 83* which would be okay normally to go to the POOL, but with the temps getting down to 63* at night - the water is FREEZING! Really no big deal for my older kids, but I have to get into the water with my younger ones and I do not like freezing water. However, I am usually the one in it trying to persuade Maria and Livy to get in! Because the weather was not warm enough to go to the pool I got creative and we went hiking at Slate Run Metro Park. It was nice and sunny and I really needed some God appreciation time. You know the times where you are just in awe at His beauty! Well, nothing goes as planned. Instead of a peaceful walk through the woods, I ended up with girls clinging to my body! It turns out that Alex, my 14 y.o. has a phobia to spiders. A few years ago we were up at Marblehead trying to find a letterbox (don't know what that is? I will explain in a future post) and she was leading the way. Of course she was leading the way, she always has to be the one to beat out her brother in things. Well, she walked right into a giant spider web in between some trees and the giant spider that made the web ended up in her hair. After she was done freaking out and we managed to get it off her, she was scard for life! She use to be quite the camper and loved being out doors, but in the last few years I have noticed that desire has vanished. I thought it was just her age. After yesterday's walk, I now know that it has nothing to do with her age and being a girl, but that she is petrified of the possibility of walking into another spider web! She clung to me the whole 1 1/2 miles. In the beginning we were joking about it, but after a while I told her to deal with her fears and let go of me. She then had tears forming in her eyes and asked if we were all most our of the woods. I finally told her she could not hold onto me for about 1/4 of the last mile, and she walked directly behind me with a whimper in her breathing! Pathetic! Bill of course thinks it is all nonsense and that she is just being silly, but we will see whenever he gets her out to go for the next hike!

Finally got my cousins handbag done! Went to her house on Saturday for a big party to wish a dear friend goodbye as he is leaving for Iraq this week for 8 months. So I hurried and made a proto type to make sure I would not make a mistake on hers (the one on the bottom). I put a zipper in the proto type and it came out okay! Will be making more bags with zippers in the future! Both bags are made with Amy Butler fabric and it was so nice to work with. I do not make to many things with her fabric, only because so many other people do. But she does produce a high quality fabrics for a decent price! I love the way Michelle's bag turned out! She loved it too!

If you would like a bag like Michelle's let me know! Or customize your own! I will only be sewing them for the next two months then I will be taking off November and Dec. for the holidays!

What to do on a Gloomy Day

Another gloomy day here in Ohio! The weather this summer has been terrible. I am still waiting for that 90* day where you have to be in water in order to be outside. We have been to the pool only a handful of times and the water is freezing. My little ones do not even want to go in it.

So what to do on a gloomy day? Yesterday we cleaned the house... well we picked up the house. Pretty bad when it takes you all day to just pick up! So today I better actually clean. A little dusting, vacuuming, and scrubbing should do the trick. I hope to get through it this morning so I can do some sewing this afternoon! My cousin is still waiting on her purse. I am going to see her Saturday so my goal is to get it done by then! Still not sure how I am going to get it not to sag in the middle... I will try a stiffer interfacing and hope that it is not to rough feeling in the end. I hate to ruin good Amy Butler fabric with bad interfacing!This is the bag that we are modeling my cousin's bag after. It is from PacoLupe one of my favorite purse designers on Etsy.com. This is a cute hipster I hope to whip up for my cousin as well. We'll see!

Before the sewing though, I am determined to play a game with the kiddos. I use to have a neighbor that you would find often in her PJs sitting on the floor playing all sorts of games with her kids (and it would be noon)! She would let everything go whenever they asked to do something. Her house was not spotless and I am sure there were many things left undone, but her kids were happy and loved being with her! I took many lessons from her and learned to take time out for the kids. Lately with all that has happened this summer I feel like I have not done a good job just being with my kids. SO today is the day to do that! What about you.... is there someone you need to go and play cards with?

Have a good one!

more fair pictures

Anna winning 5th place in "Egg in Spoon" contest.

Alex competing in flags - Bubba is not a contesting horse, but she had fun trying. It is always fun to try to go as fast as you can, scary but fun. I think she may of won a ribbon in this event because all the really fast horses dropped the flag (slow and steady wins the race!).

She looks so beautiful in her English riding attire and Bubba is just as beautiful! They make a good team! Should we buy him?

A long week at fair!!!!!!! Maria was actually only with us 2 days but it was very tiring sitting around all day waiting for them to show. I looked over and she was asleep! Maybe it was more boring than tiring for her. She actually loves horses and I think she will follow in the girls footsteps and become a rider.

So where do we go from here? Our lease on Bubba is about up. I might be able to renew it and continue on with the girls training on him. He is such a good horse. Everyone at fair loved him and wanted to ride him. I really trust my girls on him. He rarely gets spooked and has bonded a lot with Alex. His big advantage is his jumping... boy can he jump! Since this is Alex's thing, I think sticking with Bubba might be the best thing. The owner has offered for us to buy him for a VERY good price. But with that comes the vet bills, farrier bills, etc.. I do not think we are in a position to do any more than we are doing. We have also been offered a different horse. A friend has one that she is keeping at her barn and would like Alex to have it. She would help us out with the bills as long as we feed it. Sounds like a good deal, but that means leaving our trainer, and no indoor arena to train at. Plus the horse is a little "green" meaning he needs some work to be show quality. Alex is very intrigued to take on this horse and work with it, but I do not know if I trust her to jump him. So we will see where the world of horses take us. All I do know is that God has always provided opportunities within our budget for my girls to ride. I know he will continue to do so in the future... God is good!

Back to Business

We are back from the county fair!

Let's make one thing clear.... I AM NOT A COUNTY GIRL! Never in a million years did I ever expect to be spending a week at the fair from sun up to sun down! I am a "city" girl or at least a suburban girl! Well, I did survive with only a few laughs from my fellow barn moms.

On July 17th we unloaded our "leased" horse into it's new home for the week. One thing was clear we did not have all the supplies needed to show for the week. Luckily we have great people in our 4H group who loaned us everything (wheel barrow, pitch fork, saddle rack, tack box, hooks, black hoof polish, spray paint (yes you paint the horses legs and polish it's hoofs black), riding gloves, etc.). But considering the horse is not really ours we did pretty good. It is amazing the STUFF you need to show a horse. Talk about some money tied up in a "recreational sport"! You can imagine the cost just to own the horse, but add all that other STUFF to it and it is quite the investment. Some of the mom's work one or two jobs just to pay for the horse! SAD. I am lucky to have a daughter who knows our limitations and respects what we can do. She is very appreciative to be given the chance to lease a horse and show it.

So Alex and Anna spent the rest of the week showing in all different classes, from your typical equitation classes to your fun "ride a buck" classes. Alex pretty much did all English classes she could, where Anna stuck to just the simple fun classes. They both came home with lots of ribbons to be proud of. Alex also participated in Musical Freestyle, which is where the rider puts together a routine to music. If you ever want to come watch a horse show this is the one! It is amazing the costumes these kids come up with and it is very entertaining. Alex put her routine to Bob Seger's "Old Time Rock'n Roll". It really got the crowd involved and singing! Got to love the oldie but goodie songs! She had a lot of skills packed into her routine including 3 jumps, which Bubba did great at! She competed against 3 others and one girls did the song "Mickey" (remember... "oh Mickey you're so fine, you're so fine, you blow my mind"). Who does not love that song. And her costume was Mickey mouse and her horse was dressed as Minnie! It was so adorable. I did not see her routine, but she did take first place and Alex took second. We were still very proud of her and a lot of people came up to her and told her she did great!

So we had a lot of fun and the girls made some new friends. But I am glad to be home and getting back to a normal routine. Now it is time to start planning for our school year!