math whiz, coupon clipper, homemaker-wha!

since not working i have vowed that i am going to get us into the specials searching, coupon clipping, batch cooking club. you can save so much money (and cal) not eating out and since in a few months ill have way less time to cook we need to get this club business down now :) anyway, the reason i say all that is i have found for me the best way to enjoy the activity is to treat it like a game... find the best deals, stretch the meals as long as possible, see the savings, etc. So yest i got some AWESOME deals at the grocery store and i was really curious what my savings would equal per meal. So i took my Meals Plan from Wed to Wed for this upcoming week, my cookbook, and a calculator and crunched and crunched! So after doing all the #s i had some FABULOUS encouragement for cont. my quest......

So from Wed. (yest) to next Wed (sept 1st) i calculated that for brent and I's dinner we are going to average $4.30...or $2.15 per person for dinner each night for the next 7 days!

you cant even get a happy meal that cheap anymore! so thats it really, just me being excited at our money saving progress! have a great day!

Reverse Bucket List

So included with my L&B tour de world book brent and i included our bucket lists. If you are unfamiliar with the term, a bucket list (put in my def) is a list of things you want to do/accomplish before you "kick the bucket"- it can be skills you learn, places you see, activities you want to do, etc...its pretty personalized so whatever you want on it, go for it!

well in the past few weeks i have had a lot of ups and downs in regard to school and future stuff so i was tired of being in a rut! i started with making my tour de world book b/c being creative makes me happy, talk of travel makes me happy, and traveling of any sort makes me SUPER HAPPY. Well while doing this i started realizing, yes school is not going as smoothly as hoped but i have done A LOT of  fun great stuff in my little 24 years (almost 25) of life. So i had the idea to do what i call the REVERSE BUCKET LIST.... who knows if this is what it would actually translate to or if its been done before but it was a totally new concept in my head... so here it goes, instead of all the things i WANT to do... Im listing for you a list of things that i HAVE done/seen/accomplished so far (theres prob more  to it but i dont remember everything)

Laurens Reverse Bucket List
1. Fell in L-O-V-E and married by Best Friend
2. Skydived
3. Kayaked rapids
4. Took a spontaneous midnight road trip 5 hrs to the beach to see the sun rise with some friends
5. Made a music video
6. bowled in a prom dress
7. Had an easter egg hunt in a Super Wal-Mart
8. Seen a moose, and gotten way to close, in the wild
9. Taken a photo every day for one entire year
10. camped on a mountain ridge
11. eaten a pickeled grasshopper
12. sang a solo on stage in front of people
13. seen the Grand Canyon
14. had mult costume parties within public resturants with friends
15. walked in the middle of the street in downtown Dallas
16. visited an Amish township
17. fed/pet sting rays
18. danced shamelessly in the parking lot of a busy supermarket
19.taken a striptease class (bacc party)
20. gotten my LIP tatooed
21. got really good at tumbling- fulls, backhandspring backs, layouts, etc
22. chugged a gallon of koolaid
23. Been diamond hunting
24. had the most PERFECT WEDDING i couldve ever imagined
25. driven a segway
26. been to an Aggie bonfire
27. eaten my weight in crab
28. had my hair go black-brown-mix-red-blonde within one year
29. been to Dollywood
30. experienced the pain of breaking something and recovering
31. jumped off a super high bridge into unknown water
32. been to canada!
33. Hiked to the top of a mountain, slowly
34. won $1000 on the radio and a sony playstation from the movie store
35. had teal and maroon hair
36. had a photographic scavenger hunt in a big fancy public mall
37. experienced a renaissance fair
38. placed #1 in the East Texas area for choir competition
39. driven a mini bike
40. traveled to Washington state (my fav) mult times~
41. experienced Pheonix in July
42. dove into 50 degree water and swam
43. enjoyed spontaneous trips to galveston for now reason at all
44. had a snowball fight
45. dined on champagne and donuts
46. enjoyed collegiate football games
47. been to disneyworld
48. have been blessed with the best family EVER

i have so many things to be thankful for and so many awesome things i have experienced... i am sure i missing some obvious, awesome things but well leave it now at 48!:) hope you enjoyed it and maybe it inspired you in some way! ;)

newest project!

a few posts back i had shown a little "sneak peak" of a little project I have been working on... between grad school apps, job apps, registering for a new class, reading medical and financial books i needed a break for some creative me time. Let me preface the whole thing by letting you know this is just a fun, silly thing i wanted to make. It does represent concrete wishes from the Low household but its not so technical it sucks the fun out of it. :) So here it is.....
Introducing Brent and Lauren's plan to Tour De World!!!!

Heres the project...ive made a cute little book that highlights the trips that brent and i want to take in our lifetime.. we didnt think about money, accessability, future children, jobs...we just put what we WANT to do!!! we also included a bucket list for each of us so its a handy place to see what we want out of that too... what we did was make a preliminary list of places we want to see... then i made sections for these trips.. i included our "plan" for why we want to go there/see this etc and some maps and tips for visual aids and to help when we actually settle in to do these trips.. let me give you a small pictoral view of some of the book...
- ps all the writing and designs were done by me! ;)













ive had a lot of fun making this and just getting to day dream a little ... we do LOVE to travel so i have no doubt in my mind some of this will def. become a reality...may be after retirement but well make it! :) enjoy!

Home Sweet Home

So i know a few weeks back i said soon id be posting some pics of our new small but designed new place. I posted a slurry of pics on fb but i thought id give you a nice snapshot of the main area and 1 thing i did NOT do on fb was focus on the little details

so heres the living room, dinning room/office, and kitchen
we finally got some of wedding images blown up to display ;) its a tad odd having yourself staring at you in a 11X16 but not to sound biased but theyre very awesome, artistic photos..so why not show them off. Also, i finally get to put my lounge chair in the living area-- ive had this baby for 4 years and this is prob the first some even knew i had it lol, we also just got an AWESOME paiting from Italy from Jennifer that we are soo excited to have- just cool and colorful plus makes us feel more international ;) thank you jennifer!!! and of course, no full shot is complete without DOMO somewhere..our child must be included ;)... and some sort of moose :P

next well go into the bedroom to see some of the artsy stuff in there
we had been trying to do without a dresser for a long time but it was quite obvious we needed one in this new place...buuut... we had like no money at this point to buy anything wed really like (our streamline, modern tastes usu mean lots of moolah) so i was talking to my mom on the phone and lo and behold they had my sisters old dresser just sitting in the garage! we picked it up, mom and dad were WAAAY to sweet and cleaned it up, then i came home and painted everything. before it was a dingy shiny white with gold brass handles... so i used some of our grey left over from the living room, sanded it, and repainted...then i took the handles and spray painted them with shiny black paint to give a chic eclectic feel to it.... then topped it off with an awesome leaf platter we got as a wedding gift but hadnt yet got to display, some awesome puff flowers i bought (also wya back when) as a wedding idea... and then some little details... and i am so excited about my new artwork...i got it off etsy.. its a page of an antique book with an owl painted on it...then i put it on some rustic looking scrapbook paper i had and VOILA...and you know brent and i also love our OWLS! (btw we saw a HUGE one flying in big D the other day)

on to another view of the room...tv side
the hutch thing was given to us by brents parents..its one of the only things that can support that mammoth of a TV in the apt so they go as a pair for now :) above it is a new peice of art i made the other day. i bought these metal stencils a few years back in Comfort, TX while on vacation. i found them while rooting through stuff at my parents house so i was determined to use them. if you saw any of our old apt pics, we also have a TON of black frames so i figured why not work that in... i used a little paint from the grey in the living room, blue on the bed wall, and yellow as accent to splatter pain the backgrounds, then i hot glued the stencils to the paper, framed it up nice, and here it is ;) then i painted those boxes on the right side to match the decor, etc etc..so again, being thrifty, the only thing i bought was that new vase on the left side...everything else i had in tow to transform. speaking of that vase lets get a close up...
this is one of my new fav things. i was playing on etsy the other day looking for "nature-inspired art" cause i do love it so and i stumbled on this...its birch wood surrounding a glass vase and can be personalized as you wish... the vendor i believe burned in our initials in a heart :) i went to michales as they were having a fall foliage sale and got some cheap fake foliage to adorn the vase and i LOVE it!!

last view of the bedroom shows off our fav color in the apt and the other thing i got off etsy :)
this print  had " You make me happy when skies are gray" and then at the bottom "Brent [heart] Lauren" it is so clean (which brent loves), dorky (which we both are), and matched our color scheme.... it was meant to be right, i had to get it... the lamp stands i bought back when i was in BELTON on clearance and the shades we got at ikea last year.. some again the only thing we purchased was that print... saving money left and right...

now i have changed the photos out in those frames to the right and another photo display on the tv wall that wasnt in the shot cause lets face it... weve got some pretty friends and fun pics so i had to update ;) and of course my CS girls are in a few

so thats about it...we did a really good job of using what we had and not buying extra stuff we didnt need...just a little creativity and we got it done

Ode to the Cricut!

just a random little post to boast about my little friend..the Cricut. Now i am not a "cricut master" my any means (though that title is pretty sweet)...i dont make full cards, teacher progress report boards, or garage sale signs ....heck, i only have 1 cartridge ;) buuut i do love how easy, cheap, and fast it is to make things look so much more handmade and personal ...and with my own little creative touches i think me and the alphabet cartridge do juust fine! ;)

i can make fun little card displays....

 projects for me....

(this fun new project gets its true reveal at a later time...till then theres your sneak peak..im excited about this one)

additionally, as an wedding present for brent i made him a 2 volume scrapbook of our 5 1/2 years of dating! it started WAAY back when..like sophomore year... but b/c it was so expensive and took so long i wasnt as excited about it! i got my first little dicut machine for $20 buts...toting its portability...

now the machine itself was, yes, portable...but for each letter or design you had a different "tile" and you would stick that tile, along with a peice of paper, in between these two acryllic sheets and literally CRANK out an individual letter. This made the scrapbook look better...but MAN did it take freakin forever....

this page of the Brent and Lauren scrapbook collection is one of my favorites however due to this cranking bit it took me like 3 hrs to do this...


but then one day Jennifer came home with the best thing EVER, the Cricut... you just insert the paper on the sheet, TYPE the whole phrase you want, and VOILA cut and ready to go in seconds! AH-MAZING!!! heres a few post-me cutting, post-cranker pages...

so i know it was a bit random and with no intention of sounding like an overweight retiree who spends all her free time scoping sales at Michaels, i do LOVE this thing!!

Hello again!

so brent and is apartment is still not exactly "ready" by my standards so it may still be a little bit before i post some pics.... buuut...if we can just a few more things hung on the wall we really will be done (for now)...decorating in my opinion is never REALLY finished. but i do have a little sneak peak of what weve been working on. Since i am still jobless and trying desperately to find MORE great, unique things to tell the PA school application people, i needed to get my creative juices flowing. Can i tell you a secret...though i really really miss making money, i am LOVING getting back into my creative roots...painting, decorating, color matching, photography, scrapbook, etc etc... it is so liberating to not be so exhausted and frustrated from work that all you want to do is sit on the couch and stare haha. i have been doing a lot of projects and looking at a lot of of other blog so i thought id spice mine up with a little art project.....

I our last home, brent and i had a frame collage wall. when i lived with jennifer i had a collage wall. while the arrangements and pics were different i was still ready to do something a tad different...and more colorful ;)

so we found some inspiration and created....the cd case collage.....da na na naaaaaa.....


step 1. find abandoned old cd albumns or buy a new set at most stores that sell electronics or office supplies

step 2. take out any paper or cd album info to make them all clear

step 3. pick out some prints youd like and make them or cut them into
(we each picked a few that we'd taken over the past year...our theme was more macro-views and color and contrast)

step 4. put the prints in the back of each cd case

step 5. attach velcro to the back (front part really) of the cd cover and then situate and stick on the wall
( i say velcro b/c that way its easy to attach, rearrange, and change pics...and its cheap and easy to do)
VOILA!

this art looks great, took MAYBE 2 hrs total if you count picking pics, printing, getting supplies, and hanging, etc, and it costs a total of $24.00!

...it wouldve cost less if we had old cases in good condition buuut it have a tendancy to break or sratch those things from riding around in my care console for months at a time ;)

so there you have it, heres a nice view of our corner art in all its glory


more creative projects and updates to come...i dont have an excuse not to update as i dont have a 40 hrs job....ps if you know of something let me know ;)