If you get 8 hours of sleep every night, do you realize that you will spend ONE THIRD of your life in bed?  Yes. A third.  And even if you don’t get a full 8 hours, you will still spend at least 1/4-1/5 of your life sleeping.   You will spend less time on vacation, in your car, or on your sofa.  But many of us spend more time researching our car and vacation purchase than we spend researching mattresses.

This is often because Mattress store make it really difficult to tell the differences between their products. And often this is intentional.  Comparing apples to apples when it comes to mattresses is nearly impossible.

Today’s tech savvy shoppers have turned away from buying mattresses in brick and mortar stores, and instead look to ordering mattresses online.  There are big advantages to buying onlin, including no high pressure salesmen, no quick decisions, and reduced overhead costs of brick and mortar stores.

Instead, you can go online, do all your mattress research from the comfort of your sofa, and order exactly what you want.  Your mattress is then delivered right to your bedroom where you can actually TRY it by sleeping on it, the way you would normally use a mattress. You aren’t forced to do ’test drive’ your mattress purchase in a fluorescently lit mattress store filled with strangers.
Still, many people are not 100% comfortable buying mattresses sight unseen. They are hesitant to make such a large purchase on their own.  But today’s online mattress buying experience can be relatively risk-free.  If buy a mattress from the right online mattress company, you have no reason to be hesitant.

So how do you know you are buying a mattress from the right place?
That is the million dollar question.

I have a new sarcastic cross stitch sampler pattern available in my series of snarky cross stitch designs.  I know these aren’t for everyone, but I’ve been enjoying venting out my aggressions onto Aida.

This was a meme I saw on Facebook and I decided to put it down in fiber.  Some days I just get tired of being nice.. and this really resonated with me.

I started the pattern a few weeks ago, but I don’t stitch very quickly so even small designs like this one take me a while.

Spring is almost here.. sort of.  But even if you are still under snow or suffering from cold temperatures, it is time to start gardening! Even if that means doing it indoors.

So today I want to show you how I made a simple little kitchen herb garden which is perfect either right on the kitchen counter, or even mounted on the wall.

The premise is simple, grow your fresh herbs right where you are going to use them: the kitchen.  And in this case I made mine to house the most common herbs we use in our cooking.

Over time the ceramic insert in my slow cooker has become discolored and scratched up.  I love to shred chicken breasts in my crock pot using my hand mixer and the mixer blades leave grey marks all over the bottom and sides. 
Regular washing doesn’t take the marks off, but there is something that does.  Bon Ami powder cleanser! 

Look at my slow cooker insert NOW:

If you have been on Instagram for more than a nano second you know that marquee light boxes and letter boards are all the rage right now. These lighted boxes with slide in letters let you express yourself!

I confess.. I’ve used them.. I love mine!  I have a huge collection!

But one of the problems I have is that I don’t always have enough letter (or enough space) to actually say what I want to say.

Let’s just be honest here.. The lovely Heidi Swapp is never going to make a “cuss words” expansion pack!  I have A LOT of letter sets, but I still struggle with being able to spell out exactly what I want to say.

This post is April’s Dollar Store Design Squad challenge and I'm so stoked with just how fabulous this project came out. I mean, I thought it would work out, but the actual finished project is so much nicer than I actually thought it would be.. (oh, should I be admitting that out loud?)

This tote bag is actually made from dollar store PLACEMATS. Yep, those are placemats, and the entire project only took a few minutes and cost about 4 dollars!  (Nice right?!)

This month the All Things Creative team are brining you not one, not two, but THREE collections of amazing DIY projects all sorted by color.  But not just ANY COLORS.. We are talking about projects in the patriotic colors of Red, White and Blue!

Isn’t that a fun idea? Instead of projects that scream “Fourth of July” we are celebrating the colors of the Stars and Stripes in a more subtle way.   Each of these projects features a single color, not all three!

April is finally here and Major League Baseball’s season opener was this past week! If you follow me on Instagram you know we are a softball family, and our love of the game extends all the way to our Bay Area major league franchise, the Oakland Athletics.

The Oakland Athletics (affectionally known as the "A’s” ) kicked off their season this week, and with it came a huge milestone for the franchise.  This is their FIFTIETH season in Oakland.

The Athletics are actually one of the American League’s original charter teams (originally the Philadelphia Althetics) but moved to Oakland in 1968 where they have been ever since.  That means that for the past 50 years Oakland has been able to call the Athletics “our” team!

In a major metropolitan area, there are often multiple major league sports teams, and in the Bay Area has no shortage..  but the Oakland Athletics are special. They have ALWAYS focused on being Oakland's home team. Not the Bay Area, not San Francisco, not Northern California.. ONLY Oakland and the East Bay.  They have continuously celebrated the people in their home city and are always improving on the experience of attending A’s games in Oakland.