RedLetterWords

The One with the Big Sale

We are having our very first sale at Red Letter Words and it is HUGE!

We are celebrating the 2 year anniversary of our Etsy store and 1 year anniversary of RedLetterWords.com - Wow! 

Here's the skinny . . .

Buy any two regular priced RLW prints get the third print free of equal or lesser value!   

Please use this discount code at checkout.  CODE:  Buy2get1 

Detailed below are the official rules. 

• Discount valid at checkout by using the CODE:  Buy2get1
• Code good on website orders only!  
• Etsy does not allow for discount codes to be used, sorry!
• Custom prints excluded
• Maximum discount is $155
• A set is considered one print
• Sale lasts 12 hours  - September 7 Noon to Midnight EST

Hey Soul Sister . . .

Introducing Kelly . . my sister is here!   My sister in Christ, my sister who always listens and always understands (she gets me! and that is not easy), my sister who loves to laugh and have fun, my sister that I adore.  I Love her!  I would marry her if I wasn't already married to her brother.  Kelly has just moved home from California to Michigan for . . . get this . . . to work at www.redlettewords.com and completely take this hobby of mine to the next level:)  Yes, you read that right - she MOVED FROM CALIFORNIA TO MICHIGAN to help me run this company.  Who does that??  Somebody awesome.  That would be Kelly.  She is taking over sales and marketing and order processing and helping to stay on top of social media so that I can concentrate on doing what I started out doing - creating prints!   I am so happy she is here I need a slurpee!  And she is most likely the only one who will think that is funny - why? because she gets me!  and that is her joke:)  Here she is . . .  stunningly beautiful isn't she?  and smart and nice and she makes really great cookies.  To say that I am thankful she is here would be the understatement of the year:)

  

And just for fun here are a few oldies - here we are at Tim and I's engagement party. Kelly is the one in the middle. The bronzed brazilian beauty. I am the one that is dressed like a pilgrim. And Tim? my sweet husband - his only comment was Oh No, really?
Me and Kelly at the beach during one of our many adventures . . .We thought we were so cool!  I will let her explain . .
Hello there I'm Kelly!  The other beach babe in the pic sporting the vintage Ray-Ban's (wayfarers)..Dee is glammed up with the aviators!  Dee and I go way..way.. way back, growing up I have the best memories of the odd little things we would do together to make each other laugh!  We have shared so many memories from high school football games,beach days with the family, to going off to college, family reunions, vacations to Mexico, road trips, dune buggy riding.. cooking dinner together, watching our favorite shows...gosh we have lived many years and many, many memories together!  I just LOVE my sister and the most wonderful thing about our relationship is that we are awesome friends!  Isn't it wonderful how God leads us in so many unexpected directions?  I had been living in California for about 10 years, Dee called me with quite a proposition.. she thought it would be wonderful for us to work together and take her amazing company Red Letter Words to a whole new level... so guess what.. I moved back home to Michigan and joined forces with Dee..who would have known?  Dee and I have so much history together and such a loving sisterhood between us.. God has truly blessed us in having the opportunity to work together as a team!  I am so happy to be on board... there are many great places we are taking Red Letter Words.. so keep checking in with us!  To get to know a little more about me...my list of 5 facts is as follows:

1. I would love to find those vintage ray-bans so Dee and I could wear them like we're super stars!

2. I have a precious 89 lb. chocolate lab Scout who was affectionately bought for me by my friends for..         hold your breath...a birthday present.  yep. a gift.

3.  I LOVE Carol's Daughter hair products.. and strangely enough my mom's name is Carole.

4.  I am not a fan of spiders of any shape or size. They freak me out.

5.  I love going to the airport not only because I love to travel but also because I like the smell of jet fuel. I      hope I am not the only one on that, I'm pretty sure Dee does too!

Please email me and let me know if there is any questions I can answer or if I can help you out in any way!  

I love other peoples gardens

We have been given so many hot peppers and romas - I Love having friends who garden!!  If you need me, I will be in the kitchen for the season making salsa:)

Me Myself and I

In between an awesome road trip and a visit to the ranch and making custom prints and designing a new line of products for Demdaco this summer and lots of cookouts and birthdays and fun times with friends, I had a headshot taken for some marketing materials for Demdaco .

  
I love this picture.  I went to Clickphotographic.   Mike, the man behind the camera is one of my husband's junior high school buddies and his photography is just so technically perfect with the lighting and composition and he is waaay creative and isn't that brick wall the greatest?  I will blog about that particular wall again soon in greater detail! 

There are a few things you should know though . . . in this picture . . .

I have showered.

I have fresh hi-lights.

Emily did my hair before I left.

and I have been properly photoshopped:)

So just to keep things in proper perspective . . .

here are some less than stellar photos of me

I hope you enjoy them!  My kids sure did:)

me and my poochie have no idea how photobooth works at this point.  When do we smile?

Ok we got photobooth figured out!

I have always always wondered what I looked like with my eyes crossed late at night with no makeup.  Now everybody knows.

What?  haven't you ever had a sour Toxic Waste candy shoved in your mouth?

According to my boys, I am now an official Full Toxi Head.  Not to be confused with an Extreme Toxi Head which they are because they eat 3 of them at a time!

I have just gotten my tickets for The Creative Connection in Minneapolis next month so on the chance that you are reading this and are going there too, or maybe the Relevant Conference and we meet, I will look somewhere in between my headshot and this collection of less than stellar pictures of myself.  And I will be happy with that:)

We Are Having A Twitter Party Tonight!

We are so excited to be having our very first Twitter Party!  Sarah Mae from Like a Warm Cup of Coffee will be there to host it!  

  Please come and talk with us tomorrow evening! Everyone is welcome to join in:)

To make the party super fun we are going to be giving away fabulous sets of notecards to our winners every 15 minutes!  

Plus there will be a grand prize winner at the end of the party!!  No RSVP required, the party is scheduled for tonight August 25 from 9-10PM EST and the topic will be announced.  Just be sure to use the hash tag of #redletterwords for entries!  See you tonight!!!... :) 

A Fairy Tale Print

So your dear friend is having a baby girl and you want to do something so special for her baby girls nursery- what do you do?  Catherine contacted me earlier this summer with this request . . . a 20x20 size print in light green  with a pink bird and all the names of her friends favorite Hans Christian Anderson fairy tales.  And can we do them in Danish?  Yes!! absolutely!!  The Little Red Shoe, Thumbelina, The Princess and the Pea, The Little Mermaid, The Little Matchstick Girl, and The Ugly Duckling . . . I am in LoVe with how it turned out:)

Catherine and Tina loved it as well!!

I am so thrilled and totally honored for the opportunity to create custom pieces of art with very special meaning for you!!

Thank you Thank You Thank You:)

I would love to create something amazing for you too!

Only in ? does this happen . . .

I love this hotel . . .

and this one . . .

any guesses where we are?  If you have a boy age 8-75 in your household, show him this picture and see if he knows . . .

 

another hint . . .

i know its blurry.  i took it from the car in the dark after we ate there.  But think glittery,  flashing signs, LOTS of them!!

Yes its true we took our family to Las Vegas!

We stayed at Tahiti Village.  Total family resort - which is exactly what we needed.  A hotel far far off the strip with no casino:) 

there was a lazy river with waterfalls and a pool with beach sand!

we had a riot!  It was a much needed change of pace from red rock and hot dry desert!

I mean where else can you eat at 4 different buffets in less than 24 hours? 

 

or see a magic show?  Mac King was great!

listen to a fabulous saxophone player?

and dance with a statue man?

and that guy in the first picture?  that was ChumLee from Pawn Stars.  The place was packed.  And we saw him coming down the street and of course we stopped him for a picture!

Later!

Still in Utah . . .

so we left off somewhere in Utah . . . 

this is Dead Horse Point

its a long way down -   oooh that makes me dizzy!!

this picture is totally Christmas card worthy.  If I thought I would remember this at Christmas time that would be sooo cute!

me and my honey! 

does the sky come any bluer?

how did they get up there??

very carefully . . .

this one is for my mom!  Wooden shoe arch - she is dutch:)

view of balance rock - Arches National Park - Moab Utah.  Highly recommended area - We hiked and had picnics in Arches, Canyonlands and Dead Horse Point.

John Wayne's old stomping grounds.  Somehow I think that they didn't have wi-fi when he was there.  Still I LOVE old signs!

We ate here.  If you are in Moab - GO!!  its off the main road, but seriously awesome burgers and shakes!

It was absolutely beautiful and we had a total blast checking it all out! 

then we got too hot.  It was 113 degrees.  So we left.  You will never guess where we ended up . . .

Somewhere in Utah. . .

We are on day 7 of an 8,000 mile road trip!  Here is everywhere we have been so far. . .

Crossed over the bridge to Mackinac Island.  Tim and I haven't been here for 11 years and we have never taken our kids here before so it was really fun to ride bikes around the Island and eat fudge with them just like our parents did with us when we were little

thats my baby riding a big bike with her Daddy -   that smile never left her face.

Next up was a Loooong drive through Michigan's Upper Penninsula and through Wisconsin.  The kids were fully stocked with movies and DS games and Ipods.  It was cord city in the backseat.  Tim and I played our favorite driving game which is to turn on the 80's channel and see how many songs we can guess in a row.  We beat our all time record of 8 with this list . . .

38 Special - Hold on Loosely

Men at Work - Who can it be now

Rosanna - Toto

Sheila E - The Glamorous Life

Kyrie - Mister Mister

Billy Joel - You may be right

Video Killed the Radio Star - The Buggles (this one has tripped us up before!)

Frankie goes to Hollywood - Relax

No One is to Blame - Howard Jones

That makes 9 in a row.  Our previous record was 8.  Here is the song that got us this time.

Something so Strong - Crowded House

It is amazing how hard this game is sometimes.  Like you have heard this song a million times and then you can't think of who sings it and then when you finally give up and look at the screen, you have never ever heard of the band? 

Next up was Minnesota and South Dakota. Anybody ever driven through South Dakota?  We drove through the Badlands during the most incredible lightning storm. . .

We had a Wall Drug Billboard competition where the kids earned extra souveneir $ by being the first to spot the Wall Drug billboards.  We lost count on how many there are, but there is a ton of them.  4 days later Lily is still calling out "Wall Drug" at random billboards and saying "can I have some money?"

After dinner and souvenier shopping at Wall Drug, we finally made it here. . .

Mt Rushmore was fun.  We have always always wanted to go there.

On our way to Yellowstone we drove over Bighorn Mountain. 
I love rainbows. 

and isn't this baby moose the cutest?

 

Yellowstone was huge.  Much huger than we thought.  and Busy!  We saw the highlights. . . Canyons, Mud Volcanoes,  Bison, and of course

Old Faithful was cool to see.  And then we bolted.

Stay tuned.  More road trip adventures coming up. 

It really was that fun! . . .

8 women on a weekend trip to the Pioneer Woman's Lodge.

Some of us were blog stalkers avid readers of Pioneer Woman, some of us have made lots of her recipes, one of us has cooked her way through PW's entire cookbook, some of us had known each other for years, some of us had never met, some of us had only recently met, some of us were related, one of us wants to live on a ranch, some of us were completely comfortable on horseback, but we were all so excited to be there.

Yes that is a white stretch limo that PW had arranged to take us to the ranch.  Our awesome limo driver was Kayle, who is the husband of this blogger.   Very funny girl!  PW had also arranged for us to eat lunch on the way at Bad Brads BBQ.  
I love brisket and this was waaay yummy.  We were full and it was time to get to the Ranch! 

PW was there to greet us and she stayed and visited for awhile then she went home and we did lots of normal things like check out the view

and go on a walk and check out the cow grate

and then

some more completely normal borderline wierd things like touch all her pans

and count how many pounds of butter there was

She told us to make ourselves at home!!!

To be continued . . .:)