I Believe In A Thing Called Love

Can we pause before going into the whole purpose of this post and take in the greatness that is the I Believe In A Thing Called Love by The Darkness music video? I mean, a naked man hugging that pink furry thing. CLASSIC.

Oh right… the purpose…

…

I’m getting there…

HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY!

(single awareness day)

Everyone enjoying their day so far? Were you surprised with heart shaped pancakes this morning? Yeah, me either. It happens. I did however get some really sweet Valentine’s Day kisses from my furry Valentine this morning. She’s the best. I’m giving her a sweet VDAY treat later. Because I’m a creepy dog mom.  Actually, Marley has a valentine for all the CLA readers…

She’s adorable right? I was just finishing up with a fun little photo shoot and she decided that she wanted a few head-shots taken as well.

The actual photo-shoot, before little miss diva took over was for a really cool company call Brilliant Earth, who had contacted me around the end of January to see if I wanted to participate in a fun blogger creative challenge.They challenged me to come up with a image that reflexed what *LOVE* meant to me while spelling out the term.

I’m always down for a challenge, so I pretty much immediately responded with a “count me in”. It took me a few days after to come up with a concept that REALLY expressed me, but I’m really satisfied with the result. See, love to me is about a whole slew of things. Friends, family, Marley (obviously), cooking, baking, crafting, building, blogging… and just fun things in general. I wanted to find a way to represent each of these separate aspects of love and I had four little letters to accomplish it by.

So for as corny as we can get…

L – Represents my love for crafting, taking photos and painting.

O – Represents Marley and her impact on my life, without her I’m not quite sure where I’d be.

V – Represents my inner chef and baker, something that I’m really proud of.

 E – Represents the part of me that loves to build things, something I share with many members of my family.

——————————————————————————

I had so much fun pulling together the items for each letter. It was fun looking through my stash and finding objects that represented me and Creative Life Antics overall as a whole. I’m pretty sure “O” is my favorite. All the items on there scream Marley to me. From the dog leash she’s chewed on to the tag on her collar, she’s full of spunk and spirit and the objects in this photo are her favorites.

——————————————————————————

Brilliant Earth is a jewelry company that specializes in ethically sourced diamonds and engagement rings. To be honest I didn’t really know much about them until this fun challenge. But I took a minute to read about them and I’ve got to say that they have me really sold on their mission. They want to provide not only quality diamonds and jewelry, but do it in a way that promotes awareness and change in a field of economics that generally has a bad rap.

I’ll be honest, I don’t know much about the jewelry trade business or about the horrible practices and conditions of diamond mining, but anyone that promotes the well being of other humans/ animals and overall tries to improve the way of life for them seem like good people to me.

Second honest moment? I’m generally not a jewelry gal. Or at least expensive jewelry. I’ve never really took time out of my life to picture what my engagement ring would like (you know, if I ever decide to date again). I’m not into flashy big rings and rarely if I’ve ever found time to peruse engagement rings have I EVER found anything that more than merely sparked my interest. But, I figured hey what the hello, look to see what they got.

You see this ring? This is it. I had a total stop the presses moment. Never ever ever before have I looked at an engagement ring and went “YES, that’s the type of ring I want”. Until now.

Isn’t it gorgeous? I love that it’s all vintage style, but still has modern flare. It reminds me so much of my grandmother’s which I wear almost daily.

Wow, I feel like a real girl now. Talk about putting the cart before the horse. 😉

There are some really pretty other pieces on their site too. These are a few of my favorites.

one // two // three // four // five // six // seven

* LINKS HAVE BEEN REMOVED AT THE REQUEST OF BRILLIANT EARTH*

What are your favorite’s from Brilliant Earth? How’d you like my mini “photo shoot”? And MARLEY is getting SO BIG. Man oh man.

This official girly girl is OUT,

Ps: This post is super non-sponsored, I really was just contacted to funzies and had a blast pulling together this image. Also Brilliant Earth really is a sweet site, and I really did find my dream ring. ❤

Marley

At LAST I have found the camera battery charger, which means proper photos of my baby hyena*.

Happy Monday….

* Marley really isn’t a hyena. Well, I mean, she could be. But people constantly ask me what she is, and quite frankly- I have no fucking idea. Part pit bull, part shepherd, part…. tiger? She kinda acts like a cat.

She’s Baaaaaaaaack

Woahhhhhhho ho ho….

Blogland, it’s been a while. How’s everyone doing out there?

Did you miss me? Probably not. I’m okay with that. Lets be honest, that break was NEEDED. I was completely uninspired, completely un-orangized, and completely a mess. Recap: Life was great, until a breakup that sent my crazy world a tumbling down, left me uninspired, and pretty much created a need to get out of the freaking house and go out with people. I needed to find some inspiration again.

So I did. And it was a grand ol’ time. I met up with awesome friends, played a lot of laser tag, went out to dinner a lot, started cooking more with a buddy (much easier to cook for two than one, right?), went to movies, drank too much, helped those less fortunate, partied in Grand Rapids, and added to my little family.

Yup, that last one was a pretty big item. I am now officially a mother. Dear friends/ family and avid readers (anyone that’s left)– I would like to introduce you to Marley.

It’s pretty safe to say that I’m 100% obsessed. And as you can see from the last picture Ziggy (very much a huge part of my life still) is learning to like her too. He’s a bit less obsessed or impressed with her, but overall there hasnt been any issues.

So, I’m sure you’re just dying to learn a little about my new leading lady… (if not, best find a new blog to follow, shes here for the long haul).

Marley is 16/17 weeks old. She is a marvolous mutt (as mindy calls her), meaning we have an *idea* of the breeds she has in her, but dont know 100%. She’s part American Stafforshire Terrier, possibly Plott Hound, maybe some Dutch Shepherd? Who knows. She a GORGEOUS (I might be biased) reverse brindle (Zig man is typical brindle coloring). Slightly thicker fur than the Zig, but not somehting that has been shedding much. She’s about 25lbs right now, so the hope is that she’ll be around 50-60 full grown.

Her story isnt really all that interesting. She was an owner surrender at about 10-12 weeks to a shelter that unfortunately was about to put her down due to being part pitbull. Luckily she was found by an absolute amazing team of women running Heaven After Hell Rescue in Indianapolis, Indiana. These lovely ladies (Kelly and Miranda took her in, got her spayed, dewormed (she had worms badddddd) and started her on her first set of shots. She was posted on their facebook page which happened to be frequented by my lovely former roommate who then forwarded her picture to me and said “she’s perfect for you”.

And that folks is the beginning to the end. I applied, waited not so patiently to be approved and then waited three agonizing weeks before she was fit to come home. Mindy and I road-tripped it down to pick her up and she’s made herself quite at home for almost the last two weeks.

Life Outside of the Dog:

Honestly, sucked for a while. But overall I’m feeling good right now, I’m feeling insipred and I’m excited for things to come. After some soul searching I realized that my expectations were too high for CLA and not in a bad way— just in a way that was less obtainable at the moment. I felt like I picked up so much momentum and then just flopped. So as with the new year, I’ve made some resolutions and one of them was to get back to blogging and set myself an obtainable schedule and goal.

We’re going to have a weekly post on Fridays, and I’m going to mix in some Marley/ Ziggy dog stuff. And I’m going to continue to craft and to bake. But — while we’re being real here– its just not possible for me to do big projects all the time. Blogging is a hobby, and a fun hobby. But it was turning into work giving by myself deadlines on huge projects and it just burned me out. BlogPal— yeah, that kinda flopped to. It’s my own fault. I was a bad blogpal myself. I’m going to get back into not only being a good blogger but a great reader. Commenting and linking up. That’s the fun stuff. Meeting new people. A few months ago I stopped it completely almost.

And you know what, if I forget to post one day– oh well. Post it the next day, dont feel the guilt.

I’ve got more blogging resolutions for you next time, a whole list full. All of my wants and goals and plans for CLA. I’m excited. Really excited.

Until then though, I’ve got one MAJOR GOAL for today/ tonight: Find my damn SLR Camera battery charger. Seriously guys, I cant find it anywhere. And part of good blogging is GREAT PHOTOS. Wine and hunting it is. Maybe Marley will find it for me?

Until next time: this new puppy mama is out!

xox Justynn, Marley & Ziggy ❤