crocodiles, krokodil

Ok so I usually keep things light and fluffy like a good cake frosting on this blog, but THIS, this is so revolting, I NEED to share. Remember the bath salts debacle, well this may be worse. Back when bath salts occurred people didn't know if you bought this new drug at 711 you might end up eating someone's face off. But now there's a drug called Krokodil, or desomorphine if you want to get technical, and while you won't end up becoming a cannibal it's nicknamed the "cannibal drug" b/c it literally eats YOU from the inside out. Apparently it was made in the 1930's as a painkiller but now that it's being made anywhere now, the toxic chemicals in the ingredients used are making for a horrific combination. It's considered to be the poor man's heroin but is actually three times more addictive than heroin itself! While being a good girl myself I had to look up this stuff so don't be alarmed and think, "how does she know that a heroin high lasts almost 3 hours while krokodil is only 90 minutes?" I didn't, I researched it. For $5 or more (1/10 the price of heroin) you can buy a mix of morphine, gasoline, codeine,  alcohol, paint thinner or lighter fluid. It can melt your teeth. It begins to rot your flesh and skin from the inside out and causes gangrene and abscesses . In some cases, people's muscles and tendons were so badly exposed they needed skin grafts and amputations. Users skin begins to turn scaly, black and green in certain spots resulting in a crocodile like appearance, hence the street reference krokodil.  It's been reported to have been used in Russia for over a decade and cases have been popping up in the past two weeks in Arizona, Illinois and beyond. The scariest part? Doctors are saying that once people start using this drug their life expectancy is one to two years at most. 

 

The photos of what this drug can do to a body are so gruesome I won't even post them on this blog, so if you want to see them go here.

Rag Wreaths, What I've been up to

Want a peak into what I've been doing? Here's a few of my wreaths! Big news? Someone placed a custom order with me!!! My 1st sale and a custom job, EXCITED!!!! If anyone in blogland wants one I do offer shipping : ) Check out my etsy shop!

Black & Cream

Close Up of the fabric

Multi Colored

 

 

The "BOO" Wreath!

 

 

A little bit smaller and more primitive

 

 

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The Friday Five!!!! Fall festival, Martha Stewart & fall TV

 

Linking up with Darci, Congrats to Christina!, Liz & Natasha for another Friday Five!

 

1) First off can I just say I think Fall TV this season is really good? Does anyone agree or disagree?! I'm loving Hostages, The Miller's. Mom & The Crazy Ones for new shows. And how did I miss four years of Modern Family, that show is sooo funny! Why did no one tell me about this before now!? Shame on all of you!

2) I did an interview series with some girls for the "Ask Away Friday" series and one of my questions included, " what is in your purse, show a picture." This is just half of the crap I pulled out.....for the full list of "essentials" click the link above....some important items included $1.92 in change and an id card holder from our cruise LAST January.

3) I'm sure by now ya'll have heard what our dear, sweet friend Martha had to say about us bloggers recently. So my #3 is dedicated to my open letter to Martha Stewart check it out!

4) We're going to another pumpkin patch on Saturday and I'm super excited for the cider, pumpkins, hayride and animals. I'm sure E will enjoy it too....

5)I've signed up for my first ever booth at a craft festival and I'm beyond excited! The thought of anyone wanting to purchase something that I made is thrilling to me! I'm going to be making some rag wreaths, fabric pumpkins and Christmas snow globes out of jars for starters!

Have a great weekend everyone!!!

~Lauren

Martha, May I? My Open Letter to Martha Stewart

Oh Martha, you've really done it this time. First you became a felon and made false statements, then last week you went on Bethenny Frankel's talk show and said she, "really wasn't so like able back then."  That angered a lot of her fans, but this, this is the jackpot. You've just alienated the fastest growing community we have, bloggers. The customers who purchase your craft supplies will now be boycotting your products in favor of a retailer who has the decency to not insult them as they spend their hard earned money slaving away personally over a DIY project.  How could you after you built your empire on cooking, crafting and creating. Isn't that what bloggers are doing? Aren't we a community of people trying to lift each others spirits, build each others brands, and re pin one recipe or idea after another? Martha you know about community, you employ one. They are the chefs, crafters, DIY-ers and writers who make you, YOU. We make up us one blogger at a time, a tight knit community, of blog hops, link ups and blogging networks cheering on each little guy and aspiring to be that one who makes it.  We should have known, who refers back to Martha Stewart Living now a days for a craft when we've got pinterest and amazing blogs at our fingertips?  And these recipes that are usually not good? I personally have made quite a few of them and loved each and every one. In fact I've pinned and blogged a few myself . Martha you should have your staff make you some of these dishes, I think you would be pleasantly surprised! No, I'm not a Vogue editor, and thank God I'm not. Have you ever seen a picture of Anna Wintour? The woman looks miserable and she's definitely never tried any of our recipes. But, I live in the real world where If a recipe calls for an ingredient I can't pronounce, I'm not making it and budget is a weekly vocab word. DIY is mandatory to us bloggers not a section in a magazine used to drum up ratings. So you can take your fancy cakes and your uppity attitude because the blogging world left you long before you realized you didn't want to be apart of it. But we were too nice to let you in on the secret, but not so nice to stick up for ourselves.

Ask Away Friday w/ the Housewives!!!

So, when I received a message from Penny I knew I had met my BFF in the blogging world, I mean come on her blogger name is The Real Housewife of Caroline County AND she lives in VA and hour away from me! Meant to be, we instantly became blogging friends and she asked me to be her partner for Ask Away Friday. Unfortunately we had to postpone a week because I went and got myself in a car accident, silly me. So here are the amazing questions she asked me and then hop over to her blog and check out the ones I came up with for her!!!!

1.  Do you believe that what goes around comes around (a.k.a karma)?

I live by this. I truly believe that how you treat people and the world comes back to you.

2.  We're going to happy hour what do you order?

Every time I order  a drink I struggle with this question. But right now I really love white sangria. This being said I hope we are not at a Mexican restaurant in which case my order will be horribly inappropriate.

3.  What's in your purse?

The better question is, "What is NOT in my purse?"  Let's take a look, shall we?
In no particular order we've got.... da da da da drum roll please.....

The home of all the Junk! I bought this bag probably 3 yrs ago and I still love it sooo much!!!!

Can you find it all?!?!?!

 

A makeup bag, MK wallet, anti nausea medicine(migraines, neck muscles issues 2 weeks ago, acar accident 1 week ago and my body is lately reacting my making me sick to my stomach.. this stuff is coming in handy lately folks), 2 ticket stubs from my sister's last play, a program from said last play, 3 walmart receipts, a stack of zebra note cards, a parking time limit reminder from my last trip to Georgetown (I got my 2nd parking ticket ever that trip..) ipad charger, 9 pens, a sharpie, 2 hair clips, tie and an abundance of  bobby pins, a contact case, 3 samples from the chiropractor of "natural pain relieving gel", a receipt from the gas station, 1 tampon, Excedrin, 2 dry cleaner pick up slips, washi tape, a lollipop, a car  phone charger and gps(my car is in the shop) a green marker, 3 crayons, coupons, a dog tag from E's swim class, an id card holder from the cruise we went on in January, an array of random papers,  a necklace I forgot I had, an extra contact, a pack of splenda you couldn't pay me to use, crumbs from what may have once been a cookie?, a mini almond joy wrapper from today,  a $1.92 in change, a purple comb, 2 black no slip headbands, 2 cds, an inhaler(I don't have asthma but I have horrible allergies, did ya'll know DC/Northern VA is one of the worst places to live in the USA for allergies?) spare car keys to John's car..(this was a true find!he thanks you Penny!), 2 Benadryl, 1 bead, a notebook, a charm w E's name on it, chick-fil-a receipt, a tasty kake cherry pie wrapper, 1 green sock, a book, ipad and my phone.

4.  What's the coolest thing you own that you could share with me?


Hmm I don't know what I own that's cool. I have my mom's wedding dress and her wedding band (my parents are divorced). I have my gram's jewelry box that I always thought was so cool growing up. I also have a painting that we found when cleaning out my grandparent's house that was my great-great- grandfather's. I plan on using it in a gallery wall with 2 other prints of similar subject matter that were in my grandfather's bedroom when he was alive. So I guess to me "cool" is sentimental.

 5.  If you could have plastic surgery right now and change anything about yourself, what would you change?

Easy Peasy!!!! LIPO BABY!!! I'd have it all sucked out.


6.  If you had one day to live over again what would it be?

Not to be cheesy and sentimental but I'd go back to my childhood I think for one more day. Maybe a Christmas Eve or a Memorial Day ( we always went to the parade and had an amazing picnic). We were always with my grandparents and my parents were still together and my younger sister. They were always super happy times together and I would make sure to get more pictures and cherish every moment.


7.  What was the PEAK of your week this week and what was the PIT of your week?

The pit was anytime I looked at my stomach and saw all of the bruising from the accident, so gross! The peak was realizing how much I love my fiancé and us telling each other that after a really bad week and a lot of conversations about our relationship.


 8.  What's your most prized possession (can't be an engagement/wedding ring)

Pictures, my small duck that I talked about in my 1st AAF post,

9.  If you could have dinner with any 3 people who would you chose?

My grandma, my grandpa and um well I don't want to insult anyone else so we'll leave it at that! My grandpa passed away in April at 89 yrs old and I miss him like crazy.  Grandma I spoke to today and she is the most funny person you will ever meet. She asked how my computer was doing, meaning this blog and I said good :p

10. If you could live in one city for the rest of your life where would it be?

Anywhere on the beach!!!

You can run, but you can't hide from old wive's tales

"Don't stop believin"...Journey

I don't believe in Friday the 13th or that black cats are bad luck..  But you can't help the way that you

were raised and I was raised by superstitious people. My grandparents were an integral piece of the

familial puzzle and gram is a full blooded, Italian. I never knew that certain behaviors were strange

until I left the nest. I thought it was normal to be OCD about hand washing and fear bird poop to high

 heaven.  My family has a lot of idiosyncrasies, all families do.  But I really won the jackpot.  Most

families cringe when breaking a mirror and tease that they may have, "seven years of  bad luck" but

how many truly believe in the extraordinary old wive's tales. I know one thing, I knew about the evil

eye long before I started watching The Real Housewifes of New Jersey. As I got older I learned more

about the way in which viruses and colds work and I realized that going outside without a coat or

with wet hair does not pneumonia make.  It wasn't until last year that I realized my grandparents may

have lied to me about one or two things. It started when I was craving a banana one night but alas,

everyone knows eating a banana in the evening will cause a nightmare, or does it?!  At the ripe old

age of 29 I finally ate a banana at night, without fear. There are so many strange things that we

believe it's hard to differentiate fear from tradition. It's bad luck to eat anything other than pork

sauerkraut on New Years Day.  Never open an umbrella in the house and don't walk under a ladder. If

 you're going to give a wallet or purse as a gift you better at least put a penny in there. Everyone

knows it's bad luck to give those gifts without money of some sort in them. I was recently home for a

visit and my great aunt mentioned that a bird had gotten into her house, we quickly made a

 unanimous decision not to tell my gram. A bird in the house is a most certain sign of death to come.

 When the house I grew up in sat on the market a little too long another one of my great aunt's

suggested burying a statue of St. Joseph upside down in the yard. The house sold within six months.

Coincidence or a holy helping hand? Now one helping hand that I do truly believe in? St. Anthony,

patron saint of lost articles has helped me find not one but about one million things over the years.

Between me and my Gram, we keep him pretty busy. My grandpa revered his 1988 black

Thunderbird, he was convinced that every time he washed his car it rained. It truly did rain every

time he washed it, but it also rains ALOT in Pittsburgh.  As a former Jewelry salesperson I used to

silently shake my head when people would buy opals, didn't they know it was bad luck to wear an

opal if it wasn't your birth stone?!  The list goes on and I've even added to our crazy families list, "

Isn't it bad luck not to get the first piece of birthday cake on your birthday?" Just what we needed,

 one more thing to believe in...
  

All in the "AYE" of the beholder, From sailboat to seasonal

 

During my weekly stalk of the thrift stores I spotted this little number for $2.99.  A real wood

 

frame with an already distressed, country look to it. Half of my work was already done, SOLD!  I

 

took my sailboat framed art home and got to chalk boarding.  As always, when things seem easy a

 

problem ensued. The 1st problem? The lighthouse seemed to rise off of the canvas and was still

 

visible after many coats of paint. Finally, it was defeated. I had won.  The lighthouse was long gone

 

, nothing but chalk skies from now on.

 

 

How perfect is the little frame for a chalk pumpkin or a blue spruce come December!? So long

 

 

 

sailboat, hello punkin!

what do you think?! Have you ever chalked?

~Lauren

 

 

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The Friday 5 , A Quickie

Linking up with Darci and the other ladies for one of my new  fav. weekly features, The Friday 5. It's

sad great how much I love this new blog tradition and look forward to reading everyone's FIVE's!

1) Today I am cleaning and I must say it is so much nicer to clean in 80 fall weather, surrounded by

candy corn and pumpkins than it is any other time of the year. Does anyone else need music while

they clean? If  the tv is on I'm distracted. Without music I struggle to move to the next task, but with it

  on I'm motivated and on my A game.

2) I took my first pilates class on Monday and I loved it. I felt muscles that have been dormant for

years. Such simple little moves, such a big impact. Can't wait to go back for more!

3)I'm making another rag wreath, I need an intervention.  Send help please. fast.

4)We're going to the punkin patch this weekend and I may be more excited than the kids. Pumpkins,

 apple cider, animals, going down huge slides on burlap bags?!? I love it all.

5) Bought this little guy a few weeks ago, isn't he cute?! primitive decorations may be one of my all

time favorite things.

Halloween Haute, Table Decor & a little white lie

Our home has been ready for Fall /Halloween for weeks now. So much so that I am in disbelief that it

 is ONLY October 2nd. Anyone care to guess my favorite holiday?!? Today I decided to share with

you how my dining room table went from country cute to Halloween Haute.  I left my table runner as

 is and finally emptied my trunk from a month or 3 ago 's trip to Pittsburgh. Out came my gram's

good tea service. I took the tray and scrubbed and shined to my hearts content. (*tip* let silver soak

baking soda and then scrub to a perfect finish! ) I then did the same for the base holding my

pumpkin.   Two Dollar Store glitter pumpkins, a clearance Apothecary jar and my own handmade

 vase completed the glass work. The vase was another Dollar Store treasure, I took one of there vases

 and their candlesticks plus some E-600 glue and voila! Instant perfection! I reused my cherries from

 another tabletop display and stole greenery from my country table pitcher. The most fab part of the

whole display? Two bags of dollar store candy in the apothecary jar. Why is that so great you ask?

As I was sitting down to dinner last week, John mentioned that he had almost, "Opened the bottle".  I

 looked in from the kitchen at him and E eating searching for a bottle, none was to be found. I looked

 back at the kitchen counters confused,  I asked him what bottle he was talking about. He then

informed me as I sat down that he had been tempted to open the ,"bottle" and eat some of the candy

corn but knew how I like to put fake things out and wasn't sure if this was one of them, so he figured

 he should ask first. It was a moment I knew I needed to make a decision. Keep my display for the

next month or have finger prints and on the lid and be down to my last 3 kernels of corn. I chose the

 easiest, "yep they're just for display, good thing you didn't eat them!" I snuck a glance at him and he

was staring at them. I thought I'd been caught but instead he said, "they look so real!" Imagine

that : )

 Let's see how long it takes him to read this post and figure this one out?! Bets, anyone?!  

Go give some love to my girl Kimberly for always featuring my work <3

& Confessing my little lie over at midweek confessions &