When I went to switch the laundry I noticed what I thought looked like tiny mouse droppings, and as that thought formed, out ran a mouse from under the dryer leaving me shrieking "Mouse, mouse!"while I did the heebie jeebies dance. Being an unprepared city to country transplant, I gathered my three indoor cats and left them to deal with the mouse. The cats were interested because they have only ever seen toy mice, but they were lacking a certain predatory instinct [left picture]. At one point Roux and Simone just looked at the mouse, who sat in front of the two cats as though it were no big deal[center picture].  Seeing that my cats didn't know what to do either made me realize that I needed to come up with a solution so I could get on with my day. City girl + city cats + no mouse trap =  organic peanut butter in a mason jar. I put a dab of peanut butter towards the bottom of a mason jar, tipped it on its side in the laundry room and held back the cats while the mouse ran in. I tipped the jar up and put a lid on it. Problem solved [right picture].  I put the mouse back outside far, far away from our house.  I know that there will be more mice, but I also know that I am more prepared and a little bit more country. 

♥ Miss Bojambo

Isn't this cat house the greatest! I really love simple, tasteful cat toys and this playhouse takes the cake! MarthaStewart.com has incredibly easy directions. As soon as I can get my hands on two large boxes, I am going to build this amazing cat house for my three cats. I can't wait to see how they play house!

For those of you out there who are not great with an x-acto knife, you must check out this affordable, handsome toy called the Peek-a-Prize for sale on Amazon. I bought this wooden toy for my kitties and they all love it to pieces. I love that it stores their toys, challenges them when they want toys and looks nice sitting out.

♥ Miss Bojambo

I will not go as far as saying that everyone I know is getting married - that would be madness. But I do have quite a few friends and family that are taking the plunge and they are all doing it in their own style. 

As a favor/ wedding bonus gift to my sister, I extended her the offer of my time and ideas to help her keep her wedding budget in check, and ensure that the extra funds would funnel into her honeymoon budget. Let's be honest, times are tough and the cost of weddings can be outrageous. Paying five to ten dollars per invitation? No thank you. 

For her wedding, we needed to come up with an elegant wintery invitation that was possible to make for around 200 (give or take) guests. Ahhhhhh! She had already bought some supplies i.e. paper, stamps ... without a strong plan in mind. Our goal was to figure out a way to use those supplies without having to spend more.

We decided to print the invitations off of a computer and simply halve the standard sized sheets horizontally for an easy format. From there, we selected a beautiful fibrous navy blue paper to back the invitations and sturdy it. 

To add a little flare to the invitations, we came up with the idea to stamp a block of space on the invitations that would read: celebrate! over and over. We then thought to cover the stamped area with a bit of shear light blue ribbon. Finally, we found an old, navy blue t-shirt (like the paper on the back of the invitation) and used the fabric, along with more of the shear light blue ribbon and beading pearls that we purchased, to make wintery blossoms for each invite. Now that's a homemade wedding invite!

All in all, I'd say we created beautiful handmade invitations for my sister's wedding and they are totally unique! We plan to pack these in a chocolate brown envelope with gold writing (that's what we had to start with!), in addition to the R.S.V.P. postcard and a trifold itinerary, both of which are going to be on a light blue card stock, however they are still works in progress. The package which includes envelope, invite, trifold map & itinerary, and the return R.S.V.P. is under one dollar sans postage!

We had so much fun making these ... it was a challenge, but it was a blast playing conveyer belt. We saved money for her honeymoon, hand crafted an invitation unique to her taste and wedding, and gained pre-wedding memories. Aw. 

Don't be scared to make anything for yourself, my friends, because you can do it yourself.  Be bold, be creative and be unique!

-Miss Bojambo