Etsy Shop Collaboration - Custom T-Shirt Decals

This post is waaaaay behind schedule! I promised I would write a post about this and I've been slacking big time. So sorry about that. 

I wanted to tell you all about this awesome Etsy shop: TheSouthernCityGirl that provided me with this decal to make my birthday shirt! She is wonderful to work with. The owner, Katherine, responds at record speed with any and all questions. She even will customize decals for you! This one was customized as well. She has recently joined Instagram: scgdesigns. You should follow her and see some of her other decal designs! I ordered this decal and another one for our one year anniversary photo shoot :)

These decals are super easy to apply. I got this plain shirt from Old Navy. I believe it's cotton. I do not know if the fabric of the shirt matters. If you ask Katherine I bet she would tell you! I first ironed the shirt to get any wrinkles out. The following are the instructions included with your order:

Heat Transfer Vinyl Application Instructions 

-Peel backing marked “ Back”, NOT the clear transfer paper, off decal so all that is left is the clear transfer paper and the decal itself.
-Set iron to cotton setting ( or highest heat) and turn OFF steam. Any moisture can alter how the decal attaches to fabric.
-Once iron is preheated, pre-warm the desired area with the iron for about 10-15 seconds.
-Place decal face down so the clear paper is facing upwards. Your decal is printed as a mirror image so make sure it is facing right side up when placed down on the fabric.
-Press on the decal with medium pressure for 30 seconds.
-Turn fabric over and on the same spot as the decal, press again with medium pressure for 30 seconds. This secures the bond from the back of the decal as well.
-Turn fabric back over and once it is cool to the touch, carefully peel back clear paper to reveal your decal.
-If not totally transferred, no worries, just place clear paper back on decal and iron again for a few seconds until totally transferred. This can be done as many times as needed.
For washing care: turn your fabric inside out when washing and drying. Be sure to wash with similar colors and dry on a low heat if possible.

I can't wait to do my next shirt and show you all how simple and easy these are! These would be great for infants, kids, bachelorette/bachelor parties, sports teams, themed parties, family reunions, seriously anything!

xo, Mrs. Slem

Life Goals and Partnership

I'm going to title this one:
"My husband works his butt off"

See those pictures up there ↑ ?? That's my husband :) Isn't he just the cutest? I'm going to gush a little bit in this post. Scott is one of the hardest workers I know. He works a full-time (7:30-4:30) job working for a government contractor. He also owns his own landscaping business. He started this business in high school and it has grown pretty big! From April-November his typical day consists of waking up at 6:30, going to his "real" job from 7:30-4:30, then coming home and cutting grass until dark. This happens every.single.day. We typically eat dinner at around 8:30-9. so hungry. Our weekends consist of waking up super early so he can get a start on cutting grass and hoping to be finished to do something Saturday evening. He tries his best to have Sunday's off so we can go to Mass and enjoy some together time. 

To say that our lives revolve around grass cutting is an understatement. Having a husband that is this much of a hard worker makes us sacrifice a lot. We are newlyweds, so spending this little time together is tough.  Luckily we still want to spend every waking moment together ;) so only seeing each other for a couple hours a night and some Sunday's doesn't allow for us to do much together. This year has been especially tough because it's our first grass cutting season of us living together. It's taken a lot of adjusting. I have noticed more this year than any other year that he's not wanted to work as much. It's super hard for him to be away as much as it is for me to wait until he comes home. We have TON of weddings this year, 7 to be exact. All but one are out of state, which means that he has to really bust his butt during the week to get his weekend yards completed because we have to travel for each wedding. This isn't easy on him and I hope that I acknowledge that as much as possible. (you rock babe!)

So why does he do all this? Aside from just being amazing, he's extremely goal oriented. He's a go-getter. We both are extreme money savers. Luckily we see eye-to-eye on money and spending, etc. We talked on the first day we met (even before our first date) about the future. We both knew from day 1 that we wanted me to be a stay at home mom. This requires a TON of planning and saving. (any tips would be wonderful!) Scott also would like to be a stay at home dad. Obviously this would VERY difficult. He wants nothing to do with missing anything about raising our future children. So, goal #1 work hard & make/save as much money as absolutely possible now. Goal #2, make babies (bomchickawowwow). Goal #3, be a stay at home mom. Goal #4, have Scott retire as soon as possible/be a stay at home dad. 

Scott is planning to significantly scale back his landscaping once we have kids. Like I said before, he doesn't want to miss out on anything. Will he be able to retire by next year if we, God willing, get pregnant in the near future? Absolutely not. But we are shooting for him retiring and being able to stay home by the age of 40. How do we do this? We save a ton. We invest. We don't go out to eat very often. We never go to the movies more than once a year. We budget for everything. We communicate, happily I might add, about finances almost daily.

Is this type of life easy? Nope! Do we enjoy not seeing each other more than 15 hours a week? Heck no! Do we have to miss out on stuff because Scott is so busy? Yep. Do our family & friends sometimes not understand why or how we do this? Mmmhmm. Do we have to work a little harder than some newlyweds on our relationship? You bet. But there is absolutely no other person I could see tackling our life dreams with. He makes sure that I am taken care of, that our future family will be secure, and that we try to reach every single goal we have set out for each other. We want to be able to travel with our children more than just once a year. We want to be together at every baseball game and dance recital that our little ones have. 

I would love to hear how other stay at home parents are able to make this happen for their families!

from our trip to Hawaii where we would love to bring kids back to!

and again

If I haven't told you enough, I love you & I am so thankful for how hardworking you are.

xo, Mrs. Slem

Our July 4th

I hope ya'll enjoyed your weekend! I know we sure did. Saturday's weather was terrrrrible!! It poured most of the morning but finally cleared up by the afternoon. We went to our local farmers market early to pick up some goodies! I made this fabulous fruit pizza. I was inspired by a sweet blogger friend with her recipe that you can find here! Thanks Kellie for the awesome idea! 

We spent the day at our friends parent's home on the water. In years past the day has been beautiful and warm so we could play in the water. This year was spent mostly inside chatting with friends and eating way too much food. Once the weather finally cleared up we ventured outside. It was nice to spend the day with awesome friends. 

Sunday was well spent at Scott's grandfather's pool. Again we ate way too much. But the company was wonderful and it was very nice to relax. We finished out the weekend with the USA Women's World Cup WIN!! I can't say I watched much. I was cozied up on the couch reading away!

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend as well! What did you do to celebrate?

xo, Mrs. Slem

birthday present

Our weekend was amazing!! It started with happy hour on Thursday with my best friends that live close to celebrate my birthday. Everyone else celebrates their birthday for a whole week right?? Then Friday evening began my b-day gift from Scott. He took me to the city (Baltimore) which is about a 35 minute drive from our house. We walked around the Inner Harbor for a bit and then he surprised me with dinner at the Rusty Scupper. This is a nicer restaurant that overlooks the boats and the water. The boats closest to us were massive yachts. We kept guessing what each of them probably cost.  The food was superb and my date wasn't so bad either ;)

After dinner we went to Mobtown Ballroom for swing dancing lessons. We had the absolute best time. Scott and I took lessons before our wedding and enjoyed it so much we decided to try again. We are by no means dancers. So getting lessons is more a comedy show than learning any moves. The ballroom was located in an old church. The stained glass windows were amazing! The lessons lasted about an hour and then the dance floor opened up to anyone and everyone. There were about 40 people there for the lessons. Younger than us, our age, older than us, singles, and couples. We rotated partners through the lessons so it didn't matter if you came as a single or a couple. We for sure did not master any of the moves. But we had a blast trying. Dancing with the older (60's-70's) gentlemen was hysterical. They didn't realize that they wouldn't be getting lessons with just their wives so they were so cute when they were terrible dancing with me. I even had an old guy almost kick me during one of the moves. 

I will update with photos of our July 4th weekend in another post!

xo, Mrs. Slem