HAPPY VETERAN’S DAY
Today I want to thank all my family and friends who have served and are still serving. I have two grandfathers now both deceased who fought to protect our country, I lost an uncle in Vietnam and I have many cousins, aunts and uncles along with countless friends who have served. I give thanks for the service you provide, for the things we see and the things we don’t. I support our troops forever and always.
THANK YOU!!!!!
~Nika xoxo
I love Fab Fit Fun, however the Target Beauty Box is new to me. However I am glad I came across it. I will be ordering again.
So guys I have tons of paper that comes in the house each week for the kids, mail, coupons etc. This has caused me to just have papers everywhere with no form of organization. Today I chose to change all that. I made my own file folder organizer. All I needed was decorative duct tape, file folders and scissors.
The way I decorated the file folder was simply taking the duct tape across leaving a slight overage to close the sides. Once I completely covered the folder. I added a few strips to the back left sides, spaced the folders out and taped them together so they were like one whole system. The last thing to do was to mount the folders to the wall. Instant, cheap file folders. Now all the correspondence I need to reference for later use or keep. Will be nicely filed away and off the floor.
I hope this post helps.
-Nika xoxo
Okay, I know most of you out there have children that have already started school. My sister lives in Georgia and her children are back to school already. So as you all know I love my kids to pieces and would sacrifice my life to give them one. However, I feel like this has been one of the longest summers ever. My children do not go back to school until September 6. If you are like me with a ton of kids at home you know the pain is real. I feel like a small child when my husband comes home from work so excited. Yes to see him because he’s home, but mainly due to the children driving me insane all day.
The morning starts out wonderfully, mommy helping the younger children get their breakfast, laundry, cleaning you know the usual. Making my videos if needed and working on filling orders. Most of this time I only have one teen awake and chores done. Getting ready to leave the house to spend time with friends. Yeah the other two teens pretty much sleep until after 1 pm. What the heck it’s summer right. So the older children are out of the house one is nearly 23 and the other a sophomore in college. So around mid to late afternoon, those two little sweet angels of mine. My youngest two lovelies start in on each other. They have to argue, they have to be in charge, they have to bring me into the arguments. They are like a little old couple. Then oh no don’t let Kameron have a friend that is mutual friends with Autumn come over. Because then the jealous mean sister comes out. Mom tell Kam to play with me, I’m his sister. Then I have to say, “it’s ok for him to have friends besides you honey. He still loves you and you can play with him when they are gone.” So my poor son has trouble on his hands as they get older. I just feel sorry for his future girlfriend.
So that isn’t the end of it. Do you remember when I said I begin my day by cleaning. Well let me tell you why. Those two teens that I told you sleep all day. Well seems that they get up around 2 or 3 am eating and leaving the mess for someone else to clean. Turning every single light in the house on as well as the t.v.s and video games. Why? you may be asking. When you figure it out please let me know. No matter how many times I harp about the mess and the lights it never seems to work. So the only solution to my pain is for school to start. At least from the time the last two kids go to school until 2ish when the first two kids come home. I will have peace, quiet, a clean house with all the lights OFF.
Sad that after being a parent almost 23 years its the little things that satisfy me. It’s sad that all I want is a little peace, a clean house and low electricity bills. Well if you have as many kids as I do 6 boys and 1 daughter you will understand this post very well.
Until September 6th I will be in a house with children who argue, leave lights on, sleep until the afternoon, and talk until all I want to do is go in my room lock my door and wait for daddy to get home. Though I wish this I would never do this. I have to be a mom and just deal with it all and love my kids until the end. Which I do though sometimes I have to vent.
-Nika xoxo
So you all know that when I find something that works and I like. I tend to share it out. Well while looking on the page of one of my followers on Instagram. I found this website she belonged to called Crowdtap! So I signed up and already I have earned 2 $5 electronic gift cards for Amazon. I have also received the items pictured below. 
One of which is a bottle of Jergens Wet Skin Moisturizer and the other is to host a Garnier party for 10 friends. Once you get the products you have to complete missions. This is fun and on those nights I can’t sleep it keeps me busy and I earn rewards and free products at the same time. I get nothing for telling you about this but the gratification of sharing with you how to get free items just by taking polls and completing missions.
www.crowdtap.com
I hope you try it for yourself
-Nika xoxo
For today’s post I wanted to share with you a easy craft. DIY: fabric box, this is an easy project that can be decorated with your favorite fabrics and accents.
What you Need:
Glue Gun
Fabric
Decorative Accents
Tissue Paper
What you want to do now is take your fabric and wrap it around the box. What I did once I figured out where I wanted the fabric placed. I put a dab of glue to hold it. Next I started pulling the fabric around the sides of the box and cut where I needed to. For me it was easier to start with the top of the box first. I used scrap fabric I had laying around the house. Once I glued the fabric all around the bottom part of the box. I then started pulling the fabric over the top part of the box. Gluing as I went along. It can be a little tricky but if you take your time it will turn out great. Don’t mind any overlapping you may have with the fabric you can over it with the fabric you place on the inside of the box.
Now its time to place fabric on the inside. I used a fat quarter for the inside fabric and started gluing just like I did with the outer fabric.
The zebra print fabric on the inside is the fat quarter I used. If you can tell I didn’t use fabric on the bottom inside. I thought the tissue paper would be a nice effect. I did glue the tissue paper a little bit to keep it in place. Once the box was all done I put the items I purchased for my daughter’s teacher inside, along with a card and there you have it. A nice decorative box. With a flower accent I purchased at the dollar store to go on top of the outside of the box. Easy fun and personal. Which to me are the best types of gifts to receive.
-Nika xoxo
Hello all my lovely people out there..
I have been going through so much emotional stress as well as sickness lately I’m just not feeling my best. Being a mother of 7 doesn’t help either, trying to run a business, this blog, working on another book, preparing my first book to be published as an ebook, and two YouTube channels can add to my stress as well. For my birthday which was June 28th I received a $10 coupon from Victoria Secret that led me to purchase the two fragrances you see pictured. The smell absolutely wonderful. The nail polishes pictured were purchased from Meijer regular price on them was $4.19 and I had $3.00 off coupons on top of their b1g1 50% off. The wrap bracelet came from Henri Bendel this I purchased during a sale they had which made it half off. For me it doesn’t take much to make me happy and it allows me to pamper myself when I am having a bad day or just need a moment to take care of me. Now there are other things I do to give myself that, “me time” but this is one I chose to share. Everyone out there rather you are a parent or not, should always take the time out to treat yourself. Do something for you to help eliminate all the stresses of the day.
Friday’s are usually date night for me and my husband and believe me I look forward to those moments. We need that time to be just Nika & Greg even if it’s just for a ride around the corner. I’ve learned over the years that time alone with the spouse as well as time alone with yourself should be a priority. Without it feelings of resentment, anger and depression will start to evolve. Once that happens smaller problems become big and out of control. Sometimes leading to regret of the life you are living. My advice would be to always take a moment for yourself, even if its something small.
-Nika
I talk about change a lot on here. Over the last 4 weeks so much has been going on in my life. I was doing good on my diet until situations happened with one of my children and I began stress eating for a week then the two weeks that followed that I stopped eating. Which lead to me ending my diet. I just recently started back up this week but unfortunately I’ve been sick and my appetite has again failed me. How? I don’t have one. The last few days my diet consists of eating vanilla ice cream, bananas and oranges when I can.
Along with diet change in my life, I am realizing that no matter how many followers I have on my blog, YouTube channel or Etsy shop. I need to keep things consistent. To constantly stay up to date with my videos, always post weekly on my blog when possible and no matter if I have one customer I need to maintain new items on my Etsy shop. Along with that I have decided to add another day to my YouTube channel. Something I wanted to do on my main channel since day one but never did. I want to play out things my husband and I go through as adults, my experiences growing up and what we deal with as parents. Little skits that put a funny spin on life. Because life isn’t always fair but sometimes I have to laugh through my pain. The things I share may be able to help others get through a hard time.
Now the things I go through with my health and as a parent along with everything else in my life. Makes it hard to be consistent. However, if I don’t try I am failing myself and others that look to me for support and guidance. I don’t want to let anyone down anymore. Especially myself.
-Nika xoxo
As you all know, or maybe you don’t I am working on my second novel. And no its not yet the sequel to Genevieve. I am working on a novel that is in a whole new genre and more of a worldly realm. The question is, there are too many distraction. All around me is noise, noise, noise. My thought is to get the first chapter going. Once I do that then I know the creative juices will flow fabulously. It’s just getting there, for all of you writers I know you can relate to what I’m talking about. Do I leave home and go somewhere quiet? Impossible because I am feeling like crap today and I already went out once. Do I scream at everyone in the house and tell them “Hey I’m trying to work!” This normally isn’t a problem for me to work around the noise but the issue is I need this first chapter to be the capture chapter. If you aren’t intrigued in chapter one, you won’t be intrigued throughout….
Help Me!!!!
-Nika xoxo
First off I want to say, I hate the cold lets just put it bluntly. I have lived in Michigan my entire life. Yes! One would say I should be use to it. However, I can never get use to the cold weather EVER!!! A few days last week it was very nice and starting to get up in the 60’s. Oh boy was I loving it. Today though 46, yes 46 degrees. The sun is shinning but it is still cold. I want to start getting out there and walking. So that I can start walking away some of these pounds I packed on these last 5 years. Ugh! I can’t wait until May when I go to Georgia for my nieces graduation. It’s nothing better than my visits to Georgia for me. It’s been a while since I traveled there anyway.
So if by chance any of you live in a warm state or a state that has warmer weather than me let me know. I can live vicariously through you.
-Nika xoxo