#BookWorm The Summer I Turned Pretty Series

Hey fellow readers!

Well that didn't take me long. I read all three books in The Summer I Turned Pretty series in a week. Kind of sad, because it shows how much time I have on my hands, but it wasn't like they were a super complex read. The author's name is Jenny Han and the series was on the New York Times Bestselling list (all three books). That's pretty impressive for a YA romance series. I found out about this book from the "other items people bought" section on Amazon when I would look at Sarah Dessen books. I was intrigued, and ended up finding the whole series at my favorite used bookstore McKays this summer for about $12 total. Easy enough decision for me!

The premise of this series is about a girl named Isabel (Belly) who goes to a summer house every year with her mom and brother Steven. There they meet up with another family of two boys, Conrad and Jeremiah, and a mother Susannah. Both families are going through tough times, but have known each other forever. Belly has always had a crush on the older brother, Conrad, but starts to see the younger brother, Jeremiah, in a new light. However she is about to turn sixteen and has become more beautiful since the previous years which consisted of her awkward stages and so more boys start to notice her. This is really a coming-of-age book for Belly and was definitely relate-able for me. I think everyone hits that stage in their life where boys start to notice them more often. Overall I would give the series a 8/10. To be fair, it was a very easy read, however it kept my attention and I really wanted to know what happened next. Honestly, I was very turned off when I first read the description of this book because the main character's name is Belly and I thought that was kind of odd. But you know what they say, don't judge a book by it's cover! If you like Sarah Dessen's work, this author writes pretty dang well and I like her style so I think you would enjoy this series.

Up next on my list is a new series called The Testing. I only own the first book of this one, so I will have a harder time flying through it quite as quickly as I did with this read, however I have heard it compared to a mix between the popular Hunger Games, Maze Runner, and Divergent series, so I look forward to being able to start another trilogy that has potential to become super popular in a few years. So what else is everyone reading lately? Have you read The Summer I Turned Pretty? Let me know!

Thanks for reading with me,
- Olivia

DIY Fall Decor

Hello fellow crafters!

Fall is in the air, my friends! Since I am up in North Carolina now, and don't start my job for a few weeks, I have had lots of time to pin craft ideas on Pinterest to do for holidays and these two I loved! The first is a monogram pumpkin for your entryway and the second is a fall berry wreath. Michaels was having a great sale this week, so I got to it and completed both of these projects! Here are the steps to doing them and the final results! (And I threw in this adorable picture of Nike for your viewing pleasure. Ain't she the cutest thing ;). )

1. Monogram Pumpkin

What you'll need
- Fake craft pumpkin or real pumpkin
- Paint color of your choice
- Paintbrushes (variety of sizes and tip length)
- Monogram letter printed out
- Scotch or masking tape
- Scissors

Step One: Cut out the monogram letter, or letters, that you will be using on your pumpkin

Step Two: Tape the monogram to the pumpkin in certain spots so it lays as flat as possible.
--> TIP: Be careful not to press too hard so it won't will rip the paper or make the paper stick to the pumpkin when you take it off to trace where the tape was

Step Three: Trace the outline of the letter with a pencil

Step Four: Outline the letter with your choice of paint color and a thin tipped brush

Step Five: Fill in the spaces with the rest of the paint using your brush of choice

Step Six: Go over the outlines with a straight edge paintbrush and the paint to define the edges better.

Wallah! You have yourself a monogrammed pumpkin. Mine actually turned out WAY better than I had expected. I decided to use a craft pumpkin so that we can re-use it every year. Of course we will still carve our annual actual pumpkin. For this letter "F" I used the font Great Vibes as voted on by friends and family. This font is also one I used for our wedding invites and you can download it for free here.

There are lots of cute fonts to use for the monogram, however it is also hard to find a cute letter "F", just sayin'. I saw some adorable pumpkins with the first letter of the husband's name, the last initial and the first letter of the wife's name. I also saw some AWESOME pumpkins that were done with gold glitter. Some people did cream or white pumpkins for a different look. The options are endless! Pinterest has so many great ideas on it.

2. Fall Berry Wreath

What you'll need
- Wreath
- Berries
- Hot glue gun
- Scissors

Step One: Strategically place the berries so they are evenly dispersed with your wreath
--> TIP: have them all face the same direction around the wreath

Step Two: Cut off the end of the branch of your berries if they are too long to tuck within the wreath

Step Three: Tuck the berries in the wreath

Step Four: Hot glue areas which are sticking up too far or facing the wrong direction.

There you have it! This is a super simple wreath and you could do cute things like add a monogram to the middle with a thin wooden, painted letter or adding leaves into the mix also. I just liked the simplicity of the berries, giving it a festive-until-after-Thanksgiving look.

Nike was quite curious about this pumpkin

So there you have it! Some adorbz fall crafts that will make your doorway a little homier whether you live in an apartment or house! I am so proud of these two projects (as I am of most projects since I put so much effort into them) and I love that they are re-usable for each year! Do you have any tips or ideas for your own pumpkin or fall wreath? Share them with me and others in the comments below!

Since we are halfway through September already, I can feel that soon enough I will be sneaking out the rest of our fall and Halloween decorations into the Franek household. We also have our first visitors coming in October! My mom and Madi's sister! So we will be doing lots of fall festivities then and will share our adventures of course!

Thanks for crafting along with me!
- Olivia

Wifey Wednesday: How to Save a Quick Dollar

Hey everyone!

Since moving to NC, I have been trying to pinch every penny that exists in my wallet. Duke is expensive, and so is being a newlywed to a person who is full time in school, and so is moving. Therefore, we try to save as much as we can on basic things and we try not to pay full price if we decide to go outside of our normal realm and buy something not on the list. So here are a few ways that we have been doing that!

1) Target RedCard (debit), Target Cartwheel, Target RedPerks (new)
Basically Target is bomb. They give you SO many incentives to shop there. My advice? If there is a SuperTarget near you, do some browsing. Compare prices to your local Walmart, Publix, Kroger, wherever else you shop and think you save a pretty penny. In Tampa, we would shop at Publix and go to Target for whatever was on sale and on Carthwheel that week. Here in Durham, we've been sticking to Target for the most part, because a lot of other stores can be more expensive and the closest Walmart is a lot farther away. So what are these three things that I listed?
- RedCard is Target's card. It can be credit or debit (you choose when you sign up) but I went the debit route. It saves you 5% on every purchase in store and online, works just like a debit card hooked up to your main bank account. It also gives 1% of your purchases to the school of your choice (and BCS is on there fellow Panther parents and alum!). FREE to sign up and FREE to use. No fees or anything like a credit card has, because its a debit card.
- Target Cartwheel is a FREE app that you can download. Every week its updated with new deals. Typically 5% off this, 10% off that. But sometimes there is 30-40% off deals. And literally you do nothing but click on the app and search for whatever you're buying to see if its on sale. So awesome. I've saved like $50+ in the past year since downloading this thing. And its easy to use
- Target RedPerks is the newest in the line of apps and such for Target. I haven't even used mine yet, because I just heard about it this week. Again its a rewards system, and based of $ you spend you get points and points = discounts. Like Target really needed another reason for me to shop there even more, but I will take it ;).

2) ShopKick
So this is an app that I downloaded like two years ago when I heard about it on Good Morning America. I don't take the time and effort like I should to actually go about my day and use it the way you could to get lots of free stuff. You sign up and can earn "kicks" AKA points by looking at their little catalog type things, also by walking into stores (literally thats it) with your bluetooth and location services on, scanning items in a store, and purchasing items through the app (I haven't done this part yet). You don't have to buy anything to get kicks. You don't have to use it every so often to keep your kicks. And its been around for two years and still offers a lot of kick opportunities. I mean come on walking into a store? It doesn't get much easier than that. I have earned I think $60 total on this app (you pick which giftcards you want from their rewards system and they appear on your phone), but like I said I rarely use it as I could. Every time I walk into Target (1x/day), 30 kicks, Best Buy, 30 kicks, Kroger, 30 kicks. It's easy. And free :)

3) My Coke Rewards
Many people have heard of this but don't drink Coke products, etc. However I started using it because we buy Powerade and that is what I drink to get myself off of buying soda at home. You typically get 3 points per bottle, but MCR has AMAZING point deals sometimes. Once I got a free shutterfly 8x8 book for 5 kicks. Costs $29.99 on shutterfly and I got it for drinking two powerades I was already going to drink. I recently ordered wedding pictures off of Shutterfly, and with my MCR I saved $239 and spent only $100. Bomb. You can use multiple coupon codes from MCR on Shutterfly in one transaction, which is what is so convenient about it. But they also have typical giftcards like Nike, Barnes and Noble, etc.

4) Rewards for Food
It was so funny because in Tampa we kept saying "man I wish Moes had rewards". Well some do! Not in b-town unfortunately, but in Durham at the one within walking distance from us when you buy 10 meals you get one free. So legit. Look for restaurants with these types of systems/points and you could save a couple bucks per year. Subway also is starting to bring back their points, we found one while  traveling that is starting the point cards back up. Keep your ear out and don't be afraid to ask people if they have a rewards system!

So those are just a few quick and free ways to save money. Do you have any other sites, apps, etc that can save a pretty penny? Let me know, we are always looking for a way to save!

Thanks,
Olivia :)