Just a Monday round-up of things I like…

First, I am so excited that Sarah, who contributed her magnificent button tree to Button It Up, is offering up an amazing giveaway: she has made another button tree and will be giving it away to one lucky blog reader! Hurry over to her Let’s Celebrate post and comment to enter to win. Her adorable son Jack is showing off her beautiful project in the book here — I love this picture so much. Yay, Jack!

Speaking of giveaways, tomorrow is the deadline for my books and buttons contest, too — please swing by and tell me a little story about buttons before midnight tomorrow and I’ll draw the four winners on Wednesday morning. Thank you again to everyone who’s commented so far!

Also — I have a new mini-tutorial up at CraftStylish, how to make pet photo magnets, if you want to check it out.

This was a fun one to do — not only did I get to spotlight Sarah‘s Saoirse and Caitlin‘s Patches, it was such a cool throwback to the good old pink-and-brown getcrafty days (1999-2000-2001). It reminded me so much of having friends over to our old apartment on 20th to cut up magazines and glue endless sets of marble magnets together. Good times! Anyway, it is a fun and easy little project to do, whether you use photos, art paper, magazines, color-copied fabric, or your own drawings… you name it, it looks pretty good under glass.

Last, I took this little ten-second video last weekend when we were in Salem for the Sesquicentennial party.

I am a pretty terrible gardener, all I successfully pulled off last summer was a bumper crop of zinnias, but this really makes me want to try some kind of ornamental shrubbery I can turn into letters to adorn our yard. Maybe spelling out P-E-A-R-L?

Props to the Salem Area Garden Club for such a lovely example of state pride!