There are SO many things to buy when babies come into our lives right? And man there is so much more stuff you have to have compared to 7 years ago when I had Dyl. Its dizzying. Of all of the things to spend money one though, the best thing that I’ve bought is photography.

Around Halloween I was at a party, eating and chatting with other moms. Lots of them have had kids recently so I was picking their brains on what the latest and greatest was. One of them asked if I’d booked a newborn photo session with Chelsy from B. Couture yet (because you have to hold your spot suuuuuper far in advance). They all chimed in and the way they talked about it I felt like one of those moms that didn’t register their kid for private school when I was 4 weeks pregnant and now the rest of their life they’d be perpetually behind.  The second I got home I emailed Chelsy and asked if she could squeeze me in.  Luckily she was able to because the pictures that she got are priceless. I wasn’t planning on being in any of them (a week postpartum will do that to you) but I am so glad that I have a few.

Hold on to your ovaries.

In this day and age where everyone is a photographer, let me just say that everyone is NOT a newborn photographer. I had no idea what went into it until I was there experiencing it first hand. This girl is the real deal and while it wasn’t cheap ($375) I would do it again in a heartbeat.  If you are in Southern Utah, you can contact her here! 

Thanks again Chels!!

The post My Best Baby Investment To Date. Also, Look at My Cute Baby appeared first on Vintage Revivals.

Merry Christmas!! Every holiday season is filled with traditions right? Well. The most exciting Christmas tradition in the Gubler family is our annual Christmas picture. It’s a present for my Mother and Father in Law (and the entire internet) and is hands down everyone’s favorite gift.

This year we decided to take a little time machine back to 1976…

If you need a laugh or 2, you’ll want to check out these other ones. Pinky promise.

2013:  How The Grinch Stole Miley’s Wrecking Ball

2012:  A Christmas Story

2011:  Happy Hole-idays

2010:  The OG White Trash Family Pic (that started it all)

From our family to yours we hope that you have a fantastic ending to 2014. Love you all so much!

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The post Christmas Photo 2014 appeared first on Vintage Revivals.

A few years ago, desperate for an amazing gift for my in-laws,  Court and his siblings got together for a funny family portrait. Little did we know at the time, that it would become more exciting to us than pretty much anything else during the Christmas season. (There are links at the end of this post to all of the past photos!)

This year we decided to take a trip to Whoville, and what would you know,
We found The Grinch on a Wrecking Ball putting on a show.

To make our lips nice and puffy we used grapes (a trick my friend Brooke taught me!)  It is SO hard to keep them in, especially when you laugh. I am sure you can imagine.

But in case you cant, here is how most of the pictures turned out…

Of course we cant have a wrecking ball without some twerking…

We covered our garage door with wrapping paper, set up a tripod and went to town.

And in case you are wondering, yes, our neighbors did come out…

(please notice the rogue grape above)

I seriously love this family and all of the weirdness embracing that happens on a daily basis.

If you need just a little more laughter today…

Check out our 2012 picture here

Check out our 2011 picture here

Check out our 2010 picture here

FYI I will still be posting almost every day this week! See you tomorrow!

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The post How The Grinch Stole Christmas! Christmas Photo 2013 appeared first on Vintage Revivals.

The following image requires no explanation other than Dylan was VERY excited to go to Salt Lake to see her Grandma and Papa. So excited in fact that she drew life size portraits of them on the wall with permanent marker.

How is your week going?

Love  Your  Guts,  Mandi

The post Real Life Week: Dylan’s Drawings appeared first on Vintage Revivals.

*If you are visiting Vintage Revivals for the first time today WELCOME! Right now I am in the middle of a bedroom overhaul and there is LOTS of great stuff coming up that I KNOW you wont want to miss,  so make sure you subscribe! Pick your poison to the right ——–> all are updated frequently! And I hope you will make yourself at home! We are like one big fat spray paintin’, thrift shoppin’ , color lovin’, doing things on the cheap, and feeding our kids cereal 4 nights a week, DIY family of AWESOMENESS in this corner of the net.

UPDATE:  Today’s Nate segment is LIVE! Check it out here!

Ok now on to the DIY fun. This is one of my FAVORITE projects to date. Seriously I am in LOVE.

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Thank you everyone for all of your amazing suggestions, you guys are genius’! The plan that I had for this mid century modern piece changed when I remembered this KILLER rug that I scored at Ross for $20 a few months ago (if you see something amazing BUY IT even if you don’t have anywhere for it at the moment, you never know when you will wish you had it!)  My SIL had it at her house and I totally had forgotten about it. Its like finding money in your pocket, except its one of a kind, perfect money that is super colorful and did I mention PERFECT!?! Love it when that happens!

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Because the rug is so bright and the pattern is crazy bold, a color on the dresser was just not going to happen.

Imagine my happiness when I stripped off the green paint and saw real wood underneath! I was so so excited about it.

If you are stripping stuff I totally recommend using Citristrip. It works great and doesn’t eat your flesh if you get some on it, so that’s a bonus…you know if you like your flesh.

There are a few methods to using Paint Stripper. The way that I use it, is to put a layer down and then cover it with plastic so it doesn’t dry out too fast.

After about 10 minutes I take it off and let the stripper turn from orange to white. When it is white then its ready to come off.

You can use a stripping tool or a putty knife to scrape the paint off. Once you have as much stripped as you can use a stripping pad (or old washcloth) doused in Paint Thinner to get the residue from the Citristrip and remaining spots of paint off.

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I painted the drawer fronts with Krylon White Gloss. I didn’t prime it because I wanted a really high gloss finish (If you use Kilz to prime it makes your piece have more of a satin finish FYI)

Then I put the hardware on.

A little trick when you are placing your hardware that has more than one hole is to line it up and press it firmly into the piece. It leaves a little mark so you know where to drill!

I thrifted an old dresser for $10.00 that was pretty beat up. In fact it hasn’t ever made it into the garage so its forever ruined. These knobs are the reason that I bought the ugly old thing, because they are AMAZING! (Don’t you agree?!)

And now just look how pretty it is.

Can you even believe this is the same piece?

And the best part is that this was such an easy DIY and a great way to add some modern flare to Dylan’s room. If you have an afternoon you can TOTALLY do this project!!

You can see all of the posts in this series here.

Here are the tutorials for the Faux Bois Lampshade and Faux Taxidermy Rhino.

And the last bit of business today. THANK YOU to who ever nominated me for The Homies over at Apartment Therapy! I have been nominated in the Best DIY Blog category (its new this year…I like to think that I inspired it…hahaha)    So if you feel so inclined I would love a vote! Sort of like a virtual slap on the butt for all my hard work. Thanks guys, you rock my world!

Love  Your  Guts,  Mandi

The post FREE Retro Dresser Redo & a $20 Rug appeared first on Vintage Revivals.

I just need to share with you guys what a miracle this is! So many times in the last 9 years I didn’t think that this day was ever going to come.

But MAN I am glad that it has! I have the most supportive husband in the world. Especially when it comes to Vintage Revivals.

He is many times the muscle of the operation (and the brains but don’t tell him I told you!)

Also you should know that the GIANT pile of furniture is only in that back corner of the garage!! Are you proud of me?!

When he comes home from the restaurant and I am going on day 2 in my pj’s he still loves me.

He is hands down my favorite person in the world.

He has given hope to thousands of people with his strength and recovery story.

And lets face it, he’s pretty hot.

Happy Anniversary Lover!!

The post Today is my 9 year Anniversary! appeared first on Vintage Revivals.

I know that everyone did their look back at 2011 last week but I decided to take the ENTIRE week off and spend it with my family. So that means I am a little late to the party (those that know me IRL are SHOCKED about this…cause I am never ever ever late (hee hee)).

A year and a half ago I had NO CLUE what I was in for when I started Vintage Revivals. I am overwhelmed with gratitude at the blessings that it has brought into my life. Opportunities that were never even on my radar of dreams have come because of this little blog. But I have had to learn a whole bunch this year some was easy, some was scary, and some is still impossibly hard for me….Balance?? Whats that strange word?

You know what I mean right? I LOVE everything about my blog. I could do it all day everyday and still love it. When you do something that you love so much and passion is your driving force its super easy to make it THE priority in your life. Passion keeps me up at night thinking about anything and everything. Passion has THE WORST deadlines (I want it done, and I want it done NOW!)  Passion makes me commit to things that are hard. But. Those hard things make me a better person,  keeping a hard deadline helps me with my procrastination issues, and if Tatertot Jen can stay up all night, then I can too. (Wink wink)

Before I started Vintage Revivals I did not decorate. Literally I had my MIL come over and help me and then I would leave it like that for years. The first project that I was really nervous about was my wall of mirrors. I had never seen it done but it seemed like a fun idea, so after lots of encouragement from my MIL I did it. And I am so glad that I did because it gave me confidence to try the next out of the box idea.

Do not be afraid to put yourself out there! When you are doing something amazing don’t be afraid to ask people to come along for the ride! Whether it is other bloggers,  Brands,  Media, readers, anything or anyone that you can build a beneficial relationship with they WANT to be on your bandwagon of awesomeness, I promise!!

You are good enough. Your blog is good enough, your projects are good enough, You are good enough! It is SO easy to compare ourselves to each other right?! Someone tweeted this quote that I LOVED. I have it on my notes on my computer desktop and I read it constantly. (If anyone knows the author please let me know!)

The things that we share on our blogs affect people. We have in our power the chance to make this world better,  to make it happier,  to make it more inspired. We also have in our power the chance to tear people down,  to have them leave our space feeling worse than they did when they came. That carries a huge responsibility, SO STEP UP AND OWN IT!! Make a difference in someone’s life for gosh sakes!

So what lessons have you learned this year? I want to hear it!

The post Things That Blogging Has Taught Me In 2011 appeared first on Vintage Revivals.

Last year we started a tradition. It involves dressing up in insanely ridiculous outfits and taking the ultimate family photo.

In case you missed last years you can see it here.

So, we would like to wish you a very Merry Christmas from our family to yours!

And now for the close ups…

I will be spending the next few days with these wonderful people. I hope your holidays are as amazing as you are!

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The post White Trash Family Pic 2011 appeared first on Vintage Revivals.

No, I am not preggo. But thanks for thinking that…

At this very moment Me, Court and my 2 sisters are on a plane headed back to New York to do another round with Nate! (you can see pics from Round 1 Here) Does that explain the crazy project mode that I’ve been in for the last 3 weeks?!

I am SO excited about the segments and about the opportunity to be back!

So, because I feel super bad that you all cant come with me I am going to be doing a ton of posts and sharing lots of pictures and behind the scenes of our trip over on the Vintage Revivals Facebook page!! So make sure that you “like” it so that you are in the loop!

Last time we were in NYC we did a ton of fun touristy things. Now we want to do the REALLY good stuff. So those that have been to NYC, what are your FAVORITE places!?

Also have you entered the SNAP conference pass giveaway yet? If not then you must not understand how amazing it would be, and how excited I am to hang out with YOU! So please go and enter!!

Aaaannnnnnnnnnnnddd I have a HUGE gift card giveaway from my FAVORITE store tomorrow…Do you want a clue?!

The post I’ve Been Keeping A Big FAT Secret From You… appeared first on Vintage Revivals.

*Hello Friends! FYI, Its about to get spiritual up in here. If you are not comfortable with that please click away and come back tomorrow for an awesome tutorial!

Love your guts,

Mandi

It has been one year to the day since the original posting of My Real Life Story Part 1. It is the story about how I met my cute husband,  how we battled his addiction to prescription pain meds  for 10 years and how we have finally found hope and recovery. It is a story that might make you cry,   it is also something that you can probably relate to. When you are in the midst of addiction you feel like you are being buried alive. If you have not had the chance to read it to this point I would love for you to read it here.

It wasn’t until a few months into his recovery that I came to the realization that I too was an addict. Although I was not addicted to a drug like Court was, behind every addict is usually a flaming co-dependent. I was addicted to my addict. I was addicted to controlling, punishing, guilt tripping, crying over, forcing and freaking out on his every move.

When I realized that I was going to smother his recovery I began to find recovery and peace and hope for myself. That is where our story left off.

So where are we a year later?

There have been so many miracles that we have received. The biggest being the chance that we had to be sealed in the St. George Temple in July. For those that are not of the LDS faith, you can read about what that means to us here.

I ended Part 5 with this scripture:

“I could remember my pains no more; yea, I was harrowed up by the memory of my sins no more. And oh, what joy, and what marvelous light I did behold; yea, my soul was filled with joy as exceeding as was my pain!”

(Alma 36:19–20).

When we finally found our way into the rooms of an LDS 12 Step Meeting this scripture was part of the step that they were reading that night. It zapped my heart. I knew how much pain I had been in. And it didn’t seem humanly possible to experience joy at that same magnitude. But I wanted that more than anything. So had faith, and it kept me going.

The beautiful sunny Saturday that my family was sealed for all eternity in the temple surrounded by people that we loved, was filled with so much joy. So much that it easily consumed the worst moment of my pain.

The Atonement of Jesus Christ has the power to take away ALL things that we are unable or unwilling to bear. I am left with a memory of those moments but I don’t feel pain when I think of them anymore. I am mostly just grateful.

I think sometimes it is so easy to get caught up in the evils of the world,  Satan seems to have so much control over everything. Sometimes it can be easy to forget that our Savior has already conquered everything that Satan can throw our way. He is more powerful. Always.

There are so many things that I want to share will you,  I wish I could share the hundreds of emails that I have gotten from courageous readers that bring me to tears every.single.time. Addiction is something that effects so many peoples lives. If you have sent me a note or left a comment I want you to know how much it means to me.

I wish I could show you the healing that we have been blessed with. I want you to know that my marriage is FAR from perfect,  we still have lots and lots of problems just like everyone else.

When I am having a hard day this quote pulls me out of my sadness and renews my hope.

When in situations of stress, we wonder if there is any more in us to give. We can be comforted to know that God, who knows our capacity perfectly, placed us here to succeed. No one was foreordained to fail or be wicked. Let us remember that we were measured before and were found equal to our tasks; therefore, let us continue with a more determined discipleship. When we feel overwhelmed, let us recall the assurance that God will not over-program us; He will not press upon us more than we can bear.”
–Neal A. Maxwell

I am grateful that I have had the opportunity to share a small part of our story with the world.

I have not yet known the anguish of having lost a spouse. Or the tragedy that natural disasters leave in their wake. I am blessed to have not yet had to deal with the questions and pain and what ifs of the death a child, or a life robbing illness.

But I have had to deal with the common denominator to all of these things.

I have been pulled down into the darkest place that can exist on this earth. The thick black that will suffocate any light.

The darkness of having no hope.

Christ has saved and healed our family.

I often think about what it was like when Court was finally sober. In the very beginning we were so broken, starved for hope and had grown accustomed to the darkness. It was so easy to put aside our pride and realize how much in control of our lives the Lord truly was. I could feel his protection and his arms around me, healing me from within. Nursing our family back to health. Now we are healthy, we are grateful and we have many great adventures ahead of us. But I will never forget the feeling of complete surrender. I ache for that feeling at times.

See, the people that I spoke of just a bit ago that have had to go through things that I have not, are different from me. Their actual trials are not like mine. But all that is unique is the simple fact that we take different paths to end up in the same place; at the feet of our Savior.

Heavenly Father loves each of us enough to bless us with a way to understand the real reason that we are here, to bring us back to Him. I am grateful for addiction and tragedy. It, like a tornado, destroys our lives, and tears them completely apart. Painfully it reminds us daily of the utter mess that we have made in every single aspect of our existence. The unmanageable and complete chaos that consume everything, but because of that it also shows us that He is the ONLY ONE that can put them back together again. Stronger for next time because we have been reinforced with miracles and understanding from The One who loves us regardless of what we have done.

We all have to go through things that surely will bring us to our knees. But isn’t that the point?

I just want you to know that no matter how lost and hopeless we feel, no matter how it seems like NO ONE can understand the hurt that we live with, no matter what type of demons are knocking at our door; PLEASE understand that there is hope, always.

LDS Family Services just released a new manual and started a new support group for the families of those that are addicts. It is such an amazing meeting. If you are in a situation where you could use some support and someone to help you understand how to help your addict these meeting will give you invaluable insight.

The post My Real Life Story Part 6: My Joy appeared first on Vintage Revivals.