{It's Greener Over Here}

My mom's favorite cookies

2011-03-01T14:13:00.000-05:00

Today would have been my mom's 54th birthday. In 30 days, it will be the third anniversary of her death. I am actually doing okay today ~ I'm in a good place. In the couple years past, the anticipation of these milestone days would leave a heaviness in my heart but I've been okay this year. I did have a little breakdown a couple of days ago looking at her pictures and thinking about Grace and how much she would LOVE Grace right now - her spunk and her sense of humor. They are a lot alike. They would've been really close, I just know it. Okay, starting to get a little sad thinking about that, so I will stop on that subject.

I wanted to share a few photos of my mom.

This is probably my favorite picture of my mom when she was a baby. I just love a good classic bath-in-the-kitchen sink picture.

Isn't she sweet? :) I love those cheeks and that gap in her teeth.

The black & white picture of my mom with her siblings (& my grandparents in the background) is another favorite of mine. She's the one holding a bottle of Dr. Pepper - something I always relate to my grandpa. He always had glass bottles of Dr. Pepper at his house when I was little. And I included the picture of her with cake all over her face (with her best friend) because she could be fun and crazy.

One simple things I like to do to honor my mom on her birthday, and the anniversary of her death is wear her 'B' pin (for Brenda).



This morning while I was getting ready for work the idea came to me to post a couple of her favorite cookie recipes. My mom was a very practical person and never cooked fancy meals or used fancy ingredients, so these are ingredients you should have in your pantry.

My mom played the bagpipes for most of my life and loved Scottish culture. One of her favorite cookies was Scottish shortbread. This recipe was her favorite recipe from her friend, Heather (another fellow bagpiper). It's a very simple, delicious recipe.

Scottish Shortbread Cookies

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F

2 sticks butter
2/3 cup sugar
2 1/4 cups sifted flour

In a mixing bowl, cream the butter & sugar together, then gradually add flour until combined.

Roll or pat out into a 1/2 inch thick square. Cut into squares and place on an ungreased cookie sheet.

Bake at 325 degree F for 10 minutes or until the bottoms are light brown.

   _________________________________________

Another favorite recipe of her was for Chocolate Snappers. She loved a good crispy cookie (I take after her in that regard). These are really crispy chocolate cookies that are yummy dipped in milk.

Chocolate Snappers

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F

1 3/4 cups flour, unsifted
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp salt
3/4 cup Crisco
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1/4 cup corn syrup
2 1-oz unsweetened chocolate baking squares, melted
granulated sugar

Mix first four ingredients and set aside. In a mixing bowl, mix Crisco, 1 cup sugar and egg and beat until creamy. Mix in corn syrup and melted chocolate squares. Blend in the flour. When all ingredients are incorporated, shape dough into balls using 1 level tablespoon. Roll each dough ball in the granulated sugar. On an ungreased cookie sheet, bake at 350 degrees F for 15 minutes.

   _____________________________________________

I think Grace and I will have to make one of these recipes soon in honor of my mom. (Although we just made Pioneer Woman's Crispy Oatmeal cookie recipe on Friday. I better lay off because I ate them for dinner on Friday night!)

If anyone decides to try these, let me know how you like them. :)

Happy birthday mom! I miss you like crazy sometimes.

What I've realized

2011-02-23T22:12:00.005-05:00

Apparently I am really good at following blogs but I really stink at maintaining a blog!

I have done a few little projects ~

I painted silhouettes of my babies for my gallery wall...

I gave my living room lamps an antiqued silver leaf treatment...

I even made a felt heart shaped wreath for Valentine's Day that you've probably seen all over blogland. By the way, I think this is staying up all year round in my living room. Lovin' it! I've decided I need more color in my house.

And I decided after seeing those trend-setting Youngsters hang a mirror on a window that I could do it too!

I've also been working on a little owl art project which I will show you in a later post.

I even took a Sewing 101 class with a girlfriend.

I also took photos of my husband's cousin's wedding. That was scary. Please don't tell her I have no clue what i'm doing when it comes to photography. Seriously.

(although I do love how this one turned out.)

Aside from these small enjoyable projects and making some space in my life (giving myself some grace for not blogging, taking some time for myself, etc), I've been doing the mom thing, the work thing, the household thing - but not the laundry thing, thanks to my husband and his new days off!

What I have realized...

Apparently strep infection and autoimmune diseases (which was discovered from said strep infection) do not mix...

But thank God for medication because I am clear now! ~ at least on my face, chest and arms. I feel like I can present my face in public now, and I no longer take aback little old ladies in the doctor's office waiting room.

I am thankful it is winter here in the Midwest and I can't wear the knee length dresses that I usually love to wear everyday. I am hoping by spring I will be able to dress the way I want!

I have also realized how fleeting beauty and good health can be at any moment and it reaffirmed to me how the LORD looks at our heart which shows our true beauty.

Apparently it's been a long time since I visited my mom's gravesite - almost a year in fact, so Grace and i stopped by. It's a peaceful place.

It was a gorgeous sunny winter day.

Near where my mom is buried sits a head

stone of a young girl who passed away suddenly ~ I think from a car accident.

I love this legacy etched in stone. Simply stated, beautiful, comforting, powerful. I want this for my own headstone. A message of hope.

On a lighter note,

Apparently I have a climber.

I found this little stinker hiding in his bathroom in the dark with the door closed, in the sink sucking on his sister's toothbrush. :) He learned that cold water is pretty uncomfortable {hence the expression}.

Apparently he likes to be a big boy and do things himself.

and he has a thing for big people's shoes.

And apparently he hates feta (aka foot cheese) as much as his daddy. (He's a pretty picky eater anyways!)

Yep, just like his daddy.

Apparently I love this boy...

as much as I love this sweet girl, who adores her brother, especially when he's not getting into her "stuff" in her room.

Apparently my little girl is a well rounded individual.

Apparently my once neat kiddo actually inherited the messy gene from her mama.

Apparently she loves Mouse Trap as much as I did when I was her age.

Apparently racing up the stairs with your five year old is not always a bright idea, especially when you have flailing elbows.

And

Apparently even though we look like a pretty normal family...

...we are a really goofy family.

{apparently I married Kevin James}

Obviously I wouldn't have it any other way.

My Top Projects of 2010

2010-12-30T00:00:00.000-05:00

I am joining Rhoda's Top Projects of 2010 party. I started my blog in March of this year and my very first project was inspired by Kate's DIY jewelry hanger. I decided to create my own.

{Who isn't inspired by Kate, by the way??}

In March, I also did a few other projects, including a jute monogram,

a cute name display for Grace's bedroom,

and a $3 Goodwill Chair Makeover.

In April, I made a little jewelry display for a girly girl using scrapbook paper, mod-podge and a shadow box.

Keeping with the kid theme, I made this Very Hungry Caterpillar inspired growth chart using decorations I had painted for Grace's first birthday party.

In May, I gave this tall chunky candlestick from the thrift store a makeover.

I also made these reindeer moss topiaries.

In June, I made over this mirror into a chalk board. Unfortunately, I couldn't really find a place for this in my house and I will probably donate it.

I also gave this mirror an easy champagne finish.

In July, I finally made drop cloth curtains.

I also made this subway scripture art {scripture subway art?}which is now in my bedroom.

This isn't really a project I did but in August, I visited my best friend and I showed you her awesome home, which you can view in three posts here, here, and here.

In September, I kind of lost my steam... finally in November I started tackling my tv gallery wall. {I didn't post until December}. I am embarrassed to say that it still looks just like this.

And finally, I shared my Christmas decor on the Nester's Christmas Tour of Homes 2010.

Here are a few projects that I want to complete for 2011:

~Finish the gallery wall and finish the paint! I am going to paint this wall Comfort Gray from Sherwin Williams. The other walls are painted Sea Salt which is a shade lighter than Comfort Gray.

~Paint this Goodwill dresser/sideboard for my bedroom {and free up some space in the garage!}

~ And refinish this tufted chair for my living room.

Goodbye Gold!

I also really want to attempt a tufted headboard - a little nervous about that! I also need to paint my end tables in my living room. I think the theme in 2011 will be paint!

What projects will you be working on in 2011?

Untitled

2010-12-28T17:17:00.012-05:00

How was everyone's Christmas? Ours was very nice, but I am still recovering! Now that I am an adult and hosting Christmas in my home, I have found that it is a lot of work! When I was growing up, I had no idea all the work that moms {& dads} do to make Christmas such a special time for the family. Now I know. I love every minute of preparing my home, cooking & baking, hosting & feasting, but it is exhausting. I couldn't even peel myself out of bed for church on Sunday morning. Here are some images from my week: My husband got 'fixed'{which secretly makes me a little sad}

{tongue in cheek...}

I caught Caleb putting food up his nose {in this case green peas}. Boys are gross.

As I mentioned, I hosted my family on Christmas eve. And just like my mother... in true fashion, I didn't have time to even put my 'face' on.

Christmas morning
~ coming down to see what Santa brought.

Grace had fun talking on this retro telephone that my aunt bought us for Christmas. {Yes, it's a real telephone with a real phone cord attached!} She did ask me how to turn it off at the close of her phone call. :) These techno kids these days... makes me feel old.

We had fun visiting at Pop Pop's house with cousins from out of state.

It's kind of nice to be the un-official family photographer; nobody asked me to make a funny face.

My step mother-in-law collects Native American art...

{bloody mary bloody mary bloody mary}

{my husband and his dad}

A friend told me that my kids are going to need therapy when they grow up due to their goofy parents. I blame it on my husband. :)

My brother got engaged to a girl I love!! I may love her more than he loves her!

Per Grace's request, her "lunch of champions". She ate the entire can of black olives.

Caught my little ornery one in the act. I thought I could out-smart him by putting the toilet paper roll upside down.

Today I am home from work with my second bout of strep throat in three weeks and an allergic reaction resulting in an awful skin rash all over my entire body from the first antibiotic I took. I probably should've called the doctor and switched to a new antibiotic as soon as the rash showed up a week ago, but I finished it. Lesson learned. The picture doesn't do it justice.

{don't you just love when people post pictures of their physical ailments?}

So I am home and I have so much laundry and cleaning and organizing to do. I want to purge after the Christmas excess. Yesterday I spent quite some time breaking down cardboard boxes for the recycling. And I want to start taking Christmas decor down, but I am too tired from this antihistamine to get off the couch and do anything. I hate to not 'do' and take advantage of a child-free home. I'm not sure about other working moms (or moms) but I feel guilty about doing nothing. Speaking of Christmas decor, does anybody else love un-decorating your homes after the holidays? I just love putting things away. After it's all put away and my rooms feel bare and doubled in size, it's like I can take a deep breath and exhale. This may have to wait for another day.

I can not stop thinking about beautiful Edie and the tragic loss of her home in a house fire last week. Did you see The Nester's touching tribute to her? If you haven't, you must... If there is anyone that I want to be like when I grow up, it's Edie. If you are a praying woman, will you please pray for the Wadsworth family? I can only imagine what it's like to lose her home ~ her haven and all of their sentimental items that hold precious memories for them. I know that God has a purpose and that He will be glorified through this loss, as well as bring many good things out of this situation ~ one being the compassion & kindness of friends and strangers alike. There is nothing like a tragedy to draw His people together. I have found that in times of sorrow and pain, either in our own lives or in the sorrow we feel for a loved one, a person can experience the sweetest time of worshiping the Lord. And that is exactly what He wants from us...to give Him our sorrow so that He can bear the burden and carry the weight of it. If you trust in Him, you can fear no evil, for God is with you....through the calm and through the storms, He will never let you go... {this is one of Grace's favorite songs}

Classic Santa Photo?

2010-12-14T14:04:00.003-05:00

This will go down as a classic in our photo album some day. :)

Caleb wanted absolutely nothing to do with Santa. Grace's blank expression cracks me up, too. Maybe I should submit it to Awkward Family Photos. If you haven't checked out that site, you should!

The cute elf on the left is my crazy aunt. :)

Is it me, or is Santa looking a little young these days?

My aunt belongs to a Moose club in her community and they had a Christmas party on Saturday & gave each kid a gift. It was sweet. My aunt, who has always been a kid at heart and tons of fun (my favorite aunt!) said she is going to come to my house on Christmas Eve (when we celebrate my family's Christmas) dressed in this Santa costume.

I am not surprised since [a couple of days after Halloween] she drove 30 minutes to my house on Grace's birthday dressed like this:

I know the neighbors walking by thought we were strange...

Anyways, I did at least manage to get Grace to smile.

Got any funny pictures with Santa?

For the Holidays, You Can't Beat Home Sweet Home!

2010-12-13T22:37:00.132-05:00

One of my very favorite bloggers, The Nester is having the Christmas Tour of Homes party today, as well as Kelly's Show Us Your Life Christmas Tour. I love seeing how people decorate their homes for Christmas. I am having so much fun this year decorating in our new house. Welcome to my home!

This is the front hall entry to our home.

I made the amaryllis before I started my blog. It couldn't have been easier. I found everything at Joann's after Christmas one year. Just cut a floral foam into a slightly smaller shape than the vase, packed some moss around it and shoved it in, then placed the flower stock into the foam and covered the top with moss. I like that you can see the moss througout the glass vase.

Grace loves to find a sweet surprise in her little countdown to Christmas calendar.

At the front of our entry hall are my kids stockings. (Some day we will all have matching stockings.) I decided to only hang the kids' this year.

Here is my living room:

I love eclectic ornaments. I have no theme, just whatever I love. I like to wrap white lights around the tree trunk to illuminate the tree from within, then add lots of colored lights ~ some twinkling in patterns and then non-blinking lights all over. My tree skirt was the skirt from a bridesmaids dress I wore in a friend's wedding years ago...my version of 'shortening the hem and wearing it again'. :).

This year I didn't have a good spot to set the nativity, and I remembered that my best friend's family always put their nativity under their Christmas tree, so I decided to place it there.

Some of my favorite ornaments: The baby Jesus in the swaddling clothes was made by my great granny, the Peace ornament over that is from one of my favorite artists, Don Drumm. The Claddagh ornament was from my mom before she died. Many of the other ornaments are from my best friend. The handprint was from Grace's hand when she was a baby. And I love clear glass ornaments for the way they reflect the lights! There is also a little peek of an Ohio State Buckeye football player for my hubby who loves the Buckeyes! Go Bucks!

This angel was the angel I had on my Christmas tree growing up. My mom eventually passed it down to me. It cracks me up because my husband always says he hates this angel because of her bowl hair cut. :)

This was my great granny's mirror which I spray painted Dove White. I really love the poinsettia wreath on it. Simple and classic.

My kitchen {which we haven't finished painting}

My grandma's hutch which I will eventually paint. I got the birdcage at a little discount store called Marc's for $6. It was dark green with gold accented paint. I painted it Halcyon Green topped with a little champagne craft paint in some areas - like the finial on top. I flanked it with my reindeer moss topiaries and a couple of stocking hangers. I placed white Christmas lights on top and candle sticks inside the bird cage. {sure wish i had a plug behind my hutch!}

(still not finished with that gallery wall and I still need to redo that gold chair!)

Our morning room:

{please don't mind the paint...}

In the back corner you can see a plaid tablecloth. This is my family tartan, MacBean. (For anyone who is familiar with tartan, this is actually the dress tartan for MacBean.) The colors are very festive, so I decided to use it as a table cover. It's like having a piece of my mom with me for her favorite holiday.

My great granny made the kissing angels on my table. I {heart} these.

This year I felt like Grace was old enough to do an Advent devotional. I really want her to know the true meaning of Christmas instead of just consume consume consume. In our house, we love Jesus. A couple of months ago our prayers were answered when she asked Jesus into her heart! I found the most beautiful Jesse Tree Journey Advent book from A Holy Experience. (It's free!) I just printed the paper ornaments in color and glued the pictures to some shiny silver card stock for the ornaments. Since I don't have room for another tree, I decided we would hang our Advent ornaments on the pine garland.

Speaking of Grace, here are a couple of decorations in her bedroom.

So there you have it!

Thanks for taking the tour! :)

Many blessings to you this Christmas season!

I have finally started a new project...

2010-12-04T01:15:00.002-05:00

I was inspired by a post on Emily A. Clark's blog about building a gallery wall around a flat screen TV. When we built our house we had our flat screen hardwired and mounted onto the wall. It was just a big tv floating in the middle of the wall with a low console underneath it. I could never figure out how to decorate the console under the tv. Creating vignettes is not my strength.

I have been wanting to do a gallery wall for a long time. I initially thought it would look great above my couch; however it made my tv wall look even more bare....

I realized after I hung all the frames above the couch that I didn't like it. It was hard to tell with just the layout of the white scraps of paper placed on the wall. See how bare the tv wall is? (I am certainly no design expert...I usually just decorate by trial and error.) I didn't take a picture of the frames hanging up. I just took them down and filled the 23 holes i put in the wall before my husband came home!

Here is my gallery wall now...(well, before I decorated for Christmas). I painted the frames brown, metallic beige, and dove white. I have a plan for those two blank canvases on the right, and the frame above it still needs painted. With the exception of the three big frames with the linen mats & the two matching frames on the right & left of the tv (all Target), I got all of the frames & the canvases at thrift stores.

I still have to have some photos printed but this is a start. I am lovin' it! We really wanted a lot of family photos in our home. This is a great way to show them off.

Now I have a huge antique chunky mirror that was my great granny's hanging over my couch. It was black with some metallic highlights, but i gave it a nice coat of Dove White spraypaint. You'll also notice that the wall is finally painted Sea Salt by Sherwin Williams. (We aren't done painting yet, but hoping to finish before Christmas.)

And here she is all decorated for Christmas:

I'll be posting more Christmas decoration pictures soon.

Has anyone else done a gallery wall around a tv?

See any resemblance?

2010-12-04T00:25:00.001-05:00

(Caleb ~ 9 months)

I was uploading some pictures on to Facebook tonight and came across this collage that I had posted last year. My husband thought Caleb looked like Golum in the picture above. We thought it was so hilarious.

Hope in a tote

2010-11-16T09:27:00.004-05:00

Jamie, over at Jamie's precious peas and my friend Clare have teamed up for a great giveaway. Clare has an Etsy shop called Sparkle Studio and is generously giving away two Encouragement Totes. These are cute little tote bags made with designer fabrics that are filled with eighty personalized scripture cards printed in color on business size, white cardstock.

Who doesn't need encouragement every now and then? This would be such a unique and meaningful gift for someone for Christmas. Stocking stuffer anyone? I would love for my daughter to have scripture personalized to her, such as in the card below: "How great is the love the Father has lavished on you Grace, that you shall be called a child of God! And that is what you are! 1 John 3:1"

Take a look:

She even has manly Encouragement Totes for the men or boys in your life.

A few words about Clare. She is fun and energetic, bold and colorful, extremely talented and crafty, full of life & hilarious, and also married to one of the funniest guys in the world. I wish I was more like Clare in so many ways. I always love getting her family's Christmas card in the mail because it is so cute and crafty. I wish we were neighbors. (She lives in Colorado & I live in Ohio). She is one of those girls that just inspires me. Best of all, Clare loves Jesus with a passion and it shows from the inside out.

To enter the giveaway, click on this link. You have a chance to win two totes, one for yourself and one to give to someone special. The giveaway ends November 22nd.

Thanks for reading!

Let there be cake!

2010-11-08T09:46:00.011-05:00

My daughter, Grace, turned 5 this past week. We decided to have a Moonrock Bowling birthday party for her. She and her little friends LOVED it! (It was great! No fuss over cleaning the house, no prep time, no decorations. I just had to make the cake and bring the ice cream! And they did all the clean up!)

I really enjoy making my kids' birthday cakes. For Grace's first birthday, I was inspired by Eric Carle and made a Very Hungry Caterpillar cake. I found this awesome homemade cake website called Coolest Birthday Cakes (dot) com. It's great because people post pictures of their homemade cakes on there and post instructions on how they did it. I learned a lot of tips from the site. For this Caterpillar cake, I used a bundt cake pan for my cake, cut it in half and layed it in oposite directions. For the head, I used a large muffin tin. I always use Wilton food coloring paste when using food coloring because it doesn't dilute your batter and the colors are vivid. I used Hershey Kisses for the feet.

(For Caleb's football themed first birthday cake you can go to this post.)

For Grace's second birthday, I made a Curious George cake. She was really into Curious George. I went to that same website for inspiration. I learned this really cool tip that I always use now. I printed out a picture of George on plain paper, outlined him in black marker, then I layed wax paper over the face and outlined his face on the wax paper with black gel icing. Then I layed the wax paper icing down onto the unfrosted cake. The outline of George's face was transferred onto the cake. Then I put my colored frosting in ziploc bag with the corner cut off and filled in the picture. I smoothed out the frosting and put sprinkles on the yellow part.

For her third birthday, I made a Finding Nemo cake. I used the same technique as the George cake for this cake. I scanned pictures of Nemo and Dori from the birthday party paper plates and then printed them to the size that I wanted. This time, I wanted to make sure the fish were facing each other, so I outlined Dori on the plain paper with black marker, then flipped the paper over and outlined the image (seen from the underside) with the black marker again. I then layed the wax paper over the image and outlined her with gel icing & transferred it onto my unfrosted cake.

For Grace's fourth birthday, I tried my hand at the puppy cupcakes from a cookbook called Hello Cupcake! This was fun, but time consuming! I think I will save these recipes for when Grace is older and we can do them together. It's really cool because you use thinks like marshmallows, jelly beans, Starbursts, chocolate covered sunflower seeds, wafer cookies, etc to make the forms under the frosting. They're actually not difficult to make, other than cutting curved lines in the wafer cookies.

Finally, my big girl is at an age where she can tell me what she wants. And believe me, she knows what she wants! :) For the last year she's been telling me she wants a Silly Shark cake based on the book The Silly Shark, however when I asked her last week what kind of cake she wanted, she drew me a picture of a cake with a cupcake on it. (I can't find the picture, or I would've posted it). So, based on her design, I came up with this:

I added the hearts because we just love her so much, but they also conveniently covered up imperfections! :) This cake is definitely far from perfect, but who cares. As long as Grace loved it, that's what matters!

My girl is all about colors - coloring, painting, sunsets, glitter. So just as a sweet surprise, I made a rainbow layer cake inspired by a cake I've seen on MckMama's blog. I tried to find instructions on her site, but I think she deleted that post, but basically I just used 3 boxed cake mixes. I split the batter from each box in half, dyed each layer with their specified color, and poured them into 9 x 13 inch pans. Fortunately I have two 9 x 13 inch pans, so I baked two layers at a time for 15 minutes at 350 degree F. Then just frost like a normal layer cake. I did use these awesome Pampered Chef decorator bottles for the details on the cake. These are great, because they're according style bottles which gives you a lot of control over the bottle when decorating cakes or iced cookies.

(By the way, I'm sure if you made a round 9 inch cake, you could use only 2 boxed cake mixes, or a double recipe from scratch, and just split each recipe three ways). I love baking from scratch, but sometimes convenience wins out!

You can see where my layers broke when I layed them down on top of each other! Oh well, just push them together and fill in with icing. It's all good.

A sweet birthday cake for our beautiful, sweet birthday girl!

Do you enjoy making cakes? Have any tips to share? And if you haven't visited, got to Coolest Birthday Cakes (dot) com. You'll seriously be impressed and inspired!

My Fall wreath

2010-09-15T12:27:00.009-04:00

Lindsay at A Design Story is having her first annual Fall Wreath Party here and I thought I would participate. I don’t have step by step tutorial because I made this wreath a couple of years ago, but basically I bought a straw wreath and fake Fall foliage on clearance, cut it up and hot glued it onto the wreath. I really love the vibrant colors of this wreath. I wish I could remember how much spent on the materials. I am thinking it wasn’t too much since everything was on clearance. Some time ago (last year or so) someone had blogged about the wreath placement on the door and how wreath hangers generally hang wreaths too high. She had referenced Martha Stewart and had many examples of wreaths hanging closer to the middle of the door. I couldn’t agree more, so I just had my husband put a screw in the door and I tied some jute string around the straw wreath and hung it on the screw. {I have also used florist wire to hang other wreaths.} Wreath making could not be any easier and you can get such great deals after holidays or at the end of the seasons. I get my materials at mostly craft stores – Hobby Lobby, Michaels, Joann’s. If I remember correctly, I got the materials for this Fall wreath at Walmart. So without further ado, here is my Fall wreath. {I haven’t pulled out my flowers from my urns yet, but I plan to dress them for Fall as well}.

I really love the pop of color off the black door.

Not bad for Walmart foliage!

Hop on over to the party and check out the Fall wreaths and maybe even post your own! It certainly put me in the mood to decorate for Fall!

{sorry about the spacing in this post! I just can't get it right. I normally use Live Writer to post, but I used blogger today and it's having fits.}

Dehydrated

2010-09-09T14:19:00.003-04:00

Pioneer Woman says to treat your blog like a flower – to blog often or it will wither and die – and blog about a variety of things, unless you’re a fashion blog. I don’t know what my blog is supposed to be about. What I do know is that I have been neglecting this little humble space horribly. I feel like I’ve been burning my candle at both ends for the last month. My very dear coworker retired suddenly because her husband was diagnosed with terminal cancer and another went on vacation for a week, which sent our little department into a tailspin of referrals that we cannot keep up with. I feel completely overwhelmed, which has spilled over into my personal life. It’s hard when so many people need [me] at work and then I come home to my kids who need me so much, too. Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE my babies, but as you know, four year olds and one year olds are needy (& quite demanding) little people. And my husband works afternoons, so it’s just me. As probably a lot of you are, I am on the go from 6:30am until I collapse into bed at night – usually around midnight. I don’t get enough sleep. I am worn out.
Last night was great, though because hubby was home and, seeing how worn down I’ve been, made dinner and put Caleb to bed for me. It’s great having a help mate. I really have a healthy respect for single parents. It is the hardest job in the world, especially when you combine parenting with working full time – and you never, or rarely, get a break.

Today, I saw this post from Emily at Jones Design Company. She had a free download for this, which I printed and framed for my desk as a reminder that I am only one woman:

I just wanted to explain why I have been MIA. No energy to get inspired to do anything other than the daily grind. Plus, I lost my camera battery charger since I went to visit my best friend, Kara (whose home I featured in my previous posts), therefore I have no photos to upload because my battery is dead. We’ve searched high and low here (and in Kara’s big city) and have decided we’ll have to dish out the $50 for a new charger. Ugh. (It’s my birthday this weekend – happy birthday to me).

Wow, this is quite a Debbie Downer of a post! I wish I was witty like Ree.

If you are still reading, I just want to say a big THANK YOU for still following me, even when I haven’t kept up on my end of the deal.
Ooh, on a brighter note, my husband has started painting our first floor! Wahoo! It’s Sea Salt by Sherwin Williams. Here’s a funny thing though. I have a SW fan deck (of all their paint colors) and I have been going back and forth between a few different colors – Rainwashed, Comfort Gray, Rice Grain and Sea Salt. I kept coming back to Sea Salt. We originally painted our dining room Dewey, but found it to be too bright (perfect for Grace’s room though). (Hubby bought five gallons of it!) So I did it the right way- went to Lowe’s and had them tint their sample paints in these colors, painted my swatches on every wall, looked at them in different times of the day. (Even lived with them for months). Finally I decided on Sea Salt. I went back to Lowes and had five gallons tinted. Put it on the wall, and…it’s not the color I chose. I realized they tinted my paint sample wrong – the one that I had been looking at for three months. Ay yi yi. I’ve already spent $150 in oops paint and now I’ve potentially spent another $125 in another oops (albeit, Lowes’ error). We don’t normally have $100 to just spend on something at one time – other than groceries! The paint has been on the walls for a week now and I actually really like it. **Huge** sigh of relief because I was going to have to live with it either way. So I guess the lesson is, make sure you compare your paint chip to the paint sample before you invest in five gallons of paint.
So once I get my new camera battery charger, I will post some pictures!
I hope you all are enjoying September. It feels like fall here in the Midwest. I love it!

My BFF’s house – the final installment

2010-08-19T22:54:00.002-04:00

For the final installment of my best friend, Kara’s home, I wanted to show you her boys’ inspired bedrooms. Henry’s room features deep chocolate walls contrasted with white vintage pieces, pops or orange & green, and a natural wood-toned crib.

I love the memory boxes that they have for each of their children.

Kara felted this adorable woolidermy deer.

She found a vintage children’s nursery rhyme book and framed the illustrations. I love how the bright yellow-green and white pops off that brown wall.

I love that they painted the details with apple green.

Again, don’t they just have a perfect blend of vintage and modern?
Not only are they lucky to have hardwood floors throughout their 100+ year old house, they also have this gorgeous exposed brick heading up to their older boys’ room.

This room originally had a dated built in dresser and closet which Kara’s husband ripped out. He completely gutted this room and reconfigured it. It also had plexiglass around the landing of the steep stair case. The plexiglass was replaced with this handbuilt layered wood wall in varying tones & materials. I absolutely love this industrial textured look for a boys room.

Following the layered wood look of the wall, Kara’s husband built this huge closet that houses a long dresser and closet rod to hang clothes.

He took down the plaster off the ceiling and exposed the original wood plank ceiling and beams.

He also built this cool bookshelf into the wall.

Here’s a better view of the exposed beams.

He even built little peak-ins into the wall surrounding the staircase.

Isn’t that such a cool little boys’ room?!
I hope you enjoyed the tour of my BFF’s home! Thanks for reading.

My BFF’s modern and eclectic home

2010-08-17T07:18:00.002-04:00

I told you recently that whenever I go to my best friend’s house, I always want to redecorate. In my previous post I showed you her colorful back yard. Well I thought I would show you some pictures of the inside of the amazing home that she and her husband have created. Kara’s husband is an architect and loves art and design. They have created an eclectic home to suite both their tastes and I think they’ve pulled it off perfectly! Their style is very much bold and modern mixed with vintage antique.

This porch is so inviting to me.
(This was an impromptu photo shoot, and I didn’t think to push the hose out of the way!)

Love that old crate!

Walking into their home, you are instantly hit with saturated color!

This corner sometimes converts into a computer desk. I love the modern lucite chair!

This entry way also serves as a reading space. That sectional just invites you to sink into a quiet spot and enjoy a good book.

This house is well over 100 years old and lacking first floor closet space. I love that they made this into a multipurpose space by creating a reading area and a mud room. I believe that bench on the floor is a book shelf from Ikea turned horizontally.
Also, notices the pop of blue painted in the door jam?

It ties into the pop of blue in the living room.
I also love the print hanging in the staircase. Kara’s husband brought that back from China a few years ago. It’s just that added pop of red that ties in that gorgeous Asian style chest and red club chair.
Throughout her space, you will notice Kara’s collection of Don Drumm pieces that I mentioned before.

I love that the bold chartreuse peeks through the staircase in the living room.

As you probably have noticed, they love Asian inspired pieces. I’m sure this is a vintage lamp that Kara found at a local thrift store. Love that modern lamp shade.

Such a perfect mix of modern and antique!

Moving into the kitchen, notice the slate floor contrasted with the modern birch cabinets and chrome drawer pulls. Love!

I feel the kitchen reflects Kara’s style the most. All of her little found vintage pieces and Don Drumm pieces. I wish I had thought to take more pictures of the kitchen. They have an antique round table with modern white ‘designy’ chairs. (“Designy” is a word right?)

Colorful Fiesta ware. Notice that BOLD orange in the next room…

This bright space is her boys’ playroom. Such a fun little space.

I absolutely adore these old gumball machines that Santa brought for Christmas one year!! {And they really do have to put a quarter in to retrieve the candy.}

I love this fun surprise. The first floor powder room. So pretty in it’s deep shade of pink.

And look at that gorgeous exposed brick! Kara found that architectural piece at an antique store.

The space is finished perfectly with more Don Drumm art and that vintage cabinet.

I could never pull this together! I simply LOVE their space.

My BFF’s city garden

2010-08-11T00:55:00.002-04:00

Over the weekend my husband and I went to visit my best friend, Kara and her family. Sweet Henry was back in the hospital for a week (he went home on Sunday). Since I couldn’t be there for them when he was so critically ill, I was so happy to be there with them during this latest hospital stay.

Kara and I have been BFFs since we were 14. That’s over half our lives.

Whenever I go to Kara’s, I always come home wanting to redecorate my house! Today I want to show you her city garden. Love.
This is looking down into their yard from their back door. The smell of that old pine was amazing.

I love the colorful chairs around the fire pit. (This was an impromptu photo shoot, so we didn’t uncover the fire pit).

I just love the pops of color throughout the garden, as well as the use of art & architectural pieces. Kara collects Don Drumm pieces (the aluminum cast suns on the fence). He is a local artist near our hometown.

Don’t you want to just hang out on this patio?

I love the flagstone throughout.

They’ve made a great use of the space. They even have a place for their boys to play - a trampoline in an inconspicuous place, a sandbox, etc.

Gorgeous!

This is my favorite part! Don’t you just love those blue chairs against that sienna wall?

I love that space. I can’t wait to go visit again! Miss you frin.

CSN $40 giveaway at Meridian Road

2010-08-10T22:33:00.002-04:00

One of my favorite bloggers, Suzanne @ Meridian Road is having a giveaway of a $40 gift card to CSN Stores! Click here to enter.
If you’ve never checked out CSN, they have about everything you can imagine, from household items, to decorative items. I even recently bought a car seat from them and was very pleased with the customer service.

Hurry, because Suzanne’s giveaway ends tomorrow (Wednesday) at midnight!

Entry Way, take 3

2010-08-01T22:21:00.002-04:00

Are you tired of hearing about my entry way yet? :)
I found this dresser on Craigslist for $75. It’s made by Henredon and it measures six feet in length. {Go to their website ~ their furniture is gorgeous!} This piece obviously isn’t as current or trendy as the furniture on their website but I loved the traditional lines of it. I was going to paint it but I decided not to.

I originally bought it for my bedroom, however we needed more storage in our entryway.
First my entry way looked like this….
I still love this look. I love the sunburst mirror with the turquoise lamp and the dark wood tone of the table.

Then I decided to switch it up a little with this seacape watercolor that my grandma painted years ago.

The problem was that we would pile everything on top of that narrow little table and under it and around it. Keys, cell phones, mail, bags, etc. I decided that maybe the dresser would better serve in this spot rather than my bedroom.
So back came the sunburst mirror, I switched up the accessories and lampshade. I hung my dropcloth curtains finally.

{Please excuse the many paint swatches. Hopefully we will be painting soon!}

Here’s a closer look at my curtains. Because we have the landing to our staircase there, I had to make the panels different lengths. This is the advantage to making your own curtains. As you can see, I also moved my grandma’s watercolor to the bottom of the stairs.

Look at the detail of this dresser!

My husband was not sold at first, until he saw this….partitions in the drawer! So I decided to give each of us a slot for our keys and ‘stuff’.

I’m sure you can tell whose is whose. :)

I moved all of Grace’s art supplies to one of the big middle drawers.

Stationary.

I still have empty drawers! I’m sure I’ll fill them!

Now I just need a runner rug to break up the wood a little. Probably something natural toned so it doesn’t compete with my area rug in the living room.
Has anyone else used a dresser in their entryway?

Sometimes I wish I could stop time & rewind

2010-07-19T16:50:00.005-04:00

Do you ever feel like you just want to stop time and maybe even rewind? That time is moving too fast? That treasured days are gone before you even realize that they were treasured days? Today I feel like I am longing for days past. I am missing my mom so much. I so long to give her a hug and tell her how much I miss seeing her. I had a dream about her this morning. She was about my age – how I remembered her growing up, yet not like her at the same time. It’s hard to explain. I've been a little sad for the past week, and I think it's because I found out recently that her dog, Sophie died in June. Sophie was her baby. I'm not mourning the loss of Sophie so much as I am the residual effects of my mom's death - such as the breakdown in relationships that followed, and another link to my mom gone. It makes me sad and I know it would've made my mom sad, too. Again, it's so hard to explain. Once those feelings start, then it leads to thinking of my mom missing out on her grandchildren...and them not knowing their granny. I know I've gone over this before in my blog. Unfortunately, these feelings come up every now and then. That's the ebb and flow of grief.

I am also missing Grace when she was a baby. How did I get here so quickly? Grace is four years old and I now have another child who is the same age as the little Grace that I am missing so much. Don’t get me wrong, I love Grace’s four-year-old self. I love this phase of her life; she never ceases to surprise us as she demonstrates all the new things that she learns every day.

I am absolutely in love with my little ornery Caleb. He’s only one, yet I can already see signs of his personality peaking through.

He loves to tease us. Yesterday he got a hold of my glasses case and was biting it. When I told him not to bite it, he walked right up to me, put it about an inch away from his mouth, hesitated and laughed. Ornery, I tell you. He will be the one that will tease me & know how to push my buttons. The little charmer. I think what I am missing with Grace is that sacred first-time-mom feeling. There is nothing like having your first baby. I really savored that time, enjoying watching her wonderment in learning about her world. Everything was a new and wonderful experience. It’s just different with the second. I am learning that for myself I have to be more purposeful in enjoying the time with Caleb. It’s not that I don’t. I absolutely do, I just have to make myself stop and take the time. It’s so easy to get boggled down with all of my daily tasks and caring for Grace who needs things immediately, and other things that don’t matter as much. When Grace was a baby, things were just simpler. I had less distractions – only one baby who I was smitten with to take up my time, and fewer things I was allowing to fill my time.

I really do love these days. I am not complaining. I guess what I am trying to say is that when I am feeling a little down like this, it is just a reminder to me to savor these days because they will be gone so quickly.

I feel like I am rambling...I don't really know where I am going with this post. I think I just needed to get these melancholy feelings out.

Can anyone relate?

Living room art

2010-07-12T07:32:00.010-04:00

I had a garage sale a couple of weekends ago. My girlfriend asked me if she could sell this huge picture in my sale. I said yes, of course. The more I looked at the picture though, the more I wanted to buy it!

Carrie at Buzzings of a Queen Bee made this awesome subway sign and it gave me an idea. I spray painted the lions with flat black spray paint.

I warmed up the gold finish with some antiquing stain.

I printed out the words and colored in the back of the paper with pencil, then layed the colored side down and traced out the letters, transferring them onto my board.

I chose a scripture verse because I’ve been wanting to make a statement of faith in our house. I thought this verse would be encouraging to me and to others, ~ it's kind of like a family rules statement. I need to read this many times a day - especially the word 'patience'!

I put it behind my couch in my living room and I love it! I think because of the large scale of the picture, it makes more of an impact visually. We still need to paint (hence the paint swatches) and then I will hang it on the wall.

The lines are not perfect. Even after using a ruler I still couldn’t get them straight! Oh well!

I like that you can see the art when you enter the front door. It is a visual reminder to me of all the qualities that God wants in me toward my husband, my children, and my neighbor.

Link parties:

Creations By Kara

http://www.theshabbychiccottage.net/2010/07/its-finally-finished.html

A very unoriginal idea…but I just HAD to do it!

2010-07-08T01:24:00.002-04:00

I finally have curtains on my windows! I stole the idea that I have seen on so many blogs….I made canvas drop cloth curtains! And you know what? I couldn’t be more pleased! I really love them!
I am on a major budget so I bought the 4 x 9 foot drop cloths from Walmart for $10 each. I also got the rods and curtain hooks here since I just wanted a simple black rod with round finial. The smaller rods were only $8 and the longer rods were $12! The hooks were $5 a set and I used two sets per rod, plus two extra hooks, so I had to buy one extra pack. In total, I spent $96 on rods and hooks and $120 on drop cloths for a total of $216 for six windows! The great thing is you can customize the length of your curtains.
One thing I have to say. You must measure your drop cloths because they are not true to size. I had some that were probably 9 feet and some that were shorter. Case in point:

I did wash and dry these before making them, so maybe some of them shrank.
And since I am not a seamstress by any means – I am quite intimidated by my mom’s sewing machine which is currently hiding in my basement – I used heat-n-bond to make my seam.
I measured each window. I decided to make my curtains 88 inches in length, so I used a tape measure from the center of the bottom of the drop cloth and set my tape at 88 inches. Then I used a long metal ruler as a straight edge to draw my line (on the back of the curtain) with a pencil.

I cut the fabric about an inch beyond the pencil line, I then ironed on the heat-n-bond just on the inside of the line.

After removing the heat-n-bond paper, I folded over that extra inch of material and ironed to bond the fabric together.

Here is a view of the front of the curtain. Nice straight seam. I like the heat-n-bond also because it creates a stiff seam which i think creates a nice look with the curtain hooks.

Here is the finished product! I really really like them so much!

I cannot wait to paint!! I am buying paint tomorrow! My space is looking so beige, so I am painting my walls Sea Salt by Sherwin Williams. It’s a silvery/grayish blue and such a gorgeous color! Also, I have a special project I am working on for that huge frame behind the couch. I can’t wait to show you! And that rug really does not photograph well! It’s so much less noticeable in person, I think. And lastly, if I could do it over, I would have bought those grass cloth roman shades for a more natural look than the 2 inch faux wood blinds that we bought. We bought them right when we moved into our house, for every single window, without really living in the space for awhile. We just knew we needed privacy immediately. Maybe some day I’ll replace the ones on the first floor at least.

This room is right off the great room. Our entire first floor is an open floor concept, so I am going to paint this Sea Salt also. We had started painting it a different color several months ago, but it was too bright watery-turquoise! It looked like mint chocolate chip in there with all the dark wood!

Making these no-sew curtains could not be any easier! I do warn you, they are time consuming because you have to iron the drop cloths after you wash them. The ironing took the most time.
Have any of you made drop cloth curtains? Do share!

After 34 days...

2010-06-28T13:59:00.002-04:00

...my friend Kara's baby boy, Henry, is GOING HOME!

{Kara & Henry celebrating 'parole'}

ROOM REMIX is having a great giveaway!

2010-06-27T12:31:00.002-04:00

Room Remix is having a fantastic giveaway! If you click here you can enter to win $125 CSN gift card! I’m sure you all know what CSN is, but if you don’t, it’s like Amazon. They sell thousands of things! Click on over to enter to win. The giveaway ends on Wednesday June 30th.

Somebody is brave now that he is 1!

2010-06-24T00:21:00.002-04:00

He fell out of the chair three times, but got right back up and climbed back into the chair.

Said 1 year old is also starting to walk!

Nesting….literally!

2010-06-24T00:15:00.001-04:00

This is what my home has looked like…even to this day. We have no lawn yet…waiting for the good ‘ole IRS to send us our tax return so we can have our lawn put in.

Fortunately, we haven’t had our lawn put in yet, because a few weeks ago, I found this nest of eggs in our dirt. They are killdeer eggs.

When I got close to the nest, the mama bird quickly darted away from her nest and pretended to be injured to distract me from her babes.

Yesterday I was delighted to find that those eggs finally hatched! There were four little chicks running around my yard with the mama and the dad.

Of course, being the good parents that they are the parent birds darted away again and acted injured to protect their young.

Aren’t they the cutest little chick-a-dees? I am so glad they hatched before our lawn is put in! I’m also glad that Grace doesn’t have to be in fear of being attacked by that mama bird! She not only walked as far away from the nest as possible to get to the end of the driveway, but also every time anyone walked down the driveway, she would yell ‘watch out for the bird!!”

A fun bargain

2010-06-24T00:00:00.003-04:00

I have not decorated my laundry room (it will probably be the last room I do!) but I did find this sassy canvas rug from Target on clearance for $4 ! It was too cheap and cute to pass up!

Nesting bowls

2010-06-23T23:53:00.002-04:00

When we moved into our house, my sweet mother in law gave me two small and medium sized turquoise and white nesting mixing bowls that she had received as a wedding gift when she and my husband’s father got married. We lived with her for a few months while our house was being built and I loved those bowls so much that I finally asked her if when she dies and if her daughters do not want them, could I have them. She surprised me and gave them to me as a house warming gift. I love to cook and this was so special to me. They’re something I can pass down to Grace someday also. The large bowl was missing from the set. She couldn’t remember who she gave it to.
Last week I went into a few antique stores I’ve been wanting to go into for quite some time and wouldn’t you know there was a set of the very same nesting bowls! The set included the two sizes that I had and the extra large bowl. The large white bowl was missing. The woman that sold them to me said that not many have survived from the 50s because the large bowl was used the most.

I hate night time pictures…sorry about the lighting!

I love them! The middle sized bowl that came with the set was not in great condition – no chips, just faded color and it looked like it had rub marks on it. No worries though, because the bowl my mother in law gave me was in perfect condition.
I have to say that I love my mother in law more than I love these bowls. I could not ask for a better mother in law! She is godly and steadfast in her faith, giving of her time, loving and encouraging. I am very blessed to call her mom. And she raised a godly, loving, giving man who I am so fortunate to be married to!

My new coffee table!

2010-06-23T23:34:00.002-04:00

Remember my blue IKEA “coffee table”? Actually it is Grace’s craft table and I only put it in the living room for a week or two to decide if I wanted a round table or a rectangular table. I have lived without a coffee table for a few years.

Well, i have been scoping Craigslist for a couple of months looking for a round coffee table and I finally found one! There were a few options, but one was out of my price range, one was an hour away and had a marble top and I wasn’t sure what I was gonna do with that… and then I found this one!

It was only $30 !! The guy that sold it buys up leftover estate sale items and resells them. He tried to sell it at a garage sale and it didn’t sell, so he lowered the price and placed an ad on Craigslist. I contacted him 30 minutes after he listed it! I knew it would go quick and I wanted to jump on it ASAP! I’m so glad I did because it is a very good-quality sturdy table! My mother in law went with me to look at it. I’ve never bought anything from Craigslist and was too nervous to go alone so she escorted me. She was glad she did because she bought a beautiful armoire for $75!
I was really tickled to find out that the non-ax-murderer who sold me the table is married to a girl I went to high school with! Small world!
I am loving my new table. I was originally going to paint it like this inspiration piece, but the wood is so nice, I am not ready to touch it. Maybe some day. Instead, I will paint my sofa side tables. There is just too much dark wood going on in my space! Especially with my rug. I inherited that rug when my mom died. It’s not one I would’ve chosen if I had purchased it ~I would’ve chosen one more neutral and contemporary. This rug has been the one thing kind of binding me to a traditional style of decorating unfortunately, but it is made of silk and wool and my mom paid quite a pretty penny for it, so I couldn’t let it go to waste. As Tim Gunn says, “Make it work!” I am more of a traditionalist anyway, I am finding.
I do have to confess that I had to take a $30 advance from Grace’s piggy bank to pay for the coffee table(ha!) but I am having a garage sale Saturday and will replace it (of course!).

Much better than that blue IKEA table, eh? :)

“P” in the bathroom

2010-06-23T23:16:00.002-04:00

Sorry for that…. :)
Wow, I have been a not-so-good blogger for the last month and a half. I’m so sorry! Thank you for still following this lowly little blogger. Sometimes life just gets in the way, doesn’t it? I haven’t had time to work on any major projects. We have had Caleb’s birthday, Father’s Day, Memorial Day, plus work has been crazy, and a multitude of other engagements lately. Such is summer.
I did move my 'P' monogram to our little first floor powder room though. I thought it needed to be framed out, so I spray painted a wooden frame from Big Lots with Oil Rubbed Bronze. I found the little blue tray at Goodwill for $2. The moss was from this mini craft project. Since I put a plant in the pot that the moss was in previously, I decided to put the moss in a ceramic candlestick. It was originally olive green, probably from the 70s (?) and I spray painted it with Ocean Breeze, but that was too bright, so I painted it with Porcelain by Valspar. The little bird garden figure was on clearance for $3 at Target last year. The toilet paper holder is just a tall glass cylinder vase from Target that I got on sale for $14.

There is no natural light in this room whatsoever.
On the other wall over the sink I have a mirror from PB that I got at a flea market for $45 years ago! I can’t find a picture of it, but it’s the white framed mirror with the crown molding shelf along the bottom.
I think I am going to paint the mini bathroom Comfort Gray by Sherwin Williams…or possibly Sea Salt. I love both of those gray-blue colors!

{Awesome} giveaway at Southern Hospitality!

2010-06-22T20:38:00.002-04:00

Rhoda at Southern Hospitality is having a HUGE giveaway! You can win a Silhouette and make your own vinyl projects! It’s also great for scrapbooking and glass etching…and much more!

Head on over to Rhoda's blog and enter to win!!

Good luck!!!

My entry way, take 2.

2010-06-15T22:22:00.002-04:00

I decided to change my entry way a little.
I really love the sunburst mirror, especially with the blue lamp, however I felt like it was really throwing a monkey wrench in the rest of my decorating. It is much more modern/contemporary than I normally decorate. (In a previous post, I had mentioned having a decorating identity complex). There is certainly nothing wrong with being eclectic, of course. I will use the mirror in another location – possibly above my bed. I love it so much I can’t get rid of it. I found out after I moved it that my husband doesn’t even like the mirror!
I decided to hang my grandma’s beachscape painting in the entry. It is very special to me and I think the colors go well with the rest of my living room area.

I definitely want to re paint the base of that lamp. It’s looking a little too bright silver for the space.

And I hope every blogger does this….I shoved all the ‘stuff’ out of the frame of my camera in the previous photo!

And no, that blue plastic table from IKEA is not normally my coffee table. That’s Grace’s craft table. I don’t have a coffee table yet and I am trying to decide if I want a round table or a rectangular table. I still have that cedar chest to refinish, but if I decide on a round table, it may not be worth my time to refinish it. I did crack the top all the way across after all. I am kind of liking a round table.
And still no curtains up! I just got them a couple of days ago and haven’t hung them yet. I am so excited!
So this is reality. Please tell me that everyone’s house looks like this.

Let’s go back to clean and organized, shall we?
(That line in the picture is the reflection of the coat closet)

Ahhh… much less stressful to look at. :)

Where has the year gone?

2010-06-15T00:19:00.002-04:00

About one year ago, I looked like this. That is one big baby!

One year ago, Caleb was born in the wee hours of the morning on June 13th. He weighed a whopping 9 lbs 3 oz and was 22 inches long.

The labor and delivery was much quicker & more intense with him (12 hours of labor with two hours of pushing with Grace versus 6 hours & only three pushes for Caleb!) It was also a much different experience…just my husband and I at the hospital and my dad and his wife in the waiting room. My mom had already passed away the year before and Larry’s mom was staying at our house with Grace. Plus, it was only 5am.

Grace could not wait to see her new baby brother. Her excitement brought tears to my eyes.

{Daddy has already started indoctrinating his son! We live in Ohio, so ya gotta hate on Michigan!}

This boy has captured my heart. He is such a sweetheart & snuggler. He is also ornery as all get out! He has the cutest little laugh when he knows he is not suppose to do something – like turbo-crawl up the stairs. He is very strong willed and persistent. He will set his mind on something, such as touching the outlets and repeatedly go back to it, even after redirecting him and telling him “No” about five times in a row! That determination will pay off eventually, right?? He is also my picky eater and will barely eat any chunky food. The food goes in, he spits it out immediately. This parenting experience has been very different the second time around…

{Caleb has always had this crazy hair. He has already had three haircuts and is due for another!}

Saturday we celebrated his 1st birthday! I asked my Hubby what theme we should have and he suggested the Cleveland Browns. My husband is a very loyal fan – very loyal, given their record! He even jokes that he is teaching his son to be a man of faith, because it takes a lot to be a Browns fan!

Caleb did not know what to make of 30 people singing Happy Birthday to him; he just stared at his sister the whole time.

He gagged at the first taste of frosting!

He eventually got the hang of it though!

Obviously!!

My mother in law suggested that we show Caleb his reflection. He thought that was pretty funny!

I cannot believe this year went by so quick! How did we get from here………………………....to here?

My mom once told me to blink and my kids will be graduating, blink and they’ll be getting married, blink and I’ll be a grandma. I think she was right!
I love you Snoots! Happy birthday! May God bless you with many many many more!

Update on Henry

2010-06-11T00:15:00.002-04:00

My girlfriend’s son, Henry is on the mend, albeit a slow healing. He may come off the ventilator within the next 48 hours! I give all the praise to God for working in Henry’s life and providing him with a wise Attending Physician. I know there were probably thousands of people praying for Henry and the doctors caring for him all over the country thanks to tools such as Facebook and blogs. This is one of the wonderful thing about the internet! Not only has it provided an opportunity to keep friends and family updated but it’s also been a huge source of encouragement for Kara.
Here is a picture of sweet Henry and his daddy. It just brings tears to my eyes.

Champagne finish mirror

2010-06-11T00:06:00.002-04:00

I found this great chunky molding oval mirror at Goodwill for $6! This mirror is solid and heavy. The frame is actually plastic and it was a faux wood color when I bought it.
We have our tv mounted on the wall and our console tv stand sits rather low. I decided to place my topiaries on the console table. The space between just begged for something with height, but nothing that would distract from viewing when watching the tv. I also thought the space needed something curved rather than rectangular or square. I remembered that I had this mirror {that had no home yet} and decided it would be perfect for the space.
When I bought it, I originally painted it heirloom white, however after placing it on the console, I decided it needed a warmer tone.

I removed the mirror from the frame…

and spray painted it in brushed nickel.

I really really liked brushed nickel, but I thought it would be too bright and cold for my space, so I decided to warm it up with Metallic Sahara Gold paint.

I simply put the paint on some cotton balls

wiped on a generous amount and simply wiped it off with another cotton ball.

I repeated this until I had the color tone that I wanted.

And here it is in the space. I really love the look!

The little urn below was hunter green when I bought it. A quick coat of spray primer and HW created the look I wanted. I just put some leftover moss in the urn.

My great grandma, Opal made this sweet little pedestal.

Another view of the warm finish.

I found this chair at a local thrift store for $10. I plan to give it a makeover when I get the guts!

I hope you like it!

What to do with left over moss

2010-06-08T23:05:00.006-04:00

I saw this idea for using moss in candle holders in the newest Pottery Barn catalog. (I tried to crop the photo but PB must have a copyright on their photo because my computer would not allow me to do it).

I had this hurricane candle holder, but my candle is a little bare. Plus the space I put it in had a lot of cream in it and it needed a little color.

It’s also looking a little short, don’t ya think? Also, the bottom of the holder is a little crooked, so I have never been able to stand a candle in there straight. I usually have to put some melted wax underneath it to level it.

I decided to give it a little boost with a glass bowl that I turned upside down inside the candle holder.

Like so.

Then I simply put the moss around it to hide the bowl. Now the candle looks taller and it’s level. Don’t know why I didn’t think of it sooner!

Here it is in the very ‘creamy’ space. The walls will soon be painted Rice Grain by Sherwin Williams. I also painted that mirror, which I will talk about it a future post.

Here is a little better picture in the morning light.

Linking to:
Look What I Made @ Creations by Kara

crazy weather

2010-06-08T01:48:00.001-04:00

Have you been having crazy weather this spring like we have? We have had such severe thunderstorms and even tornados in surrounding areas here in the Midwest. I have had at least three dreams about tornados since we moved here!

The crazy weather has given us some gorgeous skies though, I have to say.

Chalk board

2010-06-08T00:55:00.004-04:00

First, an update on Henry. He had a GREAT day today! The doctors put him back on the ventilator, from the oscillator, which is good because they are hoping to wean him from the vent. They weaned him from his paralytic meds and he actually opened his eyes and later tried to smile at his daddy! He even tried to curl his fingers around theirs! This provided some much needed encouragement to Scott and Kara! Hope is rising. Praise the Lord!
Now, I finally have worked on a project to show you. Work is settling down and I am not feeling as overwhelmed and exhausted, and with this latest news about Henry, I feel some new motivation setting in. Also, it’s Caleb’s first birthday this weekend and we will be having extended family over to our house (some for the first time in our new house) and I need to whip this place into shape! I finally got curtain rods and curtains to hang up! I hope to have them up before the party on Saturday! And we are finally going to buy paint too! It’s a good thing we didn’t have the money to buy it before because I have already changed my mind about three times. This whole decorating thing is such trial and error, isn’t it? Especially when you are clueless like me.
Anyways…
So I started with this mirror that my mom had given me several years back. It is a really solid heavy mirror that had a beautiful finish on it. The problem was that it was just sitting in my basement because it just never provided the look that I was going for. I don’t tend to decorate in a colonial style.
(picture taken at my old house)

I removed the mirror and spread some liquid sander all over the frame. After it dried, I kind of wiped it down (wasn’t sure what to do because it was my first time using the liquid sander) and I sprayed the frame with primer and then Heirloom White. I had originally sprayed it flat white and really liked it but the creamy HW just went better with my decor. I distressed it a little. (And on a side note, I can only get HW at Hobby Lobby. Tonight I found an identical color called Porcelain by Valspar at Lowes and it was $2 cheaper! So I may be switching to Valspar, at least when I can’t get the 40% off coupon at Hobby Lobby).
For the chalkboard, I used the wooden panel that held the mirror in. I spray painted it with chalkboard paint and simply screwed it back into the frame.

I decided that we will hang it on this blank wall between my kitchen and my living room. I have not been sure what to do with this wall and I really like this solution. I still need to add the D-rings on the back to hang it. I was just too eager to show you since I haven’t posted any projects for so long! (I already lost one follower due to lack of posts…don’t want to lose another!)

Here is a close up! I really like it! The only thing I’m not sure of is the wooden panel for the chalkboard. It seemed really smooth until I spray painted it. After I painted it, I realized the wood grain really eats up the chalk, and then it’s hard to wipe the chalk off. Any suggestions? Sheet metal? I really don’t want to use the mirror because it is so heavy! (The frame itself is really heavy)

And I do so thank God every time I remember sweet Henry. May he continue to improve and show everyone that God does do miracles!

I’m linking to:

http://todayscreativeblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/get-your-craft-on-tuesday_08.html

Metamorphosis Monday @ Between Naps on the Porch

Trash to Treasure Tuesday @ Reinvented

http://www.sillylittlesparrow.com/2010/06/terrible-tootin.html

http://amy-newnostalgia.blogspot.com/2010/06/anti-procrastination-tuesdays-14.html

http://www.creationsbykara.com/2010/06/851.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+CreationsByKara+%28Creations+by+Kara%29

I apologize - I do not know why the hyperlinking is not working in blogger. It shows up as the name of the link in my edit box, but then only shows the complete url address when I post! Anyone else have this trouble??

Untitled

2010-06-05T22:50:00.002-04:00

If anyone feels led to give words of encouragement to my dear friend Kara, please do so here. We covet your prayers. If Henry battles through this, he will have a very long road of recovery. I know you all probably follow for decorating projects, and I will certainly get back to that. (And I’m sorry I haven’t posted for a couple of weeks. I’ve been so busy at work and just have not had the energy for projects. I have a couple in the works that I am excited to show you). For now, I just ask you to please pray!
I just updated his condition in my previous post. If you didn’t see it, Henry has staph infection in his trachea and a super infection in his lungs. He is by no means out of the woods and the doctors today made clear that he still may not survive this. There were small signs of improvement and they are holding on to that small glimmer of hope.
I so appreciate anyone who reads this and says a prayer for sweet little Henry.

Urgent prayer needed from all you praying women out there

2010-06-03T16:08:00.005-04:00

Update Saturday, 6/5: Henry has staph infection in his trachea. Prayers are coveted. The doctors told Kara today that Henry still may not survive. Kara is numb. Her husband made it in safely last night.

Update: Henry was switched today from a ventilator to an oscillator which is gentler on his lungs. This has increased his O2 levels fortunately. His lungs are not responding to the antibiotics as well as they had hoped, however he is stable. The main concern is that his lungs stay strong enough; they are concerned that he could go into respiratory failure. Today is very critical and may be the hardest day yet for his little body. Kara is very sad, exhausted, drained, etc. Her husband's flight was delayed and he will not be in until 6pm EST today.

Thank you for your prayers!

This little guy is my best frend, Kara's 9 month old son Henry. Henry is a very sweet mild baby boy and he is in urgent need of prayer right now. Last Thursday Kara took him to the hospital because he was vomiting and dehydrated. What the doctors thought was a nasty virus that need to run its course has turned into severe pneumonia. Henry is now on a ventilator and to top this off, he now has sepsis! (blood poisoning) They started giving him IV antibiotics which appeared to not be helping at all until within the last couple of hours. He is now showing some signs of stability but is not out of the woods by any means.
To make matters even more difficult, Kara's husband has been out of the country in a remote part of Bolivia for his job. Thankfully he was able to procure a flight but the earliest he can leave is tonight and he will notl be arriving until tomorrow afternoon sometime. I cannot imagine how difficult this has been for Kara to go through without her husband or how difficult it is for him to be so far away. I should note that they live 8 hours from family. Thankfully her parents are there with her.

Will you please pray for Henry??? There are people all over the country praying for him right now. I feel the more people are on their knees the better!

Amber

Oh So Succulent!

2010-05-19T22:44:00.002-04:00

{image from Southern Accents}

I have been wanting to decorate with succulents for quite awhile. I recently saw some at Lowes but they were $7 for one little plant. Before we moved into our new house, I wouldn’t have thought twice about spending $7 on a plant, but now that our mortgage is larger, we are having to tighten up the wallet and be a little more choosey about what we spend our money on. There are many other things I could spend that 7 bucks on, for sure. (I’m not complaining about my mortgage. It’s worth it to have my children grow up in a safer neighborhood with a MUCH better school system!)
I remembered that my dad had some succulents growing on a hill by his driveway, so I asked my step-mom if I could have some. She very gladly pulled up huge clumps for me because she hates them so much. ha!
I used a couple of ceramic dishes as planters.
I have this little urn in my master bathroom.

And this cute little orange dish in my living room.

Of course, both little dishes are from the thrift store. :)
You can’t beat FREE and virtually impossible to kill!

I was nominated for an award!

2010-05-16T23:23:00.003-04:00

Veronica at Veronica's Korner nominated me for a Versatile Blogger award. How cool is that?

The Rules for the award are:
1. Thank the person who gave you this award
2. Share 7 things about yourself.
3. Pass the award along to 15 bloggers who you have recently discovered and who you think are fantastic! (in no particular order...)
4. Contact the bloggers you've picked and let them know about the award.

7 things about myself

1. I am a Christian. I accepted Christ when I was 16 years old through a non-denominational high school ministry called Young Life. My husband and I are now on Young Life Committee, which is a group of people who prayerfully support and fundraise for Young Life in our region.

2. I have been married for almost 11 years to Larry who happened to be my Young Life leader my senior year. I was in “love” the minute I met him! We had a group of YL kids get together for 10 cent wing night at a local restaurant and he and another leader were there. I had no money for food so he shared his french fries with me. Then the next year he became my leader. I was toooo excited! (I was a little boy crazy in high school). My senior year I worked as a hostess at Red Lobster. His sister came in and asked “Do you know Larry? He’s my brother.” I told her ‘Yes. I’m going to marry your brother. But don’t tell him, okay?” (Sure, okay. I’m sure she kept that a secret!) I had no idea those words were going to come out of my mouth. Larry and I started dating my freshman year of college. We dated for 5 1/2 years (while I finished my degree), then got married. We were married for six years when we had Grace, and just had Caleb last year.

3. I have been working for 10 years at a non-profit agency talking to caregivers and senior citizens about their long term care options. Unless you have experienced it, you cannot imagine how difficult it is to be a caregiver. (I have never experienced it, other than caring for my children. Caring for a parent is so different, though and many of these caregivers are caring for their children and their parents). I talk to so many people who are at a breaking point and feel like there is no help available (or the senior citizen who feels isolated and alone). I really like my job because I feel like I am serving a purpose, even by listening to caregivers talk about their needs and their stressors. Sometimes people just need to talk it out and have someone listen to them. It’s so rewarding when I get off the phone with someone and they say they feel so much better just talking to someone.

4. I love to cook. When I was growing up, I wasn’t interested in learning how to cook so much. I eventually taught myself how to cook when I got married. I absolutely love cooking and baking for other people. My favorite cookbooks are Cooking Light – because they’re delicious recipes for half the fat! They also have a wide variety of influences in their recipes – Asian, Indian, Latin, etc. And of course, I love the Pioneer Woman Cooks. Ree Drummond’s recipes are crowd pleasers and great for guests. She does not skimp on the butter or sugar! And the absolute best website that I have found for recipes is Epicurious.

5. I was a competitive Highland dancer for many years. This is not the same as the popular Irish dancing or 'Riverdance’. The highland dancer wears a kilt and dances to bagpipes. To see an example of highland dancing click here. This is a video of our former 10-time world champion, Colleen Rintamki performing the Seann Triubhas (Sean Trews) for an audience. Here is an example of a what a competition looks like. I danced as a teenager, then quit for 8 years, then started up again at 23 and ‘retired’ at 28 when we decided to try to start a family.

6. When I was 8 years old, I…ummm…killed my parakeet in the microwave. Yes, that’s right…I was playing with my little bird and decided to ‘warm’ him up in the microwave. I have no idea why I did it other than I was naive and kids do foolish things. I had no idea it would kill him…in literally less than 8 seconds. The poor thing. His wings fluttered and he chirped and then dive bombed. :( I was completely devastated! I cried about it for years whenever I would talk about it. My lovely husband decided to tell his family at a family dinner. It was actually pretty funny and now I am able to laugh about it. I didn’t tell my mom until I was in college (or maybe even married!) She thought he died from a draft because his cage was by the window. When I finally ‘fessed up, she was mortified to find out that she was still using the same microwave. :)

7. And last but not least, one night I was sleeping and I felt a funny tickle in my ear and heard a weird ‘stuffing’ sound. I sat up with a start and ran to the bathroom and flushed my ear out with water and a CENTIPEDE was laying on my face!!! Yeah, I totally freaked out and pushed that thing on the floor and punched it to smithereens! I had chills for at least 15 minutes & could only fall sleep with ear plugs in my ears.

I am passing this award on to these diversified bloggers. Some focus on decorating, some on cooking, some on their families or photography. I love when people share about their lives as well as their passions.

Michelle @ Sweet Something Design

Kara @ Creations By Kara

Shelley @ House of Smiths

Katie @ Impatiently Praying For Patience

Suzanne @ Meridian Road

Team Carroll @ Pearls, Handcuffs, & Happy Hour

Erin @ Rare and Beautiful Treasures

Tina @ Rubies Place

Natalie @ Busy Budgeting Mama

Erin @ Room By Room

Kendra @ My First Kitchen

Britt @ A Penny Saved

Kelle @ Enjoying the Small Things

Amy @ Design Intervention

Emily @ Remodeling This Life

I {heart} reindeer moss topiaries

2010-05-16T01:33:00.012-04:00

I found two of these square tin planters at Goodwill awhile ago. They each had mismatching cheap-looking fake greenery in them that I ripped out. I also gave them a fresh coat of spray paint. (This is before).

I immediately thought topiary when I saw these. So I got some foam balls at Walmart. I also found a nice long stick and cut it into two equal sizes.

I stuck the stick in the styrofoam that was already in the planter. Then I poked the stick through the foam balls. I put a glob of hot glue at the bottom of the large foam balls to hold them in place.

Then I hot glued reindeer moss to each ball. This moss comes slightly moist and it smells pretty good too. I got it at Hobby Lobby.

I didn’t have enough moss to cover both topiaries but I completed one (and the second one partially). There is one little section on the small ball that I realized that I needed to add moss to. Oops. I loved it so much I had to post it though.
I had some floral moss leftover from another project that was a deeper shade of brown and green, so I added that to the planter to cover up the styrofoam. I like that the moss in the planter is a darker shade for contrast.

Now my dilemma is where do I put them in my house? Lately, I am having a decorating identity complex. In our old house, we had white painted cabinets in our kitchen which gave the house more of a cottagey feel. For our new house, we chose dark cabinets and our kitchen and living room are in a great room style, so we have a lot of darker richer wood tones. Needless to say, my style of decorating is changing a bit. I’m definitely leaning towards more of an eclectic style.
Once I finish both topiaries, I’m thinking of putting them on our TV console table. Or I may put them in my kitchen window. Or in our little first floor powder room. Or just put them away for Christmas.

(I was watching The Divine Secrets of the Ya Ya Sisterhood).
(Still no paint on the walls. I’m hoping to change that soon – we get a bonus at work in a few weeks. Yahoo!!)
And please excuse all the candleholders. I kind of just shoved them all to the side. Also, creating decorative vignettes has never been my strong suit. I really struggle with editing. Anybody else have this problem?

So what do you think? I wish I could’ve finished them both to show you!
And also, I cannot believe I have 45 followers now! So crazy that people actually want to ‘follow’ me! :) Thanks for following me!

Posting at:

http://thepersimmonperch.blogspot.com/search/label/Made%20it%20Mondays

strong willed?

2010-05-11T22:07:00.005-04:00

I found Caleb playing with the pull strings on the blinds and just happened to have my camera in hand. Right after this, he started chewing on the little plastic pulls.
“No, you may not chew on those Caleb.”
(for obvious choking reasons, I took them away).

think

have

strong

willed

child.

This went on for about five minutes.

Lucky for him he’s cute. I can already envision the temper tantrums coming in the next couple of years.

These pictures cracked me up. I just had to share.

My wonderful Mother’s Day!

2010-05-10T01:37:00.002-04:00

In spite of not having my mom here to honor her on Mother’s Day, I had a great day today!
Today at church we dedicated our son, Caleb, to the Lord. The purpose of a dedication is to publicly announce that we are making a commitment to raise our children in the way of the Lord. Our pastor asked us to pick a verse or passage for our children.
We chose Ephesians 3:14-19 (New Living Translation)

“When I think of the wisdom and scope of God’s plan, I fall to my knees and pray to the Father, the Creator of everything in heaven and on earth. I pray that from his glorious, unlimited resources he will give you mighty inner strength through his Holy Spirit. And I pray that Christ will be more and more at home in your hearts as you trust in him. May your roots go down deep into the soil of God’s marvelous love. And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love really is. May you experience the love of Christ, though it is so great you will never fully understand it. Then you will be filled with the fullness of life and power that comes from God.”

Our greatest desire is for Grace and Caleb to grow up to know and love Jesus and to put their trust in Him.

It was wonderful to have our family in church hearing the gospel and how much God loves them!

After church, we had lunch back at our house. It was so great to have enough room (in our new house) to host a large group of family & friends. I wish I would’ve snapped a photo of everyone sitting at our dining table. I inherited my great grandmother’s beautiful table and dining chairs. (The chairs totally need recovered. They are groovin’ in some velvety gold floral fabric.)

Grace gave me an adorable homemade card. She drew a picture of me on the front with a rainbow over my head and on the inside she had her Ga-Ga (Larry’s mom) write something very special. First, I must preface this by explaining that earlier in the week, she had said she wanted a new mommy. This stung. Not so much because she said it. I mean it hurt a little, but logically I know she’s four years old and she doesn’t understand the full capacity of what she is saying. What hurt the most was knowing that there were times in my life (when I was much older than 4) that I made my mom feel that way. I had caused that pain and now I knew what it felt like. I was so sorry that she was not here for me to bond with her over some of the heartaches that comes with motherhood. My mom and I had plenty of differences and often miscommunicated to one another. This was just another searing moment of understanding her more and she’s not here for me to acknowledge it to her. I was overcome with tears and cried as Larry hugged me; Grace came over to me and said she was sorry for making me sad. She took my hand & rubbed my face, like a little mama, and reassured me that she didn’t want a new mommy. All this to explain that Grace’s card read:

“Roses are red

Violets are blue

I don’t want a new mommy

because I love you!

Love, Grace”

My mother in law said that she insisted that that’s what she wanted written in the card. I love it! It’s a keeper! :) It made me giggle because it was the last thing I expected. It was very sweet.

After lunch everyone left and my husband let me take a two hour nap! It was divine! A little while after I awoke, my dear friend, Beth called and asked if I wanted to go out. Heck yeah! I don’t even remember the last time I had girl time! We were just going to do a little shopping at TJ Maxx and Tar-jay. On our way to the store, we were passing right by my mom’s old house, so I asked her if we could drive by. The new owner has been cutting down a ton of trees in the yard and I wanted to torture myself and drive by again. So we drove by and he was outside doing yard work. I mentioned to my girlfriend that I wanted to send him a letter (because I’m a chicken) and ask him if he would mind if I dug up some of my mom’s flowers, since the yard is in transition and the flower beds are completely over grown. Beth suggested that we stop and ask him in person right then. I’m like “nooo, i couldn’t do that. Should we??? I’m too scared.” She told me “the worst he could do is say no.” I asked her to pretend she was me. :) See? I’m a total chicken. So she pulled in the driveway. Mind you, we didn’t have any shovels, flower pots, tennis shoes, or anything, In fact I was wearing spike heeled boots and Beth was wearing cute little sandals. We walked around to the back of the house and met him in the backyard. She introduced us and told him that this was our mother’s house and she had passed away, and would he mind if we dug up some flowers in memory of her. After talking a bit, I finally had the courage to tell him I grew up there. His name is Vicile and he is from Romania. He was unbelievably kind and generous. Not only did he say yes, but he dug them up for us, put them on a huge sheet of plastic and helped us load them into the trunk of the car! I was overcome and cried,as did Beth, and we gave him hugs. He understood the loss of a mother because his mother died when he was in his 20s and she was just 44 years old. I am so grateful to have my mom’s clematis. We also got some gladiolas that my mom had dug up from my great grandma’s house in Illinois, and some black-eyed-susans. He kept offering more, but I didn’t want to be too greedy. My mom loved flowers so much and there was more that I could have asked for. I am most excited to have the clematis though, because that plant always reminds me of my mom. She had them growing all the way across the banister of her front porch. When we bought our first home, she gave me a pot as a housewarming gift. I had to leave it at our house when we sold it, but I vowed to buy one just like it – in the deep dark purple color. Well, now I have something even better….my mom’s clematis. On this Mother’s Day, I could not have had a better gift from or for my mom. It is so meaningful to me.

This day has been just too good! One last fun thing happened though. On my way home, I saw that my neighbor was throwing away a headboard. No, I am not too embarrassed to pick from my neighbor’s garbage. If she was outside I would have asked her if I could have it, of course. I have been wanting to make this headboard but haven’t had the funds to go buy the plywood or the know-how to cut out the shape that I want. The headboard I found is perfect! It’s the exact shape and size that I wanted, and it’s FREE! I haven’t had a chance to take a picture yet. It has two tall posts on it, but I will be cutting them off and upholstering it. I am so excited!

Thank you, Lord for all of these gifts today.

All in all, I have had a wonderful Mother’s Day full of joy and fun. My husband and I also got to enjoy some one on one time together. Now it is after 1am. I should be in bed but he was called out to a hostage situation a couple of hours ago and I can’t sleep. He has been on the SWAT team for 11 years now. I am mostly used to it, but these unplanned hostage situations scare me. I am praying and asking God to keep me calm though! As soon as I post this, I do need to go to bed because I do have to get up for work in the morning!

Update: Hubby got home at 5:40 am. Fortunately, the man gave himself up without incident. Relief.

I know this was a long post and a bit rambling! I hope everyone had a very blessed and meaningful Mother’s Day!

That’s a wrap!

2010-05-08T13:10:00.005-04:00

Actually, it’s another candlestick makeover. :)
I found this candlestick at a thrift store for a couple of bucks. It was pretty, but I wasn’t crazy about it.

I decided to give it a little makeover. At first I thought I would just spray paint it. Then I decided, why not wrap the base in fabric? I have all this leftover lattice fabric from my jewelry hanger project, my chair makeover and Grace’s family portrait. I would have liked to have used different fabric, but alas this is what I had on hand. And I still love the colors.

I used heat and bond to create a nice clean seam.

I used a little spray adhesive to give the fabric a nice smooth look, then hotglued the overlapping seam on the back. I also decided to give the wood parts a nice coat of dark walnut stain to clean it up a little. I like the distressed look, but it was looking a little too weathered with the more contemporary fabric.

Just something a little fun. :)

Linking to:

Blue Cricket Design

chunky candle makeover

2010-05-08T12:29:00.009-04:00

I got this chunky candlestick at,…you guessed it!…. The thrift store, of course. :) It was $2. As soon as I saw that chunky spindly candle holder, I snatched it up real quick!

It’s hard to tell how large it is in this picture, but the candlestick stands 10 inches tall.
It didn’t look too bad in the wood finish, but I decided to lighten it up. I lightly sanded it & wiped it down, then spray painted it Heirloom White and distressed it.




I decided to put it on my dining table. I really like it here. Gracie picked out that orchid for me awhile back. I have never been able to keep an orchid alive, let alone blooming. The instructions on the card said to put three ice cubes in the pot once a week. I have done that faithfully and it has bloomed like crazy! I think it loves all the natural indirect light in this room also. It’s our morning room, and has windows on three sides.

I thought the tall candle needed another candle to balance it out. I bought that orchid planter at Goodwill. Actually both candle holders and the planter are from thrift stores. The smaller one was bright red and I spray painted it HW. The silver tray is a trophy that I won for Highland Dancing several years ago. The table runner was on clearance at Target (about five years ago).


I’m lovin’ it! :)

I'm linking to these parties:

center&gt

Thrifty Decor Chick's Before & After party



Blue Cricket Design

The best cinnamon rolls EVER!

2010-05-06T23:32:00.002-04:00

I am a huge fan of Ree Drummond, The Pioneer Woman. If you have never heard of her, you MUST check out her website. She is the wife of a cattle rancher and has the most amazing, delectable recipes. The best thing is her recipes are super easy to make! The great thing about her cookbook, and her website, is that she shows you step-by-step photos of her recipes, so you know you are following correctly. I am convinced that she can make anyone cook. The other awesome thing is her website is full of her amazing photography and her cheeky humor. Check out her hilarious stories about her basset hound, Charlie, or her brother, Mike. She has a real way of telling a story. You’ll be reading for hours.

On Sunday, we (Young Life committee) had a picnic for our area Young Life leaders to show them appreciation for all that they sacrifice for our local high school students. If you have never heard of Young Life, it’s a Christian ministry that serves high school students by sharing the gospel and love of Christ with them. The leaders are often college students who invest their time in high school kids’ lives by spending time with them, going to their sporting events (etc), and just getting to know them and caring about them. (There are not many college students who are willing to hang out with high school kids!) It’s an amazing ministry and it was pivotal in changing my life. It is through this ministry that I trusted Christ and realized that God loves us no matter what we’ve done or what kind of person we’ve been, and he gave His son to redeem us so that we can be with Him in Heaven when we die. Ask anyone who has ever been involved in YL and they’ll tell you they loved it! It was a total blast in high school!
Anyways….back to my original post!
We had this picnic so I decided to make cinnamon rolls because I know they are killer! These are the best cinnamon rolls I have EVER had. Seriously! I’ve made them for many of my neighbors to welcome them to the neighborhood. Okay, I may secretly want to be known as the girl that makes the best cinnamon rolls. I’ve made them for food days at work. Everybody loves them! All this to say…you MUST make them! They’re not hard to make…maybe a little time consuming, but really not too bad. And plus, you’ll be known as the woman who makes the best cinnamon rolls around!
I’m not going to give you the step by step process, because you can see it on Ree’s website. I’ll just give you my quick version…
I started with whole milk, vegetable oil and sugar, warmed it on the stove and let it cool to lukewarm then I added active dry yeast.

After I added all the flour and other stuff that she said to add and let it rise for an hour, we rolled out the dough.
Please excuse my MESSY kitchen! Eh, I don’t really care. I was cooking up a storm. :) I am a messy cook. Just ask my husband…he always says I dirty every pan in the cupboard when I’m cooking. Truely.

We poured on the 2 sticks of melted butter. Yes, TWO sticks! Ree’s motto is the more butter the better. I think she even says to add more if you want to. Holy cardiac arrest, but holy moley goodness!

Then we added the tons of sugar and cinnamon. Oh my…

I rolled up the dough. Look at that oohey gooey goodness that was squeezed out of the roll. Yummy!

And cut out the rolls. The rolling is the part that I am not so good at. My roll is never tight enough. I don’t know how Ree does it. I think the trick is making sure you start out with enough flour on your board when you roll out the dough.

I always end up unrolling and re-rolling each roll. I am not sure if I really need to do this. Unfortunately in the process, my dough gets a little thin and i just keep rolling and rolling. The next time I will have to try it as is. The good thing is there is so much cinnamon sugar filling that it just makes the cinnamon roll super moist, so the thinner layers isn’t really a problem!

After I filled my buttered baking pan, let them rise for 20 minutes, I baked them and they came out like this.

Time to make the maple icing! This icing totally makes the rolls! They have a little bit of coffee in them and it is divine
(I got a new camera! A Nikon D5000. Yay! :) I took 778 photos in three days. Yes, that’s right…778!) :)

My mouth is watering.

Pour it over the pan of hot cinnamon rolls.

Try not to eat the whole batch! :)
Check out the recipe here. Beware that this recipe makes 50 rolls! I had one pan left over, so I simply popped it in the freezer and I’m going to use it this Sunday after church to celebrate Caleb’s dedication to the Lord. We’re having lots of family over. I’m looking forward to it!
The rolls freeze great and you can just pop ‘em into the microwave to warm them up or just thaw out. They’re just as delicious!

These rolls are almost as sweet as this precious babe…

Almost!

Now go check out The Pioneer Woman. You will not be disappointed. Her recipes are divine! Plus, if you get there before noon on Friday, you may have a chance to win an iPad!