And Another Thing...

Whew! What a great weekend!

This weekend was a whirlwind of activity.  On Friday, we went to our orthodontist's annual ics skating party.  I didn't get any pictures of this, I was way too busy eating pizza, pigging out at the chocolate fountain and ice skating with the kiddos to photograph anything.  Suffice it to say, it rocked!

When we got home, we had to bathe the girls and get them into bed so we could all get up early for Olivia's First Communion!  But first, I put Olivia's hair up in rag curlers.  It was so much fun and she looked so cute!

So when I was done, I shooed her off to bed and finished getting the house ready.  Then we were up early and bustin' our butts to get out the door on time for Olivia's mass.

Ben and Braidon served this mass so I thought I'd include ths shot of them and our beautiful church. 

Olivia in the dress my mom made for her, the sweater I knit for her and my own First Communion viel re-made to be a little more modern.

Olivia with my dad, because my dad made his First Communion this spring too!   After 40 some odd years, he finally relented and became a Catholic.  Olivia actually made her first communion at the Easter vigil with my dad.  This is technically her second communion.

Olivia with Grandma and Grandpa.

Olivia with Grammy and Papaw.

Olivia with Mama and Daddy.

It was a great mass,  Olivia got to read the second reading and enjoyed spending the morning in the limelight for her special event.   It's not very often in our house that you get a whole day just for you!  After mass, we went home and started getting ready for the party, of which I have no pictures beacause I have apparently taken leave of my senses.  I don't know what's wrong with me, people...

On Sunday, we got up and a bee-yutiful morning!  Oliver's parents stayed the night, so Oliver made french toast for everyone to selebrate Mother's Day.  It's super yummy french toast, and uf you ever spend the night at our house, chances are, you'll wake up in the morning to find Oliver in the kitchen, frying up a batch.  Yes, he deep fries his french toast.  Yum-o!

Then we spent the morning outside chatting with Oliver's parents and generally enjoying the first really fabulous day we've had this spring.

Good times :o)

Not bad for a morning's work...

This past weekend, we worked on the little girls' room and as soon as I put the finishing touches on, I will certainly be posting about it.  But for now, I want to show you how I spent my morning.  Inspired by this post, I ended up with a completely different project.  It was so neat to see how this evolved in my mind.  You should have been there.

I started with 3 framed pictures like the one above.  I bought these a few years ago at a garage sale and they were up in the little girls' room a year or so ago, but they don't go with the new look of the room.  So, I decided to repurpose them.

I used an Exacto knife and cut out the paper backing.  You can see the background paper on the counter behind the frame.  I just picked up a couple of pieces of it at Joann the other day.

Then I seperated the matte and picture from the carboard back.  I did this because it was too hard to get back in the frame under the staples with the matte still on.

I used the cardboard as a template for my patterned paper and cut it out to the right size for the frame.

I printed out the girls' names from the computer using a "holiday" foint I downloaded a while back.  Purple for Anna and blue for Saragh, of course.  Then I cut the name paper down to a good size, centered it and glued it onto the patterned paper.  I also cut out a heart shape out of a coordinating paper and glued it onto another coordinating paper.

And then I hung them on the newly painted yellow walls!  I am so excited about how this turned out!  I feel like the little girls will finally have a nice, pretty room to live in. 

Tonight, we're going to hang some bookshelves on the wall.  This is another project that I'm pretty stoked about and the inspiration comes from this post on ohdeedoh.  I'm using four Bekvam spice racks from Ikea as forward facing book racks.  I can't wait!

Olivia's Room

We've been working on redecoratin Olivia's room for far too long now.  It was all supposed to be done over Christmas break, but as you can see, we're hopeless procrastinators.  We finally made some huge progress this weekend and I thought I'd share what we've been up to.

Oliver built a dollhouse bookcase for Olivia and I got to finish it today.

Here is the "before" picture.  I atcually liked the way it looked unfinished, but Oliver said he didn't make it to be unfinished so I had to paint it.

I painted the roof with brown chalkboard paint so Olivia can use it as a drawing surface.  I painted the body of the bookcase with white kid proof paint so hopefully it will be easy to keep clean.  Olivia and I took a trip to Joann this morning and picked out cute fabric that has the feel of vintage wallpaper.  We hot glued this to the back board of the bookcase.  We also picked up some pre-painted wooden flowers and a butterfly and used them to make a little yard scene on the side that will be visible.  So much cuter than plain white!

Here it is all installed in her room!  I love this so much!  It came out exactly as I had envisioned it and I LOVE the fabric.  If I had seen this when I was shopping for fbric, I would have made a duvet cover for her out of it. 

This is a banner I made for her a few weeks ago.  I had to wait until the new bookcase was installed becasue the old one was too tall.  It was totally worth the wait and it is lovely in her room.

So, there are a few more things to do.  I have to finish her quilt.  HAVE TO!!!  It's been sitting since before Christmas and I'm starting to feel terribly guilty about it.  I was going to have a friend quilt it for me, but I think now I will just tie it and then figure out some sort of binding for it.  I really need to get it done so keep on me about it!  I also need to put her valance together.  I'm just going to tie ribbons in various colors and patterns on a dowel and hang it.  It really just needs to cover the top of the ugle blinds so you can't see them during the day.  Oh!  We also hung her pink lights today.  She is DYING to go to bed so she can turn them on.  Hopefully Oliver will get some shelve thrown together for her closet soon so that we can get the dresser out and give her a nightstand.  Her room is really tiny and the less furniture the better, especially since we put the full size bed in there. 

I think that's it for Olivia's room!  If I can get my stuff together, I'll put up a post about the upstairs hallway (we painted it a deep, bright blue yesterday and it is quite dramatic!).

A dress for me

Every year, Oliver's company has a big birthday party to celebrate it's inception.  It's a huge deal and they really go all out for it.  There's a different theme every year and this year, it's Clue.  Everyone is supposed to come dressed in the color of their favorite character.  Now, I actually do not enjoy these parties all that much because they are loud and full of inebriated people that I don't know.  I have become friendly with a few of the wives lately, but still...

So, I told Oliver that if he really wanted me to go, then I was going to need fabric to make a new dress.  He gave me the go ahead and I started my search.  Well kind of.  I actually started out at Salvation Army, but that turned out to be a very good move (ahem).

I knew that I wanted to sew this dress from Weekend Sewing (here's a link to the flickr pool) because it is fairly simple and I am pretty sure that the design will be flattering as it will emphasize my waist, which is still my smallest part.  The pattern calls for 3 yards of lightwieght fabric and I stumbled upon a 4 yard chunk of this fabric at Salvation Army.  Now, does that say Mrs. Peacock" or what?

I'm very excited about this and I can't wait to get started on it.  Blue is always my best color, along with this fun print, I think it will be a hit! 

PS If you never hear about this project again, you can asume that it was a major fail.  If that's the case, don't ask!

Birthday present for Mama

My mother has recently started knitting again and has been lamenting that I'm loaning her all the stuff she needs, so I decided to put together a little knitting kit for her birthday.  Olivia and I went to the fabric store and picked out two different fat quarters to sew up into this little project bag.

(I know this picture is super blurry inside the bag and I am realy sorry for that!) 

I filled the bag with some yarn, circular needles, a tiny pair of scissors, a needle/knitting gauge/ruler thing and some stitch markers.  Now she's all set to knit with her own stuff! 

 

 

Stylin' Up the Kitchen :: Thrifting Beauty

I found this lovely thing at Salvation Army a couple of weeks ago and could not pass it up.  This beautiful example of craftiness was just sitting on the shelf with a $2.99 price tag.  I don't cross stitch anymore, but I once did a HUGE wedding sampler for Ben's aunt and uncle and it took me forever.  So I know that this sampler must have taken hours and hours of work to complete and for whatever reason, ended up abandoned at a second hand store.  Not only is it perfect for my kitchen, it has just the right amount of color and whimsy to make me happy, but I also instantly recognized that it needed a home where it would be admired and loved and appreciated for the work of art and heart that it is.  So, now it is lovingly hung on the wall, waiting for a calmer time when I can properly mount, mat and frame it.  And I promise that a much better kitchen update is following as soon as I can keep it clean long enough to take pictures!

Wall Ensemble Tutorial

I put together this really quick, no-sew, super cute wall emsemble today after I found the main fabric at JoAnn.  As soon as I saw it, I knew it belonged in my kitchen.

 

It was so easy that I thought I would write up a little tutorial so you all can try it if you want.  You'll need:

• fabric scraps big enough for embroidery hoops
• 1 embroidery hoop for each fabric (I used all different sizes, but you could do any combo)
• hot glue gun and glue sticks
• scissors 

Lay out your fabric with the embroidery hoops and make sure you have enough fabric.

Place the fabric on top of the inner hoop and then place the outer hoop over the fabric.  Tighten the screw at the top to secure the fabric.  Gently pull on the fabric to make it taught and tighten the screw again.

Turn the hoop back over and apply hot glue all the way around the edge of the inner hoop, pressing the fabric onto it as you go.

Cut the fabric close to the hoop all the way around.
 
Hang  you beautiful new wall hangings on the wall and enjoy!

See, that was so easy!  Hopefully these instructions make sense, let me know if you have any trouble.

Maker Faire Fun :: The Purl Street Scarf Project

We were so excited when we happened on to the Purl St. Scarf Project booth!  I had not heard of this porject before, but once we knew what was going on, we just had to participate.  Olivia, Anna and I all knit a little bit for the scarf.  The ladies manning the booth were so happy to have the girls help out, they thought it was really neat that they just grabbed some yarn and needles and got to work.  Anna picked a scarf peice that had rather long rows, but she was determined to finishe the row, and she did!  She sat there for a good 20 minutes repeating her little knitting poem over and over again until she had finished her row.  Of course, Olivia snatched up the first pink fuzzy yarn she laid eyes on and got through about 3 rows.  I am so happy that the girls got to take part in this project.  Soon, we'll be able to go visit it and they will be able to see that they helped create something that made the world a little more beautiful and fun.

A busy morning

Olivia has recently discovered a passion for embroidery.  Until this morning, she had been doing lots of free-hand stitching, but she expressed an interest in "doing a picture".  I asked her what she wanted to stitch and she told me that she thought a tiger hunting in the jungle sounded manageable.  I suggested that she start a tiny bit simpler (like with something either of us could actually draw!), perhaps a house?  This was acceptable, so I drew the house on the fabric and off she went!  She's almost done at this point and we'll be sure to feature it when it's done.

Anna has been diligently working on learning the alphabet and can frequently be seen drawing in her purple Alphabet Adventure book.  For whatever letter we are on (I think it's currently "L") we read the corresponding chapter in The Wise Enchanter and then look at the letter and drawings in the Waldorf Alphabet Book and then I draw the letter in her purple book and she draws pictures of things that start with that letter.  We only do this when she initiates it and since we started last fall and we're only on "L", you can see that we're not moving at a rapid pace.

Saragh found some chalk and a stick and was happy for almost an hour.  Her chalk and her stick both had names, distinct personalities and malicious agendas for taking over the world.  For those of you who know Saragh well, this should not surprise you.

We came inside a little while later and I was almost ready to cave in to a movie (it was quite humid and sticky) when I happened to see Hip Mountain Mama tweet about this blog post.  I flew into action and captivated the girls by keeping the end result a secret.  When we got out to the front porch, clad in bare feet and paint smocks, I gave them the paint and brushes and then didn't hear a thing from them for over an hour!

Now, that's what I call a busy, happy and successful morning!  Today, we're headed out to pick a mega-load of blueberries!  What are your plans?
 

Total Knock-off

First, I have to give credit where credit is due, I completely copied this project from this blog.  The minute I saw it, I knew that Oliver had to have it.

After years of begging, I finally got him to purchase a Mac for our home computer.  He was very skeptical, but he humored me.  Within a year of purchasing our iMac, he had totally switched all his computers from PC to Mac and he'll never go back.  I warned him.  Well, he also recently got a new office at work that definitely needs some coloring up, so I made this for him.