Crickets Chirping

Lately, the majority of my comments on this blog have been from spammers, one even in an Asian alphabet!  Don’t try to look, I’ve deleted most of them.

It sounds to me like crickets chirping.  Life is different this year.  More than ever the family needs more of my focus.  The sewing has slowed down.  The crafting is happening only when I have an excuse.

So this blog will be taking a break.  I don’t know if it will be permanent.

Many thanks to you non-spammers for visiting and especially those who commented.  I will be “living” elsewhere.  If you are interested, just ask.  Or do a little detective work.

Twins

Loose Ends

I have a couple of projects that I started or didn’t quite start from many months ago.  Today I finished this one:

It will be perfect for a trip we will be taking soon…

And just thought I’d share another photo I took at the same time for another reason (Dad helping out with sales at the office).  Here is our little Daisy Scout with her cookie order form.  Wouldn’t you buy from her?

DIY Mat

Thanks to much encouragement from Sarah, I built up the confidence to try making my own custom mat to hold two 5x7 photos.  I’m happy to report that I was able to do it and it doesn’t look too bad.  It certainly isn’t perfect, but from a distance it is not too bad at all. 

I found this 11x14 frame at Target, instead of having to wait for them to go on sale at Kohls.  I think the price would probably be similar if I had.  It matches the other frames perfectly.  I thought I had bought a small piece of mat board at Hobby Lobby, but had actually picked up a piece of illustration board.  No matter, it still looks ok.

I just measured the openings out on the back of the board using my clear plastic quilting ruler.  Remember, measure twice, cut once.  Then used an exactoknife along the straight edge of the ruler to make the cuts.  I spent as much time as needed to make each cut, not rushing things and making sure to get the best corners possible.

And her is the final arrangement.  At least until I decide it needs some more tweaking.  Such as, maybe it could use some layering…

 

Girly Valance Reveal

Well, I really don’t know when I’ll have the time to right out the full tutorial anytime soon, so I’ll just show you what I made and save the tutorial for a later post (maybe!).

I had originally made these sheer lavender panels for Ella’s window. It’s not that I don’t like them, though the way they blended in with the wall paint was starting to bug me. The main problem was that right tie back. When Ella was younger, she’d keep tugging on it until it would pull the hardware out of the wall. Several holes are now in the wall (not noticeable in this picture though). And I gave up. So that panel has been hanging there like that for a while now.

I decided to avoid panels all together when thinking of a new window treatment. And went with a valance. I saw this basic style on the internet and thought that the Church Flowers in Pink fabric from Heather Bailey’s new Nicey Jane line would be a perfect contrast to the walls. It also kinda of compliments the spread, though I’m curious if she really needs a new quilt made out of fabric from this line. ;-)

One more closer shot. I never would have ever thought to use a non-decorator weight fabric for any form of window treatment, but by using a sturdy drapery lining fabric as an interlining (50% off this week at Hob Lob), I feel ok about it. By the way, I have learned that I will always use the lining fabric for all of my window treatments in the future, unless they are sheers of course. It just adds so much structure and weight to the finished piece.

Next up on the home dec. front involves making this 16 yard role of upholstery fabric into something… Lucky for us, the fabric was 70% off at our local candy store Loomcraft.

This project was linked at:

Hoop It UP

I’m so excited to brag about my friend Jen of tailspinhoops!  You may have seen me post about buying a hoop from her and her generous offer to gift one to me as a thank-you for letting them use the design I had custom made for my daughter as a regular item in their store. She and her boyfriend Jack are the creators and business partners behind the scenes at tailspin.  Well to get to the good part, tailspinhoops has been featured on Offbeat Brides!

 

Isn’t she so darn cute?

If you’ve been looking for a fun exercise or just something fun and new to do, consider hoop dance and order your hoop today!  Jen can help you pick out a hoop dance instruction video that is right for you.  She might even be able to help you find a local class.

Jen is super sweet and very accommodating.  She works full time and runs the hoop business with Jack.  She’s also a very loving and devoted mommy to 2 sweet cats and soon to be to 2 more (if not already).  I met Jen through the swing dance community, which is really a global community.  I’ve only met her briefly, very briefly once.  But have really enjoyed keeping up with her life and getting to know her over the years online.  She currently lives in Philadelphia, which explains why we don’t get together more regularly.  Ha!

New Little Nook

Yesterday I finished a sewing project, for the house.  I took photos all along the way hoping to write it up into a tutorial.  That’s not going to happen today.  I’ve been having trouble breathing and have developed a cough.  Not much sleep for the past 3 nights.  Turns out I have bronchitis.  So I’m hoping to lay low for a bit until I feel better.  For now, here’s a peak at my new sewing corner.  I’ve had the machine in the basement right across from the computer.  Two bad things.  I don’t like not being in view of the sunlight and being so near the computer while sewing is distracting sometimes.  So I moved the machine and cabinet and a few other sewing items up to a corner in the guest room.  Because the guest room, it rarely gets used for guests anyway.  It’s pretty much a pretty laundry folding room.

I think I’m going to like this new arrangement.

A New Arrangement

We have a couple of ledges in our family room that we got a long time ago for displaying older, significant family photos. I’ve enjoyed having them up, but I’ve wanted to tweak them a bit. For the longest time.

I think what really prompted me to finally do something about it was this FAMILY “plaque” my dad made and gave us for Christmas:

I was searching for a place for it and finally could see it working with these photos. But in order to still see the photos, I would have to go forward with my long overdue plan. To mat them. (Therefore the plaque would not cover as much of the photos and you could see FAMILY better with the white mat background.) And with that, I wanted all coordinating frames.

Plus, I had also recently scanned a wedding photo of Jason’s parents finally to match a little better with the theme (older photos – we had a more recent pic of them up). I also photoshopped out the original background and put in a dark tan one (along with some clearing and brightening up), again to add a little more consistency amongst the photos. Took some time to figure out, but not too bad, huh?

For Jason’s grandparents and aunt (who was like a grandma to him), I wanted to convert them all to black and white, like my grandparents’ photos. So I scanned those as well, resized them and made them grayscale. A little photoshop again in some places to take out noise.

I did quite a bit of searching to find the two larger frames (Kohl’s). We had the 3 opening 4x6 frames already. Now I’d like to get a 2 opening mat for the 2 5x7 photos. I can find one at Pottery Barn with a similar frame style. In fact we already own one. The problem is that the mat is cream and would not match the others. I have looked around for just a WHITE mat with 2 5x7 openings and cannot find one, so I’m going to find out if a craft store can custom cut one for me for not too much moola. And it would then fit into an 11x14 frame. For now, this is how it is. I found the little ceramic birdie on clearance at Joann’s. I thought I wanted to put it in our dining room hutch, but she looks really great here, I think!

I've linked this post over at Thrifty Decor Chick's Before and After party!

One Word Resolution?

Have you read this yet?  I had heard about it, but did not purposely set out to think about what my one word resolution should be.  But, as usual, my subconscious brain decided to go to work at it anyway.  The word that it came up with was INITIATE.

In my mind is the guitar I got for a birthday present that I’d like to do something with (relearn and practice for instance).  The new hula hoop sweet Jen (from TailspinHoops) sent me at Christmas along with the Hoopdance video I bought are beckoning to me.  A decision about something sorta big wants to be researched and made this year.  A vacation needs to be planned.  Home projects are waiting for me.  I can go on and on.

If you had to choose, what would be your one word resolution?  And why?

So We Thought Christmas Was Over

But… we forgot we didn’t exchange gifts with Jason’s brother Scott!

We went down to the city (Chicago – Lincoln Park) last Wed.  It was our first time visiting his new apartment which is located right across the street from the Lincoln Park Zoo.  We all went over to enjoy “Zoo Lights”.

The front lobby of Scott’s apartment building (it used to be a hotel).  Isn’t it pretty!

Miles in Scott’s apartment.  He just looked so cute in his new hat made by his Grandma.

 

Scott’s Christmas tree.

 

A preview of something we’ll be doing in 2010?

 

Ice Sculptures

  

Cold, but fun!

 

Then, though we did not go to Jason’s family friends party, some folks sent along some gifts for us and the kids.  Boy did they like these, hot chocolate mug sets.  And of course, Miles got the Cars set!

Anyone else taking advantage of after Christmas sales?

Here are a few nice ones…

Hanna Anderson

Boden

Childrens Place (got some Christmas presents for next year already!)

I’m sure there are more out there, but I’m going to stop looking in case I find more things we “need”.

Old Friend

Monday I got to see a good friend that I’ve known since high school.  Even though we went to different colleges, they were about 30 minutes away and we took frequent trips to visit each other.  When she moved to Arizona, we still kept in touch and visited each other.  Then she lived in a few other states and there was a time we were not in touch as well as we once had been.

But recently she has gone through a rough life event and I’ve tried to be the best friend I’ve known how to be for her.  Even though she now lives in Colorado.  It was so great to see her and watch our kids having fun together.  I’ll miss her, but at least I know we will continue to keep in touch!

Tea Bag Thank You Notes

Because I can’t seem to make things easy on myself and buy pre-made Thank You note cards… I went ahead with an idea I had to make “Tea Bag Thank You Note Cards” for the attendees of Ella’s birthday tea party.

They are really quite easy, all you need are:

• 12x6 piece of decorative paper (per packet)
• Pre-made template for tea bag packet
• String (I used size 5 white DMC Cotton Perle)
• Decorative Paper (size of your choice) for note
• Small printed tags for tea bag tag
• Stapler
• Rubber cement, or other glue of choice

It’s really quite easy to make your own template for the packet. The measurements are as shown below. And of course you can scale the dimensions to your liking.

Once I drew out the template with a ruler and straight edge, I cut it out to use to trace on the back of the decorative paper.

Here I’m using the template just to show how to fold the packets. First fold the bottom rectangular flap up with decorative side of paper on the outside.

Next fold in side flaps. Fold them back out and apply glue to their insides. Fold back down and set under a heavy book until glue sets.

When dry, you can fold down the top flap. I did not glue this after inserting the note, but that is up to you.

Ella filled out a piece of paper with her thank-you to each child. Then I stapled a string to it. The other side of the string was then stapled to the tag which I printed up with a tea pot and “Thank-you” on it. Then I slipped her note into tea bag packets with the tag hanging out, for the cuteness factor.

Some other examples…

If this is your first time to my blog, you may want to take a look at the Tea Cup Invitations that I made for my daughter’s tea party.

I'm linking this post with Kimba's DIY Day and Today's Creative Blog - thanks for

visiting!

Our Final Christmas Celebration for 2009

At my parents on the 26th.  We met up there with my brother John and his girlfriend Kris.  As we arrived, we naturally gathered in my parents’ kitchen.  My mom did a LOT of work on dinner!

The kids posing in front of my parents’ tree.  The beautiful dress is courtesy of Crystal.

 

The kids love their uncle.

 

And Kris.

 

The cookie spread.  Contributions by everyone, including Kris’ mom!

Family gets ready to eat a delicious meal.

 

Another sweet moment.  (The camera you see Ella holding in most every picture was her favorite gift from Santa!)

 

Let the unwrapping begin…

The best gift of the evening.