7 Layer Studio

Once There Was A Snowman

This is dedicated to all my friends still living in Hawaii...I'm not trying to rub it in, honest!  I remember how homesick I got during the Holiday season when we lived in the land of eternal sunshine.  It just didn't seem like Christmas when I was sweating while putting up the outdoor decorations. 

I even made 2 giant fabric snowmen to put out on our front lanai when we lived in Hawaii.  Now we can build the real thing!  The kids and I had a great time building our snowman today.

We had to enlist the help of Steve to lift the middle snowball onto the bottom one.  It was too heavy for Eliza and I to heft by ourselves!  He stayed out long enough to help us put the all-important features on Mr. Frosty.

It took quite a few tries to make those little rocks stick into the packed snow face.  We tried cranberries for the mouth first, but all they did was squish and squirt when they were pressed into the snow.  Rocks worked a little better, but Mr. Frosty had lost an eye even before we were done taking pictures.  Poor guy.

 

Hazel didn't seem to mind - she was having a great time outside today.  Must have been the mittens - she decided it was a good idea to wear them this time.  Hazel was cracking up because we were saying CHEEEEEESE for the camera.

For some reason she thought this was about the funniest thing on the planet, and the rest of us were laughing because SHE was laughing so hard.  It was the cutest thing.  Kid's laughter is a very magical sound - I love it.

Have a Holly Jolly Christmas, and don't forget the cheese!
 
 

Snowbound!

No, we didn't travel to Michigan or Wyoming or upstate New York...this is mild, temperate Virginia.  Apparently once every 10 years or so a big snowstorm like this blows in with winds from the south, and here it is!

I think it's safe to say we'll have a white Christmas this year.

  

The blizzard started Friday night and was over early Sunday morning.  This photo of the patio table was taken in the middle of the day on Saturday, it was about 16 inches high at that point.  Crazy!

I went out and took this shot on Friday night, when the Christmas lights were still visible.  I was really excited about the snow the first 6 inches or so, but after spending an hour getting the kids all bundled up to go sledding Saturday morning, only to have them return 30 minutes later all wet and cold with the ensuing piles of soggy winter clothes and immediate demands for dry ones and hot food, I was a little less enchanted with the whole snow thing.  Then, after spending an hour and half shoveling our sidewalk and driveway, only to have the snow cover everything with another 8 inches of fluffy white matter, I was REALLY leaning more on the side of "wow, lots of snow can be a pain in the neck - and back!" 

I got over my annoyance, though, when on Sunday morning the sky was clear, the sun was making the snow sparkle like diamonds, and everything looked so pristine and peaceful.  Steve had already cleared the back deck by the time I took this photo on Sunday morning, but he kindly left my "snow-depth meter" untouched on the patio table.  It's at 20 inches.  Wow!  I don't think I've ever lived anywhere that dumped 20 inches at once, but maybe I'm just not remembering my winters at BYU-Utah very well.  All you northerers are probably chuckling right now, because I'm sure this is nothing to you...but in a state that isn't equipped to handle heavy snowfall, it's quite the deal.

There were even lovely icicles gracing our eaves on the back of the house.  They sparkled in sunshine like crystals, only prettier.  

The kids had a great time romping around in the powder.  Too bad it's not wet enough to make a snow family...maybe when it starts to melt we'll be able to do that.

Here's Eliza, Queen of the Snow Hill!  That big pile used to be on our driveway.  No wonder my muscles are sore! :-)  I actually didn't do the whole driveway by myself - Steve came out and finished it up despite his aversion to the wet, white, cold stuff.

I've lost count of how many times he has declared that we're moving back to Hawaii!  Sorry, buddy.  I'm not moving again for a LONG time (I hope!)

   
  

   

Hyrum had a rough time of it when he went out in the blizzard to play on Saturday, but he was all smiles today!  That bright happy sunshine and no stinging snow in his face made all the difference.

Hazel wasn't quite sure what to think of all this snow.  She REFUSED to wear gloves or mittens (and those of you who know Hazel, know that it's impossible to get her to wear what she doesn't want to), so her little hands were pretty chilly.

 

It didn't stop her from eating finger-fulls of snow though!  She would delicately dip her finger in the snow, then lick it clean and go for another dip.  Whatever floats your boat, kiddo.

It's probably pretty hard to see, but this is Eliza's snow angel.  This was a particularly deep drift of snow...look, she's up to her shoulders in it!  Okay, not really, but it sure looks that way.  I remember the joys of snow angels when I was little.  Except we usually only had an inch or two to work with, so when we'd get up the muddy, grassy ground would be visible in the shape of an angel.  From a mother's perspective, that must have been quite the chore to get our muddy clothes all cleaned up every time we went out to play.  And Mom always had homemade hot chocolate ready for us when we came back in all cold and wet.  Thanks, Mom!

So, anybody want me to send them a snowball? 

ps.  If you'd like to make your own White Christmas, wherever you may live, click on my tutorial for delicate paper snowflakes here.

Psst....Wanna trade some cookies?

I hosted a cookie exchange for the ladies from church at my house tonight.  It was so much fun!

These are pics of the Snowball cookies (AKA Russion Teacakes, or Mexican Wedding Cakes, or whatever other name you might have for them.  I call them Yummy.  My hips call them Growth Hormone) I made for the event.  I put finely chopped pecans in half the batch, and

a scant 1/2 tsp of peppermint extract in the other half, with candy cane dust on top.

Mr. Snowman did a good job of holding that plate up.

Here's the table before the fun began, with lots of empty plates waiting to be laden with goodies.  We all had a great time sampling the treats, then everyone took some paper plates and loaded up!  I had plastic wrap, cellophane, ribbons, and gift tags ready for all the ladies to package their cookies up before they left so they could deliver the goods to friends and neighbors.  It was a super fun way to get a great variety of Christmas cookies with very little effort!  I highly recommend it.

When I was walking around taking photos of my friends, most of them protested and made me promise not to tag them on Facebook...but they didn't say anything about my blog!  (insert evil laugh here)  We made these three line up because the colors of their sweaters were just too perfectly Christmasy to not document.  I suppose I'd better not post any more photos, because I didn't get anybody else's parental consent forms signed and dated.  (wink)  You can thank me later, dear friends.
 
 

The Errand of Angels

Meet Heidi,  one of the many amazing and awesome women I'm getting to know here in Virginia (a thank you to our mutual friend Fran for this photo that she took of Heidi last fall).  Not only is Heidi a really cool person with a terrific personality, AND a mother of four kids, AND volunteering as the president of the local Young Women's group (for teenage girls) in our church, she wrote and co-produced a full-feature movie a few years back.  Incredible.

 

 Because I know that a lot of you out there in blogland are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, I thought you might really enjoy Heidi's movie (it's not too late for a Christmas gift!) about her experiences serving a voluntary mission for our church in Austria.  It's called The Errand of Angels, and it's a wonderful film that deals with both the humorous and tender moments of life as a sister missionary, with a poignant resolution that is very touching and meaningful.  Those of you who are LDS would really resonate with the film, especially if you have served a mission (I served in Santiago, Chile for 18 months way back when, and I could totally relate to what was depicted in the movie!  I loved it). 

But even if you're not a Mormon, I think you would really enjoy The Errand of Angels.  If you've ever wondered what on earth those young Mormon missionaries do all day, every day, this is the perfect way to find out!  :-)

Heidi can be seen/heard talking about the process of making the movie and the reason she did so despite her busy life in an interview that is posted on the DeseretBook.com website.  I also included it right here.  It's a really great interview - very much worth listening to! 

 

Heidi also has a blog set up about the movie, you can view it here.

 I can't say enough good things about this film or about Heidi.  She is such an inspirational, fun person, and has helped a lot of people here locally have the courage and faith to pursue their God-given talents and dreams.   Thanks, Heidi, for being who you are!

Scenes of the Season

Glorious, complimentary Christmas colors - gotta love 'em.

I'm finally finished with my outdoor decorations for this year.  Nothing hugely extravagant, just wonderfully Christmasy. 

My Joy to the World sign is new this year - I made the sign BUT I didn't paint the lettering.  My friend Linda has enlightened me about the wonderful world of vinyl, and she has found a great little vinyl business to order from that is much less expensive than most.  It's called Simply Designed Expressions and you can order from them here.  I ordered a bunch of phrases, I'll show you when I get them all done.

I used a pine board and painted multiple layers of color on it, then sanded back through for the aged effect.  Not sure how well you can see that.  I used Qtips to achieve the dots.  I like how many variations are in the little circles - they remind me of cranberries.

I heart paper lanterns.  Such a quick, inexpensive way to get a big punch of color.  Just don't let them get too wet!  :-)

I got the fresh wreath at Costco, then removed the little decorations that were included on it and added a bunch of my own baubles and berries.

I love how it turned out.

Stepping inside for a minute, here's Hazel gobbling some applesauce in the kitchen.

I posted these mittens in my ornament post last Christmas, but this year they're featured in these mini wreath arrangements that flank the kitchen window.

This is my favorite pair.  I love the patchwork swatches.  It took quite a bit of time to do these because of the small scale, but it was worth it.

This is my second favorite pair, again because of the difficult detail on such tiny little mittens.

Interesting, isn't it, how in most cases the things one values most are the things which have required the most effort and work.  Pretty easy to take for granted that which one doesn't work hard to earn, make, or achieve.

 So I've been sitting here listening to all the fun Christmas songs on my playlist, and I've come up with a list of favorite artists for Christmas music per decade:

The 50's:  Frank Sinatra and Andy Williams (or was Andy most popular in the 60's?  Not sure, since I wasn't alive yet!)

The 60's:  Nat King Cole, hands down.  I love his voice, especially for Christmas music.

The 70's:  The Carpenters, absolutely.

The 80's:  The Osmonds!  I grew up listening to their Christmas record, it was a 2-"disc" set (what do you call that for old-fashioned records?) which opened up to a huge picture of a Christmas tree all aglow with wonder.  My favorites were "Sleigh Ride"  and "When He Comes Again".  Anybody else remember that album?

The 90's:  Amy Grant's Home for the Holidays.  I love all the orchestral music in that one.

The 00's:  Probably Josh Groban.  I love his rich voice and grand arrangements.  My favorites of his are "Thankful" and "Home for Christmas".

What about any of you?  What are your favorite holiday artists?

Here are some pics of the house at night to put you into the Christmas mood....

I need to learn to hold my camera straight when photographing architecture like this!

It's pretty much impossible to tell with the spotlight on the manger scene in front there, but but it's a depiction of Mary and Joseph and baby Jesus that I made several years ago.  Guess you'll have to use your imagination on that.  Or you could go back to last year's post to see it in the daylight. 

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!

  
   
 

 
 
 
 
 
  

Lights All Aglow and other such festivities

Light the candles, it's Christmas time! 

I love the warm glow of candlelight.  At our house, when candles are lit, two things happen:  Hazel rushes in shouting "Birthday!" and immediately tries to blow them out, and Steve wanders through the house, sniffing the air and asking, "Is something burning?  I smell smoke."  Needless to say, candles don't stay lit at our house for very long.

Hazel will stop at nothing to blow out a candle.  Here she is, on the table, extinguishing the solitary flame from this centerpiece as I was trying to photograph it. 

Maybe I should light candles everyday and let her blow them out all the time so it becomes less of a novelty!

 
I've had this cinnamon-scented brick candle since we were first married, and it always comes out at Christmas.

This year it's illuminating a portrait of Christ.  Sorry about the glare on the glass...guess I should have taken the time to find my polarizing filter. 

For more candle centerpiece ideas, you can go to last year's post here.

 
When I was growing up, one of my most eagerly-anticipated Christmas decorating events was setting up the Nativity scene.  My mom had a porcelain set much like this one, but she had meticulously painted her figurines with amazing detail  in the most gorgeous colors.  Someday I'll make the time to paint my set, but for now they will have to settle with being pure white.  Anyway, Dad had built a manger out of wood, and the figurines were carefully placed on the shelf with reverence and respect (that is, when we weren't fighting over who got to put which character in place...gotta keep it real).  There was even a clay star that was suspended above the scene from the top of the window frame.  In Mom's set, the baby Jesus was separate from the manger, and we wouldn't put the baby figurine into the manger until Christmas Eve = a very exciting event for me.  I remember being fascinated by all the beautiful details in the figures, and would sit and study it for a long time every year. 

Christmas Eve was also when we'd wrap towels around our heads, put on bathrobes, and act out the Christmas Story while my dad read the account in Luke.  I think our kids are old enough to start doing that at our house...hmmm...do you think Hazel would hold still long enough to be the baby Jesus?  Not a chance.  Better make her a shephard.  She could be a Wise Man, but she probably wouldn't want to give up her treasure to the baby! 

I don't have a star suspended above my Nativity scene, but I do have this Silent Night sign that I painted several years ago on display above the shelf the scene rests on.

Here's a sweet little wreath that is hanging on one of our interior doors.  One year I made a bunch of wreaths and had them on display all together on one big wall in a large arrangement.  This year they're just adorning our doors because I don't have the wall space for them as a group.

I've had this beaded wreath forever, and in this house I have it hanging on a wall year-round.  I put one of my hand-painted plates that I did a few years ago in the center and it fit perfectly!  Love it when that happens.

Here are some more plates that I painted at the same time as Mr Snowman above.

This one is among my favorites.

   
 
 

I always start singing the "Have a Holly Jolly Christmas" tune in my head when I see this one.

In case you were wondering, I made all the little circle dots you see with the tip of a Qtip dipped in paint.  The tips get fuzzy after a few dips, so it's necessary to go through quite a few Qtips to keep the circles uniform and non-blotchy.

And this whimsical tree always makes me smile.  I may have adapted this tree from a stylized tree I saw elsewhere, I'm not sure - it's been too long ago.  Of course, it's hard for me to remember what happened yesterday, let alone 2 years ago, so that's not saying much!  :-)

Even the tree sculpture my Dad made for us (see the link to his site in my sidebar) is feeling festive!

I didn't take pictures of our "family hodge-podge" tree this year - the one my kids help me decorate.  I haven't made any new ornaments for it yet.  To see a bunch of handmade ornaments we put on our tree, you can go to last year's post here.

Little Frosty is wishing you all a very Merry Christmas...either that or he's cheerfully endorsing Holiday Bulbs - but only the pretty but durable, Made in the USA kind (wink).

It's Beginning to Look More Like Christmas...

 

Have I mentioned how much I love decorating for Christmas?  Just once or twice, right?

I never get in a decorating rut because we move from house to house so often that we've not spent more than 2 consecutive Christmases in one house.  So about every other year it's a whole new adventure of figuring out how to put things together.  It's a fun challenge to figure out new ways to display the things I've collected or made (the Happy Holidays sign was the first one I painted long ago) through the years.  There are so many possibilities when one has 15 boxes (!!) of Christmas decorations and lights we cart from place to place.  Bet you can guess how my poor husband feels about this.  My limit is 15...any more than that is too ridiculous even for me.  :-)

 
Christmas is by far my favorite holiday, can you tell?

I embellished our dining room chandelier by dropping little mini wreaths of "sugar-frosted" beads over the candlesticks, and wrapped a fake garland around the chandelier arms to create a wreath.  After fluffing the garland, I added the wired ribbon, making sure to wind, twist, and crimp it in places to vary its placement on the wreath.

 
Remember my wall of plates in the dining room?  I just removed the non-red ones and added some Christmasy ones for a holiday theme.  I only had to make a couple of new holes in the wall, which I was happy about.

So cute I could eat them for breakfast.

Here's my (rather weak) attempt at crafting a tree angel from sculpey clay, a project I did several years ago.  It was supposed to resemble the Willow Tree figurines that I admire so much for their expressive simplicity, but it didn't quite get there.  No matter, it has still earned a place among the Christmas things.

"Christ is the best part of Christmas"...I need to remember that more often.  It's easy to get so caught up in Santa & Co. that the real reason for the season can easily escape us (me). 

Much of what you see perched on the mantle are things that I use throughout the year...they just come together so nicely for Christmas.  Red is great that way.

Speaking of Santa...as much as I don't like to see Santa dominating/replacing Baby Jesus in Christmas holiday symbolism, I still love the guy.   Who wouldn't?  He's a great character in all the international versions of the tale, and my kids are eagerly awaiting his generousity on Christmas morning.  They're really starting to scrutinize the whole chimney thing though.  Logic is starting to confuse magic.

 
 

I was able to finish refinishing (hee hee) this old dresser just in time to dedicate it as a Santa Center.  Thanks, Steve, for watching the kids most of the day last Saturday so I could finally paint it.  He gets another piece of furniture out of the garage, I get a fantastic display area for St. Nick(s). 

Here's the $60 old girl in the middle of the makeover.  I spent quite a bit of time sanding her down.  It's a very solid, well-built piece with real wood everywhere and dovetail joints on all the drawers.  It had just been through a lot and the original finish was totally shot.  The top had a bunch of dings on it that needed to be dealt with, but other than that it was in great shape.

If I had had a lot more time, it probably would have been worth it to completely strip the dresser and restain/reseal it.  Since I'm super short on time these days and I REALLY dislike refinishing furniture "the right way" with stain and sealer, I figured that it is better to paint it and use it rather than have it sit in our garage for another 2 years.  

So here she is today, with a distressed black finish and sporting the antique glass knobs that I salvaged from the free dresser I refinished last year.

  

And now she can proudly display my Santa collection and hold all sorts of goodies at the same time.  Way to multi-task, old girl.  

As I was pondering how to festivize (did I just create a new word?) this light - a $10 Craigslist bargain that I spray-painted black and removed the chain so it mounts flush to the ceiling - my eyes fell on the box of glass icicle ornaments waiting to be put on the tree, and I knew what I had to do.  The strings were the perfect lenth to fit over each candlestick and drape over the rim.  I didn't have to do a thing but drape them over and make sure there was variation in size and spacing.

I love how it turned out.  Such an appropriate winter wardrobe.

I had a lot of fun photographing this fixture.  The black armatures create such fantastic, almost abstract shapes when composed as such.

Is it getting colder in here? 

Well folks, that's all I have for tonight.  There's lots more - I just ran out of time to get it all captured.  In the meantime, you might meander back to my posts of last Christmas, starting here.  Happy browsing, and Merry Christmas!

 

  
  

  

A Noble Quest

After 3 hours of driving from place to place (in the middle of a snowstorm, the first one of the season!) in search of a Noble fir tree, I have come to the conclusion that they are about as easy to find in this part of Virginia as the Holy Grail. 

The only species of Christmas tree that people really go for here are Frasier firs, which are lovely but the branches are way too wimpy for my ornaments.  In Oregon the Nobles are typically the most prestigious tree species for Christmas...funny how it's a geographical trend.  I ended up having to settle for a Blue Spruce, which has sturdy branches but they are very woody and the color and branch shape isn't as nice as a Noble.  (sigh)  Blue Spruces also have the World's Pointiest and Sharpest Needles, which I became well acquainted with as I strung our sweet little tree with lights...even with gloves on my fingers got clobbered. 

At least it smells divine - every time I step into the front room I'm in fir tree heaven.  There's absolutely nothing like the fragrance of evergreen trees...sweet, pungent, spicy, and so clean and fresh.  Brings back a flood of memories of being in our forest back in Oregon. I love how smells can trigger past memories...the brain is an amazing thing.

 
I'm ALMOST done decorating the inside of the house for Christmas (still have more to do outside).  It's always a huge job, but so exciting!  I don't have photos of much yet, but here are a few to give a bit of a sneak preview.

Back before the days of cute non-breakable ball ornaments, I hand painted white details on inexpensive red glass balls, and a lot of them have (thankfully) survived our moves.  Such a fitting accessory to my Minnie Mouse drapes, eh?

The previous owners of the house we bought left behind two fake trees in their basement, so we have 3 trees in our house this year!  One of the fake ones has a broken stand so I have to surreptitiously prop it up in a corner, braced by a little chair hidden in the back, but it's a pretty little tree!  This one was a complete pain to assemble (every branch was loose and had to be fluffed and inserted individually) but hey - it was free and now I have the perfect opportunity for a theme tree!

  

It's the year of the polka dots in our house, can you tell?  :-)

Actually, I wasn't about to make 3 tree skirts with all the other stuff I've got going on this month (like completely gutting our powder room, including the sagging, water-damaged subfloor and getting it all pretty in time for a big cookie exchange event I'm hosting in 10 days...and we haven't even started the bathroom yet, by the way).  Instead, I wrapped a leftover piece of my Minnie Mouse drape fabric around the base and called it good. 

I absolutely adore these white seastars.  I bought an assortment of shells while were were living in Hawaii and just drilled a tiny hole in the top of each one to accomodate an ornament hanger. 

I have lots lots more to share, maybe I'll be able to take all the photos tomorrow.  Will be a busy day = we're decorating our "real" tree tomorrow with the kids (a nostalgic tradition that I really want my kids to participate in every year...it's so much fun to pull out all the random ornaments from years past and reminisce about events of previous years), make a gingerbread house, go to church choir practice and church, and hopefully pop a batch of Christmas cookies in the oven tomorrow night.  Phew!  Guess I better get to bed then, so I can get more than a few hours of sleep before the fun begins.  G'night!
 
 
  

Super Easy No-Sew Pennant Banner

As I was cruising through Walmart's Christmas section, these paper bags caught my eye because they were so cute AND inexpensive (4 for $1).  I thought that the best way to show them off was to use them in a pennant banner, so here's how to do it!

Simply turn the bags to the back side and fold over a bit of the top, pressing crease well.  Do this to all your bags.  Then take a string or skinny ribbon that has been cut to the length you want (plus extra on the ends to attach to curtain rod or nails) and lay the ribbon out on the floor.  Arrange the pennants upside down (so you don't get a backache having to reach over the length of them) and fold the flap over the string and tape the flap shut.  Tape them shut one by one, and when you get to the end of the ribbon you're done! 

Once it is hung, you can slide the pennants along the ribbon to arrange them how you want them.  You could tie some ribbon between each one for added interest, but they stay put without ties between as long as they're not blowing in the wind outside.  If you want the banner to look good from the front and the back, simply fold the bottom of the bag down on itself so both printed sides are visible and glue or tape the bottom closed.  If you didn't want the taped and folded-over edge to show at the top of the bags, you could also use double-sided bias tape and sew the bags onto the bias tape, hiding the top open edge of the bags.  This tutorial is for a no-sew method, but you could certainly stitch them together too.

It's a great way to create a big visual impact with very little time and work involved = perfect for the busy holiday season!  I've been working on my Christmas decorations all week, I have so much to show you but I'm not done yet (my husband wants to know if anyone wants 15 boxes of Christmas decorations, but I'm not selling!  It's a good thing we've always had an attic to store them in...) so stay tuned!
  

Grateful

Has everyone (in the USA, that is!) recovered from Thanksgiving yet?  We had a nice time yesterday with some fellow military friends, despite some setbacks with the turkey.  I still haven't totally cleaned up from all the hullaballoo - this morning has been a slow and relaxing one.  Black Friday shopping?  Not on your life.  I'd have an anxiety attack from all the crowds in the first 2 minutes!   Mmmm...leftover pie for breakfast, what a yummy treat.  I'm oh-so-grateful for leftover pie the day after Thanksgiving.

Time lapse:  I obviously wrote the above paragraph a few days ago, but ran out of time to finish my post until now!

This was our "grown-up table" - the kids had their own domain on a smaller table squeezed in beside this one. 

 

When I lit these little votives, Hazel got so excited she yelled, "Birthday Cake!" afterwhich she was determined to blow all of them out no matter how hard we tried to keep her off the table.  We finally had to put the baby gate up to keep her out of the room until it was time to eat! 

Which, unfortunately, took a couple hours longer than planned because of the turkey not being done when we expected it to.  I had worked so hard to make sure that THIS was the year that I was going to have everything hot and ready to eat all at the same time.  The dishes were going to be cleaned up so the kitchen didn't look like it had been hit by an atom bomb, and since we cooked the turkey on the grill the oven was to be free to bake the rolls and sweet potatoes.  I made menu lists, timelines, and got all my recipes and dishes/utensils in order.  I cooked pies and made cranberry relish the day before.  I brined our 20 pound turkey in a delicious apple juice/chicken broth/maple syrup/fresh herbs and garlic concoction that promised to be out of this world.  My house was clean and even the floors were mopped and vaccumed...which is an accomplishment considering that I have 3 little "mice" that leave crumbs, spilled Gogurt, and crushed leaves all over the place throughout every waking hour!

Even when my piecrust failed twice (I made 2 batches of dough, both just would NOT cooperate, which has never happened before) for my deep dish apple pie I was not fazed.  I just made apple crisp instead, which my husband prefers anyway.  We still had pumpkin pies and a coconut cream pie, so we were good on the Thanksgiving pie requirement.  Things started getting a little crazy when we discovered that our meat thermometer was broken, and Steve rushed to the store (which was fortunately still open) to buy a new one.  When we thought BigBird was done, and after waiting for the required "sit time", I eagerly sliced into it and was relieved to see and taste such succulent and tender turkey.  Then I sliced a little further and discovered all the pink and "um, that's definitely not done" meat so back to the grill it went.  Kids were wondering if they were ever going to be allowed to eat, and I'm sure the grown-ups were wondering the same thing, they just didn't verbalize it! 

In any case, BigBird was finally done almost 2 hours later than planned, and then it was quick-get-the-gravy-made time, in addition to let's-try-and-reheat-those-mashed-potatoes-in-the-microwave-so-they're-not-stone-cold time.  (sigh)  What's that they say about the best-laid plans?

At any rate, we had a great time chatting while we were waiting, and in the end everyone's tummies were more than full.  Things were so busy at the end that I didn't get a single picture of the food, but life goes on.  It was a very nice Thanksgiving Day, and I'm so grateful for the many blessings my family and I enjoy.

Earlier this week we made a pennant banner listing all of our blessings, and I just had to share.  Eliza's is on the left and Hyrum's is on the right. 

  

Hyrum got tired of writing pretty quickly, but his list includes our house, Legos, Mom and Dad, and Grandma and Grandpa.  His sisters didn't make it on that list, but I'm pretty sure that was something he listed verbally.  :-)

I love all the little things the kids were grateful for, in addition to the big obvious blessings.  Eliza listed moonlight, root beer floats, winter snow, and Artist mommy portraits, which I thought was cute.  Hyrum listed Legos right after a roof over his head (and before Mom and Dad), which is quite possibly a very accurate countdown of priority in his cute little head.

I won't bore you with Steve's and my lists, but rest assured that chocolate, the internet, electricity, hot showers, sewing machines, and pretty things found their way onto my list, in addition to all the biggies like family, the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and the freedoms we enjoy in the USA.  Can't forget the beauties of the Earth, hugs and kisses from my cute little kiddos, and ballroom dancing - although I haven't been able to do any of that since college, some 15 or so years ago!  That's on my list of things to do, by the way - get Steve to come to a dance class with me so we can learn to waltz, foxtrot, and hopefully even quickstep (my favorite) together.  I was involved in Modern International Ballroom at BYU, and I absolutely loved it.  My goal was to get onto the traveling team, but in my 3rd year of classes I had to drop out because my art classes were in 3 hour blocks and the only time I could take advanced ballroom was during those blocks, which made it impossible to continue.  I've always regretted that, but hopefully someday soon I can at least drag Steve to a dance floor and take some lessons together!  Now that I've announced it to the world maybe it will be more likely to happen, what do you think?

 
  Grandma and Grandpa, these pics are for you!  Pretty much every night Hazel climbs into bed with Eliza and "reads" with her.  Hazel chooses the books (almost always these Barbie books that we inherited from a friend) and they snuggle down for an evening read before bedtime.

What are ya lookin' at, Mom?  Can't you see we're busy?

 
 
 This is where Hazel gives her huge, endearing grin and says "HI!" in a voice that spans an octave and expresses the enthusiasm of someone who hasn't seen their mommy in 27 days.  It's something Hazel gifts me with all day, every day, and I love it.  She walks into a room and gives her dazzling "HI!" greeting, even though she just walked out of the room 2 seconds ago.  Every time we are together Hazel starts out with "HI!" and her impish grin, and my heart just melts.  Then she gestures for marshmallows, chocolate, frozen Gogurt, and/or ice cream (she still hardly speaks at all, but she's as smart as a whip) and I give in more often than I should.  Hazel knows exactly what she is doing.

Tutorial for Empire-Waisted Apron

Here's a tut for making an empire-waisted apron, with a bit of gathered detail (hard to see with this fabric) on the upper bib part of the apron. 

First, you'll need to cut out all the pieces.  I used 3 different fabrics, plus some coordinating ribbon accents, but you could use more or less variety depending on your preference.

For the waistband sash, cut out 2 strips of fabric that are 5.5" x 42"(ish).  Cut one of those strips in half again to create pieces that are 5.5" x 21" (ish).  You will now have 3 pieces of sash; one long one and two short ones.

For the apron skirt, cut a rectangle that is 26" wide x 19" high.

For the apron skirt accent strip, cut a rectangle 26" wide x 4.5" high.

For the apron top, cut a rectangle 16" wide x 5.5"

For the apron top accent strip, cut a rectangle 12" wide x 4.5" high

For the neckstrap, cut a strip 25" x 2.5"

First, sew the accent strip to the apron skirt.  With right sides together, stitch (using a serger or overlock stitch on this seam will contain all the loose threads) and then press seam upwards.  Turn under bottom hemline 1/4", then fold over again so all raw edges on bottom are hidden.  Press well, then stitch across bottom hem. 

Now is the time to stitch a ribbon accent to the bottom if you would like to. 

Fold over and press the sides of the apron skirt just like you did to the bottom hem.  Stitch closed and give the whole apron skirt a good pressing. 

Take the apron top (the one that's 16" x 5.5") and, starting 5" in from either side, make long basting stitches in the middle of both the top and bottom of the rectangle.  Gather the basting stitches, adjusting so that the rectangle ends up being exactly 12" to match up with the accent fabric.  Gently press the gathered area on the edges and stay stitch the gathers with a normal length stitch size.

Putting right sides together, stitch the gathered part to the accent part.  Press the seam upwards.  Turn the top of the accent piece under 1/4", then fold accent piece over so that it covers the seam that holds the two fabrics together.  See photo below for reference.

Now topstitch along the accent piece seam so that the backside gets stitched shut over the raw seam edge.

This fabric makes it really hard to see the gathers, but here is a close-up of the gathering on the front.

Now is the time to sew some accent ribbon across the front of the apron top, if you so desire.

For the neckstrap, carefully turn and press under 1/4" along both sides of strip (work hard to make them as even as possible).  Fold in half lengthwise so that the raw edges are completely hidden.  Press firmly and carefully.

 
Topstitch along both sides of the neckstrap as shown.

To attach neckstrap to apron top, first decide how long to make the neckstrap.  I have a lot of extra neckstrap fabric tucked into the sides of the apron, about 3 inches on either side.  This measurement will vary from person to person.

First press under 1/4" on either side of the apron top, then fold over again to exactly the width of your straps so the straps can be encased within the  folds.  Press sides, but don't stitch yet.  Pin the strap where you think you want it, and slip it over your head to make sure you can fit it over your noggin and that the apron top ends where you want the waist sash to be.  Remember that this apron is designed to have a higher waist than your natural waistline.

Once you have the strap pinned at the desired length, and the sides are folded and pressed in place around the straps, stitch across the very top of the apron to secure the straps.  Then stitch down the sides to secure the side flaps that are turned under.  If you have accent ribbon, you may want to avoid sewing over the ribbon if your thread is the wrong color.  I was using black thread, so I stopped stitching just at the ribbon as I was stitching down the side flaps, and I started stitching again right after the ribbon.

Here's another view of the back side of the apron top.

The final step for the apron top is to serge the bottom raw edge or sew a bit of double wide bias tape to the bottom raw edge so you won't have a bunch of unsightly loose threads hanging down.

The apron top is now ready to attach to the waist sash, but first you'll need to get the sash ready.  These pictures show it already attached, sorry for the confusion.  Yours won't be attached yet.

Take the two short pieces of sash and sew them to either end of the long sash.  Press the seams open as shown.

 
Turn under and press 1/4" from both sides and then fold in half and press, just like the neckstrap.

Trim off the ends of sash at an angle.  Mine is trimmed with a 2" difference, and the long point is at the fold - not the open side.

 

To finish the ends of the sash, flip it around so that the right sides face eachother.  You may want to press the folds back out flat at the very end  of the sash, and you can clip that little triangle off if desired.

Starting at the pointy tip, stitch 1/4" seam down the angled edge, then down about an inch (or more...I wish I had sewn mine a little further down than I did)  further on the long side.  This will give you a nice finished end to your sash.

Trim the end and the corner off as shown.  Turn right side out and fiddle with the corners until they are nice and pointy.  Press the ends of the sash.

Now it's time to attach the sash to the apron skirt!  Mark the center of both the apron and the sash with a pin, and with right sides together and the sash centered over the apron, pin in a few places.  Take the iron and lightly open up the pressed-under part of the sash that covers the apron.  I shouldn't have ironed that part in the first place, but it only took a few seconds to press open again.  On yours, if you wish to take the time and measure what part of the sash will be centered over the apron skirt and not press under that seam in the first place, go for it!  :-)

After pinning the sash, stitch 1/4" seam to connect the sash to the apron skirt.  Press seam up toward sash.  Then fold sash over and pin in a few places to make sure it covers the raw edges of the seam you just sewed.  Stitch all along the bottom edge of the sash to close it all in.  This way you avoid having to sew the entire sash inside out and then turn it right side out and press it carefully (for that method, see my tutorial for the reversible cafe apron).  Either way has its pros and cons, I'm not sure which way I prefer yet.

Now just slip the finished apron top behind the finished sash and topstitch in place.  I then topstitched all the way across the top and tips of the sash for added durability.

Here's a detail of the completed top after it is sewn onto the sash.

All done!  Time to get cookin'!!

Reversible Cafe Apron Tutorial

If you:

a) Have a hard time deciding on fabric for your aprons

b) Are a messy cook

c) Don't like to do laundry very often

d) Like garments to look finished inside and out

e) Prefer to have one apron with 2 looks rather than 2 separate aprons

f) Or any/all of the above

then this is the apron for you!

 

I was inspired to create it after reading Jona's tutorial for a quick apron on her fantastic site, Stop Staring and Start Sewing.  She's got all sorts of great things on her blog, including some very useful tutorials, so go check it out!   My apron is very similarly constructed, with some changes to a few techniques, different dimensions, and of course the whole reversible thing.

You'll need to start by choosing several fabrics that relate well together so that the waistband fabric looks good with both sides of the apron.  This process, with my tired brain, took just about as long as making the apron itself!  I ended up using fabric that is all by Amy Butler (from her Belle and Daisy Chain lines) except for the waistband, which is produced by ???  Not sure, but it sure works well with Amy Butler's lines and Sandi Henderson's Ginger Blossom! 

The dimensions of the apron skirt are somewhat optional.  Jona's tut called for a fat quarter (18" x 22") but since I'm not a skinny minny like she is I need more fabric to cover my, um, square footage.  :-)  For your reference, I'm a size 10/12 and the total dimensions of my apron measure 26" wide and 19" long (not including waist sash).  You will obviously need 2 rectangles of the same size for your apron.  I recommend deciding how large to make the rectangles, then drawing a little diagram to decide what dimensions to make the accent strips.  On mine, the strips with the medallion fabric were cut at 3.5" wide, and the other one is 4.5" wide.

Cut two strips of the waist sash fabric at 5.5" x 42" (or whatever the distance of your fabric is from selvedge to selvedge...could be 43" to 45")

Sew your fabric together in the desired configuration you have designed, then add ribbon trim if that floats your boat.  I can't resist adding ribbon to just about everything I sew, but that's just me.

Here's a detail of how I did the fabric border and turned the corner on the ribbon.  I probably should have done mitered corners on the medallion accent fabric, but I was lazy.  Oops.  Without the mitered edge on the ribbon it doesn't really bother me, but when they're put together, ack.  In real life it's a lot less noticeable than these photos show, so that's good.

  ....and here it is even closer.  When you're turning corners, DON'T cut the ribbon!  I sewed the inner edge of the ribbon first, and stitched the ribbon down beyond the corner a bit.  I then lifted it away from the needle, cut the threads, and rotated it 90 degrees, folding the ribbon as you see it.  Then I started stitching again on the inner side of the ribbon.  Don't forget to backstitch when you stop/start sewing!   Once that is complete, then sew around the outer edge of the ribbon, pivoting the needle at the corners.

Once both sides of the apron are ready, put them right sides together and trim off any bits that don't line up.  Hopefully they're almost perfectly the same size so you don't have to whack off a big strip from one, which could potentially make it look off center.

Pin the edges together in several places, then carefully stitch a 1/4" seam down one side, across the bottom, and up the other side, pivoting the needle at the corners.  Leave the top of the apron open.

Clip the corners as shown to reduce bulk, turn right side out, and press carefully so that the edges are nice and straight and you can only see the side of fabric you're supposed to see along the edges.

Now for the sash:  take one of the 5.5" x 42"(ish) pieces and cut it in half = two pieces which are 5.5" x 21"(ish).  The long, uncut piece will be the middle of the sash and you will need to sew the two shorter pieces on either side of the long piece to create a sash that is 5.5" x 84"(ish).  If you want a longer sash than that, then cut 3 pieces of fabric that are 5.5" x 42" instead of two, and sew all three of them together.

Press the seams open (do not serge any of these seams, by the way = that would create much bulk).

 

With the middle of the sash centered over the middle of the apron (right sides together), pin along upper edge and stitch sash to apron with 1/4" seam. 

Open sash up and press the seam upwards.  Press under a 1/4" on the part of the sash that is above the apron.  

On the ends of the sash, fold fabric right sides together and trim the ends off at an angle, with the pointy side being at the fold.  I made mine with a 2" difference.

Starting at the folded tip, carefully stitch a 1/4" seam all the way across the raw edges of the folded sash until you reach the apron.  Do NOT stitch the part of the sash over the apron yet!

Do this on both ends of the apron sash.

Trim the edges of the sash as shown.  In this photo, the left point is trimmed, the right one hasn't been trimmed yet.

Turn the sash ends right side out - this will take a little coaxing!  I'm still trying to decide if I like this way of doing the sash more than the way I'll outline in the empire-waisted apron tutorial (more on that later).  Either way, it takes a bit of time.

Press sash carefully.

Turn the sash over the raw edge of the apron, pressing carefully.  Stitch across the apron.  Now all the raw edges are completely hidden - hurray!  For added durability, I went ahead and top-stitched all the way around the entire sash, hopefully you can see that in the photo.  This will make it hold up better when it's washed, as well as resist stretching too much when it's tied.  And that's it!  Happy sewing!

 

One of Those Days

Some days, no matter how hard I try, I just can't keep ahead of the game.  For that matter, I can't even keep up!  Today, as I was cleaning the tub upstairs and putting laundry away in all the bedrooms, Hazel was being a busy bee downstairs.  I should have known there was a reason she was so quiet.  (sigh)

At least the mess was relatively easy to clean up!   Much less work than mineral oil, or the crayon she has graced our walls and furniture with.  And I can thank my lucky stars that Hazel has never played with bleach, swallowed anything toxic, or cut things with scissors (yet).  I probably should not be verbalizing these things - I'm not a superstitious person, but still....

Maybe, if I'm really efficient and get all my emails and other things taken care of, I'll have a chance to write up a couple of apron tutorials in the next few days. 

Here's an empire-waisted ditty, and

this one is actually fully reversible!  So on Thanksgiving, after I slop food all over myself during the food prep, I can just flip it around and wear it to the table!  Or something like that.

At any rate, I hope to have these tuts put together soon in case you're dying to make a cool new apron for the holidays!

Pumpkin Cream Puffs....Perfect Party Pleaser

 
Interestingly enough, I had never made cream puffs before today.  I LOVE cream puffs, but I was always intimidated by how much time I imagined they would take, and I thought they would be hard to make (they're not).  I wanted to bring something pumpkin-ish to the ladies' evening devotional I talked about in the previous post, but it needed to be finger food and I wanted to try something new. 

Enter pumpkin cream puffs, center stage!  I found the recipe here, on AllRecipes.com, and I was not disappointed.  They were, if I do say so, quite delicious!  If a person doesn't like pumpkin flavor, then I'm sure it would disappoint, but for most of the rest of us, what a treat!  I followed the puff recipe pretty faithfully, except I made sure I used salted butter and added a hefty pinch of salt (I don't like bland puffs).  2 hints about the puffs: make little balls of dough (I used a small Pampered Chef cookie dough baller thingy...can't think of the correct title for that gadget) if you're aiming for smallish bite-sized puffs.   They really expand in size, as you can see by the regular sized muffin cups these puffs are resting in.  Also, be sure to bake them long enough.  They looked done at 13 minutes, but they weren't truly done until 20 - 22 minutes.  It's critical to bake them a long time so that the insides aren't mushy and the outer crust remains a delightfully crisp counterpoint to the filling (I learned from experience on that...I underbaked the first pan of puffs).  The outer crust should be quite crusty dry and sound very hollow when tapped.

The filling recipe had been critiqued by other people as needing twice the powdered sugar than the recipe called for, so I doubled the powdered sugar and didn't put quite as much pumpkin pack in as called for.  I didn't want the pumpkin flavor to be overwhelming.  And, true to what a few people said, I had plenty of leftover filling...which I'll probably use on pancakes in the morning - yum!  It took quite a bit of time to make so many of these critters (I doubled the recipe) but it was well worth it...although I can't say I'm in a hurry to make so many of these at once again! 

Oh - one more thing - instead of cutting them open as the recipe suggested, I just poked a little hole in each one and piped the filling in, then dusted with sifted powdered sugar.  Enjoy!

In Preparation for Thanksgiving

To honor Thanksgiving, the frequently looked-over holiday squeezed in between Halloween and Christmas, I made this gratitude wreath.

I know those are bordering on Christmas colors, but I couldn't find any nice brownish orange ribbon so I'm hoping those bows will look harvesty enough when coupled with the grapevine twigs and the pumpkins down below.  Besides, I'm really into the color combo of red and brown right now.

And these acorns certainly look autumn appropriate...wouldn't that prehistoric squirrel on IceAge love to sink his teeth into acorns that size? 

I found this plate at HomeGoods, then printed out the saying (I borrowed the phrase from a hymn) onto cardstock.  I used a bowl to trace a perfect circle, cut it out, and taped it to the brown scrapbook paper.  Then I used pinking shears and carefully cut around the white cardstock, trying my best to keep an even border all around the white circle.  It's a little wobbly, but hey - so am I so it's okay.  :-)  I attached the paper to the plate using double-sided scrapbook tape.

Are you tired of seeing my ribbon bows yet?  I had mentioned in my Halloween tutorial for these that they would look nice on a wreath.  Didn't exactly get it done for Halloween, but here they are now!

Like I said, I have a thing for red and brown right now!

Aren't these the sweetest little favor boxes?  They're for a special evening devotional for the women in our church tonight.  It was going to be at my house, but things have been so busy we weren't able to finish (or even start!) remodeling the bathroom on the main floor, not to mention do the kind of cleaning such an event would require...so I chickened out a few weeks ago and another kind lady is hosting it instead.  It's a good thing, because my entire family has rotated through being sick this past week (minus me, knock on wood).  

Anyway, I ordered these darling little boxes from efavormart.com and they even printed the little message on the lid.  Inside there is a tealight tucked in tissue.  It took quite awhile to fold all those boxes and lids, then tie all the ribbons - I'm glad a had some help doing it!  Looking forward to this evening...I'm making pumpkin cream puffs for it too, which I'm looking forward to tasting.  It's a new recipe, I'll let you know how it goes.

May you enjoy your preparations for Thanksgiving, and remember to contemplate your blessings in the process!

Tutorial for Custom Valance With Multiple Variations

 
 
Here's a basic How-To for making your own customized valances!  They are non-functional, meaning that they don't draw up and down, which makes them quick, easy and inexpensive.  I like to mount these atop windows that are already fitted with blinds so they can hide the top of the blinds and your window will still have coverage flexibility.

Start out by measuring your window.  Take the width of your window (including trim) and add a total of 4 1/2 inches (which gives 2 extra inches per side, plus 1/4" seam allowance).  If you want more fabric on either side of the window, add more inches to this measurement.  This is your cutting dimension for the width of the window.  Now decide how tall you wish to make the valance.  I usually place my valances 4 inches down from the top of the ceiling.  Having it so high provides a nice sense of height in your room.  So start at the top (where the top of your valance will be) and measure down to about 5 to 10 inches below the top of your window.  Take that measurement and add another 12 to 15 inches so you will have plenty of extra fabric to gather or roll once the valance is in place. 

For valances such as this one, you will also need to cut 2 rectangles of fabric to cover the ends of the valance support.  I made mine about 5" x 7" in this example, but in retrospect, for a valance as big as this one is (the cutting dimensions were 44" x 40") I would recommend making the rectangles 6 x 8 and orient them differently (more on that later).

A word about fabric:  Heavier-weight home dec fabric works best for these valances.  If the fabric is too lightweight and flimsy, it will tend to sag and hang unevenly.

Now that you have your cutting dimensions, cut one each of both your valance fabric and liner fabric.  I recommend cutting your valance fabric out first, then placing it face down onto the right side of the liner fabric and cutting the liner fabric out to exactly the same dimensions.  Do this for the valance piece and the 2 little side pieces.

Pin the sides and bottom of the 3 different rectangles, and stitch a 1/4" seam down one side, along the bottom edge, and up the other side of the rectangles.  Leave the top side open.

Trim the 2 finished corner edges on each rectangle as shown so that when you turn the fabric right-side out the corners won't have excess bulk.  Take care not to get too close to the stitching, but trim enough away so that it won't bunch up when turned.

Turn each rectangle right side out, pushing and wiggling the corners to get precise tips.  Press with iron, wiggling the edges so that the fabric and the liner are exposed to their maximum dimension right to the stitching line.  I lick my fingers (to create friction) and work the fabric back and forth with my fingertips while ironing the edge to accomplish this.

Mark where you want the top of the valance to be, and install 2 right-angle brackets onto the wall, about 6 inches in from each side of the window.

Hint:  Don't use the little screws included in the bracket packet for installing into the wall unless you use sheetrock anchors.  Instead, use a sheetrock screw that's about 1 to 1 1/2" long.  Since these are decorative valances only and won't be tugged on, it's not necessary to drill them into a stud - but the tiny little metal screws won't even keep it in the sheetrock.

 

 
Measure the side-to-side finished dimension of your valance and cut an inexpensive firring strip (or equivalent) to that dimension.  Place it on your brackets to make sure it's level and the width you want it to be.

Now take the little rectangles and staple them (using a heavy-duty upholstery stapler or equivalent) onto the ends of the stick as shown.  In this example, I oriented the rectangle horizontally so that it was wider than it was long.  I recommend orienting it the opposite way for your valances, as I think it looks better to have a longer valance cap than these produced.

Once the top is stapled, tuck the corner under itself and staple the sides of the cap onto either side of the wood as shown.

Now staple the top (the unfinished edge) of the valance onto the stick as shown.  This is the top of the valance, and it's so high up that nobody will ever see the staples.  Unless you're making these for windows on very tall walls that will be visible as a person goes up and down stairs.  If that is the case, staple the fabric to the thin backside of the stick instead.

Now you will need to sew the bands of fabric that hold up the valance excess at the bottom.  I usually wait until I get the valance stapled to the stick before deciding if I want one or two bands, and how wide they should be.  If the window is greater than 30" wide, I recommend using 2 bands instead of one.  These bands were cut to be 7 1/2" wide x 44" long.  With right sides facing eachother, I sewed the long edges together (with scant 1/4" seam) to create bands that were 3 1/2" wide and 44" long.  Turn right side out and press so that the seam is centered in the middle of the back of the band as shown. 

If you are using only one band per valance, I recommend cutting it slightly wider:  either 8" or 8 1/2" wide to yield a band that is about 4" wide.

Staple the band(s) onto the top of the valance as shown, making sure it's centered on the valance.

 

Place valance onto the brackets, making sure it is centered above the window.  Screw into the wood from the underside of the valance as shown.

This is what it will look like at this point.  

There are a few things you can do to the valance at the bottom; either roll it up or bunch it up.  I'll show you the rolled method first.

Take a wrapping paper tube that is a few inches shorter than the width of the valance on either side and simply roll it up inside the bottom of the valance.  If the valance is wide (like this one is) it's helpful to tape the bottom of the fabric to the tube to help you get it started evenly.  A tube with a wider diameter looks better, but I didn't have one on hand so this skinny one is what you see.

Once you get it rolled to the height you want, simply take the raw ends of the bands and safety pin them to the back of the valance at the correct height.  It's very helpful to have a friend hold the roll while you're doing this.  If not, you can tape or pin the roll in place on the ends until you get the bands in place.  This is tricky - I speak from experience - so I really recommend getting someone to help you, especially the first time you do this!

This valance looked a little boring to me, so I added some black ribbon to the bands with double-sided tape attached to the backside of the ribbon for added interest.  There are several black accessories in this room so the black ribbon made the valance relate to the rest of the room better.

Since I wasn't crazy about the skinny tube on such a large valance, I took the tube out (without unpinning the bands) and just arranged the folds in the bottom of the valance as shown.  It created a softer look that looked better with the dimensions of this valance.

Here is another example of this valance style, but these are fitted on the inside of the window casing and so they don't need the fabric covering the ends of the wooden stick.

These bands (or sashes) were done differently as well.  I used sashes on the front and back of the valance (so each valance requires 2 sashes), finished the ends on the diagonal, and tied a knot in them to establish the valance height.

I created the diagonal by folding the strip with right sides together, then I cut the open side (with the raw edges) 2 1/2" shorter than the folded side.

I sewed along the long edge and the short angled edge, then trimmed the angled edge and the corner very close to the stitching to reduce bulk.  After turning right side out, coax the corners out into a nice tip and press flat using the same method as described above for pressing the valance.

This is the same style of valance as the black and red ones shown above, except this one is mounted on the outside of the window frame.  I didn't use the metal right angle brackets to attach it to the wall; rather, I simply screwed the wood into the sheetrock (the stick was turned so the wide flat part was against the wall) and wrapped the fabric around the 1/2" edge of wood that was showing on the ends.

 
Here are some valances that I made for my neighbor when we lived in Hawaii.

 
These were in our breakfast nook in our house in Hawaii. 

This was Eliza's room in Hawaii.  You can see a bit of a valance peeking at you on the right.  This one was slightly different in that I made a little "skirt" thingy to drape over the top of the valance, and I used grosgrain ribbon for the bands.  I also used a printed quilting weight fabric for the liner fabric, which adds more interest than just a solid color.

As you can see, the possibilities are pretty much endless depending on style and pattern of the fabric you use and how you choose to embellish it.  Now go get sewing and best wishes to you!  :-)

  

Booville WrapUp

Halloween night was wet and rainy, but it didn't stop my two oldest from doing the much-anticipated Trick-or-Treat thing.  Eliza really wanted to be a vampire, so I made her that cape.  I ended up buying a costume pattern, and just added the bat "peaks" at the bottom of the pattern before cutting it out.  Hyrum had his heart set on being a ghost, so I made a bigger version of the one I made for them a couple of years ago.  I was trying to convince them all to be cute monsters (imagine the creative potential of that!) but they wanted nothing to do with the idea.

Don't they look scary?  Eliza's expression cracks me up - she looks JUST like a picture of me when I dressed like a punk rocker when I was about 12.   What do you think, Mendenhall clan - is she her mother's daughter or what?  She had already lost track of her vampire teeth by this point, but no matter.  I was glad not hear her go berserk anymore every time saliva dripped down her chin because of the fake teeth!

I don't have any pics of Hazel that night, as she had hit her fussy stage of the evening and was not in any mood to hold still for pictures.  I had taken some cute shots of her (she was Bat Baby) a few days prior to Halloween at a Trunk-or-Treat party, but I was using my little point-and-shoot camera that night and I can't find the cord that connects it to the computer.  Yet another example of my disorganization at work!  Okay, going through 2 moves in less than 9 months didn't help...but how long can I keep pulling the "Just Moved" card?  :-)

I almost forgot to post pics of the outside of our house!

It's pretty much the same as last year, except it's a different house (obviously) and the banners you see here used to be fabric chair covers that I created for the two chairs on our front porch in Hawaii.

 

 

I cut off the back and the side ties of the covers and looped the top of the fabric over so they could be hung as banners.

The wind whipped them around quite a bit, and half the time they were flipped over so the back of the banner was facing out.  Next year I may try to weigh down the bottom corners with something so they don't flip over so much when the wind blows.

These tall buckets were a garage sale find several years ago.  I painted them orange and decorated them all goofy. 

The kids have been having a GREAT time with all the autumn leaves!  None of them have had much experience with the gloriously crunchy stuff because we were in Hawaii for over 5 years, so this has been quite a treat for them.  Hazel, especially, loves to rake them (or, more accurately, UNrake them out of their piles).

   

Yes, she's still in her PJs.  One of the perks of being a stay-at-home kid when big brother and sister are off at school!

The other day we helped raked up a huge pile of leaves in the neighbor's driveway and some of the neighborhood kids came over to join in the fun.  They had such a blast flopping into the leaf pile, throwing the leaves up into the sky, and burying eachother under piles and piles of leaves.  It brought back some fun, nostalgic memories of my own childhood - we used to do the same thing in our backyard.  I didn't have my camera with me, I wish I could have captured that moment on "film" but the most important thing are the memories created for the kids.  I hope they're old enough to retain such simple moments of pure joy!

Quite awhile ago Hyrum lost his 2 bottom teeth (I tried in vain to get a picture of him with his missing teeth in view - or rather, the lack thereof) but he started feeling self-conscious and gave up trying to pose for me.  Poor kid...the trials of having a Mommy Blogger.  Anyway, I managed to get a pic of him smiling with his Tooth Fairy pillow that I made for him.  He was very excited to have a star-shaped version, because his big sister's pillow is a boring square with frills around the edges.  Now Eliza is jealous.  The sibling rivalry continues! 

 

Feasting On Bones, Spiders, and Worms...Oh, My!

 
We had an invasion of spiders in our house yesterday.  They crawled all over the goodies I made for a little party I hosted for some friends and their kids.

At first I was grossed out, but then I thought they might taste pretty yummy (nice texture with those hairy legs, and hey - we could all use more protein, right?) with the chocolate "blood" cake (raspberry jam was used on top of the white icing in between the layers, and they were encouraged to ooze off the edges of the cake) .  I also let the spiders stay because they help to hide the boo-boo's I made on the chocolate web...I used chocolate icing that I microwaved for a bit, but it got too hot and oozy so I couldn't control it very well.  Hence the oozy web.

We dined on grubby worms (hotdogs sliced lengthwise and boiled) with blood sauce,

 
crunched on salty bones (breadstick dough-in-a-can brushed with olive oil, then sprinkled with garlic salt, Italian herbs, and parmesan cheese),

and devoured headstones.  These three things were repeats fromlast year's big bash, and I think I got the ideas for them from Family Fun magazine, but I'm not sure.  My memory is not always the most reliable thing in the world. 

We quenched our thirst with Blood Punch (a very spunky and tasty concoction of frozen lemonade concentrate, cherry Koolaid - with 1/2 cup sugar - and Ginger Ale.  Floating eyeballs and gummy worms optional, but that's what made the kids so excited about the stuff - they all wanted a gummy worm, but since they all sink to the bottom it became a fishing venture at the punch bowl.  In case you want to try the punch yourself, here's the exact recipe:  1 can lemonade, 2 cans water, 1 pkg cherry koolaid, 1/2 c sugar, 3/4 of a 2-liter bottle of Ginger Ale, and lots of ice.  It's really tasty!!

I have a fancy punchbowl, but it didn't really fit the theme so I used an inverted cake plate lid on top of a glass bowl filled with treats and spiders (don't ask me how they got into that candy - they were everywhere, I'm tellin' ya)

I made white chocolate spiderwebs just like the article in this October's Country Living magazine explains how to do, but then I started making other things with the white chocolate because I got bored with making spiderwebs.

Eeek!  There's a spider crawling toward me!

 

Boo!  There's one on you too!

The crazy black cat was enjoying his perch atop a candlestick.  It was a great place to keep away from the spiders, because the sides of the pillar were too slick for the spiders to crawl up.  Hence the grin.

Here are the kids on a gummy worm fishing expedition.

I hope you have a great Halloween weekend!  Now I need to go finish the kids' costumes and gear up for party #2 (this time for the neighborhood kids) in a couple of days!  I know, I'm crazy. 

This afternoon we'll carve our pumpkins, the kids are really looking forward to that.  We'll see if Eliza and Hyrum are brave enough to touch the slimy insides of the pumpkins this year...it's such a tactile delight.

Autumn Splendor and Matching Outfits

 
Have I mentioned how much I love autumn in Virginia?  I cannot believe the colors on some of the trees here.

Even though the locals assure me that the weather conditions haven't produced the colors that these trees are capable of displaying, I'm still very impressed.  This tree, in particular, takes my breath away because of the variation in hue from branch to branch.

These pictures don't do it justice - the tree literally GLOWS in real life.  It's simply spectacular.

I took the kids to a local lake park in hopes of getting some great photos of them.  Not so successful in the portrait category (Hazel was so crazy I couldn't really focus on what I was doing) but look at this tree!  It looks like it's on fire.

 

This picture pretty much typifies what our portrait experience was like...Eliza was all smiles, Hazel was having nothing to do with sitting still when there were so many things to run around and explore, and Hyrum was all-too-concerned that Hazel was touching him.  (sigh)

At least Eliza was happy to play model!  I couldn't resist taking some time out from the house remodelling projects to make Eliza and Hazel matching little autumn outfits.  I LOVE this fabric!  It's from Heather Bailey's now out-of-production line Freshcut, and I've been itching to make something out of my stash of fabric for quite awhile. 

What a cheeky little grin on her face, eh?  Eliza liked the top I made for Hazel so much she wanted one just like it.  I'll have to post a little tutorial on the adaptations I made for my Girl's Sundress Tutorial  so it can fit a big girl like Eliza. 

As usual, the majority of photos I was able to capture of Hazel was from her backside, after she had run past me and was headed for the water.  I made little pants for her, but since I did it while she was sleeping and didn't measure, they're a little short.  I need to add on another layer of fabric.  The third "tier" of fabric on her tunic is actually a very simple elastic waistband skirt, so that she can wear the top as both a dress and a pants/shirt outfit. 

Being the fashionista that she is, Hazel really wanted to wear both the pants and the skirt at the same time, so who am I to spoil her fun? 

Here she is pleading with me to let her wear it.  Or maybe she was just looking at the geese in the sky.  At any rate, she looks pretty darn cute...which is a good thing because with all the destructive things she has done lately, she needs to be cute! 

Many of our newly painted walls have "drawings" all over them, and one of her favorite pastimes is to throw out all the nicely folded laundry from dresser drawers and laundry hampers onto the floor in huge piles.  Today she dumped about a half a bottle of mineral oil all over our kitchen floor.  That stuff is hard to clean up, let me tell you! 

"Gotta run, Mom...there's a playground up ahead!"

Hazel the BlurGirl is hard at work doing the playground circuit:  up the stairs, across the bridge, down the slide...repeat 50 times!

She takes her workout seriously.

Here are a few more pics of the lovely lanes around the lake...so you can see that not all the trees are fiery orange-red.  The fiery trees must be a different species, I'm guessing.

These trees, although not as dramatic, are still breathtaking as they grace the road with their soft canopy of light-filtering leaves.

 

Ya'll come back soon now, y'hear?  :-)  I'm planning some very fun Halloween food fare this week!

Many Thanks

Thanks, dear friends and readers, for all your lovely comments about my Halloween things!  It always makes my day to get a happy comment from you.

And a big thank you to all of the crafty sites that have featured them as well: OnePrettyThing, SomedayCrafts, CraftGossip, and TwoHeartsTogether (if I've missed anyone, sorry about that!)  Thanks for spreading the word about the Halloween Ornament Tut and the Ribbon Runner.  It's always fun to see my readership spike when you feature my posts, so thank you!

I made these cards as demos for a little card-making class I taught for a Saturday activity at church.  I love that paper, don't you? 

Please excuse the tell-tale glue marks on that blue ribbon....at the time I couldn't find my double-sided skinny tape (still hadn't finished unpacking my studio) so I had to resort to Elmer's glue.  All you scrapping experts out there, insert cringe here.  :-)

I should have pics of our first remodelled bathroom soon...still have a few things to figure out before it's all done. 

The weather was so gorgeous today (after a week of Oregon-esque rainy weather, it was a welcome change) that I stopped my indoor house chores to paint the exterior shutters of our house.  They used to be a faded hunter green, now they're black and spiffy.  I even climbed onto our porch roof to do the second story, which impressed Hyrum immensely.  As long as I didn't look down, I didn't get queasy, so that was good!  Hyrum wanted to join me on the roof, but he (thankfully) settled for perching halfway up the ladder until I was done.

Steve's birthday is coming up, and his parents are coming to visit for a couple of weeks shortly after that, so things will be busy as ever in these parts!  I haven't even started my kids' costumes, I'd better get cracking!  (BTW, anyone know the origin of that statement?  My mom used to say it all the time, so it just comes as second nature to me.)  Edith?  If anyone knows or can find out, my friend Edith can.  She's my fountain of all knowledge.  :-)

So anyway, here's to all of you wonderful people out there in blogland!  You're great.

  

Runner Up Late

What Halloween table is complete without a runner?  My dining room table looked a little too bleak with that black tablecloth, and I had all that ribbon practically begging to get used, so I stayed up the other night making this.

As with most things I do, it took a lot longer than I thought it would.  "Oh, I'll just whip this up in an hour before I go to bed," thought I. 

Hah!  Due to a lot of technical difficulties and a painful lack of fusible, double-sided interfacing tape, I was up till after 2 am before I finished it.  And I was determined to finish it before I went to bed, because, well, that's just how I am.  :-)

I usually try not to sew or do any big projects during the day because of the kids.  Night time is when I can unwind and do fun stuff like sewing or other projects.  I know I shouldn't stay up so late very often (I know, dear Mom, it's not good for me!), but sometimes it's too tempting to work late into the night when all is quiet and there are zero distractions.

It started out innocently and easily enough.  I had all the ribbon just where I wanted it, pinned in place on both ends, but after trying to sew the first ribbon on straight while the runner and ribbons flopped and pulled every which way, I realized I needed to switch tactics.  

Since I either didn't have or couldn't find my fusible tape, I took double-sided interfacing and painstakingly cut it to the appropriate widths and carefully put it beneath each ribbon in a few places.  Then, after fusing the ribbon, I tried the sewing approach again and it worked much better.  But I quickly realized that sewing down both edges of every ribbon was more than a little time-consuming!  I finished it off with a border cut to 3" wide.  First I sewed the strips on, then turned under the raw outside edges of the border twice for a finished edge, and finally flopped into bed for a few hours of z's before waking up to get Eliza off to school.  (confession:  after she left for school, I snuck back into bed until my other kiddos woke up, which was heavenly bliss...I love sinking back into bed for more shut-eye.  Doesn't happen often, but it's a welcome luxury!)

So last night, after the kiddos were all tucked in, this black-and-white fabric that has been stored away for about a year kept calling my name, and the leftover ribbon was whining about being left behind.

This time I got smart and used the fusible interfacing strips (still haven't made it to the store for the ready-made tape) over the entire length of ribbon so I didn't have to stitch the ribbon on.

Since these pillows won't be taking much of a beating due to their short display time every year, I'm not really worried about not stitching the ribbon on.  I always stitch the ribbon I use on garments, however, because of how frequently clothes get washed.

I used pillows I already had but weren't being used at the moment, and made a flap in the back of the pillow case so the pillow forms can be removed easily and the cases stored with the Halloween things.

Seems I can't do much with ribbon without making one of my ribbon bows (see Ribbon Bow tutorial in my sidebar). 

This one is providing a bit of bling for the checkered pillow.  I have it safety-pinned on from the inside of the pillow case so I can remove it if/when the case gets washed.

Ahh, my first pie of the season.  It's apple, of course (made from scratch, including the crust, yumyum), and I added some toasted pecans which made it extra scrumptious.  I'm still getting acquainted with my new oven, it's gas with a convection fan so I'm having some moments of frustration with it (see burned edge, despite my efforts to shield the crust with foil).  Electric ovens are definitely better, but I really wanted a gas range and couldn't afford one of those hybrid ovens with gas for the range and electric for the oven - so the gas range won out!  I'll just need to fiddle with the oven and rotate things.  Anyway, the pie was delicious, although a bit overdone (boohoo for overcooked, mushy apples).  At least it hadn't turned to applesauce pie yet, which I have done before!

This one's for Grandma, who sent Hazel this adorable little PJ set complete with a tutu.  She wears it night and day, she loves it so much.  Thanks Grandma!

My sister sent Hazel the most adorable rainbow glasses and compact mirror case, among other things, which Hazel squealed in delight about.  She wore those clear lens glasses everywhere (much better for seeing indoors than the sunglasses she wore a few weeks ago) for days, until her little 2-year-old hands pried the frame apart one time too many and the side pieces broke off.  :-( 

Guess we'll have to go to Claire's and get another pair!  I haven't been to a mall in absolutely ages, and the thought doesn't excite me...give me Home Depot, Lowe's, or HomeGoods anyday!  Can't buy nonprescription rainbow glasses at Lowes, though, so I it looks like it's time to figure out where the nearest Claire's is...

 

  
 
 
 
 
  

Halloween Ornament Tutorial

  
  
Introducing a how-to for making quick little ornaments for your Halloween tree! (AKA dead branches spray-painted black)

These cute numbers would also look great bunched together in a wreath for your front door (I'll have to make some more and make a wreath to show you) or as gift tags. 

They would also be super for Christmas, with different colors, of course!

 
These ornaments are double-sided, which works out well for hanging on branches - you could also hang them, mobile-style, from a chandelier or other suitable light fixture.

To make them, you'll need ribbon, scrapbook paper, double-sided tape, needle/thread, and circle die-cutters in 2 different sizes. 

In this example I used 3 strips of ribbon about 6 inches long.

Using the same technique I described in my tutorial for the Ribbon Bow (see sidebar to the right), loop the 3 ribbon strips and sew in place with a few stitches of thread.  When all three loops are secure, tie off and snip thread.

Using double-sided tape, on one side of the bow attach a large paper circle.  Attach the small circle either with a tiny piece of tape or a dot of glue.

Flip the ornament over.  Attach another piece of double-sided tape to the other side, and place an 8-inch strip of skinny ribbon onto the tape as shown.  Put another piece of double-sided tape on top and

place the other 2 circles in the center to cover the skinny ribbon ends.  That's it!  In about 5 minutes or less, you have a darling little decoration.

If you have ribbon that is the same on both sides (as opposed to a design printed on one side like the example above), an alternative way of making them is to use short strips (these are 3 inches long) of ribbon, notch them as shown, and

 
 

stitch them together in a similar fashion as the first example.  With ribbon that is notched (instead of having the raw edges hidden), I like to treat the cut edges with a liquid stop-fray product to prevent the edges from fraying.

Two great looks, one simple method!

Happy ornament making...and watch out - they're addictive!

This tutorial was approved and paid for by Mr. Owl, whose tree is now bedecked with cheery spots, stripes, and circles.

 

Indoor Pumpkin Patch and Other Such Orangeness

Let the pumpkinheads unite - it's time for Halloween!

I just love decorating for All Hallow's Eve.  Not the disgusting, bloody, gory kind of decorating that seems to be taking over the stores these days...just the fun, quirky, orange/black/white look that doesn't terrorize my little ones.  I seriously can't take my kids down the Halloween isle in some stores because it's too offensive...yet another example of the effects of a culture desensitized to violence due to overexposure to it via the entertainment industry.  But anyway, I digress...

There are bats in my dining room (eek!)...

owls practically perched on dead tree branches (I have a little tutorial in the works for some fun ornaments for this tree, so stay tuned)...

 
pumkins squatting on my table...

and ghosts, black kitties, and spiders overtaking my front entry (ack)!

About a month ago I kept finding the cutest Halloween things at Ross and HomeGoods, and so I succumbed and bought some things.  I was going to hand-paint a bunch of Halloween-themed plates this year, but since we're in the middle of a house remodel and these things are so dang adorable (and inexpensive), I played consumer instead.  I feel a little guilty for not doing a bunch of handmade stuff this year, but my life has been upside-down with all the moving we've done in the past 9 months...and I promise I'll post some great ideas for handmade ornaments soon!  I have some fun sewing projects lined up too, hopefully I'll get those done this week.

 
This is in my kitchen, I think it's hilarious.  My favorite $3 decoration ever.

I really like this cheery trio of plates above my dad's oak tree sculpture (he made it for us as a wedding gift).  Soon the tree will be bedecked with little ghosties!

These sweet little plates make me smile.  They have a nostalgic, vintage feel that is quite charming.

I finally finished framing these black-and-white monotypes that I made over a year ago...yeah!  I made the frames from brick molding, which is available at Home Depot or equivalent.  Before I cut the mitered pieces, Steve and I ran the sticks through the table saw to create a "lip" for holding the glass and mats.  I'll try to remember to do a little tut for making frames sometime, it's hard to explain without photos. 

I found a self-service framing facility on a nearby Army base, which was very exciting - I was able to cut the glass for a bunch of picture frames with their very handy glass cutting tool, instead of using a little hand cutter here at home.  Hazel was with me for that trip, so I wasn't able to stick around long enough to use their mat cutters.  I ended up doing that at home after the kiddos were all tucked in bed.

It's great to see my monotypes all framed up and on the wall - they were getting lonely being all boxed up for so long. 

   

  

 
 
 

Polly Pumpkinhead and Gary Gourd are grinning with the widest of wishes for a Happy Halloween!

ps. Until I get all of this year's Halloween things posted, I invite you to check out last year's posts, starting with the Goulish Grub I made for a neighborhood Monster Bash.  Lots of ideas for costumes, decorations, and food lurk in my October 2008 archives, so beware...

2 Days, 2 Parties, 2 Much Sugar! (but hey - the kids had fun)

 
 
Hyrum and Hazel were born a day and 3 years apart, so we will always have double the fun back-to-back when it comes time to celebrate their special days.  This year, Hyrum wanted a space rocket theme for his party, so I had a lot of fun coming up with rocket-y things to do with the crowd of rambunctious boys who helped us celebrate Hyrum's big day.  (sorry for the blurry photos - I didn't have time to track down and set up my tripod for these shots)

 

I ended up using Oreo sugar cones + Li'l Debs chocolate whatevers (sorry, I can't remember what they're called and I threw away the packaging a long time ago).  They're cylinders with marshmallow creme stuff rolled up in the middle (shudder...talk about nasty synthetic treats, but they were the right shape!) and when I put 3 of them together (held together with chocolate frosting piped along the edges) they were the perfect base for the rocket.

I put a little smudge of frosting on the bottom of the plate to hold the cylinders in place better, and lined the edge of the cone with frosting as well.  The fins are Andes mints with one corner cut off, and the other decorations were Mike & Ike candies and red hots.  The "window" is a thinly sliced cross section of the Li'l Debs roll, held in place with frosting.

The kids had a great time decorating their own rockets, and I even managed to convince them not to eat them right away so they could show their parents what they made (and abstain from so much sugar right before dinner).

We had some appliance and moving boxes left over from our kitchen remodel, so I made this giant rocket for the kids to play in.  Not the most polished thing in the world, but I knew it was going to get hammered at the party so I didn't bother making it look perfect.  The kids still loved playing in it!

 

Eliza figured if she was going to get blasted off into space, she'd better wear a helmet...or maybe she just thought the rocket was more interesting than the bike she was riding.

I think Hyrum likes his rocket, what do you think?  I love that expression on his face.

 

...And this one as well.  See his lost tooth?  He was so excited to lose his first tooth, and to get some money from the toothfairy.  Which reminds me, I need to take some photos of the toothfairy pillow I made for him.

 Hazel thought the rocket was okay too.  I can't believe how grown-up she looks in this picture!  What has happened to my baby?!

 
Eliza dealt the final blow to the #5 pinata, and of course the mad dash for all the loot ensued in .07 seconds after it hit the ground. 

I'm a little embarrassed to show you this cake, it's supposed to be Saturn but it looks more like a pink spaceship.  The bottom of it is cake, the dome part is ice cream that I pressed into a round-shaped bowl and refroze overnight.  The day of the party, I placed the ice cream on top of the already frosted cake, then spread tinted CoolWhip on top of the ice cream dome.  It's hard to see in this picture, but that's supposed to be Saturn's red eye below the 5 candle.  I made a paper rocket, inserted some party blowers with metallic streamers into the base of the rocket, and stuck a bamboo skewer into it to hold it up above the cake.  

I think next time I'll just make grey frosting and decorate with candies to make it look like a spaceship - it's the perfect shape for a UFO, and not such a convincing Saturn!  Ah, well...Hyrum still liked it, so I guess that's all that matters.

The next day we celebrated Hazel's birthday, but since she's just turning 2 I didn't do a big kiddie party for her...that will come next year!  Instead, we invited some neighbors and friends over for cake and ice cream.

 

I made chocolate-frosted cupcakes for the kids with colored sugar crystals on top,

  Nutty, chunky apple cake,

and pumpkin cake with cream cheese frosting.  Yum yum double yum.  I just love autumn desserts, don't you?  They're my favorite.  All those spices and rich harvest flavors...love it.

 

Hazel was very excited about the two big candles in her cupcake, and after several attempts she even blew them out all by herself!

Hyrum was a great coach.

Now I'm all partied out...I think next year I'll try and do their parties a week apart and reduce my stress load a little bit.  But hey - at least I only had to clean the house once instead of twice, eh?  I'll do anything to avoid dusting.  ;-)

Evolution of a Kitchen + Polka Dots

 

Okey Dokey, Artichokey... presenting the reason I've been so swamped for the past month!  We're not completely done with our kitchen remodel (still have a vent opening to move in the wall and some floor trim to install), but I couldn't wait any longer to post these pics!

This was our small, dated, and grimy kitchen before the big redo.  Originally I thought I'd be able to just paint the cabinets and replace the countertop, but once we moved in and I realized how bad of shape they were in (plus they were stinky!), we realized we had to take the plunge and gut everything.

The space in the original kitchen was wasted and cramped.  A not-so-useful desk area with a lot of dead space around it was tucked in the corner, and a teeny tiny pantry was behind the white door.  The fridge stuck out 9 inches from the wall, making everything seem awkward and cramped.

We ripped everything out of that part of the kitchen, removed some unnecessary studs, hired a plumber to rearrange some plumbing, and built the wall surrounding the ductwork out about 6 inches so the new cabinets would be nice and deep.  Ah, I love 23"-deep pantry shelves!

Steve did much of the demo work (pretty hard to have both of us do it simultaneously with 3 little ones in the house, and since his muscles are bigger than mine he got the job).  I did all the finish work, including all the cutting, installing, taping, and mudding of the sheetrock.

This is the plumbing for the tub upstairs, now conveniently tucked away to the right so that we could have cabinetry from floor to ceiling instead of those silly soffets that served no purpose but to make me feel like the ceiling was 12 inches lower than it really was.

Here we have the same area, all neatly encased with sheetrock.  I drew lines where the pipes and electrical wires were, crossing my fingers that the installers would heed them and not send screws into a pipe or wire.  As far as we can tell, all went well in that regard.

This is how we lived for far too long, as we played demo derby and waited for the new cabinets and countertops to arrive.  I won't lie to you - it was not fun.  At all.  Especially considering the fact that 3 young kids were running around and I still had to figure out how to feed everybody in the midst of the chaos.  At least I still had a sink at this point, because we didn't demo the base cabinets until the day before the new ones came.  Then we ended up waiting almost 2 weeks with no countertop and, consequently, no sink, stove, or dishwasher (which had been broken the whole time anyway) because of a series of errors on the part of the countertop people.  Long story, I'll spare you the details.

Here is Steve, conducting an experiment on what happens when live wires cross during the removal of a dishwasher.  We are now quite sure that it is, indeed, necessary to turn the circuit off (it wasn't conveniently labelled, and we were in a hurry) before detaching large electric wires.  Fortunately no human flesh was involved, and Steve gets to live to tell the tale.  Except he probably won't be telling anyone, and I probably shouldn't be sharing, but it's such a good story!  Live wires create lots of sparks and make very loud noises, FYI.

And here we have my hard-working husband dealing with the plumbing for the sink and dishwasher.  Poor Steve has been burning the midnight oil a lot this month, as it's too busy at work to take any time off and so he did all the demolition in the evenings or on Saturdays, staying up way too late for someone who is not a night person (unlike me, who gets a second wind after 9:00 or thereabouts).  Thanks, honey, for all your hard work!  You have been a real trooper, and I've been the slavemaster who has insisted that we do this kitchen remodel NOW.  I couldn't bear to wait until it was time to sell/rent the place before fixing it up.  Besides, I had this burning desire (har har) to learn how to do sheetrock and patch many large holes in the ceiling (due to installing recessed lighting) and now I know.  And now I also know that I would not choose to do sheetrock installation/repair as a career, because it's a very time-intensive process (of course, some of that was because I was getting off the ladder every 2 minutes to take care of something for the kids) and kind-of a pain in the neck.  Sure glad it's done!

So here we have the finished product (pay no heed to that vent hole in the upper left corner, please...just one of the the hundreds of "little" things to fix in our house).  We kept to the same footprint in the main kitchen for cost and time reasons, because the flooring was already in place and to start really busting out walls would have been WAY too much money.  Besides, I was emphatically tired of being without a functioning kitchen.

Even though it's not a huge space, every square foot is maximized and there is a surprising amount of storage in this kitchen.  I actually have more cabinet/storage space in this house than I did in our huge, brand-new, gourmet kitchen we enjoyed in Hawaii.  We moved the fridge over (someday we'll replace it with a stainless steel-look one, but not until we pay some bills!) and had cabinetry built all around it, and the trio of pantry cabinets to the left are simply awesome.  We used a cabinetry company that was a local franchise of the national chain Panda Kitchen and Bath, and despite some problems (which I won't go into here) due to some serious language barriers and other issues, we're pretty happy with the results.  They can offer good quality, very affordable cabinets because they only offer 8 cabinet choices and keep them in stock, assembling the boxes on site.  I probably wouldn't have chosen this exact style or color if I had a huge inventory to choose from (I wanted solid wood, white painted and distressed cabinets, but those babies cost a fortune!), but now that they're in and we have plenty of under-cabinet lighting, I really like them.  We paid about half of what the same product would have cost through a standard company, and we saved a bundle doing all the demo and sheetrock work ourselves as well.

I couldn't help but play up the whole polka dot thing...especially after I stumbled upon this fabulous print at HomeGoods.  I usually try not to have any mass-produced art in my house (a luxury I can achieve because I'm an artist and my dad is a metal sculptor), but I have always loved this image by Johanna Kriesel and when I saw it for such a bargain, I had to buy it.  Such a perfect fit for my new kitchen!  I absolutely love the clean lines and graphic punch of this image, and it's arranged so perfectly within the format that I get giddy just looking at it. 

Steve was mocking me the other day, as he was standing next to it saying, "Gee, I feel so...happy!  What could possibly be making me so happy?"  If he hadn't just forked out thousands of dollars for a new kitchen, I would have punched him. 

 Here is the tiny breakfast nook area, so small that we have to push our table (the one I bought on Craigslist and refinished a few months ago) to the window so traffic can flow properly.  The space really should have a small rectangular table instead, but I can't bear to get rid of that table after working so hard on it, not to mention the fact that it just makes me....happy!  Sorta like polka dots and graphic prints do, in case you were wondering.

I made these window treatments by sewing the red fabric together with an identically-sized white liner fabric (don't forget to add extra fabric for seam allowances when you measure the inside of your window!).  Sew the two pieces together like a pillowcase, then turn right-side-out and iron carefully (get right to the seam on all the edges by licking your fingers and working the seam back and forth until you see where they're stitched together, then press with a steamy iron).  Staple the raw edge to a stick of wood (1/2" x 1 1/2" for the profile dimensions, they're known as furring strips at the hardware store).  Fold the stapled edge over so than none of the raw fabric edges show, then screw the wood into the window casing from beneath the fabric.  These window casings were uncooperative, so I had to screw mirror clips on the underside of the casing to create a little ledge for my stick to rest on, then put one screw through the stick into the window casing to hold it in place.

The black sashes were sewn by cutting strips of fabric 8" wide x 44" long, cutting one end on the diagonal (after folding the strip with right-sides together, creating a 4" wide sash...so fold, then cut at a diagonal, then sew together) and sewing the raw edges together.  Turn the fabric right-side out, press as described above, and staple the raw edge of the sash to stick on top.  You'll need 2 sashes per window, one in front and one in back, then tie them at desired height for the effect you wish to achieve.  You can see other versions of this window treatment in previous post of mine, here. 

I love my happy little Campbell's soup girl, she does such a good job of holding all my spoons and spatulas.  This actually belonged to Steve before he even knew me...one of the few things that has survived my "editing" of our things over the years.  :-)  Poor Steve - it's hard living with someone who is so opinionated about what can and can't be on display.  He's a good sport about it.

These little darlin's were a happy little find when I did a summer study abroad program in London, way back in college days.  They're actually postcards, and I framed them.  And yes, they make me very happy indeed.

Stepping into the dining room, we have a blurry (oops!) photo of the view from there.  I feel like I have to make a disclaimer on the paint color, by the way...since we have learned through experience that it's much easier to keep the main paint color of a house consistent when one moves and rents out one's house after a few years, I had to use something that would be neutral, but not too dark because there's not a lot of natural ambient light in the house.  I chose a soft, sandy grey color, but once I painted everything I realize I could have gone a little darker.  Too late - I'm certainly not going to redo it all.  I like to keep paint neutral (except in kid's rooms) because my furniture and accessories are so bright. 

I have a thing for dishes.  I don't know why, but when I see an exquisitely painted or fresh and funky piece of dishware, I just go a little bonkers.  Which is why I have so many dishes.  Which is why I love to put them on the wall, so I can appreciate them all  the time.  These plates are from Villeroy & Bosch (my wedding china), Pottery Barn (polka dots), Anthropologie (the other red and white one), Japan (the little sheep ones you've seen before), and random ones from various places.  Because I just know someone is going to ask, and now you know.  :-)

 Here's the current arrangement atop my china hutch.  Recognize those little berry-filled egg cups?

Yes, they make me smile, the sweet li'l things, especially when filled with glass-beaded berries.  Yum.

Okay, I know somebody is bound to start making fun of all my polka dots and the color red by now...go ahead, it's okay!  I can take it.  I gravitate toward cheery, unpretentious and slightly unusual decor, so this is what's working for me right now.  It seems to suit the style of the house, and fulfills my need for polka dots just fine.  I call it my MINNIE MOUSE MEETS COUNTRY LIVING style.  :-)

ps. the red chairs are en route to a coat of blue paint with some red peeking through, I just haven't had time to do it yet.  Imagine that.

Surprise!  More red furniture in my house.  These are in the front entry.  The mirror is part of a vintage dresser set that I bought on CL.  The dresser is a refinishing project I haven't done yet (it's going to be a buffet table) but the mirrors are nice just as they are.

See my tall red dresser in the reflection?  Another CL find that I fixed up and painted.  Each child has a drawer of their own, and they can keep whatever they want in it.  I also shove their toys and papers in there when I'm cleaning up and don't want to carry random toys to their real resting place = very handy!  Not very organized, but handy!

Here's a quick shot of our front room.  Recognize those chairs?  And that endtable?  Yup, things I bought on CL and spruced up.  Actually, about 80% of the furniture in our house right now is from CL, and the rest was purchased on clearance from various places.  Exept this sofa, which we bought from Costco several years ago.  I was raised in a frugal household, but one in which nice things were appreciated.  I'm grateful for those lessons, and grateful  that I'm able to turn inexpensive things into reasonably lovely pieces.  Besides, with young kids there's not much point in having expensive furniture...that's just setting oneself up for disaster in my opinion.

Here's a quick look at a bookshelf in our front room.  I know I have a monotonous amount of red here, I need to mix it up a little.

I love the graphic nature of black and white together.  So striking and fun.

Okay, it's now extremely late at night...I mean morning (why does blogging always take twice as long as I think it will?  I need to learn how to write faster) so I must go to the Land of Nod before there's no more time to nod at all.  Nighty night.