7 Layer Studio

In the Middle

I'm in the middle of a LOT of projects right now, and I keep hoping to get at least something all the way finished so I have something to contribute to my sadly neglected blog!  Due to various time constraints, weather issues, material availability, and a host of end-of-the-school-year events, my progress has been, um, sporadic at best.  So this will have to be yet another work-in-progress post!

My kids have been longing for a treehouse their whole lives...and since we don't have any trees suitable for a real treehouse I wanted to build them the next best thing.  It doesn't look like much yet, but I promise it'll be totally kid-worthy when it's finished! 

Steve helped me put all the posts in the ground (16 footers are a bit unwieldy to handle in windy conditions by myself) and he helped with a few of the horizontal pieces, but since he's at work all day I've done all the other stuff, including the 2x6x12 floor joists and the big plywood rock climbing wall - boy, was that fun!  I used the decking from our house that had to be ripped off (to fix the rot issues) for the clubhouse floor, sides and roof.  I really want to get this finished soon so they can enjoy it before the muggy summer heat descends upon us and drives us all indoors.

 

Here's another project that I'm needing to finish SOON before it gets too hot and muggy...our huge firepit!  It's 13 feet wide and 20" deep (don't worry, the entire pit is not going to be filled with fire), and it took me much of one day and an hour or so of the next to dig it out.  Steve came home when I was about 80% done and saved the day by helping me finish digging - my shoulders were pretty sore by then!

I'm now waiting...and waiting...for the flagstone that I ordered 3 weeks ago to arrive.  Real flagstone is hard to come by around here, and it apparently takes a long time to show up!  I'm going to dry-stack it around the perimeter of the circle to create a retaining wall/seating area.  Then, in the middle of the dugout, I'm going to mortar in a 5-foot-wide stone firepit.  It's so windy in this area that I wanted the firepit to be below ground level, and by the time I plant shrubs in the mounded berm surrounding the pit, it should be a very cozy and protected area.  Can't wait to have this project complete so we can start using it - there's nothing like a summer campfire, especially for pyros like Hyrum and myself!

Steve worked really hard ripping up the old deck, and he occasionally had help from me and the kids.  Hyrum had a great time pounding the old nails through so we could salvage all the decking wood for other projects (like the clubhouse).

 The rot in the back of our house was more extensive than we realized, and our contractor spent all month (minus several days of rainy weather) getting it fixed and putting everything back together.  What a mess, what a frustrating and expensive nightmare that never should have happened in the first place.  Grrr. It just got all buttoned up this past week, so thank goodness that's behind us.

Remember these chairs?  They used to look like this:

They have been intimidating and frustrating (to put it mildly) to refinish, but by the time they're all done it will be worth it.  Every step of the way I keep thinking "Okay, I've just finished the hard part...from here on out it will be easier" but it hasn't really been the case!  The mere fact that there are 4 of them guarantees a huge time investment, of course.  As usual I underestimated the time and work involved in removing every single tiny upholstery nail with pliers, patching and sanding and painting and glazing the wood, cutting new foam, cutting out all the fabric pieces, making piping, sewing the piping on with a million box corner angles, stapling on all the new upholstery (the inside curve of the barrel part's a real fun one, let me tell you!) and making and attaching the gimp to cover all the raw edges (which I haven't done yet).  I got pretty burned out on these, and I still haven't upholstered the last chair yet.  Gotta do the outside projects first though, because of the impending summer heat.

They're real beauties on the inside, eh?  Good bones, though.

Ah, house painting.  After painting every single wall of every house we have bought throughout the years (this is house #5) I'm really. tired. of painting walls.  But apparently I'm not too sick of it because I keep on doing it!  I've never moved into a house without feeling it absolutely necessary to change the paint color(s). It's a curse.  We've lived in rentals 3 times, but only until we could find a house to buy in the same area...because I can't handle living in a place that I can't spruce up with paint and remodeling.  Like I said, a curse.

We weren't able to eliminate the awful sheetrock pillar with the obnoxious (and dangerous) sharp-angled trim because it was load-bearing, so we did the next best thing = replace it with a pretty one instead! 

Actually, we didn't do it - our contractor did.  We had him put a matching one on the other side of the room so it would look balanced and intentional, and it makes a huge difference in the room.  So do the new windows! 

This is the same area, after Steve had carefully removed the sheetrock and the corner fireplace.  We had the one illogical window moved over and added 2 more so the great room has a spectacular view of the backyard now.  Beautiful.  I still need to finish painting everything in that room, and install the stone and millwork around the fireplace/mantle, and make drapes for the new windows.  After I finish the clubhouse and the firepit.  :-)

Awwwwwww... I love my Hazel.

I am trying really hard to spend time with my kids in the midst of all these projects.  Because I know the day will come when they're not little anymore. 

This is also why I haven't been blogging or designing fabric or making artwork this past year...between trying to get our house functional and trying to spend more time with my family, there just isn't enough time to do the other stuff right now.  I've also been trying to get more sleep because I just can't pull the 4 or 5 hours-of-sleep-a-night thing anymore...at least not without being exhausted and grumpy and unproductive the next day.  So again, my blogging, designing, and creating has suffered.  Hopefully by the time school starts next fall I'll be able to do those things on a regular basis - I have enough on my plate right now!

We hadn't taken any family photos in a long time, so I convinced everybody to endure a tripod self-timer session on a beautiful, wind-less evening.  Unfortunately they turned out really grainy and blurry because I set the ISO high, the aperature wide, and the shutter speed fast (to accomodate the fading light and the fact that we're moving targets).  I should have set the aperature much smaller but it was too dark for that.  Sigh.  They look okay on screen but I won't be able to get good prints from them because they're not sharp.  Bummer!

This was the Attack Daddy pose.

I really, really love these pics of the kids...I'm so disappointed that they're so blurry.  I didn't realize they weren't sharp until I came inside and put them on the big monitor.  Not sure how to check for sharpness during a shoot when the LCD screen on the camera is so small that I can't tell it's blurry until after I'm back inside.

Flower Power,

Sibling antics,

 

the Zombie Walk.

I love my kids! Can't imagine my life without them.

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

The good news (other than the fact that I'm actually doing a blog post after a HUGE absence) is that I was able to carve out enough time to make Easter dresses for my girls this year...hooray!  It had been a couple of years since that happened.

Hazel picked out her fabric almost all by herself, and despite her solemn expression in the photo above, she was very excited about her new dress.

There we go, that's better.  Can you believe how long her hair is getting?

I find it quite interesting that Hazel, despite being an absolute shoe fanatic (she has more shoes than anyone in the family, I think) is nearly ALWAYS barefoot!  Inside, outside, upside down, she loves to go around without shoes.  I need to remember that fact the next time she is BEGGING and PLEADING for a new pair of darling footwear that she just can't live without, even if they are on clearance or inexpensive to begin with.  Should we vote on how long you think I'll hold strong to that resolve?  Perhaps not.  If little girl's shoes weren't so stinkin' cute it would make things easier.

Eliza's dress is made from Amy Butler fabric that I absolutely adore, and I actually bought the fabric to make myself a dress a long time ago...but once I came to grips with the acknowledgement that I'm not going to have time to sew for myself for a very long time, I figured Eliza might as well enjoy it in the form of a new Easter dress.  These kids are growing so fast it's hard to keep their closets stocked!

This dress, with its clean lines, was deceptively time-consuming - partly because of the 10 inches I had to add to 7 pieces of flared skirting (it was a store-bought pattern) to make it the length she wanted, and partly because I nearly ruined the entire thing due to a cutting error.  The skirt had taken much more yardage than anticipated due to the added length (10 inches extending the length of flared pieces is much different than if the skirt were straight) and I had JUST enough fabric to cut the bodice front with the gorgeous plant image centered in the middle.  And then I got distracted and grabbed the pattern piece for the bodice BACK instead.  Usually I always double check before I start cutting, but this time I didn't. 

I can't believe I didn't notice that the pattern piece didn't have the "fold here" arrows...but my mind was in la-la-land and so I cut out a nice big, single back piece (rather than 2 separate pieces that a back would have been) and I had no other fabric scraps big enough to make a bodice front.  This was on the Friday before Easter, so no time to order new fabric.  The contours of a bodice front are much different than the back, but I had no choice but to simply cut a lower neckline (I should have made it even lower, but too late now!) and cut here and there to make the front and back fit together properly.  Fortunately for me, she's still built like a little girl so the results weren't disastrous...just a little ill fitting around the neck and shoulders.  Lesson learned on that one! 

Here's another sewing project that I finally finished...one of my good friends from when I lived near DC had a baby - nearly a year ago - and I made these dresses for her darling little girl.  It's about time, eh?

I don't like making clothes for newborns anyway - they grow out of them too fast! 

It's so nice to have spring arrive!  It's been unusually cold this past month, but at least we're not still getting snow like northern parts of the eastern US.  I had planted tons of daffodils last fall, it's been wonderful to see them cheer up things up both inside and out.

These darling little mini daffodils brightened up our table for Easter dinner.

They're the sweetest little things...and only 6 inches high.

Another good news story is that my DIY chandelier is finally finished and installed!

It started out like this...a big brown light fixture on clearance from Home Depot.

I painted it silver, and then spent many hours putting together the crystal embellishments and beads that I had ordered on ebay.

I had to drill holes in the leaves on the arms, but for everywhere else I just juryrigged attachment locations using jewelry chain.  The whole setup with the crystals is done like jewelry rather than the traditional connector rings usually used for crystal, but hey - at least I didn't have to drill a million holes everywhere.

A slight improvement from its original brown-ness, yes?

Here's another makeover project I finished this past month.  This $50 dresser was badly dented, scratched, and chipped.  I filled and patched everything I could, sanded it all down,

gave it a coat of primer and then painted it grey.

I tried dry-brushing Martha Stewart silver paint on it, but I wasn't happy with how splotchy it was.

So then I mixed various metallic paints and glazes together with some water to create a glaze that I brushed on all over the entire piece = a much better finish.  This piece is in our bedroom, which I am still working on.

Ah, yes, our troublesome master bedroom!  I ripped out the carpet (you can see where the partial walls were - and the carpet was not - hence the carpet removal) and installed engineered hardwood flooring.  We had the partial walls removed because they made no sense and prevented us from putting a long dresser anywhere in the room.

This is the flooring that I had purchased a year ago, back when we thought we were going to build over the living room and create a studio space (that's the bad news...but more on that later).  Anyway, we decided to use some of the flooring for the master bedroom instead, and so I spent a couple of days installing it and adding shoe molding around the baseboards. 

I don't have any official "after" photos yet because the room's not finished, but here's a close-up of the floor = very gorgeous, but it sure makes any little string, lint, or dust show up!  I'm glad I don't have dark wood like this all over my entire house...I'm not that good at keeping floors spotless!

So, as I alluded to earlier, we decided not to extend the balcony and add a floor above the living room in our house so that I could have a studio.  It would have cost a bunch of money and we most likely would not have been able to recoup the cost when we sell the place because the real estate market is still terrible around here.  That's the "small" bad news.  Boo.

Are you ready for the Ugly?

This, my friends, is what happens when a builder doesn't use flashing where a deck meets the side of a house (and yes, it's illegal to not use flashing).

This is what happens when a dishonest person carves out what is already rotten (our house sat half-finished for 3 years before the bank took over and hired various contractors to finish it up and, in this case, cover up the damage) and fills the rotted void with pieces of pressure-treated wood to make it look normal and able to pass inspection.

This is what happens when a dishonest person knows there's a big problem and fills the rotted area around the doorjamb with a bunch of silicone to disguise the rot/reduce the leaking around the door.

We knew the door jambs of the french door were rotted, but the county inspectors and the private inspector we hired before we bought the place didn't know -or didn't inform us - how bad it truly was.  When we hired a contractor to replace the doors, this is what he unearthed.  Not only was there no flashing, but they had used normal OSB at the base of the house where it touched the deck.  Another illegal, cost-cutting move that resulted in a bunch of rot.  

Isn't it just lovely?  Just a word of advice...never buy a home that has been abandoned and turned into a foreclosure in the middle of the building process! 

We now have to rip off our entire 60 feet-long back deck, remove the siding, replace the rotten OSB with weatherproof material, replace the rotted beams between the foundation and the walls that the entire house sits on, then finish it properly with flashing and the siding.

I'm grateful that we hadn't already sunk a bunch of money into building the studio room, but I'm very upset that we now have to sink a bunch of money into repairing what should never have happened in the first place...especially to a "new" house!  It has been very difficult (impossible) to verify who did what because of how many different people have worked on the house through the years.  The original contractor is now out of business, and of course nobody is going to step forward to claim responsibility for anything at this point.  We're not the type to sue anyone, but it sure would be nice to make the responsible party at least pay for the repairs!

The silver lining in all of this is that, since that wall is going to be all torn up anyway, I get to have more windows installed in the wall and the ridiculous corner fireplace was removed.

Steve worked very hard to carefully remove the sheetrock and the corner fireplace unit so that the new windows can be framed in.

Didn't he do a good job?  He's also been doing all the electrical changes that needed to happen because of the way previous contractors did shortcuts in the corner where the fireplace was.

We're going to have a new fireplace on the main wall that is much less deep than the corner one.  I'm going to do a rock surround for it and build a big beautiful mantel above it.  Can't wait for that! 

So there you have it, folks.  Am I forgiven for not blogging for so long?  As you can see, things have been rather crazy around here.  Oh - and I didn't even mention the 2 weeks that I was completely floored because of the flu.  I must not have ever truly had the flu before, because that was the absolute worse virus I have ever been through.  Talk about feeling like I've been hit by a train a million times over.  I'm nearly all better now, though, so things are looking up!  Hopefully in a few weeks everything will be fixed and I can start finishing the interior of our house and have a bunch of pictures to share...wish me luck!

 

His, Hers, and Theirs

Remember the office space that we created for Steve and myself?  Below you'll see a picture of what this wall was like before Christmas...

Well, we realized that our office was the hub of family activity more than any other room...which means that our kids were always begging for our computers and bringing all their STUFF into our office.   Which, of course, means big messes everywhere and not enough storage or desk space. 

So we bid adeiu to the reading chair and the bookshelf (the ottoman got a facelift and so did the dark bookcase) and bought a nice long, skinny table from IKEA.  I considered making the table too, but with my mammoth list of other things to make/change/remodel I decided to go with the store bought one....besides, it was on sale!  Then I got to work designing and building a custom hutch with custom boxes to go in it.

Presto change-O!  We now have a family office/creative center with all the crayons, markers, yarn, playdoh, foamy shapes, paper, glue, etc tucked away in pretty boxes and the kids have their OWN table to do crafts on so they'll (hopefully, crossing my fingers on this one) leave me to my own messes on my own desk.

I actually remembered to take plenty of "during construction" photos on this one, so here goes!

I used a big sheet of cabinet grade plywood for the back, then cut 12" wide pine boards to the proper dimensions.  Steve helped me glue and nail (I super-duper heart pneumatic nail guns!  Can't live without 'em) the 2 sides of shelving together that you see in the pic above.  Not exactly a one-person job! 

I had drawn out all the lines where the shelves were to go beforehand, and during construction I used these awesome spring clamps to help hold the shelves in place during the glue+nail process.  Because, as much as I would sometimes like to be, I'm not an octopus.

I made sure I drew lines on the BACK of the hutch that were exactly the same as the lines on the front of the hutch.  This made it possible to send the nails through the back and into the shelves in a much more precise manner...although we still managed to miss occasionally - but much less than we would have otherwise!  Blame it on the knots in the wood - they can be so hard that the nails would rather deflect than go through them.  Or user error.  Either way.  :-)

Two of the three shelves in the middle section were in line with shelves on the other sides, so nailing into them from the opposite side wasn't possible.  I attached cleats made of quarter round to those places, and the shelves rested on the cleats.

Then it was time for the trim, which I glued and nailed in place.

After filling the nail holes, sanding, and using painter's caulk in all the seams, it was ready to paint!  It took far too long to paint that thing, and I resolved to paint the pieces first next time.  I was lucky that my good friend Christine came down from DC area to visit me, because she helped me finish painting this hutch AND prepainted the pieces to the unit I built in the laundry room!  (More on that later)  See what happens when I get visitors?  I put them to work!  Actually Christine is a kindred spirit and likes doing stuff like this, so I didn't have to feel too badly.  We got to go to the beach too, and the sand dunes - good times, good times.

I made the large boxes out of cabinet grade plywood, because that's what I had on hand and I actually like seeing the lines of ply on the box edges.  I painted these with 1 coat of white paint and then sanded back through so the ply edges were partially visible and only a thin coat of paint remained on the box sides, with the wood grain peeking through here and there.  I knocked all the sharp edges and corners off with a hand-held sander prior to painting, then went back over it with the sander after painting as well.  I then coated everything with a thin layer of furniture wax and they are smooth as a baby's bum! I also glued sheets of felt to the bottom of the boxes to minimize friction and potential damage to the shelving.

These 2 little guys were made the same way, but I used thin pieces of poplar instead of the thick, heavy plywood since they were so small.  The shiny boxes with lids were ones I found on clearance at Lowes right after New Year's.

We screwed the hutch to the studs in the wall in several places, so it's actually not resting on the table at all.  That baby was so heavy we didn't want to stress the table, and this way we know that, no matter how crazy our little monkies get, the hutch won't tip over on them. 

Ah, finally...one little corner of my world where there really is a place for everything and everything is in its place.  Hmmm....how long do you think it will last?

 

North Carolina Christmas

Merry Christmas from North Carolina!

I hope you all had a peaceful Christmas Day full of happy smiles and the love of family and friends.  We had a nice, relaxing, quiet time this Christmas - which was just perfect for us this year.

 As you can see, I've been busy getting our house all decked out for the Holiday Season - it's my favorite time of year and I can't seem to help going all out for Christmas.  Since it's warmer down here than it was up in DC, my kids have been complaining that it doesn't feel like Christmas because of the weather (they have, apparently, forgotten the 80+ degree winters in Hawaii that we experienced for 5 years)....so I've been trying to make the house extra Christmas-y to help us all get in the mood.

It's always a bit harder to do on the years that we move, but I've been working diligently this past month to get the house ready to be Christmasified.  I do believe that's not an official word, but it works.  :-)

We've been enjoying all the Christmas decorations and the get-togethers with our new friends here in NC.  So many wonderful, friendly, and kind people down here - it's been great getting to know everybody.

I feel like I have to give a disclaimer/apology for all the crazy lighting in these pictures...they were taken on different days and nights and the light varied immensely.  I don't have the skills (or the time to develop the skills right now) to properly edit the lighting in my pictures, so they are what they are this year. 

I'm just glad to get them posted at all...I've been working on all this stuff for the entire month, and have spent many, many hours photographing, editing, and uploading them.  Glad to see them all together in one post at last!

Despite the crazy rush of the Holidays, coupled with trying to get our house presentable, my Craigslist vintage furniture redone, and making gifts for family and friends, I've been trying hard to remember the true Reason for the Season.

After all, "Christmas begins with Christ" and it all started with the babe in the manger, despite society's tendency to commercialize and secularize this sacred holiday.

That being said, I must admit I'm a fan of Santa Claus and the joy and wonderment that ol' St. Nick brings to Christmas.  I just don't want my kids to forget that celebrating the birth of the Savior is the real cause for Joy - not just what's under the tree Christmas morning.

 

Santa Claus conveys the spirit of giving and of being good and kind, so I'm not one to cut him out of Christmas in our household traditions, as you can see from the Santa collection in my dining hutch.

 

Good ol' Calvin and Hobbes made their way into my display as well...I made that little ornament back in the days before Sculpey clay.  It's made of bread/glue dough, so it has faded and degenerated a bit over the years, but I still love it.  I was so sad when Watterson retired from making Calvin and Hobbes cartoons - I dearly miss Calvin's precocious wittiness and mischievous antics.

Thank goodness for Phineas and Ferb - whenever my kids watch that on Netflix I'm always drawn in...I love those 2 little genius kids and the creative messes they inadvertantly draw their sister into.  Always good for a laugh, that show.  But I digress.

You remember my dressers that I gave a major facelift to earlier this month?

This year I discovered the beauty of German glass glitter, and I've been coating loads of things with it!  The silver glitter balls above were styrofoam balls that I spray painted silver, then coated with the silver glass glitter.  The photo simply does not do them justice - they gleam and sparkle brilliantly in real life.

I did the same thing with this small Nativity arrangement I bought at the Dollar Tree and then painted and coated with glitter.

The silver Nativity figurines on the dresser were inexpensive plastic painted ones from Walmart that I spraypainted a satin nickel finish, which classed them up quite a bit.

I've also been playing around a lot with Krylon mirror spray paint, which I used to coat the inside of a bunch of inexpensive glassware to create the glimmery candle arrangements on my mantle.  I used masking tape to isolate the rim of some of the glassware, which I coated with glue and then glitter.

The big silver ball was not something that I made or altered - I found it at Marshall's and had to take it home.  :-)

These plastic snowflakes were from the Dollar Tree, but some were blue and some were shiny white.  I spraypainted all of them a satin white and coated them with clear German glass glitter, and now they look much better!

You'll recognize these ornaments from previous years - you can find the tutorials for them in my sidebar.

I just finished making a slipcover for the ottoman that currently serves as our "coffee table" until I can finish the real furniture that's still awaiting a makeover.  I also made improvisational fabric "artwork" to provide some color and interest above my dressers until after the remodel (we'll be adding a room above and moving the fireplace to the center of that wall).  I'll eventually paint large panels with real artwork to hang above the dressers, and the walls will no longer be a cream color, but for now this will do the trick.

I couldn't resist the snappy red and white chevron fabric!

My Wall o' Plates display is smaller in this house, but still fun.  I still need to make valances for the kitchen breakfast nook windows, but that will have to wait until after the holidays. 

Here's a better picture of the table I just finished redoing.

These were very cheap ornaments from Walmart that I spraypainted and then coated with silver German glass glitter. 

It might be hard to tell from the photos, but the "before" version (in photo below) was definitely upgraded with the fancy glass glitter.

They sparkle brilliantly now, especially in the sunlight.

I didn't make the Hawaiian quilt on the wall, I bought it when we were stationed there.  I think it's safe to say I will never make an applique quilt as involved as that one is! 

This is Eliza's little tree in her room, appropriately decked out with horse ornaments!

I spray painted a bunch of cheap plastic horses white, then coated them in the clear glass glitter.  To turn them into ornaments, I spraypainted tiny eye hooks white, drilled a tiny hole into the horses, and screwed the eye hooks into the holes.  (I should have inserted the eye hooks prior to painting to save myself some work, but I hadn't bought the eye hooks yet) What a transformation, eh?  I think that's my favorite tree in the house this year.

When Hurricane Sandy struck about a month ago, I started piecing this Christmas quilt.  I've been wanting to do a pinwheel Christmas quilt for a few years now, and I finally determined to design and sew it.

I obviously haven't quilted it yet - things just got way too busy and I had to set it aside because I didn't want to rush through the quilting process and potentially ruin it.  Now that it's all pieced, I'm regretting all the different shades of green in the quilt.  I was going for a more classic look, and this one has a much more retro/vintage look due to the riotous colors and patterns. I think I may piece another one that's just red and white next year.

This version is still a lot of fun, and I'm sure it will be something my kids will remember pulling out each Christmas season as they grow up.

To create the blocks, I sewed strips of fabric together and then cut them into triangles to create the pinwheels.  This resulted in blocks that had vastly different looks to them, even when using identical fabric strips.  These 2 blocks (above and below), for example, were made from the same fabric strip combinations but look completely different because of the positioning of the triangles.  Can you see the same fabric combos in both blocks?  Such fun, such fun.

I really enjoyed the creative process involved in making this quilt - no 2 blocks are the same (except the tiny, 4" ones) and each block was a new design challenge.  Not the fastest or easiest quilt to make, by any means, but definitely more interesting than doing monotonous assembly-line style piecing.

Here's another sewing project I did this Christmas...handstitched lettering on velvet pillows!  These were sent off to family members, but I must admit I kept a couple of them for myself...I really like how they turned out.

I discovered that velvet is extremely hard to sew with because of the nap.  Even with the special walking foot I have on my sewing machine, the 2 squares of velvet would shift and push off eachother like crazy when I was sewing them together.  If anyone has any tips on how to sew velvet together, I'm all ears!

The green one was made with antique-style velvet, which was much easier to work with because the fabric had a stiff backing and the nap was less thick = less push and pull as it was going through the feed dogs. 

Hazel liked the pillows too - or at least she liked getting her picture taken next to them!  She always loves to get into the pictures I'm taking around the house.

I bought some lovely wool felt from the Heather Bailey store, which I used to make some sweet little personalized ornaments for my young nieces and nephew.  I must admit I was surprised at how long it took me to make those little things - I may as well have made all the girls a skirt!  Ah, well, hopefully the kids will enjoy their ornaments for years to come.

After the handstitched ornaments were all sent off, I got smart and made simple clay ornaments for my local friends.  I used plain white clay and then, after they were baked, I coated them with a silver glaze and blotted most of it off so that only a pearlized sheen remained everywhere except for the lettering.

Much faster and easier, and yet they're still quite lovely.  I got the idea for stamping the words into the Sculpey clay from an online tutorial .  Her birds were more 3-dimensional and looked quite a bit different, and I used a cut-off paper clip embedded in the clay as my hanger, but the stamped lettering is about the same.

I didn't have time to make handstitched felt birdies for my kids, so I made them clay versions instead and coated the birds with different colored glazes, which they really liked.

These are the three that I kept.  They have a metallic aqua glaze on them.

 

Here we all are in our Christmas Sunday attire!  The kids only tolerated posing for 3 or 4 episodes of the self timer on the camera+tripod, so this was the best we could come up with.  At least we now have something to put on our Christmas cards...the ones I haven't made yet.  :-)  That's one of this week's projects.

Have you noticed we have a new member in our family?  We rescued her from a local shelter a few weeks ago, and we're so glad we did.

Hazel has aptly named her Princess Velvet (her fur is SO incredibly SOFT!), but most of the time we dispense with formality and just call her Velvet or, simply, Kitty. 

The kids have been begging for a pet for so long, but I just couldn't bring myself to get a dog.  The thought of having to bathe, groom, pick up poop, wipe its paws every time it went in and out of the house, etc etc just made me cringe.  I have a hard time getting my own kids to bathe, brush their hair and teeth, and flush the toilet - the last thing I needed was to look after a doggie for all the same reasons!

Cats, on the other hand, are more independent.  And they don't slobber all over your face.  And they clean themselves, and there isn't cat poop all over the yard.  I  can handle a cat, provided it doesn't claw my furniture to shreds.  :-)

We all love our Velvet!  She is a remarkable kitty because she is incredibly tolerant and mellow, especially considering her young age (8 months).  Hazel carts her around all day long and Velvet quietly endures without a scratch or a frantic dash under the furniture.  She is already housetrained and, so far, has not done any major damage to furniture with her claws (knock on wood).  Plus she is such a sweetie! 

Velvet loves to snuggle on laps (I love the way she tucks her front paws under herself) but can be playful with her kitty toys too, which provides lots of entertainment for the family.  She is perfect for us, and hopefully she thinks we're okay too.  Definitely my favorite Christmas present this year.

 

Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas and a safe and Happy New Year!

 

All I want for Christmas is more time before Christmas

I fail to see how it could possibly be nearly 2 weeks into December.  Or more specifically, how there could possibly be a mere 15 days until Christmas! 

After all, I'm just downloading and editing the few pictures that I took at Thanksgiving.  I know, it's weird to see so much red and white at Thanksgiving time (candy cane stripes with pumpkins?!) but I had just put my "Minnie Mouse" drapes up (had to add length to my original ones plus make 2 new panels) and the striped napkins seemed to fit the mood at the time. 

Our awesome neighbors and my little brother (who happens to be stationed nearby and had just come back from a 6 month deployment) were able to join us for dinner, which was really great.  It's always nice to have extra adults at Thanksgiving time, as my kids are not of the opinion that any traditional Thanksgiving food is worth eating - except for the rolls - and it's no fun to cook a big turkey with all the fixins just for Steve and myself.  Actually, I have to say that Hyrum did try the turkey this year and he even admitted that he liked it, so there's progress.  :-)  Eliza saw the turkey in all its raw glory that morning, so there was no way we were going to convince her to eat any of the cooked version.  She loves animals and can't stand the thought of eating one...although she hasn't quite figured out that Costco meatballs and McDonald's hamburgers are in the meat category.  Wait - the McD's hamburger hardly qualifies as real beef...I can't stand those things.

ANYWAY, one of the (many) reasons I'm feeling so far behind this Christmas is the swingset we finally finished enough to attach the swings to. It's a work in progress, but at least they can start playing on it now.

What was supposed to be a fall project turned into a slighty early Christmas present!  Can you believe the weather is warm enough for my kids to be playing on it with bare feet and no jackets?  In mid-December, no less?  Not that I'm complaining - I was very grateful to be working on it in 60 degree weather, I assure you!

I've been meaning to get a swingset built for them for months now, but we've been slightly preoccupied with other things.  One fine day about 2 months ago, when Steve was gone on a business trip, I decided that it was time to start - I was very weary of the kids whining about being bored with "nothing to do".  Harrumpf.  So I drew up some plans (I wanted a TALL swingset with lots of swinging capablity), went to the store and bought all the lumber, and got started.  Silly me, I honestly thought I'd be able to get a lot of it done in one day with Hyrum to help me hold the posts steady.  I dug the holes, got the posts all level, filled the holes, and got the wood ready to brace the center posts at the appropriate angles.  Then darkness fell before I could brace the tall center posts.

And then Hurricane Sandy happened. 

And then I discovered that my posts weren't in the ground deep enough because when the ground got waterlogged, they decided to lean.  A lot.

So a few weeks later, with Steve to help me this time (and some very helpful advice from our neighbor), we dug up the posts and started again.  This time we dug the holes 30 inches deep and added 4 additional posts (30 inches deep as well) for the angled boards to tie into, so there's no way that puppy is going to budge now! 

It took 3 weekends, a few more trips to the store, and some help from our local missionary friends, but we finally got it to the functional stage.

And Hyrum is jumping for joy. 

I guess I should impose a "no jumping out of the swing" rule, but look at that kid's face!  I used to jump out of swings all the time as a girl = felt like I was flying.  Good thing kids are flexible and resilient.  :-)

Here are Reasons #2 and #3 that Christmas has come too quickly this year...

Last week the weather was AMAZINGLY perfect for refinishing furniture, and these diamonds-in-the-rough had been waiting patiently for over 6 months for just such a time.  Being so close to the coast, I've discovered, means lots of breeze and wind...which can be wonderful in the summer but is a lousy climate for refinishing furniture.  But last Monday was different.  There was NO wind, it was warm but not too humid, and so I pulled the Carpe Diem and went to work.

After spending hours sanding all the grime, waxy buildup, and sticky paper from dresser #1 (dresser #2 was less work, but still needed sanding), I sprayed grey primer on them and then 2 coats of satin grey spray paint.  Once I had them back in the house I brushed 2 coats of a homemade mix of Martha Stewart metallic paint in Thundercloud + an asphaltum glaze + black paint on each dresser. 

The result was a dark, lustrous, gorgeous finish with a rich but subtle sheen that looked exactly like polished hematite.  But it was a bit too dark and I wanted to accentuate the carved details in the woodwork, so then I very carefully applied and wiped off a silver glaze (also Martha's, as seen on the left of the paint photo) in the carvings and along all the edges.  

The dresser above had a million intentionally-inflicted small distress marks from the original factory finish, which I didn't even notice until I primed the entire thing.  I debated whether or not to spend the time filling and sanding all of them, I opted not to but now I think I probably should have.  The metallic paint really highlights all of the miniature dents, which you can probably see on the drawer fronts.  Oops.  It actually looks a lot better in real life - the dents don't scream out like they do in the photo.

 

The silver glaze was a very time-consuming process (5 hours for the 2 dressers) because I had to make sure I wiped every last bit of glaze off the flat planes (without wiping it out of the grooves and along the edges) of the wood with a damp rag because any leftover glaze would have left an uneven silvery sheen and it would have ruined the hematite look.

I also took all the original hardware, scrubbed off the waxy gunk, and dabbed 2 light coats of silver glaze with a t-shirt scrap onto all the surfaces.  The result is more of a patina than a paint layer, which I love.

So here are my silver hematite beauties side by side (they really are the same color, but one is closer to the window), a practical nod to the Hollywood Regency style that I love but don't have the budget or the lifestyle to embrace completely.  Mirrored finishes and lucite coffee tables are pretty, but expensive - not to mention easily damaged!  My 2 dressers cost me a whopping $125 together (thanks to Craigslist in DC) and all the paint was another $40 or $50. 

When we finish remodeling, there will be a fireplace centered on that wall and the dressers will flank it on either side - so their stylistic differences won't be quite so apparent.  And the walls will be painted grey.  Can't wait to see it all come together!

Here we have Reason #4 for falling behind.  This barrister bookcase used to be dark brown, but I wanted it to be white in its new location by the kitchen table.

This is how it used to look when it resided in our office.  Some of the glass doors had been damaged, and there were lots of dings from our move.

I painted the entire thing white, distressed the edges, then cut out cardboard and wrapped it with fabric to cover the grooves from the missing glass cover thingy on the top shelf.  Plus I just love how the fabric backing looks in general, and I would have done it even if I weren't trying to hide grooves!  :-)

I created a mercury glass mirrored finish on the glass by spritzing the backs of the glass with water, then spraying Krylon Mirror spray paint in several thin layers on top of the water droplets.  Wherever the water drops were, the paint didn't stick so it created that mercury look.  This photo is just showing the reflection of the floor, so it's impossible to see the silvery finish - I'll have to get better pictures later.

In November I sanded and painted our kitchen table, just before Thanksgiving.  It had one of those Queen Anne high gloss cherry finishes, so I had to spend a LOT of time with Mr. Sander getting all the gloss off.

Terrible picture, again my apologies...I promise I'll have better ones when I'm all done decorating for Christmas.

I used Annie Sloan's chalk paint in Paris Grey for this piece (2 coats).  Then I sanded it down to a smooth finish (the trouble with that paint are the inevitable brush strokes) and distressed through to the old wood color in places.  I really like using distressed finishes because it makes me much less paranoid about damaging my furniture.  Any new damage tends to blend in...and for a kitchen table with 3 young kids in the house, damage is not a matter of IF, but WHEN. 

I then put 5 coats of Minwax Polyurethane on it for good measure.  I used a small foam roller for super smooth surfaces, it worked out better than a brush would have...although using a sprayer would have been the best tool.  Don't have one of those though, so the roller was the next best thing. 

That table was another DC Craigslist bargain, I think I paid $70 for it.  I have another leaf for it too (not pictured) so it can be REALLY long = perfect for parties and get-togethers!

So there you have it, folks...5 big reasons why I haven't been blogging and why I'm STILL not done with my decorations, let alone making all the gifts I have planned!  Hmmm...too bad humans need sleep, cuz I sure could use several extra hours in my days.   I'm hoping to have my big Christmas post up and running by next week - wish me luck, and Merry Christmas to you all! 

 

 

October in a (pumpkin) shell

I started this post 2 weeks ago, I promise...and now that Thanksgiving is almost upon us, it really is time to wrap up October!

Here is our new dining room, still without drapes and the faux paneling that I started doing nearly 2 months ago.  At least the lower third of the walls are smoothed out and painted white.

Mr. Crow says that, as long as there are plenty of bugs to eat, he doesn't care about the rest.

Eew.  Such a lovely sight to see at the dinner table.  :-)

My black china hutch looks especially dashing bedecked with Halloween dishes.  If you look closely, you can see the one wall of faux paneling I have finished = I had to get it done before pushing the china hutch back to its final resting place, as the hutch can't be moved when it's all loaded up with a ton of dishware and I wasn't about to unload/reload that thing twice!

Nothing new here, just rearranged from previous years.

 

The egg cups were especially useful to display my Halloween flower blossoms.

 

 

 

 

 

The orange paper lanterns were saved from when I did the decorations for my niece's wedding a couple of years ago - I finally unearthed the box they were in when we moved. 

The black branches that I normally hang the ribbon ornaments on got crushed in the move, so I just suspended them from the lanterns for an easy fix.

My beloved Halloween quilt is very happy on its new wall....

...and the chevron pillow I made from the quilt scraps is quite content as well.

Did I ever show you these pillows last year?  I don't remember if I did or not.

This hexagon one was appliqued onto a linen background and then I handstitched the "web" around it.

 

I must confess, I saw these Martha Stewart mice at TJ Maxx and had to buy them - there's no way I'd take the time to cut them out myself and at $2, how can I go wrong?

 

Another shot of my most favorite quilt.

My kiddos all decked out for trick-or-treating!  Costumes are always a source of last-minute excitement at our house, because my kids change their minds at least 3 or 4 times before Halloween night as to what they want to be.  I've learned to wait until the last week to make them, but this year I was making Hyrum's and Eliza's costumes at the VERY last minute. 

I thought I could get away with just adding ears, a mane and tail to a brown hooded sweatshirt for Eliza's horsie costume, but after spending 2 hours shopping for said sweatshirt, I gave up and, in desperation, bought a fleecy blanket to cut up.  I spent all of Halloween eve designing and making her costume.

Hyrum was feeling grumpy about the whole trick-or-treat thing and stated quite emphatically that he didn't want a costume this year....until he came home from school on Halloween day and said he wanted to be a skeleton.  So I found his sweats and grabbed some fusible fleece that I (fortunately) had on hand and cut out the bones during Hyrum's piano lesson.  The ribcage is appropriately detailed, but in the essence of time I just did very basic (anatomically wrong) bones for his arms and legs, and no pelvis bones...which alarmed Hyrum quite a bit but given the time constraints he forgave me.  :-)  Forty-five minutes later (and no dinner for mommy!) we were out the door enroute to tricks and treats.

True to tradition, I had a Halloween party for my kids and their friends.  This year was rather modest in the fancy themed food department (compared to previous years), but hey - at least we had a party!

Here are my chocolate covered pretzel/caramel spiders, which looked better than they tasted because I couldn't find Rolo candy and used caramel squares instead, but left them in the oven WAY too long so they were as hard as rocks!  Not exaggerating, I assure you = I had to warn the kids not to eat the spider middles unless they wanted a broken tooth or two.  I'll know better for next year.  :-)

I decided to let the kids create their own Halloween-themed treats this year, which was a big success.

I bought those awful, low-quality Ding Dongs and Swiss Rolls (that I can't stand but my kids love) and let them go crazy with marshmallows, candy, and frosting.

They had a great time!  Definitely a repeat activity.

 

No, there aren't Ding Dongs inside this one...I was asked to help out with a small, rather impromptu local wedding and so I offered to make the cake too, since their budget didn't allow for one.

I couldn't find any real flowers (in the 1.5 hours that I had to shop for them before picking up my kids, in a new city that I'm still unfamiliar with) that would work in the autumnal color spectrum, so I had to buy faux flowers instead.

Not exactly optimum, but definitely better than nothing at all, right?  They were very appreciative of everything, I'm glad I was able to help out.

What's October without a visit to the good ol' Pumpkin Patch?

This pumpkin patch/produce market was fantastic = demonstrations of hand-pressed apple cider,

scarecrow stuffing,

even a giant sand dune!

I don't know how kids can stand having sand get everywhere in their clothes and hair, but they sure don't seem to mind!

The hayride was lots of fun,

and of course the pursuit of picking the perfect pumpkin was something Hazel took very seriously.

"This is the one, Mom! " Too bad I didn't get a photo of it after she carved it (all by herself, of course) and before it rotted all over the porch.  Hopefully I'll have my act together a bit more next year....and hopefully I'll post again before December!  Don't hold your breath, though - it looks like I'm pretty consistently averaging 1 post per month.  That just may be the new norm for me this year, at least until things settle down with the new house, doctor's appointments, switching schools/preschools (Hazel's third one since May), etc etc.

If I don't "see" you until the end of November, have a Happy Thanksgiving!

His and Hers

What classic color scheme is better for a shared His-N-Hers office than good ol' black, white, and red? 

Well, okay, there are lots of options but since we already had a bunch of black, white, and red stuff from our last house, this is what I came up with for our new office area!

All the furniture, rugs, and drapes were from various parts of our old house, just regrouped to fit this new space.  Recognize the ribbon photo board from my previous studio? 

This is a view of how open it was before we had the wall added.  By closing that space off to the front entryway, we gained a lot of usable interior office space with room enough to have a bookshelf and a reading chair instead of a 10 foot opening.  I know many people like the modern open concept, but for me this works MUCH better.  I'm not a fan of having things so open that there are no boundaries between various spaces of the home...not to mention the mess visibility factor! 

The drapes were reworked from the ones I had in our master bedroom in the old house - Steve was nice and let me have my polka dots, even though it's his office space too.  :-)  At least they weren't pink polka dots, right?!  I normally hang my drapes with the rods almost to the ceiling, but since the ceiling in this house is at 9 feet instead of 8, I hung the rods lower than usual.  I wasn't in the mood to add on extra length at the bottom of my drapes for this room.

Speaking of the curtain rods, would you believe that they're just 1" diameter PVC pipe?

Yup, true story.  I didn't want to spend a fortune on these walls, and I wanted the drapes to completely cover the space between the windows, so I knew I could get away with the 45 angle PVC couplers and the super cheap curtain rod brackets (you can buy them in unfinished pairs at Lowes for a couple bucks each set).  So I painted the pipes black with spray paint that's especially designed for plastic, and I only had to buy 2 unfinished finials for either end of the curtain rods (which I also painted black, obviously).

The whole rod setup for those 3 windows, including the pipes, brackets, spray paint, and finials, ended up costing about $20 - and $5 of that was for the spray paint!

To make the finials (which come with a screw inserted in them already) attach to the ends of the PVC, I could have glued wooden dowels inside the ends and then screwed into that, but instead I sprayed some of that expandable caulk sealant stuff (the foamy kind that expands and then hardens) into the open ends of the PVC, then taped the finials in place on the end before the foam had a chance to expand/escape/ooze out the end.  Once it hardened (about 30 minutes) they were firmly secured in place and I didn't have to go try and find a dowel that would fit just right inside the pipe.

Here are these baskets again - I've had these forever, but in order to make their original blonde finish less noticeable on their new shelf, I stained them with a watered-down glaze which was a deep brown/black color.

This is my side of the room.  Except normally there are a bunch of papers from my sketching and all the stuff the kids noodle around with everywhere.  No, I didn't clean up just for the photo - I just took this as soon as I was done decorating = before we had a chance to mess it all up!

Perhaps one of these days I'll actually live by that "Keep Calm" motto...I've got the "Carry On" part down okay, it's just the Keep Calm part that continues to elude me....maybe by the time I'm 80 I'll get that part figured out.  Or maybe by the time we stop moving around?  Hmmmm....I wonder......