Happy New Year!!!

No, I haven't forgotten about my blog.  I've been wrapped up in the holiday and post holiday celebrations.  I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas.  I've got so many ideas for projects for the new year that I can't wait to share!  We will have to see what I actual do as the new year gets started.  For now, I hope everyone has a new year filled with much happiness and many blessings!

Happy New Year!!

Merry Christmas

With Christmas a few days away, I probably will take this week off from posting to enjoy family.  With relatives in town, school being out, and last minute shopping, I don't think I will have much time for anything else.  So, I wanted to wish all of you a Merry Christmas by sharing our Christmas card with you.

White Christmas

I've shown you the Christmas decorations downstairs.  Now, I'll share with you our bonus room upstairs tree.  I would love an all white house.  I love Dreamy Whites home.  I am not brave enough to do that though.  Maybe someday I will have someone take over and do it for me.  Well, I girl can dream. 

Loving all that white loveliness, here is my tree decorated in white.  Here is the daytime shot.

Nighttime shot.  (not the best quality)

A closer up look.

I may edit to link up to parties.

Merry Mantel

Before I share my merry mantel, I have a little story about a six year old's brutal honest.  We were at the dinner table yesterday when my six year old son commented that I have a stomach just like Santa's.  It kind of came from no where.  When I tried to explain to him about being more delicate with what he says, he then, adamantly, states "well mom your belly is just chubby."  I guess I know what my New Year's resolution is going to be.  My son did stop there.  When we were practicing a Christmas song for his program, he told me in the middle of singing that his teacher has a much better singing voice.  As I said "that's nice,"  he proceeds to say "no, really mom, it's a lot better than yours."  Kids!  You gotta love them.

Hope that gave you a good laugh.  Anyways, on to my merry mantel.  This year I kept it pretty simple.  Just some garland, stockings, 2 candles and one sign. 

Here is a closer look:

I got this sled at the auction for about 7 bucks.  The ice skates were $1 find at the Salvation Army.

The best part about the mantel, today at least, is our little Elf on the Shelve, Jango.  I don't know why I didn't get this sooner.  My 3 year old keeps telling the elf "sorry, please don't tell Santa."  How I'm going to miss this little guy when Christmas is done.

may edit to link to parties

Ballard Holiday pillows

It is that time of year to give my children's teachers a little something at Christmas time.  Each year, I try to make something.  For the past 2 years, I have written poems for my son's teachers.  This year, I seem to be out of creative juices in that area. 

I spied these cute holiday pillows at Ballard Designs.

I thought these would be too cute not to try to make.  I dragged out my left over drop cloth fabric, my wonder under transfer webbing, a fabric marker, 2 Christmas bandannas from Hobby Lobby that were 50% off, and my trusty sewing machine and got to work.  I can't say that I particularly enjoyed sewing down the appliques.  Any hints on how to keep it consistent around circles would be appreciated. 

Two down, only five more to go!  I sure hope the teachers enjoy there gifts.

I'm sharing this over at:
Between Naps on the Porch
Todays Creatvie Blog
may edit to add links to parties
 

Oh Christmas tree

As one Christmas song states, "it's the most wonderful time of the year."  I love Christmas time.  I don't particularly love dragging out the tree and decking out our halls.  You see, I had a brilliant idea about 8 years ago that involved purchasing a 9' beautiful Christmas tree.  I felt with our tall ceilings that we just had to get a huge one.  They never stated on the box just how much of a hassle putting up such a large tree would be each year.

Well, this year I tried to convince my 6 year old that "wouldn't it be nice to get a smaller tree with the lights already on it?!"  I crossed my fingers hoping I could get my son on board but his response was "Mom, we have to put up our big tree to celebrate Jesus birthday!"  What was I to say?  So, it's up waiting for the birthday celebrations.  I wanted to share it with you.

Because of how our ceilings slant and the living room and dining room being open to one another, we plop it right between the living and dining room.  It does interfere with our usual circle we chase the kids in but it's the only place that seems to accommodate it just right.  As you can see in the next picture, we have quite an assortment of ornaments.  It takes a lot to fill this tree!  We even have some that my husband and I made way, way back in elementary school.

Here are a couple of my favorite because they were made by the sweetest, most cutest hands of all.

I plan on linking up to show some Christmas love at:



Expolsion of Christmas!

My favorite holiday is Christmas.  Usually the week of Thanksgiving, I start dragging out all the decorations.  I've got a lot.  So, it takes a while.  I've had decked my halls since Thanksgiving and thought I would give you a peek by starting with my dining room.  I really wanted to relay the warm glow of the candles.  So, I used my tripod and no flash.  Hopefully, you can get a sense of what I feel when it is all lit up with candle light.

 I tried to keep it simple on the buffet.  My daughter likes to rearrange my decorations to other rooms (mainly hers). 

I love my garland up around the windows.  They are so big.  It just felt like they needed a little vavoom for the season.

Here is the best shot I could get of the entire dining room.  The lighting you see is candle lights and lights from the Christmas tree.  I love the warm glow during these cold winter nights.

I'm linking to:



 

It's a wonderful life!

You just don't know how wonderful life is until an emergency comes up.  Last week my husband was diagnosed with a deep vein blood clot in his leg.  Yesterday morning I had the scare of my life.  My husband had some chest pain and difficulty breathing which are indication that the clot broke loose and travelled to his lungs which can be life threatening.  Needless to say, I was a mess in the ER yesterday.  All I kept thinking about is what if this could be it.  What and how would I tell the kids?  What would I do without him?!  Thankfully it wasn't a pulmonary embolism!  It turned out to be pneumonia which isn't good but a lot better than the other.  He is back home on even more medication but doing much better.

Which leads to today's post, It's a Wonderful Life!  I had started working on this pillow 2 days ago but just didn't realize how true the message was until yesterday.  Now that I've calmed down and hubby seems good enough to do a conference call, I wanted to share my latest craft with you.  Know that I'm taking good care of hubby but I needed a little therapeutic blog time.

I used muslin, my cricut and Sure Cuts a Lot software, freezer paper, iron, craft paint, and ribbon.  Of course I cut my muslin down to the dimensions of my pillow plus a 1/2", giving a 1/4" for seam allowance on all sides.  I found out about a great software called Sure Cuts a Lot.  It allows you to cut any font on your computer and SVG images.  So, no more cartridges.  This was the first time I used the software.   I selected my font and size.  Typed out my  words and flipped it to mirror image.  I did this because when you use freezer paper with the cricut, you put the matte side down.  Thus, when ironing on the freezer paper, your message will read correctly.  Then, the tough part was ironing down the paper and putting all of the little pieces in the proper places.  Once ironed on, I painted away, sewed and viola.

I added the ribbon and a little flea market pin bling to dress it up.

So, as you read the message, It's a Wonderful Life, just remember that and enjoy everyday because you just don't know when things could change. 

I am sharing this over at:

Today's Creative blog,
Before and After party @  
Centsational Girl's  Christmas Craft link party.


(Will probably edit to add links to parties.)

Will it ever end?!

My household just can't seem to shake the germs.  Over last weekend, everyone was nursing our queasy bellies.  Once everyone seemed to bounce back, hubby started complaining that his leg hurt.  I didn't give it too much thought because he has some problems with his knees.  Well, late last night, he went to the ER.  He was diagnosed with DVT, deep vein thrombosis.  Needless to say, I have put all of those Christmas decorating craft ideas from all of you on hold while I nurse hubby.  We are glad he was able to come home to take it easy and start shots.  So, I probably will be MIA for a couple of days.  I sure hope you all are doing well!    

How to reupholster, Part 3b - the finale!!!

It is time to finish up our journey in reupholstering.  I believe we left off with me beating my head in the wall a few times.  Never fear, the headache is gone.  Okay, yesterday I left off without any pictures.  So, here we go.  I began attaching the fabric starting with the last piece I had removed.  Let me just say that I tried and tried to use my electric stapler but no luck.  I had to go old school and use my trusty tack hammer and tacks.  Here she is after attaching the back piece of the front.

You may have noticed that I put new batting down on the front of the chair.  Once I saw the previous batting in the light of day, it looked a little dirty.  You know from yesterday's post that it was a bear to get the bottom front stapled without wrinkles.  After I got that under control, I stapled down the seat cushion then the back of the chair.  Here is all of that hard work:

Now for the lipstick!  I tried to go the easy route and buy some sort of braiding but had no luck matching colors.  I got busy making double cording to cover those unsightly tacks.  My supplies were cording, 2" strips of the fabric and a double cording foot.

I was pretty intimidated about making the double cording but there is a great tutorial at Design Intervention here.  This is a shot of my success!

Now, I just need to heat up the glue gun and get this chair done!

Just a reminder of the before:

Okay, drum roll please!!!!!

I can't tell you how happy I am to complete one chair.  I'm linking up to the following blogs to show this baby off: