Spring Cleaning and Gettin' My Craft On!

I hope everyone had a blessed Easter and enjoyed the day!

For me, it's officially springtime now and while doing some spring cleaning and rearranging, I've also been working on a few little projects. Since I've horribly neglected my blog and my wonderful blogging friends lately, I thought I'd share...

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As I mentioned in my previous post, I love blue and have decided to incorporate more if it in our home. I also love red with my blue, so there's more of that too. We have a red kitchen and a red dining room so I've added touches of red here and there in the other rooms to bring it out more. I love the all white/cream color scheme that I had before but I was ready for a little color shake up!

So... I made some pillows in blue, trimmed with red pom pom fringe and I made some in red toile. I'm all about French decor so I had to include my all time favorite - toile!

and...speaking of toile, I kind of went all out with it! I made some lampshades and I made some curtains - do you detect a theme here?

;)

I wish I had remembered to take before photos of these lamps. They were nasty old things that had been banished to the basement storage about a year ago. When I decided on this family room re-do, I thought they would be perfect painted white with new lampshades!
I took two standard white lampshades(which I already had) and made little skirts for them from fabric. I added a flirty little ruffle to the bottom edge and some elastic to the top. The elastic made it much easier to fit the fabric to the top of the lampshade.

Then for the curtains...

I made "dummy panels" because it was much cheaper that way! I wanted to simply "dress" the windows more than I wanted to cover them. So, I purchased the yardage that I needed and then opened up the fabric and cut it on the fold. This results in panels that are only as wide as the fabric bolt, but they serve the intended purpose of dressing up the windows and saved me the cost of 6 extra yards of fabric! Instead of having to buy four pieces of fabric that were each 3 yards long, I only had to buy 2 because I cut each 3 yard piece in half and got double the fabric out of it!

Okay, pillows sewn, lamps painted, shades made, curtains hung...certainly not all in one day, I might add...now I needed some fun end tables! I had this one pictured above in our bathroom. I moved it downstairs to use as an end table. It's actually an old night stand that I had found at a flea market a couple of years ago and painted.

For the other side of the love seat, I had this old night stand stored in the garage. I found it last fall at a yard sale and it was the ugliest shade of brown you ever saw - totally 70's style! I painted it white and antiqued it though, and now it's MUCH better!

There you have it...family room re-do on the cheap. I just reused things that were alreay in the house. That's my kind of makeover.

Okay, I think that's enough for one day! I have some bar stools that I'm going to make little toppers for, but I'll save that for another post.

I think I'll go and eat a Cadbury Creme Egg! I have this terrible weakness for Easter candy and there is an Easter basket sitting on the counter here just begging for me to get into it...

Enjoy the day!

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God Bless,

Kathleen

Loving Blue...

I don't know if it's the spring season that is upon us or if it's the many beautiful colors of the Easter eggs that will soon fill our baskets but I'm suddenly loving blue! Don't get me wrong, it's always been my favorite color but for some reason I always shy away from it when it comes to decorating. I'm immediately drawn to it when I see it anywhere but

I never just go with it. My problem is that I'm in love with way too many styles of decor and can never commit to just one. But then who can? Home decorating is ever evolving, constantly changing - we're never really "done" decorating are we? So I love the earthy, Country French Farmhouse look with splashes of red throughout using red striped grain sacks and red ticking fabric and of course plenty of burlap! I love red paint too, so while our great room has khaki colored walls, white painted furniture and white slip covered sofas, it opens into a kitchen painted red which flows into a dining room also painted red. I love these rooms but in the back of my mind, blue is still there just begging to make an appearance. And...since l love the way certain shades of blue look with red, I'm going to go for it. I'm going to unleash that blue and use it on the walls in the formal living room at the front of the house. I'm talking about the softer, paler shades of blue. Something sophisticated for a more formal room but welcoming and comfortable at the same time. Plus it must tie in with the red dining room that will be visible from the living room. Remember long ago, I posted about wanting to change our living room? It was and still is yellow because we just couldn't decide what color to paint it. I mentioned blue to hubby and he was okay with it. He suggested we go and have a sample mixed to try it and see what it looks like, to decide whether or not we like it.

So...as I walked through the house today and realized how much blue I've snuck in here and there - see above photo collage - I'm loving it more than ever.
See that bar stool? It used to be black. Not anymore!! Now it's...yes, you guessed it. Blue - just painted this afternoon! And I love the way it goes with the red in the kitchen!

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Hope you all are having a fabulous spring weekend and speaking of spring....

I couldn't finish this post without adding a picture of our sweet baby girl in her Easter finery! Well, actually it's this dress or another one that is all white with pretty ruffles down the front. I don't have a photo yet of that one on her. After this little photo shoot, she'd had enough. She wasn't having any part of me snapping another round of photos in the white dress too!
Maybe tomorrow???
We'll see...
Have a great day!
xo,
Kathleen

Busy Baby Days!!

Good morning everyone!

I wanted to pop in and say hello and share a few photos of our sweet little one! She's been keeping me busy but oh how I love it!! These newborn baby days are so special and I cherish every second of every minute of every day. They grow so quickly!!
She's been such a good baby and only gets up 2-3 times at night. So different from the others. I've been enjoying dressing her up in all of her pretty little outfits and bows (the shoes are still a little too big) and taking TONS of pictures.

I'll be back soon with some fun projects, but for now I'm just loving on my little ones!

Enjoy your day everyone. Spring is just around the corner!

xo and God Bless,

Kathleen

She Has Arrived...Welcome Sweet Little One!!

Meet Abigail Grace!

Feb. 25, 2010

She's here, she's here, she's finally here!!!

Just as I suspected, we were timing contractions by 5pm. They were 5 minutes apart for several hours and not lasting for more than 30 seconds at a time so we decided to wait on going to the hospital for awhile. I called the midwife at 7:55pm and at 9pm hubby and I were on the way to the hospital. We arrived about 9:25pm and by then, the contractions were one right on top of the other. Thank goodness we didn't wait any longer or we just might have had our baby girl on the side of the road! She arrived 2 hours later. There was no time for an epidural or anything so I am very proud to say that she was born completely naturally. It was very painful but truthfully, an experience that I would never trade for anything in the world. I've always had an epidural in the past so this was completely new territory. It was an amazing experience and I have a whole new respect for all of you moms out there who have done this naturally!

I want to thank all of you who left me such kind comments and prayed for us. As the day was going on and I was getting more and more anxious, reading your thoughts and prayers brought me to tears and were calming to me as well. Your kindness and thoughtfulness are overwhelming and I thank you all for that from the bottom of my heart!

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Thank you for your sweet comments about the table runner and chair covers too. When we arrived home from the hospital yesterday and I saw the table runner stretched across the table, I had to laugh at myself. I was so anxious that day that I made everything, I was working on them as if my life depended on it. I was praying and working so hard to try to distract myself and now every time I see the finished projects, I will remember that day from beginning to end and remember the special day little Abbey was born and the prayers of special friends who helped get me through!

God Bless you all and thank you for sharing in our special day!

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I'm going to run for now, the sweet little one is hungry and calling but I'll return soon to post more pictures and to get back to all of you individually. Thank you again for your support and emails!

xo,

Kathleen

Grain Sack Table Runner and Chair Covers

Well, as of now, no baby yet...however, I am so crampy today that I do believe there might be one very soon. My nerves are getting the better of me so I'm trying to keep my mind occupied by creating something I've been meaning to do for awhile. More faux grain sacks!

Only this time, in the form of a table runner and new chair covers.

Remember the technique used here?

Well, I applied it to burlap this time (I'm hooked on burlap lately, no?)

and here we have newly recovered chairs and a fabulous table runner!

I am so nervous...breathe and pray...stay calm and everything will be just fine. That is my mantra for the day! The pains are getting worse. Not unbearable yet, but I know what's coming soon. I have a feeling that by nightfall I'm going to be timing contractions.

Please pray for us if you get a minute, for a safe delivery and healthy baby.

I'll keep you posted!

xo and God Bless,

Kathleen

Still Waiting...

Tick Tock...Tick Tock...the clock keeps ticking and we keep waiting...


to fill these sweet shoes!
(seriously, I can't wait to try them all on her)

I've been going a little nuts with the shoes...they're just so darn cute, I had to take photos of some and put them in this post.


Can't wait...

to meet this sweet girl!

Today is the due date...and no baby just yet. We'll just wait patiently. She'll come when she's good and ready.

xo and God Bless,

Kathleen

Feelin' Crafty

Because of all the snow, my little ones missed a week of school and therefore also missed their Valentine's Day classroom parties. They rescheduled the parties for this Friday instead. One of my guys made a Valentine bag for collecting valentines in school as part of a class project, while the other one was just told to bring a bag from home. Of course, I haven't been able to get out much with all of them home from school and with almost 40 inches of snow on the ground. The only bags I could seem to come up with were brown paper restaurant take-out bags and they just wouldn't do. I thought "what am I going to do?" He can't take an Outback Steakhouse bag to school for his Valentines! He wanted something more Valentine-y. I thought I could make something out of fabric instead. Then I went to my fabric stash and had nothing really Valentine related or even red - what's a mom to do???

Then I found the leftover burlap from the lampshade in my previous post and... ahhhh...some red striped jute webbing. Red! Perfect! Not too feminine and if it worked out, I just might have a cute little bag when it's all said and done. It was so quick and easy and I was able to use what I already had lying around in my craft room so I thought I would share it with you all!

All you need for this project is burlap, jute webbing (or any other trim you prefer) and ribbon of your choice. I know the polka dot ribbon might be a little less than masculine (hubby pointed that out to me - haha) but hey, it's the kind of ribbon I had on hand. If I had solid red I would have used it. I tried to make a handle out of the webbing as well, but it was just too thick and I broke my sewing machine needle. A girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do right? I think he's probably going to be more interested in the candy that will inevitably be a part of the valentines than he will the polka dot handles anyway!

So the way I see it, after he brings all of his treasured valentine's home from school and enjoys the candy in them, I'll have a fun new bag to carry right? I say it's a win, win situation!

So here's to last minute crafting. Sometimes those projects created out of necessity turn out to be the best ones!

Enjoy creating your bags~

xo,

Kathleen