Wednesday, May 21, 2014

Inspiration



Each morning I spend a fair amount of time working away on my treadmill.  To make this time, fun, I love watching Netflix.  Another added bonus, I get inspiration for quilts, art, and decorating.

I know how much time we all spend scouring the internet, pinterest, and magazines for inspiration.  However, did you know that inspirational things are all around you?  One of my favorite quilts, was inspired by a door mat.  It's crazy all the fun patterns that are all around us.  If we open our eyes, and pay attention to what is in the background, we can all be inspired.

I love that as I watch my latest show, White Collar, the focus is on a lot of art.  LOVE THIS.  I get to see architecture, sculptures, painting, all while exercising and being entertained.  It's a win win.  So, when I see something that sparks my interest, I get off the treadmill and start taking pictures.  It just helps remind me of what seems fun to me.

Maybe these things won't actually amount to anything, but maybe they will.  It's possible their influence will be felt in my next quilt.  Or, in decorating my home.  Who knows, but at least it gets the creative juices flowing.

Go get inspired today!  Take a picture!



Sunday, May 11, 2014

10 Year Old Birthday Fun


My dear, newly turned 10 year old, had quite the fun birthday party last week. She wanted to have her friends over for dinner, for cupcake decorating,  and for playing games.  Quite honestly she asked for an 8 hour party.  Holy Hannah Batman.  I talked her down though. 


One huge desire of hers was to have the kids guess how many gumballs were in the jar.  Kinda funny this was such a big deal to her.  I love her sweet heart and quirky ways.



Here are our goodie bags.  Inside I had a homemade apron for each girl, their own decorating bag and tip, and some goodies to take home.


Ok.  I seriously loved this.  These boxes I got from a local gas station.  Yep, I saw some cupcake boxes at walmart, but didn't want to spend the money on that.  Then when I was at the gas station late at night, I saw these boxes.  I asked the employees how much it would cost, and if I could buy their boxes, and he gave me 11 for free.  I know it sounds funny, but I thought it was AMAZING.  So cute.  So I made some cute stickers to cover up their logo, and their girls had their own boxes to take home their cupcakes.


And here's what really happened at the party.  They spent three seconds decorating their cupcakes and then spend the rest of their time sucking down the frosting.  I have to admit, I had girls jumping up and down for hours.  This was in no way a calm get together.


Each sweet amazing girl got to pick the color for their frosting, and they really did have a blast decorating their cupcakes.  We had a wide variety of goodies to decorate the delicious cupcakes.


I sure love the chance I get to be a mom.  Hopefully these memories will last forever.

Friday, May 9, 2014

OUR Ana White lockers



When we moved into this house, I was pretty excited.  We finally had enough space in the garage to have our own lockers.  With 6 people in the house, it is hard to keep everyone's shoes, jackets, backpacks, and other goodies all together, and off the kitchen floor.  I'm a big fan of organization.  I love PERFECTLY clean homes.  But, magically, one out of six people wanting a clean space, does not make a clean space.  So we built our lockers to keep everyone's stuff out of my sacred zone.

We used the plans found here, Ana White Lockers, and then adjusted them to our own needs.  Quite honestly, I have no idea about our measurements, or how they were built.  I went away for a few days, and my hubby pulled it together while I was gone (for my birthday).  Love that guy.  Anyway, I came home and this is what I found.  Also, because this is in our garage I went the "sturdy and cheap" method with our containers. Of course, I would love to have everything in beautiful wood baskets, etc... but it's not economically feasible, and let's be honest, kids need plastic sometimes.  And wouldn't you know it, the hooks, were cheaper when bought already on a wood board.  Who knew?


But this is only half.  There are six of us, and we need all the help we can get.  Now that I was home, the job of finishing it was up to me.  I have to be honest, after moving in, I was tired.  SUPER TIRED.  We painted our whole house.  Okay, not true, we left out the bathrooms, and the kids bedrooms, but it was a lot of painting.  And, I sorta died.  In comes, LAZINESS.  I'm a fan of it.  Plus, these lockers are in the garage.  This is not in the house.  We're looking for good.  Not my best work.  I mean come on. So, I used the polyshades.  Here's my review of that...it's not as easy as one might think.  It was hard to get it to go on evenly, and as much as I wanted it to be one coat, it for sure needed two.   I kinda cried a little inside when my hubby saw the lockers after one coat and seemed disappointed.  So, I vowed for the next set of lockers I would find a matching stain and and just stain it and poly separately.


Here's the polyshades going on.  I like it, but it is a little streaky, and hard to control.  Nothing like regular stain.  Plus, it covers up a lot of the grain of the wood.  Even though all of that is true, I still found a lot of beauty in it.  It looked rustic to me, and had character.  (but I was alone in my principles there).


So, for the next batch, I got stain, and went to town.  I'll be honest.  It was easier to stain this way,  just brush on and rub off.  Kinda easy.  I love staining.




Here's the difference between the finishing methods.  Honestly, I love the wood grain coming through with just the stain, but I love the warmth and character of the polyshades.  I sincerely thought I would just throw on some poly after it was stained, and call it good.  Uh.. no.  It took just as much effort to put the clear poly on as it was to put on the polyshades.  After all was said and done, I wished I had just stuck with the polyshades.  But, it was a great learning experience.