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!

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.

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.

Birthday Celebration Little Girl Aprons

Birthday plans are sprouting at our house.  I have a little one turning 10, and since we have a friend party every EVEN birthday, it's her time to celebrate.  After 2 weeks of her pondering what to do for her party, we finally decided on a party at home decorating cupcakes.  For the past few years I have been encouraging my children to have their parties at other establishments...you know, a tea party at a restaurant, pizza party at Peter Piper Pizza's,  pool parties, etc...  In the past I have gone a little too crazy for birthday parties, and having the parties at other locations helps me from making homemade backpacks, and other goodies.

Well, this party is at home, which means I might be getting a little crazy.  As I was thinking about how to make this party special, I thought each little girl should have their own apron to decorate cupcakes.  We are on a bit of a budget, so I just raided my giant stash of fabric to make these little aprons.

Here's how I made my aprons.  To be completely honest, I think mine are a tad small. They don't really look small on my cute little girl, but in a year or two it might be.  So, you may want to change the measurements to fit your needs.

The bottom measures 15" and the top measures 7".  I made it these measurements to get the most out of the fabric we had.  So, ponder your needs and adjust accordingly.

As far as the trim, I had this cute fun mini pom pom trim.  I used it just like ribbon, and I found it was much softer than the ribbon I had, so it would be more comfortable around the neck.  Yep, just using what we have is the name of the game.

This picture shows how I measured the fabric.  I marked the cutting mat because the marking on the fabric was too hard to see.  

I debated what to do next....a  rolled hem, or just line the apron with ribbon, or put a binding around the whole thing.  

I decided on the rolled hem (gotta love that awesome presser foot, it does everything for you). I decided on this because I thought it would make the apron more durable and less likely to fray. 

Here's the finished product.  It's pretty darn cute.  (Don't mind that quilt I'm working on at the same time.  Piles of blocks waiting to come together.   I'm doing what I can, one moment at a time.)

Chevron Table Topper

I wanted to make my very own take on the chevron quilt with the latest chevron craze.  Because this is a totally different method for making chevron quilts, I wanted to start out with a small quilt.  Now I have a very nice and pretty table topper for my home.  The nice thing about this table topper is that it works for any time of year; Spring, Summer, Fall, or Winter.  Pulling out the colors for the season, and decorating with those.  

I really had fun making this little gem, and I thought I'd pass on the fun to you.  Below is the method of how I made it.    Have Fun!!!

Materials

30 Charm pack squares (5" squares)

1/2 yard white 

1/3 yard binding fabric

Cutting Instructions

Making the Chevrons

1.  Cut each  5 " square in half.

2.  With right sides facing each other, cut the corners off the charm strip, at a 45 degree angle. (24 chevrons for quilt middle, remaining six fabrics for border strips)

3. Cut 11 strips 2 1/2" strips of white fabric, for the top and bottoms of the chevrons and for the borders

For 9 strips, cut shape pictured.  Using the 45 degree angle on the ruler, cut the diagonal, and cut the straight line, 2 1/2" from the shortest point.  Cut  36 of these white shapes.

Save the other two strips for the borders.

4. Cut 2, 2 1/2" strips for between the chevron blocks

Cut the end of the strip at a 45 degree angle.  From that edge, cut 1" strips

5.Cut 3, 1" strips for the chevron blocks 

6.Cut 1, 2 1/2" square

Sewing:

1. Organize the chevrons in a visually pleasing pattern.  Then sew the corresponding white strips to the colored parallelograms.

For each top and bottom chevrons, sew the trapezoid white strips.  Press toward the colored fabric.  

For each middle chevron, sew the 1" white strips to each long side of the parallelogram.  Press towards the colored fabric.

2.  Sew the left side of the chevron strip together, and press.  Sew the right side of the chevron strip together, and press.

3.  Making sure to match the points of each chevron, sew the matching chevron strips to each other, and press.  Continue with each chevron strip.

Making the Chevron blocks

1.  The chevron strips might be different lengths.  Trim each to 11 1/2".

2.  Sew a 1" white strip to both sides of the outside chevron strip.  Press towards the chevron strip.  Sew the other chevron strip to the outside chevron strip, (making sure the chevrons are going the same direction).  And press.  Trim edges to make even.

3.  Repeat for all chevron blocks.

Sewing the Quilt Top together

1.  Sew chevron blocks together, using the white 2 1/2" square in the middle of the quilt.  Use the inset seam method to piece the blocks together.

Border Strips

1. Piece the Border strips together in the same manner as the chevron strips.  However, piece only one side of the chevron strip together, and for the bottom white trapezoid use 2 1/2" strip cut on the 45 degree angle.

2.  Sew border strips to the quilt top, taking care to line up the chevron lines together.

Quilt

1.  Quilt and bind as desired.

Our Little Office Workstation

Wait?  You're thinking, that's not an office or a workstation.  That's a kitchen.

Okay, so yes.  When we were building this house,  I knew we wanted a workstation in the kitchen.  In our old house we had a computer in the kitchen, and it changed my world.  The office we had loved before became obsolete, and all our needs were being taken care of in our kitchen.  The only problem was in our new house the little nook where this "office" would be was WAY bigger.  Like three times bigger.  That tiny desk we bought to fit in our old kitchen, would definitely look super out of place in our new one.

So, I got thinking.  And I became very close friends with the internet.  I was browsing on ikea, and I saw a little workstation.  That started my wheels turning.  We could make a workstation there.  It could be more than one desk. Maybe two people could sit there.  So we measured, we thought, and then I got crazy.  I realized there could be three workstation spots.  Are you kidding me?  All my school age kids could have a spot.  Weird.  Wonderful.  Wow.

I knew I wanted to use the ALEX drawers as the base of our desk.  In all honesty, these are good, but if I had my preference I would get something with little drawers and some hanging files.  I miss that a bit. But, the prices of the ALEX couldn't be beat.  And if you know me at all, you'll know that price is a big deal to me.  So, now for the top.

This was hard.  I tried to find anything that could be a countertop for a good price.  I found butcher block counters...a great price too.  Except, darn it, the shipping was as much as the counter.  NOPE.  granite?  I needed 12 ft.  Yes  12.  That's a little crazy, and a little expensive.  That also meant that prefab anything was out.  I found a solution of using 2 x 12's.  After looking through many of those, we realized that none were straight enough.

Finally, we came to the conclusion we could use plywood.  You know, "fancy" ply.  We used maple, cut the length in half so it was 24" wide.  For the 2 side pieces we used the remaining wood, we turned it so the grain was going the opposite direction (to give it interest, and make it look intentional), and cut those pieces to give us the length we needed, and of course kept the width at 24".  Using a friends biscuit joiner, we joined the pieces, and then added some finish wood around the 3 edges that would be seen.  The back was going up against the wall, I felt adding the finish wood there was overkill.

****Funny side not my husband will love for everyone to know.  He didn't calculate correctly, and the desk was 1/4" to big to fit in the space. Luckily, he knows how to use his tools.  He cut off a little stained it again, and it is perfect.

Next we stained it.  The color of our kitchen is kinda a gray/brown color, and white cabinets.  So, I stained this with all gray stain.  And then lightly stained it with brown over top.  It turned out just like I wanted it to.  We used a water based poly, and can I say, I won't ever do that again.  Yes, it washed out like a dream, but it totally created bubbles that is not what I wanted.  But, that's what these projects are about....learning.. right?  Well, that's what I think.

And here's the finished product.  Three workstations.  All the computers in our house in one location.  A space to work without a computer, and 2 other spaces with computers to get those papers done, and all that other stuff kids need to do. 

 I honestly love this.  Someday I might even decorate it to make it look "cute."

What Does Milk and Honey mean to me?

milk and honey?  Why is that the name of my blog?  How does it represent what I am trying to do in my life?

Milk and honey represent to me how I am to balance my life.  Milk and cream are rich, life giving resources, to me, milk represents the needful things of life..  Honey is sweet and pure, and represents the spice and sweet things in live, "the shining moments of joy" we all strive for.

Most of life is filled with the milk.  Milk is pretty great, we need it, and sometimes it is exactly what we want.  But, there are other times we need a little something more.  We need something sweet, something that makes us feel special.  This is the honey of life.  And for me, I like it when I can have a little of both in all I do.

So, in each day I try to balance the milk and the honey of life.   In each quilt I balance the colors so there is a little bit of "honey" in each quilt to make it interesting and fun.  I believe that in all we do we need to have a little bit of fun and a lot hard work.

The past few years, my whole focus has been on my family.  You might be able to tell from my blogging. Well, I had my caboose, my last little one, and I knew I wanted to cherish each moment.  For too long I tried to be it all, to do it all, and the last few years I have wanted to sit back and enjoy being a mother.  Well, to be honest, I have worked hard to be a mother.  It's work.  Having teenagers and toddlers together is in one word,  A CHALLENGE.

As my 4 year old starts wanting to have his own independence, I'm thinking I might be able to come back to this life again.  To share the things I am doing, to share tutorials, to be back in the world.  I hope to share some of my favorite recipes, my organizational tips, my quilty patterns, my rantings, and my fun.

I'm excited for you to join me.