Confessions

So this is what my house looks like, more often than not.  Yes, that's instant oatmeal all over the couch, floor, and even my pillow (which is in fact, laying on the floor). 

A certain little two year old can be thanked for the oatmeal and toys scattered about, but I'm afraid only I can take credit for the pillow and blanket on the floor (mind you this picture was taken at 5:00 PM, oops!).

And it wouldn't be so bad if this were the worst of it.  If you could only see the heap of stuff that has collected on top of my out-of-order washing machine, or the thing that was growing inside our toilet bowl. Yick.

Motivation has not been one of my strong points.  And a poor little girl is often heard saying "mommy gid up," and "wake, mommy, wake."

I guess you could say I've been feeling a bit under the weather lately....  If "under the weather"  means so sick and tired that I don't feel like moving, eating, getting dressed, or even waking up.  And if the last three months count as "lately." 

The good news is:

 I've been feeling significantly better lately, crafty even :).   If only the sun would shine, I might even go out and exercise. HA.

My mom and brother came to visit last week and I had a baby shower at my house for an ex roommate, both of which provided a little external motivation to get my house in order. 

AND....

We're very excited to be expecting an addition to the family in September.  Pretty cool action shot of the little swimmer, don't you think?

Other good news is that I've managed to complete a project or two and I might even get around to sharing them!

Happy St. Patty's Day!

We're getting SUPER festive around our house with some homemade Mint Oreos.

Homemade Oreo Cookies


1 chocolate cake mix
2 eggs
1/3 c. vegetable oil


Mix cake mix, eggs, and oil in a bowl until moistened.  Roll into 1 inch balls.  Cook at 350 for 7 minutes.




Cream Cheese Mint Frosting


4 oz cream cheese, softened
1/4 c. butter, softened
2 1/2 to 3 c. powdered sugar
1/2 to 1 tsp mint extract
green food coloring


Cream butter and cream cheese.  Add powdered sugar.  Mix until smooth.  Add mint extract to taste. Tint with green food coloring.

Sandwich frosting between two cookies and enjoy!

Little Girl Artwork

 My little lady loves to paint.  "Mom Iana pink" is how she asks. 

This is what happens when I get distracted while she paints. Oops.

I bought a canvas and some paint to match her room and let her go to town.

This masterpiece took several sessions and a bit of glitter help from me.  I really love how it turned out.  We hung it in her room and she loves to point it out to Mom and Dad. Definitely one of our more successful mother-daughter crafty undertakings.

Valentine's Day Craftiness

I've been trying to use some of my cooped-up-in-the-house-all-winter-cause-it's-too-stinkin-cold-to-leave time to spruce things up around this place.  Hence the Valentine's Day clutter, I mean decorations. The good news: they were cheap and easy, my favorite kind of craft.  Everything was made out of stuff already in my house.

I painted this picture frame, cut some burlap to fit inside, and wrote the word "love" with a dry erase marker. The dry erase marker seemed to work better on the burlap than acrylic paint or a sharpie, and it made for a nice clean line.  If I owned a die cut machine, I definitely would have used it to make a cute little stencil, but the dry erase marker was super easy, and the red frame gives the pop of color my wannabe mantle was lacking.

This blue frame has been sitting around in need of a home for quite some time.  Now it gets to live on the front door.

To make the burlap heart, I cut a heart from cereal box.

Then I cut strips of burlap, and wrapped them around the heart, hot gluing the burlap down in the back.

It looked like this when I was done. 

 I tied a ribbon around it and hung it from the nail in the door, behind the picture frame.  I love that I can use my blue-red-brown decorations from Christmas all winter long.

Unresolutions

The Holidays we're good to us.  We went to my parent's house for Christmas, and had a lot of fun.  We went skiing on Christmas Eve, and even the Little Girl got to join in on the fun!

Unfortunately, the holidays were not as kind to our house. And by holidays, we're talking from Halloween on.  I did some serious slacking in the housekeeping department.  We came home from Christmas to find bills in the mailbox, dirty laundry, and a new rodent friend living in the girl's bottom drawer. Yuck. 

And so the past few weeks have been spent deep cleaning and ridding our apartment of pests. 

I've neglected to set any New Years Resolutions.  There are all sorts of possibilities.

Like everyone else, I need to exercise more, and eat less(actually just eat better).  Mostly because sitting around eating crap makes me grouchy. And achey.  And because I know better.  I majored in exercise for Pete's sake.  But it's frigid outside, and there isn't enough room in our apartment to achieve any sort of aerobic activity, and I really like treats.  So the being healthy resolution may have to wait until March. Or April....

I often plan to read more in the coming year.  I think I've accomplished that one already. I also remembered why I don't read more. I've read 3.5 of the four Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants books(VERY intellectual stuff we're talking about here).  Numbers two and three were finished in two days flat. I didn't get dressed, or do any significant amount of housework, and my family watched TV all day.  And that my friends, is why I don't read.  I can't seem to pull myself away once I start a book.  So much for that resolution. I read half of number four last night, and luckily I forgot about it this morning. So I've been able to do a bit of housework.

Which leads me to my last unresolution. I have got to get organized and keep my house clean.  Hopefully I'll be a little more driven in this area. 

I like to make lists, because it's the only way I can remember everything, and because it feels good to cross things off.  I know that the whole "turn a picture frame into a dry erase board" thing is nothing new, but I put a To Do list behind the glass that I can use to stay a little more organized.

 I used this picture frame that once served as a bow holder and removed the ribbon and paper.

Then I printed of this list which I made to specifically fit inside the frame.  I listed the things that need to be done daily, like making beds and doing dishes, as well as the things that need to be done once a week or so.  I also left blank spaces for monthly obligations, groceries, etc. I printed the list, cut it to fit the frame, and slid it in behind the glass. I bought dry erase markers from Dollar Tree.  They're smaller than most dry erase markers and have a chisel tip, so I can write small enough to fit in my list.

This picture shows the irony of my organized little list sitting on my super messy dresser.  Cleaning off my dresser is on the list, I just haven't done it yet :)

Merry Christmas to Me!

I went to Joanns the other day to buy some fabric to make a Christmas dress for my favorite little girl.  Their "holiday collection" was %40 off.  I couldn't resist buying some fabric to make a little something for myself. I bought a yard and a half of both green and gray taffeta, originally 5.99 a yard. Oh how I love taffeta...

I bought this pattern a couple months ago when it was on sale for $2 and I've been looking for some fabric to use with it.  The pattern ran surprisingly small.  I've learned the hard way that it's important to measure myself and follow the corresponding pattern size... and I'm glad I did so this time (EVEN IF it said I needed THE BIGGEST size, and even though I was very tempted to use my "better judgement" and do a smaller size). It fits perfectly, but I'm now thinking I'd better make sure I check the measurements before I even buy a pattern. I definitely would have been bummed if I bought a pattern that wasn't big enough.

I really love how it turned out.  It's a bit iridescent, so the picture makes it look purple.... I think/hope it doesn't really look quite so purple most of the time! 

It has pockets, which I love, but I think the best part would be no hem! The band at the bottom is double thickness, so you sew two bands together, iron right-side-out and sew the whole thing to the rest of the skirt.

LOVE IT.

And including the fabric, pattern, and notions, it cost less than $12.

LOVE IT MORE.

Now I'm off to make a little girl dress. And maybe one for her dolly as well.



Decking the Halls

 It's starting to feel pretty festive around here.  The tree is up, the lights are on, Christmas music is playing, and we've got some of the greatest snow on earth accumulating outside.

While thumbing through last year's December Volume of Better Homes and gardens, I saw this patterned wrapping paper, paired with this wrapping paper in "pool"  and red and fell a little bit in love.  So I decided to change up my usual red-green-silver holiday decor and add some blue and brown. 

Last year I bought this wrapping paper in green, and after seeing the BHG wrapping paper I had been hoping to find it in blue.  I bought the green stuff at the grocery store in town, and I don't even know who makes it. Luckily for me, they still had some in blue, and it was half off! Score.

 Our tree was cut fresh from Jonny's parents' property up the canyon.  This is the second year we've elected to go with a miniature version on top of the mantle... I mean entertainment center.  We were crunched for space last year, and although there is more room now, we thought it would still be a good plan due to the fact that our almost-two-year-old is INTO EVERYTHING.  I have to say I absolutely LOVE our tree.  It's perfect.  And it's got all the things I think every good Christmas tree needs. (Minus the lights... once I strung them, you couldn't see the poor little branches anymore.  So I bagged the Christmas tree lights and taped some to the back of my empty blue picture frame instead.)

But like I was saying... All the things a great Christmas tree needs:

Some pretty Christmas balls (get them at Michaels or Joanns with a coupon and they're super cheap).

Some handcrafted goodness- I made the garland with jute cord and wooden beads.

A little sentiment-those silver things are old fishing lures that used to belong to Jonny's grandpa.  His brother(who shall remain nameless) did a little man-craft and turned them into ornaments for all of us. I love them because they have a special meaning, and because they match my other ornaments so well! There are a few that don't match as nicely... they're on there too, just a little harder to see :)  My mom hangs our old ski passes on her tree. They're unique to our family and it's fun to look at all our old pictures.

And of course, some bling.  The sparkly buttons came from Grandma Carol. They aren't exactly a special heirloom entrusted in my care, in fact, I acutally bought them from her. It's a funny story and it makes me smile every time I look at them.  Also found hanging on the tree- a prism from my mom, a snowflake crystal I bought to hang in the rear view window of my first vehicle, and some jewelry from my grandma. Sparkly AND sentimental.

 

And there's a little birdie sitting under the tree.  I bought him at the dollar store. No sentiment, just cute.

And since we don't have a mantle, or any other horizontal surface for that matter, I made a swag from which  to hang our stockings.

I used some sticks I picked up on a walk up the creek and the leftover boughs from our tree.

I attached the biggest boughs with floral wire and then added the sticks.  Then I added the smaller boughs and used them to hide all the wires.

I hung our stockings on another stick and attached it with some jute cord.  I used the tails of the cord to make loops that I hung on the hooks on the wall.  I think it could use a bow or some red berries to spruce it up a little.  I'm sure that will happen sometime in the near future.

Last but not least, the sleigh bells hanging on our door.  They were made by Grandpa Ike and they're so fun and festive!