a royal crown

I was at my friends house last night and her 3 year old daughter had a jar of change she said she was saving to buy a crown.  Her dollar store one had broken and the princess was in need of a new crown!  I asked her if she would like me to make one for her and she said "yes!"  I asked her favorite color and what she wanted on her crown and then headed home to see what I could create. 

As I looked through my fabric and trim supplies late last night I just had to start sewing right then.  It didn't take long to pull this little crown together.  There are a ton of tutorial out their for making crowns, so I wont bore you with too many details.  I've made crowns before out of felt, but I don't like how the felt gets pilly, so I used cotton and lined it with felt to make it stand up.  I got the button closure idea here.

Emmaline was happy to model for me this morning :)

Addie and I dropped the crown off after preschool this afternoon and Mercy was thrilled her new tiara - she even did a few twirls for us.  I meant to take my camera along, but totally forgot!

my happy crafting space!

This room serves many purposes in our little house.  It is our office, schoolroom, craft room, and when we have company over it is also the dining room.  Until last week that little blue book shelf on the right was jam-packed with school books and sewing supplies.  There was so much stuff bellow my sewing desk in the corner there was no room for my feet, and I won't even mention the boxes and crates that were lying around the room full of fabric, projects, and inventory for craft shows!

I am so very excited to now have all this shelf space just for my craft stuff!  I still have a little work to do, like sorting through all my fabric scraps, and organizing my patterns, but at least they all have a place now!

My little corner of the house makes me so happy!

Look!  Since my table is clean I actually had space (and time) to begin quilting Addie's quilt!  I am so totally loving this quilt.  The colors are so bright and cheerful.  I can't wait to finish it and put it on Addie's bed!

one project done

After years of talking about creating some sort of divider between the "boys room" and the "laundry room" we've finally done it!  And it only took one day, two bookcases, and a curtain! Now the boys have a defined space as there room with a door curtain to give them some privacy!  My laundry area is a little dark now, I will have to get a light to hang over that side of the room, but otherwise we all love how it turned out!

I meant to take before pictures but in the excitement of shelf building I forgot. This post probably has the most recent pictures of the garage for comparison.  I only have a few things left to put away in the dining room and I will have picture of that too... that is if Emmy will ever let me put her down and finish cleaning up!  For some reason she is only happy in my arms this afternoon!

road trip

Two of my good friends and I took a road trip over the weekend.  I pulled all but one row of seats out of Big Blue and we drove 3 hours to the nearest IKEA.  My mom met us there and the four of us shopped the afternoon away.

I think we ended up with a combined 13 book shelves and at least 5 of those big blue bags filled with IKEA goodies.  This is us and our stuff after 5+ hours and two trips through the store :)

And here is my mama.  Have I ever told you all how awesome she is?  Not only did she shlep through IKEA with us all afternoon, but she still came home with me, even after I told her that multiple kids had thrown up that morning!  She's here all week and has been helping me assemble shelves, and dig through and organize all my crafting stuff. 

And in case you are wondering about this picture, Addie had my camera and said she wanted to take a picture of Grammy, I leaned in hoping to get a shot of the two of us, but I guess Addie was serious when she said she wanted to take a picture of Grammy, she cut me right out of the frame!

Anyway, this is what we've accomplished so far.  If you could have seen the complete chaos that was my craft space before we started... I am loving the new space!  I'll post more pictures once it's all complete.

daily dose of cuteness... no words necessary

bringing her drawing to life

Regan has been drawing these mushroom girls for years and the other day I decided I wanted to try my making a doll from her drawings.  This is my first attempt and it needs a little tweaking to look like the drawing, but she still turned out pretty cute :)

my little snow angel

The first time it snowed this winter she took one step out onto the deck and turned back into the house with the first crunch of snow under her feet!  As the winter has gone on, and the snow has continued to fall, she has gotten a bit braver each time, until the other day when she called me outside to see her very first snow angel!  I sure do love this girl :)

a box of happy at my door!

I see lots of apron sewing in my future!

alice cooper fan?

bag # one

I've been thinking a lot recently about stuff and how it directs our lives.  We have too much.  It is keeping us from doing the things we really love to do, and from living the life we want to live.  The Hubby and I have always had a passion for hospitality.  We love to open our home to friends, neighbors, family etc., weather it be for a meal, bible study, craft night, or just some fellowship time.  But all too often I am finding myself having to put off inviting company because our house is such a mess!  Don't get me wrong, I don't need my house to be perfect to invite someone in, if that were the case no one would ever get passed the front door, but I would like our guest to be able to walk through our house without potentially harming themselves on the plethora of stuff that seems to constantly liter our floors.  I would also like there to be a clear surface (say maybe the dining room table) to be able to serve my guest some sustenance!  Right now it feels like we spend hours cleaning and organizing all our stuff only to find it all a mess again the next day!

If you were to ask my kids they might tell you I talk a lot about us not needing any more stuff, but the hubby would be quick to point out that as soon as I say "no more" I turn around and buy something new!  Most of the time I'm not thinking about what I am doing - I see something I love and I must bring it home - I have temporary amnesia and forget that we don't need any more stuff!  Ugh!  So, last week I had sort of made an unofficial commitment to give up buying things we don't absolutely need for Lent.  Then I started reading Clutter Free with Kids and was even more inspired to not only stop buying, but also start "de-owning" as Becker calls it.  Really it is something I have been longing to do for years, but have been paralyzed when it comes to actually execute it... that was until my husband pointed me to a link he had seen Facebook.  40 bags in 40 days. 

So, with the encouragement and support of my husband, I packed my first "bag" today and listed it on Craiglist!  It only took about 15 minutes to put it all together, photograph, and list it.  I did have to give myself a few pep talks, but in the end it feels great to let go of something that was not really getting used, but was taking up space in our not so big home.

There will be one major exception to my "no buying" during Lent.  Some friends and I have been planning a road trip to Ikea for over a month now and I have been saving my pennies for some new book shelves and organizational stuff for our school and craft supplies.  I have a list though- the trick will be sticking to it once we are in the Swedish wonderland :)