christmas sacks

For the past few years I have tried to keep Christmas gifts as simple as possible around our house.  The kids draw names among themselves and buy one $20ish gift for whomever they picked and the hubby and I usually buy each other one gift and then I do stocking stuffers... an ornaments, chapstick, mini flashlights, gum, lotion etc.  I also like to throw in a few inexpensive, individualized gifts, maybe a book Micah has wanted or a new Redskins jacket to replace the one that has been worn virtually every day since Max received it last year.  Since these gifts are too big to fit into the stockings, I was looking for an alternative when I came across these bags online.  I loved the idea, and figured it shouldn't be too hard to make my own version of the Christmas sacks.

I just happened to have 4+ yards of white canvas in my fabric cabinet, exactly enough to make 6 large sacks.  (fold the 60"w fabric so that salvage ends meet and cut 24" wide.  Sew sides of bag together and box the corners (I cut 3" squares for my corners) I left the salvage edge exposed and sewed a casing with some red and white fabric about 3.5" down from the top then used ribbon for my tie)

I did a little more research and found these printable iron on decals - exactly what I was looking for!
I love how they turned out and the kids loved them too.  For those of you who don't sew an alternative to making your own bags is to buy white pillow cases to iron the decals on to and just tie the sacks closed with some ribbon.

a thrill of hope...

THE WEARY WORLD REJOICES!

Merry Christmas from our family to yours!

getting ready for baby

Little by little we are making room for the baby around here.

We bought a new crib when we went to IKEA last month (Emmy is still sleeping in our other crib and it is too big to fit in our room anyway) and rearranged the master bedroom to make room for it.  We still don't have mattress yet (or a car seat!) but there is still time :)

My walls are looking pretty bare in these pictures... might be time to find some artwork to hang in here!

christmas tree hunting

We had really hoped to go cut a Christmas tree at my Mother-in-laws tree farm while we were in Maryland but after much discussion we decided that trying to tie a tree on the roof of our van (which does not have a rack on it) and driving 200 miles was going to be more trouble than it was worth.

This was the first year (but I am sure not the last) that the whole family was not there to pick the tree.  Our schedule has been filling up quickly and I knew if we waited for the whole family to be available we might never get a tree, so Thursday night, while Regan was at Gymnastics, we we headed to Home Depot hunt down the perfect tree. 

The tree went up and the light went on as soon as we got home...

but it took a little longer to actually get it decorated!

new beds for the little girls

While we were in Maryland for Thanksgiving we made a trip to IKEA to buy new beds for the little girls room.  My neighbor is in the Navy and has to stay on the ship every 4 nights for duty.  For the last year or so her little girl has been staying with us when her mom has duty.  She was not yet 2 when we started watching her and was happy to sleep in the pack-n-play each night she was here, but she is about to turn 3 this month and the pac-n-play was getting a bit too cozy. 

Plus, this tiny room was even smaller with a twin bed, a crib, and a pac-n-play in it.  I knew we were not ready for traditional  bunk beds yet, but the IKEA Kura bed seemed like the perfect solution.

We put them together last week and the the girls have been happily sleeping in their new beds and LOVING all the play room they have in the room now!  We were even able to pull most of the play kitchen down from the attic - something Addie has been asking to do for awhile now.

And last night I finally finished the binding on Addie's Briar Rose rainbow quilt!  I am so pleased with how this turned out!  My quilting skills are definitely improving and the binding was not half the nightmare I remembered it being after watching a few tutorials online.

For those who are interested, I used this pattern as my basis but altered it (changed the square size and added rows and other fabrics from the Briar Rose line) to make it fit a twin bed.

apron rack

Once again I am way behind on posting... I actually finished this project in October but just now loaded all the pictures onto the computer!  Anyway - I needed a place to hang all our aprons in the kitchen and have been loving the old yard stick coat racks I've been seeing around the web.  I didn't have any old yard sticks and I was not about to pay the $8 per yardstick I was seeing online.  Instead I found wooden rules on clearance at Office Max (I think I payed about $0.50/ruler), some scrap wood in the shed, and hooks to match my knobs and drawer pulls at Walmart.  After I cut everything to the right size       I used wood glue to attach the rulers to the wood and then rubbed the whole thing with Americana Decor deep brown Creme Wax (from Michaels) to make it look vintage.

Don't look too closely, some of the hooks are a little crooked!

Such a happy little corner in the kitchen now!

And the keepin' it real, unedited photo :)