before & after

Well just about everyone agreed that I should paint the wall surrounding the door. I guess I am easily persuaded. It's funny, now that it's done it looks like it has always been that way.

Time for a new project. I finished one yesterday that will have to wait for posting because it is a gift.

step by step

http://www.boldervisions.net/kblog/2008/09/11/creepy-craft/

This is Krista's post of our original wood block project. She gives a pretty good summary of how to make them. I don't think she will mind my referral to her blog.

latest installment in the holiday block collection

You might think that making these blocks gets old... on the contrary it gets better every time. These are my favorites so far.

Homemade Gifts

The original pledge I first saw by NieNie was to buy only handmade gifts for Christmas. Holli took that idea one step further and committed to personally handcraft all birthday gifts for 2009. I was inspired. So - it's a great year to be related to JoJo because I've committed to making birthday gifts for all my family members this year. (And maybe in the years to come.)

I didn't get a picture of the first gift I made, for my father-in-law but I did remember to take one of my second gift. (But yuck- I make a terrible model!)

TA-DA! It is a homemade version of the infomercial "snugglie". A blanket with arms.

So you can drape it over you and still have your hands free for sipping, knitting, blogging and the like. My mother-in-law tends to be frequently chilly and so it was perfect for her. It was quite simple and you can find directions from many online sources.

spice it up

When Richard Bird, CPA is being Travel Warrior January through March, I find projects.

Project #1: Paint the pantry door. (I hope the Travel Warrior approves. He is a little wary of my projects sometimes.)

The green was left over from when we painted the kitchen walls. The blue I bought as a "sample" can at Lowes. It's great for small projects because you can get the custom color in a half-pint.

The secret to my AMAZING straight lines. (Acrylic Gel Medium.) It is a little pricey but one jar lasts a long time (many projects).

First tape.

Then "paint" the AGM along the tape edge to make a seal.

Once the AGM is dry, paint your color as needed.

** Special note ** Peel tape off while paint is still wet for an edge good enough to please the OCD painter.

I love the way it looks. With the exception of the hideous doorknob... need to do something about that hardware...

Do you see the white wall around the pantry? Should I paint that green like the other wall and door? It might make the white door frame stand out...

Christmas Gift

My family does a Christmas gift exchange each year of homemade-only gifts. I could blog for weeks about all the gifts that have been created, if I had pictures of them all.

Unfortunately I didn't take a picture of the gift I made for my brother in law. But I do have pictures of the gift I received in the mail from my sister-in-law, domestic goddess in training, Brit.

You'll have to ask her for details but it is a beautiful plate/dish, handpainted. Thanks, I love it!

work in progress

Just about every room in my house is a work in progress. That is the fun of owning a home I guess. (Even if it is worth 18% less than what we paid for it...) Here is that little table back in its proper place.

I pride myself in decorating my house with minimal cost. So when I heard everyone raving about Anthropologie I resisted, because I was determined to buy secondhand. Well then one day I found myself in that store and I was in love. *Sigh* So any money I saved by buying this little table at a garage sale, was lost when I spent $8.00 on the adorable little knob at Anthro. At least I splurge on the small items and not the big ones, right?

Besides, I got a deal on this cute little alarm clock on ebay. It turned out to be smaller than I anticipated, but it still stole my heart.

Before

I was looking through old pictures tonight and came across these pictures of our living room. It is a crazy coincidence because they were taken exactly two years ago, January 6 2007.

We've come a long way living room.

At Last

Here are pictures of what I've been up to in the last... however many days since I last posted.
I can't claim that I did the floors and carpet myself... but I did paint and move furniture and clean clean clean!

Our new floors (post flood) are laminate. I'm really happy with them. Easy to clean and very durable, crucial characteristics in a house with small children.

The little hands and feet aren't some wild-modern-art, they are plaster molds of Cameron & Eli's feet and hands at two weeks old.