Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Rock A Bye Baby

J's Nursery Chair came in last week!!!

I went forever ago and picked out three choices for upholstery, 2 good and 1 best of the worst, and she picked my FAVORITE!!  A velvety textured fabric.  LOVE!!



She coerced  asked her husband to put it together Friday night and it is perfect!!  The  color - everything.
OH - and she got a fluffy chocolate rug!!!  It will all make sense in the end - and her crib is coming in any day now!!


I love how the colors in the pillows pull across to the curtains - but just you wait until the bumper and skirt are done - it's going to be perfection! SNEAK:

Thursday, March 25, 2010

New Blog - Venture - Excited!!

Indulge me for just a moment and go check this out...please!!

http://nutmegsclothing.blogspot.com

Thanks!!!

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Etch a Sketch

Wow - how I loved my etch a sketch. Never got really proficient at it - but I'm looking forward to buying one for pepito...

Anyhow.

It has been on my to-do project list to do sketches of our old houses, 18th Ave & Forest, to replace the baby pictures (that were never meant for the living room anyway). Over the weekend I found some vellum paper in a stash and also a picture of 18th Ave. I decided that first nap was as good a time as any to start.

Originally
We fell in love with 18th Ave at first look....of the outside. The diamond windows were gorgeous, the front porch was perfect, and the yard was level and full of grass. It was days before we were able to see the inside because the floors were in the process of being redone but in our minds it was ours. And silly first time homebuyers, with no realtor buying a FSBO, offered full price because we were terrified of losing it. We learned our lesson, never again.

The first weekend after moving in - I wasted no time in getting up the holiday wreaths!
We moved in 5 days before Christmas I think and it was wonderful. Sam & my Dad even moved our Christmas tree! So many great memories from that house. Sam BUILT our porch swing and it was THE most comfortable swing I've ever sat in! Playing in the yard with the pups, working on projects in the massive building in the backyard, and just having fun being newlyweds.

Love the Fire Engine Red Front door! It was no small feat to paint it though - it was solid wood and weighed agizillion pounds.
Back to the task at hand. The sketch only took about 20 minutes! I still kinda wish I would've been able to find my marker paper, but it was a whole lot easier to copy the house with the vellum... And I'm still trying to decide whether to go over the whole thing in pen. I'm kinda scared to because what if I don't like it and then I have to start all over? But, I guess it would only take me twenty minutes to redo if I had to....

The large print in the center is not one of our houses, unfortunately. My brother got married on Jekyll and Sam & I took the historic home tour while we were there for the weekend. It was our just our favorite house out of all the ones we saw and we used to try and pick up prints from everywhere we went off. Now - we get magnets - much more cost effective...



So - pen or no pen? Any thoughts?

Monday, March 22, 2010

Mixing It Up

Sam decided that since it was rainy on Sunday and we couldn't do yardwork, we would spring clean instead. And apparently pepito agreed - he took 2 - 2hour naps for us and then played happily in the walker all day. Success!!

We managed to get the living room, dining room, kitchen, hall and our bedroom totally clean. Top to bottom. Steam mop included. It was a TON of work - but so worth it. There is nothing better than a super clean house.

And then when we got done for the day and pepito was in bed - Sam came back to me on the computer and said he wanted to switch around the living room. I was not so sure it would even work. But in the spirit of being a good wife and indulging him, I said ok.

This is the only full picture BEFORE of the living room and it had much improved since.
His reasoning was that our armchairs are way comfortable but we never used them because it was not a good tv viewing vantage point AND they were always covered in baby paraphernalia. It took about two hours of moving furniture, sitting, looking, talking about it, move some furniture, repeat...but we LOVE the end result!! And we don't have any truly orphan pieces, which is nice.

AFTER! We flip flopped the chair & sofa, lost the blue wing chair which created a nice little nook for all things baby and we put our smallest drum table to use as an 'accessory' piece by the fire place. The petite table from the dining room found a new home by the front door and is perfect for keys, wallet, and the occasional Diet Coke. ;)

In the grand plan, we are going to enlist my Dad to help us mirror the built-in bookcase, creating better symmetry. The secretary moved from behind the front door (where it was never really used) to by the sofa. Perfect spot for it too. We also decided to keep the blue frames (they were starting to bother me even though I wasn't done with the full vision yet) but put all of our prints to good use in them. Attic shopping anyone?! The ottoman from the wing chair even got to stay in the room - and now lives underneath the radio cabinet's drop down door.
The other side of the room, with the french doors, also got a bit of a makeover, but isn't put together enough yet to show...sorry. But, sliding the furniture down to center on the window instead of the bookcase created a lot more open space in front of the front door & french doors. (more space for pepito to run around in!)

Unfortunately, since we borrowed the little table from the dining room - I'm back to square one here. The good part - now pepito has much more room to toodle around in his walker. Plus, the table was getting beat down by the sun and that's no good.
I even made the bed this morning I was so jazzed about our new clean house.
This is the wing chair's new home - not perfect - but it'll have to do. It's so big, there's no where else it would even pretend to fit.
We didn't make it to spring cleaning the office, so excuse the mess, but this is where our pretty little antique green chair ended up. I kinda like it here even though it fit so well in the hall.

So - all in all - great mini makeover! We are tickled with the final result of the living room and are enjoying the cleanliness of spring cleaning!! I should've linked THIS up to Finesse Your Nest - oh well - the party's over now... This was the epitome of shopping your house!! A whole new look and not a dime spent!! (well, except that now I have to fix the dining room....ha!)

And I'm so proud of my husband for thinking outside the box and coming up with something brilliant!!! I know I married him for a reason!! (or hundreds...!)




Saturday, March 20, 2010

Sew Happy

I know, I know....I'm ridiculous. Since I finished my dress and need to go to the store to get supplies to begin to finish J's nursery items - I was left without a sewing project yesterday. Not cool. So I decided to create one. My spring wardrobe is seriously lacking because of my new mommy size, granted I still have to go attic shopping and see what I have up there to fit the bill, but using all my remnants (this top cost me under $3!!) to make a new top seemed like much more fun.

I had a yard of linen and a half yard of minty green small diamond print laying around that I thought MIGHT be enough to turn my dress into a top. And - luckily - I was right! I had JUST enough linen to make it work. Though, wouldn't you know, as soon as I had all the pieces cut realized that the linen would be SUPER see through. Again, luckily, I had some white thin polyester (maybe?) fabric remnant that I could use to line it.

Totally not in to the extra work the lining would create but it's better than giving everyone a show or having a tank top show through messing up the cute lines of the shirt. It was a bit more work and was definitely more difficult to work with but it makes all the difference. No peep show!!

I chose to eliminate the zipper, because I didn't have one on hand, and I was pretty sure that I could fit it over my head without one, and I also nixed the tie because I wanted to do ruffle collar and arm holes and didn't want there to be too much print. Somehow with the lining, the measurements got a little smaller, so there was no need to cinch in to make it fit. Sweet.

I finished up the ruffles this morning, I had run out of the off white thread, but decided that no one would be the wise if I used white bobbin thread. Plus, I REALLY wanted to wear the top to breakfast with the in-laws. My MIL always looks uber chic, seriously ALWAYS; all of my friends want to be her when we grow up. And I always feel like a puffalump in my yoga pants & tshirt next to her, so I really wanted to put some effort into myself this morning. And, honestly, I should do this more often. I felt so pretty and put together with cute outfit, makeup and my hair done. I even put on earrings and a wood bracelet. (wood bracelet specifically chosen so pepito could chew on it if he got bored with all of his toys. He's usually VERY interested in my jewelry...)

Anyhow. Here's the final top - and my sweet hubs forgot to mention that my strap is showing, but, for some reason, I'm unable to retouch it out... Guess I'm really just THAT pale! ha!

I have been seriously amazed at how easy it is to make clothes, baby and adult sized. I don't mean to go on and on about it on the blog, but I'm so excited to have "conquered" this and am hoping that some of y'all realize it's not such a daunting task. Try it!! Just pin the pieces and sew in a straight line!! Easy cheesey!

Now go enjoy the beautiful weather!!! Perfect for sleeveless cute tops!!

PS - Just linked up to Finesse Your Nest Shop your House Link Party - be sure to check out all the fun new projects everyone is doing! This project may not be exactly home related like all the others - but I did definitely shop my house (fabric bins) to make it - so I think it counts...sort of... My first Link Party!!! Yay!!

Friday, March 19, 2010

To Flower or Not to Flower

As mentioned last night - I made a mistake when trimming the hems on my dress and nicked the shoulder. boo. And truth be told, an excuse to be able to wear one of these adorable flowers is awesome. I've been making them and making them and never getting to use them for myself - silly!! Anyhow - back to the subject at hand. Fixing my dress.



So I made a bunch of flowers last night and Sam and I decided that all the blue flowers were too much - so I have two options for you. And be honest!! And please leave a comment!!! Input is absolutely essential on this one!!

First one - just two green flowers with covered buttons. Simple, easy, and covers my boo boo.

Second one - two green flowers with a mini blue polka dot flower. A little more something...


And sorry for the crazy looking pictures - it's really hard to take a picture of yourself with this huge awkward Nikon camera...

I would tell you which way I'm leaning but I don't want to influence the comments....though - I bet you could guess!

Thanks for the help in advance!!


Thursday, March 18, 2010

It's Done!!

And if you'll please excuse my less than perfect mommy body, mommy hair, and tired expression. ;)




And wouldn't you know that at the very end, while trimming the hems, I knicked the face fabric at the right shoulder. So now I've got to figure out how to hide the hand sewing... Would a couple blue polka dot flowers look odd up there? I'll mock some up and get a pick on here soon - I need help with this one!

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