Redecorating

How often do you redecorate a room?  We've been in our house for 6 1/2 years, and I've got the itch to redecorate.  I'd love to repaint all of my house, top to bottom, but Randy isn't so much on board with that.  It needs to be done, though.

Decorating does start to get really expensive, so I'm not changing anything too major (furniture), but I've still spent plenty.  I have a hard time waiting around for the best deals & end up trying to get it all done without regard to the cost.  That's just how I am.

My aim is to freshen up the downstairs living areas, powder room, kitchen, and our master bedroom & bath.  We'll see if Randy makes me work the corner by the time I'm done spending all of his money.  :)  This will just be an update on our living rooms & bedroom, since I haven't purchased anything for the powder room, kitchen, and master bath yet.

We had our carpets and couches cleaned last week, but they need to be redone.  I came home from being out of town & excited to put together my new purchases & was really disappointed.  (Sub-par job?  Aggravating.)  I went ahead and put all of the furniture back into our living rooms & we'll deal with removing everything again when we need to.


So far, I have purchased for the living room:

• a rug (we've never had one & our traffic patterns are obvious)
• lampshades for our living room lamps (ours had seen better days)
• a new piece of artwork
• a pillow that incorporates more color into the space with the existing colors
• coordinating pillows for our front room
• colored glass bottles for decoration

I also moved our piano & switched around some candles I already had.


For the living room, I still want to buy:

• curtains
• more coordinating pillows
• paint

For our bedroom, I have purchased:

• new bedding (comforter, sheets, bed skirt, decorative pillows)
• curtains
• vases

I would still like to:

• install board & batten
• paint
• purchase some frames & wall decor
• install a fan and wall sconces (and get rid of the lamps I have hated for the last 10 years!)

I will post some before & afters when I get things a little more put together & feel like it's somewhat finished.  Hopefully I can rope Randy into helping out with a few of the projects.

I'm sure Randy thinks I believe money grows on trees.  Speaking of which, does anyone have any money trees that need to be harvested?  I'm available for hire.  :)

I need your feedback!

So, I've been thinking I want to try my hand at offering home-baked goods this holiday season.  My initial thoughts are to offer:

• Cinnamon rolls w/ cream cheese frosting
• White dinner rolls
• Whole-wheat dinner rolls
• Peanut butter chip/Milk chocolate chip cookies
• Banana bread

I've also thought of doing:

• Mint cream brownies
• Marshmallow peppermint brownies
• Berry freezer jam (to go along with the dinner rolls)

What do you think?  I have the poll above so you can be anonymous, but if you'd like to give me feedback, I'd love it!  Would you buy any of it?  What would be your top picks?  Any other suggestions?  Let me hear it!

One project finally finished!!

When we found out Bryn was a girl, I decided that I wanted some new bedding & decorations for her.  I was tired of the pink & green that we had decorated with.  I looked at some expensive bedding & decided to give it a go myself.  (Who knows if I saved myself any money, but with all I did, I think so.)

It took me forever to finish all of it.  Probably because I didn't use any patterns...I just thought it all up in my head & looked at examples.  I also tend to have several major projects going on at one time.  

I had to set Bryn down to take the picture, but she's a little sad about it.  :(

This is the crib bumper I made.  I loved the white backed fabric, but after I bought it what was in the store, I could never find it again.  So, I had to improvise and use another coordinating fabric.  I saw a few examples of homemade bumpers online & wasn't impressed.  I was determined that mine would not look like them.  And, despite the imperfections, I think it actually looks really good.

I made the crib skirt, too, but you can't really see the fabric well.  (See the very last picture in the post for a good look at the fabric.)  I'm a little worried that I used too many patterned fabrics in the room, but oh, well.  The skirt was really easy to do & turned out really nicely, as well.

Want some of these?  A renowned artist made them especially for Bryn.  Okay, it was really me.  Aren't I just so darn talented?!  I think I can squeak out some creativity every 5 years or so.  I'd actually love to draw & color a bigger picture to hang in her room, but I've yet to find a plain brushed nickel frame that I like & that's inexpensive.

I had these shelves before.  I simply sewed purple ribbon over the multi-colored rick-rack.

A friend also gave me the quilted fabric & the soft fabric backing, so I made two blankets.  The one hanging above, and one for Bryn to use.

This is the curtain fabric.  I couldn't get a good shot of it from a distance, so up close it is.

These are the curtains with blackout fabric on the back.  I had actually finished the curtains before Bryn was born, but I had them hung too low & hadn't made the valance.  (The valance & the crib bumper were my last two projects that I finished about a week ago.)

This is the guest bed.  Nothing too special.  I bought some lilac pillow cases to coordinate with the white/cream sheets.  And I made the smaller throw pillows.

This is the same fabric that backed the quilts I made.  They're kinda' lumpy because I used the batting from 2 throw pillows from mine & Randy's old bedding.  I'm proud that I was able to be thrifty!

And lastly, I made these pillow covers.  Again, I used old pillows & just made these new covers.  They were so easy to whip up one evening.  (This is the same fabric as the crib skirt, too.)

So, Bryn's room may not be the cutest room ever, but I'm pretty darn proud of what I accomplished!

It's a bow-tiful life

My sister, Tiffany, brought her die-cut machine & plenty of fabric to our reunion in Colorado in June.

I spent a little bit of time one afternoon cutting out fabric for flowers, then assembled them at home a few weeks ago.

I think they turned out pretty cute.

These were some that my mom made & gave to me.  They actually go really well with some of my girls' outfits!!

Jenna had to make a rainbow out of ALL our bows & flowers.

Add the flowers I made to the few we already had, plus...

...fabric ones my mom made back in April...

...and these cute ones my sister-in-law had made for our trip to California, and we have quite the selection!

Garden & Preserving 2009

I was busy canning in my pj's this past week. I did 13 pints of diced tomatoes. With only 1 pint jar left and 8 cups of diced tomatoes, I froze the rest.

Here's a sampling of what I canned this year: spaghetti sauce (4 quarts), chili sauce (4 pints), diced tomatoes (13 pints), and zucchini relish (5 1/2 pints).

While our garden didn't look as beautiful as in years past, it still produced well. I froze carrots & peas. Randy roasted Anaheim chile & he loves adding it to his fresh salsa. He will miss it. We've had our fair share (but still loving them!) of fresh cucumbers and red, yellow & green bell peppers. Our strawberries have done pretty well, even after I accidentally tried to kill them by over-fertilizing. We definitely enjoyed our fresh garden peas & snap peas, as well. And you know that we also got some good onions.

The potato plants, however, were diseased, so while the ones we got were nice-sized and beautiful, there weren't very many. 10 plants yielded what 3 healthy plants should have.

We battled squash bugs a bit, but our zucchini prevailed. It gave the perfect amount of food. I was able to use it for kabobs, zucchini cake a few times, zucchini relish, share a few, add it to some dinner recipes, and make zucchini bread. It was the perfect plant for us this year.

Our green beans did horribly. I think I planted them where they were too hot & got too much sun. I won't be planting them again next year.

The corn had limited success. They were planted next to the green beans & may have been too exposed, as well. The wind would also knock them over. This next year, I'll plant them in a different spot, and plant more of them. Not being fully pollinated was also a problem this year.

The cantaloupe was killed, and the garlic didn't like all the rain we had early in the summer, so it died. We actually had one that re-grew (I missed it when pulling out the others), but of course, Jenna got to it.

Plants I didn't enjoy or do much with: cauliflower (just didn't look right), broccoli (small yield at any given time & then I'd let it bolt too often), beets (I'm sure they were good, but I wasted them.)

I've loved the garden & the fresh produce, but I'm almost glad it's done this year. I think some of our plants froze a few nights ago, but I need to go check on them.

I'm spent.

What a week I have had!

My brother and his family were here for a few days.

My mom was here for 5 days.

Randy was gone for 3 days, hiking in the Grand Canyon.

I had several crazy busy days of running around & helping at my sister's house...my girls even started begging me to go home on two different days! I've created home-bodies...just like me!

My mom and I made a cute blanket for my cousin. Everyone at the baby shower loved it.

I attended my Ricks College 12th Ward reunion. It's been 10 years since I first moved away from home. This was my ward for the first 2 years of college. It's amazing how welcome & connected I can feel to people I haven't seen in so long. It was so good to see everyone. But I still have so many more of you that I would LOVE to see!

Despite the busyness, church is what is challenging me right now.

Randy & I have a new calling to sit with a CTR5 class during sharing time. We did it today. At one point, I was holding a sleeping Jenna and a sweet, special needs child on my lap. Whew!

I rushed from there to teach Relief Society.

I have some major visiting teaching concerns right now. In fact, visiting teaching has been just plain stressful the whole summer.

I still have my stake calling doing family history, too. 3 callings. Yikes!

When is it too much?

I just hope I can get past this strange/difficult place I'm in.

Because...I hate feeling like this & I have a disaster of a house to clean tomorrow!

Tomatoes

Last year, we planted 4 tomato plants in our garden. This year, I scaled it down to 2 plants. Apparently last year's were poor producers, because this is what I had a few days ago...and nearly all of the tomatoes were from my Early Girl. My other variety has barely begun to produce ripe tomatoes.

Rather than let it go to waste (the quickly-piling-up-tomatoes were stressing me out!), I decided to freeze them. Here's my setup for the whole boil, cool, peel, core, chop into quarters, and pack into freezer container process. It actually went fairly quickly. I think I'll end up doing spaghetti sauce, after all, but having the tomatoes done this far & saving them from rotting will help the process along. Hooray for just doing it when I really didn't want to!

Christmas gifts & projects

Aside from the little purses I made my girls (shown in previous post), I was super busy working on gifts for our parents & siblings this holiday season. We rotate names, so at least I only had one sibling of mine & one of Randy's to do gifts for. I started them in September & finished in December. I should have counted the hours I put into it...it was a lot. Randy and the girls were super patient with me being on the computer so much & spending time away from home doing research. What is it, you ask?

I compiled information about each of our LDS pioneer ancestors.

I did 4 books or collections--my family, Randy's family, my sister-in-law's family (Teri) & my brother-in-law's family (Josh). It was a lot of work, but I'm really pleased with how it turned out. Teri and Josh have the one and only copies of these great masterpieces. Of course, I would welcome them passing them along to their families.

My family's book was the longest--nearly 150 pages!

Randy gave me a precious gift, as well. He designed & ordered a 7 generation pedigree chart (including our girls). He had it professionally mounted & framed. It looks amazing & brought tears to my eyes--considering how much time I've put into family history this past year. It was a amazingly wonderful gift!

Look what I made!

I've always wanted to make a Christmas tree skirt, and now that I have a sewing machine, I wanted to get it done. I did not have a pattern, but I talked the entire process over with my mom (over the phone) and was so excited. After I spent a bundle on fabric, I saw a simple tree skirt at Wal-Mart that I liked for $10. I really questioned myself then. The fabric sat on my dresser for a week just staring me down, so I figured I'd better do something with it. The hardest part was coming up with a pattern--a circle, angles, circumference--all those things I had long forgotten were now needed. The fabric was not easy to cut, either. The only straight lines I had were from the edge of the fabric. Last Saturday, I spent probably 7 hours sewing it, and I love how it turned out. It's absolutely not perfect, but I still think it looks amazing. Pretty good for an amateur seamstress, huh?

And because you will all know our secret now, we do have our tree stacked on about 6 inches of wood to make it look taller from our window. Whatever works!

Powder Room

Last weekend, while Randy was gone, I went to work painting and decorating our downstairs powder room. Here is the end result. I'm not too crazy about the picture I had printed (it was darker than I expected), but overall I'm pleased with the way it all turned out.

Jeans

When I was in St. George, Tiffany cleaned some clothes out of her closet & gave them to me. Among them, was a pile of jeans. Unfortunately, I've been blessed with short legs, so all of the jeans were too long. I was able to borrow my mom's new sewing machine, and this weekend I went to work doing the Euro hem on my jeans. (Thanks to Amber H. for originally sharing the info.) I must say, they turned out wonderfully. Yea!

From the wonderful, random mind of Keri:

I may just be hungry, but man, this Mexican Lasagna over on Pioneer Woman looks GOOD!!

In other news... Jenna simply cracks me up! Everytime we're in the front yard, she will pick strawberries while I have my back turned. A few days ago, she had her hands full with 4 not-fully-ripe berries that she had picked. This morning, we made it inside before I realized she had picked one & had it in her hands. And boy, did she get mad when I threw it away! But really, partially ripe strawberries can't taste great, can they? Strawberry update: Jenna has now picked 5, no, make that 6 strawberries today. If she keeps this up, we won't have any ripe ones to eat!

And last, but not least, I'm thinking that canning is starting to be easy! I think it's kinda like baking bread...the more you do it, the easier (and less daunting) it becomes. I just pulled 4 more pints of diced tomatoes out of the water bath. I'm sure I'll have many more to come, but I'm liking it!

Let canning season begin!

Yesterday marked the beginning of my canning for this summer/fall. I canned 5 pints of diced tomatoes from my garden. I had a 6th pint, but the bottle broke during the water bath. I have a feeling I will be doing a lot more of this. I do use a lot of diced tomatoes in my cooking, so it will be wonderful to have!

I also shredded and froze 12 crookneck squash. There is no way that we will eat all of it while it's fresh... I had been in the habit of giving away all that we couldn't eat while it was fresh, but I got smart & realized I should be preserving it. I'm sure I'll still be sharing, but I also look forward to stocking my pantry and freezer with all the good stuff we've grown.

By the way, if any of you that live around here want to learn how to can, I'd love to show you how. I'm a novice myself, but it's not difficult, and I've got the basic supplies to get the job done. Just let me know!

A little project

I made this for Randy's mom for her birthday last week. (I hadn't posted it because we gave it to her this past weekend when she was here.) I got the vinyl from Scribble It. I am really pleased with how it turned out, paint and all.

Garland & Goodies

I mailed my Garland & Goodies Swap package to my partner yesterday & she should get it in the mail tomorrow. I had so much fun doing it. I even broke out the mod-podge this past weekend for it! I made a simple felt garland, but it turned out darling. I also did a paper mache Christmas tree box with the mod-podge & green tissue paper. That also turned out beautifully. All of this simple craftiness made me want to do more. Thanks, Candace, and all of you crafty friends out there for inspiring me!

I've been busy!

This week has been dedicated to canning. I was able to get free apples from my aunt & uncle who live nearby, as well as from Randy's grandpa in AF. Wonderful friends & neighbors loaned me some of their equipment to help get the job done. It has been a lot of hard work. I've canned:

*2 quarts of Salsa (with chile from my own garden)

*4 quarts & 1 pint of Applesauce

*4 quarts of Apple Pie Filling

*10 pints of Apple Butter

I still have TONS of apples to be used. I should be doing more canning today, and I'm tempted to, but I literally exhausted myself the past few days. (I slept in until 10am today...something I never do.) I still want to make Apple Syrup and Apple Jelly. With the looks of my apple supply, I'll be making more of everything else, too.

Wonderful Pantry

This week, Randy came home and needed a project to work on, so he picked our pantry. We've always planned to redo it since we moved in, so now was the time. We pulled out the cheap wire shelving (blah!), and Randy built wood shelves in their place. Randy & Sydney primed, and I caulked and painted. All of my pantry items had been in my kitchen since Tuesday, so I was quite excited to move everything back in today. We went from 3 packed shelves to 5 shelves with plenty of room to spare! I love it!

Before

After