Stained glass

Grandma and I have been hard at work making stained glass windows for my house. Here are the first 3 of who knows how many. I have 10 2' x 2' windows in my house that I would love to put these in. I'll let you know how the installation goes when we are brave enough to tackle that.

Another Pinterest post

I almost forgot. I am getting lots of ideas for activities with the kids. Here is one of our recent favorites:


Feel free to follow my Pinterest boards here if you aren't already. Better yet start your own. It's so much fun!

Pinterest

I am loving Pinterest right now. There is so much inspiration out there for me to soak up and it helps me get excited about being creative. I especially love having a place to store pictures of food. Mmmm. Here are a couple of the recipes I have tried:

found here.

These cookies that were so easy and yummy. Found here.


I was very excited to find a shrimp boil. When we lived in Texas we had an annual tradition of going to a shrimp boil at Central Market in Plano. The last time we were there we were right next to a room where Martin Yan of Yan Can Cook was giving a cooking demo. So this year we were really missing the shrimp boil and I found a delicious recipe to try. It was so good! Looking at the pictures is making me really hungry. You can find it here.

Living Room Makeover!

The makeover has happened!!! I love my new living room and hope to post more information about all the details as they come to me. For now I am just happy to enjoy our new space. Laura Burkhardt was there to set up all the elements she picked out and even brought me a 3 piece painting she was generous enough to paint for me. I love it all! The chairs are still waiting for slipcovers so don't look to closely there, but feel free to look closely at the boxes on the TV console. They look great there.





I love all the pillows and the lamp, the painting and the furniture. My kids especially like the Moroccan pouf and the hidden storage in the ottoman.

Don't get your hopes up

Ok, I don't want you to think this is the home makeover I've been telling you about. That is still coming, but it hasn't happened yet. I was home with the kids on a Saturday while Chris went to sing at a wedding in La Conner. Thanks to a Pinterest link (here) I had an idea to keep us busy for the day. It didn't take much time, I had all the materials on hand, and it kept the kids busy for days. Just so you know, I didn't let the perfection of the inspiration keep me from creating my own version.

Decorative Boxes

I've been having an exciting couple of weeks for my shop. I am learning a lot along the way about marketing, photography, shipping prices, etc. It turns out my shipping prices were extremely low. I had no idea it would cost so much to send a box in a box.

I had my first sale. Hooray! My first sale is going to a famous couple who are getting married, but I don't want to type their names online in case somehow it got back to them and spoiled the surprise. Ask me about it if you are interested. Just a couple of days later I sold 4 more boxes so I really feel on a roll. There has been a lot of happy dancing around here lately.

I am working on my first commission order. Fun to see what other people would like to be in the shop. I have to stick with the fabrics that make me happy, but it would be nice to have more input on what else people would like to see.

It will be fun to see what my boxes end up being used for in the future; decorative boxes, gift boxes, baby nursery storage, etc.

My Etsy Shop

Well, I finally created an Etsy shop for my boxes. I've been a little nervous about all the little details that are involved, but so far everything is falling into place.

The garden

I have been stressing about our yard for about 1 year now. I've been slaving away trying to remove most of the rocks from the soil, but it seems like a never-ending job. About a month ago I cleared a space for 2 garden boxes. We built the boxes and then tried unsuccessfully to borrow a truck to haul some garden soil for our boxes. Finally, Chris rented a truck and purchased a truckload of nice 50/50 soil and compost. Of course, me being who I am the 2 nights after we filled one of the boxes I was thinking about where I wanted to move them. I ended up waking up the next morning (yesterday) and preparing a new location for 1 box, moved the box with Chris's help, and moved all the soil out of the box we had filled 2 days before. We now have a garden box with soil, I purchased plants yesterday, and last night we planted the plants as a family. I now have to figure out what to do with the other garden box. I have included a picture of the location I would like to put it, but right now that location is covered with kind of a lot of rocks and my back is screaming at me to not even think about it.

My current projects

For the last couple of months I have become a little obsessed with covering boxes in fabric. First, I recovered 2 of the blue boxes I bought at Ikea a while back. Next, I bought 10 really cheap boxes from Ikea to cover. Most recently I started buying boxes online, I received a shipment of 50 boxes that I then had to send back and take a huge financial hit to pay the return shipping. Finally, I bought some (18) nesting boxes on Ebay that have a nice incandescent cellophane on them which doesn't allow glue to stick quite as well. I have been ripping the cellophane off to get the box down to the nice white finish and then gluing fabric on. I fully intend on buying more boxes in the near future. I have about 6 boxes left of the 18 to finish and next I plan on working on some smaller sizes. I would like to skip the Ebay seller and the box importing company and go straight to the Chinese company who makes them. Wish me luck. I have found this to be a wonderful hobby to work on while my husband and I watch TV at night.



You may be able to see in the picture, the cheap boxes I bought from Ikea have a print that shows through some of the fabric. These boxes are the ones on the bottom of each shelf. Stacked on top are the boxes from Ebay that have white underneath so that allows the brightness of the colors of the fabric to show rather than be muddled by a brown and black box underneath.

Ok, last one for tonight

Just had to share the deviled eggs I made for Easter. Have you ever seen such beautiful eggs? I had no idea this was possible, but it was on a blog so I gave it a try. Cool, huh? The colors did seem to make it a little more difficult to entice people to eat them, but they were fun.

More projects

In March I took Fiona with me to visit friends and family in Texas. While we were there I stocked up on costumes for Fiona thanks to Grandma Hathaway's excellent garage sale skills. Of course I needed somewhere to store them.
In April, my dad and I built this costume rack for the kids to store their disguises, dresses, and costumes. It has definitely helped them remember to dress up more.

A Project!

I made something. It is a little bench for the kids to sit on while they read books upstairs. The legs still need to be painted, but otherwise I am happy with it. It is impossible to get 2 kids to sit still for a picture when you really want them to.

Skip to February

I entered this picture in a living room makeover contest and I actually won. As of today no work has been done, but I am assured it will probably be done in July.

November

Homemade mozzarella sticks are harder to make than you would think. This was my best attempt. They weren't as tasty as I was hoping either. Maybe next time.

October

We lost our camera in October. I believe that is the month Erin came to visit and we painted my kitchen and dining room a beautiful blue. Keep your eyes open and you might get a glimpse of it in future pictures.

Blueberries

In September we were introduced to the Blueberry Park in Tacoma. Acres of blueberry bushes taken care of by volunteers. We took several trips and enjoyed making blueberry muffins, pancakes, smoothies, the kuchen pictured, and just eating lots of fresh blueberries. We are looking forward to going back next year.

August

In August we moved into our new home! Hurray! We started hosting weekly Sunday dinners with as much family as possible. In addition to regular Sunday meals we have hosted Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter and many birthday celebrations. We are now branching out to invite friends over for dinners, but so far we have only done that once.
I enjoy trying new and old recipes out on such a large audience.

Long time no see

Thanks Erin for reminding me there are people who come to my blog even if I'm not always one of them. I guess I'll just start uploading pictures that I have and let you know what I've been up to this past year.