Random Inspirations

The last 2 weeks have been extremely busy around here.  I've been painting and putting together different rooms throughout the house- among other things.  Today I put some of the final touches on 3 of the rooms.  First is the downstairs bathroom-  Have you ever seen Rate My Space on HGTV?  I love that show where you find 3 inspirations and then they recreate a room for you using those ideas.  Well, oddly enough, my inspiration for the bathroom came from a gift bag I saw in Target.  It gave me the idea to paint the walls gray and use the color purple with some floral theme.  My second inspiration was my friend Britt's guest bathroom.  It had the cutest accessories, including little hand towels on a flat basket.  It's hard to tell in the pictures, but the flowers, lotions and hand towels are all varying shades of purple.  Here's the before (trying to decide what gray- who knew there were so many?)........

And the after......

  The next room is Nathan's room.  My inspiration for this came from some bed sheets at Ikea that had really fun and bright animals all over them.  Roberto designed a bunch of decals for me.  You have to check out his website Graphical Interiors. The decals are ALL over my house and I LOVE them!
Before I put up the decals, I painted the room a light khaki color to replace the yucky utility paint (the khaki color is one of the stripes from the curtains  in the room).  I was going to make curtains, but then I found some that matched for $14 at Wal Mart and thought, "Why in the world would I go to all of that trouble if these work just fine?"  So, Wal Mart won out.

I also have pictures of the kitchen that we painted an olive-ish gray-green.  The inspiration for this was Autumn/Tuscany colors because of the wreathe that I have from our wedding reception.  The final step for this room is to find or make some curtains.  The current plan is to make them, but I haven't found the materials I want yet, so we'll see. 
Here are the before pics (you can tell I was really debating what color to paint the kitchen.  I made a last minute change and am really happy with the results):

  And the after......

 

One last decal to show you just for fun...I feel like a personal saleswoman for Roberto's company. :)

 

It pretty much sums up the motto of our home. 

Operation Quilt Completed

I finished the binding on the quilt this afternoon.  That's a good thing, because next week I'm focusing on the painting and decorating of my kitchen, so I wanted to finish the quilt and mail it this week.
I think it turned out cute.  My only complaint was the thread specifically for hand quilting that I used for the binding, but I didn't realize until half way through that it doesn't have as much give to it, so the quilt is a little scrunched.  Oh well- I'll know for next time.

I decided to do a wavy, swirly top stitch to counteract all the straight lines. It gives it more texture and a little more fun with the bright colors.  Well, time to go get the boy from his nap.  He's up there giggling and babbling.  I wish I knew what he was saying, because he's clearly amused by it.

Wall Love

A friend from school gave me a Pottery Barn gift card and I found the cutest Dr. Seuss shower curtain there. (Thus, the Dr. Seuss recent craze).  My Brother-in-Law designed decalls for me to put in Nathan's bathroom and playroom.  I'm so excited, because it looks SO cute! This may possibly be my favorite room in the house right now.........

The light reflection makes the paint look yellow, but it's actually white.  Aren't they so cool?!  Roberto did such a good job.  I love it!

This is one of my favorite Dr. Seuss quotes, so I put it in the playroom.  Nathan loves having a cat on the wall even if he hasn't figured out it's a specific character yet. :)

Stay tuned for the next decal job...... Nathan's animal room!

Fleecy Fuzzy

I don't know how to describe it, but some students that you teach become part of you and your family. You just love them.  I saw some of my kiddos in General Music, Chorus, and then after school for Select Choir and the musical every day, and they saw a lot of Joel and Nathan when we performed at venues or at rehearsals.  You couldn't help but be close to them.  There are a bunch of them that I'm truly going to miss this Fall.  Bobby is one of those boys that I would adopt in a heartbeat.  He was my right hand man- my Stage Manager, and just so dang cute.  I'd keep him in my pocket if I could.  He even stayed after the last day of school to help me clean up the music room.  His Grandma told me they consider us his adoptive parents and it just about melted my heart and made every moment at school worth it.  I have wanted to do something nice for him to thank him for all of the extra work he does for a while now, but I wanted to make sure I wasn't teaching at the school anymore, so that it couldn't be construed as inappropriate in any way (it's a sad world when you have to worry about those things, but it's true).

My mom showed me how to make a fleece blanket.  I was surprised how easy they are to make.  I'm so used to taking forever piecing things, so this was a pleasant fast project.  I don't much care for the Steelers (in fact, I typically root for just about any team playing against them except for maybe the Dallas Cowboys), but they're Bobby's favorite team, so there you have it.

PS- I love this wavy stitch. 

Fabric Love!

This morning my dad watched the boy and my mom took me to Patchwork Plus, an amazing quilt shop (that was featured in Better Homes and Gardens) in the Finger Lakes area just South of Syracuse.  I basically died and went straight to fabric heaven.  I have never seen so many incredible fabrics in my life!  Wow- you could drop some serious cash in that place.  My husband made me pinkie swear that I wouldn't purchase the entire store and luckily for him my frugal side kicked in and I felt bad about how much it cost a yard, so there were only 2 purchases. 
The funny thing about it is that I'm currently looking for fabrics for pillows and a hanging quilt for our playroom, so I'm looking for fun kid stuff when there are all these exquisite "adult" materials everywhere.  I feel a bit like walking into a couture shop and looking for a clearance rack.  It's still a lot of fun to oogle the merchandise though.  I got a fun words material for my pillow to match with the Cat in the Hat decal and quote that will be going up in the playroom this coming week.  The other farm animal material I just fell in love with and had to have.  I'm going to figure out a way to include it.  Nathan's love of animals is starting to rub off on me (as you will soon see in his room next week).  The most exciting part about this experience is that they are getting Dr. Seuss material in September!  I've been looking all over for it without any luck.  Looks like I know what I'm asking for from Joel for my birthday. :)

Stuetz Photos

Aren't these great?!!  This is my dad and Aunt Sherry.  My dad labeled this as "Faces only a mother could love."

This is my dad when he was baptized and joined the LDS church (17 years old)

The last picture is at my Grammy Irene's 15 year high school reunion in Grove City, Minnesota in 1958.  Doesn't she look so done up and classy?  I love it.  Those were the days.......

Old Stuff, Old Memories

Now that I have a house my parents are having me go through all of my old boxes and decide what stuff I want to keep and what needs to be thrown out.  I can't believe some of the junk I kept, but some of it just makes me smile.  All of my cumerbunds from choir and the show outfit were still in there.  My kids at school would love to see what awful ones I had.  Their's were a lot cuter, but the funny thing is that I looked at the tag and it's the same exact company.

I also found my clay mask that I actually won an award for in 6th grade.  It's the only art project that even came close to being decent, but alas after all these years its falling apart and time to part ways.

Before the days of quilting, the only thing that I did that could be considered even remotely craftsy was Latch Hook.  I used to love doing it- this was the very first one I ever did. 

One really cool thing that I found was an old wooden picture frame that had pictures taken of me the day Adam was born.  I was 16 months old and some of those pictures remind me exactly of Nathan (I had a little longer hair and that was about it)- particularly the bottom right hand corner.  I'm going to see if we can scan them in, so there's a better version of the pictures.  Fun stuff. 

Joel will be happy to know that of the 5 boxes I managed to clean it out to 2 boxes.  :)

First Hair Do

Nathan got his hair cut for the first time this morning.  He did really well.  Jeanette has been cutting my family's hair for probably about 15 years now, so it was fun to bring him to her for the 1st experience.  Graham crackers and raisins are all it took to make him sit in the chair.

                          The new and stylin' Nathan!