house things

SO, has it really been over a week since I last posted?? Sorry about that. We are well on our way to getting into our new house next month, but during all this waiting around, I decided I needed some projects to keep me busy. So, I started painting. First, I painted this chandelier that we scored on Craig's List for $10. It has whimsical, frosted glass thingies that go on it and are in beautiful condition. It was wood and brass before and this looks so much better, take my word for it because I didn't think to take a before picture :)

Then, we got these two awesome chairs at the thrift store because the owners or the house are leaving a beautiful banquette table in the kitchen with an L-shaped bench on two sides. These chairs will go on the other two sides. Here's the before (but without the padded seat, obviously...)

...and here's the one I've painted! I had this fabric on hand from a few years ago so I recovered the seat and painted the chair white. So cute.

And my biggest project.....I painted my dresser black! this was a dresser from the 70's that came from Casey's family (I'm not quite sure who) and it looked....well 70's :) I painted it black and added these awesome knobs (that look like Anthropologie, but really came from Hobby Lobby) and I cannot even believe the difference it made! I love it now and am really excited to do some more furniture makeovers :)

all done!

I finished Layla's quilt! Can ya believe it?? This is definitely the most time-consuming quilt I've ever made, but it never felt tedious because there are so many different elements so it wasn't like I was doing the same thing over and over. I love how it turned out. I love the scrappy look, I love the red polka-dot parts and I love the hand-quilting. Love it. So does Layla, it's perfect for her new twin bed!




Since I finished Layla's, I've been plugging away on Natalie's. I think now that all the cutting is done, it will go pretty quickly. Here's what I've done so far:

Since the hand quilting on Layla's went so well (and so much faster than I thought it would,) I might attempt to hand quilt the entire thing on this one. We'll see :) We do have a move coming up, after all, so I may not have much TV/hand quilting time in the coming months!

The Lord's Work

I had a pretty great Mother's Day! Casey called it more of a "Mother's Day Week" since he ran here and there for me, picking up some great lights I found on Craig's List for the new house. After church and lunch yesterday, I got out for awhile by myself and scored some Pottery Barn curtains at the thrift store, yay!!

At church, in the bulletin, there was an insert on Amy Carmichael that I finally go to read this morning. It's worth the time, you can find it here. At the bottom of the page, there was a quote from her book, If:

If by doing some work which the undiscerning consider "not spiritual work" I can best help others, and I inwardly rebel, thinking it is the spiritual for which I crave, when in truth it is the interesting and the exciting, then I know nothing of Calvary love.
Amy Carmichael

Also this morning, I was blessed to read this post on Femina about being a wife of valor. Great post, you should read it if you have a minute :)

And....I couldn't help talking a picture of this wine Casey bought on Saturday night. Pretty funny. But not very tasty, as far as wine goes :)

the new homefront

As promised, here are a couple picture of the front of the house we're buying! We think it's awesome :)



I started a home notebook this last week. I picked a color palette and sort of went from there, picking out paint colors, etc, based on the furniture and things that we already have.


I found this picture in a Pottery Barn Kids catalog and would like to try to make a cool map-wall like this in Kelby's room. Kelby will have a room! Right now, he sleeps in our basement, poor guy.

This one is from the same catalog. The girls would love tents like these and Casey doesn't think it would be hard. But, he's not the sewer, now is he?? It could be doable, though, with a good deal on some sheets from a thrift store.

Since I have all these great ideas, but no house quite yet, Casey hauled my soon-to-be-dresser out of the basement for me and took it out to the garage, so I can paint it black and make it look like this...

...I love this look, even the cool frames and knobs with the jewelry. Hopefully this will keep me busy for awhile, until I can get my hands on that house!!

Good Newssssssss

So, after seeing more houses the day after we lost our favorite one, and not liking anything enough to go after in time for the tax credit, we received a call from our Realtor that the other buyer's financing was not in place and the owner accepted our offer instead!!!!! We are SO HAPPY about this house, and the way everything fell into place could only have been God's intervention. Two things I've learned in the last year (a year of serious waiting): God's timing truly is perfect and worth waiting for AND He does not forsake those who love and seek after Him. A verse I clung to:
"I have not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his descendants begging bread."
Psalm 37:25
and one I cling to now:
"And I will cause showers to come down in their season; they will be showers of blessing." Ezekial 34:26
Praise the Lord! Our inspection is on Wednesday so I'll take some pics of the house to share then.

In the mean time, I couldn't not share a picture and I came across this picture again today, even though I made him a few months ago. My mother-in-law asked me to make her a "friendly-looking-snake" for her VBS plans this year and this little guy is what I came up with. Layla really fell in love with him, so Gramma said she'd try and take extra-special care of him so she can have him back when VBS is over. :) He is made from flannel scraps and has a film canister with beans in his tail so it rattles. Pretty cute idea.

keeping my hands busy

I have Layla's quilt almost finished. I originally thought I would hand quilt the whole thing, but I started out with way too thick of pearl cotton thread and took it out before I really got going. So, I decided to go ahead and machine quilt all the straight lines and go ahead and bind it. Then I'd go back and hand quilt around all the applique.

Armed with some hand quilting thread from my friend Katie, I got going and I am so glad I did it! The hand quilting really makes the flowers pop out. Can you see the difference between the flower on the left and and the flatness of the flower on the right?? I'm about half-way done and hopefully I'll be able to show you the whole thing before too much longer.

I couldn't give my sewing machine too long of a break, so I got started on a bed quilt for Natalie. I ordered a few fabrics from Fresh Squeezed Fabrics to get me started, then filled in with fabrics from my stash. Here's a peek at the scraps...gotta love a cute pile of scraps :)


Not only have my hands been busy, my feet have been busy too. We have spent this week house hunting and let me tell ya, it's not nearly as fun as I thought it would be! It's been exhausting to say the least. We fell in love with a house, but were outbid. I was pretty disappointed because it was really the only one I could see us in and even when we looked at several more yesterday, nothing else compared to that place. So, we're going to forget about the tax credit, slow it down and wait for the right place to come around. Now that I've seen it, I know the perfect place is possible. Right?? Or should I compromise?? Should I really be looking for perfection? Thoughts, please. (Keep in mind, my idea of "perfection" is not new and beautifully finished and updated. The place we loved was built in the 60's, was obviously loved by the family, had hard wood under the pink carpet, a super-out-dated kitchen, but with great potential, and the best deck and backyard in the world. And it was beyond clean and well-cared-for.) *sigh*

Family

We attended the funeral of Casey's Aunt Sherri on Monday. She battled brain cancer for almost two years and passed away last week at age 41. I have not been to very many funerals, but I found this one so beautiful and inspiring. It was truly more of a celebration of life than a mourning of death. Everyone wore bright colors, the balloon release was amazing. There was a long slide show of Sherri's life and it was so wonderful to watch, and made me determine to take more picture of family (and to get in some pictures myself!) They don't need to be professional quality to be so valuable to our family in later years. It's easy to take pictures of the kids, but I rarely think to take pics of the adults together too. So, at the reception, I got out my camera and snapped away. Casey's brother Jeremy said, after I took the first picture, "This is goin' on the blog, isn't it." Haha, right you are!

This is Casey in the middle with his sister, Jennifer and brother, Jeremy.




Jeremy and his wife Cindy. Their daughter Jilli is my Natalie's best buddy :)


And I even managed to get one taken of Casey and I.


And this is me and Cindy with the best Mother-in-law in the WORLD. That's no exaggeration, really she's wonderful :) I wanted Jennifer in this one too, but she was somewhere in that looooong food line in the background.


This is Casey's grandpa, Kelby's great-grandpa! I love this one of them nose-to-nose. Precious.


Here's to family! I'm so thankful to be a part of this one.

I dare ya to disagree..

Legos are probably the most awesome toy ever made. They can cause a grown man to lose track of time (ahem) and the new girlie ones are super awesome too.

Yes, this dude and his horse are watching a flat-screen TV. I made that myself, thank you very much :)


Kelby's newest favorite word is Lego, it's usually the first thing he says when he wakes up. This was Casey's set when he was a kid. Also under that couch is a huge tub of mine AND my Mom's Legos! That's three generations of Legos and the fun never ends :)

Unrelated, but I love this photo of Kelby in his new Dude hat.

So, I know I'm behind on blogging. There's been a lot going on. But I do have a lot to share and I promise to get on that blog header too. I do realize it's past Easter :)