Ready, Set, Clean

Country Living

This week at Simple Mom she's talking about organizing our own wardrobes and closets as her first task in Project Simplify. Why? Because Moms usually put themselves last. I just did this about a month ago so I'm not really motivated to do it again. But it looked amazing when I was done! One key was to have all matching hangers, it was incredible. Now they don't match because Ben kept stealing mine but it was great for a time. If I would've felt better this week I would have done the project because we can all use a little spruce up. But today is cleaning the house and laundry day. I have company coming tonight and I feel great for the first time all week. What motivates all of you to clean house?

Baby Shower Gift Idea

My sister-in-law is pregnant. She is having TWINS. A boy and a girl! They already have a little boy so their house will be busy and fun soon. I really really really like home made, personalized gifts. Probably because we have unique names around here :-) So for her baby shower I wanted to make something unique.

 A personalized blanket is always great. The baby's are due in April so I used a light weight fleece cotton for these. I made them match and then embroidered their names on in blue and pink. I think they turned out great.

Then I bought a blue and pink onesie to add their initials on. My sister-in-law likes simple things so I think the initial alone will be great.

Of course packaging is a huge deal as well. I saw a tutorial online for creating these "cupcakes" out of the blanket and onesies. I had to try it! It took me several attempts since the blankets I made are doubled which made them thicker, but I finally got it. I put them inside this doughnut box which is too cute. I was so excited to take this to her shower today, unfortunately I got sick and couldn't go. But I'll give it to her tomorrow with a pack of diapers!

Another eventful thing this week...Aybrin lost his 2nd top front tooth! Of course I recorded him singing "All I want for Christmas is my 2 front teeth"!

 Next week I'm joining Simple Mom for her decluttering project! Why don't you join me?

Art Room 2nd Project

We have been making a lot of things in our art room lately! Then we found a cooking website and our interest turned to food! Can you blame me? My issue is that I have too many projects going on at once so it's

hard to sit down and upload the pics for the post!

 This is the strawberry tote I made a couple of weeks ago. I really like collapsible shopping totes and it's my way of going green. When I saw one of these online I knew I HAD to make it! Seriously...a collapsible tote and a cute strawberry, who wouldn't love it!





The bag is collapsed inside the strawberry.

Open the strawberry and voila...a bag to store your books and groceries!

I thought it was too plain so I had to add something to it. I'm thinking of making and selling these to make a little extra vacation money but I have no idea how to price them. If I did make them though I think I'd personalize the front. Wouldn't that be adorable?

Here it is all finished. I really like it except when I added the lining inside the bag it made the bag too bulky to fit all the way back into the strawberry. I'll reconfigure next time and there will be a next time! I've already used this bag a lot and I plan on using it a lot more!

Facebook Comments

My darling husband helped me add something new to our website today...Facebook comments!  Now if you have a Facebook account you can leave comments on the blog posts without logging in through blogger!  I hope you enjoy this.

By the way, a tutorial at AllBlogTools.com helped us with the directions on how to do this.

Our Family Snow Picture Outside

 

I saved this in a low quality so I hope it looks OK. I have a portrait similar to this that we took a couple of years ago but Asher was the only one throwing snow. I adore this portrait! I really really really like the fact that both boys are laughing hysterically! I like our barn in the background, I like the soft focus, I like the fact that we had SO MUCH SNOW! This is a memory for us..we'll remember this as the biggest and most snow Missouri has seen in a long time!

I was so happy Janiece was able to come take this for us. Then we all tried pushing our car out of the snow to no avail ;-)

This is going to be printed in a 13x19 then matted and framed in one of my huge ornate frames Ben made me. It's for my season wall. I decided a couple of years ago that it would be neat to hang 1 portrait from each season of the year in the living room. Ben worked hard on the frames but he only finished 2 so right now I have Spring and Summer. I'll be happy to get up this winter one and then hopefully I'll get a great one this Spring!

Shoe Sugar Month: Day 13 SIZZIX BIG SHOT GIVEAWAY!!

You can win a sizzix machine from Grosgrain Fabulous! She's been showing how to make these amazing shoe accessories and I'd really like to win!
Shoe Sugar Month: Day 13 SIZZIX BIG SHOT GIVEAWAY!!

The Making of An Art Room Tutorials

The first thing needed in this art room was more storage! In came the big white bookshelf. I was very pleased that this bookshelf was white. The heaviness between the green walls and red accents was too much and it needed to be lightened up. This white bookshelf also brings out the white trim woodwork in the room! Double bonus!

 You can tell from this picture that the bookshelf needed a little TLC. The backing was about to fall off and it also had some of the top layer of paper torn off of it. What to do? First I went through all my scrapbooking paper and I thought about putting it on the backing but it wouldn't have all matched and the openings to the shelf are more than 12" high so I would have to be very creative and edge each bookshelf with a paper border. Sorry but I have two little boys..that's WAY too time consuming for me! Then I thought about buying some red fabric to attach at the back. Great idea except that we were snowed in and couldn't get out. I thought about this for a long time and remembered that I had just gotten a tablecloth that I really liked and it had red strawberries on it! Thank you Lord!

Here's how I did it:
 I took off the backing and laid it on the floor. Then I took the fabric and stapled... that's right STAPLED it to the backing! WhoHoo. I used a regular stapler, nothing heavy duty at all. I actually had a piddly cheap stapler which worked but if you had a better stapler it might not have taken so many staples. Then I cut off the extra fabric on the side for a later use and attached the back to the bookshelf with the original nails and a heavy duty stapler. We put it up and it was great but needed something extra...in comes the left over fabric. It was the perfect size to go down the side of the shelf so my sweet honey stapled it on and voila! It's not perfect...the table cloth was a little short so it doesn't go all the way down the bookshelf but I knew I'd have stuff on the shelf so you wouldn't see it anyway. You wouldn't know it if I hadn't of told you! Now this bookshelf makes me smile!

Again, I could've taken more time and filled in all the holes to make it look more expensive but while we were doing this our littlest son decided to pretend he was a monkey and took a flying leap off the couch, got stuck between the couch and window while hitting his head on the edge of the window. We then checked out all the blood and decided to try to get out of the driveway which led us to gettting the car stuck where it still sits today (almost a week later). Our son is now fine but you get the point, the less time consuming the better.

 A few days later I started adding all the art stuff. I didn't want it too crowded so I was very selective in what to add. It's hard to see in the picture but the top stuff is mostly contained in this green wire see through basket which I really like. I might eventually move that stuff and add fabric into it. Then I sorted things into containers. The sewing stuff is sorted into mason jars that have little tags attached with raffia. It helped to have fabric on the back of the bookshelf...it made me not want to add clutter to it.

 

What tips have you found to help reduce clutter on your bookshelves?