Brittany's Kokeshi doll

I think Brittany would like to be Tif from Love.boxes when she grows up! She had to make one of these dolls after she saw Tif's. Pretty cute!

I FINISHED THE FAMILY ROOM!




I have been working on this room all week and now I am finally done! I recovered the plaid chair and footstool yesterday and today. They have an interesting story. Family legend has it that my grandfather saw the chair on the side of the road one day on his way home from work. Being the child of the Depression that he was and original thrifty soul from which I descend, he brought it home and recovered it. After my parents married and were poor with little furniture he passed it to them and helped my mom recover it again. Then when William and I got married, again poor newlyweds with no furniture, mom helped me recover the thing AGAIN. So now about 10 years later it was looking kind of ugly so once again the poor thing got ripped apart and put back together again. And the foot stool? Grandpa made it for me when I was three and got my big-girl bed but was too little to actually get in. This is it's third covering too. So there you go, the furniture that would not die and the reason RC Wiley furniture isn't making any money on us! Please forgive such a long post and so many pictures on my silly family room, but it is no fun to do this stuff and then not show anybody!

Before and after!

I have been working on making this chair a little more comfy and cuter this week. I found an ottoman at a thrift store last week so I re-upholstered it yesterday and I have been the mad pillow maker all week. I am pretty happy with how it turned out. Now I just have one more chair to work on today, we'll see how that goes.

I have tried and tried and I can't get these to post in the order I want so I guess it is afte and before

Is Spring coming?

I don't know what it is about anticipating spring that makes me want to freshen up my house with some new things but it seems to happen every year. So after the trip to the fabric store I have been happily making more throw pillows to add some color around here and recovering a few things. Hopefully they will be ready for a little before and after post later this week. But this painting was yesterday's naptime project. I had it posted a few days ago and if you look you will see it was much more purple and pink. Quite nice for my daughter's room where it lived, but I wanted to move it to the living room. So I did the unthinkable to someone else's creation, I started attacking it with my paintbrush. But I figured I bought it and it lives in my house now so I hope Inez( the original creator whom I hopefully will never meet) won't mind. And I am so happy with it! It looks much nicer than the Robert Duncan print which I really liked but have seen all over Utah. Now the picture in my living room is unique and I love that!

This is one of my favorite boxes from my dear friend over at http://loveboxes.blogspot.com. It seems just right today while we watch the snowflakes fall!

Pretty snowy mountains today in my backyard!

We've been making dolls!



Brittany made two sisters, they are wearing glasses just like her. And Matthew needed a Batman that looked like him, but before we stuffed him we discovered that he made a great puppet. So Matthew plans to use him as a puppet and then when he is tired of that he will turn him into an "action figure". My doll is the one wearing the hat, she is supposed to be Miss Spring.

I went fabric shopping with my sister and mom friday and boy did we have fun! I have been working on re-vamping my family room ever since. I will post that in a few days when it is done. But last night when the rest of my family went to bed, including the sicky husband, I made two of these for my sister. I really like the way they turned out. They have a little pocket inside for keys and lipstick too. It is a nice black and yellowy-tan, you can't see that too well in the picture.

This is a great little machine!

For those of us who are non-coffee drinkers this little guy is great. It is called the cocomotion machine by mr. coffee. I just like saying the name too. But you just dump in a cup or two water or milk, a scoop of your favorite mix and presto! I mixes and heats it perfectly! We love it, especially on cold mornings like today.

Today I had to make cake!

Has anyone else gotten in trouble before as a result of excessive crafting? Well today I had to make my husband a cake due to the guilt Ifelt. You see I have been making these little animals made from felted sweaters( see some in previous post). Well that requires several trips in the old washing machine. No problem. Or so I thought until my washing machine suddenly called it quits the other day in the middle of a cycle. Fast forward to today when my trusty fix-it guy came to the rescue. His diagnosis? Overload of fluff coming off the sweaters had clogged the hoses. I killed the washing machine! So I felt so bad I made cake! Now my husband has celiac disease so this does sometimes require some effort or at least planning. But this is our favorite recipe because it has no weird flours or special ingredients. It also has garbanzo beans so I always tell myself it is good for me! So here it is:

2 cans garbanzo beans (or chick peas depending on where you are from)

1 package chocolate chips melted

6 eggs

1 1/2 c sugar

1 1/2 t baking powder

Add all ingredients into blender or food processor and blend until smooth. Make sure really smooth or you will have bean chunks and that is nasty. Pour into greased 9x13 pan. Bake at 350 for 45 min. Cool and frost with your favorite frosting, it is especially good with german chocolate but I just couldn't go that extra mile today!

Just a couple of paintings


I did this painting because my then three year old was really into trains, like most small boys and I thought he would get a kick out of having one in the family room. Funny though it is our baby boy who loves it the most. He would concentrate on it above the sofa where it hung above us when I would nurse him, and early train lover I guess. Or he just liked the bright colors!


This one I found at a thrift store! It hangs in my little girl's, whom we call Bugsy a lot, room. I think it looks so lovely and peaceful and trust me that is something that room can use!

Look at the great fabric I found yesterday!

This one is going to be for my new nephew, don't you think a baby that lives in Texas should have cowboy burp towel?
This one is actually a sheet that I found at the thrift store, I have lots of plans for it!
This one is actually a canvas type fabric and is going to make cute bags of some sort.

I forgot Grandma's pattern and it is at least as cute as the animals I made below with it, maybe even cuter!

Look at my new flowers

My mom came over the other day and helped me make this new arrangement in my great-grandmother's old copper pot. According to my grandmother it was used to do laundry in! Boy do I love my washing machine! Anyhow, I have had dried flowers in it for about four years and my kids had just about destroyed them all. I would, of course prefer real flowers to these silks, but that is just not practical and I am happy with the extra color in the room. And that gorgeous chair next to the flowers? That is my talented husbands creation! And it only took three years! Just goes to show, never give up on that guy, he always comes through in the end.

I've been working on these guys!

I found this cute pattern in a box of things that were my sweet grandma's and was so excited because I have been looking for a pattern for animals and there it was, just like a gift from my little grandma! I felted some old sweaters and started hacking them up and now here is our little zoo!

Okay, you should know that I am a very, very amateur painter. I really love doing it, it is a great creative outlet, but I have very little training(one class in college). But it makes me happy and I do think I am getting a little better so I keep doing it! I also have a tendency to find an artist that I love and copy their work. I usually combine different things I like from several paintings into one. I have decided this is okay, as I am not selling things as my originals or trying to pass them off as their originals( trust me no one is going to fall for that anyway). This is just my way of trying to teach myself different things. Not to mention it means I have a lot of pieces that are colorful, that I like in my house that cost me virtually nothing! So with that disclaimer these are a couple of my things.

Come on in and see how much fun we are having!

I know it is long past Valentine's Day, but it is one of our favorite holidays so I have to show how cute we were around here before I have the kids put it all away.

What a difference a day makes!

Yesterday was beautiful and warm, the whole weekend we played outside. See the little tulips and daffodils were even trying to make their way into the world. Then wham! Wake up this morning and it is winter again! Oh well, my kids are happy and I guess we can go sledding one more time!

These three little gingham girls have been undergoing a makeover and are now very excited to go out into the world!

This is my maiden voyage into the world of blogs! My good friend over at Love boxes kept telling me to give this a try, so I am!