Our New Friend

So, Brent's been obsessed with leg lamps for a while now, he thinks they are hilarious and classy, i think differently. So this year, my lovely parents got him one for his birthday/Christmas.......What can i say? She's a beauty.

My dad wants her in the front window......She will be living in the basement.

ps: This is why Brent has no say in anything to do with our house.

Christmas Festivities!

Well, seeing as how i've made no headway on any of my sewing, i thought i'd give an update on what's been consuming all my time... Christmas. I'm hosting my first big family get together for x-mas eve and i'm pretty excited/nervous/getting my house ready for human eyes. Here is our fantastic tree!

Some cute ornaments, we were going for a "classic" look with gold, red and green. love it!


This is my rotten dog looking quite festive.

This is how you know it's winter, Merlin takes over his usual spot, right on the mat in front of the sink which has a heat vent.
Either this or he's on the stove when i bake. Merry x-mas!

Sneak Peak!

We took a much needed break from painting today to do another project. I'm not going to tell you exactly what it will be but it's the first craft brent and i have made together (awww).

I hope to have it done by the end of the week as it's getting quite cold around here.

Painting (again)

Besides taking care of Merlin, we have been painting again (yay, wooo). I know i'm crazy, so we are getting rid of the white for a light neutral grey. It's very light, not grey, not beige. It makes my house look warmer, the white didn't quite fit in here, while i love the look of all white rooms, it just doesn't work in my house. Oh well.

Olive and i had a collision and i rollered her forehead (hilarity ensued as we tried to grab her before she wiped her paint face on the furniture)

Here's the difference between the white and the new color, i used a Behr paint/primer two in one paint, it's actually fun to paint when you don't have to do three coats (we only had to do one).

Poor Old Merlin

Well, my boy Merlin has been sick, consuming a large bag of canine pill pockets landed him at the vet three days in a row. I was so happy that today all the foreign material appears to have moved from his stomach into his intestines (yay!) so we got to take his catheter out and he got to lose the cone collar. He's almost back to his charming little self (he may have chewed up the new bottle of cat tonic lax)-why oh why? But we'll just ignore that little detail. I just wanted to share some pics of the little man that has been consuming my thoughts and time this week

He's been cuddling up to anything warm now that it's finally winter here (i think it's been around -20 celcius), So here he is on his favorite electric heat pack, so sleepy and warm.

He was also quite thrilled to be able to clean himself again!

Signed: The crazy cat lady in me.

OOO Baby, Baby.

Today i made a last minute quilt for Brent's friend who just had a baby girl named Hailey (awww). I bought the patterned fabric from ikea for cheap, i thought it was kinda fun and whimsical. I really think it's adorable, i'm glad to have finished another quilt finally, even if it is really tiny. I forgot to take a picture of the back (oops!) but it's just a white, pink and green argyll fleece (so cozy)

My machine was being a cry baby, i really wanted to free motion quilt a stipple pattern but for some reason, when i have my machine set up this way, it won't pick up the bobbin thread. Who knows.

Collars!

I've been feeling a little crafty lately and ever since i made Olive a Halloween Collar the gears in my little brain have been turning. They are so much more fun than collars that you buy in a store, and so much less expensive as i can sell mine for $12- $15 instead of $25. Anyways, I've been taking orders from a few friends for custom Christmas collars, these are a few i've done so far.

Here's my beautiful great dane modeling her new seasonal collar (Olive is looking fashionable in a festive gingerbread man collar).

Close up!

This new venture has me really excited! Custom dog collars for cheap, what could be better??

My Kitchen...

Well, the votes are in, i officially have the ugliest kitchen ever. I'm not sure where to even start with this beauty, but my main floor of my house is open concept, so there's no way of hiding this kitchen. The cupboards are basically brand new, it feels ridiculous to rip them out and have them go to waste but the color makes me sick. Flesh tone, hannibal lector cupboards with purple-gray counter tops.


Can you even paint this fake wood stuff to the point that it is durable? I'd love to paint them white, change the hardware, get dark counter tops and finish it off with a different color on the walls. It seems like the easiest answer. Please help, this kitchen makes me want to cry.

ps: please take note to how remarkably small it is.

Lazy Day

We had a great weekend, full of dog park dates and laying in the sun.

They don't sleep near each other often, so when they do it's definitely worth a picture.

My New Foster

We have a new canine friend at home. She is a 20 month old Wheaten Terrier who needs a loving home who can afford her medication as she has some health concerns. She's fantastic so far (loves other dogs and is scared of the cats so far). Olive really likes her, i think because she's so nonchalant.

Olive immediately adopted her bed and belongings, lol. I really hope we can find her a new home, because she's growing on me and i don't need another pet right now. She's practically perfect, it shouldn't be too difficult finding her a new family.

EEK!

Well, Halloween is finally here, which is very exciting because our neighborhood gets an insane amount of kids. In preparation we have a TON of candy, a giant blow up globe with a zombie inside, some tarantulas on our house, bones in our planters and three jack-o-lanterns. Carving pumpkins is so fun, besides this year i don't think i've done it since i was a kid. There is something about the smell of the inside of a pumpkin (like a smell you'd never forget no matter what).

We ended up doing three classic faces, because we are slightly lazy.

I made cookies that look like severed fingers. They were pretty okay, very easy to make but i think i may have cooked them a little long, so they were dry-ish. Oh well, next year right? I got the recipe off of Shockingly Delicious.

Since Olive was feeling a little spooky, i made her a new Halloween collar out of an old collar and some ribbon. So easy and cheap, it cost me a total of $7.00, much less than you would pay in a store and i would have to say that mine looks better (shh).

First, i hot glue gunned the ribbon to the collar to hold it in place, then i sewed a straight seam along both edges to hold it better. I really like it so much, i can't wait to make her one for Christmas, such a good use out of an old, faded collar.

Books, they're so in right now. Books.
This might sound funny, but books are everywhere right now, thank gosh. Sure, decorating is fun but so many things i find "trendy". This may not sound like me, but i really don't want to be replacing things constantly. So, as of late i'm trying to make smart purchases of items that can be seen as timeless. This is where books come in to play, i think walls of books look gorgeous and add a natural color element. Duel purpose storage and wall decor. mmmmm

So classy, elegant and rich.

This is Karl Lagerfeld's home library (!!!) beautiful. needless to say, i need to start acquiring books.

All these images are from Elle Decor Magazine

Quilting a Little

I've been quilting just a little lately, trying to get back in the groove. I haven't actually made a quilt since i had my surgery i think. So i'm trying to use fabric up in my stash so i can buy more (makes sense right?) I really like how this one is turning out so far, very cute. It'll be easy to finish (yay!)

My living room looks different again, shocking i know. I'm loving it, it'll be so much easier to have bare bones and add fun colors that will be easy to change whenever i feel like it (shhh).

Can't wait for it to be done and out of my house :)

Addicted to Chairs

As you all know, i am in love with chairs of any sort, if i wasn't a fan of sleeping on my sofa, i think all seating in my house would be chairs. I adore Horchow, everything they have is gorgeous and drool worthy, here are a few of my chair inspirations, if i was a lady of money, i would own one of each for sure.

Love the colors, the textures, the mixed patterns.

I seriously need a tufted chair in my life

Need i say more?

Sewing Room Update

This is the nasty, dark before shot.

Taping.

AFTER. I love the stripes, the color turned out great, never any surprises with CIL paint. I only did stripes on two walls, in the best interest of actually getting this project done and off my list. I still have lots of small projects for this room, but at least now i have the bones for a good room.

Now i have somewhere to sew that feels refreshing. I definitely need to get to some quilting. I have so much fabric to get through and this weekend i met the sweetest lady named Shirley. Shirley is a quilter, a phenomenal quilter. She was telling me that she wished she had someone like me in her life so she could pass on her skills as she has no children of her own. It just made me think of how great it is that I will be able to teach my children an actual skill. You know, the kind of skill that people don't learn from sitting in front of the T.V. The kind of skill that you can use forever and pass along.

I love quilting, I need to do more of it. Stay tuned for plenty of quilt updates

Side Note

Although i hate the heat, I love how green everything is this summer. I love the thunderstorms and how much they make outside feel fresh.

My friends mom has the most beautiful yard. I hope i can have something even close to this when i grow up. Look at these cute little boots.

Sewing Room

So, I've been flip flopping between wallpapering a wall in my sewing room with a "damask" sort of a pattern. Then i figured i could be lazy and cheap and do a stencil, so i found a stencil that seemed okay, but i stared at it continually while i was buying paint and decided it was ugly and too dated looking, so i picked out a gorgeous wallpaper, stared at it continually until i decided the whole thing was a bad idea and i should just go with my gut and do stripes. Whew! I like the idea of wallpapering, but if i didn't end up liking the end result, it would be a pain to change, and as all of you know, i'm no stranger to constant change.

Weekend project.

This weekend we had a fabulous time at the inlaws cabin. Lots of late night fires, seadooing and cards. When we weren't doing that we were building a chair from willow trees. We didn't exactly follow the instructions, but we finished it and it's heavy and sturdy. I got to man the drill.

The bending was the best part.

Looks pretty darn good hey?