Needles and Pens

In an effort to hold myself accountable this week, I posted two main goals on Monday to have finished by Friday. And... it worked! Okay, so we didn't quite finish everything, but progress was made! My son's bedroom is one layer closer to clean, and the paint is purchased. In the color of his choice. Very, very yellow. Suffice it to say, this is going to be one bright room. (And we've had some pretty bright rooms through the years.) But I'll do almost anything to inspire the removal of the last few layers. As for the quilting I wanted to get finished -- it's finished! Here's a photo I took before it was washed and crinkled, outside on the fresh-fallen snow. I couldn't resist. You can hardly tell that's really snow, but it is. See? I really had fun with the quilting on this one. On the center star, I did straight-line crosshatching through the checkerboard and into the star tips, and then more straight lines around the diamond surrounding the...

Previous Posts on April's Project: Before Pictures Mid-Month Progress I'll admit, I nearly ran out of steam on my master bedroom project this month, but with one more big push today, I actually finished just under the wire. When I last posted, I was in the middle of (several days of) wallpaper stripping. After that, I painted the ceiling, and then finally got around to choosing a wall color. But buying new bedding, curtains and such was not in the budget, so I decided to pull out the round robin quilt I finished for our bed a few years back, and use that for my color inspiration. I had in mind to go with a periwinkle blue, but I learned my lesson well with the bathroom project and quickly steered away from my first choice (the brightest one, of course, coincidentally called "Pure Periwinkle") and toned it way down to the second one down on the top left, "Essence of Blue." It turned out plenty periwinkle. I'm still using my lace curtains (on...

What a crazy busy month it's been so far! It's hard to believe we're only two weeks into April. The home improvement projects have multiplied, but with good reason. Our son, Nathan, became a first time homeowner on April 6th -- very exciting! The house is a fixer-upper, built in 1966, but structurally sound, so it mostly just needs cosmetic improvements -- and lots of cleaning... The whole family has been helping him get moved in. The homemade kitchen cabinets were apparently built out of whatever scraps of rough lumber were laying around at the time, and most of them were never even painted. No way dishes or food were going in there... But paint can do amazing things... And shelf liner doesn't hurt... One section done, but it's still a work in progress. I hope to get over there today and help him get the rest of the insides done so we can get the doors painted and everything back together. Eventually he wants to buy new cabinets, but fo...

... I just have to let the new paint cure for 30 days before I can hang them. Dangit! Leaf Impressions Wall Decals from JCPenney But aren't they perfect ?? They're going to look awesome on the wall... in about 15 more days. Meanwhile, I'm making some progress on the master bedroom. Six full trash bags of clothes are outta there, and all the clothes we wear are now in the drawers. Amazing!

It's time to tackle another room for the Better Home Challenge, and the lucky number for April is number seven ! On my list, that's the master bedroom and closet. Ugh. Here we go again... these "before" pictures just get more and more embarrassing, but I didn't have the energy or the inclination to clean up first. LoL So here's the view walking into the room: And panning right, around the room... Sadly, it actually looks worse in real life. For starters, I have lots of piles to sort through. If I got rid of all the clothes in my drawers (which I don't wear), maybe I could put away the clothes piled up pretty much everywhere else (which I actually do wear). If I make it through the sorting and cleaning phase soon enough, this room is also due for a major decor update. I used to love that dark green print wallpaper, but I'm really tired of it now. I'm trying to remember how long ago I hung that paper... possibly ten years ago? A...