Needles and Pens

Well, surprise surprise. My 400th blog post! And wouldn't you know it's my first one in three months? (Imagine how many there would be if I weren't the world's worst blogger. LoL) So I just went through my last three months worth of photos and was amazed at how much has happened around here in that time. It's really no wonder I don't find time to blog... Now, to play catch up again. Or at least get started playing catch up. ;o) So... back in January, I wrote about our youngest son moving into a new room, which we painted bright yellow . Well, in April our 18-year-old daughter decided it was time to leave the nest, freeing up the teenager-coveted big room in the basement. Of course, little brother then wanted to move -- again -- and wished for the new room to be bright yellow -- again. Deja vu... I know, it sounds crazy. But I've been waiting a long time for the mom-coveted main floor bedroom to use as a guest room. (Yes, I know. I just set up a guest room...

Well, again I didn't quite complete everything on this week's to-do list , but I did accomplish a lot -- and even squeezed in a few things I hadn't planned! My Monday shopping spree netted mostly batting and thread. Much-needed, but not too exciting to share about. However, I did buy a pretty piece of yellow minky for a future quilt back, and I couldn't resist a couple of heart print flannels for Valentine's day. I made those into receiving blanket/burp cloth sets for my new Etsy shop, Hushabye Street ! I'm having so much fun making things for my shop. I don't know why I've put off doing this for so long. It's quite a learning experience, but not nearly as overwhelming as I'd imagined. I just hope that business will take off before long. If you know of anyone expecting a new baby in the family, I'd be so grateful if you'd share my link with them! :o) The quilt I posted about on Monday is also finished! I finally decided I needed ...

Well June is half over already and I haven't even started on my June project... BUT, I think today may be the day. I plan to get outside and start some scraping and painting on the deck railings, weather permitting. Wish me luck for a day without rain... I do, however, have some progress to report on the kitchen. It's really coming along. Since my last update, I stripped the rest of the wallpaper, patched and sanded lots of dings and nail holes in the walls, and finished the painting -- and we got a new light fixture! Here's our old fluorescent light with the missing cover (and ugly, to boot!) And here's the new light installed and a freshly painted ceiling. What a difference! Just SO much better. And no surprise here, but deciding on a wall color was tough. I had a vague idea in mind of "purpley-gray," and gradually collected every purpley-gray sample in existence a few samples to mull over. Finally I decided on "Vintage Vineyard,...

Well, it was bound to happen eventually... no "reveal" post for this month. May is always a super busy time at our house, so I'm really not surprised. And there were a lot of extra goings-on this year besides. So I'm still working on the kitchen, slowly but surely. At this point, I plan to keep at it into June and hopefully squeeze in my June project, too. Or not. We'll see. Life happens. I do have a few progress pics to share at least. Cleaning out and organizing the cabinets seemed to take forever . I was seriously NOT in the mood AT ALL. I was overcome with such overwhelming lethargy over the whole thing, I was doing well to finish one a day. Hated, hated, hated cleaning out the cabinets. Like pulling teeth. Seriously. At any rate, I finally finished that miserable job and got around to painting -- which pretty much destroyed the kitchen. For a week or so, it looked more or less like this... But it was so worth the mess. The color is off in th...

It's official. I'm overwhelmed. A progress report might give me some motivation to keep on going... maybe. So far, I've cleaned out all of the upper cabinets in my kitchen, thrown out all the outdated things, rock-hard marshmallows and such. I opted not to paint the insides or put new liners in, because they still look fine (and there's still that hope in me that one of these days, we'll have new cabinets!) All they really needed was to be cleaned, organized and the paint touched up along the front edges of the shelves. Amazing what a difference it makes. Before: And after: Much better. The rest of the week's energies went into both my boys' birthdays (on the 3rd and 8th) and my youngest's confirmation (on the 6th). I did start in on the lower cabinets, but then discovered my dishwasher has been leaking, clear through to the basement (luckily nothing was ruined down there) and swelled up the chipboard underlayment under the tile. Kind of too...