Gearing Up For The Sunny Days Ahead!

I am sooo ready for Spring and Summer! I check on my tulips and irises every day because it's so exciting to see how much they are growing. I'm about ready to get out there and get my hands in the dirt, though. We went to Menard's the other night and bought a bunch of stuff so we can start playing in the dirt. We bought some fencing so we can fence off the part of the yard behind the garage that is dedicated to our garden. MW started setting posts last night after work. This will definitely help with the dog! For one, we won't have to be concerned with finding a way to keep her off of our baby vegetables. And that's one less dirt pile for her to get in and drag mud in the house when it rains. Yay!

We bought a couple of apple trees for the front yard. That's one thing I have missed about Florida. We had planted citrus trees there. I LOOOOVED being able to walk out into my own yard and pick fresh Meyer Lemons for cooking or making homemade lemonade. Thank you, Paula Deen, for the awesome recipe! And, oh, the ruby red grapefruit! I'm drooling just thinking about it. I would fill the sink and counter top with them and juice to my little heart's content. I don't even bother buying it in the store any more. The fresh juice ruined me. Although, I can't grow citrus anymore, I will be having me some Granny Smith and Jonathan apples one day! My dream is to have every kind of fruit tree that I would care to eat (and that will grow here) in my yard. We're baby steppin'. I'd probably need a bigger yard, too, though!

So, we bought the fencing for the garden, trees for front, and...seeds. Garden seeds. Flower seeds. Sunflower seeds. OK, I know that Sunflowers fall into the flower category, but indulge me just a little, will ya? I love them. I didn't realize just how much I loved them, though, until last summer. Little Britches got a free pack of Sunflower seeds last year from the local grocery store's kid's club. Those things grew like crazy! They are such a happy flower. I even had several neighbors comment on how much they were enjoying our Sunflowers. They watched them every day like I'm watching my tulips and irises right now. Did I mention that I think they are a really happy flower? This year I bought three different kinds because I love them so much.

I bought the mammoth kind like these. They were like 12-14 feet tall. They were even too big to use as a cut flower. So, I also bought some that will be 5-6 feet tall. They're supposed to be perfect for cutting. And then...I saw them. Garnet colored Sunflowers that will be 4-5 feet tall. Yay! They will match the garnet colored scheme in my house that you couldn't see in my toile post that you'll just have to trust me on! How divine will they be? And they are such a happy flower!

So, we're gearing up for the endless days of sunshine around here. We have lots of projects planned and plenty to keep us busy. But, tomorrow, we play. MW is taking the day off of work and we are going to the Children's Museum of Indianapolis. That place is amazing. But, that will be for a post next week. Then on Saturday I get to play some more. I'm having a shopping day with a girlfriend while MW plants apple trees and works on that fence. More yay!

Little Britches will be having a sleepover with Mamaw Friday night. So, Mom and Dad will have a night alone. Did I hear someone say yay? Wait, that was me! Isn't he a handsome fellow?




















Well, I will be signing off now. I hope you enjoyed pictures of my Sunflowers from last summer. And I hope you have a happy Thursday!

Pam

Simple Sewing Solutions

Yesterday I mentioned that I have recently started taking sewing lessons. I have many a project planned for this new found skill. I just need to take some more lessons and find the time to actually DO these projects. Anywhoo...today I thought I'd share some things that I've found to be really handy during my new learning experience.

Of course, I had a few basic sewing supplies already on hand that I kept stashed in a little box. But, as my notions collection grew - so did the need for a place to put them. Hence, began the search for a proper sewing box. I looked at many places, including JoAnn Fabrics, and found some beautiful sewing containers. What lovely padded and trimmed boxes I saw...They even had toile! Be still my beating heart! And then I opened them. The problem I kept running in to was that although they were beautiful to look at - they had one little tray on top and a big open area in the bottom that somehow screamed out to me, "Big, unorganized, have a hard time finding what you're looking for, mess ahead if you buy me!" This is one of those times where form needed to follow function. I needed to go to Plan B.

Do you remember Caboodles? Did you have one? The huge, multi-compartmented make-up storage containers with a travel handle and all? Geesh, am I really dating myself here, or what? I loooved my Caboodle! But, really, how much make-up can you actually wear?! I had that thing forEVUH and thought it would make a fabulous box for my sewing notions. Except, I finally got rid of it a few years back. You know when you hold on to something for way over a decade because you may find a need for it someday - and when someday never comes you break ties with the pack-rat inside of you and let it go and then one day in the not too far off future you find a need for it but have kissed it good bye and now are up a creek without a paddle, so to speak? Man, can I write a run-on sentence, or what? Well, that's what happened with me and my Caboodle. So, I thought, "No biggie. I'll just go buy a new Caboodle." Except, since I got that thing forty-hundred years ago - they don't seem to make them anymore.

Since, MW is such a brilliant man, (After all he HAS been to college. TWICE!) he recommended that I check out the tackle boxes. I wasn't really wanting something...can I say UGLY? Well, I wasn't wanting something ugly, but was beginning to exhaust my options. So we headed on over to KMart and to my delighted surprise - I found this:

Who knew that they make tackle boxes in girly colors now? Yay!

AND it has lots of compartments for all of my little, bitty sewing notions. It's like a Caboodle with a new name! I think my old Caboodle was actually pink and grey. My reformed tackle box is pink and purple. Even better. (BTW - the table runner under my sewing box used to be a shower curtain. It's one of my completed projects.)

These are a couple more things I really like using. The round, yellow circle in the clear container is beeswax. It's great if you have some hand stitching to do. You just run your thread through it and it gives the thread a little bit more strength and helps to keep it from getting tangled up. The beaded do-hickey with the thread snips on the end is my very most favorite thing. I saw my sewing instructor had something like this and so I set out and made myself one. I just wear it around my neck when I'm working on something and it solves the problem of trying to find where I laid my little snips down. Simple idea. HUGE pay-off. One more thing that I personally found to be brilliant (although I didn't come up with the idea myself) was found in the form of a simple brown paper lunch sack. I tape one to the edge of the table when I'm sewing and throw scraps of thread and fabric right into it. It saves me from finding stray threads all over the house. The bags are cheap and make clean-up a breeze. Ok. I lied. I have one more, one more thing for you. If you look at the picture of my opened up tackle/sewing box, you'll notice a stick of plain old Elmer's glue. This stuff is awesome if you have some trim that you want to sew down. When I made the Roman shades for my kitchen I knew the trim needed to be sewn on because it would hang over the sink and possibly could get wet. I didn't want to risk it coming off, so I sewed it down. But since it had delicate bead work I couldn't really get a pin in there to secure it without risking the beads getting broken. The glue stick was the perfect answer. It held the trim in place while I sewed it on without breaking the bead work. I could probably think of a bazillion other uses for it in sewing, but you're creative, so I'll leave that part up to you.

That's all I've got. I'm clean out of ideas for the day. So, I hope you found something useful that will maybe make your life a little easier in the sewing arena.

Have a great Wednesday! Pam

Toile Party

I have this thing for toile. I think it's timeless, romantic, flexable and it makes me feel oh, so good every time I look at it! Evidently, I'm not the only toile freak out there 'cuz there's a whole toile party goin' on over at Pretty Organized Palace. If you're so inclined, head on over there and check it out. Moving on...

When we bought this house a year ago I decided that I would start taking sewing lessons and make all the window treatments, pillows, yada, yada, yada. I settled on black and white toile fabric for the living room and kitchen since I love it so much. I also figured that years down the road if I get tired of the color scheme I've got going on I can paint the walls, change the pillows and accents I have and the curtains are still gonna match. And I'll still be in love with toile, so why change a good thing. (Iknow it doesn't actually look like I have a color scheme going on but you would see that there is garnet everywhere if you could see the whole space together. Which you can't, so you'll just have to trust me on this!)

These living room curtains are my first sewing attempt. Not bad for a novice. I love them.

Next, I moved on to my kitchen with Roman Shades. A bit more challenging than the panels in the living room. Not perfect. I don't care. I love them, too.

I have fabric left over that will be throw pillows for the sofa as soon as I get the courage to try messing with the gorgeous piping that is just waiting to finish off my loverly pillows. I also have plans to make a toile shower curtain and another shade of some sort to finish off the bathroom.

So, as you can see - I like toile. A lot. I wish I had more of my projects done to show you just how much. But if you like toile or are a closet toile-a-holic, take a peek at the party going on over at Pretty Organized Palace. I won't tell. I promise. You may just get some fabulous toile ideas. I think I'm gonna have to make myself one (or fifty) of the toile eggs that Nester showcased. Now, if you'll please excuse me, I have a party to attend.

Happy Tuesday! Pam

Laundry Room Progress

We made great strides in the laundry room this past week. We finally got it painted. I didn't have a complete before picture - but I did get a corner of the room when we were removing the old wall paper border. The walls were filthy and had huge gouges in them.














After painting the entire room white - I brought the wall color from the guest room at the top of the stairs down to two of the walls by painting 9" stripes. See my dryer under the stairs?


















It would have been too hard to stripe the walls where the washing machine and furnace were so I added a phrase that has a play on words with our last name above the laundry shelf.


















I had mentioned that "room" was a word I used extremely loosely in this area of the house. You can kind of get a sense of what I mean in the picture with the washer. Remember, my dryer is across from the washing machine, under the stairs.























We still need to paint out all of the wood trim white. We are going to do that through out the entire house, so we'll just tackle it all at the same time. And I also am going to get rid of the lace curtains and make a simple Roman shade for the window. I also want to make a skirt to on the bottom of the shelf to hide some of the uglies. The last thing I'm going to do is hang some pictures on the wall going up the stairs. The verdict is still out on the color of the frames, though.

When I went to JoAnn Fabric this weekend I found the most absolutely perfect fabric to use for my curtains, shelf skirt and cubby panels in this room and the guest room. It is the exact same color of the darker paint stripes and I got it on sale for $1.20 a yard. I was really excited about that deal. Anyway, as you can see we are making progress and the room now feels so much fresher and cleaner than it did a few days ago.

Joseph Update

My little friend, Joseph, had his major surgery yesterday. It took about 7 hours. In the past when he has any kind of surgery he has a lot of problems breathing on his own afterwards. It's not uncommon for him to spend a week in ICU post surgery.

Well...I just heard from his dad. His is sitting up, eating and talking this morning and they are moving him out of ICU and into a regular room! Less than a day after surgery! Praise God! He is going home on Monday!

Thanks so much to all of you who prayed for Joseph! God is a good God.

XO, Pam

Prayer Request

This is Joseph. He is 9 years old. He also has Spina Bifida. He was in my son's pre-school and kindergarten classes when we lived in Florida. He is one of the sweetest boys you would ever want to meet. No matter what he is going through he always manages to keep a positive attitude. It is truly inspiring.

We had the privilege of seeing Joseph and his family back in February. He was granted a wish from the Make-A-Wish Foundation and chose to come to Indiana and meet with Coach Tony Dungy. It was the trip of a lifetime for their family.

I would like to ask you to pray for Joseph and his family. They are going through a really difficult time right now. He is having a major, major surgery tomorrow morning that they are flying a surgeon in from China to perform it because he is the man who invented the procedure being done. God is on the throne and in control. But I'm sure the family would appreciate a little extra agreement for their needs to be met right now.

I'm encouraged when travel through Bloggy Land by how many sisters in the faith I find. So, I thank you for your love and prayers for my friends, Joseph, and his family.

XO, Pam

Guest Room Details

Yesterday I shared with you some pictures of the guest room that I'm working on. Almost everything in the room has been free except for the paint I used and a few do-dads to set out.

This lampshade wasn't free - but the lamp it's sitting on was. I bought the pre-glued shade with a 40% off coupon from Hobby Lobby. That place is one of my most favorite stores, evuh! I bought the fabric there at 30% off also. Next, I jogged on down (Not really, 'cause I don't run unless it's life threatening!) to JoAnn Fabric and bought the trim with my 40% off coupons. The total cost of all my supplies for this shade, including tax, was less than $15.50. I'm pretty happy with that after pricing lampshades at several stores.

These are my T.J. Maxx plates. The two blue ones were $.70 a piece. I wish that they had one more. But since they didn't I had found this white one that I thought was really cute for $3.00. I wasn't sure where I was going to put it at first. I settled on using it on the wall with my two blue ones. I don't know yet if I'm completely sold on it, though. I'm playing around with the idea of putting a monogram in blue on the center of the white plate. I'll have to see how that looks.

This is the table that MW pull out of a dumpster for me. Ahh, I love that man! He said, "I saw this and thought it looked like something you'd love." At first I thought I might refinish it. I'm sorta diggin' the knargly, dinged up character of the piece right now, though. I think it shows that it has a history. I'm not sure. All things are subject to change. Any thoughts on this matter?

I picked up the books that are scattered around the room at our library. Every so often they have a sale. You load up as many books as you like and then just give them a donation. Very inexpesive.

Well, I need to scoot for now. Have a wonderful Wednesday!

Pam