A New Quilt

We just put our two year old in a big girl bed. She loves it. I'm not completely sold on her 1- being old enough for one and 2- that this is all going to work out. When my husband and I go up to bed at night we usually find her sleeping on the bed, but with the light on. She claims there's scary guy in the closet. I can handle the light on though. The other thing is that there are several times when she wakes up with different pajamas on. She must decide she wants different ones and then switches after we go downstairs. The other day when she woke up from her afternoon nap she also had pjs on. Today at nap time I could hear her moving around. I went to check and she had the baby wipes and was pulling them out. She loves to pull them out. I'm sure if we gave her a package for Christmas and let her do as she pleased with them she'd be thrilled.

Anyway, a new bed calls for a new quilt, don't you think? Her walls are Kwal's English Sage. I had lots of scraps and quarter cuts in that color, pink, yellow and blue. Let's hope my quilting bug keeps up and I finish before I'm ready to repaint!

Painted Cabinets

Welcome to my kitchen. My messy, messy kitchen. Don't fret, the dishes in the sink are clean. I can't stand the smell of dirty dishes.

I have been thinking about painting my cabinets. Here they are, in their true 80s glory. A year ago our dishwasher broke. It was a lovely almond color. As you can see on your left, there is an lovely almond stove top. The ovens and fridge are on the wall I'm standing against to take this picture. Also, a beautiful, 80s almond color. I hated them. When the dishwasher broke I got a black one. Recently our double ovens broke. My friend had double ovens in black. She had totally remodeled her kitchen and was getting rid of fairly new double ovens. I snatched them up, along with a black gas stove top.

When I went to go pick up the ovens I got to see her brand new kitchen and fell in love. She had beautiful cream cabinets with a slight glaze on them. It was the push I needed to go buy paint and all the supplies to paint my cabinets.

This is the color, although I hope it's slightly darker on here then it will be in real life. It's Kwal's Sunkist Ridge.

It's all been sitting in my garage for a month. I'm a little undecided on the color (I know, a little late now). But I'm wondering if it will look ok with the counter tops. I prefer dark counter tops with light cabinets, but that's not in the budget now. These are light with a creamish and black flecks.

The thing that is holding me back the most is the cleaning of the cabinets. I've heard I need to use TSP and that sounds like a huge job. The kitchen isn't that big, as you can see, and I plan to use a paint sprayer for a smooth finish. I just need to get started and do it. I really want it done, the actually doing it part is the problem. Now for a little motivation...

Model Homes and Up

On Monday we were visiting with my mother-in-law and some other family members. She mentioned that the Up look alike house was just down the street. She said it was closed now, but we decided to drive past it. Now, I haven't seen the show (um... I also haven't seen Star Wars). My kids have seen the show and liked it. Maybe I'll have to rent it this weekend. Is it weird to rent an animated movie just to see the animated house in it? We were pleasantly surprised to see that it was open. Maybe because it was Labor Day. Anyway, we went inside to take a tour. Now, I like the house on the outside... except the colors. I'm more of a traditional girl than a bright green/ pink/blue/ yellow, but I do love the style.

This was a bedroom in the basement. I didn't get any more pictures than this because there were a lot of people in there, but I wish I would have gotten a picture of the kitchen. I loved the white cabinets and the turquoise appliances.

If you want to see more pictures of the Up house, check out Hooked on Houses.

Because this was in a neighborhood that is not finished yet, there were three model homes. My husband hadn't believed me when I told him that wallpaper was coming back. I also had to take pictures of some of my other favorite things.

I loved the frames hung on door hangers here.

This is the wallpaper in the powder room. I loved it!

It was a small room, but so fun!

I need curtains for my kitchen windows. These Roman Shades didn't look like they actually function, but I thought they were cute anyway. I also like the tassels hanging down.

I loved the checkered wall in this and also the tassels on the curtain.

This is wallpaper in a different powder room in a different house. I've seen stencils that are very similar to this. It's just so much fun to see pattern on a wall.

I thought this was interesting and fun. The lines in this wall are real ribbon. It is just tacked on with thumbtacks. You can't really tell in the picture, but where the ribbons intersect is a flower with a thumbtack in the center, holding it all on.

The REAL Stencil

So I had to switch stencils. I was cheap and bought a cheap stencil at Hobby Lobby. BIG MISTAKE. The registration marks were so small it was hard to line up, the stencil itself didn't move well around the corners or top of the wall. It was a mess. I broke down and bought one from Royal Design Studio. So much easier. The registratoin marks were huge and also part of the pattern. It was so easy to line up. It also came with a smaller stencil to do along the top of the wall. Here's the finished wall. I couldn't get the whole thing because it's a small room. I just did one wall. I still have to paint the molding and door. I also accidently got gray paint on the cupboard. I was going to paint that anyway, just not now. It will now be painted a little sooner than planned.

Now, to decide what to hang on the wall.

The cheap footstool

You probably shouldn't ask about the powder room. It's been rough. I was cheap and bought a cheap stencil. The border is way too thick and I can't get all the way to the bottom, top, or turn a corner. Also, I broke it when I was cleaning it. I either need to fork out the money and buy a more expensive one, or do something else totally different. Until then, I have another project to work on and one less bathroom.

When I saw this in the Ballard Designs Catalog I knew I needed one. However, I didn't have any desire to pay $129-$205 for it. I remembered that when I was little my dad made some for our house. I could totally do that, right? I went to Home Fabrics in Salt Lake. They were having a half off sale on all their fabric. I bought this for $3 a yard. I also got enough to make curtains for my kitchen. The fabric appears a much brighter red than it really is.

I wanted it bigger than the ones at Ballard Design, because I wanted more than one person to be able to use it. I'm about 5'3 (although I think I seriously may have shrunk) and my husband is about 6'3. We needed a wider one so that we could both use it. I bought a foam pad that was 22x22. I'm also lazy so I decided that that would be the size to cut the wood. That way I didn't have to cut the pad. Then I just layered the fabric, the pad and the wood and stapled it all together.

I bought the legs at Home Depot. They were the most expensive part of the project. I painted them Heirloom White by Rustoleum. They may turn black later. Anyway, now we have a super cheap foot stool!

Powder Room

Yes, this usedto be a sewing blog. Now, I have a two year old who loves to push buttons on my sewing machine while I sew and is very interested in the iron. I am making a quilt for her new bed, but it's slow coming since I have to do it while she is sleeping. That time is getting shorter too. In the meantime, I'm redoing my powder room. Here is the before. Are you bored yet?

The paint is a putrid 80's color of some sort. This bluish splotch is me testing some oops paint I bought for $1. It wasn't this blue in real life. It was more of a dull, wet cement color so it didn't get to stay.

I painted the bottom white and I'm in the process of stenciling over the top in a light gray/blue called Cloud Nine from Kwal. It's slow going, but so far I love it.

Not quite sure what to do at the bottom though. It doesn't go all the way to the sides or bottom and the stencil doesn't bend very well.

Hopefully this bathroom won't make you want to die of boredom anymore. Ignore the ugly, putrid door. I ran out of white paint.

Full DIY Mode

The last few days I've been debating. Do I stencil our powder room, or do I wallpaper. I love this from The Mustard Ceiling.