Adventures of an Anniversary

I'm so excited!
My parents are celebrating their 30th Anniversary!

My sister and I are throwing them a little party on Saturday and I feel SOOO unprepared.  I know they'll love whatever we do, but sometimes I just get a bit overwhelmed especially if I feel unprepared.

I'm making the cake...for 75 people.  I'm freaking out, to say the least.

Today I bake the cakes.

4 of them.

YIKES!!!!!

I can't wait to see family and friends and celebrate with my parents. 

I see the love they have for each other.  It inspires me.

Anyways, time to design this cake.

Been Gone So Long....

I realized the other day that I've been away for too long!

I've had a busy couple of months, here's some highlights.

I was honored to host a baby shower for my sister.  It was so fun to plan an ABC shower.  She and her husband decided not to find out the sex of their soon-to-be bundle of joy.  She received some wonderful things from family and friends.  I really should share more shower details since I had so much fun planning it and putting the whole thing together.

I got to welcome a sweet and beautiful little girl named Sydney into the world at the end of February. I am such a proud aunt!  She's the cutest little thing. I'm sad that my sister and her family live 4 hours away, but I hope to make it there to visit as much as possible so I don't miss too much in her life.

I helped a friend going through a rough situation.  Moving on from a relationship is never easy to do regardless of the stage.

I was able to squeeze in some Sydney time and watch her sleep for a few hours while hanging out with my sister.

Some time was spent in my sewing studio making some St. Patrick's Day towels for my kitchen. They were simple and fun to make.  I even had the supplies already laying around, meaning I spent $0.  I love those kind of projects.

Hubby and I knew about a leaky door in our basement since we moved in.  The leak wasn't terrible, but enough that we figured we would need a new door.  One day we decided to jump right in and we took off the trim and baseboards in the area to start getting down to the studs after more demo and see the condition of the boards.  Well, we took the first pieces of trim off and found something ugly.  The words out of my mouth were "Maybe we shouldn't have looked under there".  Yup, that's black mold.  We ended up with a new door, new insulation, drywall, and trim.  We decided with this much work we'd go ahead and add some wainscoting and re-do the basement.  Hooray for making our house more of a home.

A whole month later, Hubby finally got to meet our niece, Sydney. He looks like a natural with here.

I even finished Sydney's quilt and mailed it off for her to get some tummy-time in with.

I also did a ton of other projects in between.  Hopefully next time I'm not away for so long.

Happy President's Day!

I love holidays!  It's really nice to have a day off work occasionally to get stuff done around the house. I have lots of things on my list today and I've even been able to cross some off already!

President's Day To-Do List:
* Make a quilt sandwich for the little girl quilt.
* Take Down Valentine Decorations
* Eat Fish (since the hubby hates it I only get it when he's not around)
* Quilt the little girl quilt
* Put up St. Patrick's Day Decorations
* St. Patrick's Day Crafts:
   - Baby onesie
   - Garland
   - Table Top Decor Project
   - Pillows

I went to JoAnn's yesterday and bought a ton of project supplies so I could do a bunch of work today.  I'll also do an update pretty soon on the mold we found in our basement. Finding it requires a bit of redecorating.  I never liked that room color anyways.

Have you ever found mold in your walls?  What redecorating ideas did you incorporate when you put the room back together?

Football Field Table Runner

Usually, I spend Super Bowl Sunday doing laundry. Hubby usually is busy with National Guard, but this year he's not. I'm not a big sports watcher especially if my team isn't playing, but I wanted to make a little decorations for the big game.

Pinterest and Google didn't provide much in terms of project ideas but I did find a few. I've got a Pinterest board called Super Bowl so go check it out.

I crossed the idea of this Football Field Rug:

Source: Chica and Jo



with the idea of this Table Cloth:

Source: Counting it all Joy



And came up with a table runner.

I started with about a yard of green felt and a quarter yard of white felt. I cut the green felt to the proper width and a bit longer than the top of our buffet.

I cut strips of white felt approximately 3/4" wide.

I measured to the middle of the green felt and marked where the first white strip would go. Then I took the length of the top of my buffet (55") and divided it by 10 to determine how far apart the next strips would go. I then marked the remainder of the locations 5.5" apart.

I used my handy Stitch Witchery to iron on each strip. It made it super simple and fast!

I trimmed the little ends of white felt that hung over the green felt.

I also had a large roll of heat-n-bond so I cut a larger piece and ironed it to some of the white felt to cut my numbers from. I free-hand-drew the numbers. Unless you're really patient, I wouldn't recommend it. I got extremely frustrated.

Finally, about an hour and a half later I have two runners. One is on our buffet in the dining room and the other is on the coffee table in the living room.

Looks good doesn't it?

Who do you think is going to win the game?

Linking up here: The Trendy Treehouse, Yesterday on Tuesday, A Glimpse Inside, Blue Cricket Design, Oopsey Daisy, Between Naps on the Porch, Homemade Savvy A to Z, My Romantic Home, The Shabby Nest, At the Picket Fence, One Project Closer, Addicted 2 Decorating, Sew Many Ways

50 Daze until the 104th Best Ever St. Pat's

I'm SOOOO excited! My most favorite holiday is coming up soon!  I know I've been slacking (with the holiday craziness and work deadlines) on the DIY front, but get ready for some GREEN activites around here.

St. Pat's is a big thing around our household.  Hubby and I both went to school at Missouri S&T where students get days off school to celebrate the tradition of St. Pat's. St. Patrick is the patron saint of Engineers, the school's career focus.  This year, 2012, is the 104th Best Ever.  Things down there get a bit crazy.  They paint the streets green; have a huge parade; students participate in a week-long competition of games and challenges; students carve walking stick, cudgel, and shillelagh (the bigger the better); and celebrate with those individuals special enough to be on court. The day after the festivities end, the countdown begins for the next year.

I won't get into much more detail of their events because there are so many traditions that have come from years of celebration. Feel. free to ask me questions in the comments though and I'll be happy to answer them.

One more thing before I go, down in Rolla, MO they celebrate for 10 daze.  Yup, 240 hours of shenanigans. Man, I miss those days.

New Year, New Look

I decided to give it a quick little face lift in honor of  the new year.

I'm not quite sure how I squeezed this little project into my schedule.

I'm preparing for my sister's baby shower this Saturday!  I've got projects all over my kitchen table.

I'M SO EXCITED!  Approximately 6.5 weeks until I meet my little nephew/niece.

What do you think of the new look?  I'm happy to hear your feedback!

A New Year...with 12 big goals!

Resolutions to me are forgotten by January 31.  Goals are something that you really want to accomplish.  This year I'm making my list of 12 goals for 2012. Hopefully each month I'll be able to cross something off my list.

1.  Try my hand at wood working.

Source: Ana White Homemaker

Once I stumbled across Ana White's site, I fell in love with the idea of building my own furniture.  I basically grew up in my grandfather's workshop. I can still hear him kicking me out to get my shoes on before I start working.  (Such a great rule by the way!)  Hubby and I have been looking for some end tables for the guest bedroom and a console table for near the entry door and I've already scoped out which plans I might tackle.  Hopefully, I'll be able to kick hubby out of his garage long enough for me to complete something.

2.  Lean how to free-motion quilt.

Source: The Free Motion Quilting Project

I began quilting this year and have fully completed two baby quilts and currently have two more in progress and one more waiting to get cut out.  I enjoy piecing everything together but I've only been using the stitch-in-the-ditch method. I really want to venture out and try something else.  My mindset of everything has to be even and lined up really must get pushed to the side on this one.  It might be hard but I did run across a website called The Free-Motion Quilting Project that has totally inspired me.

3.  Design a new layout for our Master closet.

It's the new year and all the adds are showing and everyone is talking about organization.  Don't get me wrong, I love our walk-in closet, but I just think we could fancy it up without spending too much money.  I proposed this idea to my husband and being the engineer he is, he want's me to draw it out and compare the current configuration to whatever configuration I design in terms of added linear footage of hanging area and how much space will be available for storage of shoes and our laundry baskets.

4.  Make my Laundry Room a happier place.

I tried to plan this out the summer of 2011, but time ran out, as time usually does.  This year I am setting my sights on making it a happier place.

5.  Take more time for just myself.
We have a jetted bath tub in our master bath.  We've lived in our house for 2.5 years and I've only used it 3 times, literally. For Christmas I got a  bath caddy thing that I can prop my book on and read while soaking (and a slot for a glass of wine, which I will also be using...).  I'm really looking forward to this.

6.  Use home-made cleaners and cleaning products.

Dish detergent and probably laundry detergent are excluded for now, but pretty much everything else we'll try some sort of DIY version.  I saw this great idea for DIY reusable swiffer pads on Pinterest and I hope I can incorporate them into our cleaning routine. Also, I really want our future children to live in an environment without harsh chemicals. Hopefully we enjoy these new products when we run out of what we have now.

7.  Make things in my kitchen gadget drawer easier to find.

I never got dividers from my gadget drawer and I'm kinda glad I didn't, even though I've been suffering for the last 2 years.  My collection of Kitchen gadgets has grown immensely over the last 2 years and I saw a great idea on Pinterest to solve my problem: Homemade Drawer Dividers!  The idea showed balsa wood dividers made to fit exactly how you want.  I just can't wait to get started!

8.  Learn how to grill.
Grilling is definitely my husband's job, but this year I hope to take over and become an expert...especially on steaks.  Hubby always gripes about doing it so I figure, why not just do it myself.  Are there classes on grilling?

9.  Make our Home more Energy Friendly!

I'd like to get some energy saving gadgets to help cut our yearly costs.  I might also get some caulking going, we'll see.  I will be doing some research and learning what to do and what not to do.

10. Incorporate Ergonomics into my work and home life.

I don't sit right at work.  I slouch and stick my legs out and my keyboard height is definitely wrong, but so is my monitor height.  Hopefully this year I can fix that.  I'd like to make myself healthier. Maybe this is your goal also?

11. Work Hard and Play Harder!
This year my work life is going to be CRAZY! Typically I'm on one or two projects at a time.  This year I'm already on 4!  That means I'll need to reward myself!  I'm thinking Vegas AND Disney World.  Let's see how hard I get to play this year!

12. Take Lessons from FLYlady.net

I love the idea of getting into a routine for cleaning and getting things put away.  If you haven't heard of her check it out.  A friend of mine used her method and really recommended it!


So there it is: 12 goals for 2012!  What are some of the goals you have for this year?

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!

It's New Year's Day and I am so excited!

Each year brings new adventures and the excitement of what lays ahead.

In 2012 I have no resolutions, jut goals.

There are so many things I'd like to learn how to do, so many places I'd like to visit, so many things to experience, and so much company to enjoy.

Goodbye 2011!

Hello 2012!!!