Birthdays, Royal Weddings & Fabric, Oh My!

My thoughts are very random right now and probably only make sense to me, but I'm bursting with happiness. I don't know what makes me happiest, my mom's birthday today? (Happy Birthday Mom!) Or that the Royal Wedding is in two days?!!!! Or, that I finally chose a drapery fabric (online, without seeing it in person) and it arrived and I love it! So where do I begin? Let's start with my mom having a birthday today and I'm 3000 miles away. Boo. But my lil sis drove 12 hours with a 5 month old & 2yr old by herself, ALONE! to be there to celebrate. Amazing? Yes! Crazy? Oh yeah! Happy birthday mom! I'm super duper jealous I'm not there this year! And bummed I don't get the "World's Best Daughter" title because I didn't do something crazy like drive 12 hours while nursing a baby, or something insane like that. I tried to make up for it with a present from my favorite site. Etsy.com Wanna see what I got her? (Close your eyes mom, if it hasn't arrived yet!)

I hope it's as pretty in Real Life! It's a turquoise platter and I'm hoping it will look great in her newly decorated Living Room or even the adjoining Dining Room. My mom hosts the best parties and I'm pretty sure this will compliment her great taste. Cross fingers! Here is the seller I bought it from.

I'm so giddy about the Royal Wedding. I totally Tivo'd the Lifetime movie they had. Kind of bad acting/writing but you know I still loved it. I'm now planning a Royal Brunch to watch with my friends. I wonder if I could still squeeze into an old Prom Dress and pretend I'm a bridesmaid? Hmm, um maybe if I wore a sweater over the dress no one could tell it's about 5inches away from ever seeing the other side of the zipper? (shivvering at the thought) Is your hubby thrilled about it as you are? If he is- you should be worried. If he isn't and will possibly mock you for being so excited, get some girlfriends together and set the Tivo/DVR. It's gonna be good!

I'm going to be a nice wife and not force my husband to watch it, like I have the Bachelor Finale. I think I need to learn to make crumpets. Is shortbread British? Cuz I know how to pound down shortbread. Mmmmm.

My fabric arrived, my fabric arrived, my fabric arrived! I'm so happy, I'm Paul Rivere-ing it! I know I talked about designing my own. I was getting pretty antsy and the fabric I kept looking for was out of stock for another 8 weeks! I really want my drapes done, like yesterday, and waiting another week seemed unbearable, let alone 8! I was constantly watching fabric.com for my chipper yellow fabric and one day I found it, IN STOCK, ON SALE, FREE SHIPPING. Say what? I just knew I'd buy it and they'd send me an email apologizing 3 weeks later and tell me it was out of stock. But they didn't! It's here! And it's everything I dreamed it would be, except maybe for being sewn together and hung on my walls, that would be like winning the lottery. The whole cost for 10 yards, with shipping is only $59 buckaroos! Crazy right? Someone pinch me! Since I couldn't see it in real life I found a photo of a pillow on etsy.com and I could invision it on my walls a little easier. Here is the coveted fabric....
You can find the maker of this loverly pillow here. So drapes for my living room will be my next project. Or is it wall paper removal in the office? Or is it painting the kitchen walls grey? Or is it painting my daughters bedroom? Or is it the artwork I've been dreaming of for 4 months? I don't know, I'm kind of in the middle of it all. And I'm pretty sure I can justify hiring a painter since my birthday is right around the corner. You know you're an adult when you want to hire a painter as a birthday gift!

Fabric Heaven or Fabric Hell.O?

Have you looked for fabric lately? It's been ridiculous to find anything cool or hip these days at my local fabric store. I'm dreaming of funky fabrics for draperies & pillows but the options are pathetic. When I have a vision in my mind I want to jump on it and re-create it. Then I go shopping for the object, such as wallpaper or fabric and I hit a wall. I'm back circa 10 years ago and sifting through the same fabrics I used for my bedroom comforter that I made (& changed since then) 9 years ago. It's ridiculous that the same fabric is being sold at the same store! Then I came across this site Spoonflower a few weeks ago and have been giddy ever since. I would love to be a fabric designer and guess what? I can! Not that I'm going to, but it's still nice to have that option. When one of my favorite blogs (click here) just blogged about fabric they designed, I thought, Ok! It is possible. Anything's possible. My childrens artwork can become fabric for their bedding or blankets. My favorite quote can be made into napkins. Eyeing some canvas purses at Fossil for a hefty price? I can make my own! The possibilities are endless and now I'm dreaming again of something completely unique. But I also love that you can purchase other's designs you can choose the different weight of the material as well. No more boring fabric! Hell-O original, fresh, completely Off da Hook fabrics! Now I gotta get some sewing skills to go along with my new found passion for fabric & watch out window treatments!

I'm on a yellow kick lately. Thinking of these fabrics for lovely drapes....

This fabric could be my inspiration for my son's big boy bedroom. I love these colors...

Imagine this- your cute little baby on a yard of this fabric with the date circled for her ONE YEAR birthday. Then make it into a pillow keepsake, I love it! I'd buy this fabric and circle the date I won Publishers Clearing House. Oh, you didn't know? I'm totally going to win this year!

Spring banner, be still my heart.

Drapes for the office. I love classic black & white.

My next hobo purse is totally gonna be this fabric. Something about a fun purse makes me feel hip, 15 lbs lighter & 30% cuter. Am I right?

Go to this site. Get hooked. Make something fabulous & let me drool over it. I really wish this site sold sewing motivation. Sewing is my kryptonite.....

Only slightly creepy

So, have I mentioned it's cold in Idaho? Um, yeah. Yesterday was 52 degrees with only 8 mph winds. Heaven! You've never seen me happier than I was walking my dog and the boys yesterday. Being cooped up in the house all winter has forced us to be a bit creative and has me thinking of ridiculous party ideas. Hubby's birthday is next month, and in order to follow with my awesome party theme (that I'm not going to tell you until I post about the whole party) I made this piñata. It's supposed to be the hubby, BTW, not a lumberjack with shorts. I think his friends will have an awesome time beating him up:) I'll be happy to be behind the video camera laughing hysterically.

As you can imagine, this was a labor of love. I used a couple diaper boxes to construct the body and the head and I duct taped it all together pretty well. I did remember to put a bent metal hanger in there (with plenty of duct tape) so I could hang it up in back. The arms and legs are rolled up newspapers. The shoes are small blown-up balloons and the hands are rubber gloves filled with shredded newspaper. Then I paper mache-d the entire thing ala 4th grade with your regular flour/water/newspaper method. I love it. It dries like a rock. Then I just mixed up some paint to resemble skin color and used tissue paper for the beard, shirt, and shorts. FYI, hubby wouldn't be caught dead in jean shorts, but I think his corpse looks good in them. I did have to include his favorite shirt that I made for him here, so people knew it was him.

Anyway, I'm pretty happy with how he turned out, and more importantly, hubsters thinks it's hilarious. Whew, glad it's done. Time to move on to the next party planning project...

TO BE CONTINUED....

Look Ma! I'm finished!!!

Well, I finally got a little nesting finished, good thing the baby's only FOUR months old now! Ha. My mom came to visit me way, way back in September and I came up with this brilliant idea to make a random quilt for Zeke's big boy bed. Turns out "random" also translates into "ridiculously difficult to accomplish." I'm used to making quilts with patterns to follow, but we just made this up as we went. Thank goodness mom was there to tell me what to sew together otherwise this would still be sitting in the bottom of my to-do box. But we did finish the top back in September and then I got it all ready to hand quilt and my motivation suddenly stopped- for about 6 months while it sat in the corner. Back before I had kids I used to sit and hand quilt all the time while I watched tv. Now when I sit in front of the tv, I'm either nursing, folding laundry, or dusting furniture. Life has changed for me a bit. So I gave up the idea of hand quilting this puppy and sent it off to be machine quilted. I used to be a bit of a machine quilt snob and looked down on anyone who didn't hand quilt. But let me tell you, I initially had some conditional love for this quilt...the condition was that it needed to look good when it was all finished because I was nervous of how random it looked when it was first pieced. But I was ECSTATIC when I saw it all machine quilted. This lady put a whole lot of work into this thing and it shows. I absolutely love it. Granted, it is the most expensive quilt I've made when you add in the price of machine quilting, but I really think it's a quilt Zeke will love for a long, long time. I mean, seriously, who doesn't love something with their name on it? A couple pics on the bed. I totally love the striped fabric on the back- good find mom! Just so we're clear here, this, is an alien. It is NOT a frog. Thank you. I just love the "smoke" that she quilted into my spaceship and the "USA" definitely makes it look less like a fish.:) Seriously, I think I'm in love. Either that or I'm confusing love with the feeling of accomplishment that I finally got this project DONE! Now I need to work on a sham to match. Hopefully that won't take 6 more months...

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