Oh boy what a month!!

Is it me or did March just fly by at the speed of light?  My husband's entire family visited from Boston for about 5 days and it was really nice to see them.  Because they live so far away, I'd never met our 2 year old niece or 1 year old nephew, so it was great to finally get to meet them.  They're both so cute, I wish they lived closer so we could see them more often.

Steven's sister is very pregnant right now with a little boy and is due in early May.  I made this small quilt for him out of a fabric line that just screamed "little boy" to me.  The fabric is Pure by Sweetwater for Moda.  The pattern is my own half square triangle variation, super simple. These pictures are just the finished top, it isn't quilted yet. I know, I know, shame on me!

March also brought the beginning of our fertility treatments.  We are right in the middle of the 1st cycle now, so its been a fun few weeks with me pumped full of hormones, lol.  We are praying our hearts out right now.  Please keep us in your prayers too.

Every Day I Love You

What a nice sentiment, don't you think?  I've seen this simple, heartfelt phrase popping up on wall art lately and I just love the straightforward statement it makes.  So when it came time to find something new to put on the wall over our bed in the "new and improved" master bedroom, I knew I had to use this somehow.

Enter the very large "oops" frame I purchased at Michael's for $8 on a whim, and I knew I had myself the beginnings of a project.  I decided to use the same fabric that inspired the colors in my bedroom, Martinique by 3 Sisters for Moda.  I printed letters the right size for my project using a font from Microsoft Word. I then traced those onto template plastic and cut the templates out to trace onto my fabric.  I used Heat n Bond to adhere the letters to my background fabric.  Once I had that done, I went to Lowes and had them cut the thinnest piece of plywood I could find to fit my frame and I used spray adhesive to first attach the batting the the plywood and then the fabric to the batting.  Voila, new art for my wall (yay!).  My only regret is the fabric I used for the lower case "e" in "Every."  That fabric doesn't show up against the background as well as the others.




Of course my crappy camera took awful pics again that I could not even edit into anything great, sorry!

 I love walking into my bedroom and seeing these words. It reminds me how blessed I am to have love in my life, both to receive and to give. I'm hoping that everyone who reads this also shares that blessing.

Baby Boy Onesies

Just popping in for a quick little post.  The master bedroom project is STILL not done.  Unfortunately I'm at the point where I'm in need of my father and my husband's assistance to finish some last minute details, and getting those two to do anything quickly is close to impossible.

In 9 days my husband's entire immediate family will be here for a visit.  I had intended to have a baby quilt finished for his pregnant sister by the time they arrived, but so far I've only completed one block!  I'm going to make this my priority this week and try to get it done and quilted and binded by the time they get here.  Keep in mind that I've never machine quilted a project before and you'll understand how scary that last sentence was to me.  Fellow quilters, please please keep your fingers crossed for me!

A family friend has a baby boy that I've had the pleasure to spend a little time with over the last few weeks.  He is about 6 months old and chubby and sweet and I want one just like him.  I had seen and idea on homemade by jill (click here to see) for a baby boy onesie with a neck tie and sweet little Tucker gave me the excuse to give it a try. 

I had a few other ideas too:

Those little letters were SO hard to make that I almost didn't do those last two. I'm not crazy about the polka dot fabric on the Honey Bunny onesie, but oh well ...

I have a few other ideas for some little girl versions and a few more for little boys so hopefully I'll get the chance to try those soon. If I do, you'll be the first to know!

Adios Amigos,

Bedroom Furniture Revamp

Hello lovelies!  I hope everyone has been having a pleasant few weeks since we last talked.  I've been keeping myself very occupied trying to juggle all of the projects I decided to take on at once.  The master bedroom overhaul is so close to being finished I can almost taste it, but alas a few little details are keeping me from posting the final pics.  What I can show you are pics of the largest, and most time consuming part of the project and that is the repainting of my dresser and nightstands.

Being the complete goob that I am, of course I forgot to take before photos (I'm SO annoyed by this, grrr...) I was able to find our exact nightstands online, here is a before pic:

Photo Credit: Mysears.com

I got my nightstand when I was in my early twenties and then years later when helping my then-future husband buy bedroom furniture I talked him into buying the exact same one because then we'd have a matching set someday.  Then we bought an equally dark, huge wood dresser with very mod silver knobs, and a huge dark wood headboard at a going out of business sale right after we got married.  My dining room table, and living room tables are ALL dark wood and at this point I'm just sick of it.

Sooo... with a wonderful Christmas gift of a new vintage-ish bed, I saw my chance to make a change!  But buying all new furniture was not in the cards, so I decided that we should paint what we already have.  My new color palette for the room is aqua and gray.  The bed is black metal so the hardware on the furniture would also have to change.

After several coats of paint, distressing, and 2 coats of poly, meet our new nightstands:

Please bear with me in regards to the color and quality of these photos.  I literally detest my camera, but I'm stuck with it right now.  I've recently discovered photo editing with Flickr/Picnik but I think it takes a little finesse.

I really wanted to get these knobs from Anthropologie:

Photo Credit: Anthropologie.com

But they're something like $12-$14 each. so they'll just have to wait.  Instead I spray painted the existing hardware black and in the process discovered that if the can says to use between 50 and 90 degrees farenheit, take it seriously.  I tried it one day when it was in the 40s and had severe issues.

Now the dresser.  I also wanted new knobs for this because I hate these mod looking knobs. They are very weird and each have two screws holding them in place, which a normal knob would not cover.  In an effort to save time and money I painted these also and will revisit them later. 

The door in the middle used to have a wood panel in it, but it had been damaged at some point.  I decided to take it out and replace it with fabric.  It's not the best job in the world, but it'll do in a pinch.

So that is my bedroom furniture revamp.  I can't wait to show the finished room soon!

I'm off to bed.  Good night, sleep tight, and don't bite the bedbugs!



Happy Valentine's Day Blogland

Today is the day we celebrate love. Traditionally I've never been very hyped about the whole commercialization of the holiday.  I think we should celebrate love, and those we love every day.  This year there were a few crafts I've been itching to try my hand at, so I took a homemade approach to Valentine's day and had fun doing it! 

I got some Clover pom-pom makers a few weeks ago to make some stuff for my master bedroom overhaul (which is almost done, YAY!).  I picked up some yarn, paper covered wire, and mason jars and made these home-made flower arrangements for my mom and sister.  What I love about these is they'll still be just as good as new in a few weeks instead of in the trash.

Another craft at the top of my "To-Try" List were these cute felt flowers from I Am Momma - Hear Me Roar.  All that these required were some felt, hot glue, and ribbon.  I glued them to the top of these little treat boxes instead of using a bow.  These also make adorable baby headbands, which I hope to try soon for a friends baby girl.

Even better than the flower on top is what was inside.  These super yummy brownie bites were so cute at the store, I couldn't resist buying them.  One or two might have accidentally jumped into my mouth while I was packaging them up (oops!).  I had wanted to make Parisian Macarons but the book I ordered from Amazon was delayed due to the horrible weather across the U.S. last week.  Oh well, these little guys were still pretty tasty, even if they were store-bought.

Here is a pic of the whole little assortment, all put together.

I hope everyone out there has a wonderful day filled with love and happiness.  The husband and I are going to take in a movie tonight and try a new restaurant.  I know, what thrill-seekers we are.  Truthfully, paying full price for a movie these days is about as wild and crazy as our budget allows, lol!  I'm just thankful to spend the evening with my true love .. who could ask for anything more?

XOXOXO,
Caylee



Anything is cuter with a ruffle on the butt!

At least anything to do with baby and little girls that is.  With this in mind and a friend expecting a new baby girl, I set out to add some ruffles to the rear ends of some cute little onesies I bought at Target.  I decided to use t-shirts for the ruffles, because I didn't want them to fray.  Click here to see a blog with a great tutorial on making a ruffle-butt onesie. 

My ingredients: Cute little monkey onesie and t-shirt strips

My ruffles, awaiting a onesie-butt

Pinning the first ruffle on (making sure to unsnap the onesie first so I don't sew it closed!)

And the finished product! 

If I ever have a little girl, she'll never go a day without a ruffle trailing behind her.  I've also got my eyes on a few other baby projects to tackle for this little lady, as well as a new nephew we're expecting some time this spring.  I started a baby quilt today for him which I hope to finish lickety-split. 

We're right in the middle of redecorating our master bedroom right now, which HAS to be done by the time Steven's family visits mid March.  At least that gives me a deadline to work with.  But until then my house is turned upside down.  Aaaahhhhggg!

To much of the USA covered in feet of snow from the Feb 1st blizzards, I'm sending warm toasty thoughts your way!  God-willing, we'll all be seeing Spring soon.  I hear ol' Punxsutawney Phil did NOT see his shadow yesterday so perhaps soon we'll see more of this:

And even if that means my husband will have our television overtaken by this:

That's a sacrifice I'm willing to make.

Keep warm everyone!

Winter, I'm SO over you!

Every year I look forward to the the cooler crisp temperatures, the smell of wood burning in fireplaces, and the changing leaves that fall brings. fall inevitably gives way to winter, which I'm usually ok with.  You see, I live in the southern U.S., Tennessee to be exact.  We experience fairly mild winters here normally.  You wouldn't find many years in the record books that we had more than 1 or at most 2 light snowfalls accumulating more than 2 inches.  This year is one for the record books though.  We've had 4 or 5 snows with accumulations this winter, and its not over with yet.  We even had a good snowfall on Christmas Day, which was really beautiful.  But now, I'm just sick and tired of frigid cold temps, gray cloudy skies, and cold wet stuff messing up the roads and making me worry about my sweetie driving to work at 4 in the morning.  The kids here have only gone to school maybe 5 days total since they let out for Christmas break a week before Christmas.  I know many of you out there have far worse winters than this, but this is Tennessee--the south, where its usually mild in the winter and HOT in the summer, and I didnt' sign up for this!!! lol
Here is a photo outside our front door a few weeks ago.

During all of this cold weather, I did manage to get a few finishes under my belt, YAY! Below are two quilts that I worked on off and on from about June of last year until now.  They were meant to be Christmas presents for my niece and nephew.  I wanted to get some good pics of them finished, but the dreary, snowy weather wouldn't cooperate so here are a few crappy dark, pics =(

Our little niece is two and her little brother is one.  I made these bigger than an average baby quilt because I wanted them to be able to snuggle up with these for years to come.  The long arm quilter did a great job with the quilting.  She did swirls all along the border and added little swirls in the zig-zags too.  It gave the quilt a bit more whimsy I think.  Here is the best detail shot I could get with the bad lighting.

I've also been working all week in my spare time on a flannel quilt for my friend who is having a baby girl on February 1st.  I used some Bliss flannel fat quarters and red thread and I really like the way it turned out.  Again, dark photos, sorry!

I also started another baby project that didn't quite get finished in time so I'll post pics of that soon.

If you are also feeling the winter blues, let me suggest you try these YUMMY Krusteaz Key Lime bars.  They're like sunshine in your mouth!  A friend turned me onto them a few years ago, and I've loved them ever since.  I made them for the baby shower this weekend, and everyone loved them.  Even if you aren't usually a key lime fan, you'll probably still like these.  They are SO easy to make.

Photo Credit: ContinentalMills.com

Until we meet again,