Desk: Cupboard Doors

I love how Jason's turn out. They're so fun to see them come together. We now have the doors on. Yay! I love the storage and the workspace. He'll be working on the drawers next.

Desk Unveil

We have the desk in. I LOVE it! I have so much room on the desk top and in the cupboards. We still have to put the doors on and make the drawers, but this is the beginnings of my lovely new desk.

It's Spray Time!

We're spraying the pieces of the desk!

bird house

Craft Season 2011

Just a little taste of what we're doing...

Yes...I'm over Relief Society activities in my new ward. :)










Temple pictures in every room in our homes

Project Preview

Lainey couldn't help herself.

Holiday Blocks

This was a fun project to work on. It started out as gifts for my visiting teaching women for February and then turned into one for each month.

An After - Boxes Round 2

Much better!

Hooked on You Sign

I told you a little bit ago that I had Valentines on the brain. Well, here's the latest.

The Hooked on You sign inspiration came from the three hooks that I salvaged from something else. I was holding them one day and trying to figure out what I could make with them. My thoughts turned to V-day and, Voila!, a cute little sign!

The frame had been hanging up with nothing in it. I fixed the ribbon the way I wanted it to hang, but couldn't decide what to put on the glass. I got many comments, very funny I'm sure, about how different and unique our new family picture was. I still had the display picture in that the frame came with. So today it became part of the Valentine's decor to stop all the teasing. ;)

An After-Round 1

We painted them. I'm not sure that I like the bottom color. I wanted it to just be tan, but I think I got the metallic one by mistake. Stay tuned for a possible round 2.

A before...

I walked by these boxes that I acquired several years back and noticed how they were in need of repair. I haven't really been sold on the color either and that's when I got this brilliant idea...spray paint! So this is the before. I'm painting the lid a dark bronzey color and the base a nice tan. We'll see!

A photo a day for a year

Happy New Year! I can say that I was up to welcome in the new year, but I was in bed reading. When I finally looked at the clock it was 1:00 am. Jason gets off at 3:00 am so I decided to just shoot through the next two hours and welcome him home as well. He just laughed at me when he saw that I was still awake. The book I was reading you want to know? Forest Born by Shannon Hale (fourth in the series, very good).

Last year, I can say that because it's January 1st :), I came across this blog with a really cute idea for journal-ing the year with photos. (Now I can't seem to find the blog to give the person credit, but I am looking.) The idea was to take a photo each day and write just a short caption. Not a lot of work, but the end result is 365 pictures (or more) from the past year. I thought that would be so fun. This year we're going to try it. It might be a big undertaking, but we'll see.

White Christmas: We did not get a white Christmas, but a white Christmas break. Emma and Paul love to stay out and play in the snow for hours. I think that is partly due to their snow pants. Benjamin and Claire get too cold and they come in quickly after going out. And chances are, if you send your kids out to play in the snow they're going to want hot chocolate when they come back in.

Letters from Mom: I started this last year for the kids. I want to write a letter each year to each of my children telling them the fun things they learned and how they grew and how much we love them. I will keep them until they're 18 years old or so and then they'll have a bundle of letters to read when they graduate. Then hopefully I won't hear so much from my kids that I can't remember the little things they did when they were little. My mom is always saying that she can't remember what we did when we were little. I know January has dawned, but I'll get them done and sealed up here before January takes off and 2010 with it.
New Year's Resolutions: This year I want to really follow through with my New Year's Resolutions. One that I'm really excited about is to Keep Christmas all year long. My inspiration comes from the warmth and glow I felt this past Christmas, the desire to have that feeling continue, and this statement by Charles Dickens, I will honor Christmas in my heart and try to keep it all the year. I am excited for this. During Christmas we're more prone to be forgiving, caring, serving, and loving. I want to remember to be that way all year. I also want to look for random ways to spread cheer and brighten people's lives all year. January 1st has arrived, let's get started.

Paul opening his Lightning McQueen car. He knew what it was beforehand because it makes noise.

Letters to Santa

Last year I had this really cute idea for letters to Santa, only it was too late to use it that year. So along with my projects I got this out to finish it. I found the tube at Craft Warehouse. It's made out of wood. So I painted it and worked up some vinyl for it. Emma saw what I was doing and got so excited to write her list for Santa. I told her that I was just getting it ready for our Christmas countdown coming up in December. She couldn't wait that long. She wrote and re-wrote her list so many times to get it just right.

Here's the idea. They write the letter and we stick it in the tube. We leave it overnight and then check it in the morning. We then magically discover that the letters are no longer there. They have been delivered to Santa. Emma checked it this morning before I was out of bed and then came in, so excited, to tell me about it.

What I've been up to

I am past my big enrichment and vinyl prep weeks. So yesterday, I sat down and worked on some things that I wanted to get done just for me. It was so fun! I love doing vinyl, but when there's a lot to do and a very close deadline, it gets kind of crazy around here.

I think having wood (8 foot lengths and blocks and signs and stacks) around our house will always be characteristic of us. I keep telling myself, and everyone who visits, that it's simply because we don't have a garage. I thought once we moved out of our apartment into a house we'd have so much more room and it wouldn't be all over. Not the case. It's still everywhere.

by the back door

by the microwave, thanks to Paul

by the mirror
these are actually sanded and ready for me to complete

by the front door

we don't just have wood around, we have tools too. It's either the drill press (above), the sander (above), the router, or whatever else

And when it was clear that we wouldn't be using our dining table to dine for a few days, we set up dinner in the family room. It'll be nice to have a dining room table that is just for gathering the family and eating. Who knows when that will be.

I love the drill press by the way. It helped us at my craft night to make the FHE signs go smoothly. It also helped me to complete the following garlands that I've had on hand for a long time.

This one I've had since Ellensburg. I made one for my sister-in-law at the same time and then never got mine completed. Finally, yesterday I did. Hooray!

My mom gave me these little decorative things to go around mason jars. The idea was to fill the jars with cookies-in-a-jar or soup-in-a-jar or whatever and then slip these cute little seasonal wooden wreath things around the jar.

Well, I pulled them all apart and turned them into garlands. Thanks to my drill press I was able to drill through some walnuts and chestnuts to add some dimension. I had bought some wooden beads at Micheals to use as well. Then just used torn fabric pieces every so often.

Fun! Fun!

A few fun things with vinyl just because I wanted to.

I am so pleased with how this one turned out. It brings me joy just to look at it.

Craft The Night Away

So here are the projects that we're doing for our Craft night in October.

Magnetic Family Home Evening Sign

$23

The board we're actually doing will look more like the blue sign - five categories and no magnets included. I made the brown one for me and could customize it a little more to what I wanted. I loved the flower magnets, but with so many different interests and families, I am not including magnets that night. People will have to get or make their own.

Merry Christmas Tree Frame

$12

I posted this on my Creative Sayings site. Several people loved this and requested it for a Craft the Night Away project. I'm excited to use it this year.

Halloween Stackers

$6

Noel Plaque

$6.00

This one can either be hung on the wall or it has it's own built in nifty stand. I like this one.

Established Blocks

$8.00

Countdown Blocks
$10.00 each set

These are really fun to make. One is for Christmas and one is for just any occasion - birthdays maybe. Cute! Cute!

Home Blocks

$8.00

We're providing two examples of these, one with the black and red and then a brown set.

Temple Quiet Book

$7.50

CRAFT SWAP

We're also hosting a craft swap that night where the women can bring any crafts they don't want, need, or use for others to take if they want. Hopefully it goes well.

Our event is Friday October 30th from 6:30 -11:00pm. Anyone want to come?

Our own herd of eggimals

The Family Fun magazine had these easy little animals in this month's issue. Emma has been in dire need of something to do, and with mom. So today we declared a craft day and left the dishes in the sink. Luckily we had the supplies to make some cute animals of our own. (We substituted craft foam for the felt and it worked just great.)

Emma's pig, kitty, kangaroo, chicken,
mouse, skunk, and elephant

Paulie's skunk, dog, elephant, pig, owl, and frog
(he has a fly on his tongue - hard to see)

I ended up cutting and gluing because we were cutting such small pieces and using hot glue. But they were excited with each new creation. And I had a lot of fun making them. They now carry their eggimals around in two gallon sized zip lock bags. :0}