Baby steps in the office

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It feels like progress is going so slow everywhere in my life.  For right now, Baby Grant just needs me constantly.  It has been bad for about 9 months this way, but last week he developed a fever and then a rash and has been pretty miserable.  I can hardly get a shower much less keep up with my housework and business chores.  I know many of you mama’s can relate!

But today, DH hung my thread cabinet in my office (after I painted it from brown to turquoise to match my curtains.  It had spilled in the middle of my office floor and stayed there for weeks and weeks until I could find a minute to deal with it.

Isn’t she pretty?

I love how she looks next to the chevron curtains.

 After this picture, I stepped back and thought, “ooh, I think I’d like to sew something…” But then Baby Grant made his presence known.  It’s not my season in life to sew.  So the sisters are wearing mail order Easter dresses on Sunday.  And I’ll wear something old.  It’s okay–we have choir robes :).

Trash to Treasure

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Our new house had a lot of junk in it from the previous owners.  One of those items was this greeting card holder (among other storefront furniture pieces.)

It was covered in 40 year old masking tape and other goo.  So I spent a few hours on Saturday with a razor blade and a can of WD-40.  Then I spray painted it Charcoal.  It now has a new home in the boy’s bedroom.

It doesn’t hold as many books as I’d like, but the boy’s were sure excited to see all the covers!  I figure I can trade all the books out for new ones every few weeks.  Though past experience tells me that trading time comes around faster than I’m ready to deal with it, lol.

 

The Twins

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I’ve been haunting craigslist for a china hutch for the dining room. Nothing seemed quite right until I saw a matching pair. I called immediately and found out that the price I thought was “each” was for “both!” But also that they had sold just a few minutes before. Bummer.

I mentioned the bummer a few times over the next few days and Darren urged me to “get over it.” Not long later, I saw the very same cabinets pop up on craigslist again.  The lady that bought them only needed one and was selling the twin.

I took a risk and called her pleading with her to consider selling both.  As it happened a minor crisis that occurred after she bought the cabinets made her a willing seller. So here they both sit in my dining room

The table is a folding church style banquet table and seats 10. It was hiding in the basement when we bought the house. I cleaned it up and bought a rental style table cloth for it from Amazon. It is perfect for us!

The chairs are another craigslist find. They were salvaged from an old restaurant and are really sturdy, but most impotant to me, they match (each other).  They are mission style and the cabinets are French country, but some darling slips covers will have the styles melding in no time.

I’d like to paint the room pale turquoise above the chair rail and white below. Crown molding and higher base boards would be lovely. I’ve seen those things on Craigslist too.

As a side note the menus are coming along swimmingly. We now have a lively facebook group where we can discuss the recipes and make new friends. It’s not too late to sign up for this week’s menu with the mini lesson of artisan bread in 5 minutes a day. And the next week will focus on making and using homemade mixes.  Here’s a picture of the breakfast bars from this morning’s breakfast.

Just a little spraypaint…

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I’m having a great time at the new house.  The previous owners left quite a bit of stuff.  I’ve been cleaning up some of it and selling it on craigslist to help pay for the renovations.  Some of it is just trash, like the original bath rug with the backing that turned to dust.  And some of it I can hit with a touch of spraypaint and make like new :).

Above is the brown return air vent from Heidi’s new aqua and white bedroom. A rusty vent fan cover from the boy’s bathroom, a 3/4″ steel conduit pipe ($3) that I hacksawed to fit the window in my office, and wooden finials and mounting brackets that held a smaller curtain bar in the master bedroom.

Add the last bits of white primer and spraypaint from the garage….

Total out of pocket cost:  $3.  Money saved:  $50.  Smile.

The fabric should arrive today for my office curtains and Heidi’s room will be carpeted this week!!!! I can’t wait to see it all come together.

Fruitful Saturday

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Saturday was wonderful!  My mother came over and helped with the baby so I could paint.  I painted Heidi’s second closet, her trim, and the boy’s bathroom.  This gets us a step closer to a functioning house! 

When we take out our sunken Harvest Gold bathtub in the master bathroom, it will stop water flow to our only functioning bath.  We will have to open the boy’s bathroom for use, which has been closed from wall-paper removal and a large hole in the shower’s fiberglass floor.  Now that it is painted, I can clean it all up and call the fiberglass repair man.  I’ve seen lots of DIY fiberglass repair articles on the web, but this is one I’d like to call the professionals for. I’ve seen plenty of black mold from improper leak repairs and am ready to do this one right.

Now that Heid’s room is painted, the carpet man can come.  Then she can move into her room which will allow Heather to move into her room and all the children will be in their rightful places.  What a happy day that will be!

I used my Christmas money to order curtain fabric for my office and Heidi’s room.  Heidi went with white bridal illusion covered in silver glitter.  I took a risk on aqua blue and white chevron.  I saved some money by salvaging some finials off a curtain rod that was too short.  I bought a $3 electrical conduit pipe that just happens to fit and will spray paint everything white–tomorrow.  Because even though It’s January in Kansas City, the weatherman thinks it will be 60 degrees tomorrow!

That Chevron has me sitting on pins.  I love it–right now. Is this something super trendy that I will tire of quickly?  It’s an expensive enough purchase that I’ll have to live with it for awhile.  So now that I hit “complete purchase” I’ve decided to love it no matter what.

I had the same concerns about my black and white damask curtains that I made for my living room 3 years ago.  Thankfully I live in the midwest where it takes years for the trends to hit, so they’ve stayed in fashion this whole time.

And then I think about the poor orphans in Africa and wonder why I care so much whether my curtains are fashionable.  I’ve spent years not caring so much and have found that when I take the time to choose my purchases carefully for their beauty as well as functionality–it makes a difference how the people in my home feel.  So I think I will pray that all people have their needs so met that they can waste a thought on whether something is lovely or not.

Office Inspiration

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I’m so thankful to have the space above the garage for my office.  It’s a large room with a triangle ceiling and very little wall space.  This is a recipe for creativity when it comes to finding places to put things.

Here’s another triangle shaped room.  I love the way they built shelves around the windows with a seat across the front.  If I were to do this, I would open the bench along the front for baskets filled with supplies. (I’m not sure on the original source for this image, I got it from pinterest which got it from photobucket.)

This next room from Sew Many Ways is chock full of ideas.  Take her black bookcases filled with supplies for example. They are just plain cheap bookcases with crown molding added and repainted.  I encourage you to click the picture to read the whole post.  I espeically love her motto:  “The Happiest people don’t have the best of everything…they just make the best of everything they have.”  She’s a kindrid spirit (as Anne would say.)

Next is another inspiring sewing room with tips for displaying a fabric stash.

She even has a lower cost solution that I’m adding to my to do list.

Curtain and Duvets

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The duvets and one curtain are finished for the boy’s room.  I’m just waiting for matching  snaps from Serenity to come in the mail to really finish the ends of the duvets.  Right now they are safety pinned shut.  The duvets are so soft, espcially on the Minky squares.

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The curtain is my favorite.  It is made from one white flat sheet and one gray flat sheet ($5 each from Walm-mart) cut into strips and then flat felled back together.  It really makes the room look taller and I’m so glad it didn’t end up looking like prison stripes :).  I have one more curtain cut out, but for now at least they have some privacy.   The curtain rod was $1 from a garage sale (actually $1 for 2 which I used in two different rooms).  I spray painted this one chocolate brown with some splatters of black to match their beds.

I invisioned painting the whole room light gray with white trim and then adding fun fabrics on the walls either in applique, name monograms or just fabric covered canvasses.  At this rate they will have graduated high school by the time I get it all done, lol.  I wish I had a better interior design mind and a wherewithall to finish the project quickly.

Heather’s Strawberry Cake

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This is my very first fondant and sugar paste cake. I’ll resist the urge to tell you everything that’s wrong with it. I messed up so much! But in the end, I let Heather and Brandon help me finish it by placing on the sugar paste flowers, berries, and leaves and they really had good ideas about how to cover up my mistakes. I hope it still looks this nice for her party tomorrow :). There are so many little fingers in this house that can’t wait for a taste.

New Adventures with Gum Paste

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I decided to create my daughter’s birthday cake’s decorations from Gum Paste this year.  I’ve wanted to try it for years and finally dug in.  I made my own red and green gum paste from wilton’s glucose and gum-tex.  I made the white from Marshmallows and gum-tex.  While they both taste okay, the marshmallow gum paste is by far the best (I added a touch of almond extract.)  They were both very easy to work with as long as I had my tub of shortening nearby to grease the bowls, cutters and my hands.

I can’t decide if this was a frugal hobby to start or not :P.  I had to buy the glucose, gum-tex, fondant tool set and flower creator set.  I used 40% off coupons at Hobby Lobby and kept going back until I collected each item I needed.  This was by far the most affordable way to shop.  I compared prices with Amazon, Ebay, and Jo-Ann before buying.

The nice part is I have plenty of glucose and gum-tex left to decorate many a cake and the tools will last forever if I take care of them.  I’d love to make my mother a beautiful rose covered birthday cake in October.  We’ll see how hard they are!  I’m also invisioning cupcakes with single gum paste daisies on the top :).

I glued the tops to the strawberries with a homemade edible glue.  The recipe is 1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons boiled water and 1 tsp gum-tex.  Mix it all up and let it sit in the fridge.  The lumps will disappear overnight.  I didn’t wait for the lumps to disappear and just dipped my paintbrush in and around them.  It still worked great. 

The centers on the strawberry blossoms are a dot of glue and a dot of yellow sugar.  So pretty and sparkly!  I brushed some of the leaves with green pearl powder for shimmer.  I texturized the leaves by pressing them into a silk flower leaf.  I think I’ll put a leave texturizing plate on my birthday list.  The silk leaf did okay but the texture is more subtle than I was hoping for.

P.S.  In my research for this project, I learned the difference between gum paste and rolled fondant is just a little gum-tex.  This makes the gum paste creations dry hard while fondant will stay soft and pliable.  I also read that you can use denture powder instead of gum-tex, but Wilton’s gum-tex at Hobby Lobby with a coupon was more affordable and it made me feel better that it was actually created for the purpose.  (The denture powder had warnings on it about swallowing too much!)

Porch Update

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View from the street. Notice the one blue chair is visible while the other seems to melt away.

It was too hot to paint over the weekend, so my chairs and door still aren’t done.  I tried and the paint bubbled up like it was boiling, lol.  It looks like next Friday will be cool enough to paint again.

Before

After

I got up early enough to paint my new house numbers before it got over 100 degrees and they look so nice.  The trash is off the porch.  The new hanging baskets are in place  I had already bought them on sale before reading about the window boxes in your fantastic comments on the last post.  I think I would love the window box look next year, but for now this was an afforadable alternative.

We planted the hostas, which aren’t too happy about the heat.  Next year they will be showstoppers. 

 While running my errends I grabbed a new door mat monogrammed with a C.  Our old doormat was 10 years old.  I tried to throw it out, but DH moved it to a less visible door where he thought it could still trap some dirt.  Sometimes he thinks thriftier than I do, lol.

I also scrubbed the front of the house with a hose and soapy sponge.  The white areas really need a fresh coat of paint, but for now it’s a big improvement.  You are right, the porch needs painted.  We bought the stain last fall and still haven’t used it.  I’ve never done anything like that before, and I’m afraid I’ll make a mess of it.

So much better without the trash!  I had planned to recover the setee in the corner to use in my kitchen.  But now I think it may not be sturdy enough to go through the effort.  Some day soon you may drive by and find it at the curb.  It would be a relief from my mind to have the project off my plate.

The two rockers look lonely to me.  I’m having second thoughts about the table I found.  It’s more money than I was hoping to spend and doesn’t have much surface on the top.  I did some price shopping Saturday for cushions and tables and came up empty handed.  I may have waited too long to shop summer clearance…there wasn’t much left.  Now I’m deciding if I want to wait until next year, or look for some outdoor fabric to sew.   Since I still haven’t found a lot of extra time in my day apart from basic chores and holding Grant….I’m leaning towards next year, lol.