Back to School 2012

Our summer was awesome. We hit the beach, visited with family, spent lots of time at the pool, and did a lot of relaxing. But all good things come to an end and better things start: school! All three boys are in school this year and it's going to be awesome. As the school year loomed, Grant was pretty bummed and cried every time we talked about it. He didn't want to lose his play time. Blake and Hayden were thrilled at the prospect of school starting!
Thankfully, Grant really warmed up to the idea of school when we got to visit for orientation yesterday. He just grinned as we visited his classrooms, met some old friends, and said hi to his autism teachers that he'll be working with again this year. Hayden was SO excited to visit his class and loved all the toys and books they had to play with. Blake knows his teacher and classmates from last year. They all moved up to third grade together. He was most excited about the new classroom pet: a turtle. We hit up Sonic for the last .99cent kids meals of the summer and headed home to pack lunches.
The morning went really well. We had plenty of time for pictures and Grant's bus even came on time for the first year ever! I have a feeling this year's going to be great!

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Barn Door!

I've got a bajillion projects that I've been working on and my latest one was a last-minute, two hour project that I LOVE! Our entry is full of doors: to the basement, the laundry room/pass-through to the garage, the coat closet, and the guest bath. They only way our entry looks neat and tidy is if all the doors are closed (and all the crap is off the floor). But, the laundry room door has never shut due to a spot where the house settled and the door always bumped against the top of the door frame. We tried to fix the door last night, but let's just say this went awry. I won't mention any names or any certain husbands that don't have a clue what they're doing...
So anyway, at about 1am last night, inspiration struck: rather than buy a new door for the laundry room, I could copy something I pinned about a DIY barn door. All it takes is galvanized pipe and a salvaged door that I already owned! After measuring carefully, I hit Lowe's at 6am for the hardware I needed.  Following these instructions: http://homeboundtheheartoflife.wordpress.com/2012/04/18/sliding-doors/ I had the hardware assembled and the door hung by 9am. I LOVE IT!
All I did was add casters to the bottom of the door and screw-in eye hooks to the top of the door. I used some hook things I picked up at a yard sale last fall to attach the door to the pipe. The weight of the door rests on the casters (which only roll one way) and the pipe just keeps it from tipping. As Travis says: "You can thank me for ruining the door, this looks much better anyway." Thanks babe!

View from the kitchen: closed.

View from the kitchen: open. Ugh. I hate you ugly linoleum! We didn't add wood to this section b/c of the washer/dryer. I'm hoping to do a cool diamond pattern vinyl stick-on tile someday.

View from the stairs: open. 

View from the stairs: closed. There is enough clearance behind the door to hang a poster or something on the wall that you'll see when the door is closed. Also, I have a glass knob to add to this side of the door for easy opening.

Total cost? $50 for the hardware. Those dang flanges were $8! And the door was $40 a few years ago at a salvage place in Baltimore. It used to hang out here:

I've since filled that blank spot up top with a this temple print. But now I've got a bigger empty spot to fill! I need another door!

One last pic: the view from the front door:

Love!

Entry Updates

I know there's about a million things to update about: vacation, Mother's Day, Father's Day, the last day of school, yard make-overs, guest bath and front room makeovers, etc. But I just don't feel like it. I do feel like showing off what I've been working on today. It started with a mirror I rescued from the trash in the old house. I used this tutorial to paint it with homemade chalkboard paint, but ended up painting the mirror and frame with chalkboard paint. I love how it turned out!
And then the table it was on started looking pretty beat up. Isn't that how it always works out? It's an old record player I bought at a yard sale about 10 years ago for only $20. I really liked working with the chalkboard paint and it got me thinking about using the blog-famous Annie Sloan Chalk Paint. It's all over the DIY blogs as a great option for refinishing furniture that doesn't require any prep work on the piece. But that stuff is $50 a quart! Dude. I figured there had to be a way to make it cheaper on my own. And there is. After digging around on the internets, I came across the perfect homemade chalk paint (different from chalkboard paint).
For chalkBOARD paint, you mix unsanded grout (got mine at the ReStore for $2 for a giant bag, feel free to borrow some) with your paint. For regular chalk paint, you mix 1/2 cup plaster of paris with 1/2 cup hot water. Whisk until smooth and then stir in 1.5c of paint. This made roughly two cups of paint and it only took about 1/2 of it to paint my record player. I read up on tutorials for painting with chalk paint and got to work. I wanted a more handpainted look, so I brushed it on rather than rolling it. I painted two coats, distressed it with sand paper, and finished it off with minwax finishing wax. Chalk paint is chalky of course, so it needs poly, glaze or wax as a protective finish. I have to say I love the look! And the price rocks. I used a coupon at JoAnn's for the Plaster of Paris, so it was only $4 and that was my only cost since I used leftover paint. Check out the results:

Love it! I used burlap over the "speaker" part.

I super-love the mirror. I could have one in every room of my house. Did I mention it was free and the frame is made from plastic?

View from the front door. Yeah...we need to stain/paint the banister...but for now, it rocks!

Now maybe I'll get motivated to post a bit more on the blog-o. I've got a few more projects planned for this week.

Easter Dress 2012

I love heirloom sewing. I'm not great at it, I don't have a lot of experience with it, but I LOVE the look of lace, batiste, tucks, pintucks, smocking, and embroidery. I smocked a few things for the boys, but of course over the years wished for a girl to try out some heirloom techniques. I've subscribed to Sew Beautiful (heirloom sewing magazine) for years and even bought a whole box of SB's at a yard sale when Blake was 2. And then along came Cosette! Mom and I made her blessing gown after scouring the magazines. I tried my hand at lace shaping with her first Christmas dress. Before we moved last year, I went through all my magazines, marking dresses I wanted to make. In the Easter 1996 SB, I marked a dress "2nd Easter".

Isn't it awesome?! I just love everything about it! And I had some experience with the techniques used, so I thought it was a good plan. I had to ditch the bonnet since it would take up so much lace and I wasn't convinced Cosette would wear it. I started gathering the materials for the dress in February and March. I wanted it to be pink, but couldn't find the right batiste for the right price, so settled on blue like the picture. As for all the lace, holy expensive! I shopped around and was able to pay $2/yard for the laces I needed by ordering them online. I found a similar pattern (found here). It's actually a reproduction of a baby dress from the 1890's. The dress has tons of entredeux (tiny embroidered trim) all over it. This stuff costs $2.85-$3.50 a yard! Thankfully, I found a tutorial on how to replicate the look of entredeux by machine and followed directions in one of my heirloom sewing books.

I started sewing in mid-March, but realized 4 days out from Easter that I was in over my head! My entredeux look-alike stitch was taking FOREVER! I completely underestimated the time required to finish the dress. Oops. So I kept working and last week finally finished the "Easter in May" dress. I love it. It is amazing. It's just like the picture. Of course it has a billion mistakes in it, but I love it so much anyway. In addition to the dress, I made the matching blue slip (really simple) and diaper cover. I even purchased some lace to dress up her socks. Finally, in place of the bonnet I made my own fabric "ribbon" by sewing more entredeux trim and fashioning my strip into a giant bow like girls wore in the early 1900's. I starched it like crazy and stuck crumpled tissue to shape the loops while the starch dried. I also taught myself how to make the ribbon rosette on the yoke. I

Cosey loves her dress and did such a great job modeling her outfit while I took pictures. It was overcast and rainy, so porch pics will have to do! Wanna see?

Hehehe!! I literally squealed when I got her dressed this morning!!

Blake and Hayden could not get enough of her either: "Cosette, you're soooo cute!!"

Serious Victorian look.

Back in time!

The back: I added a couple vintage buttons. You can see the entreduex stitching on either side of the lace insertion on the sleeve and the lace edging of the sleeve.

Sweet baby girl!! The rosette matches the fabric color better in real life. It was hard to catch it with the camera.

As I told Travis this morning, every dang minute was worth it on this dress! I don't even want to think of the HOURS I spent making it. 40? 50? Who knows. As for cost, it was around $50, not including the pattern ($12) which will be used again. It's also roomy and can be made longer by simply taking out the stitching that holds the folded tucks at the bottom. So she will be able to wear it for a couple years. It was totally worth it. I can't wait to sew a few more dresses for Cosey. I've got a few dresses in mind that are simpler with minimal lace for summer, they'll be much cheaper. And I can't wait to dress Cosette up again in her dress for Mother's Day next Sunday!