And Again....

So....I'm going to attempt the blogging thing again. How many times is this now?? I'd have to say 4 or 5, but who knows maybe this time it'll stick. :)

So let's overview what's been going on in my life for the past year. FABULOUS NEWS! We are having a baby, YAY! I'm 6 months pregnant and Matt and I are so excited to have our little one join us. We don't want to give away her name yet BUT I will give away one portion of her name. We are naming her ????? Eleanor. Eleanor was my great grandmother's middle name and is my sister's middle name. I'm really excited to pass on a family name. (If you didn't know, my first name comes from my grandmother and I love her!)

Those of you who know me know that I don't talk to my mother much. It's been an interesting road with her but that is definitely for another post. I knew Eleanor was a family name but I couldn't remember who it came from so I asked my mom where it came from. Thankfully she responded nicely and she said it was my great grandmother's name. I'm very excited about that - I still remember her. I loved going to her house when I was young and having her take me to church. I even have a picture of her and I. I was probably 4 when it was taken. I'm proud to have my baby girl named after her, she was an amazing woman and made a positive impact on my life, even the short time she was in it.

So a quick synopsis of her story....Matt and I have talked about having kids and always knew we wanted to but one day just decided to go for it. We figured it would take a few months once I went off birth control but we were lucky enough to have it all happen quickly. One month later and we were pregnant! It all happened so fast but we couldn't be more excited!

I'll do some future posts on all the crafty things we've been doing for her nursery. It has been SO much fun :)

Sewing Fun

Our very first Christmas together I told Matt I wanted a sewing machine. I had big dreams of all the amazing things I was going to make. I received said sewing machine and in the over 2 years since then I've made about 5 things :)

We'll as part of NO TV JULY I'm hoping I can spend a bit more time sewing. During our last use I made a dress for Zoey out of fleece. My sewing machine didn't like the fleece much and I thought I had broken it. A year and a half later I decided to take the machine in to get serviced, but figured I should try sewing with it again first so I'm not THAT girl. And to my surprise and enjoyment, it worked!!

Out came my first sewing project of 2013!

INSERT PICTURE

I actually love it. The fabric is actually something I found at Goodwill. It already had the darts, I'm not that good, so it was perfect!

The process wasn't easy. That first time I cut the fabric I cut it too short, no idea how since I did measure. Then I also can't seem to sew in a straight line! My bottom hem isn't bad but my top on, you can definitely see the "curves". But it was worth it and totally a piece I can wear.

What should I make next?

New Beginning

How many posts have begun with "sorry it's been so long..."? We'll I haven't written in this blog for over two years, not good! But I'm excited about the attempt to begin again. This first post is just my introduction back into the world of blogging, nothing fancy. Over the next 2 weeks I'm hoping to get some serious blogging done. My husband and I are doing NO TV for all of July. So far so GREAT! It's given us tons of time to do other fun things. Just wait until you see all my posts about the crafty things I've been up to!

So...welcome back blog. I hope I can keep it up this time!

FOOD!

I love food! And I love cooking new foods!

I found this website, plantoeat.com. I freakin LOVE this thing. I can save all my recipes, search for new ones and make meal plans and shopping lists. We've eaten GREAT because of this site! Seared Tuna, Mediterranean Chicken and Brown Rice and my new fav thing to make - MUFFINS!!

I've never been much of a baker but I wanted to start. I also wanted to find something that my boyfriend would eat for breakfast and this is the perfect thing!

The first ones I made were Blueberry. I thought we had vanilla extract but I was wrong so I used almond instead and OMG it was delicious!

The second round was whole wheat cranberry orange. This time I didn't use the muffin liners and the sides of the muffin were way too done. The rest was still good but the boyfriend didn't like them much.

The third ones I made today turned out pretty well considering...considering I forgot to put in the sugar!! Like I said I'm just learning about this baking stuff haha. They really are still good but would be AMAZING with the sugar :) Hopefully next time I won't forget.

This one was short and sweet but I promise I'm really going to try to keep up on this more. I have so much I could write about so I need to just do it!! Upcoming posts - finished craft room, new living room, and lots more!

Christmas!

So if you are friends with my on Facebook you've likely already seen these photos but I had to share :)

This year I finally had the chance to do all handmade ornaments. It was really quite simple in thought but took a lot more work that I was expecting.

We decide to stick with a red, white and silver theme for all of our decorations. I wanted to go with blue, white and silver but Matt loves red :)

I had left over basic ball ornaments from last year and decided I was going to decorate all of them. No ornament is the same on our tree! Well ok that is slightly a lie. I have 3 plastic ornaments with bells in them and then 4 tinsel stars, but other than that all of them are different!

This first one is something I found online. You buy the clear plastic ornaments from a craft store, wash them with alcohol, and then drip paint down the sides. The first time I didn't read the directions correctly and didn't wash them. The paint just globed, not good. But I was able to save it. I washed it out, even with the paint in it and it turned out like this!

This is another ornament that I did. It was really simple. I just used a paint brush, dipped it into some Mod Podge and then poured the glitter over top. I made lots of ones like this, they were definitely the easiest but I actually think the prettiest as well.

The other main type of ornament was again using the blank balls and then I used glitter puff paint to create designs on them. This was the hardest one actually, I don't have quite the steady hand I once did. But they still turned out well.

Here is a pic of the whole tree, sorry my camera just couldn't get a great pic of the tree! With all the lights on it looks much more full as well.

I also did the mantle. I painted the word "Peace" and spray painted some glitter on them. I then hot glued them to stocking holders on the mantle. I used the P, A and E to hold up the garland on the mantle and then left the E and C for our stockings, which I still need to make.

Overall the decorating was a ton of fun! Next year I think I'm going to go with the blue, silver and white tough. Just to try something different. Then I can switch off each year :)

Holidays have arrived!

Holiday season is my favorite time of the year. I've always just loved the season :)

The past 5 years I have spent this time of the year in Arizona. Where it is still in the 70's all winter long. It never felt like Christmas to me there. I feel like people don't get as into it there too; there were never as many houses with Christmas lights. I remember as a kid going to all the different neighborhoods with ALL of the houses on the block decorated. I loved looking at the Christmas lights.

And now back in Seattle, on November 11th I am sitting in my house wrapped in a blanket because I'm freezing. Those years in Arizona really made it harder to deal with this cold! Hopefully I'll adjust soon because it's only getting colder.

So anyways since I love this time of year I really want to do lots of crafty things to get ready for Christmas :) I promised the boyfriend that I would wait until after Thanksgiving to start making Christmas ornaments so I had to come up with something else I could do before.

Last weekend I decided to make Christmas cards. They turned out really well, so cute!

As Promised...

Pictures of the bathroom!

The new wall color

Shower Rings






Toilet Paper Holder

Our AWESOME faucet! I love this thing and it was the inspiration for the bathroom.

We technically aren't done yet. We are going to paint one of the walls with a wall mural of bamboo. It probably won't get done for a while :) It'll take some time so I need to practice on a few smaller canvas first.

Next big project...craft room!