mother’s day gift idea.

so I totally have mother’s day covered this year.

I know, I am incredible!!

(but thanks really belongs to miss jessica sprague.)

you see, I was asked to test this mini class, as in, get to take it before anyone else did, to make sure it made sense and junk?  and it totally did.  and as was making my little family tree poster, a little idea entered my mind.

“you could so do these for mother’s day gifts…”

and guess what?

when I got my poster and saw it in all of it’s printed, physical glory, I was like, “yeah.  this would be pretty darn amazing.”

and since I enjoy evoking emotions, I planned on doing it.

then, my first-grader gasped when she saw it.

(it helps that we have been finding and reading stories about our ancestors.)

but she GASPED!!

so that pretty much did it.

(mom, you better not be looking/reading.  but whatever, yours isn’t on here.)

so here’s mine:

and obviously, it’s for my kiddos, only goes back to their great-grandparents.

(ash was trying to spot her 5th great-grandfather..  nope, doesn’t go back that far.)

my mother’s day gift version has been tweaked a bit.  it has parents at the base of the tree with the kids and grandchildren up in the branches.

it’s quite sweet.

and I really love this quote:

“looking at the faces of those who belong to us, we see the past, present, and future.”

-Gail Lumet Buckley

so, if you are at all interested, here’s the link to the class.

it seriously took me no time at all to plug in pics and names.  then it gets printed, and you frame it…  so easy.

and all the gasps and tears are totally worth it!

here’s your warning: it’s ugly.

so we have a challenge for ffa, which has nothing to do with animals or growing edible stuff, but has everything to do with helping you find your style and implement it.

so the only reason why I do this, is because mandi told me to, and I like her, like, a lot, so I will do it for her.

before I go on, before you do as well, please take into account that this room of mine is not cute.  you might want to grab a bucket or a garbage can, a large bowl perhaps?  you might vomit at the sheer ugliness of this here room.

I was hoping that it would not come to this, but really, you have to see the before to appreciate the after.

(hopefully coming soon.)

ready?

are you sure?

do you have your container with which to catch vomit?

wait, before I go on, let me say that this is how much I care about these pictures:

- they are sooc (straight out of camera).

- the white balance hasn’t even been corrected.

- I am not watermarking them.  I don’t want anyone to be able to prove that this room belongs to me.

- I am now considering blurring the face of the child in these pictures, just so the authorities don’t come and take her out of a home that is obviously so bland and boring.

- they are so awful, I tagged and labeled them “ugly room”.

(but really!!  it’s just the one room..  I will prove that I have cuteness in this house!!)

oh, and I didn’t really bother to “straighten up” because, really, like anything can help this?

here goes..

I know, I apologize.  this is not what you needed to see today.

I hope you didn’t get any vomit on your keyboard.

(those are difficult to clean.)

so here’s the rundown:

- paint.  maybe if I tell the guy I am married to that that is all I want for mother’s day, then I can get it soon-ish?  I mean, I was putting it off, what with the water heater/sprinkling system/pirate-eyed daughter fiasco going down.  I am still debating on stenciling one wall.  not sure.  not sure at all about that.

- see that drab, plain, ugly curtain?  (if that is what you want to call it.)  it is thumbtacked to the wall.  it is also a necessity in this here sleep-space.  this window is south-facing, so we get lots ‘o light in here, we don’t want it.  it also helps to muffle the neighbor’s annoying dog.  I want to punch either the owner, or the dog in the face most days.  so basically, I need to get some attractive fabric (and that can’t be that hard to improve upon this situation) to make into curtains, with blackout liner of course.

- stuff for my walls.  you know, to make them look attractive and accessorized and junk.

- new headboard, and stat!!  I have had my eye on a few options of diy upholstered headboards.  this one, the one in that picture you don’t want to look at again, is a bookcase headboard.  while my husband loves it, and while I am thankful we have had it for 12 years, and while I am looking for some positivity, I am thankful for my thoughtful mother-in-law who gifted us this whole bedroom set as a wedding gift, it reminds me of my grandparents.  they always had a bookcase headboard.  I feel like I should have a gigantic bottle of excedrin hiding in one of the cubbies.

- new bedding.  that should be obvious.

- re-paint the dresser?

- I would love new nightstands.  one that is more “him” and one that is more “her”?

- heck, while I am dreaming, how’s about a king sized bed?

- then there’s the area against the wall in the top picture, you know, the one you started dry-heaving when you saw it?  yeah, that is a desk.  it really didn’t have a home anywhere else in the house, so it got stuck in our huge room. “we have the room for it…”  biggest mistake of my life.  it has turned into a catch all.  I need storage for my books, cause I kinda love to read.  oh, and that chair?  (the object that has the husband’s clothing piled-up on?  yeah, it’s under there…)  I just want to get rid of it so merrill will have to buck up and put his crap away.

(that sounded mean…  but it’s really just these pictures are putting me in a bad mood, I swear.)

- the light.  I loathe that light.  it’s too fancy?  I just don’t like it.

I could go on, but that would be like, a lot of stuff.

so we’ll just start here.

please forgive me, again, for the vomit on your computer and all.

my new obsession with misting.

I am unable to disclose, at this time, how many mists I have.

I have a few actual, as in “squirt, squirt” mists, and a few more digital, as in “no mess”, mists.

I am slightly obsessed at the moment.

I have a few layouts open, that I go between when I have a second, trying to tweak and add until they are just right, with these new digital mists incorporated.

let’s face it, they were inspired by these mists!!

(click on the layout for a special prize.)

(whatever, you should know by now, it’s for full credits and links to the goodies.)

on this layout, I had the title in 15 (fifteen!!) different fonts.  most of them a similar style, most of them stroked (the font itself turned off, and the outline visible), and I kept going between each one, clicking the little eyeball next to each layer to turn it off an on, trying to decide which font I loved best.

it was excruciating.

but I love the end result.

lemme tell you a little something though..

these misting brushes, they come with different masks.  different brushes, come with different masks. 

that means, multiple misting brushes, different looks..

I simply have to have them all!!

(slightly obsessed.)

and what’s awesome on top of the already very awesome?

no mess.

no mess to clean up!!!

that is pretty sweet considering my actual scrapbooking room is one giant mess, that needs to be cleaned up.

might I suggest you go and buy every “knock out” now, today, so you can get them for a crazy good price.

saturday fun with punkley pitcher.

“one of these things is not like the others, one of these things just doesn't belong, can you tell which thing is not like the others. by the time I finish my song?”

was what I sang after I saw this:

whelp, this is the kind of fun you are in store for when you get to spend an entire saturday with punkley (aka merrill) pitcher

we had the jacked-up water heater replaced by the best plumber EVER! and were feeling so high and happy, we decided to tear into the garage.

well, that’s not really how it happened.  we needed to shut off the power to fix our sprinkler system situation, but needed to wait for him to finish up, so we decided to tear into the garage while we waited.  it has been something that I have been slowly working at for a while..

we got the tool holder deal-ios from lowe’s, we had them at the old house and quite loved them, so thus, it was a necessary repeat here.   sad thing is, we are approaching 3 years here, and we are just getting to this…

wish I would have taken a before picture, but vomit on your keyboard isn’t good.

(you are welcome.)

he was in quite the silly mood (slightly giddy about the new water heater I supposed), so funny things like this happened.

his explanation for how it fit, went a little something like this:

“well, if there were a zombie apocalypse, these would all be considered weapons.  then the baseball bat fits.”

yeah.

anyways…

saturday was a very full day for us. 

- the water heater is no longer jacked-up.

- the garage is all cleaned out and organized.

- we managed to program the “home link” button in our pilot to the garage door opener.  hey, it’s only been two years (okay, almost).

- and after 4 trips out to “chad’s”, we fixed the sprinkling system.

that was quite the relief.

our controller, the timer deal, was apparently friend in a power surge (thankyouverymuchrockymountainpower…) and needed to be replaced.  initially, we thought it would just be the front panel, but not so.  the new panel was too big for our existing box, so we had to change the whole box, and happily so, because the new one is bigger for a reason, and a very good one at that.  there is a protection in it, for, get this, power surges!!!

merrill was playing the role of punkley quite well as we took out each wire from the old box to make the transition, saying such punkish things as:

“when we hook up the new one, it isn’t going to work.”

“aren’t you going to be pissed when we get this all done, and it still doesn’t work.”

“what is the problem going to be when this doesn’t work?”

see, punk.

all I could say to my dear punkley was: “there is going to be a pretty epic run-to-and-hug episode played out in our front yard when this works.”

I was functioning totally on positive vibolas.

he doesn’t have very many positive vibolas.

but guess what?

after we got all the wires fixed in their proper positions in the new box, and junk, we turned on the power, and started that sprinkling system up and….

IT WORKED!!

like it should!!

as in the way it is supposed to!!

and I ran to him, because we weren’t by each other, and he thought we were going to chest bump (?) but instead I jumped on him in that epic embrace, except for he wasn’t expecting that, so instead of both of us cheering, I was, and he was groaning.

then we laughed.

I hope I don’t have to drive out to chad’s again for a very, very, long time.

beautifying the front porch.

the following picture is brought to you, with special thanks to my ridiculousness/stupidity….

I wanted this picture to be all sorts of dramatical, so I planned to take it at night.

well, I also needed to be level with the porch, so that required a stool..

and well, my prime lens was the best option to get the most light without using a flash, so I had to be farther way, like, in the middle of the lawn.

so there I was, looking pretty ridiculous, standing on a kitchen stool, in the middle of my front lawn, late-ish one night.

(see, I thought I was smart doing it later, like less cars, but no.  not so much less in the traffic area.)

I spent one monday afternoon, hitting the town with my two best short sidekicks, trying to find the perfect flowers for the porch, that gets mostly shade, a teeny-tiny bit of sun, not much at all.  my short little sidekicks were pretty good at spotting the “part sun” and “shade” symbols on the various flowers and plants by the end of the day.

they were also very good at listening to me when we went into the scariest thrift store that I like to visit, but only when I am feeling exceptionally brave (or desperate).

I told them that they were not to leave my side, touch anything, or say a word about what the place smelled like, until we were back in the safety of our car. 

we came out successful in all areas.

we found our rickety (but not too rickety) old stool that was perfect for some black paint and roughing up.

the last thing I needed was to have a giant “p” on my door.

(and depending on where your mind is at the moment, that sentence sounds kinda gross.)

off to joann’s we went, and it is a mess there!  (just a heads up to anyone in my hood.) I mean, it’s all exciting and junk, but it’s kinda scary and gross all at the same time.  my feelings on the matter are quite obviously mixed.

we made our way through the crazy place, got our big “p”, and some moss.

now before you go shaking your head, saying, “what a mess that must have been.  was it really worth it?”  let me tell you about sheet moss.  it is moss that comes in a…  get this..  SHEET!

it is quite amazing, still a little messy, but amazing none-the-less.

I used my trusty and most favorite (and only) hot glue gun, to attach the moss first to the front of the letter, then trimmed the edges, and then to the sides, trimming and piecing all the way around until everything but the back was covered.  the nice thing about this stuff is, there are no seams.

pretty sweet.

and it’s lovely and green, and I figure it can live on the front door for quite a while.

so I mis-spoke. kill me.

sunday.

we are home from church and lunch is on it’s way to the table.

ashley asked me to make her a “cootie catcher”, but she didn’t know what to call it, so she called it a “fortune teller”.

as I was trying to correct her, trying to say the right name, I said:

“you mean a coochie catcher.”

that didn’t sound right to me, and as I rolled my last spoken sentence around in my head, I figured out why.  as reaction would have it, my hand flew to my mouth, and I turned back to the open fridge to hide my face so ashley would hopefully not notice my face.

that was not so.

so I tried to cover-up and kept calling it by the far more appropriate name of “cootie catcher”.

but nothing, NOTHING, gets past this kid. 

she kept asking what a “coochie” was.

oh my.

merrill finally got her to believe that it was just jibber-jabber.

but it brought to remembrance another time that I mis-spoke:

it was eighth grade.  we were having dinner as a family, at the table.  my best friend, teresa, was there as well.

the discussion went on about toys.  I started to wonder what toys my dad had as a kid, which prompted me to ask:

“dad, did you have an ERECTION set, growing up?”

after everyone, including my dad had a good laugh, I realized what I had said.

but he still answered me:

“yes I did.  I played with it all the time.”

(more laughter.)

“I meant to say an ERECTOR set.”

“yes, I had one of those too.”

I just hope that ashley doesn’t start experimenting with her new jibber-jabbber word anywhere…

the girls sure do love their “cootie catchers” though.

my sewing solution.

I love to sew.

I love to sew fun stuff for my girls.

I like to surprise them, sometimes.

it helps to know measurements in order to keep certain projects a surprise.

it helps if one doesn’t lose those important measurements, so as not to spoil the surprise.

I thought I was a genius (!!!) to write down the girls measurements, updating from time to time, on a little post-it note pad that was supposed to stay near my sewing stuff.

not so.

there is a pile of post-its somewhere, that have measurements of my three girls jotted on them. 

somewhere.

but nowhere I can locate them.

so my solution:

make a cute book, sewing themed, to keep track of these and measurements that are surely to come, because despite my pleadings, threatenings, and crying, these kids are still growing.

enter cosmo cricket:

for this here little book, I used:

- 1 small black & white composition notebook (3 3/4 x 4 3/4 )

- papers from cosmo cricket “material girl”

- elements from cosmo cricket “material girl – candy, candy” and cosmo cricket “material girl – elements”

- paper for the spine from cosmo cricket “togetherness”

- glue

- a paper trimmer and score-er

- plain white cardstock

- bits of ribbon

- staples

- rub-ons

- corner rounder

 

first, I started by designing the way I wanted the front cover of my little book to look in photoshop, and printed it off on presentation paper.

I cut it to the size of my notebook, rounded the corners, and scored it to fit nicely over the binding.

I used my tombow mono glue, and glued the paper only to the patterned part of the black and white cover of the notebook.  leave the spine glueless. 

I distressed it with an emery board, cause I roll that way..

then I cut and scored a smaller piece of coordinating paper to help reinforce the spine, and to look cute too.

I used the white cardstock to reinforce my separator pages.  I cut them down, and rounded the corners, and glued them with the tombow as well.  (I divided my pages into three somewhat equal sections so there would be plenty of room for updates.  again, that growing factor..)

I took bits of ribbon, in my girls colors (because we have a color-coded system to life at our house..  trust me, it works.), folded them in half so each side of the ribbon straddles the page (so to speak) and stapled it to the page.

then I added rub-on letters for each of their names…

and then, I got to peyton and had a little bit of a problem..

merrill almost got himself punched in the throat for trying to give a suggestion and purposefully spelling her name “p-A-y-t-o-n”.

it is a long-standing disagreement between he an i.

he threatened to spell her name in her blessing, so it would be stuck with the A.

punk.

but I digress.

I love the way the book turned out.  hopefully I won’t be losing anyone’s measurements soon so the surprises can start to flow in their fabric-y abundance.

fun fact:

while measuring the girls, I discovered that lynn and ash have the same waist measurement, and that the distance from peyton’s waist to her ankle is the same distance from lynn’s waist to her knee.

*just a side note, as I wrote down my first entry for measurements on each girl, I wrote the season and the year at the top of the page, just to help me keep straight which is most current.**