Playroom Project - Complete!

We decided on a small (as in, one wall) playroom project before we even moved in, and I'm glad to say that it's been completed a mere 18 months later. Obviously it fell as a low priority, but we love how it turned out.

See before - a big, blank wall.  

A projector, a pencil, some nails, some twine, several little helpers....

And, VOILA!!  Some pizazz that pays homage to our home states.  (Plus, a few new accessories to give a little pop of color!) 

Yes, I realize that Georgia and The Great State of Texas are not appropriately represented in size, but I worried more about aesthetics than accuracy.  Don't worry, I am quick to teach my children about the vastness and beauty that is my home state.  JB can point out a Texas flag quicker than he can identify most of his letters, which makes my hear soar!  :)

We love our playroom and the kids spend a good portion of the day in it.  (I thought to organize it a bit before capturing a picture, but, you know, unorganized is the reality!)

Holiday Crafts - WHY DO I DO THIS TO MYSELF!?

Every year I tell myself that I won't fall victim of Pinterest temptations or stress myself out with holiday crafts.  But then I just can't help myself.  Fortunately things turned out well this year (no matter how much hair I pull out in the process).  :)

Greeting Card Display
Normally I display our cards in the garland above the mantle, but this year our mantle was under construction until last Thursday.  The cards were sitting on the table with no where to go! So I went to Pinterest, found some ideas, drug out an old, scuffed frame James found at a garage sale for $10, talked James into some spray painting and light construction work, and VOILA!  This craft is a total win and one we can use every year.  And major kudos to James who really did 80% of this craft.

Salt Dough Ornaments
Somewhere I got this wild idea that we should create salt dough ornaments this year, maybe even starting a tradition.  James constantly asks why I set myself up for this stress and drama with our toddlers, but I always have high hopes!

JB was very enthusiastic about making the ornaments, as he loves mixing and pouring things.  And insisted on crafting in his undies.

Sissy just wanted to try to eat the salt dough and throw herself off the kitchen island.  She was quite peeved I forced her to watch, but I could only handle one toddler at a time in the mess of flour and salt!

Originally the plan was to cut out handprints and make "glove" ornaments, cutting circles in the middle to place a picture. I quickly realized there was no way my children could sit still enough for me to run a sharp knife around their tiny fingers.  Plus, JB was having too much fun squishing the dough to let me cut.  So I thought "quit being a Type A Mama, Jennie!!" and let him just play and squish and roll to his little heart's desire.

(And then, after they went to bed, I rolled out and cut the ornaments myself, using their hand prints that I quickly traced on construction paper.  Did not get to a little picture insert because I need a challenge to motivate me for next year.)

It took forever to dry these out!  The recipe said 2 hours on 150, but I did about 6 hours over the course of the next day.  And JB kept asking when we could paint them - he was getting impatient! Finally they were ready to paint, and JB chose 3 different shades of purple (his favorite color) to paint his mittens.  He wanted the matching mittens to be different and "crazy" because, well, TODDLERS. Again, Type A Mama had to just take deep breaths and go with it.

In the end, I love how these turned out!!  So sweet for many reasons - the memories that we made, evidence of their small 2016 hands, and more decorations for the kids' tree.  Certainly a tradition I plan to keep for next year, (as long as I don't read this post beforehand.)

Creative (and Coordinated) Magazine Wrapping Paper
Usually I coordinate my wrapping paper by color, but it's still store bought. This year I convinced myself to save up all our weekly Time magazines and wrap our presents.  Turned out lovely (especially with the nice ribbon I procured last year on clearance), but GEEZ what a pain!!  I wrapped all our small boxes first, which was fine, but the big boxes required lots of lining up the paper, lots of tape, lots of stress. And then James wrapped my presents in something that totally didn't match (KILLING ME!), and then my parents came with each present wrapped in all different types of paper (DYING!!!)  Oh well...  :)  (I'm grateful for gifts, I know I need to get over the matchy-matchy stuff, haha).

So there you have it.  About as much Pinterest-ing as I can handle this Christmas 2016.  Until the Christmas menu, of course.  :)

Craftin' - Places We Love

I still love crafting, even if I have very little time to do it.  I've been good about fitting things in when I can, and trying to complete projects that I have already started (even if I started it years ago.)  I'm quite guilty of dragging out projects….

During a weekend in Savannah with my parents back in the Fall of 2012, (yes, two years ago) I came across one of these:

Savannah

I casually commented to my dad that I thought these were so cool.  It reminded me of one I had seen up in Kennebunkport, Maine back in 2010, and I had wanted to make one ever since with different cities that housed our friends, family, or memories.

Maine

Because he's just the best, Daddy immediately went home from the Savannah trip and made me lots of arrows.  He sent them to me…where they sat in our basement for a while.  (I've had excuses since 2012, of course:  the dog child, pregnancy, baby, etc.)

This past month, I got on it!  James and I selected 12 cities that were important to us, I did a little calculating on Google Maps, and it was time to start crafting:

Gettin' my craft on

Over several days, I painted all my arrows and carefully wrote out the cities and distances.  (Fortunately we were going for "rustic" because my handwriting is not the best - particularly with a paintbrush!)  When my parents came up for JB's birthday, my dad and James got to work on creating my new piece of yard art.  (They were scientific about it, too, even getting out a compass - well, or a compass app on their phone - to ensure the arrows pointed in the right direction.)

Putting the boys to work

I absolutely love the finished product!!

It gives our yard a pop of color, a little personality, and a little reminder of all those people - all over the country - that have a special place in our hearts.  :) 

Chevrons Can Change Your Life (For Reals)

You know your life is lacking thrills when you write a comment on a crochet message board that says "this pattern has really changed my life".  It's sad, but true - I've found a great new way to make chevron blankets (which are not that easy to make).  And, obviously, I have no shame when it comes to letting people know.

I've been crocheting since I was 8 years old, after my Mimi patiently taught me one summer.  Since then, I've easily made over a hundred blankets. Maybe even 200.  Now I also make stuffed animals, plus beanies and hats.  The possibilities are really endless with a crochet hook and a Michael's coupon.

Thanks to Pinterest, I have access to hundreds of new techniques, patterns, and old lady followers who Pin the best stuff.  Thanks to this site and this site, some of our Alabama friends are getting this for their baby boy:

Love the chevrons, love the little elephant, hate the colors (I'm more of a burnt orange or orange/navy fan when it comes to these blankets, of course).

I post this today to stay humble, less any of you think that James and I are leading a rockstar life with all our wild parties and such. Crochet message boards, my friends….crochet message boards.

Craftin' - Americana Art

For two whole weeks, my parents stayed with us here in Atlanta to help take care of JB, love on their new grand baby, and keep the household chores under control (cooking, laundry, dishes, cleaning, etc).  It was GREAT.  Not only because they kept us clothed and fed, but we also just had a good time hanging out!

When we weren't subjecting them to chores, James and my dad found some time to tackle a DIY project that James has wanted to do for a long time.  (I know I titled this "craftin", but we're talking large scale crafting here, folks.)  There is this eccentric restaurant in Buckhead called R. Thomas Deluxe Grill, and among the various pieces of artwork, plants, and rare (live) birds on the inside and outside there is a rustic flag made out of reclaimed wood.  Every time we walk by it, James says "I could make that..."

And, after a few days and trips to Home Depot, they did!  My dad was equally excited about this project, and brought over some pre-cut reclaimed wood from his workshop to kick it off.  They came up with a plan; did some measuring, cutting, painting, and drilling; and then...

We now have some fantastic Americana art on our deck!

It turned out great - maybe even better than the R. Thomas original.  Very proud of these guys.  And love our new piece of art!

(Note: These boys are very aware of the number of original colonies and the number of US States.  They took some creative liberties in the pursuit of art, and are very sensitive when all the ladies in their life ask "shouldn't there be more stripes and stars...?")   :)

A Craft-astic Weekend

Proof that you can take it easy AND channel your inner Martha Stewart, this weekend was very crafty and productive.  Fortunately, you can do a lot of hand work while lying on the couch and sitting at your sewing machine.  (James was also very productive, but less Martha Stewartish and more Brawnyish - poor guy spent a lot of time outside mowing the yard, fixing light bulbs, eradicating wasp nests, spraying for bugs, making sure there are no squirrels in the attic - because I hear them outside my office wall taunting me....etc)

But, back to all my craftiness, here is just a snapshot of what I was able to do:

Baby Hats

This little guy is coming in mid-October (or earlier, based on my doctor's thinking), which means he'll be arriving during the Georgia Fall.  A beautiful time of year that can either be 85 degrees or 55 degrees.  Regardless of temperatures, I had been pinning all of these little crocheted newborn hats for the last two years, and felt compelled to make a few for him.  Seriously, I can't help myself, they are TOO PRECIOUS!!  

(If anyone crochets, this woman - Repeat Crafter Me - has really great, easy, obviously cute, patterns.  If you don't crochet, she also has great kid crafts that look pretty fun, plus some good crock pot recipes.)  

Diaper Changing Pad

Again, blame it on Pinterest, but this seemed like an "easy" project that I could just whip out in a matter of minutes.  Of course it took me a good two hours, mostly because I had to re-read this pattern online about 500 times before I could conceptually understand where she was going with the pockets. Total user error - the pattern is great!  Final product was pretty good, too!  I'm happy with how it turned out and that it fits so nicely in my diaper bag.  

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies

I made two batches of these cookies this weekend, because 1) they were good, and 2) they were good for giving.  This is great recipe for Pumpkin Chocolate Chip cookies, which aren't that sweet, not too unhealthy, and have a very soft, cakey texture. (James is a crunchy cookie kind of guy, so this was not his favorite recipe - he said flavor was good, though.)  First batch went to friends / us, second batch went to the Fire Station.  In addition to being all "Martha Stewart" this weekend, we also got a little MacGyver-ish and installed the car seat. Well, we think we installed the car seat.  After installing it first in our driveway and then a second time at the Fire Station, we're now thinking through a third method for installation and going to take it to another Fire Station later this week.  I see why this stresses out so many parents... 

But, regardless, the very nice - and, ahem, cute - firemen who helped us the first time still got a batch of pumpkin cookies to take back up to their crew.  Especially since we pulled them out the Sunday football games to talk through all our doubts. 

Curtains

And, the final thing I spent time on this weekend - THE CURTAINS!  That's right, my terribly uneven curtains have now been redone (yet again), after about four hours of me laying on the downstairs floor, crying about how to fix them. Seriously, real tears.  I had almost given up on them, but thought "it's taken us over two years to have a baby and these are his curtains and I JUST CAN'T GIVE UP ON THEM NOW!!!"  Nothing like out-of-control pregnancy hormones to keep you focused.

Now, confession, I think they look great from the front.  Just like I had pictured.  The back...is terrible.  Please, please, puh-lease do not come over to my house and carefully inspect the curtains. If you start to turn them over, I will jump on you like a spider monkey...

:)

No pictures of those curtains, because they will be part of the next post:  The Nursery Reveal!!  

Two Birds, One Stone/Blanket

Man, I love being efficient.  Devoting myself to efficiency made me a good consultant, and also keeps things running smoothly in my house.  Why be wasteful with time/money/things, when you can be super purposeful in everything you do?  (And, no, I don't drive people crazy at all...)  :)

Here is a clear example of my super productive weekend, where I tackled not one, but TWO problems at the same time. But first, it requires me to share two seemingly unrelated stories...

Story #1 (The Boring One)
My crochet stockpile had become a disaster. So many people having babies lately that I have been making blankets like a machine!  This leads to some lovely gifts, but also lots of scraps and left over yarn.  Plus, now that I am a Michael's reward member (don't make fun), I get great coupons and use them to stock up on my favorite yarn brands.  Please observe - it was out of control!

One issue that I have is that I can't throw away yarn. What if I need to do a teeny tiny hat? What if I need to wrap a wreath? What if I do another blanket in that same color - I would only need to buy one skein!  I save even the shortest of strings, just in case...

...but then I never use them, and it ends us looking like this after a few rounds of baby blanket making.

Story #2 (The More Interesting One - hopefully, since it's not about YARN)
Here at the Sasser house, we are 2 weeks in to Operation Kick-Enda-Out-Of-The-Bed. What started out as innocently letting the furbaby sleep in the bed when one of us was gone has turned into her thinking that we share her queen bed, at her discretion. And she insists on sleeping in between us, under the covers, with her head on a pillow. And, sometimes she gives kisses in the middle of the night. Plus, as we've reported, she is gassy. All good reasons to move her out!

She has a perfectly nice bed in our room, but she doesn't seem to like it.  We realized one night that she likes to burrow her face in the bed (which makes sense, since she burrows under the heavy covers in our bed or on the couch), and also tends to shiver at night.   We decided that maybe a blanket would help her to enjoy her bed more (and, thus, STAY IN IT).

So, do you see where I'm going with these stories?

I decided this weekend that I would make Enda a blanket, using all my scrap yarn - solving two problems at one time!  SUCH A PRODUCTIVE AND EFFICIENT USE OF RESOURCES!   I mean, it's not like she cares about coordinating colors.  I could go with an easy peasy pattern in any yarn I could find, then call it a day.  Which is exactly what I did.  And came out with this:

LOVELY, right? (Don't worry, I know this is ugly and would never give it to a human being.) The whole time I was making it, I was singing Dolly Parton's Coat of Many Colors song in my head.  You know that song?

My coat of many colors
That my momma made for me
Made only from rags
But I wore it so proudly
Although we had no money
I was rich as I could be
In my coat of many colors
My momma made for me

Poor Enda:  sporting her blanket of many colors that her momma made for her... Although, as you can see, she seems to like it.

In fact, it has made bed time much easier.  She goes to her bed, we put the blanket on her, and she STAYS ALL NIGHT*!  (*Well, sort of; she wakes up around 5AM, and then paces back and forth from my side to James' side while we say "get in your bed".  Usually she complies, SIGHING quite loudly and plopping herself back down.  But sometimes, if James doesn't wake up, I pull her up onto my side and let her cuddle with me.)

On another positive note, getting rid of all that yarn helped clear out the clutter, and inspired me to organize a bit.  Here you go - a nice, organized yarn stock:

So many great yarns for an actual attractive baby blanket.  To all those 2013 Summer and Fall babies joining our friends and family - I'm ready for you!   :)

Craftin': Valentine's Day!

Thanks to Pinterest, I now feel like our house is naked without a homemade wreath every season.  After recipes and crochet patterns, my most common pins are wreaths.  When James and I walk the neighborhood, I point out all the doors and say "I've seen that.  Do you like that? I could do that...", etc. Fortunately, I have a sweet husband who pretends to be interested in such things (when I know he actually doesn't care what I do - as long as it's not "chintzy".)

My first ones I made were the Fall wreaths, which I think turned out quite lovely.  Christmas time we had legit Frontgate wreaths, which did not allow for any creativity on my part.  Come January, I was ready for something nice and cutesy - Valentine's presented a perfect opportunity for some craftin'!

So, here they are, our current wreaths:

This cute little argyle pattern matches the house quite well.  I actually made two of them, one for each window on either side of the door.  (If we ever move to a place that only requires one wreath, someone is going to be the recipient of all this crafty goodness.)

Love them!  I would like to point out that I am crafty, but not creative.  This idea came from here.  I also noticed I wasn't the only one who liked them - I was blog-stalking and saw this gal made the same wreaths!  

Unfortunately, these will have to come down by Friday.  I'm torn by what to do next - St. Patrick's Day?  Is it too early for Easter?  Should I just do a standard "Spring" one and be done with it?  Ah, decisions decisions. Definitely something I should go bug James about...  :)

Craftin': Christmas Pillows

As I mentioned in my last post, I did get a little crafty this Christmas.  I can't help it - I just can't resist anything that allows me to use a sewing machine, paint brush, or glue gun!

Here is a before picture of the sitting room, where we have an obscene amount of pillows (which seemed like a good idea when I was perusing the wholesale fabric store....)

(Notice Enda being very patient and sitting in her designated spot.)

And, here is the sitting room, transformed for Christmas!

Yea for pillow covers!!

The idea did come somewhere off of Pinterest, although I'm not exactly sure where.  Plus, I used different fabric and color - so I'm going to claim this is quasi-original.

Rarely do I follow directions anyway, so I took some time to capture pictures of what I did, step by step.  This included all the cutting, the sewing, all the "help" I received from the furbabies (who all three felt the need to lie on the fabric while I tried to measure), and the painting.   Kellee came over of course, since it was Craft Day, and I even had some cute pictures of her work.

Wouldn't you like to see those pictures?  Wouldn't that be nice?

Well, TOO BAD SO SAD for us because they are on a corrupted memory card that I just discovered.  (I would be totally freaking out, but I actually think those are the only pictures I hadn't yet downloaded to my computer. So, all is not lost.  Well, minus the 2 hours of my life I spent last night trying to recover them - I won't be getting those back.)

I like the way these turned out, and saw some other cute ideas with darker linen and ink.  (Actually, inspired by you, Natalie R!)  Maybe I'll have all my camera issues solved by then and can document the craftin'.  :)

Craftin': Fall Wreaths

(** Mother Kerr - if you don't want to see your present I made you, don't keep reading because I share a picture of it!  If you feel like you're ready for the surprise, keep going...)

Obviously, I am on a ROLL with making use of my thousands of pins on Pinterest.  First, we had my successes last month with four pins in one day.  Second, I got inspired by all my many, many craft pins to make a present for my Mother (and then myself, because I think it turned out super cute).  That's what I'd like to share with you today: FALL WREATHS!!

I love Fall and I love wreaths.  And I love crafting.  This seems like a no brainer project for me. However, just because I'm inspired to make something doesn't mean it happens in a timely fashion.  Which is why I'm just now making these one month after Mother's birthday, and almost 3 weeks into September.

But they got done and that's all that matters, right?  This is mostly thanks to my dear friend Kellee, who decided she was also going to make a wreath.  She is much more committed to her crafty quests than I am.  We decided to work on them last Sunday (before James' birthday non-party).

We sat down on the kitchen island with all our felt, scissors, burlap, yarn and - most importantly - glue guns.

Kellee opted for a grapevine wreath, while I wrapped mine in an old ball of yarn I had for a past crochet project.  We got to cutting, gluing, pinning, and chatting.  Proud to say we wound up with these babies:

Super fun!  After finishing up Mother's wreath (above), I decided I needed a couple for our front windows, too. I like the look of the grapevine wreaths, plus the felt flowers reminded me of ranunculus (one of my favorite flowers from our wedding). So, I combined those two things to wind up with this:

Love this look, too!  It might inspire me to pull out all my other Fall decorations this weekend.  It's okay to put them out when it's still 90 degrees outside, right?

(Tutorials on how to make the flowers can be found here:  Frayed flowers; rolled and two toned flowers)

The stockings were hung by the chimney with care...

Growing up, we all had the most lovely stockings that Grandmom made for each one of us - with sequins and beading and cut out felt pieces.  I always loved them!  I couldn't imagine any other type of stocking for my own family.

So, now that James and I are a family, I decided to start the stocking tradition and make our own Christmas stockings.  Fortunately those types of stockings still come in a nice little kit, and once James and I picked out our stocking patterns I was all set to start working! 

After lots of cutting and whip-stitching and stuffing and sticking myself with the needle....I can FINALLY say that I have finished James' stocking!!  I say "finally" because I've been working on the dang thing since early Fall.  All those beads and embroidery work - what was I thinking!?  Well, I know what I was thinking: totally worth it because 1) I love my sweetie and 2) I adore anything crafty and 3) I can see us looking at our mantel 40 Christmases down the road and admiring all those stockings (number of said stockings all dependent upon how many children James lets us have.)

So, the finished product - pretty nice, huh!  

Notice that Santa is 3D 

Now, James has told me that since I haven't finished even started my own stocking (everything is still in the original kit package) he doesn't know if I should hang his new stocking until mine is ready.  I calmly asked him:  "are you out of your ever lovin' mind!?"  That stocking is being hung IMMEDIATELY;  in fact, it may have a permanent place in our house all year round for everyone to see.  I may just put it in the china cabinet with my formal china and grandmother's crystal.  I may also delay children another year or so because I can't bring myself to start YET ANOTHER ONE.......

Whew, sorry, got away from myself there for a moment.  :)  Truth be told, give me a week and I'll forget about how tedious all that embroidery was and won't wait to start stocking #2.  What can I say - I'm a sucker for a good craft and sparkly sequins!