Golden Crust

For the past six months (or more) the walls in every room in my house has been multicolor. That's my way of saying I've either half painted or parcially painted every room of the house. Seven rooms. Bedrooms, bathrooms, kitchen, living room.

Today, that changed....some.

Michael and I finished painting the living room today. It used to be a sage green and as much as I like that color, I got really tired of looking at it. Plus, it made the living room look small. We had started painting on it three months ago then I got sick and had surgery so it was put on hold.

I promise, my living room was spotless before we started a few days ago. This is what happened.




See that horrible green carpet? I hate it!!

I am very happy with the walls. I don't know how long it will take to put everything away and put things back on the wall, but at least we accomplished something.

That checkered chair will be one of my upcoming projects. It is the most comfortable chairs I've ever had, but we'll get into that later.

Believe it or not Michael and I had actually discussed it and decided to finish the kitchen before we start on anything else...yeah right!! I can multi-task. I painted seven rooms at one time remember? ;)

New Camera

I got it! I got a new camera. It's not a DSLR, but it's a good camera. 12.1 mega pixels, 4x zoom and it's a Cannon. Oh, it's pink too!! I'm extremely happy that I found it and it was on clarance.

There's nothing and I mean nothing better than a sale.

Now, I can actually take pictures and put them on the blog!! Hopefully it'll start getting a bit more interesting. Please forgive me if there's random pictures because I'm having a blast with this thing. I haven't seen a clear picture in so so long.




As you can tell from the background of this picture, I'm painting my living room a calming golden crust from Dutch Boy. I will post that as soon as it's done. I plan on rearranging everything on the walls. I'm just tired of the same thing everyday. Gotta change it up some.

I'm in such a good mood this week I believe I will have a giveaway towards the end of the week. Don't know what I'll be giving away, but come back and check.

Happy Monday all!!

Starting my kitchen garden

This week I've been potting herbs. I found this kit from Wal-Mart a few months back, but the seeds didn't sprout. This time I bought the seeds separate and reused the cute little lime-green pots that came in the kit.



On the left I have basil, in the center I have thyme and the right is sage. This is after a week of being a seed. Nature amazes me. {Please excuse the messy counter, I was in the middle of cooking when I took the picture.}



These two little budding seeds are lavender. I've never even tried to grow it, but, I know this is strange, I watched the movie "It's Complicated" and Meryl Streep made lavender ice cream. "WHAT??" I thought to myself. "I gotta try it."

I've always thought of lavender as being an ingredient in smell good body stuff and candles. Never in my wildest dreams did I know it could be comsumed. So, since I like the smell anyways and I don't plan on buying a sachet of lavender from the local lingerie shop and try to add it in ice cream... This way, I know where the lavender came from and that there is no added smell good stuff in it. Keep your fingers crossed on my herbs for me. I've been known to have a black thumb, but at least it's not from lack of trying. One day I'll get it right!

I'm Finally Back

It's been a long long time. Too long. Things have been crazy in the Polk household in the last few months. I found out I had one stage before cervical cancer and have been having biopsies then surgery. It's been a week since my surgery and hopefully it'll be my last!! If you have children please talk to their physician about the HPV vaccine. It can end cervical cancer. I will be taking my children to get the vaccine.

I am starting to feel normal so I'm back in the saddle and ready to get my craftiness on. Spring is here, the sun is out and I'm in a very good mood. I have a lot of things planned to post this spring so bare with me and sorry for disappearing for a while.

Pillows

I finished a wonky block pillow for my daughter. She thinks its great. I think I need to learn to do a hidden stitch something awful.

I have finished a few different things, but my camera is again acting up and I can't get a clear picture to save my life. It has this mist in the lens and I don't know what to do to get it out! I'm thinking a new DSLR camera would fix it!

I have been going through some medical issues lately and it has prevented me from being able to post as much as I want. My stress level has been at an all time high! I will be spending much of this week back at the doctor and when I know more, I'll tell you more. Prayers would be great appreciated.

Goings On

It's been a while since I've posted. Winter has hit the plains and down here, all hell breaks loose when it snows! Kids have been home, their mom has been going crazy!
I have been doing a lot of different little things and will show pictures as soon as there's a day of even partial sunshine outside. I made my daughter a wonky block pillow. I've started making coffee cozies. I love cozies!
I've opened an Etsy shop. It's empty right now, but I'm hoping to fill it soon with a variety of different stuff. Please bare with me, I will be posting more often. Now it's back to yet another snow day with the kiddos. Hope every ones winter is going great!

Summer Quilt

It wasn't on the first half of my 2010 list, but I had to make this quilt. It only took me a few hours to cut out the pieces and about two hours to sew it together.



I am SO happy with it. This is the fabric that I won here . Since the colors were so rich and dark I put white with them to make them pop. I think it turned out great. I can't wait to get it quilted and binded.




It's a bad picture, but it's cold and windy outside.

My daughter can't wait to use it on her bed. I told her it will be a summer quilt. I'm going to put a thinner batting in the middle and it's not full sized. If you've ever been to Oklahoma in the summer, you know there's only so much an air conditioner can do so thin is key!

Help me name this quilt. Under the Sea just doesn't fit to me. What do you think??

2010 To Do List

This year I plan on doing a lot of different things. I plan on finding a job also so this should be interesting!! Anyways, here's what I have so far and trust me, it'll grow.
1. Make a star block to go in a frame for my daughters wall.
2. Finish all three of the girls quilts that were supposed to be done by Christmas.
3. Finish editing my book and get it turned in.
4. Paint the kitchen walls and our bedroom walls.
5. Find a wing back chair to redo! (This one I can't wait for)
6. Make the girls clothes for spring pictures.
7. Learn to knit! (I have the book, just haven't opened it)
8. Silhouettes of all of us. (Already finished one of the youngest and I LOVE it)
9. Make a postage stamp quilt.
10. Make a wonky block quilt.
11. Do some embroidery.
12. Redecorate just about every room in the house.

That's what I have in the thirty minutes I sat down and made myself commit to something. These are the things I want to get down and I will do them I'm positive....well, pretty sure, that I will. As a matter of fact I'm going to start working on the first one on the list here in just a minute.

Sorry I don't have any pictures just yet, but I will. What's on your project list this year??

Four Dollar Find

Today my sister-in-law called to see if I wanted to get out of the house with her and go to our local resale shop. Of course I wanted to go! I love our resale shop! It's CHEAP!! Everything was on sale!! Lillie and I attacked. We went straight to the house stuff and ended up with great buys. I don't remember what all she bought, but it was a lot and only cost her three dollars!

This is what I found... A wine glass rack, two small shelves that match what I already have, two decorative balls, and the molding thingy. All for $4.00!!!



I have already started spray painting the molding thingys black and they look awesome! I can't wait to hang them in my bedroom. The wine rack....I have no idea if it will work in my kitchen, but at 75 cents I had to try!

Nothing like good finds to brighten my day!!

Bathroom Curtains

This was what the curtains looked like in the guest bathroom aka kids bathroom. They were HORRIBLE! I hated them as I put them up, but something had to go up there and it was all I had at the time.

I found this fabric that I fell absolutely in love with and their bathroom was the perfect place for them. I will admit, their bathroom stays a disaster 99% of the time so normally I don't even think about doing anything to it. Here lately though, I've decided I'm going to redo their entire bathroom and they are just going to have to live with it!



Here is what the curtains look like now!! I LOVE them. Since it's a tiny window I made them larger so it gives the illusion that the window is bigger.

I am going to be putting a little yellow throughout the bathroom. I picked yellow for the bottom because for some God awful reason the builders put a yellow bathtub in there!

I will be putting more pictures in the coming weeks of the transformation of their bathroom. This is just the beginning. Before long it will be my entire house getting overhauled!