Little work = Lots of projects

I have worked for the same transcription company for almost 12 years now, and the workload always slows down from mid November to the end of January.  For some reason this year it has yet to pick back up to normal speed.  I am typing only 40-50% as much as I usually do.  This is a good and a bad thing.  While it means that I am only making 40-50% as much money as I usually do (thank goodness Drew got a raise at work!) it also means I have more free time during the day.  This has led me to work on decorating the house a bit more as well as peruse the pages of Pinterest and actually make some of the crafts I have pinned.

This little gem I found at a yard sale last summer.  Such a cute little dish cupboard for the girls play kitchen.  I forgot to take a true "before" picture of it that showed that the bottom two cabinet doors were broken.  So handy Drew created two new doors for it and he and Carly sanded it down and painted it.  With a couple of new knobs it was complete.  I believe I paid $15 for the cabinet, $6 for the new doors, $3 for the paint, and $6 for the knobs.  Total cost = 30 bucks!

 

Next up...more curtains.  I've been wanting to put some up for a while now but haven't been able to talk myself into making them.  There are four windows in the kitchen/dining area and one in the family room and it just felt a bit overwhelming since I despise sewing.  I found a tutorial on Pinterest for these simple tailored valances and armed with my iron-on hem tape (Don't tell my mom because she made curtains as her career my entire life growing up and might be a tad big disappointed in her daughter's lack of sewing skills) and staple gun, I got to work.  Picking the fabric was one of the hardest parts.  I've probably looked at the fabric store six or seven times and kept leaving without buying any because: A) I didn't want to fork out so dang much money and B) I could not choose which fabric I liked best.  Eventually, with a little reassurance from Carly, I was able to choose one.  We hung them up high so that it would make the windows look larger and also so that the light would not shine through them because they aren't lined.  Two birds with one stone baby. 

Before

After

 

I also broke down and bought some new vinyl-leathery fabric to recover the barstools because Brooke has successfully grossified the microfiber on every single seat cushion!  That girl is like a little tornado of messiness in a very cute little package.  I don't really like the dark color as much for the seats but I LOVE that I can just wipe them off with a damp cloth and they look new again.  Did I mention that I found these gorgeous barstools with sexy curved legs and swivel seats for a mere $15 each of KSL?  Superfind of the century my friends! 

 

The master bedroom has been slightly neglected while I worked on the girls rooms and great room, so I decided to "make" some curtains for the windows in there as well.  I took two packs of different curtains that I bought from Ross and altered them.  They were originally two panels that were 84" long.  I cut each panel in half so that I could have four drapes and then took the top of one of the curtains and sewed it onto the bottom of the other so that they were about 92" long.  My only wish is that they could have been a bit wider so they looked a little more substantial, but I love the fabrics and how perfectly the floral matches our bedspread.  I'm all about matchy-matchy.

Before

 After

 

I used the rest of one of the brown panels to make a no-sew knotted pillow cover for the bed. 

 

Drew re-painted the frame and matte of his painting of the Savior and I painted a few smaller frames and decorated a bit around the room.  The little "orb" is made from embroidery hoops, the stitchery was made for us by my good friend Cindy when we got married, the lace doily under the stitchery was one of the only things we bought for ourselves when we were in Europe a few years ago, and the picture in the $2 oval-with-domed-glass-frame-from-the-DI (yes!) is of my Great Grandmother White and her little sister.  Too cute!

 

The front door has been blank since we moved in, so I made a wreath for it.  I've always wondered why wreaths cost so much and now I have a greater appreciation for that because it ain't cheap to make one yourself either!  I think I need to move the "M" in a little more to the center of the wreath but that will have to wait for another day.

 

I added a few do-dads to the kitchen by making a soap dispenser from a Mason jar and putting it up on a cake stand/candle holder, making a wooden pedestal bowl from DI, and topped it off with a $4 tall grass floral piece again from the glorious Deseret Industries.  Guys!  I take pride in my thriftiness, can you tell?

 

And the last of my projects the past couple of weeks has been sewing up some little boleros/shrugs to go over Brooke and Savannah's Easter dresses.  I made them out of $3.88 t-shirts from Wal-Mart because I didn't want to pay $13 a piece for cardigans from the store.

 

 And before I leave the subject of home projects, I wanted to post a picture of the AWESOME mud bench Drew made for me.  He did it for my birthday but I never got around to posting a pic of it.  The builder thought it was good enough to just tile a bench and didn't put up a shelf or nothin'.  Psha!  That did not work for me.  First of all I think it's a little strange that the bench is tiled, but what can you do about it at this point?  Drew put up bead board, framed it all in with some wider boards, and built the awesome shelf with hooks and brackets.  Love it!  The little wire basket thingy to the right is supposed to be a homework organizer but so far just gets jammed with any sort of paper/wrapper/junk the girls choose to shove in there.  But it's better than having them strewn all over the bench, floor, and washing machine and dryer.

As for the fam, we are all doing well.  I have had a hard time lately dealing with the fact that my baby is almost 3.  I love babies so much and it makes me sad that we won't be having another, but I know I can't handle another child.  I would go crazy.  Heck, I already feel crazy!  I feel very blessed and happy to have the four beautiful daughters that I do.

Sleeping Beauty

 

Both Carly and Abbie got to go on skiing field trips for school.  Abbie's was cross country and I unfortunately didn't get a picture of her from her teacher, but Carly's teacher sent me these two:

 

My sweet Grandma Penman turned 90 on March 20th.  Words cannot express how much I love this lady!  She means so much to us all.  She didn't want to have a party but I did surprise her with a cake and a book full of letters from her children and grandchildren. 

 

And as usual I will part with pictures of the cakes I have done the past few weeks.

A "strong man" themed cake

An "Uno" cake

A baptism cake

Lego Movie man cake 

A cake for my new neighbor, Julie.  Too bad they requested writing because I have TERRIBLE handwriting.  Hopefully it wasn't enough to ruin the cake as a whole.  She seemed pretty happy with it.  :)