self-portrait - alana style

alana had a little self portrait photo shoot - she found this very fun - the rest of us found it very cute!! i have included them all, so no one misses out on the progression!!

i love this child.

the cutest little pouches

last week i was looking for a purse pattern to use to make a quick purse to donate to the youth auction at church and i came across a new blog: made by rae. she's got some great stuff on there! she had "celebrate the boy" month in february and there on tons of cute ideas for little boy things! one of her guest posts for the month was from traci at amazing mae. also some great stuff on her site - so much sewing talent and so many wonderful ideas - just more things on my want to do list! in traci's guest post on rae's blog she did these wonderful trinket bags - too cute!! and easy!! i made three this weekend - check 'em out!

this one is a little camera bag for my co-worker maria, and the first one i made.

this was actually the third one i made. also a camera bag - but for me!

this is what i call the "rock star" - it's for clinton for his nintendo ds.

here's a close up of the star - not perfect, but not too bad for a novice!

my birthday (two weeks later)

where have i been!?!?! well, nowhere really - just not here =)
yes, my birthday was monday, march 1 (almost 2 weeks ago for those who are calendar challenged), and it was GREAT!! the week before my mom and i got to hang out and have lunch together, then the friday night before i went to dinner with friends (pictures to follow) and on my actual birthday i was taken to lunch at work and then my dad came over that night and took me to dinner...wow written out, that sounds like a lot of eating - but we are in the south, right!?

we started friday night at pei wei in brentwood - good stuff! mister max was ready for the party!!

clinton - too cute!!

alana is a master of the chopsticks...she impressed me!!

clinton so wanted me to open my gifts and was a bit disappointed that there was only one to unwrap! i was not disappointed, though - the cards have the good stuff, right?

you can't beat leftovers!

kim, clinton, and i - and max hiding behind kim - he got camera shy!

man, i love that smile!! so glad they got to come to dinner and to panera for coffee and dessert after! we sat back in the corner so the kids could play a little.

alana says "no more pictures!"

not unless she's taking them that is - more on this later!!

mr. and mrs. morel, janna, and alana

if i remember correctly i think melissa was doing a little dance here...you can't ever tell!! i am so glad she came down for the weekend!

after dinner melissa, janna and i went to my house to visit with each other...and as you can tell by what's in janna's hand, we broke out the wii - super mario brothers to be exact! it was great!!

thanks to everyone who is special to me for making my birthday so special!!

my cup runneth over - with cookies

last week kim was trying to come up with a way to thank all of the students and teachers at clinton's school for all of the support they have provided the family since clinton's diagnosis and treatment so far. they are having a party for him tomorrow since it is the last day he will be there this school year. she, like many of us (me, me, me!) tends to be a perfectionist (aka martha stewart) with things like this, so she didn't want to leave anyone out. that meant we needed a treat for 500 kids and teachers...no problem, right?

right! especially when you have wonderful friends and family who volunteer to help. when we decided what to do, i immediately emailed some wonderful ladies i know and solicited their cookie baking skills. and asked a few in person friday night. we wanted to give each child and teacher a bag with two chocolate chip cookies and a note of thanks from clitnon. within 4 days we had over 1000 cookies! amazing, right?

right! i never doubted that it would work out...not everyone i asked could participate, which i anticipated, and some folks surprised me with their generosity. my mom even made 317 cookies! these 7 ladies/families warmed my heart with their willingness.

here are just a few of the cookies before i went over to kim's to help package them up last night.

this is what i saw when i walked in kim's bedroom last night...she said "we don't have to get done tonight, but we do have get my bed cleaned off!" i wasn't sure that was going to happen, but i just got to work.
kim continued to put the cookies in ziploc bags in the kitchen while...
clinton and i stapled the notes to the bags that were already packed on the bed. he was such a great help, and took his job (and the whole process) very seriously. we talked about what we were doing and why, and he was very excited to get to give the cookies to all of his classmates.
here are some more cookies ready to be put into the lunch bags...have you ever seen so many cookies!?!?
after a long night's work, clinton zonked out on the couch. we did get kim's bed cleaned off, but didn't completely finish, so she did that today.
so clinton is all set to give all of his friends at school a nice treat tomorrow!

thank you, thank you, thank you to all of the cookie bakers - you are truly a blessing in my life! (and not just because you made a bunch of cookies)

oh, yes...max was doing a little monkeying around last night, too!! that boy is a mess...a precious mess!

do you know polyvore?

that's not the name of a new super model or movie star, it's a really cool website where you can go make inspiration boards for your next home design project. i saw it on a really cool blog
that i check out pretty regularly. i went and checked it out last week, and i'm hooked!

this is what i worked up for my living room. of course this will stay in this inspiration board form for some time, since the only piece of this room i actually own right now is the wooden trunk.
each idea board has a list connected with it to show where you can get the items and most of them have a link to the website and the price. that's right nifty! although you might not buy exactly what you find, you can get an idea of what you are looking for. (click on this picture to make it big enough to read)

and i found this chair, which i love...it's from pier one. wonderfully cheery! not terribly expensive. not a bad combination.

this is a room i did with dior one night, just messing around with some fun stuff.

you can look at other people's boards, too, which is fun. this one is fresh and fabulous!

and you can also make fashion boards (which is really what polyvore is geared toward). there are lots of these to look at!

fun stuff. go see what you can find on polyvore.

kitchen redo - part 1

i unexpectedly had the day off of work on monday, so i decided to tackle my kitchen cabinets...as i posted here my plan was to paint them a soft teal/robin's egg blue color...it's ralph lauren emperor...and even the paint chip made me happy, so i went with it.

here are my cabinets on monday morning about 8:30

about 9:00am sometime during the priming process...please ignore my disorganized cabinets...that's a task for another day!

this is about 7:30pm when i had primed and painted 2 coats on all the doors and set them around my living room to dry completely for the night.

and this is last night when after i re-hung all the doors...i like it a lot!! and yes, i should have vacuumed that rug!!

here is some of the top and bottom together - this color really lightened up the whole kitchen, and i am so glad i finally did this...now i am just more motivated to get on with the rest of the project!!

happy valentine's day

may you love and be loved.

"i need a coach bag"

that's a line from a song, ironically the only line i can remember - i don't even remember the name of it, but anyway. i like coach...i just do...and while i know i don't need any purse, and i am not going to buy this (debt free, debt free, debt free), dang! i REALLY like this bag!!

as i told my friend christine last night, if i had friends who were inclined to give really expensive birthday gifts i would absolutley ask for this. i'm just sayin'.

an ongoing project

so, i am always starting new projects...and trying to finish just as many (although that doesn't always happen). this one will undoubtedly take a long time, and i am trying not to get burnt out on it before i finish.

i have always liked quilts and am amazed at the handiwork of women of years past who did so much quilting by hand after a long days work in the fields. they made quilts out of flour sacks or fabric scraps from clothing they had made for their family. they made quilts because they needed a blanket, not because they had free time and wanted to showcase their sewing talents. they sat in quilting circles and shared storied of their lives with other women in their family and community. not that my quilt is anything like that, but that whole mind set just fascinates me.

i started thinking about making a quilt last fall, and i am just now really getting into the meat of the project.
i had purchased all of the fabric back before Christmas, and searched and searched the internet for a pattern that i love. i finally came across one that i felt wasn't too country, and easy enough for me to tackle...here it is. it's the daisy chain strippy quilt. i like that there is a pattern to it (because i need that order in my life), and i like that there is a randomness to the width of the strips (because i want the order in my life to look like it's not on purpose). yes, i know how that sounds, but that's how it is.

these are all of the fabrics that i chose. i have black and white in my bedroom now, and love the light blue/aqua/turquoise color with the black and white. i cut the strips last weekend when i was snowed in for three days...it was a time to figure out what there was to do around the house.

this is one of the first blocks i did the other night.

here are two of the blocks together, showing how, when they are next to each other the strips don't match up. i like it!

these are my tools for this job: my trusty, inexpensive sewing machine; my not-so-inexpensive sewing scissors, also trusty; and my fun, pink pin cushion with only teal straight pins...because when i use all different color pens i tend to be obsessed with grouping the like colors together...don't ask!

wishing

so, i found some great dinnerware at target last fall that i really like. the problem is that i was going to buy it in parts, and before i got finished buying it, they quit carrying it...and i can't find it anywhere now....so eventually i am going to have to buy something else. i was just looking around on the internet and i think i have fallen in love...meet fitz and floyd's line called global market
lots of bright colors, wonderful floral pattern...

the bowls, cups, plates, etc. come in red, blue and the one above called motif..
the colors don't exactly match the southern living stuff currently have out in the kitchen, but it's all about "blendy, blendy not matchy, matchy", right?

the colors are so rich and vibrant...

and seriously, how could you deny this bird - i think it's the cutest little thing i ever did see!