the playroom

A peek into one of my favorite rooms in our home.

The playroom.

Valences built by Dominic, upholstered by me.

Three IKEA DIGNITET curtain wires for art display. Lots more I want to hang up here ...

Hand print art canvases.

Juliet did her first print last year when she turned 2. I plan on adding a hand print every year. Guess I need to get on that since she just had her birthday!!

we were out with the sun

Nothing very coherent to say tonight, but lots of pictures to share.



The sun was out.



We were out with the sun.

It was a wonderful surprise for the middle of February.



We broke out the bubble machine and sidewalk chalk and played barefoot in sundresses.

Some of us insisted on doing big girl things.

And some of us insisted on wearing both a dress AND a skirt.



You just can't wear too much pretty stuff at the same time.

I sanded and stained and am just about done with the bookshelf.



Just about ...

We celebrated Dominic's 31st birthday. Juliet and I made this cake. It was good, but not great in my opinion. Garth apparently feels differently ... but maybe Tricia makes it better than I did.

My first chocolate cake from scratch :)

The girls didn't understand why I didn't want to spend the day outside today.

It's cold again.

Corinne has figured out that walking may just be a better way to get around as she can hold things while she walks.

And ponder the meaning of life while she walks :)

I have no idea why she was doing that!



Happy days here.



Life is good.

Juliet asked me to take a picture of her toenails.

The end.

painting and cleaning and hair cutting and walking

Not much time to blog.

Been painting this.

Finally picking up where I left off - 2 coats of primer and one coat of antique white - back in November.

Still lots of steps left and at the rate I'm moving, I'd say the bookcase will be ready for books in ... May :)

Today I cleaned out our little spice cabinet.

It was a mess. Things were starting to fall out when I attempted to shove them back in. I feel much better now. I may have alphabetized the spices cause I'm a dork. I may be a hoarder of ground ginger. I can't say for sure. You'll just have to come over and peek in my cabinet to see ...

I had to smile when I placed the Cajun Spice and Old Bay seasonings back on their shelves. Reminded me of days gone by. Days when I pretended I might be a good petroleum engineer or a crab eating super secret spy (or something like that).

Happy days.

Days that seem so long ago.



I gave the girls hair cuts. I can't help myself.

If you give a girl a pair of scissors, she'll pretend she went to cosmotology school.



I think they look cute.

And here's Beetles a walkin'

recovered chair cushions and how I got my hands on my first vintage fabric

First of all, I dug out my sewing machine and can't find my bin of thread. Anywhere. What? As I rummaged through every closet in the house three different times, I kept thinking, this would NEVER happen to Jen :)

Anyways, a little bit on project that didn't involve my sewing machine.

Recovering our dining room chairs.

After only a year they all looked about like this.

Apparently Juliet didn't like to contain her spills to just one chair :)

My first thought was to recover them with oilcloth, but I couldn't decide on one. Nothing fit with everything else in the room. Months went by and our chairs kept dirtier and dirtier ...

As kind of a last resort I typed "oilcloth" in Etsy, and found this beautiful fabric from seller Rabbits Fabrics.





It was described as a vintage fabric, heavier than a polished cotton, but lighter weight than an oilcloth. The colors were perfect. And the shop owner had JUST ENOUGH!

It was meant to be.

I had to have it.

And I love it.

I bought every bit she had cause I'm selfish like that ;)

I just got them all recovered this morning.

I think I'm going to put some clear vinyl over two of them. Just to keep the beautiful fabric safe from food and drink spills :)

This was such an easy project and made such a big difference!

what to do when you're stuck inside

Cabin fever.

What?

We know no such thing.

I am practically a pro at being stuck at home after my 6 week recovery stretch after foot surgery. What's a few more days? Daddy's been stuck at home too so that is a definite plus :)

Lots of fun things going on around here. Wanna see?

Snow eating. We've done a lot of this. Snow comes inside when we let Charlie out. This means snack time for the girls.

Tent building.

Bubbles! These are just fun all year round. Sometimes a blurry photo captures the moment better than a crisp one would have ...

We made snow ice cream and it was sooooo very yummy. I got the idea and recipe from Annalea's blog. Love her blog. You should check her out sometime.

Trash bag snow pants. They say necessity is the mother of invention and that was definitely the case here. These were a perfect waterproof outer layer to the 3 layers underneath.

She told me that her "coat wasn't working" ... no Juliet, you're just cold :) And note that her freakin' awesome pants were "working" just fine!!!

Beetles whined the entire time I bundled up Juliet and the entire time I dressed her to go outside. When she finally made it outside, the marshmallow girl lasted about 2 minutes. Because she put her face in the snow. Twice.

Sitting somewhat happily on the snow.

The fall.

The aftermath.

Silly girl.

Since the snow outside didn't go so well, we opted for this (Also inspired by Annalea. I told you I love her!).

Much better. They just wanted to eat the snow anyways.

Juliet helped me finish up a festive Valentine's Day garland for the window while Beetles napped.

A tutorial of sorts coming later ...

And last but not least, making headway on the project I blogged about last night.

One chair down, seven to go!

I will likely write more about a few of these things in the next few days ... I mean, I have to tell you how I made the trash bag snow pants, right?

Oh, and all my okie blizzard photos can be viewed here.