Crafting with Grandma

At least once a year, I try to get together with Grandma and have a craft or sewing night.

Grandma is my husbands Grandmother on his Dad's side. She had three boys, and her three boys went on to have 7 more boys and only 1 girl. Poor Grandma was outnumbered for years!

But now that the cousins are all married there is a baby boom happening. And guess what, we have had a streak of girls. Eight in a row to be exact! And with five of the eight cousins pregnant right now, it seemed fitting to do a baby girl craft night. Not all of the girls could make it, but we had fun hot gluing, sewing and chatting the night away.

We made baby legs out of tube socks, flower bows and satin flowers.

This is one of the hair flowers we worked on

And this is another

And some more

Notice the boy colored baby legs? One of the pregnant mamas has her fingers crossed!

We are all so thankful to have Grandma in our lives. She offers up so much encouragement and wisdom and she is such an awesome example to us all of how to be a Godly woman, wife and mother. Grandma is the most hospitable woman you have ever met and in an age where we outsource so much of our lives, she offers up the experience to encourage us to get back to basics. She's an amazing listener and is always so thoughtful in the advice that she gives, never passing judgement but only wanting to understand our situation. I always cherish her handwritten notes or her little article clippings that she sends when she's thinking about a conversation we had or a life moment that we are in. I brought my 9 year old daughter along since it was a "girls" night and as we pulled out of the driveway I said to her "we are so lucky to have Great Grandma in our lives". I always learn something from her and appreciate the time that we have in each others company. I'm definitely looking forward to another craft night soon!

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A fun trip to the furniture store

As I mentioned here I have been looking for a buyer for our "red chairs" as the kids like to call them. They just don't fit in our new space so I set off to find something smaller.

I was dreading mentioning the fact that my kids had to join me on a trip to a furniture shop. Seriously, what child likes to go along furniture shopping? Not mine!

I have heard for years that I should go to The Old Cannery and I bribed the kids with candy knowing that they had a fudge shop inside.

But they didn't just have a fudge shop, they also had all kinds of other fun stuff like trains on tracks above their heads, people that talked, golf carts to sit in and play with and then more trains. The kids thought it was the best shop ever!

And I found some cool stuff.

Isn't this old woody cool? My youngest wants to do a surf theme in his room...I think.

I was also trying to get inspiration for my master bedroom furniture when I get around to painting it. I thought this style was similar to our current bed.

And look at this cool vintage train car sofa. I love the wheels, the numbers and the linen pillows!

It's so cool it deserves another picture!

Finally we found the section with the chairs...remember...the whole reason for the trip.

I needed something smaller than the 42" wide chair we currently have and wanted one in off white.

This one is a contender and was pretty comfy.

And so was this tufted one

And this leather one

I got sidetracked again by more burlap, black and linen goodies

Aren't these pillows adorable? I love the font

These really cute steamer trunks feed into my vintage suitcase obsession

Who can go wrong with a galvanized bucket full of cute pillows?

O.k. back to reality and the reason I came.

I picked up two of these bad boys.

Now to sell the red chairs and move them into the house. And thankfully, when we need to get a new mattress and head to the furniture store again, I know that the kids will actually be looking forward to the trip, not dreading it!

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potato sack pillows

When we bought our first house almost 11 years ago, we had a formal living room that sat empty for about a year until we could decide on some furniture. We finally settled on a set from Bassett. The couch is a pull out couch which is perfect for guests (ie it's not too comfy that they want to stay forever!) when they come and visit.

And we had two custom matching chairs made to go with it. It all worked together just fine until we moved. I'm trying to get rid of these chairs and get something that works better in our new den.

Thankfully, the couch is neutral, so a change in pillows helps to update the couch and make it work in any space. In this case, our new bonus room that has a funky junk vintage feel to it...or is trying to at least!

See what I mean?

I was waiting until garage sale season as I like to call it, so that I could find some pillow forms to fit in with the rice sacks I found here and the potato sacks I found here.

It took me a little bit, but I finally found some! I paid $2 for these 3 pillows (doesn't matter what they look like, I just used them inside the sacks), and $1 for the smaller pillows that the rice sacks are covering.

Here the pillows are before:

And after

One of the sacks was from these Chief brand pinto beans

Another was an authentic potato sack

And one was blank

The brown rice sacks were smaller, but worked great since they slid right down over the pillow that I had, so I only had to sew the top and bottom.

Do you remember these ? I think they work sitting on the coffee table in front of the couch now.

So what do you think? The total cost for the transformation and materials was less than $5. Not too shabby! Now what to put on the wall behind it...Stay tuned!

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Garage sale finds Friday 18

Have you entered the Three Munchkins giveaway yet? Don't forget! Now let's get started with Garage Sale Finds Friday.

Welcome to another week of Garage Sale Finds Friday where I show you some of my fabulous garage sale finds from the week. Ready to get started?

Nope, these aren't all mine, but I wish they were.

I sort of have a thing for Ball jars. The older the better. I got these two for $1 each. I also picked up that sweet little Squirt bottle for $1. It's old and it's cool.

I wish I had taken a before picture of this wire cage but I didn't. It was used as an Easter decoration with fake grass and a brown bunny inside. The dog ate the bunny, and I threw the grass away and filled it with some of my book page eggs. I paid 50 cents for the cage.

I also am in love with apothecary jars. I hope I didn't miss the trend on that one, but I think they are pretty cool.

Is it wrong that I want to find zillions of apothecary jars and fill them with candy that only I am allowed to eat?

My grand total for these items: $4.50. What did you find this weekend?

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How to Plant Containers the Magic Formula

As promised here and here, I thought it was time to share some pictures of the work I have been doing on the landscaping. I've spent some long days spreading bark and rocks and doing my best to plant plants.

I actually just heard the best rule for planting planters. It's got three steps: Thrill, Fill, and Spill. If you remember those, you can't go wrong!

The thrill in my planters is the big flax, the spill is the white plant called Bacopa and the other fillers are Petunias, Pansies and Kalanchoe. I placed one pot on either side of my garage door.

I'm pretty sure the previous owners didn't spend a whole lot of time on their yard, so we spruced up the garden beds by adding 3-5 inches of beauty bark in the beds. It not only cuts down on the weeds, it helps the plants retain moisture so you don't have to water as often.

There was a small bed on the front side yard that got planted with two azaleas and a Pieris plant. Remember the rule of thumb is to always plant in threes.

I also took the time to edge the gardens with several inches of rock.

Most of the plants in this area were here, I just pulled out a few of the dead plants and put in a few peonies, another azalea (they love our weather) and some lilies.

Remember, we just put the side fence in not too long ago. The perimeter of the yard is flanked with garden beds but most of the plants were dead so we had to start from scratch. I picked up five day lilies at a garage sale for $5 (yep, you can even get plants at garage sales!) and planted them on this side next to a large Rhododendron that I found left for dead on the side of the road.

I dug up some of my hens and chicks from my old house and brought them to the new house in this .

Along the fence I planted in a pattern.

I used dwarf boxwood, flax, juniper and some small decorative grasses to complete the garden.

Eventually, they will grow and spread and not look so sparse.

And on the other side of the yard, I planted a few hostas, and some more decorative grasses.

There was an empty patch along the house, so I planted a few lavender plants that were in the half off bin.

There were a few beds by the steps to the back patio that were already planted. While I don't necessarily love the plants that are in them, they are there, so I worked around them.

I also filled these particular beds with rocks because when it rains our back yard gets really soggy and this area in particular starts to from a nice little pond. So, I thought if we added the rocks, it would keep the water from forming too much, and then the dog wouldn't get quite so muddy when she spends time outside.

And that's it! Lot's of plants, lots of bark and lots of rocks made for lots of long hours of work outside, but I know that in a few years as the plants start to grow in, we will be happy with the results. Don't forget to enter the Three Munchkins giveaway for your chance to win a $25 credit!

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