Archive for June 2012

Ruffled Neckline Tutorial: Yellowcloth

blogs, features, ruffles, sewing, tutorial

I was browsing through the links from this week's party and stumbled upon a great tutorial which Jacinda at Yellowcloth linked up. She teaches us how to embelish a neckline on a plain shirt with cascading ruffles. So pretty! I appreciate this tutorial for couple of reasons: good pictures, easy to follow directions, and a finished product I wish I had in my closet!

Features and Latest & Greatest Link Party #37

9 comments

blogs, features, link party

Thank you all for linking up last week! There were so many great links and I am so excited to have you all participate! Here are some favorites!

Lake Cottage Dreams created this gorgeous room makeover. I love the soft, pretty colors.

Country Momma Cooks linked up this yummy looking Hershey Bar cake. I hope to try this soon!

This sweet, summery shelf vignette was linked up by The Messy Roost.

Deep in the Heart of Arkansas inspired me to change up my dinner menu with these Asian Glazed Chicken Drumsticks.

Dumped and Discovered had me wishing I could move this secretary right into my home. I love the color!

And now onto this week's party!

Glass Cabinet Doors

1 comment

DIY, furniture, refinish

We spent the whole afternoon at the pool and my kids are wiped! We went back after dinner so they got a double dose and now they are tucked in bed snoozing the day away! I hope you had a great day too!

I wanted to post a little tutorial on how I repaired the glass in the cabinet doors of the china cabinet I made over.

It looked like this when I began. The glass was held in place by very slim pieces of wooden moulding that were nailed onto the cabinet door with teeny tiny nails that only a mouse could hammer in.

You can see the wood moulding here a bit. See it on the right side of the arch? It's boinging out because the nails were rusty, missing, or the wood had dried and split away from them.

I wanted the glass but I knew the original method wasn't going to work for me since I didn't have a teeny tiny hammer or the interest in finding wood that thin, bending it, etc. Nope, silcone caulk was the way for me! I used one that said it was for doors, windows, and trim.

Make sure to get clear as it comes in different colors! This stuff rocks!

I flipped the door so the outer side was on the table. I had a routed lip/ edge/channel in which to lay the glass so I didn't need to do anything to create the lip/edge/channel thing. So I centered it as much as possible in the channel and then slowly ran a bed of caulk so that half the bead was on the glass and half was on the wood. I snipped the tip so that I had a pretty thick bead because there was a large gap between the glass and the door frame.

Then I smoothed the bead with my finger and wiped any smudges with a wet paper towel. I let it dry over night and it was perfect! The glass was held in place and I didn't need to find a mouse to wield a tiny hammer!

Easy peasy. Don't you love when it's easy peasy?

Cheers!
Jenny

Dining Room and Powder Room Updates

23 comments

chalkboard, decor, decorating, DIY, family, furniture, House progress, kids, projects, refinish, seasons, table

Hi! We are thoroughly enjoying summer and I can honestly say that we are doing a whole lotta nuthin' and lovin' it. Today Molly went to our town's safety program called Safety Town. It's so cute. For two weeks the kids learn about all types of ways to be safe: bike safety, pedestrian safety, fire, etc. Afterwards, we had our neighbors over. My neighbors are the best. They have two little girls who get along so well with ours and we adore their parents. Just cool people. So the girls spent hours playing outside and then more friends came and the fun continued. Molly was exhausted! This is how I envisioned my summer.

I'll be honest. Last summer was incredibly hard. Molly was very unhappy to move so far from our friends and she missed our sweet little house. She hated our apartment, longed for her yard back and for the familiarity she had always known. She cried a lot and struggled to find friends. She would try to meet other kids at the park and get rejected, mostly because they already had their little friends with them and she would sit by herself with her head on her knees.

To add salt to her wounds, she had double eye surgery and was uncomfortable for much of the summer. I felt like her little heart was so broken and I struggled to find a way to help it heal. I didn't do a great job either. I wish I could go back and be gentler on her. Maybe not fuss so much about her bedtime or her hair being combed or whatever.

I vowed this summer would be different. It would be filled with friends, lightening bugs, swimming, and ice cream cones. Today was a great example. My friend and I laughed as we watched 4 little girls come running barefoot out of the house in various dress up outfits (ladybug, mermaid, ballerina, and fairy!), jump off the deck and sprint to the far edge of our yard to hang upside down on the swing set and to later exclaim that they had seen fairies in the trees. I am so grateful that we found not just a house but a home that is now filled with friends and laughter!

And it's slowly becoming a home we feel reflects us. I recently added the doors back onto my china cabinet and now it's complete! You can check out the back story on this cabinet here.

Here are some snapshots of the dining room.

The day we closed on the house.

This buffet was given to me by my parents. It had been in the house I grew up in forever and they gave it to us when they sold. The painting is a Jenny original and I keep thinking I will repaint it the right way some day! LOL!

I need to put some stuff up on the walls that is still packed from our move. Eventually I'll upgrade our dining set and get a much bigger one.

I mentioned that Jim has been working on the powder room and I am so excited! We painted it with chalkboard paint!! It's so cool. I am going with a vintage school house vibe in it but I don't want it to be theme-y.

What we were starting with

We added a thicker, chunkier than usual cap molding for the top as we wanted to feel a little like a chalk ledge in a classroom of yore.

We changed the fixtures over to new ORB ones. I love it!

As we progress I'll post more! Eventually I hope to do bigger reveals. Enjoy these snips though!

Cheers!
Jenny

Quittin' TV Cold Turkey

9 comments

books, family, kids

Before I had children I knew ALL about how to raise them. Really, I was an expert. MY children wouldn't eat that much sugar. MY children will not drive us out of restaurants with poor behavior. MY children will never point to an elderly gentleman in Target and yell "LOOK AT THAT OLD DEAD GUY!" But alas, God was laughing knowing my children would do all those things and more and for some of it my role will be as co-conspirator. So here is my confession. Molly watches an insane amount of television and eats an even more insane amount of sugar laden treats. Oh, we read and do crafts together and tell stories and tickle. And we eat veggies and fruit. But in between those times Molly is zoned with sugar and TV. She loves both and begs for them constantly.

I stood back and took a look at us recently. Jim works super long hours on some days so on the other days I felt like he was entitled to spend his down time as he wanted which was usually in front of the TV after playing with the girls. Ellie thinks the words "night-night" means to watch TV in my bed with Molly which was their little ritual together. WTheck????

I blew my stack a few days ago when Molly asked for millionth time if she could have a lollipop at 7:35 in the morning. (No, my daughter hasn't ever had a lollipop for breakfast but she sure lives in hope that some day she will). I decided that we were all going on a sugar/TV fast for the entire weekend, including all day on Friday and Monday. So a total of 4 days without my family's favorite vices.

How's it going? Here's a clue.

Molly built a TV out of a box. She played with it all day. I'm not kidding. She even made me pretend to change the channel. Can we say withdrawal? And Teddy wasn't the only player. She got in that box repeatedly to give us the weather report.

We were in a store yesterday and Molly came out with this.

Molly: Mom, it doesn't matter if we don't watch TV because I can watch it in my brain by thinking.

Me: I guess that's true! Are you watching right now?

Molly: yup!

Me: What are you watching?

Molly: Commercials (said with a sigh)

Poor kid. I mean commercials in your pretend TV in your head? That is so sad to me!

I will admit to you, friends, that Jim and I do watch a bit after the girls have gone to bed. And we may have had a small ice cream cone while doing so. Besides, The Real Housewives of NJ was on the DVR so I kind of consider that grandfathered in.

But overall we have all enjoyed each other's company so much. We have done so much more laughing together and right now Jim is reading some books for work. He never reads. He watches TV. But he chose this instead. And he spent the day installing bead board in our powder room instead of watching people do it on HGTV. Super.

On Tuesday we get our vices back but I am going to make a huge effort to limit it much more than we did in the past. Wish me luck!

This is Molly during a production of one of her sad shows.

Cheers!
Jenny

Latest and Greatest Link Party # 36

5 comments

blogs, inspiration, link party, projects, tutorial

Summer Mantels

7 comments

beach, blogs, decor, decorations, fireplace, inspiration, mantel, seasons

My mantel is yucky and ugly so I decided not to decorate it for summer. Instead I mantelized the top of my little china cabinet. It's enough mantel for me! I just threw up some shells in a bowl, some candlesticks, and a message in a bottle. My favorite part is the book of essays called Gifts of the Sea by Anne Morrow Lindbergh.

Here are some beautiful mantels from around the blogiverse!

Cheers!

Jenny

Shutter Dogs

37 comments

decor, inspiration

Home Depot

I adore shutter dogs! Do you? No, it's not a Quentin Tarantino movie about windows. I mean those little fixtures that are on the base of exterior shutters? Most of the time they are the curly S shaped pieces but you can find them in lots of shapes if you look hard enough. In the good ole days they were meant to hold the shutters open and maybe your shutters need some holding. But mine are fixed to the house and are purely decorative so my dogs would be too.

All About Shutters

It's important to note that some shutter dogs mount to siding, some to the window sill, and some to brick. They are secured in different ways and you have to make sure you are buying the correct kind for your surface.

The other night I took Pixie for a long walk in a neighborhood in a neighboring town. It's a historic town and most of the houses are 100 years old or more. They all had shutter dogs and I decided that I was going to join them. It's on the list now! Look at some of these inspiration pictures!

Better Homes and Gardens