Finished....

Last week I finally piled up all the tired out throw pillows from around the house. Joslyn came downstairs one day when I was working on picking the fabrics to recover them and sounded very concerned about the mess I had made with all the fabric. She asked me "what happened!!" guess I should have taken a picture to document the explosion!

We almost had last minute missionary friends staying here tonight, but while we waited to hear if they were coming, it gave me a chance to finish making the slip covers that I had slowly worked on over the last week. Here are a few pictures of the finished work in progress. It made the guest bed look so fun!

Happy Birthday......

Yesterday was my 35th birthday! While I know that every year I get older, it doesn't really bother me because every year is always so full of blessings. My life -I am very thankful for. My husband left me a little note on facebook today saying that each new birthday just means we have spent another year together, so bring on the birthdays! I agree! We got married young and have grown up together and have a very full blessed life. Yesterday we spent the day at home together which is exactly what I like. I am a home body, crowded restarants just aren't for me-so we always cook and order in. What is better than eating some yummy food in my pj's!! But honestly, we had had a few crazy days leading up to my birthday and the down time was very much appreciated. We had lost our power in the big blizzard here in Chicagoland, and when it was restored our hot water heater blew, soaking our basement(and my studio) so Wednesday we spent the day replacing that and cleaning up the mess. My husband and a good friend were able to replace the water heater themselves, thankfully. But I had a really good day with the kids and Matt. We spent a lot of time around the table laughing. Matt gave me one of the Smallville seasons on DVD(shhh.. it is my goofy guilty pleasure-I am kind of a sci-fi, comic, super-hero type girl in disguise)-Cole gave me a fabulous stock of Burt's Bees chap sticks, Madison gave me a fabulously yummy candle, and then I also got a sinful stash of turtles and chocolates from the wee one's. Matt was not supposed to spend anymore money on my birthday when he took the kids out to shop, but he snuck in getting a bottle of Sunflowers for me. He says he loves smelling that on me because it reminds him of our honeymoon. So he and I sat sniffing it while the kids were running around all crazy like after eating a super rich chocolate torte Matt had made. We were just imagining the days of pre-parenthood:) But honestly-remembering and giggling about it is enough-we like looking around at all the kiddos and thinking about what an amazing life we have been given.

So, here is that fabulous desert Matt made(it is one of my staple recipes)

The kids just get so excited about the candles that I never even get a chance to blow them out. :)

There was a fun little package in the mail today for me. Not really a birthday present, but none the less, it is a fun treat! So, what is better than polka dots!!!??? RED polka dots-lots of red polka dots!! And look what I did with those red polka dots.....

Just a fun little change of color for the living room. I made them from 2 vintage sheets. Quick and easy and oh so happy..... perfect for the colorless days of winter.

The Polka Dot Quick Fix...

I found this sundress while thrifting, it had a small hole on the front, but it was just so cute and simple, I could not pass it up. The hole was in an odd location, but I figured I could come up with some sort of cute patch.

As I was sorting through my scraps, I just was not coming up with anything I liked-and that is just wrong when I have thousands of fabric scraps to choose from! But I finally realized it was the patch idea that was really not doing it for me. So, I changed my approach. Instead of covering up the one little spot, I thought I would do something to include the entire dress, and cover up the hole in the process. I opted for polka dots-an old faithful for me. I also decided that prints were not what I wanted, I choose to work with solids instead. I picked out three different colors to work with. I fused interfacing to the back of the solids. The interfacing helps to make the fabric hold up longer through the wash, as well as making it easier to work with.


For getting the varied sizes of circles, it was nothing fancy. I just use what I have around the studio or house in the sizes that I want. Here were my very fancy and sophisticated tools for making circles:)

I attached the circles with a satin stitch on the machine. I randomly placed them(well except for the hole:))- Bell stood at my machine and sang a little song about her new dress, so it ended up being a hit. I know the days of my girls liking the clothes I make for them are numbered, so I am soaking it up while I can!