WEDNESDAY SHOP SALE

THERE ARE TWO SALES TODAY IN THE SHOP! ANY HANDMADE ITEM IS 20% OFF AND VINTAGE CLOTHING IS 50% OFF.

SEE SHOP FOR DETAILS.

I WILL BE OUT OF THE STUDIO FOR A LONG WEEKEND. ANY ITEM/S PURCHASED BETWEEN SEPT 29-OCT3RD WILL BE SHIPPED OCT 4TH. THANK YOU!! AND HAPPY SHOPPING.

Here's the Scoop...

This week started out with joy....

I was able to sit through the service again this week at church. It has been difficult being anywhere that I needed to keep quiet. The fall allergies seem to go straight to my chest and I end up with this nagging and irritating cough that can be quite disturbing. But it has been a blessing to have an evening service, since mornings seem to be my worst time. Our Pastor preached from Romans 12 on forgiveness and shared about my ultimate hero Corrie ten Boom who was a survivor of the Holocaust. It was neat to hear again of one of her amazing stories of how the Lord had given her the strength to forgive those who had hurt her and her family so deeply. She always says that when the Lord asks her to do something really hard, He is also the one who supplies whatever she needs to do it. She is just the vessel that has to be willing to allow Him to work through. Well, I have been pondering this for awhile now and it seems like the sermon Sunday confirmed I should do this. I have wanted to start doing a post at least once a week called Coffee with Corrie. Her books have become so precious to me because her love for the Lord was so genuine. I just have not found to right words to express to impact she has had on my own faith in Jesus. So I thought, little bits may be a good way to start. So, hopefully next week when I am back from a trip to MN, I will begin my posts of Coffee with Corrie.

Then Monday morning I was blessed to start the day having coffee and going thrifting with a precious friend who has brought such healing to my own life, someone who has brought closure to a very lonely period in my life. A friend who has made me finally feel like I am home after having lived here for 8 years. Only the Lord could have orchestrated this friendship, and He has used it to awaken areas in my life that I had forgotten about and had almost begun to believe were unnecessary. It has been a friendship that has had the depth of a kindred faith in Jesus, but the laughter of just being girls, we have been able to share and be challenged as moms, and confide and relate as youth pastor's wives. It is a timely and precious gift from the Lord.

Monday evening brought more joy as Matt and I took Joslyn on a date. With having five kiddos-I have shared before, that we enjoy taking time out of the normal routines and" seventh heaven" to have the one on one time with each of our kids. We used to do dates that was just Matt and one of the kids or me and one of the kids because hiring a babysitter was just not something we could afford very often. But now with a child old enough to babysit, we have been able to begin taking each of the kids with both of us and that has been very fun! So Matt and i took Joslyn to see The Legend of the Guardians. We took her last night and I think there were maybe 5 cars in the parking lot-it was awesome! We told her we rented out the entire theater just for her(she knew we were kidding) But it felt pretty special to have the whole place to ourselves. Just the 3 of us in a mega 3D theater. the movie was magical and beautifully made and it fit Joslyn's personality.

After tucking her in and the other kiddos who were still awake when we returned home, I sat down to check a few things. And the week turned to sadness. The last day and a half I have spent much of my time reconnecting with old friends from college and sharing any updates I had received. A friend of Matt and I's from college was in a devastating accident with an over sized semi yesterday afternoon. The accident had shut down the highway in MN where it had taken place, for many hours. Kris had been airlifted to Mayo even though it was only 20 miles from where it had happened due to how critical time was for the injuries she had sustained. She was in surgery for over 8 hours before she was stable. Her injuries from what I have been told will require multiple reconstructive surgeries. Her sister Beth told me she is very broken and will have a long road to recovery. Kris and James have 5 young children the ages of our kiddos, I am sure this is very hard on them as well. But one thing that has just stirred my soul has been the countless amounts of old friends, family, and even more that do not even know them that have risen up in prayer for them.

BUT! She is alive,

it is a miracle,

and all of us are so very grateful that she is still here!

Praise the Lord!

And

the

week

turned

to

REJOICING again!

I am hoping I will be able to see her this weekend while at a conference in MN.

On a creative note, I have been working on some new designs for my mittens. I have a special order I am putting together. Sunday night after everyone was tucked in bed, I spent some time playing with colors and designs and here are some that I have come up with. I have only gotten the front panels finished thus far.

Now to bring them to life with picking out the contrasting colors for the palm and thumb and maybe some fun little surprises for the linings. My beloved linens are now going to have to share my attention with this crazy fascination with felted wool. No worries, my cutting mat with still have lines worn at the precious measurements of 18 and 22 inches for my bed linen fat quarter followers. I will remain loyal to the saving of as many reclaimed bed linens as possible-But I am also going to rescue wool sweaters too-I MUST! Haha.

Blessings to all of you this week-may the Lord bless each day and may you see His gifts and thank Him, He loves you enough to have died for YOU!

What I Overheard....

Today I was witness to a very funny conversation between my 12 year old son and my 3 year old son. It makes me appreciate the fact that i really do not know what is going on in my children's minds sometimes. And even more, i am not sure they know what is going on in their minds either;)

Setting the stage.....

Noah was crying for no apparent reason.

COLE: "you cannot cry forever"

NOAH: "Oh! Yes I can!"

COLE: "But you would not want to"

NOAH: "OH! Yes I do"

COLE: "Why?"

NOAH: "So my teeth will fall out!"

HUMMM? Noah has stopped crying and still has all of his teeth, thought you may want to know;)

I love these precious gifts from Jesus! They are so fun!

What We Have Been up To Around Here...

We had something monumental occur in our family this past month....for the first time in almost 13 years, we took down the crib and put it into storage. Sniff..sniff...it is quite bittersweet. It would be neat to say that all 5 kiddos slept in the same crib and now the grandkids will sleep in it too...but that just isn't the case here. Most of the time our kiddos ovelapped and we had two cribs up at once, and one of those original cribs didn't survive our Josie girl's trampoline routine in it! But none the less, taking down the crib was very strange! And yet the stage our family is in is exciting. Taking down the crib should be easy right? Take the crib down and put up a new bed, simple right?! Well, we like to do it the Looongggg way-let's play musical beds and see just how many changes we can make. But, in all honesty, we had held off on some projects until the crib came down so that we could address all of the issues in the bedrooms that the kids share all at once.

Our two boys share one bedroom that is approx 9x10 feet, and our 3 girls share a bedroom that is approx 10x12 feet. We really had to make a choice a long time ago to not be frustrated by the space issues, but take it as a challenge to be creative. I really prefer that they share and if given a chance to split them up, would not. But I honestly would not mind a bit more space to fit them;)- I know that most of the time bunk beds are the answer, and we have had one in the girls room, but I am no longer a fan of them and felt we needed to find another solution to the space crunch. It is really important to me to be able to tuck the kids in each night and bunk beds just do not allow that, so many important conversations happen at bedtime or through out the day simply by sitting down at the edge of a bed together-I just did not want to miss that anymore with the current resident of the "penthouse" in the girl's room.

So this is what we did in the great exchange.

First the crib came down with Cole's help as Matt and I worked on deconstructing the bunk bed in the girls' room.

We used the top bunk of the bunkbed for Noah's new bed. It works like a dream since it had the rails already on it. We did quite a bit of rearranging of dressers and shelves in here as well, but I will show that another time. We still need to do some painting since it hasn't been painted for 6 years-Cole now has some ideas of what he likes and i am looking forward to working on that for him.

We did not even keep the bottom of the bunk in the girls room because it is a full size bed and takes up too much space. So we moved that to the basement, got rid of the old couch down there and will now have a nice bed for guests to sleep in when visiting. I will be working on making that bed into more of a daybed style since it is functioning as the couch in our family room. Yet another post for another time;)

So now we are down to one twin bed for 3 girls, just kidding! Last week we purchased 2 new twin mattresses and the girls just slept on them on the floor until we could build the bases to their beds this weekend. Here are some pictures of our progress.

The girls have been wanting to do their room with vintage bed linens-I just can't imagine how they thought of that-haha. So as far as the bedding, and decorations, we just needed to do a little fabric shopping in the studio downstairs! So nice! Well, alright, maybe we did buy a few things from some of my favorite bed linen friends on etsy!

This picture is a bit dark, we still have lighting to deal with in there. But this gives the best shot of all three of the girls beds. We lofted Joslyn's and Bell's for storage(or more affectionately known as "fort" space). Madison's bed was given to us by my folks, it is from IKEA and has wonderful rolling drawers underneath which act as her dresser-LOVE! I am just giddy about how everything fit! It is like one big couch- and I think movie night needs to be in the girl's room from now on! The seven of us would fit better in there than in our living room! LOL.

These are one of the God sends. We had to find a better alternative to the dressers we had for the younger girls, they no longer fit in the room with the change. We had one wall spot that we had to reinvent for the both of them. When I was out hunting last week, I found these tall cabinets-2 of them for $9.00 a piece! They are over 6 feet tall and together they are just as wide as only one dresser! They had all of their shelves perfectly intact-and a lot of them at that!! An amazing blessing! They have this funky grated metal front to the doors, so each of the girls had fun picking out their favorite print to attach behind it for some color.

I still have curtains to make, furniture to paint, and minor changes to make in each of the rooms, but the crazy build and rearrange is done-whew!

It has been fun to do little touches like quilted throw pillows...

A framed map for Joslyn(she collects maps and loves to study them)

And yes, of course some fabric hoops! They are beginning to multiply in this house-yikes!!

Bookmark Happiness...

Finished some bookmarks for a customer this week. The older girls sat with me and worked on the bookmarks while Bell had her speech therapy session this week. They had fun making the buttons. I haven't worked on new bookmarks for awhile and am now looking forward to getting more ready for the holiday seasons coming up. They are always a fun way to capture small glimpses of beauty from fabrics.

Some New Mittens for Mama and Son...

It has been awhile since I worked on the "Pair of Mittens a Day". When we started back to school, I had to begin to readjust my schedule and the mittens have not quite found their way into that routine yet. But, they will soon hopefully because I sure have some yummy wools waiting for me! I was able to finish two new pairs today though for a customer. She has waited so very patiently for them! The pink are for mama and the green is for her little man.
All made from recycled felted wool.

WeEkEnD sALe-FRIDAY THROUGH MONDAY....

TIME FOR THE WEEKEND SALE! TAKE 25% OFF OF ANY PURCHASE AND 30% OFF OF ANY PURCHASE OF $150.00 OR MORE. SALE IS SEPT 24-27TH. SEE SHOP FOR DETAILS. HAPPY SHOPPING AND HAVE A BLESSED WEEKEND!