Crispier Days Ahead

Or, soggier days, if you live in the Lower Mainland as I do.

It is officially Autumn. We had a great, hot, sunny summer, and I am quite happily accepting Autumn's arrival. Pumpkin patches, and Apple orchards and beautiful colors await us in this season. Sweaters, and comfy boots, scarves and cozy blankets. It's a dream come true after months of hot, and shorts, and tank tops. Believe me, I love me some hot weather, but it is quite time for a little change. I will regret this accepting of change once it snows though. I could live in a world of Spring, Summer and Fall. Winter is a miserable season. 

Back on topic; Autumn. I've pulled out our fall decorations, and have begun putting them up. The colours of our walls compliment the seasons change very nicely. Thomas and Hannah helped me decide where various decorations would go. It feels a little cozier in here now, as I find autumn decorations often make it feel that way. 

I'll probably pick up a few more things to make our home feel a little more seasonal. And of course we'll be getting some pumpkins to carve and put out on our steps. I'm looking forward to soups and homemade apple butter, apple cider, roasting pumpkin seeds, and hopefully we'll get the chance to play in a pile of leaves in the yard... if they don't get too wet. 

I'm also looking forward to the view from my our yard to be all orange and red and yellow. Some if the leaves are turning already, and in just so excited for all the gorgeous colours to make their appearance. 

Do you like to decorate for the season? What season is your favorite?

Pretty Kitchen Windows.

Oh boy it feels good to finish a project! I got my kitchen window curtains finished last week and I LOVE them!! At first, I didn't really think they looked nice, but now that they've been up for a few days, I think they look pretty good for my first set of curtains! Yay!

Without further ado, photographic evidence :

(Pardon the food in the photo , Thomas was lovingly assembling our dinner when I took this shot). 

Ooooooooooo it feels so good to have gotten those done! Now I'm hungry for the next project -- recovering our dining chairs! And then I'd better get started in making the capes for Thomas' super hero birthday party in November (can never plan too far ahead!!) Oh, and I can't forget that I have duvet covers to make for the boys for Christmas! Weeeeeeew! It's gonna be crafty around here!!

What's on your "project list"? Do you sew? Or scrapbook? Or paint? Let me know what you've got planned in the comments :)

And have a great week!! 

Xoxo Beth

Projects

As some of you may know, I'm not exactly a "tread lightly" kind of person. I don't usually hold my tongue (though I'm learning) or go slowly into new things (i.e. moving and getting a puppy in the same week).

Well, I was actually a pretty slow start getting into sewing. Josh got me a sewing machine at Christmas, and while I did a few small projects a few months later, my poor machine has sat unused since March. Until about a week ago. Josh asked if I would sew up some blackout curtains for our bedroom. I don't really enjoy hanging curtains, the process of installing curtain rods is just about the worst thing I can imagine, so I put up a tension rod, instead. Truly, it's a good thing people don't typically see inside our bedroom, because I really did a poor job on those curtains. The tension in my machine was all wrong, so the seams on the blackout curtains were rough, to say the least. Oh well, they serve their purpose, our room is delightfully light free all night long, and very dark through the day.

I've figured out my machines tension issue, and haven't been able to stop sewing since. I just finished making up few (WARNING TO MUCH INFO) mama cloth menstral pads. I still did a sloppy job, but I probably won't be showing those off to my friends, haha. 

My current project is sewing curtains for the kitchen window. I was pursuing ValueVillage about a week ago, and found a huge bolt of (what I think is) satin, with beautiful yellow stripes. I have enough fabric that if I botch the curtains, I'll just try again. And, if I don't botch the curtains, I'll have enough fabric to recover the dining chairs, yay! More projects! Although, recovering the chairs won't require any sewing. 

Back to the kitchen curtains. Want to see what the fabric looks like? 

Mmmmm isn't that gorgeous?! It's going to fit so well with the decor I've for going in our living areas. 

I can't wait to show you the finished product! (And maybe a "tutorial", if I don't make a total mess of it!) 

Hope you're having a great weekend!!

Maybe I should change the name of my blog...

To something like "I only write on Thursdays so I'm thankful"...

I really need to start planning out at least 1 more post a week. Even I'm boring myself these days. Though, if I have nothing else to say except what I'm thankful for, life can't be that boring. I am at the very least keeping things in perspective.

And honestly, life is far from boring. Taking care of 3+ kids really keeps me on my toes. And getting the house ready to move. And attempting to keep it clean/deep clean it for the move. All very time consuming.

I've started planning out what the boys new bedroom will look like. I picked up some bunk beds (with the help of my big brother) over the weekend, and I'm pretty excited for the boys to get into them. We took them straight over to the new place, so it'll still be 2 months before the boys get to use them, but I'm working on bedding now for them. Below are some screenshots of the fabrics I'm going to use to sew duvet covers for the boys. The Car one will be for Elliott, the Planes for Thomas, and the Zig Zag I'm going to put as the reversible side for both duvets. I've picked out some matching accent colors for pillow covers and curtains. I'm pretty excited. It's going to look pretty cool once it's all put together. :)

Thomas had made specific requests that there be orange in his new bedroom. So this is how I plan to add orange without it being overwhelming. I don't remember what colour their room is at this current moment, but I think I'd like to paint it a nice beige like the background of the cars fabric has. And possibly do some accent stripes in the teal and orange. We'll see.

I'm really enjoying planning this all out. We know that for a minimum we'll be at this place for 5 years, so I can make things fairly permanent. I've got lots of ideas for the master bedroom too. We want to get a new bed (the one we've had has been around for a good 20 years), and we're hoping it'll be a King size. I've got designs for how we want to do the bed frame all ready to go. We're going to make a base out of Ikea shelving units laid on their sides. That we we'll have under the bed storage. I'd like to make a "headboard" out of the same idea too. We both have some nick-nacks we'd like on display, and I think this is the best way to get them all up where we can enjoy them. :) 

I really have to stop looking at puppies. I keep finding puppies I want really badly, but we can't get one until we've moved, and realistically, we should probably get settled before we get a puppy. Haha. :) I found one little girl pup that wouldn't be ready to be adopted for another few weeks, but she sadly passed away, and all of her siblings are spoken for. Ah well. All in good time. I'm really just so thrilled to add a fur baby to our family!

Naps are wrapping up here, and I'd better take advantage of the quiet and unload that dishwasher before I've got 2 more sets of hands trying to "help"!

Spring Fever

I couldn't help myself any longer and started my spring decorating. I saw the most adorable spring "wreath" on Pinterest, and decided that's what I wanted for my front door.

So off I went to the dollar store to get my supplies. I couldn't have been more excited when I found this super adorable umbrella, isn't it just the perfect color?!?! Love it! Then all I needed was an assortment of fake flowers, and I was off the the races. It was really easy. The hardest part was probably taking the tags off of the flowers. Haha! Then it was a matter of arranging the flowers how I wanted in the umbrella and securing it closed. Easy peasy! I'm so happy with it, I might leave it up til Fall. :)

I think I will probably add some more flowers, to fill it out a bit more, but other than that, I'm super happy with it!

Do you decorate for the seasons? My house felt so bare between Christmas and now, winter is so hard to decorate for without it looking Christmas-y. Yay for Spring, and bright colors!