Kanzashi Flower clip

 I miss not blogging...several reasons I haven't lately....

One -- an issue with uploading photos 

(a message telling me I'm out of space)

The second --- everything I'm making is either a gift for me to give away or a gift for someone else to give away....

 This is my newest obsession...

Kanzashi Flowers

This hair clip is for Mighty

 Originally I intended to use my tie scraps (from the cell phone holders post) but this one is grosgrain ribbon...

Still experimenting to avoid making "granny flowers" as my husband calls them....

Kanzashi were originally a Japanese art form for Geisha's to wear in their hair.  They were made from hand dyed silk and rice glue...

You can Google the term and find all kinds of info....

I'm just totally addicted to making them right now and getting them to look the way I want....

You'll see more of these soon!

Strawberry Freezer Jam

 Oh they taste just as good as they look!!!!

One of my husband's most favorite things in the whole world....

strawberry freezer jam

Which he usually bums off of his sisters.

We had a showing Friday and needed to be out of the house for a few hours anyways....

AND the strawberries were ready to pick this week!!!!

My beautiful son...he had such a great time picking strawberries and hunting for "the BIGGEST strawberry EVER!"

Of which there were many :)

We had a lot of fun...the weather was warm and it was beautiful out...a great place to be on a Friday in May with my family.

We went with the intention of picking a few quarts and ended up with about 13lbs...some of us get a little carried away....

So needless to say my husband had to make a run to the store to buy more sugar, sure jell and canning jars.

We made 23 pints of freezer jam and I have to say it's a pretty easy process...

we followed the instructions in the Sure Jell box

2 cups of hulled, crushed strawberries

4 cups of sugar

1 package of sure jell 

So very worth it!

We've already eaten half of one of our small jars and the rest are stowed away in the freezer....

23 pints should last till next summer but I have this feeling we'll be out much sooner....

Dresser with Handpainted Design

 My most recent piece of artwork...

this little dresser with an attached mirror

Here she was before....

You can't tell in these photos but she had a couple of spots where the veneer was chipped or missing....but overall a very nice little solid piece of furniture.

 I knew I wanted to use the green Antibes color and originally I had a plaid design in mind for the drawers....

  Then my sister-in-law bought Mighty this cute little shirt with a blue, flowered pattern on it. 

You never know when inspiration will strike....

 I decided to paint the body of the dresser Antibes and then dry brushed a light coat of Old White over that before distressing it.

On the drawer front I only used the Old White since I planned on adding the blue design...
I free handed a flower shape on some heavy tag board, cut it out and traced it onto the drawers

The photo above is the flowers before I added the centers. I used two different blue colors.  One for the flowers themselves which is more of a navy and then a brighter blue for the lines and the centers of the flowers.

 Added a little green dot at each intersection to tie the drawers together with the colors on the rest of the piece....

I decided not to paint the hardware.  On this piece it would have been really distracting if they were painted white.  I used some red scotch brite to clean them up and now all those beautiful little details pop back out... 

It also reminds me a lot of the Annie Selke slipcovered chair I did for my friend this winter...
This little piece makes me long for a room for Mighty that I can decorate just for her!!!

Stylish Toddler Chair

 I have to admit that I get a little tired of all the "plastic" kids' stuff....

We put the high chair in the basement awhile back and have just been using one of those plastic travel high chairs strapped to one of our kitchen chairs.... I was excited to find this little toddler chair at the flea market this past weekend...

 The best part about this little cutie is that it is VERY similar in style to our kitchen chairs....

so well worth $10

 The kiddos were both with Grandma today so it was the perfect day to knock out this project...

 I wanted it to be something fun, but still go along with our furniture.  So I used the "oxygen white" color we just used in the living room--

 Hand painted this cute little retro pattern in black acrylic paint on the seat...

The idea actually came from some fabric I saw and pinned on pinterest...

 Used the "gekko" color (which is the color on our chairs) for the back and the footrest...

 This will not only get rid of the pink, plastic travel high chair---but also give us back another adult seat....

 Sooooo much better!!!!

 And I think we may even steal the safety straps from another chair and screw them into this one so she'll be latched in....

 Fun fun fun to do things for my sweet babies!!!  She already loves it and has been climbing in and out of it....

Check out some of the many faces of Mighty...

 I'm so thankful for our quirky little girl...she makes us laugh all the time and has quite the personality...

This face is usually reserved for Doodlebug--
 but if you say "Show me your eyebrows!" 
she makes this face....then she looks around for her brother...they're a mess just like their parents!!!!

Pepsi crate shoe organizer

 Latest and greatest epiphany.....you never know when inspiration will strike....on this one I was working out in our crazy, scary basement and thinking about Mighty's collection of shoes...

(she's only 1 people!!) 

and she has MANY shoes already...her  mother's daughter for sure!!!

 This Pepsi crate has been in our house all kinds of places.  But lately had been sitting in our basement....waiting for this apparently :)

 I have said before our house is small and our kids share a room so most things around here have to serve a purpose or there is no space for them.

But I couldn't get rid of it ---I really love it.....

I used a Coke crate in this post as a key holder/organizer...for the same reason love it but it needs to serve a purpose OTHER than gathering dust...

 It would be really great under a bed but you can see below what would happen there...and this one would change her shoes every 5 minutes if she could reach them....

 So on the closet wall it goes!!!!  Still a pretty unique way to store your shoes....especially when you're one...

 And actually I could really use 2 crates....this one's pretty much full already....