SPARK No. 2--decor

Thank you all for your lovely kind words about my grandpa. I appreciate them! Things are starting to feel like normal again around here. The suitcases are put away, the laundry is clean, and there is food in the pantry. Phew! I want to get my Halloween decorations out on October 1, so the next big task is getting the front room cleaned up because I can't let myself make a new mess with the Halloween boxes until the current mess is cleaned up. But before it gets any later, I do want to share with you one of the main reasons I went to Utah a few weeks ago.

Last year, I was intrigued when I heard about Spark, a creativity retreat of sorts that was held in my hometown of Salt Lake City. It was the brainchild of Rhonna Farrer, Elizabeth Kartchner and Margie Ronmey-Aslett, three creative ladies who have their roots in the scrapbooking and papercrafting world but who do lots of other creative things as well. I didn't attend last year but once I saw the photos and video of the event, I wished that I had and hoped that they'd do it again for 2010.

When the announcement came earlier this spring that there would indeed be a Spark No. 2, I was ready! My mom and I decided to make it our annual Girls' Weekend, with the added benefit that we wouldn't have to spend money on a hotel, rental car or airfare since it was being held about 20 minuted from my parents' home. It was a weekend that The Mister had to be out of town but my sweet dad agreed to watch the kids for me and as it turned out, Maren was off-track (a three-week break between trimesters for year-round school) for the first three weeks of September, so we all packed up and headed to Utah for a while.

We didn't know much what to expect heading into Spark but we were excited to find out! As we neared the building on Friday morning, we spotted huge balloons rising from the roof, waterfalls of pink twinkle lights cascading down the side of the building, posts wrapped with colorful buntings and more pink lights--and that was just what we could see before even pulling into the parking lot!

As we walked up to the building, we were greeted by this guy (and his turquoise twin)

who appeared to be guarding this wall, which was filled with beautiful chalk drawings done by Rhonna.

The entrance to the building was hung with streamers and colorful banners and rosettes--and that was when we knew we had made the right choice in coming! :)

We went through registration and onto the Main Hall, where I think my jaw fell open when I walked through the doorway:

The huge room was filled with beautiful things everywhere I looked! Those big white grids hanging from the ceiling can actually be raised and lowered by a switch, and the Spark ladies had them hung with all kinds of fanciful things: banners made of Monopoly money and playing cards, birdcages, dress forms, paper parasols, frames, chandeliers, paper lanterns, butterflies, and even a bright pink bicycle!

I'm not kidding, it was breathtaking! And that was when I was REALLY sure we were in the right place. :) After I managed to tear my eyes away from the ceiling, we looked at the tables that filled the room. Each one had an amazing centerpiece made up of cool vintage junque, more game pieces, and cute handmade Spark flags.

I'm pretty sure I NEED a vintage pink typewriter now! It was like this throughout the whole venue--Spark took up the entire building, and on tables and in little nooks all over there were beautiful, interesting bits of eye candy! Some of it came from a junk shop in SLC and some of it was from the Spark girls' own collections.

Walking into that Main Hall was inspiring just by itself, before we even did anything else. I've been on the hunt for a large butterfly punch so I can make strings of butterfly garland for Maren's bedroom, and I wish I could figure out a way to suspend huge grids from my living room ceiling so I could capture the feeling of the Main Hall in my home.

I have lots more to share but I'll divide it up into a few posts because this one is already really long.

Book Page Leaf Wreath

I made it 32 years, one month and 16 days before losing my first grandparent--I think that's a pretty good run, don't you?  My paternal grandfather passed away last Wednesday as we were driving home from our visit to Utah. I'm so lucky that I had 32 years, one month and 16 days of my life to know him. Monday morning we loaded up the car again (didn't even bother to put the suitcases away from the Utah trip) and drove four hours to southern Colorado for the funeral events.

My Papa with a teeny-tiny newborn Maren

His passing was bittersweet for us all: I'm sad at the knowledge that I won't get to see my Papa Morgan again in this life--it will feel strange to go to my grandparent's house and not find him there with a big hug, smile and kind words for me. At the same time, he lived nearly 87 years, has children, grandchildren and even a few great-grandchildren; he lived a long, full life and he deserved to rest. His viewing was Monday evening and the funeral services were Tuesday around mid-day. Every single one of his descendants was there, and I can think of no greater way to honor him than the fact that we had a genuinely good time being together, despite the circumstances.

The Mister had to be back for work on Wednesday morning, so unfortunately our trip was a quick one and we returned home late Tuesday night--there wasn't even time for small-town thrifting at my favorite haunts or a guacamole tostada & tall Dr. Pepper at our favorite little hole-in-the-wall Mexican food joint. Yesterday I ignored the piles of laundry & suitcases and met some friends at the science museum for several hours so the kids could play, which meant today I finally had time to begin to get this house back into some semblance of order. I've still got work to do but I think I can finally think about blogging again now that we have some clean clothes and the kitchen table isn't piled six inches deep with mail and newspapers.

All the long hours in the car recently means that I've gotten to read a lot of magazines. In the October Martha Stewart Living there was an ad for this wreath:

It was created by Emily Morris and is the winning entry in a contest put on by Martha & The UPS Store and honestly, I thought it was the most interesting thing in the whole magazine! (Usually the October MSL is my favorite but this one was a total snooze). There are step-by-step instructions over here on Martha's website, as well as a leaf template so you can make your own. I've already made two different book page wreaths this year and this one might have to be #3! I'm going to be good and make myself wait until the rest of the laundry is done and we have some groceries, though!

Porter at 1 year

Somebaby has a birthday today!

My gosh, a year has gone quickly for this little boy. His hair certainly has improved with time, hasn't it?

I guess you don't seem like a baby for long when you learn to crawl at 6 months...

And walk at 9 months...

It's funny now that people used to remark on how mellow Porter seemed. He sat happily in his little bouncy seat, quiet and watchful.

Now we realize he was merely biding his time and plotting, because "mellow" and "quiet" are pretty much the last adjectives you might use to describe him. He is still happy, however.

He's also determined and persistent, a good problem solver, and strong-willed. Any thoughts I entertained of him being my "quiet" baby; the one I earned after dealing with Maren's toddler years? Gone, baby, gone. He's a lot more like this:

Short, speaks in a series of grunts and gurgles and leaves a trail of destruction in his wake.

 Not a fan of chocolate cake, it appears

Maren was...shall we say...challenging as a toddler. We adored her, but there was a real reason that we waited four years to have another baby. Porter is on track to outpace her in the "challenging toddler" department. Pray for me.

 All those people who told me when I was pregnant that boys are just SO different from girls? I scoffed at them. Now, I believe them! But those brown curls, kissy lips and pretty eyes have this mama smitten, even if I do have to follow him with a broom & dustpan. I look forward to getting to know Porter more as he grows and shows us more of his personality.

Happy Happy Birthday, Baby!

It's been a while, hasn't it? Last night I returned from nearly two weeks spent visiting family in Utah. I don't think I've been away from home so long in six or more years! Maren goes to a year-round school and is now off-track and we had a few other things scheduled, so we decided to pack up and hang out with the grandparents for a while. It was really, really lovely--we did so many fun things and it was nice to escape from my real life here for a bit.

Now I'm home and faced with unpacking bags and boxes and mold in the laundry room and no food in the fridge, so until I'm organized enough to post photos of my own, you can check out one of the things I did while I was in UT by clicking on any of the links below:

Liz

Rhonna1
Rhonna2

Yep, it was as magical as it looked...

Estate sale finds

Don't have much to share today, I'm afraid, other than a few more items I picked up at the bad vibe estate sale.

I love this blue and red floral fabric--it reminds me of aprons and printed tablecloths. The number card is aged to that perfect shade of creamy beige. The squares are all perforated and must have been used for pricing or store signs or something. I like it just the way it is--no intentions to tear it all apart here.

For someone who doesn't sew, I'm turning into quite the little fabric hoarder lately. This was from a shirt box full of old fabric scraps. Once I saw the little bunny prints I knew it was worth the $2 price. Don't know what I'll do with it, but it's darn cute.

We're headed to Utah to visit family for a while as Maren will be off-track (she goes to year-round school, and starting Monday has a three-week break). We have some fun things planned so maybe I can blog a bit while I'm gone. Hope you all have a lovely long weekend!

Stuff I've made: Quick-change corsage necklace

This is a project I did months ago but I never showed it here. When I saw this Quick Change Corsage Necklace project over on The Polka Dot Chair, I knew it was something I wanted to make! In fact, I invited a few friends to make one with me and we happily crafted for a few hours while our kids played.

I used Melissa's tutorials for making the necklace, so I won't reprint that here. I used chains purchased at Michael's (they had a much better selection than JoAnn's); they're fairly inexpensive but they frequently go on sale or you can always use a 40% off coupon to make them an even better price.

I used a different method from Melissa to make my flowers. I used my Big Shot die cutting machine and this Bigz Flower Foldz die from Stampin' Up! to cut flowers from fabric and stacked them up and stitched through them to make the flower. The big white flower in the photo is actually a silk flower from the craft store--I simply removed the plastic stamen thingy and replaced it with a gorgeous pearly vintage button instead.

I gave my necklaces and flowers away, so now I need to make more for myself. Maybe some fall flowers in wool felt, corduroy, tweed or leather? These make great little gifts! They're easy and affordable and it's fun to be able to change out the flowers to match your outfit. Because the flowers have a pin back, they can also be worn without the necklace as well. Thanks to Melissa for a great tutorial!

Vintage shipping tag birth announcement

Thank you all for the sweet comments about my laundry room. Now that it's done, I have a grand total of two fully decorated rooms in the house. And we've lived here for 6 years. See what I mean about nothing getting done around here? The only rooms that are DONE are the laundry room and the guest room, which are not coincidentally small rooms that we are rarely in and that I have total design control over, without having to satisfy anyone else's desires or sensibilities other than my own. The rest of the house is a lot more challenging.

Today I wanted to share a bit of ephemera. I picked it up at the bad vibe estate sale from a few weeks ago. The woman who lived in this house must have literally saved every single letter or card she had ever received--I've never seen anything like it. Her husband was a pastor and therefore must have known a lot of people, many of whom sent cards and announcements and I think they kept them all. An ephemera-lover's dream, that was. It was really overwhelming to go through all that old paper but I did find this little treat, the cutest darn birth announcement I've ever seen. Here's the address side:

And here's the information side.

So cute, right? Be sure to click on it to enlarge the picture so you can read it. It really is on a normal-sized shipping tag!

You could do the same thing and it would be just as cute today, 56 years later. Of course the USPS wouldn't be thrilled to have you send a shipping tag with a string attached through all of their machinery, but you could slip it into a clear cellophane envelope and send it through the mail to delighted recipients. Maybe for my next baby? I didn't send out announcements with the first two, but this idea is so darn cute that I might not be able to pass it up! (and no, I'm not expecting!)

Laundry Room redo

The computer situation got worse before it got better. By Wednesday night, I'd successfully installed my camera software so I could download my photos. I also clicked an "Okay" button before reading the contents of a dialog box completely, resulting in a glitch that made it so that every single .exe program on my profile (that's most of them, friends) tried to open in Adobe Reader. Thankfully The Mister's profile was untouched and I was able to figure it all out after a few days of (again) mourning the loss of all my bookmarks. Seriously, this computer thing has been one ridiculous frustration after another. I still haven't figured out the iTunes problem and right now I just don't have the brain energy to Google all over the place trying to figure it out.

The good news is that after I got things fixed I was able to successfully reinstall the camera software and download the pictures that had been languishing on my memory card, so today I have photos of my laundry room redo to share! (apologies up front for the wonky colors--the laundry room is in my basement so the lighting is always bad. I tried to tweak the photos so they're closer to true colors but I'm not sure how successful that was.)

I was inspired to redecorate my laundry room by this:

This is the fabric on my ironing board cover. Isn't it cute? My mom gave this to me for Christmas two years ago and I was delighted to receive it! You wouldn't think an ironing board cover would inspire such joy, but I find that many of my favorite gifts are things that I never would have thought to buy for myself but that I am tickled to have. A cute ironing board cover falls squarely into that category for me.

Last year sometime I decided I needed more laundry baskets so I took a trip to The Container Store to find something fun. While there, I remembered my cute ironing board cover and decided to look for something to match. I couldn't remember the colors in the fabric other than pink and green, so I chose turquoise blue for the third basket.

Even though the blue wasn't actually in the fabric, it was a great jumping off point for some other decor. I purchased a pair of inexpensive shelves at Target to hang on the big empty wall above the ironing board.

I also purchased a cute vinyl floral design from Stampin' Up! that was in the perfect colors to match the ironing board cover. My intention was to put it on the wall above the lower shelf so it looked a bit like it was sitting on the shelf. Except--in my laundry room the walls are heavily textured, and the vinyl wouldn't stay adhered to the wall. Boo!

(Sidenote: This is a prime example of what seems to happen with every home improvement project that I try--I get all excited, start, and then get sidelined by some stupid problem that is going to be SO much harder to fix than the project would have been in the first place. Happens EVERY time, I swear. Which is why I started this project months ago and am just now getting finished. And why nothing else ever gets done around here.)

My original thought was that I was going to have to cut a piece of wood, paint it, and then put the vinyl on that. Which meant finding a piece of wood, and someone to cut it for me. Which meant that it didn't happen. I was talking about the problem to my mom, who wisely suggested that I try putting the vinyl on an artist's canvas instead. Brilliant! Now why didn't I think of that in the first place? I bought a huge canvas at the craft store and spray painted it turquoise--Krylon Blue Ocean Breeze, to be exact--with a can of paint I had leftover from another project, and happens to match the turquoise laundry basket. The vinyl applied easily to the painted canvas, and then I remembered that I had some large thrifted frames in my stash and most serendipitously, found one that fit the canvas perfectly! It got a coating of Rust-oleum Berry Pink to match the hot pink vinyl flowers and the pink in the fabric.

While I was rummaging through the frames, I found another large one that I thought might be fun on another big empty wall. This one got a coat of the Blue Ocean Breeze and I set about to find something to go inside it. I looked through my old magazines and found a really neat old Tide ad, but the page was an odd size so finding a frame would have been impossible. I remembered a vintage advertising calendar I saved from a few years ago (I save all our family calendars--I figure they're a good reference and kind of like a diary). There I found an ad for Dash detergent and better yet, the bright pink and yellow in the ad were a perfect match to my fabric! I trimmed it out of the calendar and hunted through my house for a frame. I only found one that was the right size and it's not my ideal, but it was free and once I sprayed it with Berry Pink it did the trick.

Now that I had art on the walls, the next thing was the window. My laundry room is in the basement so the only window is below ground and there's a window well right outside. Covering up the window to keep out the light or provide privacy wasn't a requirement but I thought a valance would be fun to soften the hard edges and add more color. I looked through my collections to see if I could find something fun to use: aprons, vintage tablecloths, even hankies, but nothing I had was in the right colors. I didn't want to make anything or spend much money, so I hit the thrift stores and found the perfect bright pink homemade valance--it even has white ball fringe on the bottom! It's lined too, and for $2.99 I couldn't have made anything that cute. I hung it on a black curtain rod that I took down from my bedroom--since I'm redecorating in there, the black rods won't be needed. I did have to buy two sets of black ring clips but found some on clearance at JoAnn's for $2.99 per package.

For the window, I used a vinyl bejeweled chandelier from House of 3. I've had these for a while too--they won't stick on my walls either (blast my stupid orange-peel wall texture!) but they adhere perfectly to glass! Who doesn't wish for a little bit of glam to dress up the mundane task of laundry? As an added bonus, they distract the eye from the dying aspen suckers and dead spiders in the window well.

The last thing on my list was finding something cute to hold my laundry products. I love these big lidded Anchor-Hocking jars from Target so I bought the largest one to hold my Tide and the middle-sized jar to hold my OxiClean. I found another middle-sized jar at the thrift, so that one now holds my Borax, and I'm holding out hope that I can find one more matching jar to hold the Biz I just bought because I've heard it's great for getting stains out of vintage linens.

To dress up the jars and keep from getting them mixed up (all those white powders look the same), I ordered vinyl lettering from my cute friend Amy at Words and Wisdom. It was so easy to put it on the jars and I love how it turned out! A little tip to keep the letters straight:

I used a ruler and a dry-erase marker to make dashes at a uniform height around the jar. Then I stuck the vinyl on, keeping the bottom edge of the letters on the lines. When I pulled off the top sheet, many of the marks stuck to it but any that remained easily wiped off with a tissue. To scoop my powders I use brightly-colored vintage aluminum measuring cups that I thrifted at some point.

I am pleased with how the room came out, especially since I was able to use things that I already had around the house or items that were thrifted or purchased very inexpensively. I'm not going to go so far as to say that it makes me want to do the laundry, but having a cute room to do it in definitely makes the task more pleasant!

WFMW: corraling computer cords

Thank you for your responses on my post yesterday about whether I should keep or toss the DVD and CD cases. I'd still love to hear from more of you, so feel free to leave a comment on this post or the last one!

Last week I was computer-less for three days while our machine was in the shop being completely upgraded. I mentioned this last week when I was afraid I'd lost all my Firefox bookmarks. I finally figured out how to retrieve them (Kiss my brain!) but I still haven't figured out how to bring over all of my iTunes music. I also have to reinstall all of my downloaded fonts and other programs, one of which is the program that downloads and manages photos from my camera. Unfortunately, the cute pictures of my redecorated laundry room are being held hostage on my camera and I'll have to wait to share them with you.

Until then, I want to join up with Works for Me Wednesday at We are THAT Family with a tip involving computers and cameras. Our computer desk is always a mess but there are a few things we use often--the cord to connect our iPods to the computer for charging and the cord to connect the camera to the computer for downloading photos. They were getting tangled and misplaced, so I had the idea to use one of my favorite gadgets to corral them.

I stuck small 3M Command adhesive hooks on the inside of the door that covers the cabinet where the computer tower is kept. Each cord is wound loosely and hung on a hook, so when the door is closed they are kept neat and they are always close at hand, plus there's less clutter on the computer desk surface! It's not fancy, but it does the job and the Command hooks are easily removable at any time.

Be sure to visit We are THAT Family for 200 more WFMW tips!

Jewel cases & DVD cases: keep or toss?

In my seemingly-never-ending quest to reduce the sheer amount of STUFF around here, one of the things I've been thinking about lately is our media, specifically our DVDs and CDs.

 We were storing the DVDs in the bottom cabinet of our TV stand, but Porter learned early on that pulling each and every one out and strewing it on the floor was unparalleled fun. Picking all of those up a few dozen times made it an easy decision to get rid of the DVD boxes and consolidate the kid DVD collection into one of those big CD books that I purchased at Best Buy. I love that all of the kid movies are in one place and easily accessible, and they take up a fraction of the space now.

But here's the thing--I didn't get rid of all of the DVD cases. I  recycled about 2/3 of them, but the rest I threw in a box in the basement. The DVD cases that I kept are those for our Disney movies and those that held collections of DVDs, like our Looney Toons sets. I guess my thinking in keeping those was that I might need them someday if I ever wanted to sell the movies. Now there's one more box in the basement to deal with, so I don't think I totally achieved my goal. Essentially, I only shifted my clutter to a different floor of the house.

So here's where I need your help--talk me out of keeping them! Help me let them go. Convince me that it's okay to get rid of the cases, that by the time my kids have outgrown the movies, it's likely that the discs will be so scratched up that selling them is out of the question anyhow. Or, convince me that I should keep them--have you ever gotten rid of a DVD case and regretted it later?

If I can move past my hangup with the DVD cases, my next mission will be to consolidate the CDs. I've thought about ditching the jewel cases in the past, but have never been able to bring myself to do it because I don't want to lose the album artwork. I would keep the little booklets that come with each CD and place them in the binder with the discs, but I'm still having a hard time convincing myself to make the break. I've read that some organizational gurus suggest getting rid of the CDs themselves, with the assumption that most people have all of their music loaded on their computers anyway, but I think that's a foolish idea--anyone who has ever had a hard drive die, taking with it all of their files & photos knows how devastating that could be.

Have any of you gotten rid of your CD jewel cases and just kept your discs in a binder? Have you ever regretted it?

Delicious and Simply Adorned

Phew, I'm back! I've been without my computer for the past three days and I felt like one of my appendages was missing. :) Yes, I'm addicted--but I use the computer all day long--yes, checking my email and Facebook and blogs are part of that, but I also pay bills, look up phone numbers and operating times, recipes, photos, etc. etc. all day long so to be without that was annoying. I was able to check up on my email & blogs with my iTouch, but typing anything on that tiny thing is an exercise in frustration so I'm SO glad to have the ol' compy back, updated with a super-speedy processor and roomy new hard drive.

The bad news--I fear I've lost all of my bookmarks! It never occurred to me that I might lose them so I never thought to make a backup. Which is SO stupid, because I've been signed up with delicious for a couple of years now. delicious is a great idea--it's a place to keep all of your bookmarks organized online, which is really handy if you're not on your home computer and need to access a bookmarked site, or if you take your computer in to the shop be worked on and lose your bookmarks in the process. Argh! I got lazy and stopped saving all of my new bookmarks to delicious a while back so even though I still have some of my older bookmarks saved, all of the new ones have gone *poof*. So, friends, learn from my mistake--sign up with delicious today and be vigilant about saving your bookmarks to it as well. You can bet I will be better at it from now on!

Even though it's been several weeks since I celebrated my birthday, I wanted to show you one of my favorite birthday gifts--this Simply Adorned necklace that my mom made for me.

The Simply Adorned line from Stampin' Up! is a range of jewelry that you can personalize. The pendants look a bit like the soldered glass pendants that are so popular right now--they have a nickel-plated frame and beveled glass in the front and come in several different sizes (mine is 1" x 1-1/4" and the necklace also has the tiny 5/8" circle charm and the Vanilla Pearl Bauble).

The neatest feature is that they are actually hinged like a locket, so the charm opens up! And that means that they can be personalized and you can switch out the artwork inside whenever you fancy.

My mom made several different little pieces of art that I can put in my charms--can't wait to wear those cute Halloween designs! It's easy to make the art because it's small and you only need a few scraps of paper, so it's not intimidating like a big canvas might be. And just think of all the possibilities for things we vintage-lovers could tuck inside: bits of ledger paper, old photos, sheet music, book illustrations, playing cards, Victorian scrap, a lock of hair, doilies, scraps of lace, pressed flowers, maps, ribbons...you name it! I even have some thin vintage shell buttons that I believe I'll try.

The charms and chain are really lovely and the quality is great. They'd make a great gift--I can attest to that! If you're interested in ordering one, you can contact your local Stampin' Up! demonstrator and place an order through her. If you don't have a local demonstrator, you can go to my mom's Stampin' Up! page and she can help you.

Have a good weekend! I'll be spending mine trying to remember bookmarks. Ugh.

Crafty stuff: Paper Bag wreath

Several months ago, I saved this wreath in my Crafts to Try folder, and I finally got around to doing it this past weekend.

The original wreath was posted on MaryJanes and Galoshes, and I followed the tutorial there exactly, so I won't rehash that here. The only thing I did differently was that I first wrapped my wreath form with long strips of a paper sack that I cut apart. The wreath form I used was green and I didn't like that it showed through, plus it gave a better look to the back and I didn't have to worry about the hot glue melting the foam.

I used a scalloped circle punch from Stampin' Up! that was 2 3/8" in diameter and a foam wreath form from Dollar Tree. I bought a big bag of brown paper lunch sacks at the thrift store for less than $2. I bought them a while ago with this particular project in mind.

The wreath used fewer scalloped circles than I estimated. In fact, I had enough cut out to make two wreaths and I still have some left over. I was able to punch 12 circles from each lunch sack and I probably punched around twenty sacks. I bunched mine closer together on the wreath form, more like the version on Crazy Daisy than the version on MJ and G.

The only thing I haven't done is add the butterflies. I love how the butterflies look on the original wreath--I love the contrast of the bold outlines and color with the ruffly paper sacks. However, I think that the butterflies are not quite right for the season, since we're going into Autumn. I thought I'd ask you all for suggestions as to what I should put on the wreath instead--should I go with the butterflies, or is there something Autumnal or Halloweeny I could use instead like leaves or acorns or pumpkins? What do think?

Now that I look at my photos again, I think I need to try a version using scalloped circles punched out of book pages instead of the brown paper sacks. Maybe black and white text with glittery black bats would be neat for Halloween....hmm....looks like I need another trip to the Dollar Store for wreath forms and hot glue sticks!