Where I Have Been

Ack, where have I been?! It has been over a year since I posted anything here. I guess I will start with showing you what I spent most of last year devoting my energy to. Frank and I have been in our sweet little 1923 bungalow for almost 16 years. It was in desperate need of some love and attention and we gave it quite a bit last year.

This is the front of the house after a face lift. We put in new windows, doors, a new roof, a fresh coat of paint, new light fixtures, house numbers and spruced up the landscaping.

This is the front room. We painted, de-cluttered and put in a new light fixture that you can see in my Christmas selfie below. I adore that light fixture by the way.

Our dining room after a fresh coat of paint and a new light fixture.

In our hallway and front bedroom we put planks on the ceiling to cover the old glittery popcorn.

Aaaah, our bedroom. It is my favorite and most complete room in the house. This is the smaller of our two bedrooms and was Frank's music room for about 15 years. We swapped rooms so that we could share the back room and to give me a dedicated sewing space. I still need to make a bedskirt for the bed and frame and hang photos on the big wall to the left, but otherwise this room is just how I want it.
 

Probably the most exciting thing for me about this entire year was creating a sewing studio in our back bedroom. Previously my sewing projects were strewn across the dining room table, creating an ugly mess or preventing me from sewing altogether when I would clean and pack up the mess. I am so happy with my space now. I have a ton of storage and am more organized than ever. I can see my fabric and have quick access to all of my tools and patterns. Best of all, I don't have to put anything away. I used an Ikea shelving unit for storage and an Ikea kitchen island that I converted into a rolling cutting table. We had new light fixtures installed so that I can actually see what I am working on!

Our back patio. There's a lot more to our back yard but I couldn't find any good photos. Of course right now it needs a ton of work (weed pulling) to get ready for Spring. I will have to get some good pics after we clean it all up. We really enjoyed eating meals out on the back patio last Spring and Summer. They always needs work but I love our gardens.

There are more projects to do, now and forever I am sure. Our living room needs some touch up paint, and we totally ran out of money to renovate the kitchen and bathroom. Someday we will get to those major projects. For now we are enjoying our home and I am back to sewing, cooking and exercising, all things that were sorely neglected last year. I can procrastinate with the best of them, so this blog renovation is slow going. I am back, and plan to share my sewing and other creative endeavors here. I am slowly but surely updating the layout and cleaning up this space. I hope you enjoyed my little home as much as I do.

* I neglected to mention what wonderful parents I have. They spent so much time helping us with these projects last year and I can never thank them enough. My dad put in our doors, finished out our windows and showed us and helped us install that ceiling and all of our fans. My mom helped me paint and clean and do all kinds of dirty work around here. Now don't I feel like a jerk. Really, I hope they know how much we appreciate them!

Silly Pets

Roberta the watermelon loving cat was in heaven last night.

Lucy the bandanna wearing princess dog likes to have her photo taken.
That's all. I just had to share.

Frank's Pillow

This is Frank's pillow, it sits on his side of the couch and I made it for him.



This pillow was in the planning stages foreeeever, it seemed. I do not own a stash of quilting cottons, so collecting up the pieces of fabric took a while. The sewing of the pillow was quick and went smoothly compared to the months of finding just the right prints. I scored about 12 yards of really lovely linen at my favorite thrift store early this year. It is a mustardy yellow, and I was really pleased with the gray that I got from dyeing this piece. A few of these cottons were from other projects, Karlie's Easter Dress, a skirt for me that was never finished, Karlie's Mermaid and her Bed Canopy and Scarves that I made for Christmas gifts a few years ago.  The rest were newly acquired by my picky self.  I chose by color and print, and can see now that I like prints with a textural quality to them. I can also see that I have a great love for Anna Maria Horner's designs.

The pillow is a simple envelope.  Laying out the grid of circles took the most time.  I used wonder under to iron the circles to the linen and then zig zagged my way around each circle.  

I'm super pleased with the pillow and Frank is too. 

Map Love

I love maps and globes. I love the colors, the graphics and I suppose I love what they represent. I don't get to travel much but I do dream of traveling the world. Mom got us this school map at the Fredricksburg flea market in the Fall. We finally got it hung in our living room and I'm loving it!

The 10K is Saturday, yikes! I'm more worried about the cold than the running. It starts at 7am and it will be in the mid 40's. I ran Saturday morning when the sun was out and it was in the 50s and my hands and feet were numb for the first 20 minutes. I'm a wimp! We have been lucky to have a mild winter, though I probably won't consider it lucky come summer. I have been able to run through January and February, not as much as in the Fall, but I'm still proud. A customer at work told me that there is only one hill and it is in the beginning of the race. I have run up that hill and it isn't bad at all. Wish me luck!

Plant Life

Part of my Year of the Home New Years declaration has been sprucing up the house by bringing in more house plants. They really make me happy and give a more finished look to a room. Instant upgrade! I'm not usually good with houseplants, but do much better with my gardens. I'm trying to become a better caretaker to my indoor plants since they bring so much joy to my life.


I have been reminding myself of my PawPaw with my plants. He never met a plant that he didn't try to divide and multiply. I only do that with the easy ones, like succulents. I have my little pot full of succulent rootings by the window and check on their progress regularly. I love to see them grow!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

Yes, I know Christmas is long gone and New Years has passed. I'm a little behind, okay? I couldn't let the holidays just slip out of mind without sharing my little bit of holiday cheer. It was a quite Christmas and New Years for us. We weren't able to see my family, which was strange for me. I'm going to Austin for a couple of days to make up for that and to say a quick hello to one of my best friends. I did a lot of baking in between the craziness of work. I didn't give out cookies to as many friends as usual, but did take a lot of them to work. It was fun because I wasn't the only one sharing baked goods in the days leading up to Christmas.

I finished my felt garland and LOVE it! I saw the idea on pinterest and it worked perfectly. I cut circles from wool felt and then sewed them together with invisible thread. So cute and it came out a lot longer than I expected.

I couldn't resist one new ornament, a Mariachi Kitty. This is the first year that we have had Roberta at Christmas and we needed a cat ornament for her. The guitar is a bonus because that is Frank's instrument.
 

It snowed on Christmas day! By the time we drove home from dinner at our friends' house there was a pretty good amount on the ground, well for Fort Worth, Texas!

We spent New Years at Frank's aunts party but didn't stay too late.  Frank said I was asleep on the couch before midnight, I think that's a first for me on New Years.

I haven't made any resolutions yet. I haven't run for several weeks as I hurt my leg, then between the cold and the craziness of the holidays I took a break. My leg is better but it's still cold. I need some proper layers and some motivation to get out there in the cold! I really do miss running and after all the cookies I ate the past few weeks I really need to get back to it. So I guess running through the winter will be one of my resolutions.

Happy Halloween!

Here is the extent of my Halloween enthusiasm. Pumpkins are marked down at work and I finally brought some home yesterday. I figure they will last on the porch through Thanksgiving. I love the funky colors and textures!

 I've been longing to have a backyard s'mores party with our nephews. This picture is from one year ago when we had our nieces and nephews all here and told ghost stories and made s'mores. The nieces are all in Houston now, so it would just be the boys this time.

 Speaking of S'mores, we attempted to make these crazy s'mores cookies when we were in Austin for my brother's birthday. They were his request and only sort of worked, resulting in 8" diameter cookies with a small s'more in the middle of each. Pretty ridiculous, though the caramelized marshmallow was pretty awesome! I'm not a huge s'mores person but I do have daydreams of making from scratch marshmallows and graham crackers for gourmet s'mores. That won't happen for the boys as they wouldn't appreciate the work.

In more s'mores related news, I'm seriously contemplating making myself this cake for my birthday. I'm having a hard time deciding between this and the Chocolate Caramel cake that I made last year.

Source: heatherchristo.com via Martha on Pinterest

Enough with my s'mores tangent. Though I'm not in much of a Halloween mood, I hope you enjoy the holiday and get to see the little ones in your life all dressed up and having a blast.  Karlie is going to wear the Snow White costume that I made for her birthday and her mama is dressing as the evil queen.  I'm anxiously waiting for a picture of the two of them together!

Getting in the Spirit

This is what I have been looking at at work for over a month. Don't get me wrong, I love them. I love all the funky varieties, colors and textures. I just wasn't ready for pumpkins when they showed up early this year.
 

With a friend coming to town I finally got in the spirit this weekend and decorated my table for Fall. I kept it simple with mini white pumpkins, sunflowers and carnations. I am not into the pumpkin spice candles, but got a fireside candle instead.

 I'm still not feeling all the pumpkin flavored everything that I see on pinterest. I am more of a gingerbread person, I suppose.

I jogged today after three days off.  It feels so good, and I don't like it when I miss days.  I was off Saturday and my main agenda was to go trail running.  It was too dang cold and windy.  We were having our December weather in October, and I'm so not ready for that.  Fall is my favorite season and I don't want to rush it.  Lets slow time down and enjoy this.  Yesterday was perfectly sunny and in the high sixties.  My favorite weather.  Ahhhhhh

Adventures in Cake Baking

It has been a busy season of birthdays for our friends and family around here, and it is not over yet.  Dad is next, then my good friend Christi (who won't get a cake because she doesn't live nearby) and Frank.  Those are just the April birthdays.
Our awesome buddy Alley's birthday was last weekend and though she share's a birthday with Saint Patrick's day I decided against a green cake. Instead I opted for a springy, girlie cake.  I tested another Vanilla cake recipe, this time from Smitten Kitchen.  I made the cake ahead, froze it and thawed the night before, which worked beautifully.

Since I was feeling very ambitious I also made homemade Marshmallow Fondant flowers.


As well as raspberry filling, lemon curd and cream cheese frosting in advance. 


Here is the final result.  This is pre Cake Decorating class, which I took last night.
I think this one is cute but the "polka dots" that I was going for look more like hershey kisses.  


Mmmm, Vanilla layer cake with lemon curd and raspberry filling and cream cheese icing.


I also practiced my flower arranging skills and made a pretty for Alley.


And a few bud vases for myself. 


All this baking has served as practice for a baby shower cake that I am to make next week.
I have learned quite a bit from these last two cakes and my class last night.
Some things I have learned:

*Marshmallow fondant is messy to make but much cheaper and tastier than store bought.

*Wear latex gloves when kneading colors into fondant!

*Cake flour (like any other flour) should be measured using the scoop and sweep method, not packed in with the side of the cake box.  I knew better when I did it, and both cakes had a courser and drier texture than they should have.  Now I need to retest both recipes with correct measuring techniques and get a canister for my cake flour.

*Putting your cake in the freezer after crumb coating for about 15 minutes will make frosting the cake much easier.

*Pipe your lettering in the same color as your cake first, then trace over with another color.  This helps tremendously!

*Cake decoration, like any other craft, requires practice to master.

*Cream Cheese Icing pipes beautifully.  So glad, since it is so much tastier, in my opinion.

Flowers and Cookies

I'm still enjoying my Quince branch as the blossoms open. 



I moved it to the window sill by my desk and it looks so much like Spring.
It still feels like Spring here too.  On the news they were calling it June-uary.
I can't believe it is February already.  Time flies.


I worked in the floral department at work last Friday and really loved it.
The ladies are all lovely and sweet.  I hope there is more floral work in my future!
I brought home these Kanagroo paws to enjoy.


Tomorrow we are taking Karlie Rose to the Stock Show to see all the animals.  I'm hoping to catch the Rabbit show in the afternoon.  I plan on wearing my new boots that I got for Christmas.  You gotta dress the part, right?

I had my mind set on making the Blueberry and Cream cookies from Momofuku Milk Bar that I made several winters ago.  Once again the shopping list took me to four stores!  Joann for the glucose, work for dried bluebberries and white chocolate and two others looking for plain 'ol non-fat milk powder.  I think I threw a box of it away after it sat in my cupboard for a couple of years.  I guess I should make these cookies more often.  I make the Milk Crumbs last night and quadrupled the recipe.  I will double the cookie recipe and freeze the extra milk crumbs.  I'm trying to think of other baked goods that they could go into as well.  Need to use up that milk powder!

I'm hoping that Karlie likes these, but if not there will be more for us.  They are seriously worth the effort, so good.

A New Treasure

My parents came down for Fort Worth yesterday, which is always a treat.  We had a delicious Mexican breakfast at a favorite spot, then escaped the heat at Barnes and Noble (mom and I also snuck over to Anthropolgie to window shop).  When they were leaving dad said he had something for us.  He pulled this wonderful hand carved wood and antler back scratcher out that he had made!  I can't believe he carved it and everything, so cool.  I love it as a back scratcher and as a table decoration.

Thanks Dad!

Thank you!

Thanks to the support of my wonderful blog readers, friends and Facebook fans I made it to 700 sales in my Etsy shop last Friday. This feels like a great accomplishment! Thanks everyone for your support.

I treated myself to some lovely flowers and put them in my office window.






I am getting ready for Fiesta in San Antonio this weekend and will post more details about that soon. If you are in the area plan on coming by, it is a great show!