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life{in}grace

live with more presence, passion, & purpose

homemaking

A Field Trip with Savannah

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Savannah (Steve’s beautiful 25 year old, actress/model, MAC make up artist—with a degree in political science– daughter) is visiting this week. She’s so much fun to be with and the girls and I are in heaven, having her here to teach us all about makeup, clothing trends, and the craziness of pop culture. She is smart, well-read, funny, and can knit like a champ. Oh and did I mention she’s drop dead gorgeous?

So, on our escapade to Abingdon to see Tom Sawyer at the Children’s Theatre (which was wonderful) we stopped in at a local yarn shop and oooh-ed and aaaah-ed at the luscious wools and cashmere’s. I could just live in this room I think.

Then, we visited the MAC counter, where she showed me everything I needed to make myself look 25 again. We’re working on an eye make up tutorial today that I’ll share with you later this week. You’re in for a treat.

And the wonderful, crisp fall day came to a perfect close by meeting my teens for dinner in Johnson City.

How lucky am I????

Calling all Crafters

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Steve’s parents left yesterday and it was a whirlwind of fun; cooking, baking, knitting, and enjoying family time.
I was thrilled to learn to do cables and LOVE this yummy tiffany blue yarn.
Which brings me to the point of this post.
What if we all made an effort toward a more handmade Christmas.
Less stuff, more meaningful.
Not that we could go ‘cold turkey’ because last time I checked, noone was making handmade legos.
But you know what I mean. A little less Walmart, a little more from the heart.
So, to support and encourage us in our quest for more meaningful gifts, I plan to host
12 days of Handmade Christmas-Tutorials
beginning November 1 through November 12
here on my little old blog
with guest posters for 12 days straight.
Sounds like so much fun to me!!
I have been asking some really awesome bloggers/crafters to join me but I have some slots left
so if you want to show us how to make some Christmas-y craft/food/gift/etc
then let me know all about your ideas.
Or if you know someone
who knows someone
who knows someone
who’s really cool and crafty
then by all means
tell a sista.
Y’all may be so good that it turns in 28 days of Handmade Christmas Tutorials!
And why in November?
Because I don’t know about you, but I only have two hands.
And I’m working on some giveaways for that week too.
And I’m making wassail
And singing carols
And in general annoying all the people who hate the mention of Christmas
before Thanksgiving.
Let’s change things up a bit.
How ’bout it?

Happy House Guests and a Recipe

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Come on in y’all!

When you’re having company, make an effort to make the entrance of your house inviting.

I love creative tablescapes and this time of year, the possibilities are endless. Natural elements like pumpkins and hay make for visual interest.

And what fun we had sitting around the table when Savannah arrived. We can’t wait to spoil her this week.

The blackbird kept watch over the zucchini tart.

And then Grandma made these gorgeous and delicious apple pies. She’s not only a master knitter but an expert pie maker. Apple pie + zucchini tart= happy house guests.

It was so wonderful having Caiti home too. We have missed her terribly!

Find out what your guests love and plan to make it. Caiti’s favorite: Blueberry Almond Coffee Cake!

Recipe for coffee cake:
1/2 cup butter,softened
8 ounces cream cheese
2 ounces almond paste (or 1 t. almond flavoring)
2 cups sugar
4 eggs
1 1/2 c. flour
1 1/2 t. baking powder
1 1/2 t. salt
1 3/4 cups blueberries tossed in 1 T. flour and 2 T sugar
Lemon Glaze:
2 cups powdered sugar
2 T. lemon juice
2 T. heavy cream
1 T. softened butter
Preheat oven to 350. Combine butter, cream cheese, almond paste and sugar; beat until fluffy. Add eggs and then flour, baking powder and salt. Then fold in blueberries. Bake in a well-greased bundt pan for 35-40 minutes. While it cools, combine ingredients for glaze and stir until smooth. Drizzle over pound cake and enjoy!!

I’m joining Rhoda for a recipe swap. Click here for more deliciousness.

Weekend Warriors

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One thing we know how to do here at our house is fully take advantage of a rainy weekend. And for those of you who thought our craft studio was gonna be just another pretty place to sit, I give you felted flower pins!!!! The girls and I trudged into Goodwill in the pouring rain and bought every cute wool sweater (make sure they’re 95-100% wool—or they won’t felt) we could find, promptly washed them in hot water (which shrinks them and turns them into felt), and commenced the flower ‘arranging’. We printed some templates from here and then just added our own personal embellishments.

I made this gargantuan black ‘rose’ and could barely move my left arm without hitting it—but it’s so darn cute and very anthropologie-esk. I made the middle portion of the flower by cutting about a 1/2 inch end of the cuff of the sweater (so that you have a small little circle of fabric) and then make a cut so that it forms a single length of fabric and then roll that little piece ‘on’ itself and glue as you go. I used the macdaddy of all craft glues: E6000—which will make your room smell like you’re making something industrial—but it works like a charm. BTW, that cute shirt that I wore under my black dress to church—-Goodwill—$1.50! I know, I know! That’s the bonus of 1/2 price Saturday at Goodwill.

Elea (my 7yo) made her own flower and wore it Sunday as well. She was beaming with pride.

And one thing’s for sure about making flowers this way; the felt is just dreamy. It’s thick and hold’s it’s shape but is just moldable enough. I used fabric scissors to make my cuts but a rotary cutter would work fine, as long as its very sharp. If you’re house is like mine, there’s 72 pairs of scissors and only one that really cuts anything.
I cut the templates out first and then pinned them to the felt to make the cuts in the felt. My cutting skills weren’t perfect but after you add several layers to the flower, the imperfections seem to disappear.

And after we’d ‘felted’ till our hearts were content, we switched gears to needle point. For those of you who love numbers, I re-threaded the needles 427 times. Or so.

Our precious little Studio 8 took a beating. There was floss and wool and thread , and chocolate chip cookie crumbs everywhere.

A bright spot in the room–despite the explosion of crafty-wooly goodness– was the ‘heather’ in the window sill.

When our little fingers were tired and aching, we switched to reading. May I recommend Glen Beck’s new book (which to my delight contains Thomas Paine’s Common Sense in the back)? I love the subtitle: The Case Against an Out of Control Government. Amen to that.

Don’t worry, there was plenty of football too. Did you happen to see the most awesome play by Brett Favre at the end of the Vikings game? It was the perfect ending to a wonderful, somewhat lazy, very crafty weekend.
Oh and pretty please, will you come visit me tomorrow? I’m traveling to a wonderful friend’s blog site to do a guest post and I’d love it if you’d be so kind to say hello to her—she has some delightful ideas for being a gracious hostess—-and to say hello to me—’cause I’ll be a little nervous–hoping to be a gracious guest!! I’ll be at Sandy’s from FourReluctantEntertainers, whom I met her in real life last year at Blissdom. She is as beautiful, talented, and friendly in real life as she appears on her blog. You’re gonna love her too.
Love to you all and thank you from the bottom of my heart for meeting me here every day. You inspire and encourage me in ways you’ll never know. Hugs to you and blessings to your family!
I’m joining Kimba’s DIY day so click here for more fabulous projects!

The Making of a Craft Studio

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It is with great pleasure I give you: Studio 8

She had a sinewy mind, capable of violent enthusiasms and possessed a driving energy to make and do. Sometimes, it seemed as if the wrong soul had been placed inside that slight body, for she pushed herself to her limits and beyond, and was often ill as a result. There was something in her that could not, or would not, see the distinctions the world wished to make between weak and strong, between women and men, laborer and lord.

sinewy adj. -tough, stringy, strong

If you believe that quote and could know the amount of sheer physical labor that went into transforming this space, I am definitely due to get some kind of illness. But maybe the 27 aphthous ulcers that have terrorized the inside of my mouth ARE my illness. Do you ever do that, work so hard for so long that you make yourself sick? Yeah, me too. And I regret to inform you that I’ve searched high and low for a before picture and can’t find one. It was a guest room with dirty carpet and far to many fake plants. Trust me, this is better.
So, the first thing I undertook was to rip up the old–nasty–ten year old—stained with all manner of dog and human stuff—carpet. It was not a job for the faint of heart. Not to mention the overstuffed sofa and queen bed and other sundry furnishings that had to be removed from the room before that could even take place. I then painted the walls with 2 cans of leftover light colored paint that I mixed together.
When I ran out of paint with one large wall left, I decided to do a chalk wall.

Because who doesn’t love a chalk wall and a little improvisational creativity?
With the carpet slowly being removed (by me, the little girls and my neighbor Leigh Ann) I commenced to painting the subflooring with porch paint. This was my biggest expense, totaling around $62. That process took around 5 days because the paint had to dry thoroughly in between coats. I used Meredith (whom to all our misfortune has quit blogging) for inspiration and ‘how-to’ information, but my sub-flooring was not nearly as nice as hers, so I did 3 coats of porch paint and it’s looks very ‘porch’-like—much more rustic than hers—but perfect for a craft studio. And then for kicks, I brought up every color of paint in my basement (which looks like the paint section at Lowe’s minus the 20 year old paint section worker whose never painted a surface in his life) and began painting everything that didn’t move.

Including this old school table that I bought last year at an antique store close-out for $50. I used stainless steel paint—which I will never use again—and though I liked the way it turned out okay, I hate using oil based paint, which this was. I could have achieved the same result with a silver paint and without all the hassle of mineral spirits.

Then, there were these wooden shelves—with the perfect little scalloped edges— that were in my schoolroom that the girls and I painted. We used the cute scarf as our inspiration and picked from the multidinous colors at our disposal. Those shelves now are home to our yummy yarn collection. We also continued the color-love by adding jars of skittles and bubble gum—-because who wants to spend all day in a craft studio where there’s no sugar? Not me.

Then, we shopped the house for everything fun and colorful and ‘crafty’ we could find. If it didn’t fit our fun and crafty criteria, we painted it!

The icing on the cake was this awesome 1950’s glider which we found this weekend at a yard sale for $20. It gives the spectators of the crafting a place to sit and watch old episodes of Andy Griffith. Something about Aunt Bee just makes me wanna bake and sew.

And last but not least is this cool chair that we bought at a thrift store for $5 and recovered with pink toile. I’ve written a cautionary tale about my upholstering skills here.
The sewing table is constructed from an old 1980’s computer desk (which I painted blue) and an old door from Goodwill which I decoupaged with the black polka-dot wrapping paper. We are always on the hunt for unique items to add to our vintage, colorful studio, but for now, we are enjoying our little woman cave, where we can escape from a whole host of activities including laundry, scrubbing toilets, and watching the fifth college football game on any given Saturday—don’t get me wrong, I love the first four.
This room is a little santuary of sorts—-where we girls can learn from each other—-and where our ‘violent enthusiasms’ and ‘driving energy’ have a productive place to land.

The Nitty Gritty:
It cost roughly $150 and ten days to complete this makeover. For the wall paint, I mixed two Valspar colors in about a 50/50 ratio. They are foxtrot and hemingway. For the porch paint, I used Sherwin Williams porch paint—but tinted to the color Dover. I stayed up way too late a few nights and dealt with a plethora of aphthous ulcers and one nasty cold sore. But I’m a team player so I gladly take one for the home team to get this dreamy little cozy space in which to make memories with my girls. I used a variety of craft room photos for inspiration which you can find at my tumblr site. I thank Soulemama who never ceases to amaze me with her love for the creative life and how to teach that to our children. I am also indebted to the Nester for teaching us all that it doesn’t have to be perfect to be beautiful.

Please visit Kimba‘s sight (it’s DIY day) to see lots of fun DIY projects!

Weekend Treasures

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The chair we found on our ‘thrifting’ excursion: $5
Our find of the year—a 1950’s glider: $20
A can of paint, 2 yards of cheap fabric and child labor: $25 (and a homeade milkshake)
Having a perfect place to sew and knit and hearing your 7yo say, “When I grow up, I’m gonna be ONE crafty momma!” : priceless
Notes:
1. You’re gonna ask me how I recovered that chair and I’m gonna tell you that there was weeping, gnashing of teeth, hammerin’, staplin’, and then I put an afghan over the side that I completely messed up. In other words, you should get your recoverin’ tutorial from someone who measures twice and cuts once—-instead of from someone who just cuts! Thanks to Katilin for her help!
2. Just got that glider into the ‘studio’—thanks to Marcus and Macdaddy. I promise to show you soon—although I’m afraid the suspense is gonna be more exciting than the actual reveal.
Hope your weekend was full of treasures too!
Visit ‘Metamorphosis Monday‘ to see other fun transformations!
I’m also joining Rhoda for her ‘yardsale treasures’ carnival. Visit her blog here.