Month: November 2011

My mother’s birthday was last week, but this year I’m getting her something for her birthday and Christmas combined, so she’ll have to wait a few more weeks. I wanted to give her a little something on her birthday, though, so I made her a little 5X7″ photobook by pairing Christmas pictures of her three grandchildren with lyrics from Christmas songs. (She took almost all of the pictures… she is a great photographer and had her own business for a while!) I used a bunch of different digital scrapbooking supplies from the vast collection I amassed back when that was my main hobby.

I made a double-page spread for each year since 2004, and printed the book through Snapfish.

I also had 4X6″ prints made (a lot cheaper than the photobooks) and just put them in an album I already had to keep for myself. It was only AFTER I had given my mother her book that Parker and I were singing some of the songs (he has been asking to go caroling in our neighborhood and I am desperately trying to talk him out of it. We sing badly, both of us) that we noticed a typo. (That’s what I get for copying and pasting from the Internet… I thought I had proofread the songs, but not well enough.)

So… in the song “Winter Wonderland” we got to the verse that starts:

In the meadow we can build a snowman,

And pretend that he’s a circus clown,

We’ll have lots of fun with Mr. Snowman,

Until the alligators knock him down.

ALLIGATORS! I was mortified, but Parker thought it was hilarious. And when I told him the real lyrics say “all the kiddies,” he thought I said “kitties,” and he’s so crazy about cats, that’s how he wants to sing it.

I’m tempted to make a little sticker to correct my mother’s book (and the one I made for my sister’s kids), but it might be just funny to leave it alone and see if they notice.

In other news, my husband was on the Martha Stewart Show today! (I missed it, though, because I was at work). She had him on to talk about the creative lunches he packs for Parker every day. (This morning, I was told I could have a few of the mini quiches he was making for breakfast/lunch, but “not the pretty ones” because those had to be photographed for his blog.)

Speaking of his blog, he’s running a contest now. Suggest a lunch for Parker, and you could win Matthew Mead’s new Holiday magazine. Check it out HERE. 

Thanks for all the advice re: what color pillows I should use for my sofa. For now, I’m going to go with red, because I happened to find some great, ridiculously cheap fabric. My college roommate was visiting last weekend, so we went shopping at the outlet stores in Kittery, Maine, where we found this 58″ wide Marimekko fabric (the design is called “Madison WI”) for $3.95/yard at the Crate & Barrel Outlet (regularly $35.95!) So I snatched up a yard each of several different colors, plus some extra of the red.

I love that it has a variety of tones, and the design has wide stripes… so I’m going to make just simple pillow covers instead of the more elaborate patchwork designs I had been envisioning. The fabric is a nice, heavy cotton, maybe a sateen? Anyway, it was cheap enough that if I don’t love the pillows, I can always change them. And maybe I’ll do the yellow for summer.

In the meantime, my friend and I made some purses. This is an enlarged version of the Buttercup Bag at Made-by-Rae. I wish I had made the top opening a bit wider, it seems a little cramped. We didn’t use any interfacing, but used leftover gray fabric from my slipcover as the lining, which makes it pretty sturdy.

Or, at least ready to curl up on the (newly slipcovered!) sofa and hide when I get overwhelmed with everything I want to do before the holidays. I finally finished this quilt that I started in January. The quilt top was done in January, then I waited until summer to baste it and quilt it. The binding finally went on last weekend. I consider finishing it before December a major success.

These photos aren’t great, it was a little too sunny. And I forgot to take a picture of the back, which is a coordinating flannel print, which will make it extra snuggly. And since I made my quilt square instead of the larger rectangle called for in the original tutorial, I have a lot of patchwork strips leftover that I’m going to use to make either placemats or maybe even a small quilt for someone else.

It’s been almost a year since we painted our living room, and I just now finished the slipcover for the couch. I bought the fabric in January, and I think I started working on it in June. There was nothing enjoyable about this project, though I am quite happy with the results. My co-worker lent me an old book (Simplicity’s “Simply the Best Home Decorating Book) that includes pretty detailed instructions on making a slipcover, so it wasn’t confusing, just cumbersome to deal with so much heavy fabric. I ended up using clothesline from Home Depot to make the piping since it was cheaper than buying piping cord at the fabric store, and I’m really glad I did. The extra-thick piping looks really nice, much better than the pre-made stuff, although it took quite a while to make what seemed like miles of piping. I had great plans to finish all the seams with my serger, until about half-way through when the serger came unthreaded and then after days fiddling with it to get it threaded again, the needle broke and I had to order more. By the time that arrived, I had moved on.

I still have to make covers for a large “chair-and-a-half” and a smaller chair, though I’m not sure whether I will do one of them the same as the sofa and the other blue with gray piping.

For now, I need some advice! What color/colors would you use for accent pillows? I had wanted the room to be a pale blueish gray, but it ended up being much more BLUE than I thought it would. The curtains are silver/gray and white (cheap curtains from Overstock.com… I bought white and silver, and then cut them apart and sewed them back together to make the stripes). The other furniture in the room is a a gray-ish wood tone (IKEA bookcase and coffee table). I do like yellow and gray, but I’m also thinking red or orange. Or would you keep it neutral? Any fabric recommendations?

Here’s what the room used to look like. Very cheerful, but a bit more country than I prefer now. I wouldn’t say I want a totally modern room, but something in between.