Meet Josephine...

and help her come home to Texas!

Josephine is a little girl with down syndrome living in an orphanage/asylum in the Ukraine. I have recently become aware of both the mission of Reece's rainbow and the deplorable conditions that special needs orphans live in across the world through my friend Stori, whose put a lot of effort into blogging about these things over on her blog, The Wannderers: Russia Edition. I was definitely moved by what I saw but I guess you could say I hit a tipping point this morning when a co-worker sent out a reminder about his family's quest to adopt Josephine from the Ukraine. She is living in the very same place, or type of place, that Stori has been blogging about, and she has a family who desperately wants to share their life with her and help her grow up as happy and as healthy as can be. I want to help too!

JOSEPHINE for the Cutler Family — Katy, TX

Jay and Caroline have been married for almost 18 years. They married while Jay was in the military [Air Force] and moved around the United States. During that time they were raising their 6 sons and had their first daughter in 2004. Jay retired from the Air Force in 2004 after serving 20 years. In 2006 they were blessed with a second daughter, Gabriella. She was born with Down Syndrome and a complete joy to their whole family. They knew that Gabrielle had Down Syndrome before she was born and felt blessed that God choose them as parents to this wonderful baby girl. Even Grandma came for her birth. Gabrielle has taught her family so much and is such a joy. Jay and Caroline wanted to connect with other families that have a child/children with special needs and found that through facebook. Thats when they were introduced to the special needs orphans on Reeces Rainbow. Adoption is something they have discussed many times and wanted to do but now Reeces Rainbow was the path to that child that God choose for them. They knew it was their time to adopt. Josephine took their heart as soon as they saw her picture. Josephine has struck to the core as being the right child in the most need. She is five years old and will be six years old soon. Josephine is on the verge of being transferred to a mental institution from the baby house. She deserves to be at home with her awaiting family and going to school with her siblings. Jay and Caroline are committed to bringing Josephine home as soon as possible. Please pray for them. Any kind of support, donations and prayers will help bring Josephine home to her forever family.  

The trick to all of these adoptions is that they are very expensive and I can only imagine, quite emotionally draining for the families who wait for their children to come to the US. So I am hoping that we can collectively send messages of support directly to the Cutlers via their blog cutlerfamilyadoption.blogspot.com and raise even just a little bit of money to help them bring sweet Josephine home. 

Today I created a coupon code for my etsy shop zero calorie cookies that will give YOU 10% off your order just by entering JOSEPHINE10 at checkout. And in return I will donate 20% of my sales generated with that code to her reece's rainbow account. (you can also donate directly via the link above her name). What? You didn't know I have an esty shop... well I DO! I make appliqued baby onsies using my cookie cutters as inspiration shapes. Hopefully by next week I will have new valentines, easter and st. patrick's day items added as well! 

Please share with anyone and everyone you can think of, leave me a comment so we can all track the progress. I will try to update the progress in a blog post as well. 

some cookies lately

I have actually made some cookies lately. I've done a lot more sewing than baking lately, but I managed to make several batches of sugar cookies in the last few weeks and months. And since I don't have kids to post pictures of, and the first thing I do when looking for inspiration to decorate is go to google or pinterest I thought I'd post a few pictures here.

I actually made these in July and just never blogged them. They were just because hearts. I wanted to make cookies to send to a friend, who was sick at the time I think but instead of sending a few dozen cookies in one direction, I split them up into four or five small batches and sent them all over the place to just share a little bit of love and joy. They were pretty bright but the luster dust in the first picture makes them look a little more pastel.

For Christmas this year I made a million and 2 cookies... we host a Christmas party at our house for friends and neighbors etc and last year I didn't make any decorated cookies because of a time crunch so this year I did a bunch. I had tons left after the party and was saving them for Christmas with Sean's family. When I started to consolidate them into one tin, I realized I still had boatloads of cookies, and peppermint bark so as much as I could up and took them to the fire station by my house. I felt really good about supporting the fire fighters who work holidays while the general idiot public starts fried turkey fires :)

before the party started, sean kept rearranging these just to annoy me. 

And just this last weekend I made maybe my favorite cookies because they were for my almost nephew Mason's baby shower! My mom kind of twisted my arm into making these, and I really wish I could have made a decent brown icing, but I'm ultimately glad I did make them and I think they turned out cute!

I clearly didn't take this picture, the quality is too good. I think it might be time to invest in a camera!

New Year... New Pantry

Happy New Year! We're only 3 days in* and so far 2012 has been pretty much perfect for me. It helps that it started as a three day weekend and I got quite a bit of stuff... including relaxing done, but I just generally feel very content right now and certainly happy with the way 2012 is shaping up!

Last week sometime, as I was recovering from Christmas... We hosted Sean's family for Christmas at our house in Delaware and it was wonderful, but by the time the dust settled and everyone left I was EXHAUSTED...so I was spending some time totally vegged out on the couch watching a show called The Amandas. Its part awesome home organization and a greater part insane OCD cattiness. At one point the main Amanda (who calls all her assistants the Amandas) broke down crying and telling her team how flawless she was, it was epic. ANYWAY during the show you get to see main Amanda's ridiculously organized house and pantry... the bug was planted and I needed to deal with mine!

You see I have a pretty big pantry, even by Texas standards, and HUGE pantry by Northeast standards... most houses we looked at didn't even have them. But it was a pretty big mess, I suppose having plenty of space allows you to be a little bit  messy.

Yes, I am relatively embarrassed to share these pictures... somehow it looks even worse than it did when I was living with it this way... One of those popcorn boxes up there turns out to have actually been empty. Who knows how long it had been in there like that!

So Saturday night Sean and I went to Lowes and ultimately Bed Bath and Beyond to find some organizational items... Thanks to a Christmas Gift card this project was almost entirely free!! I was a little dissapointed at the selection of items, or lack there of, but I bought a bunch and assumed we'd return stuff etc. For the record Sean lost interest at Lowes and was totally done by the time we got to Bed Bath :)

Sunday morning I slowly cleared out the pantry. I totally covered our dining table, filled the laundry room and spilled over into the office. It was a mess.

Only a few items had expired... one in particular expired in 2007, a full 2 years before we moved to Delaware go figure! I had no less than 3 opened boxes of lasagna noodles... it looks like I made lasagna and needed just 1 extra noodle, 3 times... each box was pretty much full.

Once everything was cleared out... I started by painting the shelves bright white. This was a REALLY frustrating step. The white actually covered really well, but up against almost white walls the new shelves didn't really show up... so I felt like I was painting and painting and not really getting anywhere.

The real satisfaction came when I got to put the wall color up. Which I mixed from paint around the house. I was going for aqua... and started with the ONLY blue I had which is Behr rain water, its really barely there blue. So I added some acrylic blue (not much I ran out) some acrylic green, some acrylic black and some relatively dark latex green. At some point it was a total disaster and I just gave up. I thought it turned out way more gray than aqua and I was ok with that, but when I started putting it on the walls it was actually a perfect aqua...go figure.

this picture was taken at night, it looks a little more blue than it does aqua. 

Then I started putting things back in... I got some small shelves to hold cans which I really like and ended up with lots of brown baskets from TJ Max. I love the finished product. In fact I am finishing up this post a week after I started* writing because I was out of town for a while... I MISSED my pantry while I was gone. So Sad I know.

The peg board was pre-existing I just added more hooks and those baskets. 

I've added more stuff since this picture was taken. Its actually kind of fun to grocery shop and KNOW what I need and that I have space!

I love that wire basket at the top, I wish I had something prettier to put in it, but for now it holds light bulbs and candles. 

 I wish I'd had the energy to paint the door, but I just didn't. Painting all the shelves and trim took much longer than I expected. Maybe someday I'll get rid off the rest of that green!

The Checkered Pump

Ok, here's the tutorial on the checkered pumpkin. They are cell phone pics and not great cause its hard to take an action shot of your own hands. But you get the idea.

Conveniently, I had a roll of one inch blue painters tape. So to start I folded a post it not to approximately one inch wide to use as my guide and marked off one inch squares all the way around the roll of tape. I know that doesn't make perfect sense yet, just hang in there...

Once I had marked all the way around the outside once, I unrolled the tape and cut at the last mark. I stuck it to the tv tray that acts as my crafting space when I am doing something and want to be in the den with the ummm TV. I got about 12 1 inch squares each time I marked around the tape. This part is kind of tedious, but I was totally done in less than 1/2 hour.

Then I just cut one square off at a time to stick on the pumpkin...

Now this part wont be perfect. Its a pumpkin people... its round-ish, and wobbly and particularly as you get to the top its diameter starts to change and complicate things... just eye ball it. I had to adjust a few squares as I went, but it generally turned out fine.

As I got to the top it was getting more complicated so I decided to just tape off the whole top to preserve more orange color.

Then I just took it outside and did one heavy coat of gold spray paint. I actually didn't checker down to the bottom either. I just went to where I could kind of see. So ultimately the bottom of this guy ended up gold.

I left it outside for a good hour to dry then peeled all the tape off, added a ribbon and voila! Fancy Checkered Pumpkin!!

Gorgeous Gourds

I really LOVE fall. I love that we can finally open the house back up and let fresh air in (and the stinky 3 dog, summer air out)! I don't however really love halloween. I have no moral objections to halloween and like that people really enjoy it, but I am NOT a fan of creepy, gory, gross and frightening. I ALSO don't really love the country kitschy look of a lot of the mass produced fall decor. (Man, I am difficult!). So I've been looking for fun fall/halloween (I totally dig cute/whimsical halloween) decorations.

 I found my inspiration (via pinterest and Southern Living). FANCY PUMPKINS!

This weekend I made a trip to Lowes, and then ultimately Michaels in search of pumpkins to make fancy... I've been eyeing the craft pumpkins at Michaels for a few years now but they are EXPENSIVE. Well this weekend they were half off and the SAME PRICE as fresh pumpkins from lowes. So I umm bought a lot. And some stickers and rhinestones from the 2 for $3 bins at Michaels. My goal all along was to spray paint some of my pumpkins gold... to make them fancy you know. Then I just went to town putting dot stickers and swirly stickers and using blue painters tape to tape off some stripes. Easy peasy.

See this one got swirly stickers... they didn't all stick perfectly and I was worried I would need to touch them up but really they are cute and imperfect. I also might have an obsession with fall ribbon. Almost all the pumpkins got a little bit of ribbon too :)

 Now they are all over my house.. some inside... some out.

This one got all rhinestones. (FANCY)

I even spread my ribbon obsession to this little crate I got at Michaels to stack them on. It was $9.99 not sure if it was on sale or not, but it was a lot cheaper than a bale of straw and a lot more versatile. 

Did you spy that checkered pumpkin on the front porch?  He might be my favorite and I took pictures of all the steps... It was easier and faster than I expected.

Linking up to Saved by Suzy. 

Quick and Easy Picture refurb

I got this "Cooking With Jazz" print several years ago when I moved into one of my first real apartments. Its not something I looked long and hard to pick out... it was a leftover piece at hobby lobby that someone had custom framed and matted and never picked up. My mom and I thought it was cute enough and picked it up... When we bought it it had a bright teal mat but somewhere along the way I had it re-matted to fit the scheme of whatever kitchen it was in. When we moved here I just hung it up, but it never really fit in.

Sorry about the glare... annoying. 

And its really "bugged" me because it looked really washed out AND there was a gross little dead bug stuck in between the glass and the print.

I'd seen here that you can actually just spray paint mats to update a picture... brilliant. Well I didn't have any spray paint in the right color but I did have more of the bright green latex I'd used on the inside of my kitchen cabinets and I figured it was worth a shot. Worst case scenario I'd just have to have the thing professionally re-matted.

I actually added a tiny bit of brown/sienna acrylic paint to tone down the green (did you know you can tint latex with basic acrylic paint?... AWESOME) and TRIED to tape off the second matt to retain the white edge and some definition in color. Well the taping DID NOT WORK so I just used a foam roller to paint over the whole thing. Then I left the house and ran some errands. When I got home I was pleasantly surprised. Not only did the green dry to 2 completely different yet complimentary shades on the 2 different mats, but the suede look of the larger matt seemed to re-appear as well.

I also spray painted the silver frame black. 

Check out the 2 colors!

So for about 30 mins of effort and ZERO dollars, I totally perked up the look of my bargain print and made it match THIS kitchen.

I'm linking up here today (where the inspiration came from!)

The Cheap Sheets

I'm finally addressing the OTHER guest bedroom. Its had the same white walls, dated curtains and a lonely twin bed (sometimes some boxes and other unfinished projects) since we moved here in Jan 2010.

A few weeks ago I painted the walls barely light blue (Behr Rain Water) to try and make sense of the very medium blue trim. The same night I was perusing craigslist and found a sleigh-trundle twin bed that I really couldn't get my mind off of. It wasn't particularly craigslist cheap but it was perfect for the guest room that already had one twin bed in it and was a little too narrow to fit a queen as well but I still wanted to sleep more people. (breathe) I couldn't sleep I wanted it so bad, but it took some convincing to get sean on board. We picked it up on Monday (in 2 loads) and it came with 2 mattresses and a box spring. Well when we put it all together I started to question WHY we got a box spring.

Also pictured new wall color and curtains. 

So its a little bit hard to tell how ridiculously high the whole set up is WITH the box spring. The lady who sold it said her daughter didn't like it because she was too young. I think she didn't like it because it was so high she would DIE if she fell out. Now Sean says we have to keep it this way... Silly silly boy.

Because we now have 2 new beds in the guest room I was kind of on the lookout for sheets. I love eyelet lace but was hoping to not break the bank on sheets. Conveniently, TJ Max had plain white twin sheet sets on clearance for $16.00 yesterday. I got 2 sets, but they were pretty basic.

My kitchen island with a towel over it is also my ironing board. I don't iron much :)

So I got my sewing machine out and played with the decorative stitches. It took me some time to play with the tension, stitch length and anything else I could adjust... I wanted it to look like embroidery not just decorative stitches.

Once I got my stitch picked I did a decorative border in navy blue on one set and medium/light blue on the other. I think they turned out looking like very expensive sheets (even though I didn't always pay very close attention and the line on the flat sheet might be a little wavy) :)

I hope to have the whole room put together this weekend. I'm in the process of painting all the furniture bright white. I think it will be a very pretty room when its done. This is my first time ever decorating with blue!