Spray Painting Lights

I hate the light fixtures in my bathrooms.  First off, I figure I'm not trying to be a movie starlet from the 20s so why I have those mirror lights.  Second off, two tone gold and silver is not my favorite.  Easy enough to change right?  No soup for me, when you take off the fixture the builders put in a left mount, instead of centering it over the sink. 

 So with the help of my mom we spray painted it a brush nickle and I bought smaller light bulbs.  I'm amazed how most of my lighting problems in this house are fixed once, I get new light bulbs, usually smaller wattage.  The previous owners had three 100 watts in most of the rooms.

Now I got to get cracking on painting the rest of my bathroom vanity light fixtures. One down two to go.

Learning more about Cookies

Things I've learned lately.
At my altitude cookies turn out better with a tablespoon or two mixed in the dough.
I need to bake my cookies a minute less.  I've realized if I pull them out before they look "golden", they aren't as dry.

Things I learned a long time ago.
Use butter flavored shortening, not butter, or the cookies will look like pancakes.
High Altitude needs more flour.  Sounds no brainier, but I was raised at 500 ft, I had to learn that the hard way.

One last thought.
When in a quick fix Nestle's Break and Bake, taste like homemade cookies, unlike Pillsbury.  But at almost 7,000 ft they turn out like pancakes.  I have been known to use them before, but I recently got some with our frozen pizza, they tasted fine, but looked awful.  But I like homemade cookies better than break and bake, creating from scratch gives me more satisfaction in life.
My husband's and my favorite chocolate chip cookies, are with Ande's Mint bits.

Learning the Skills

My son is learning the skills of baking chocolate chip cookies, namely, putting the dough on a cookie sheet.  He did a pretty good job.

Couch Pillows

Right before we moved, we bought used couches from a friend for $20.  I know most people would not be so ghetto and not pay to move low priced used furniture.  But it seemed like a good idea for us, we already had a big truck, and we didn't have to waste time during the two precious weeks my husband had here before he went back to Utah for 5 weeks looking for couches. Not to mention they came with brown microfiber covers, which are priced well over $20.  They are also actually surprisingly comfy for old couches, but there was just three problems.  Three rough scratchy upholstery pillows that didn't fit under the slipcovers.

I cut the three pillows open and put their guts instead of this darkish material. I wanted to finish during the 2 year old's nap so I machine sewed the bottom up.  If I would have known what I was doing I would have double layered my pillows.  I didn't because I didn't have enough dark material, and didn't have any plain material, then when I finished I realized I could have used the multiple yards stripe flannel just sitting around, the material is dark enough no one would know what was in the inside.  Life has lately taught me when you double up your material over stuffing, everything is much softer! 

Tah dah!

The full view of the other couch. Yes, the point of the dark pillows was almost to blend it, but not actually.  I didn't want a whole couch full of brightly colored pillows.

More Mini Quilts

My daughter was pretty jealous she didn't get a mini quilt.  So I let her pick out the material out of my stores, and she was pretty excited about the light pink the corners so then I picked the material around the pink. Part of the reason I used the black polka dot on my daughter's quilt was she was pretty excited about the pink and black home design items at hobby lobby.  

 Funny how the quilts ended up opposite.  The matching four squares is the light in the boy quilt and dark in the girl quilt.  The only think I know about quilting my mom taught me-- light dark.  You have to put a light square next to a dark square and a dark square next to a light square.  She taught me a lot of other things, but it falls on deaf ears because I can't cut straight and quilting is a lost art with out straight lines.

 Look how happy my child is... homemade sewing means love according to my kids.

Backpack Backpack

My daughter really wanted a backpack at the store the other day and so I told her I would make her one.  Sure its ghetto and homemade, but its also free.  She loves it, and everything about it: backpacks, pink and ducks.

Circus Flags

For my five year old son's room, I sewed circus flags or bunting for his window.  His room is a light yellow, then his window well and corresponding wall is the darker yellow. The window forms this little nook/ cut out from the rest of his rectangle room.  Anyway I thought circus flags would be a fun thing for the room to make it juvenile without making it babish or girly. If you have a beef with the material bring it up with the 5 year old, he picked out the fat quarters himself. I bet you would never guess his favorite color is yellow.

 Then while we were at Jo-Ann's getting interfacing, he saw a mini quilt on display.  He wanted to buy it, so I made him one with left over material from the flags.  

High Altitude

I made some from scratch brownies the other day, they turned out terrible-- well the edible parts tasted mostly fine, just a little dry. Overall it was very disappointing, sometimes its challenging to live at 6900 ft.

The following day I had to break my funk, I made chocolate chip cookies, I knew I could make that over a mile high. They turned out beautiful and tasty. My five year old ran around the yard shoving his mouth full of cookies yelling, fresh baked cookies!