I'm going there someday...

If you remember how in April of this year during General Conference, President Monson said,

To you parents of young children, may I share with you some sage advice from President Spencer W. Kimball. Said he: “It would be a fine thing if … parents would have in every bedroom in their house a picture of the temple so [their children] from the time [they are] infant[s] could look at the picture every day [until] it becomes a part of [their lives]. When [they reach] the age that [they need] to make [the] very important decision [concerning going to the temple], it will have already been made.” 

Well needless to say I've felt like a sinner since we moved in, because my daughter didn't have a picture of the temple in her room. My son has a picture of the Logan Temple, so I wanted my daughter to have the Salt Lake Temple.

  Lil' Luna has a great tutorial of cute temple art. I've been waiting to try it for probably a year.  I mixed it up a bit, you know I can't follow directions!  Anyway, I "save as"-ed the picture from Lil' Luna, then turned it a pink/purple-ish hue, printed for 10 cents on Winkflash, to a 5x7.  Then bought a frame at Hobby Lobby, painted it green and purple, with purple/pinkish sparkles.  I love variegated paint jobs. Then I found some ribbon in my closet that was first used on the vases from by brother's wedding lunch, right after his marriage in the Salt Lake Temple.  But the green was too green with variegated paint, so I streaked purple paint on the ribbon to match the frame.  

 I added the ribbon because I thought oh, it needs to hang on the wall, then it looked so perfect on her dresser, so thank goodness the ribbon is wired, because I love the bow.

I love it!
Lil' Luna's tutorial is so great, its everything that is wonderful about the internet.  Great free pictures of the temple. I wanted a picture of the Denver Temple so I used the antique non- word for my living room.

Scripture Bag

Without the title do you know what this is?  I made it with my new found sewing desk space.

For months my CTR 4, has been asking for a scripture bag.  He diligently brings his Book of Mormon to church.  Where we use to live they encouraged all the kids whether they could read or not to bring their sciptures.  No one seems to care here, but luckily the habit is set.  So I finally, made him one.  He of course picked this material out of my stores. Inside there is a pocket for his scripture marking crayons, and a pencil pocket holder thing, slots for three pens.  Now he doesn't have to bother me for one.

I used no pattern, measured wrong, and my fusible webbing didn't work, so the bag took me twice as long as expected.  Two nap times instead of one.

Beauty

I'm sure this doesn't look beautiful to most of you.  

But it is a thing of beauty.  

A sewing machine and laptop all on one desk, my husband sure knows how to make me twitterpated. 

Plenty of room to use both at the same time.  

New and Improved Pillow

 Remember this pillow?  Well over the last year and half, I've really come to hate it. In the picture it looks all nice and new in shiny, but in reality, it was old and pilly. So I tore it apart, and put this monogram H on the pillow. While pulling apart the flowers I was very nervous, and wondered if I was making a huge mistake. It ended up no mistake, but perfect. I love it.

 I decided to pull it apart, because I still love these pillows and to it seemed like I needed three pillows so I had to do something, because I absolutely hated those felt buttons by now.  My husband likes my new pillow because he doesn't like buttons on pillows whether they are felt or plastic.

 I got the monogram H from this vase my mom's friend made me.  I think your suppose to put a votive in or something, but I figured out it perfect for our puzzle pieces that don't stay together.

The monogram pillow idea came from, Martha Stewart September 2011 issue.  I loved the spread about them, because I love monograms so much!  But in true Martha form, the article is no where to be found online, only this tutorial. I found this picture so inspiring so I had to post it. I'm starting to dream up more monogram ideas based on this pillow, but who knows if I'll follow through.

Baby Stella

My cousin just had her first baby, and in fact the first baby in their family, so everyone was obviously super excited-- the first grandkid.  Since I had been with them during my others cousin's wedding.  I had to make her a baby blanket, in a way to relive the fun of the wedding.

Alpha Wall

Here is my last creation/completion.  It took a few months, but I love it, and so glad I spent the money collecting the alphabet in our game room. I got the idea here.

I was so pleased with myself, when I hung 24 letters and had to finish making the last two.  Two friends were over and one said, oh my sister-in-law did that but, all her letters matched color scheme, it didn't quite work.  But I could see where she was going with it, I love the way yours turned out.

I think mine is actually extremely chaotic in comparison to the examples, but that is me right?!

The real eyesore, is that R S U are so large all together, but I loved them all, so they stayed. 

P.S. I know this picture is too big for the template, but it needed to be done.

A Stenciling Plan

I decided today that I want to stencil over my son's closet:

Scripture Power

everyday I need the power that I get each time I read 

Although stencil is a loose term for me, more like free hand with a pencil, then paint.

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!