Square Foot Dreams

We're actually underway... my sister-in-law, Jes, and I are embarking on our very first square foot garden. Our awesome neighbors (and dear friends) are allowing us to use their yard to grow our plants. They are tending two of their own 4x4 gardens, while we wrangle ours.

I've always considered myself to have a black thumb, so I'm honestly going into this with pretty low expectations. It would be SO WONDERFUL though, if we could grow and eat our own food!

This was our original plan, and we pretty much stuck to it except that we decided to swap the locations of the carrots and herbs, and we're going to do only one square of cucumber, and add a square of squash.

And here's our cute little box that our neighbor built for us. We filled it with a combination of top soil and a mulch type mix (sorry for my lack of detail!).

And this is what it looked like at the end of yesterday. We're going to fill the empty squares with bell peppers, squash, tomatoes and cucumbers in a few weeks when the risk of frost has passed.

And that's what's happening so far!

So Pretty

Look at this fantastic project

I ran across today! I just thought I'd share the genius. This brooch would make a great Valentine's Day gift.

Look What I Found!

I went to one of my favorite stores in Phoenix the other day (it's called Rust and Roses), and I found this fantastic green chair!

The wood is painted green with gold highlights, and the upholstery is allegedly vintage linen from Europe (I know. Fancy shmancy).

Anyhow, I thought it was a pretty great price (which I can't even remember now, and I don't feel like looking it up... I do know that is was well under $100), and it was a welcome addition to our office.

Butterfly Cards

I decided to branch out and do something crafty that I've never done before. I made a few cards for my mom. First, I bought a blank card set at Michael's for $1 (don't tell my mom... then again, she might be proud of my thriftiness :). I'm pretty sure they always have cards like these stocked in their discount section. Then, I used a butterfly shaped hole punch by Martha Stewart, an alphabet stamp set, and my sewing machine.

I love the way all the elements work together.

There you go. A hand-made card set for not much money. These make great gifts!

Poor, Poor Powder Room

This little half-bath has been neglected ever since we moved in.

We DID add the bead board which helped a lot, but other than that, it only has a mirror with broken pieces, southwest-style copper accessories (not my style), a decent but not awesome light fixture, and no artwork on the walls.

First, I really like the idea of putting a big mirror on the wall that stretches over the toilet and the vanity. (I found this photo here).

Now, about those blank walls... I was thinking about having it wallpapered, but then I had an interesting idea: I could possibly stencil it. It would be much less expensive than wallpaper, but I'm sure it would be quite a time investment. Before you get scared, hear me out. I typically think of chickens and grapevines when I think of stencils but that's why I was blown away when I found these pretty, modern ones. This store has some really cool Moroccan styles like this:

And here's what the actual stencil would look like:

And then I found this AWESOME one with birch trees:

Does anyone have any experience with this? Is it worth the time?

Christmas Coat

I started to make a coat for Lucy several months ago, and I just finished it yesterday! It was SO fun to work on and SUCH a cute pattern. My mom bought me a great book by Anna Maria Horner for my birthday, and I just fell in love with this hooded jacket.

I actually ended up using the same main fabric as the jacket in the example photo because I loved how charming it was :). I love that the coat has buttons, but didn't require any buttonholes!

I chose a super soft pink flannel for the lining.

It fits her perfectly! If you're really observant, you'll notice that in the photos of Lucy wearing it, there are pockets on the coat. I decided to add them because the "finished" coat, seemed like it was missing something. I LOVE the pockets!
Lucy seems to really like her new coat too. It's especially good for pretending to fly.

Lucy's Apron

It was so much fun to be able to make this project for Lucy! I finished the whole thing in one day (except for adding the velcro, which took me about 10 minutes the next day). The advent calendar had me so bogged-down that I didn't even want to sew (which made me realize that it was time to set the advent calendar aside for awhile).

It took some playing around with different fabrics to decide on the final color combination. This is the one I ended up going with.

And here's the finished product!

I used a nice, long piece of velcro so that it can adjust to fit her as she grows.

I love how all of these patterns work together. The color palette is so much fun.

Here's a shot of the back for those of you who might want to make your own little apron :).

I can't wait to give it to her for Christmas!

Sleep in Heavenly Peace

Oh Advent Calendar. You are/were so much more work than I expected. That's why I reluctantly decided to set you aside until next year.


Maybe I'll have more motivation in a few months.

Paper and Lights

There are two fun new things going on in our dining room. First, Dave gave me these awesome pendant lights for my birthday a couple months ago (I know. It's taken me FOREVER to post about it!). I really love them, and I love how they bring the room up a notch.

Even after the new lights were in, we both felt like the dining room was way too stark and colorless. My solution: wallpaper! Before you get too scared, just look at how beautiful it is! It's from Hygge & West and it's called Daydream.

We're planning to have the back wall (the one with the colorful canvas on it right now) papered as soon as the wallpaper comes in the mail. Can you picture it?

The colors in the photo they have online are not very accurate. Here's a pic of the sample they mailed to me. It's going to be so whimsical and soothing at the same time.

Now I just want to get some sort of sisal rug in there, and put a few things up on the wall.

It's a Start

Hello long, lost blogging friends. I'm finally HOME! That means more time for blogging. I'm supposed to be watching Lucy right now, so I'll just post one photo really quick.

Here's a little dress I made for a friend of mine. She gave me a t-shirt of hers that she wanted me to make a dress out of for her beautiful daughter, Millie. Lucy modeled it for me before I sent it off in the mail.

I have many more projects in the works, so I promise to make an effort to show you my handiwork.
P.S. I just ordered wallpaper for the first time in my life. Maybe that will be my next post :).