Life's one happy game

While we were cleaning and decorating Abby's room yesterday, Levi rounded up the troops and organized the playroom. Again. Love. Him. We switched rooms with the "Toy Box" and Abby's desk and hutch. I think it works.

Question for all of you book addicted Moms... WHAT do you do with all of the books??? We finally broke down and boxed up all of the board books. I kept some of our favorites from when they were very little and will donate the rest. I seriously will croak when the next Scholastic book order forms come in. Oh the guilt!!! Dang teachers KNOW I can't resist...

We put a sleeper sectional in here to give us one more guest sleeping space... and it's a good size to curl up on and watch a movie with the girls. We also put our Wii up here, because bowling turns into a contact sport in our living room...

I want to find some fabric to mistreat, but for now it'll do. I used mostly navy, red, and dark tan to go with the vintage looking board games on top of the wall unit.

The wall system is the Cameron system from Pottery Barn Kids... I LOVE the doors... they hide all of our board games... I DID NOT love dragging the heavy boxes up the stairs! (Some things just have to be done while hubby is not around to complain!!!) I also like having the handy dandy buckets and baskets for sorting...

The TV stand is another consignment piece... $30 for a Drexel Heritage buffet THANK YOU VERY MUCH... Wii games, DVDs, and throw blankets are behind the doors.







All in all, I like it. It keeps the mess out of the bedrooms (for the most part), and it has doors. So when they are being WAY too rowdy, we can just shut them in there and let them have it! ;-)

Nesting

OK, not THAT kind of nesting, but working on a tutorial from THE NESTER. I have gotten mistreatment envy looking over her blog... it's really fabulous! This idea seemed perfect for Abby's Shabby Chic room.

*sigh* She didn't want her black/gold French room stuff after we moved... Which almost hurt my feelings, but I'm not THAT attached to decor - so it didn't... really, it didn't. *sigh*

Anyway, she wanted pink. Lots and Lots of pink. So in true mom fashion I caved and agreed. While my hubby is on vacation from work we decided to work through the house cleaning and organizing. Love. Him.

Anyway, I shopped my house for floral girly stuff... and we tackled Abby's room. We'll paint once I can find the "right" shade of pink (as in, pink enough for Abby but not so pink that I think of Pepto Bismol every time I walk in her room)

So, without any further delay, I give you Abby's Room.



I'm just kidding people!!!!! That's the BEFORE shot... LOL

And AFTER...

The big white box/bench was my toy box that my dad made when I was a kid. We've been dragging that thing around from apartments and houses for AGES!!!









And the above shot is of my fabulous Ragamuffin garland!!! While I'm doing my cleaning, I keep tucking little things into the garland... I found a super cute locket that I haven't worn for ages... and I keep adding little things here and there. That's why I love the Shabby look... you can add and rearrange and it just keeps looking better and better!

More on the Ragamuffin garland...

This was a GREAT project for the girls!!! I tore the fabric and cut the ribbon... then dumped it all on the floor of the game room and they tied away. Jillian learned how to tie while doing this project, so when she gets older I'll have to tell her that The Nester taught her how to tie her shoes!!! LOL




So Thanks Nester! Abby thinks you are nearly as smart as her mommy... ;-)

:-) Third time's a charm!

Tee Hee!!! OK, now I'm just bored stiff... but I did just see this pic on my card and thought you might enjoy seeing what they did at Jillian's pre-school.

Waiting patiently in line...



Wait for it....



Yep! It's a CAMEL!



and a real live donkey!



The live Nativity animals paid a visit to the area outside of the playground and they all got to ride the camel and donkey and pet the lamb...



It was sooo cute. I love this pre-school. We were so blessed to find an opening at such short notice with the move. She really enjoys all of her new best friends. And I really enjoy the short break that I get while she's gone during the day!!! ;-)

I MUST be sick...

If I'm posting twice today! LOL When there's nothing I feel like doing besides hanging out under numerous blankets at least. :-) Finally I had the energy to locate my camera. It was hiding under wrapping paper... So without further ado, here are the treatbags that took me forever to complete. The design is from embroiderygarden.com and has been such an easy way to do favors for birthdays and class parties. They have loads of designs... but I've sort of cheated each time and used their base and added the words/designs that I wanted.

These bags are for the girl's school Christmas parties. I ordered custom printed M&Ms for each of them and then added the custom ones to a big bowl of regular holiday M&Ms to make them go a bit farther. We had LOTS of bags to fill.









Here is another sample that I posted ages ago, but thought you might like to see what else you can do with a good basic embroidery design... I added a strawberry design and some basic lettering in Embird to the base design for Jillian's 4th birthday party favors.

Open House

OK, so Nester and several others have been doing a holiday open house post. I thought I'd post a few pics of my Holiday decor... Because I'm lazy and I have strep (along with both of the girls) I'm not going to link up to their posts, but click on my link-y bar thingy and go poke around... You'll find loads of amazing pictures...

I wasn't "feelin" it this year... so my Christmas decor is WAY scaled back. I guess it's the whole "New House needs real decor not just Christmas decor" thing... I'm just pretty overwhelmed... But come the new year, when some of my new curtains get here, WATCH OUT... I've got a breakfast room make-over, stair decor, library/office, and dining room postings coming soon!

This year I did different shades of green/gold/ivory on the tree and front. It's really quite pretty... Everything from evergreen to lime.





This is my favorite Christmas decoration of all. It's a Mark Roberts Nativity set that I bought one year for 1/2 price (and still caused a small stroke in my husband...) I love it. From the silk fabrics to the beading. Love. It.









Hopefully the "Boring Beige" colored walls in the Dining room didn't make you gasp with disgust... Trust me, CHANGE is coming. What's the saying... Come Hell or High Water... yep, change is coming...

Workin Hard?

Or Hardly Workin?

As my scale has told me, sewing is NOT an acceptable form of exercise. But I sure am having fun! So much so that I dug one of my "For Sale" Janomes out of the closet and put her to work... Maybe now I'll finish these Christmas projects before Easter! :-)



I've been stitching out so many treat bag toppers that I'm beginning to question how over-crowded the girls schools are...



And that's just for one class... and they aren't finished yet!

Yep, I'm feeling like an Elf these days... but it's SEW fun!



Now if I can just figure out what the heck to do with this sewing/guest room!!!

It's gonna have to wait til AFTER the holidays though!

For some great gift tags for all of those packages you'll be wrapping, take a look at the Quilted Bag Tags from Digistitches. They go together quickly and the design is PERFECT! Jennilee also has several machine embroidery designs that make great gifts. Go check her out, you'll see!

Update...

Ok, so even though Sister will see this, I had to post a couple of pics of these gift tags... they are really turning out so cute!

Sneaky Mommy...

I love being sneaky... especially this time of year. This year, my poor babies have to SHARE a Christmas present... They'll have a few very small things to open (Fairy t-shirts, Disney "barbie style" dolls) but their main gift must be opened together and SHARED... Uh-huh... THAT's Right! SHARED!!!! Yep, ONE day they'll find this funny and sweet... one day.

We've booked a week at Disney World at the Contemporary. And YEP, Dear party-pooper Sister, we're going to DISNEY. AGAIN. And you KNOW they'll love it just as much as they do EVERY SINGLE TIME... ;-)

Creole Thrift

Recently, I was having an email chat with Linda from Restyled Home. Again... I LOVE her. Anyway, as I was typing my latest to her, I sort of had an epiphany. I even told her that I may just have to copy and paste what I realized... so here it is...

"...It's really a lot harder to get over living in an area like New Orleans than I expected. The fullness of life there is just unparalleled. I've been trying to force myself into this "Texas" state of mind, and it has been totally depressing me! Today I came to the realization that to have any peace, I'm just going to have to bring a little decadence to Houston. I just thought, To Heck with It... I'm doing this my way! I love how the pictures of your home really speaks to who you are. If we can't be ourselves in our own place, where can we be?..."

Now, for most people reading this blog, you don't know that I didn't grow up around New Orleans. My upbringing was far more rural and straight-laced than that. However, after my husband and I got married and his first job out of LSU was in New Orleans, we made the area our home for nearly 11 years. The division between "North and South" Louisiana is striking. One's not better than the other, but they could be different states, on opposite sides of the country for all of those differences. I never felt more at home than I did in Southeast Louisiana. We loved the time-worn beauty, people, and of course the food. It was us. It was home. (Sorry Mom)

So keeping with the square peg in a round hole theme... here's my latest project.



The piece was originally a terribly worn console table that I found at a thrift shop. I paid my $75 and took her home, cleaned her up, and gave her a nice little black dress. She stayed that way for a while... then she started to beg for some bling... I know, I KNOW... a girl's gotta have some jewelry.

I found a graphic that I liked online. (hence the paper taped to the front) Then I leveled the picture onto the front door panel.



I traced the parts that I wanted using a ballpoint pen. The impression from the roller ball inside of the pen makes guidelines for painting later.





I took a metallic glase (in gold)and went to work...
(sorry... I've tried to fix the rotation on this photo... but it's not changing...)


After I followed along the drawings, I highlighted the bamboo trim and distressed the top a bit. So now the girl's all dressed up and ready for a party. She's sitting in my dining room ready for that table and chairs to be delivered...





So, I guess this is a shot of her flashing you (New Orleans style), but I just had to let you know what's really inside... it's a bar with a glass rack on the top... Get it?... Nice Rack... ;-) Sorry, I couldn't help myself...

Tis the Season

Hey yall! I'm happy to announce that the cool weather is starting to hit the south, and the decorations are coming out of hibernation! I love this time of year. Besides Christmas, it's also going to be our 11th anniversary this year. The cool weather makes me want to light a fire and curl up with a cup of hot chocolate and a good book. Or a good movie. Last night I watched The Holiday with the beautiful Kate Winslet... I love her. Jude Law is ADORABLE in this movie as well... and no, this isn't Jude Law. It's Jack Black, duh. He's funny too.



Yep... it's time for the Holidays!

While the girls were out playing in the fall weather with the neighbor kids, I started dragging out some decorations... I just couldn't help myself...



Here's a close-up of the twig topiaries...They Sparkle! I'm using lots of different greens and white this year.





After being camera-less for over two months, I've nearly forgotten how to use the darn thing... this picture proves that. But besides stating the obvious, yesterday I found these great red weathered fleur-de-lis pots and rosemary topiaries at Smith and Hawken. I also picked up a bag of their Festivity potpouri and a reed diffuser... it smells soooo good!

I've found some great furniture this week, so the before pictures are patiently waiting at Photobucket for their reveals... A few pieces were custom, so they'll have to wait for their moment in the spotlight. I've also gotten curtains picked out. They will be done after the holidays, so I'll have a fun reason to pack up all of the decorations. Next up... paint colors! Then I will have some particularly fun posts!

For any readers in the Houston area... Laurie's Antiques in Tomball is FABULOUS and worth the trip! and Metals Petals and More in Old Town Spring has some really great stuff right now... just doin' my part to stimulate the economy!

Divine Design

So... What do those crazy scatter-brained A.D.D. nut-jobs do when faced with a huge organizational problem? We BLOG about it! Here's my problem... I have about a billion things running through my head. I keep poking around blogs... then I jump to another blog, that leads me to ANOTHER blog... I keep finding these "perfect" pictures for inspiration, and then I loose them! Do yall ever have that problem?

There are two places that I always check in on when I am looking for some divine decorating intervention. Velvet & Linen and Restyled Home. These gals really are my BFFs. They just don't know it ;-) If I could keep up with my bloggy links, they'd be right at the top. FOCUS Holly... Back to keeping track of inspiration... I found these pictures via Linda's and Brooke's blogs. I HAVE to keep them nearby so that I can keep looking at them. The garden picture just takes my breath away. Levi's bookcases for the LSU office are being delivered today... and I STILL haven't painted. But at least with Brooke's help, I now know what to do to keep the books from looking like a bunch of schplech on the shelf!!! Bless you Honey!

Welcome to my perfectly decorated entry...



Would you like to sit a spell?



Or maybe read a good book?... no, I promise there's more than Twilight on the shelf... they just look similar because they are DESIGNED to look pleasing to the eye!



Dinner's nearly ready. Would you like a glass of Pinot before we eat?



How about an evening stroll through my enchanting garden?



Ahhh... now that the company's gone, I think I'll go to bed and read some more. And yes, I'm reading Breaking Dawn... AGAIN...



Nighty Night... Sleep Tight... Don't let the vampire bite ;-)

Dreaming now...




;-) Yummy...

It's beginning to look at lot like Christmas!

Hey Yall!

Well, it's Mid-Oct. and I'm already starting to feel behind on all of my holiday prep. I have SUCH a huge surprise for you!!!! I have to give a little background first though...

Levi and I went to LSU. We're LSU fanatics. Our girls have had LSU themed birth announcements, birthday parties, clothes, tatoos ... you name it, we love it! We've even had a bottle of LSU Alumni wine!!!

Well, every year about this time, I start to panic over what to get Levi for Christmas. Last year, Mr. NOT SO Handy got tools. Yep, pretty lame, I know.

But this year, with the move and setting up the house and all, I thought that something for his "study" would be cool. I'm going to be doing an "LSU Lux" theme there. Rich gold walls, Plum colored silks, guilded frames... Get it? I'm happy, He's happy, we'll all be happy when it's done, right?

So a good friend of mine that I met via blogland is a fabulous artist. I have gotten prints, cards, etc. from her in the past. Then she went to Santa Barbara and did these amazing sketches... WELL.... I begged her to do some sketches of some scenes from LSU and she actually agreed!!!! Yeah Me!!!! She just posted about them here and I just KNOW he's going to love them... He may even just cry with joy and amazement!!!

I can't wait to get these guys matted and framed!!! He is just going to LOVE them!

Thanks so much Vana!!! {HUGS!}