We are packed…
…and ready to go!
Good gravy. They were so excited just to PACK themselves up…I think their little minds are about to be blown this weekend. See you when we get back (and shower…and sleep!).
Happy camping!
Remember when I told you about our new vinyl warehouse find? Oh, yes. That would have been just last week…I’m sure YOUR memory is far better than mine these days.
Soooo, yes. Found great vinyl place. Made lots of great vinyl tees this week.
First we had to make some Halloween tees, what with Halloween only a week or so away!
For our “spooky” cat, Addikins:
Ohhhh…look getting fancy with TWO colors of vinyl. Which inspired us to take it to THREE…
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You can’t see it really well, but that is purple SPARKLE. Oh, yes it is. And Birdie #2 had to make some for the Mama Birds to wear, too…
But it wasn’t ALL Halloween, ALL the time around here, well at least not on the t-shirt front.
I also put together some jog-a-thon tees for the girls. Each grade wears a certain color. Addie (2nd) is yellow this year and Em & Audrey (4th) are blue.
And then I did a project near and dear to my heart. My mom is one of four sisters (gee, how did we end up with two girls?!) and her oldest sister was diagnosed with ALS about two months ago. This is quite the heart-breaking disease as we are all finding out. My aunt’s family is doing a benefit for her this weekend and I cannot go, but I can (and did) create a little something for the sisters to wear to the benefit.
On the back are “jersey birth order numbers, too.”
These are one of those times that it is so frustrating to be so far away and feel so helpless. But I know that at least my mom, and my aunts, know that they are with me in my heart and never far from my thoughts.
Now, go call your sister(s) and tell them how very important they are in your life.
Or better yet, make them a little pumpkin to give to them when you see them.
So easy. Just cut out the initial out of outdoor vinyl, stick on. Tie a bow around the stem!
Plus, these little beauties work double-time all the way through Thanksgiving decor.
Well, maybe that isn’t the EASIEST craft we did this week. This one probably was. Remember when my mom made those amazing cards for us last year? I pulled them out and the folder that they sat in got kinda (totally) messed up. So I made a Halloween banner with them. Literally stuck them on a ribbon. Doesn’t get any easier than that.
Yes…that is our mantle falling apart. The Master Plaster guy is on our to-do list. God bless old houses. They will always keep you busy.
So tell me what has been keeping you busy this week?
I’ve been kind of not been around again this week mostly because I am in full.panic.mode.
One week from tomorrow we are taking 24 girls to Camporee – a weekend camping trip extravaganza for 10,000 of our closest Girl Scout friends. In celebration of 100 years of Girl Scouts (I guess they only do Camporee once every 25 years) and the girls’ burning desire to get out and camp (we bought troop supplies with our cookie earnings from last year – so thank you everyone who bought cookies!) my co-troop leader and I thought it would be fun to take the girls to Camporee.
Seriously starting to regret that decision now. Please send good camping thoughts, ideas for no-cook meals and snacks, and alcohol (for the moms…not the girls!). I think we will need a glass of wine (or three!) next Sunday.
…popping up in unexpected places!
Check this out! I stopped over to look at the prices of the labels and check out the last photo in the 2nd row of items…
TWO BIRDIES! Imagine my surprise when I realized that it was OUR label.
Well…I have 50+ t-shirts to show you? I have quite a few projects in various states of completion but this is the only one I’ve been able to pull across the finish line this week.
This little project did prompt Birdie #2 and I to seek out a vinyl/heat transfer supply alternative and ‘lo and behold living in LA has some huge advantages. Eleven miles from our house is this warehouse filled with every kind of vinyl, flocked and heat transfer goodness in every color you can imagine. I’m talking even amazing vinyl that is all glittered up and almost 1/2 the price that we were paying online. We will have LOTS of goodies to show you next week for sure.
For now I’m boxing these tees up (they are coming to you as we speak, Meesh!), and thanking our lucky stars that we were able to buy that heat press machine. THAT has made project life so much more fun. Instead of five minutes to iron the vinyl on each t-shirt, it takes about 30 seconds. Uh huh. Much more do-able.
…instead of walking away.
I let Em start walking home from school on her own this week. I know it is only across the street (well, actually – two streets – I make her walk up to the crossing guard and then back down the block!) but it is kinda a big step for us all. I wait out on our corner for her and her first words were, “I feel so grown up now that I walk home by myself.”
sigh.
At last. After what? Six months? Nine?
At last, I think I can call the kitchen finished. Or at least close enough to finished that I will not spend every waking moment thinking about painting, flooring or cabinet hardware. Before we see the finished project, let’s take a walk down memory lane, shall we?
The day we moved into the house…
Most hideous kitchen, but most cutest model.
And it just gets better and better…
Remember – the guy who owned our house before us was blind. Not that I needed to tell you that…you probably could’ve figured it out by that last pic. no?
So we took down the wallpaper, which made a difference. And we took down the cabinet that everyone hit their head on and that made a HUGE difference.
We changed out the light fixture and then my birthday gifts arrived.
And then the great floor debacle ran its course, but we ended up with lovely floors just the same.
And finally…I bit the bullet, picked some colors and painted up the cupboards, the walls, some family rules art and a chalkboard spice cupboard to use as our shopping list spot. And finally we have this…
I can’t even tell you the difference in the lighting situation in the kitchen. It has SO MUCH LIGHT. It is awesome. I did include that last pic there so you can see the new back door – which helps a lot in the lighting situation!
The colors are not perfect in the photos, but here is the rundown on what is what.
Wall: Benjamin Moore Manchester Tan
Upper Cabs: Benjamin Moore Bleeker Beige
Lower Cabs: Benjamin Moore Alexandria Beige
(All three are just different shades from the same swatch family. If BMs site wasn’t being so difficult I’d try to put the paint colors up there…but, well, it is being difficult. So you can go check them out if you are interested.
The cabinet hardware we got from Lowe’s. It is the same oil-rubbed bronze as the light fixture and it brings out the brown in the grout (I hardly notice the old tile…in fact, I think I kinda like it now!) and the floor tile. And the paint colors have just enough gray in them that they look great next to the stainless steel appliances.
I think at some point we might want a little more color – but I have artwork and window treatments to find still and I figured I can pull in the blue from the tile into these. We also need to find a microwave/vent for over the range to get rid of that old hood. And I’d love to get a new faucet at some point, too.
But like I said…it is close enough to finished for me. And I’m sure for you all, too. So, NO MORE KITCHEN posts! Well…at least for a few months, ok?
I couldn’t put Addie off for ONE.MORE.DAY. The Halloween decorations were finally pulled out of storage yesterday. She’s only been asking for the past week now. In my defense, it is still only the first week of October. I mean…technically. I guess I’m just not a huge Halloween decoration person. I can take it or leave it. But, the great part about decorating this year? All I really had to do was haul the bins up from the basement. The girls took over all the decorating. It was great. I instead planted a whole bunch of fall flowers,
And cleaned out all of the garden beds. Addie harvested the last of her crops which included these three little beauties!
Throw in finishing up the kitchen (YES…photos tomorrow!!), *fall* cleaning of a few closets and bedrooms, a “W” in the win column for our Spicy Cheesy Nachos (the girls picked the name!),
A big Win for Coach Jamie and the Purple Crushers,
and the promise of some fall-like weather this week. It was a great jump-start weekend, right into Fall.
Lately you may have noticed that I have been a bit absent in the blogging department. Or maybe you haven’t noticed at all, and since life seems to be on super-fast warp speed lately, I can’t say I really blame you. I can barely drag my weary body upstairs most night much less download photos and recount cute stories about the girls or the minor miracles of each day. But that doesn’t mean that I’m not taking photos (oh, wait…I hardly do get a chance to do that much anymore), well, it doesn’t mean that there isn’t 20 things on any given day that I want to write about…I’m just having a hard time finding the time.
But tonight Emma picked up the book J. make me five years ago. He took the first year of the blog here and had it printed into a very cool book. (I’m currently working on getting the last five years into some sort of printed format, too. In my spare time.)
Anyhow…as I was saying, Emma picked up the BCC chronicles and laid down on the sofa and started reading it. She couldn’t get through even one page without cracking up. She kept stopping to show Addie photos of the two of them, or reading excerpts from a particularly funny post. She spent a lot of time on the post about how she was pretending to be the Virgin Mary and took great glee in telling Addie that she used to dump her bowl of yogurt on her head every morning and tell everyone she was wearing a hat.
As I sat listening to her giggle, I realized that I started the blog to keep our friends and family up-to-date with the girls and their antics, but it sort of grew into a cathartic exercise for me, too. Helping me to laugh through those parenting moments when I really just wanted to cry. And then I realized, somewhere along the way it also became a beautiful gift for the girls – and for me. I had forgotten some of those frustrating, exhausting and downright funny moments, too. And to be able to go back and relive them again, especially with such an appreciative audience, is really kinda special. And that’s what I will think of when I feel like “I can’t possibly write a blog post tonight.”
We are still here…hello! Thanks for sticking it out and checking back in on us. It has been a cra-cra-crazy few weeks. BUT…(isn’t this what I always say?) I think things are settling down a little and we’ll be back to our regularly scheduled blogging very soon.
The only thing I have for CT today, I actually completed a few weeks ago, I just haven’t had a minute to post it. I love the cool vintage looking “Family Rules” signs that are floating around all over the internetz lately, and I happened to have a board that fits perfectly into that little space in between windows in the kitchen.
I just painted the wood black, cut out the stencils with our Eva and painted the letters in the taupe. I still need to sandpaper up the edges a little bit and attach some hardware to actually hang it.
Did somebody say hardware? YES…our cupboard doors are done! My dear Jason is going to deliver them on Wednesday. So you know the only thing on my schedule for this weekend is finally, finally, finally putting our kitchen back together. Well, that and a big Girl Scout meeting, a soccer game and a volleyball game. But besides that…I’m going to even say that next CT will feature our kitchen reveal. (Therefore I’m forced to get it done this weekend!)
Have a crafty, lovely week!