sneak peek

This year I have committed to trying to make as many home made Christmas gifts as possible. Mostly excluding the men for obvious reasons.  This week I started cutting into this beautiful stack of kona solids.

 I love the colors and wish I could share the vision. You'll just have to wait until after Christmas

Oh the suspense for the family members reading my blog!

Evil Weeds

Since moving to NM we have discovered the world of sand spurs or grass spurs as some call them. This has to be one of the most evil weeds in existence.

 This is how they sneakily appear in our lawn. They start out looking just like blades of grass before they break forth their spurs.

 If you walk over them when dry they stick in the bottom of your shoes with their barbed thorns. You can walk on the cement and here them crunching under your feet but it does little to break them down.

The worst offense of these little evil doers is when they find their way into the house and get in the rugs or carpet. You will never forget the feeling of stepping on them with bare feet. The poor dogs find their share of them on walks as well. Limping starts and we have to stop and remove the offenders. Recently we hired a man to come spray our yard for them in a desperate attempt to end this torture. For weeks we were pulling them out by hand (with gloves of course).

Button Back Slipcover

I had my heart set on the Savannah chair from Pottery Barn for my living room as soon as I saw it. Unfortunately with shipping the chair would be nearing $1000 which I couldn't talk myself into. I set out on a mission to find a comparable chair to slipcover. It was not an easy task.

Savannah chair image from pottery barn website

First I tried second hand with no success. Then I started scouring the internet using sites like overstock. I finally found the perfect match with the Samantha chair from Broyhill. I found a deal on one at just over half of the cost of a new one with shipping. I bought the chair in a different fabric as shown at the end of the post. The fabric is beautiful for fall and winter but needed a slipcover for a fresh cottage feel.

                                                                            Image from Broyhill

 The Broyhill chair does not have a separate cushion which was the only drawback but not a deal breaker.

I chose to finish the back with covered buttons.

Here you can see the sofa and chair together with their denim slips.

Below is the original fabric chair.

Apples

While my parents were visiting we decided to drive over to Texas and check out one of the apple orchards. The orchards are actually not on site so it was just a retail location which was a little disappointing but we were still able to get what we went there for. We came home with several bags of apples.

 My mom is an expert when it comes to all things "kitchen". She helped me make her homemade applesauce which is both healthy and delicious.

                               A few jars of the yummy goodness we will be enjoying this winter.

 With some of the apples left we made an apple pie (sorry no pictures) and these caramel beauties.

It's Fall!

As a girl from the Midwest I have always loved Fall. Unfortunately in the last 5 years I have not lived anywhere with Fall colors. The weather here in NM is finally starting to cool off and it is feeling a little more like Fall. I pulled out the decorations and made a display on my buffet.

 I made a leaf garland from brown craft paper and stamping chalk in burnt umber.

                       A friend and I got together and made our own version of a candy corn wreath.

                                           My lovely friend Katie and her candy corn wreath.



It was a party filled visit

Almost a month ago we had a great 3 day visit from my sister, brother in law, and nieces. Just a few pictures I finally got around to uploading.

 My nieces called our garden soaking tub in the master bathroom "the swimming pool". They swam in there at least twice during their visit.

We had a birthday party for little Miss "K" complete with crowns. This is the dress I sewed her and didn't get any really great shots of. The back has covered gray buttons. The dress has a complete separate lining with ruffle that hangs below the hem of the dress. She put it on immediately and wanted to wear it each day until they left. I guess that was a success!

 Here is a picture of the "school skirt" on "J" from the earlier post.

 One of the days we went bowling and "K" was too cute in her little shoes!

It was plenty hot while they were here so we bought an inflatable pool and a crazy daisy sprinkler to keep them cool and entertained in the yard.

At the zoo

 

 Popsicles in the pool, what a life!