So, I did my mantle re-do research last week and found ideas I loved at a new-to-me decorating blog called The Lettered Cottage.  This spring mantel arrangement was my favorite thing I saw on the whole internet– totally school room friendly and clean and fresh.  My interpretation is not quite as pretty or involved, but the only thing I had to buy was an ugly thrift store flowery painting.  It had no glass and the picture was printed on stiff board, so all I just painted over the painting with chalkboard paint and turned the gold frame white.  That was easily done in a morning.  I think it will be fun to change up the words and draw pictures every now and then.

If you remember my mantel-cubby thing used to be mauve.  SHHHH!  Don’t tell my landlords, but one of the walls in the living room is painted a tannish color.  Barry found the left over down in the basement so I used it to cover the mauve.  Technically, that’s not changing the paint colors in the house right, since this color is used in the house?  I don’t think they’ll notice.  It certainly makes me feel better.

I know my candles would look better if they were pure white instead of cream colored, but they’re what I have.  I think some apple green pottery would be a fun addition, as well as something white and small on the walls on either side of the black board.  I’m on the look out for something that I love.  I don’t want to buy things just to fill spaces– but because I think they’re beautiful and they make me happy.  And I prefer artist made things rather than China made things, of course.  I’ll keep an eye on etsy for things that fit the bill.

In the meantime– happy spring!!

So, here’s that magnet board I’ve been dreaming up for the kids’ side of the art room.  We got a big 3′ x 4′ piece of sheet metal from Home Depot, some inexpensive base board molding, some things to hold the corners of the frame together, and a box full of thumb tacks.

Barry made a frame from the molding and we painted it white, then used thumb tacks to hold the sheet metal to the back of the frame.  (If you try this be VERY careful with the metal.  My poor husband really gashed his finger at Home Depot just trying to slide the stack of metal back into place after he got the piece he wanted.  Before he even took it out of the car at home he taped all the edges to prevent another cut.)

When we first lifted the whole thing up with the metal on the back a couple of the corners of the frame came unglued and we were afraid that the whole thing was going to be an unsturdy failure, but we put some more glue in the corners, wrapped a band clamp around the whole thing, and let it dry for a day.  That did the trick!  It turned out great!

We just screwed picture hanging wire to the back and used 2 of those crazy picture hangers that can hold 50 lbs. to hang it on the wall.  This was a good solution for us because we’re renting this house and don’t want to have big screw holes in the walls.

A couple of my boys and I used fabric scraps to make some covered buttons, then hot glued round magnets to the back of them.  They turned out really cute.

And while I was taking pictures of it I thought I’d show you a view from the kitchen with my pretty calendar (from Paper Source) and our chore chart.  It makes me happy that everything looks so neat and pretty.

Anyway, that’s the magnet board story.  My art room spring cleaning is complete.  (And it’s a good thing that I documented it since it’s a little messy now.  I’m helping Brenna make a quilt…)

I’ve been having fun redecorating the family room walls, but I’m not quite ready to take pictures of it all and say I’m done.   I decided today that I need to do something different in my fireplace mantel/ cubby thing so I’ve been looking for inspiring mantel arrangements and dreaming up what I could do with what I already have instead of the family photos that have been there for a year and a half.  (And, to be honest taking photos of just one corner of the room is much easier because I can keep the baskets of unfolded laundry and explosion of k-nex behind me.)

What I can say is done is the sewing of these pillows and some quotes to hang on the wall.  I have a friend who had a pretty quote printed as a photo at Costco, framed it, and gave it to me for Christmas– and I thought it was genius!  So, I took some sayings I’ve wanted displayed in my house somehow, made them into big images using Inkscape (which is kind of like Adobe Illustrator, but free), printed them as photos at Costco, and framed them.  They’ve been done for a while.  I just decided they should go here.

The top one is from Doctrine and Covenants 29:34 where the Lord says “All things unto me are spiritual.”  It’s a good reminder when I’m cooking dinner, picking up toys, helping with math, ignoring laundry that even all the mundane things that need my attention have a purpose–  they’re spiritual.  The second is a quote from Charlotte Mason that says “Education is the atmosphere we breathe, the envelope of wonder that surrounds us, held by the gravity of our daily habits.”

The 2 colorful pillows were so fun for me to make.  They’re basically 4 little quilts, pieced and quilted and turned into pillows.  Here’s one side of the first one:

I used the Joel Dewberry Modern Meadow fat quarters I had been saving to make another quilt like this.  I never was really going to get around to making that quilt, and I decided this is a much better way to enjoy the fabric anyway.

This is the other side.

I got a little crazier with the second pillow.

This one is just quilted with straight lines.

I loved making these because I got to do everything involved in making a quilt, but on a much more immediate, instant gratification scale– and I can see and enjoy them every day.

I also used some home decorator weight fabric I had in my stash to add one plain pillow.  It took all of 20 minutes (invisible zipper and all).

Here’s all 3 again in a different corner:

Obviously these are usually on the floor being jumped on or laid on, but they looked pretty here for a little while.   I’m hoping at some point this year I can get a few Rollie Pollies made for jumping and rolling and reading.  We’ll see.  I probably really should be replenishing my supply of baby girl things– and will probably be more excited about doing that as the days go on.

So, anyone have some favorite mantel photos they want to send me links too?  Feel free to leave them in the comments!

Want to see into my art room?  I tidied it last Saturday and it’s stayed in pretty good shape for a whole week!  I am certainly organizationally challenged and always have been.  In high school, my best friend always bought me some containers and went through and decluttered and cleaned up my bedroom for my birthday.  Now I live with a different best friend and he generally has a big hand in helping me keep my space under control (like throwing a quilt-in-progress over my drafting table to cover the mess).

But this time I did it all by myself!  This is huge!

This is the view from the front room of our house.  Our creative space is what would normally be a formal dining room, but I need to be able to work on making things right in the heart of our home throughout the day, so this is the perfect place to have my craft space.

I’ve got a big Expedit shelf from Ikea with a desk attached.  There’s plenty of room for bins of fabric, boxes of precious metal clay stuff, printmaking supplies, knitting stuff, other crafty odds and ends, our little Tivoli stereo, and some pretty things too.

I’ve got some other Ikea cup things to hold pencils, markers, scissors, pliers– you know, all that stuff that needs to be right there for the taking.

In the big window is my drafting table.  It was a dumpster find of Barry’s when we were in college and I seriously could not imagine life without it.  It is easily one of my very favorite pieces of furniture in our house.  My gecko lives in the corner over my Gocco and block printing stuff.  Underneath my drafting table are rolls of paper, interfacing, contact paper, and baskets of mending, batting and foam.  Oh, and a couple of quilts destined for Humanitarian Services.

Look up, and there are the birds!

Opposite the window wall is the kids’ drawing table.  One of these weekends we’ll make a big magnet board so that Ian won’t need to tape his paintings to the wall.

Here are a few more pictures for good measure.

I love the old Singer from Barry’s aunt.  It needs rewiring to work, but it’s really fun to look at anyway.

A shelf of pretty stuff.  I spun thread and then needle punched the fabric for that little bear years ago.  I still really like him.

I love these under-shelf wire baskets I found at the Container Store.

And here’s a sneak peek to another room I’ve been rearranging and hanging new artwork in.  I think I’ll be ready to show it to you next week.

So, if you’ve read my blog for any amount of time you’ve probably noticed that often when I show you a finished project I say something like, “I’ve been making this in my mind for a long, long time,” or “I’ve been dreaming this up for a couple of years,” or something like that.

Well, this is no exception.

We were living in a tiny apartment in Alabama in the beginning of our summer of transition to Denver when a good friend sent me this link with exclamation points and excitement that I HAD to make one– it made her think of me.  And I completely agreed that I NEEDED one somewhere in my new house, whenever it would be that I got settled.  Since we’ve been here (for 2 1/2 years) I’ve been imagining those little birds in corners and bedrooms and had settled on just the place– a corner of the front room above the love seat that needed a little color.

But now that it’s made it is a little big and I’m afraid it would swing into the blinds or the bookshelf and be too much of a temptation for the climbing 2 year old to bat at.  At the moment it is hanging in the doorway between the front room and my art room, but I’m thinking today I’ll put up a hook over my drafting table and let the birdies live there.

I’ve been on a bit of a spring-cleaning/ redecorating kick lately with a long mental list of things I want to do around the house and this was one of those things on the list.  In a burst of spontaneity the other morning Jonah and I went through my scrap bin with bird pattern in hand and found pieces that were the right size, cut them out, matched them up, and whipped up some birds.  That went really fast– especially with his help stuffing them.  With all that built up momentum I gathered some sticks at the park the next day and started sewing birds to branches– only to have them hang upside down like bats.  I discovered I needed to put some weight in the bottom of the birds so they weren’t top heavy and to use screw eyes to secure string to the branches so they wouldn’t twist.  I dedicated the next day to ripping out tail seams and spooning in rice, then attempting  to hang and balance it all again– to no avail.

Finally, when Barry had a free night we tried it all again.  We found a few helpful things:

-Attach the birds to the branch with wire instead of sewing them on so they are easy to reposition.

-Thicker branches twist and roll less than skinny ones.

-We ended up using thin picture wire instead of invisible thread to hang the branches because it was more stable.

-Once we found the perfect bird positions we squeezed a little hot glue in to keep them there.

So, now it’s done and so fun to look at!  When my art room is all decluttered and organized I’ll need some photo documentation, so I’ll show you its permanent home then.

Barry had been dreaming of getting a GoPro for Christmas– but I don’t think he thought he’d really get one.  I gathered up some of my SweetPod money and splurged on one for him.  He’s made videos of himself uni-cycling, jumping on the trampoline, and sledding.  He also had the bright idea as he was leaving the house one day to set it up in time lapse mode in the living room just to see what really goes on when we’re not at home.

Ellie is NOT allowed on the furniture and never is on it when we’re in sight.  I guess when we’re gone she rules the roost.

A few weeks ago I picked up a copy of Better Homes and Gardens May issue.  On page 78 there was a photo of a child’s playroom with a crazy beautiful tree toy on a shelf.  It looked like a tree that needed to be in our family room, but I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what it was.  So, I took a photo of the magazine page, posted it to flickr, and asked the internet to help me.

It worked!  It’s called a Totem Tree by Kids On Roof.  I decided to treat myself to one for my birthday and it came today, a day late, but that’s fun because it stretched the celebrating out a bit.

The boys and I put it together tonight while Barry took pictures of us with the new lens he got me for my camera.

Now, doesn’t it look like it should have been there all along?

So, when we graduated from college and moved to Albuquerque I found a table at a flea market and brought it home.  It matched the two white and natural wood chairs we already had, and it wasn’t hard to find two more.  We’ve been eating on that table ever since.  Our family grew from one child, to 2, to 3, 4, then 5.  Our table didn’t grow, though, and that has posed a problem as of late.  We could squeeze 6 of us around the table (with the baby securely strapped into the high chair beside us).  We could even fit place settings for 6, but fitting the food got to be tricky, and having company really complicated things.  We looked in furniture stores, but there just wasn’t anything there that was what I wanted.  I wanted a rustic handmade table or something old with character.  Oh, and it needed to be square and extend to get bigger.  I scoured craigslist and happened upon a listing for a table made from reclaimed barn wood.  It was gorgeous.  I wrote the carpenter.  What I wanted would be way more than we could afford.  I kept looking, kept pouring over craigslist and nothing could float my boat.  Then out of the blue I got an e-mail from the carpenter.  He changed his mind!  He could make my vision a reality well withing our budget.

Now, several months later, it is sitting in my dining area.  Wanna see?

It’s made from reclaimed Douglas Fir beams from an old bridge in Kansas.  The trees were probably 150 years old or more when they were cut to make the bridge.  I’m not sure how long the bridge was standing, but I think it’s safe to say that the wood for our table has been around for centuries.

He made us 2 matching benches too all with through mortise and tenon joinery.

The ends extend so it can go from being a 54″ square that seats 8 to being 54″ x 84″ to seat 12!

It’s finished with a natural beeswax and mineral oil finish.  This has to be reapplied every few weeks, but it actuall makes the care of the table easier because I can sand out inevitable pencil marks and keep it looking perfectly beautiful.

I got new seating for the littlest guys too.  A Svan highchair for Hunter and a Kaboost for Ian.

I love it.  I love the natural beauty of the wood, the texture of it, the smell of it, the handcrafted nature of it.  It is perfect and will be for generations to come.

To see more tables by Jeremy Glenn of Elemental Table Company check out his flickr page here.

Around the new year I saw this tutorial for making a calendar using paint chips.  I thought it would fill my need for a cute new calendar, but I thought it needed a partner. 

I got the calendar done the last week of January, had to rearrange it for February, then March.  That’s when I got the clock finished– sometime during this crazy month of March which is nearly over.  I’ve got to squeak this post in before the month is out.  I did take pictures of the whole clock making process, but I think I’ll leave that for another post.

These projects came about as part of our rearranging and trying to get our family room and learning spaces organized and beautiful and useful for how are family lives and learns.

We’re definitely getting there.

We’ve had small tables with little chairs for years and years, but this is a new addition.  Since getting a new dining table (which I will show you soon) we’ve been able to move our old beat up table in here for the bigger kids to use, work, and create out of reach of little grabbing climbers.  And, I’ve finally got a  place to keep library books separate from all of our books.  One or two inevitably got shelved with all of our books and racked up fines before I could find them.  Hopefully keeping them accessible in a different room will save us a little headache, and money.

Here’s a bigger view of the kids’ creating, learning, and mess making area.  Now that everything has a place, clutter is much easier to control and clean up goes pretty fast.  We actually get it to look (almost) like this on a daily basis!  (If you click on the picture you can see all the notes I put on it in flickr.)

We used the built in shelved alcove on the left of the fireplace for school binders, math toys, science supplies, with the wooden blocks down low for Hunter and Ian to play with.  To the right we’ve made it our “office” with the computer, printer, small filing cabinet, and camera stuff.

(I just have to add that I hate the mauve paint above the fireplace and in our kitchen, but we are renters and the landlords don’t want us to change paint colors.  Apparently, they’re in love with the mauve.)

I took an idea from Wildflowers and Marbles learning spaces and rigged a map hanging system.  I taped my world map and US map together and just use some 3m hooks and binder clips to hang them over the fake fireplace.  This is SO much better than rolling out maps on the floor!!  I wish I had thought of this years ago.  It gets used constantly as we read and play.  If we ever do want to use the fireplace we can just roll it up and put in it a closet for a little bit.

Just had to stick this last photo in.  I love 5 year old hand writing.  I’ll probably keep these label sticks forever.

The curtains are done!  The curtains are hung!

You know how when you’ve been working on something for a long time you kind of get sick of it?  I started printing these curtains in November I think it was, then put them away during the Christmas crazies, then got them out again last month.  I drew up the design several years ago when I saw the curtains here, so we’ve had a pretty long relationship, these curtains and I.  On Saturday after I clipped them to the rings strung on the curtain rod I was ready to call the whole thing a total bust, but now that I’ve had some time to breath from the rolling ink and stamping, rolling and stamping, rolling and stamping, and just sit back and look at them, walk past them, and pull their light airiness open and shut, they’ve grown on me. They make this new home feel a little bit more “me.”

 So, while I was in the hanging mood I turned to my stack of Karl Blossfeldt photogravures that has been gathering dust on the floor in my bedroom.

It’s been nearly 8 months since we moved in here.  I guess it is about time I started hanging art on the walls and add a little more me-ness to this place, even though it is a rental.

 And, one more thing to go with this theme of hanging.  Our little baby has discovered his hands this week.

I’ve made baby gyms before, I remember one in particular I made for Jonah out of “crazy pipe” (bendable sprinkler pipe) covered with quilting fabric, but I think I’ve finally come up with a design I love.  I was going to just buy one, but I wanted something simple and wooden, and couldn’t find anything for a price I was willing to pay.  I went to Home Depot and found all the wood I needed on one isle.  Then I made springy-toy-dangler-things from some favorite fabric scraps and Hunter has been entertained for hours.  I exaggerate not!  The Tigger and Eeyore are favorites from when Brenna was tiny– I remember vividly the first time she reached for something, opened her little hand, grabbed it, and stuffed it in her mouth.  It was that skinny ring on that Tigger while we were driving back to Utah after living in Boulder, Colorado for the summer.  Here we are, in Colorado again, with a little baby, and Tigger is definitely his toy of choice.

 I’ll have a tutorial on making a simple wooden baby gym posted here soon!