This is my latest sewing project. It's all done. It makes me think of the art of Piet Mondrian with a dash of Warhol. Corrie gave me all the cool circle samples a long time ago, also the yellow linen and the plummy suede. I bought the gray corduroy.


I'm super-pleased with the result.
Bye!

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What I've been up to today! We've had a beautiful day despite the fact that Mark has been gone all day. We took a little walk with Lucy so Peter could practice riding his bike.
I've been using up scraps of batting making valentine trivets! All my pretty scraps of fabric can now be enjoyed too!


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Under and Over and In Between

This is a post to remind me how much I've accomplished this summer. Do you ever get to the end of the summer and look back and think - I didn't get anything DONE! Not the Did-We -Do ANYTHING-fun-with-the-KIDS? post, that'll be another day.

Here goes!

 I organized underneath my Master bathroom sink. See that drawer in the middle? It's completely empty. It's for when company comes and I want to swipe everything off the counter really quick. Yeah I roll like that.
The categories I ended up with were: Feminine, Skin&Hair, BlowDryer (dangling from a command hook on the door itself), Razors, CommandStrips, Cleaners, InternalCleansing, ExtraHardware (basically shower curtain rings) Isn't it great! I never would've thought you could actually know what was under your sink. Really. I didn't.

 This is the Master Bathroom linen closet. Yep. I know. No linens in there. Well, actually there's one teensy stack of towels and handtowels on the second shelf from the top. But that's it. Everything else used to live under my bed - all my craft stuff. I used to have to move laundry that spilled out of the basket and my husbands shoes, pull out a big heavy under-bed box and THEN I could grab the craft foam, stickers, or acrylic paint. But NOW it's just behind one door! Those are my gift bows hanging in the grocery bag on the door, and above it is my 25 year old lap desk! Here are the categories in here: toilet paper, health&vitamins, stockingstuffers, towels, handtowels, partysupplies, woodenthings (to paint), stickers, gluesticks, craftscissors, those melty-bead-thingeys, small bottles of acrylic paint. Hurray! On to the Real Linen Closet...

 The Linen and Medicine Closet: Pillowcases and Sheets are the 2 shelves at the top. You can only see one. Then there's: Misc, Allergy, Intestinal, Cough, Applicators, Band-Aids, Fever, Samples, Bandage, Thermometer, OutdoorMeds, Sunblock&Bugspray, Bathtowels, Handtowels, Beachtowels, Hoodedtowels (Am I getting a little OCD?), and Bathmats in a bin at the very bottom. It seems silly to be telling the blog-world all my little categories, but I know that when I was trying to figure out how to organize these spaces (because I'm so horrible at it) I read every single little family/mom-blog about their cabinets as well as all the fancier sponsored ladies (who are excellent!). Also I must say that I think part of the reason I was able to do this was that I was on some really strong Amoxycillin, and Ibuprofen, and using an inhaler and one other medicine for my pnuemonia. I had some wonderful ideas for a novel too!

 This is a well in El Salvador. No I didn't do this all by myself of course...but this is something that was hard work and I'm extremely extremely proud to have been a part of it. Thank you Living Water, and thanks Lord for letting us come play!

and you can't have a frippery without a little cuteness...

I love this mellow little man.

Doesn't he look like a superhero in those glasses?

We start school on Monday! One in public kinder, and one at home doing 5th grade (mostly). This is my last baby that's not in school (sniff sniff). Come to think of it - what's he doing right now? Hey, he's messing with the sewing machine! Gotta go!

Hand Sewing

I have been stitching up a storm lately! I got commissioned to embroider a wedding handkerchief as a gift to the bride by her sister. That's the hydrangea with initials. And I finally managed to get my act together in time to do a stitchalong with feelingstitchy! It's a cute little girl named "Little Lemon Slice." Her skirt looks like a lemon slice! Oh no. Now I want to make the skirt for myself.
Anyway, I decided to make her "Little Lime Slice" and stitch her in greens because there are lime trees all over down here in Houston (including one in a pot on my back porch). Well...
along the way the ovalish bits of her skirt turned into avocado slices. So now she's "Little Avocado Lime Slice" I should just call her Gudrun Guacamole and get it over with! Have a lovely day everyone!
Blessed be the Lord who gives all good things.

Lissa

Hidden Pride

Nope not a spritual post. Just a post about my newly organized under-the-kitchen-sink cabinet. I'm very happy that this spot is clean because it creeps me out. It used to have extra egg cartons and newspapers and all manner of junk literally tossed in there. I pulled it all out Wednesday night and of course FORGOT to take a before picture. But now it looks great so let's focus on that.

These bins were in the Target dollar section and they REALLY were a dollar! (sometimes they sneak in some 2.50 stuff in there)



My categories:
Everyday Cleaning
Baby Wipes Stuff (for making my own)
Scrubbers
Special Cleaning
Bug Killing
Rubber Gloves

In the back I put a turn-table that wouldn't fit anywhere else in the kitchen. It works fab here.



It holds my SPRAYPAINT! Yay! Underneath are the wood stains and small cans of paint. Ignore the ugly pipe. It was really important to me to have a place for this huge vase. It webt in first.


These labels are so people know where to put things BACK.






It's all in there! Or as my Spanish teacher used to say "Prego." (which was wierd because that's a spaghetti sauce!)
And I owe it ALL to iheartorganizing.com

Here's how the boys finished up the day yesterday!
Maybe I can organize the back porch soon.


Ciao! Hasta la vista!
Lissa

Olympic Banner Activity

We have the Olympics on pretty continually 'round here. I wanted to take some time "making" with the Littles.

The square are a cupcake topper printable from an Olympics Party
















My kids are Gold Medalists in Fine Motor Skills.

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Cardboard Guitar

LiEr from ikatbag.blogspot.com showed how she made a cardboard guitar the other day, so I made one for Phillip!














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Fan Family Fun

There's a post on Pinterest of a little boy inside a sheet tent inflated by a fan! When my 5 yr old asked if I could make him a tent I thought lets do this!



It was great fun for about 5 minutes of three sons. Oh well. Maybe with its a cumulative thing. Maybe 1 son would be amused for 15 minutes, or 15 sons for 1 minute. You get the idea.


Here are some tips!
1. Doing it on the bed help because you can tuck in the sheet under the mattress
2. I had two sides held down and one side open for crawling in (entrance was directly across from the fan), and one side for the fan.
3. The fan needs to be uncovered at the back for airflow.


4. Inflation is more successful when the sheet on either side of the fan is tucked in clipped, or held down in some way. (I used some binder clips and pillows)





5. Lots of different things can be used to keep the sheet edges down, a folded comforter, throw pillows, toys, books, stuffed animals. Think like a kid!
6. The entrance across from the fan seemed to work just fine without being tied or clipped down in any way.

Have fun!
Lissa

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I heart organizing

My new favorite blog is:
iheartorganizing.blogspot.com

This lady is down to earth, frugal and has three sons like me! I've been reading her blog for inspiration for 24 hours now (joking!) and I felt inspired to deal with the linen closet. So here's the "mini tour". (I almost said tourette, but that has wierd connotations yes? tourling, tourita?)


I always forget to take a "before" shot. But just imagine twice as much stuff shoved in, and slowly falling forward like a glacier!





My cute labels (this seems to be the hidden rule of organizing successfully: labels. Cuteness is extra)


AND, the VACUUM has a Place!


So Long, Farewell! From my Linen Closet.


Okay, I give up, I can't write a blogpost without a little cuteness.




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