Sofa Pillows to die for

I saw these sofa pillows at a resort hotel in Arizona.  They were gorgeous!

I tried to figure out how they were made.

I think the bias strips of silk would need to be ironed folded in thirds first, then sewn down the middle, to make the ruffley edges stand up like this.

New entertainment center

The house looks so much better with the new paint and carpet.  It makes us keep buying things to finish off the rooms.

We bought an entertainment center for our living room on Saturday from craigslist, I am SO THANKFUL to Isaac, Adam, and Seth for their help in getting it loaded and unloaded.  It was really heavy!

Zac's friend Tatiana just left.  She is a really cute girl and we enjoyed having her visit.  Although I ate too many homemade chocolate sandwich cookies and pumpkin bread and banana bread while she was here.


Things are looking bleak for the EU and also for the US.  Also, here's a report that the Chinese have started their own central bank, so eventually they won't have to deal with dollars anymore.  (Can you say "Bye bye, dollar as the reserve currency"?)
http://www.shtfplan.com/headline-news/economic-collapse-we’re-soaking-in-it_11142011

New Paint and Carpet!

Too bad we can't just keep the rooms empty, it makes them look so clean.

Getting our interior painted tomorrow

It is late Sunday night.  We have cleaned out our whole garage yesterday, it took us 11 hours to empty it, sort it, and put it back.  Later this week I will be giving away and selling a lot of stuff on Craigslist.

We had to clean out the garage yesterday because it was beautiful weather and the only weekend we were all available to work.  AND IT HAD TO BE DONE.

But it was terrible timing because for the day before, and last evening after cleaning out the garage, we still had to pack up all the bookshelves and move all the furniture in 4 rooms of our house to prepare for the painters to come bright and early Monday morning.

The house looks like we are moving, and I am very tired.

And I have poor timing for another job too:  I have ordered new carpet, but it won't be installed for about 2 weeks.  So we can move the furniture back but we aren't going to load the bookshelves again until we move the furniture one more time for the carpet layers.

I hope I will think this is all worth it.

My mom's painting- What wall color?

When my mom was here she touched up this painting that she had painted for me about 8 years ago.

We are having our house interior painted and I am having a fit trying to decide what wall color to put in the dining room.  I wonder what would look right with this painting and frame?

My Mother's Visit

My mother came for 11 days earlier in September.  I kept trying to get some pictures of her with each of her great-grandchildren, but for some reason I never got a good one of her with Hannah or with Thomas.
(By the way, she is the one that painted that painting, she gave it to me around 2007.)

Susan Sargent can decorate my home

If you have ever seen my sofa pillows, they are covered in Susan Sargent fabric.  They go beautifully with my purple sofas.

Someday I am going to buy all of her stuff.  She has the colors that I love.

http://susansargent.com/color.html

For Unto Us a Child is Born

I saw this at Greg and Heather's house. So cute! Made from their baby's footprint!

Parade of Homes time again

This is one of my favorite times of year---I get to go snooping through elegant new homes at the Wake County Parade of Homes. I adore looking at house plans, room arrangements, how they decorate the rooms, and finding out what are the newest kitchen and bath ideas. I am especially eager to go to the $1,575,000 house in Durham.

One of my favorite things is looking at the window treatments and the new colors. Someday I'm going to get enough energy and determination to actually decorate a house (probably not this one). I like to look at lovely home decor, I just don't actually ever get around to doing it to my own house.

The Parade of Homes goes on for 2 more weekends: Oct. 8-10, Oct 15-17. Noon to 5 pm.

http://www.hbawake.com/

I Still Want a Painted Sky

We went to a wedding reception at Greg and Heather's house. He has painted this gorgeous sky in the tray ceiling in their dining room. This is exactly what I want on my ceiling someday.

Love This Rug!

I COULD NOT PASS UP THIS RUG! It looks just like some of my quilts. I wish I could have bought 5 of them to put all around my house. I wish I could have runners made to go down my hall. You just shouldn't pass up things that are exactly perfect for you. And this is one of those things.

Walnut Picture Frames

Yesterday I showed a picture of the family history "folk art montage" painting that my mother painted. She gave digital copies to all her relatives. The six that she gave her own children were framed in walnut wood, from walnut trees which had been cut around 1964.

Here is her story:

There were many large walnut trees on the 1,500 acre ranch (in Oklahoma, near Caney, Kansas). Before we sold the ranch in 1964 we had several of the trees cut into lumber and I had it stored in Mesa, Arizona. I took 8 semesters of woodworking there and I made a large chopping block, 2 small tables, 2 bookcases, 3 wall units, a front door with a stained glass window, and more.

After painting this 10" x 72" montage, I wanted it framed with this beautiful walnut lumber that has been drying for about 40 years. I have taken 2 semesters of specialized woodworking at a Community College here in Salt Lake City and made 8 walnut picture frames for my children and me.

I am truly thankful for my healthy body at age 75, that I am able to drag the 30 pound pieces of wood around. It must go to many different machines like the planer, jointer, saw, sander, shaper, router and miter to finally end up with a beautiful walnut picture frame.

It took me over 100 hours to complete the picture frames and I am very pleased that my six children and their families will have a visual picture of their wonderful heritage.

"America the Beautiful: Joy in the Journey with Mother and Me" book by Christine Clarkson Kelly, p. 65.


This is a photo of my mother holding baby Cindy about 1955, about 9 years before the walnut trees were cut. But I wanted to include it because it shows the ranch behind her.

Chris's Painting in Family History Library

My mother is a good painter, and she painted this family history folk-art montage, portraying every place in church history, American history, and our family history. It was originally 6 feet long.

She had it digitally copied onto canvas, and made copies for all her children, her brothers and sisters, and all her nieces and nephews (about 100 copies). I have one of the 6' copies hanging in my home.

The Church also put a 13 feet long copy in the Family History Library in Salt Lake City. (She just had it copied digitally twice its size).

She printed a book to go with it and gave it to each of her relatives, along with the painting. Each page has a small picture at the top, to show which building she is telling about, and then she has written the story of each place. It is extremely touching to read the stories of my ancestors and look at the building where that event occurred.

(The story I posted yesterday was from that book. She included on the painting a picture of her dad pulling a load of coal. You can see him at the right of the painting, above the A-frame house, and below the herd of cows.)

This painting really means a lot to me.

(This photo was taken in early 2007, I think. I am a lot skinnier than that now.)

New Cell Phone, New Bungee Chair

I have hated my cell phone for several years. We finally went to Best Buy and bought a new one yesterday. It took me so long because I try to avoid learning about technology, and I thought it would be hard to switch phones, phone numbers, input all my contact numbers, etc.

I was very blessed, though, because when we got home Wayne got on the computer and switched the phones, and paid for the minutes, and then Tara entered all my contacts and phone numbers for me, and helped me set all the rings, backgrounds and everything.

I am hoping that THIS phone will actually ring when people call it. My other one stunk. I could be expecting a call, and holding the phone in my hand, and it would still go straight to voice mail.

I still have the cheapest plan in the world, Virgin mobile, I think its 20 cents a minute, but I don't care. I have very short conversations on my cell phone, and hardly ever pay more than $10 per month for it. We have all our long conversations on our home phone. Someday we'll get rid of the home phone, and then we'll have to get good plans for our cell phones instead.







Remember the cool bungee cord office chair that Wayne bought me for Christmas? It finally arrived, and I LOVE IT! And its HOT PINK! Someday all the furniture in my house will be pink and purple.

Dr. Suess Trees

I was teaching quilting in Lawton, Oklahoma around 2004(?) and went into a little gift shop and was enchanted with all the Dr. Suess-themed Christmas decorations which were for sale. I wanted them very badly, but did not want to spend the money.

I went to a party at Kennon's house a few weeks ago, and SHE HAD THE TREES FROM THE DR. SUESS COLLECTION! The whole collection came back to my memory, and I remembered how much I loved all that stuff.

I started kicking myself for not having bought the whole set. They had Grinch ornaments, and swirly twirly little houses with crooked roofs and chimneys, etc. It was totally ME, but I passed it all up. Dumb stupid me.

There have been a few times in my life that I look back and hate myself for not buying something, and this is one of them. Maybe someday I will find some of these items on Ebay and can own a few of them.

(I just asked Kennon where she got them, she said she bought them at Home Goods about 2 years ago. So these might not be those exact same trees, but they are close enough.)

Bright Nativity

Here is a photo of the tiny quilt I made in 2007 called "Bright Nativity with Porcelain Buttons". I had a plexiglass cookbook holder that was just the right size, so I made the quilt kind of like a little pillowcase, and I slid it down over the plexiglass. Now I can display the quilt setting on an endtable.

Stewart Retreat #4

It was so fun to visit my sister Carla's house. There were beautiful things everywhere. Here is a pretty piece of artwork Carla resurrected. The words were there but it was boring, so she colored in the words and added flowers from wallpaper sample books.


This little doghouse is the cutest thing I've ever seen. It is in Carla's kitchen.


These birdhouses are hanging outside the kitchen window in the orange trees.

Stewart Retreat #3

We went to Carla's house in Mesa, and it is absolutely beautiful. Carla loves girly-girl styles, but has to temper it somewhat for her husband (otherwise it would be all pink.)




Carla purchased this big tapestry, then glued it onto the wall above her stairs and added the rows of molding around it.

I love the way she hung the shower curtain from these black hooks on the ceiling.

This is an organizer Carla and my mother made, from fabric, ribbons, and vinyl. It is hanging in Carla's daughter's room.

Pretty Painted Ceiling

Wayne took me to lunch at the Cheesecake Factory in Durham for my birthday. I took these photos of the ceilings there.

I have always wanted a sky painted inside my tray ceiling in my dining room. The ceiling at the Cheesecake Factory wasn't a sky, but the designs had really pretty colors that I liked. Maybe someday I'll get someone to paint a scene on my ceiling.

Wayne's Dream House

I saw this photo spread of Nicola Bulgari's garage in a magazine, (sorry I don't know which magazine.) I was sure that Wayne would absolutely love it, so I took pictures of the pages. (click on photos to make them bigger.)


Bulgari built the garage with a guesthouse above, and each room has a full picture window so the people staying there can look down on all the cars.


Here is the living room. I'm sure if Wayne could, he would move there tomorrow.