Monday Morning Check In

Even though I notice that not many people are still keeping up with this I really need to. :0) So, here I am. I may not post every Monday, but I am keeping up with it. As of this morning I am down from my original starting weight a little over one pound. This isn't much, but I'm glad that the whole gaining back everything I had lost is over. Now the hard part, the kids will soon be gone for another two weeks. That's when we seem to let eating right go to hell-in-a-hand-basket. Anyway, I am still keeping after it.

Before + After

I know I haven't been around, much but I have been busy.



I've been re-doing Wyatt's bathroom.


Here it is before.

(don't you just love the 'stay out' in dripping blood that his grandmother gave him? hmmm... I wonder where is could have gotten off to.)



I've wanted to paint it for a long time but was a little scared because of the color I wanted to paint it.

Here's more what it looks like now.

As you can see I went with a dark blue. And, boy! was I even more scared when I put that first brush of paint on the wall. I had to do two coats but I am happy with it now that it's all done. I think it really sets off the woodwork and the tile around the bath.

I took down the towel holder above the toilet. It was so low you couldn't really use it for anything more than a hand towel or decoration. I replaced it with this cabinet. You can still only hang a hand towle or decoration but I got a little more storage space with this.

It was a white cabinet that I bought at Target. I spray painted it an off-white color to match the other things and replaced the knobs. I also put new knobs on the cabinet where the sink is and replaced the toilet paper holder.

I hung two of these on the little strip of wall between the tub and bathroom door (there are two doors into this tiny bathroom). I figure he can use these for his towels.

I have a bigger one that has three hooks on it that I'm going to hang behing the main door into the bathroom. I've got it all painted in the same off-white, and it's leaning behind the door. Now I just need to get it hung. :0)

Some of the decorative touches:

This little sign has always been in there but it shows up a lot better now.

I bought this jar at a junk shop (some would call it an antique shop but I really think she's just using the shop to clean all the 'crap' out of her own house which is right next door.) The top on it was white with flowers on it. I spray painted it red and really wasn't sure where I was going to use it. I finally decided to use it in Wyatt's bathroom and fill it with the little soaps from hotels. As you can see, it needs a lot more soap in it. Perhaps I can use that as a good excuse to do some more traveling. :0)

This is my favorite. It's a cross stitch thingy (don't really know what to call it) that I did years ago. I fell in love with the pattern when I saw it and made it long before we even had any kids. It just makes me giggle and that's my favorite way to decorate.

Now that I've got that pretty well taken care of, maybe I can get back to some of my other projects.

Got books?

I know it's been awhile since I've posted but I have been busy. It's already time to start thinking about back to school. Ugh! But, with that in mind I made this book bag for Abigail. (she's my little monkey crazed girl)



The monkey on the front is a placemat that I had bought some time back. I was going to use it to make a pillow but never got around to it. I stitched it to the front of the bag so that it makes a big pocket.

I used a heavy denim type material in a kahki color for the bag and flannel for the inside of the bag and underside of the strap.



I just put a couple of pieces of ribbon in the seam so that she can tie it closed.

All in all I think it turned out pretty cute. Abigail is happy with it so that makes me happy. The other two girls have put in their orders for book bags now too. :0)

And the best thing about it....I made it all from fabric from my stash!! Woohoo! I've been trying to organize it and because it was spread out all over the place I didn't realize just how much I've got already. I'm on a mission to try to use up what I already have as much as I can.

Oh, and the bag is loosely based on this pattern.

Pillow talk

One of the pillows that Kirsten sleeps with is a small travel pillow. She's convinced that it used to be the same size as her other pillow and that it shrunk when I washed it (no matter how many times I tell her differently).


Anyway, she was always putting a full size pillow case on it and it would usually fall off during the night (all of my kids are 'active' sleepers). So over the weekend I finally made a little pillow case for her little pillow.






The main fabric is the same as the sheets on her bed. I added the polka dot because ther comforter has dots on it. I decided that it needed a little something more so I gathered a piece of polka dotted ribbon to put along the seam line where the two fabrics are joined. I only put the ribbon on one side though in case it bothered her while she was sleeping.






I thought it turned out pretty cute and she loves it. She thinks I'm the 'greatest Mom ever!' And to think, it only took about 30 minutes to get there. lol


I think it took me longer to find the fabrics and dig through the ribbon to find the right one than it took to make the pillow case. Typical!

Monday Morning Check In

Okay!! Last week I was back up to my original starting point (Gaaahh!!)so I didn't bother to post at all. This week I'm down .5 pounds from that. I've got Dax on board with the dieting and that helps overall. Now if I can just get motivated for the exercise. I'm working on it anyway.

Hope that you are all doing well with the weight loss and getting where you want to be.

Christmas Wish BOM

This is really the block from May. I did actually get it completed in May, it just took me this long to manage to take a pic. lol




I can't wait to get the whole thing done and together. I think it's going to be so nice looking. Although, I didn't get the June one made in June so now I guess I'll have to get two of them done this month.