Nester’s having a collection inspiration linky today. The first thing I thought about was my obsession with finials. Is that what they’re technically called? Every time I see one I debate in my head whether to buy it or not. They’re purely decorative. They serve no real purpose other than to confound my husband as to why I love them.
We added some moulding onto the mantel this weekend, and decided to line up my pretties. I love how they’re each different, but the colors all work together.
I often get asked about my workspace design. I was lucky enough to have an open loft area upstairs that was basically unused before we turned it into an office/workspace. A talented neighbor who does custom cabinetry and woodwork created some custom built-ins for the space.
1) Maximize Floor Space: The space is approximately 10 x 12, which is not that big. One of the most important design decisions we made was to have the cabinetry built from wall-to-wall to maximize the amount of countertop. I can line up three sewing machines across the stretch of countertop and bounce from one to the other as needed. When the machines are stored away, there is plenty of room to spread out papers and work.
Note to self: Organize cords under desk
2) Maximize Storage & Organization: Full extension drawers are incredible. I knew this was something I definitely wanted to incorporate into the drawers. Everything in the drawer is within easy sight and reach. Nothing gets lost in the back, unlike my kitchen drawers which do not have full extension slides.
Another area of storage are the baskets I have on the shelves above. I need to add some labels to the front, but they hold tons of items I don’t need immediately handy.
I’ve been saving and collecting some old frames as I come across them. I hot glued some cork tiles to the glass on this frame to turn it into a countertop message board.
3) Large Cutting Board & Tools: This is an indispensable item to have to accurately cut. The table itself can be folded up and stored away if needed. The cutting board is approx. 36″x60″. Underneath is a cover that can be ironed on, which is very handy for items larger than a standard ironing board can handle.
4) Stuff that Makes Me Smile: The area has turned into a family art room as well. I love having artwork around me that was created by my kids. I’ve reused many frames that I’ve collected to frame this artwork. I always have a pile of artwork handy waiting for the perfect frame.
This is my first sewing machine…a Holly Hobbie machine that actually worked when it wasn’t jamming the thread. I still love it.
This always cracks me up. My oldest created this for Mother’s Day in kindergarten. It says:
The important thing about my Mom is:
- She takes us to the park
- She takes out my splinters
- She cooks our food
- She is nice
- She loves me
Okay, so it’s not a pot roast or roast chicken. But it is delicious. We’ve been making an effort to eat more vegetarian meals during the week. I shoot for having vegetarian 4 times per week. Some weeks it doesn’t happen, some weeks it does. It conveniently allows us to feel less guilty about the big juicy hamburger we seem to enjoy on the grill this time of year.
The jumping off point for this recipe was on the back of the red quinoa box from Trader Joe’s. I used it for the inspiration, but made my own dressing & added a few other veggies to the mix, including the fresh spinach.
First up, the red quinoa. Power house of the whole grain family.
Trader Joe’s has some delicious frozen roasted corn. I added 2 cups of that to the quinoa to conveniently cook both at the same time. Don’t judge this final dish by the picture below. The cooked quinoa serves as a bed under the dressed salad/veggies that we’ll add to the top.
Have you checked out the hispanic food section at your local Wal-Mart? I was shocked to see the variety of items there. Items that would cost twice as much at some of the markets we usually frequent. Case in point - - last summer we had a Mexican themed fiesta for the hubby’s 40th. I made a Rick Bayless recipe for dessert which called for goat’s milk caramel as the flan’s topping. Needless to say, I was sweating where I would get an ingredient like that. Voila! In the hispanic food section of Wal-Mart. I kid you not. And it was delicious.
This is also in that section of the store, and so good to have on hand. It’s a bullion of cilantro flavor. Perfect for this dish in addition to the fresh cilantro.
To take the bite and sting out of fresh garlic and onion, I roasted them first. The garlic got added to the dressing, and the onion was chopped into the veggies.
The cast of characters in the dressing. No firm measurements here.
The dressing (with fresh cilantro) gets whizzed up to a sort of loose cilantro pesto.
Dress your veggies in the delicious dressing and pour on top of your quinoa/corn mixture. The veggies included: a can of drained black beans, 1 pint cherry tomatoes, handful fresh spinach, 1 diced avocado.
I added a little crunch with some pumpkin seeds on top. This was a healthy, satisfying, main entree salad. We’ll do this one again for sure.
Over spring break, the boys and I headed to New York City. We had such a great time. The highlight of their (and my) trip was a helicopter ride over the city. I was snapping pictures left and right while trying to peek from around the camera at the same time. The weather was absolutely beautiful while we were there.
A few weeks ago, I bit the bullet and came home with my trunk loaded of moulding from Lowe’s. It was a long weekend with plenty of time to figure this out. The worst that could happen was that I ended up returning anything I hadn’t cut. I was bolstered by a sense of confidence from several other blogs out that have shown their beautiful results with trims and moulding.
I’d been wanting to do this on our stairwell for a *long* time. It turns out kids are incapable of walking up the stairs without dragging their hands beside them. It’s just a fact of life. It led to a messy wall that was impossible to touchup with paint or clean. No matter what I did, the big expanse of wall was unsightly. The touchup paint never matched, and the worst part is that the stairwell wall is two stories tall.
It’s hard to get a sense of scale here, but the chair rail moulding is actually approximately 68″ high here. The first thing we did was cut the pieces and tape the moulding into place to make sure everything looked right. If I hadn’t fallen asleep so often in geometry class growing up, I probably could’ve figured out these angles up the stairs and skipped the dry fitting stage. The 45 degree angles were simple–but the angles going up the stairs were a bit trickier.
Once I felt good about the way everything looked, we nailed the moulding into place. Once the moulding was all permanently attached to the wall, we caulked around the edges & miters. Then we painted. I would say the most tedious part of the entire project was caulking and painting. We used semigloss paint to match the baseboards in the house. Semigloss finishes are always tricky for me to get the sheen just right.
Here’s how it looks all finished and painted up. Now, when the wall gets marked up (which it will), I can simply repaint the area below the chair rail without any trouble!
We did this job with a miter box only. I have to say it was not very difficult. I can’t imagine how much easier it would have been with a real tool.
There were several blog sources were so helpful in taking on this project. Check them out!
You might remember I posted recently here and here about some of our blankets that recently made their way all the way to Bolivia to benefit the boys at Bolivia Life Center Orphanage. I received a nice email the other day from the Project Development Coordinator at Children’s International Network who relayed the fact that the boys loved their new blankets and the warmth and security that they brought them.
She included this great picture of the boys with their new blankets. So cute!
We’re back from our annual vacation to visit with family up in the Boston area. We had so much fun. The weather didn’t cooperate for most of the time, but that was okay. We made the best of it. The first part of our trip we headed to Newport RI for a few days. The ride down included a thunderstorm directly overhead, and hail. Yes, hail. In July. Strange, strange weather.
There were a few breaks in the weather which allowed us to head down to the wharf. I think it was at this point that I had Clam Roll #1 of the trip. It would be the first of many.
I love the original buildings along the wharf in Newport. They have the same style and feel as another one of my favorite places, old town Alexandria, Virginia. It’s probably no coincidence since the buildings date back to the same time in both places. You can sort of imagine what the docks may have looked like back then when you walk up and down the narrow streets.
The last day there, the weather finally cleared. At least for a while. We managed to get in a walk along Newport’s famous Cliff Walk.
The view from up above is beautiful. No beach front here–just rocky cliffs heading straight into the Atlantic below.
A few butterflies along the way…
We saw these bushes all the way down to Newport. I’ll definitely be looking for these at our local nursery in the spring. I believe they’re a lace cap hyndrangea that just happens to be blue. I’ve seen them in white, but never blue. It is absolutely the most beautiful color.
There are lots more pictures to follow!
A few weeks ago, I posed the question “What do hundreds of fabric squares have to do with Bolivia?” Well, I can finally answer that question.
We’ll be sending 35 handmade blankets with a group from our church heading to Bolivia on June 25. The annual trip is in conjunction with Children’s Network International. The blankets will be given to the youngest of the boys at the Bolivia Life Center Orphanage in Cochabamba, Bolivia. The Life Center provides homeless boys from the streets of Bolivia shelter, food, clothing & education.
The blankets have patchwork faces, which to me, seem like a more homemade style. It’s something that a family member might make…and I’m hoping the boys will see it that way too. No two are alike.
The backs are all soft chenilles. I hope the boys love the way they feel.
After I assembled the faces of the quilts, I forwarded them along to our workroom. I love the fact that we have a woman-owned business that does our sewing. She and her team of women graciously donated the time to put the backs on all the quilts. A true team effort.
It was a real eyeopener to read some of these statistics. I’d love to go next year with our oldest on this trip.
{Tuesdays at Chatting at the Sky are all about taking note of, and being thankful for all the small things that sometimes go unnoticed. This weekend I took notice of all the beautiful flowers happening outside my door.}
We’ve had an unusually wet and rainy spring & early summer in North Carolina. Normally at this time of year, the grass is quickly starting to resemble hay, and flowers are struggling to remain healthy. A drought, and subsequent water bans the last few years made me question if any of my perennials would actually survive.
I was sure I killed this clematis. I was a little overzealous in my pruning earlier this spring. The rest of the clematis in the neighborhood have already bloomed. In think instead of killing it, I just delayed its maturity a bit. It’s already reached the top of the metal trellis.
These are the same type of daylily that we had growing up in Massachusetts. The stems are very tall–almost three feet. I scoured the nurseries down here for quite a while before finally finding these. Daylilies do really well here, and are quite popular. But it’s harder to find these larger ones. It’s mostly smaller varieties that I find.
This is an onion blossom. I absolutely love any type of onion/chive flowers. I have some garlic chives that bloom with a similar, but smaller, flower. This is my absolute favorite.
Some zucchini blossoms. I need to do a search for some recipes for stuffed blossoms. It seems a shame to wait until the veggie develops. I’m remembering when I’ve seen stuffed blossoms prepared on tv, that it usually involves some ricotta cheese. Yum…
Lots of herbs survive the winter here without any trouble. I have rosemary, oregano and sage that are a few years old in the garden. Even so, I plant a new parsley plant each year and let the previous year’s plant flower. Butterflies apparently love to lay their eggs in parsley. I can vouch for that, because the boys have brought the caterpillars into school so that the class can enjoy seeing it change to a butterfly.
These are just so cheerful. What’s blooming in your area?
{Hey, it’s Giveaway Day at the Nester’s Place! You’ll find one of our blankets offered, as well as loads of other beautiful items! For free!}
We laugh sometimes at how opposite our kids tend to be. If you put a cupcake in front of both and come back in a few minutes, one cupcake will have its frosting almost surgically removed, while the cake portion remains intact. The other plate will simply have a pile of frosting, with only a few crumbs of cake remaining.
The differences extend way beyond food. While one is a music loving guitar player, the other loves to craft and create things. He’ll usually approach one of us with one of his ‘ideas’. Literally, the conversations starts with, “Mom (Dad), I have an idea…” These ideas usually involve plenty of packing tape, cardboard, rope and patience. Recently he created a full size, wearable Iron Man costume with all of those materials as well as a hockey mask. The end result was sort of bizarre, but strangely accurate. Sort of an Iron Man meets Jason from Friday the 13th. Most importantly, it kept him busy for quite a while.
I was roped in recently to help create a puppet. I had to do the cutting, but he helped by organizing the pieces and assembling.
His name has been changed a number of times, but most recently he is “King”.
I’m just waiting to hear that King needs a friend…
