my crabapple tree.

Every spring, this lovely crabapple tree is filled with the prettiest of blooms.  The sweet scent is intoxicating!  Each time I walk by, I can't help but take in the deepest breath.  In just a few days the beautiful blooms will have fallen, and then tiny crabapples will begin to grow.  This particular apple is not to be eaten but rather made into jelly.  Last year life was too hectic to can, but this year I am planning to pick up every single apple that falls from the tree!  I can hardly wait for the kitchen to be filled with the yummy scent of homemade crabapple jelly!

an instagram sort of month.

Since the nearest Starbucks is an hour away (as is every other little bit of civilization - ha ha ha), I came up with a little chilly day treat that I can make from home.  What I do is : make the vanilla latte according to directions then add eggnog (amount is to your liking).

baddah boom baddah bang - yum!

And with said chilly days, I baked a batch of snickerdoodles for my awesome husband who works so hard to take care of our family.

I'm a lucky girl to have such a great guy!

Getting a little sewing in since it is so cold outside - new lined checked pillow covers have been my latest sewing endeavor, and I am so happy with them!

This is typically what my day looks like, so it has been nice having a break from all the outside work that keeps me busy during the fall!  That and I like not smelling like a campfire for days in a row.  ha ha ha  Seriously though, I am not complaining, what I do is hard work, but it has it's perks too.  I love being outside and it keeps me fit and young.  So it's a win win!

Before I go, have you seen Green Fairy Quilts huge charm pack sale??  I buy charm packs regularly, so that I can mix and match and get a real nice scrappy look when I am sewing.  They are super affordable and make fun stocking stuffers for your quilter friends!

Thanks for dropping by my little blog today!  xoxo

phone camera.

Someday I will actually use my big girl camera.  But for today's post bear with me while I share a few snaps from my instagram feed. 

For starters I took a few minutes to do a little spray painting.  These stars hung in my son's bathroom, but after a fresh coat of apple red, I thought they would look cuter in my kitchen.  That and I am painting the said bathroom, so everything came off the walls.  (Not sure why my kitchen walls look peachy - yikes!)

Secondly, I am so excited to share a little but very cute tutorial from The Fat Quarter Shop, real soon, so stay tuned!  Just in time for cooler weather ... hint.

And last but not least a super (to me) fun thrifty find.  I just fell in love with these mixing bowls.  The red and white tugged at my heart immediately.  They just had to come home with me.  I am looking forward to filling them with all sorts of goodies.

I hope your week is off to a great start!!  xo

moving things around.

It's official.  

We are empty nesters. 

With that comes some shifts in our home.

As well as my heart.

 I have been sharing the evolution of my new sewing room on instagram.  Our son's room has incredible lighting and the walls are already painted.  I still may go back over them later down the road but I can live with them as is for now.

The evolution of my momma's heart on the other hand, oy.  Not ready to go there just yet.
I hope you are having a great start to your new week!  Thanks so much for dropping by.  xo

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snapshots.

in may : 

the garden is in full bloom.  

lots of tomatoes and yellow squash.

preparing for more painting.

i turned 45.  

i love getting older.

my baby is about to graduate high school.

i drink far too many caramel frappes.

made our first batch of pesto for the summer.

going back to tide laundry detergent.

love love love crocheting maybelle squares.

hardly any sewing going on.  sniff.

forgiving myself for not being able to do it all.

no matter how many times i tell myself that i can.

trained at the local courthouse, to work the polls. am falling in love with this little town we call home. it only took eight years.

  took a 2 1/2 hour nap on mother's day.

guilt free.

xo

painting.

 

The better part of last weekend was spent painting two of my larger rooms, the kitchen and the living room.  Here is a little snippet I shared on instagram.  I am really loving this new paint color.  It is honeysuckle white by Behr and I got it at Home Depot.  

In addition to that, I have been making little changes that I thought would be fun to share here.  A very special framed print of ours got a face lift with a new mat and a painted frame from my stash (I have a frame fetish - wink - so I always check my stash before thinking about buying a new one.)

Then I have been rematting a few very dear pictures.

The years have gone by way too fast for me.  How did these precious little ones grow up so quickly?  sniff ...

Two more paint colors I am playing with are reds and greens.  One of my kitchen prints got a fresh coat of "hidden meadow", thinking it was an apple - ish green, turns out it was quite lime-y.  Like scary.  So I improvised and sanded the edges for a distressed look.  I am loving it now.  wink.

I will be sharing more as it continues to come together.  There is still more painting to be done, plus a couple of sewing projects that I am anxious to get started ... right after I mow the yard.  wink.

Thank you so much for dropping by my little blog.  
I so appreciate you sweet comments and friendships!  xo

mary mary quite contrary.

The weather today is simply divine.  70's, blue skies, gentle breeze, perfect.  I don't want to be indoors one second!  Yesterday I was able to get our little summer garden in.  4 yellow squash, 3 sweet basil, 6 tomatoes - 3 are cherry tomatoes ... those tend to make it to my mouth a lot faster than the table.  I can hardly wait to make fresh pesto, fried yellow squash (Woody is the king at that!) and there is nothing on the planet that compares to summer tomato sandwiches on fresh baked wheat bread!  I'm getting hungry already.  Lol!   

Something else I planted this year, that isn't for eating, cosmos!  The seeds were sown a couple of weeks ago and the foliage is already 7" tall!  I absolutely love those flowers!  Plus zinnias, another favorite, still waiting on those seeds to germinate!  They will make such lovely bouquets for the house. 

Do you keep a garden?  

What do you like to plant?

a little of everything.

I am having so much fun sewing the Quilty Fun Sew Along blocks!  These little courthouse steps have stolen my heart!  I would love to make a whole quilt of them like Lori's!  I even made a pincushion out of one.  It is the perfect size!

My dear friend Renee and I are sewing together across the miles.  We both have a fat quarter bundle of Santa's Workshop (I got mine here) and have both made two blocks.  Check out Renee's blocks here.

I raced outside today to try and get some pictures of my favorite tree.  With hundreds on our property, it must sound hard to choose just one.  Though there are several I am very fond of, while they are all shedding their leaves for the season, this one displays the prettiest shades of orange and red.  I literally wait for it.  It is such a beautiful show and lasts such a short amount of time.

I hope you are having a wonderful week!

Don't forget to enter this fabulous fabric giveaway!  Winner will be chosen tomorrow!

hodge podge.

There is a little of this and a little of that going on over here.

For starters, I am putting the finishing touches on my next Moda Bake Shop tutorial.  I love working with these rich fall colors!  I can't wait to share the completed project with you!

Something else I have going on in the background ... painting this mirror.  I picked it up at a local consignment shop, and though I have nothing against silver, I see it in white.  

The walls are about to get a fresh coat of a creamy (delicious) off white paint.  I have been waiting and waiting to do this, so I am beyond happy to be that much closer to dipping my brush in some paint.  This room was our son's room and is painted aqua.  When our oldest daughter moved out, he took the bigger room and this room then became my sewing room, as well as a quest room.  Little by little I have been making it "mine".  Here is when I first moved in.  Here is when I painted my sewing table (the after).  Here is the during.  And here is a little organization touch.  I sure hope to one day have it all finished, just as I would like.

Right now I am juggling a few bigger life matters that take precedent, so my pace is a little bit slow.

I hope you have a wonderful weekend!!  xo

friday finish. kitchen pantry.

The organizing and purging continues.  The process is a lot like an iceberg.  You see the tip above the water but the bulk lies beneath.  

To be quite honest, I LOVE to organize so this is by no means troublesome to me.  The past year has kept my mind and activities elsewhere.  Since things have settled considerably, I am a woman on a mission ... room by room, closet by closet, drawer by drawer.  Look out!

Today I am sharing a smidge of our pantry, which is more like a small room.  And that translates to a quick organizing finish.  Spending a couple of days taking inventory helped to put it in order and get my shopping list together for next payday.  With our needs changing, again, it helped for me to get my hands in there and create a plan.

Our meal planning is pretty basic, so it didn't take too much effort.  And since I LOVE making lists, the process was enjoyable.

The labels were super easy to make.  I had the supplies on hand from the last time I organized the pantry.  I just printed new labels (some of the items in the past we no longer use), cut my scrap paper to fit the plastic name tags, then tied them on with a ribbon.  Easy peasy.  

The bins corral different items, keeping them orderly and since I don't put our canned goods in any containers, they out in the open, oldest date forward (like stocking shelves at the market), and I can easily keep track of what we have on hand, and what we need.  

Another area that runs more smoothly when kept in check.

Do you have a method for keeping food items orderly that you would like to share?

work in progress. organizing.

(for the kitchen pantry)

As mentioned here, I am in the process of purging and organizing.  
Yesterday I took just about every single thing off of our walls.  
Stood back and immediately felt a calm.  
We will be painting in the next few months, so I patched little nail holes.  
Honestly though, I am in no hurry to put anything back up.  

 

Not to mention, almost everything I took off the walls was carted off to our local consignment shop.  Including the baskets that Easter was sitting in and picture behind him.  (such a good helper)

Those funds are going into my paint money jar.  

I am a firm believer in, if you are not using it, get rid of it.  
Either give it away or sell it.  
If you sell it, set the funds aside for a goal you have in mind.  

In this case, paint.

So the pictures you see up above, obviously have nothing to do with painting.  I am printing off labels to organize my pantry.  It was already done (in orange - was so cute) but our needs have changed so I am opting for yellow (it is what I have on hand).  I will show you when I am done.

In the mean time, have a super day!!