Curtains in Person

I couldn't think of a better title for this post.  Sorry guys.  Creativity is running a little low right now.
As I promised, I finally took a picture of the curtains that I hung in our bedroom.

I think this is the best snapshot I got that shows the room in perspective.  This is the view you would see as you walk into the room from the hallway.  Forgive the pillow that I shoved under the bed.  I didn't think it would be seen.  Oops.  Now it just looks like a pile of dirty clothes.  It's an extra pillow people.  I'm really trying to keep things clean around here.
Here is the pattern close up.  I never got around to ironing them so I picked the least wrinkled spot to zoom in on.

Overall I am really happy with them.  I like them open better, because then they are more "gathery".  All of our windows are apparently wide, and when the curtains are closed they almost look like they are the wrong size.  I am hoping someday to add bamboo blinds to all of the windows throughout the house, and so once I do that (give me like 5 years or so) maybe I will just keep the curtains open all the time.
But...did you notice anything else new in the first picture?  We finally hung our wedding picture!

I've had this picture since Christmas.  Because we were in the middle of building our house, we never hung it at the old place.  Then, when we were trying to find a place for it in the new house, I was inspired by this idea and wanted to make one of my own for either side.  I would hang the three pieces in matching frames in the living room.  Then that DIY project bombed...majorly.  So this little guy was left without a home for another couple of months.  Finally, we found it a home in the bedroom and I am really happy with where we have put it.  And honestly, I think everyone else will be happy with it as well, as it is a way to keep one of our lovey-dovey personal memories in the bedroom, instead of forcing everyone who comes to the house to stare at us.  I don't think I ever convinced myself that it was okay to put wedding pictures, especially wedding pictures of this scale (it is 16x20), in the most public area of the house.  Regardless, it's up, and that's one more step in the right direction of making our house into our home.

Is This Wrong?

I recently discovered a new blog called Uber Chic for Cheap.  While perusing her posts, I came across this post that she wrote about kids wardrobes.  Is it wrong that I like every single outfit and piece shown?  Here is the picture she posted.

Picture found here.

I especially like (l-r) numbers 2, 3, and 5.  Especially 5.  Sometimes when I get dressed, I think to myself, I really want to look like Audrey Hepburn meets the 50s housewife.  Seriously.  I'm not joking here.  Doesn't look number 5 just scream that to you? I don't know if I could show up to work with a bow that big in my hair and be taken seriously, so maybe I will just save that one for the weekend.
UCFC even put together a shopping list for how to achieve these looks, so pretty soon, I'll be on my way to looking just like these 11 year olds.  I was not this stylish when I was 11, fo sho.  The best part about her blog is that all of her finds and recommendations are affordable!  Even if you aren't interested in your fashion inspiration being 11 like I am, I'll still tell you to click on over.  I just know you will find something you like!

5 Hours

Can you believe it took me 5 hours to do this?

Lets back up here.  My sewing room is out of control.  I never really organized it to begin with when we moved in...I just put things out of sight.  That left me with a dresser with half of its drawers sitting empty and a closet with absolutely no floor space.  One of the things that was occupying the floor space was a huge box of stash fabric.  It was seriously huge, and most of the pieces were inherited from my grandmother, many with the original stickers!  An aside...I will say that there was proof that some of this fabric was from my childhood and dare I say it, before I was born!  For those of you who knew Grandma Adeline, this is no surprise.
But anyway.  Yesterday, I tackled the box.  Unpacked fabric.  Washed fabric.  Ironed fabric.  Folded fabric.  Sorted fabric.  You may have picked this up from the photo, but I even loosely divided the fabric into two color ways - the left side is mostly cool colors (blues, greens, purples) and the right side is mostly warm colors (reds, pinks, oranges, yellows).  My absolute favorite find is the fabric that you see in the far right side of the photo.  It is a linen-ish fabric with little mild cartons & straws on it.  So adorable - I can see it made into a dress someday, sort of like this one.
The floor of my sewing room is still a disaster.  There is just one more (small) stack of fabric to go through plus my scrap basket.  I may require another drawer.  The two I've got are pretty much full to the brim.  Oh yeah, and it just occurred to me that I have other pieces of fabric tucked away in random places in the basement.  Looks like I still have a bit of work ahead of me.  The good news, however, is one, I have a place for the vacuum now, and two, I won't need to go to Joann's for a very long time.  Unless I want to.  Don't tell Byron.

New Curtains

When we moved into our house in March, one of the first absolute musts that we had to do to our house was install curtains in our bedroom.  I don't think I need to do much explanation here.  However, I (of course) wanted to find the perfect curtains that set the mood of the bedroom just right.  Not that mood, guys, come on.  I was going for relaxing.  Anyway, because we couldn't wait around long enough for me to make up my mind, we hung the curtains that were originally meant for the slider in our bedroom.  They match the curtains that are in our living room.  Remember those?
Byron made me promise him in a solemn oath a couple of months ago that I would choose permanent curtains for our bedroom within one year.  Seems awfully generous, but if you know how the process has gone for me choosing a rug, from Byron's perspective, he was putting the pressure on me.
My inspiration bedroom is the one found here.  I love the soothing gray color, the birch trees, and the pops of gold, though I would replace the pops of raspberry with gray blue.  So soothing - I am falling asleep just thinking about it.
I thought that if I made my own curtains, I could potentially find an inspiration piece that would start the bedroom off in the right direction.  So off I went, and Byron actually came with me (!) to his favorite store, JoAnn Fabrics, searching for some inspiration fabric.  We actually found quite a few choices that we liked.

But our favorite was...

We both loved the steely grays and pops of gold.  The gray was actually a mix of brown and gray, so I guess you would call that taupe, but I'm not sure how well the picture shows that.  I loved the all-over pattern, and I think Byron liked that it was on the masculine side (read:  not floral...I have a hard time convincing him that he likes floral).  There was only one problem.  I wanted to keep thinking about it.  In all fairness, I still needed to measure our windows to get the right amount of yardage, and I thought that poor Byron had lasted that long in the fabric store that the least I could do was to not put him through 30 more minutes of trying to place a custom order.  I would come back.  But before I could, the thoughts crept into my mind.
Let's revisit our bedroom...

These are old photos so please forgive the color imbalance.  And that's not our real bedspread - our real bedspread is actually more of a sage green and dusty aqua paisley.  So that's blue walls, purple artwork, green & aqua bedding, tan-ish carpeting, and now I want to add taupe & gold curtains?  I know that transforming my bedroom will be a long process, not one that I will be completing quickly.  Can I really live through all the chaos and will I even make it to my end product?  Um, no.
So there I was one night, browsing my favorite website West Elm, and aha!  What should appear before my lovely eyes but these beauties.  And they were even on sale!

The rest of the conversation went something like this...
Katie:  Byron, I have something to show you.
Byron:  What.
K:  Do you like these curtains?
B:  Yes.
K.  Okay.
[Curtains were ordered.]
So impulsive...so unlike me.  And I picked them out in like two months, not twelve.  I am so ahead of schedule.  The curtains arrived and have made a great new addition to our bedroom.  I will get pictures and show them off soon.  I mean, I will actually iron the curtains, get pictures, and show them off soon!

What I Read

You already know from talking to me that I am addicted to blogs.  I have shared many of my recommendations with you, but now I'm making it easier on all of us.  Tada!  My blog faves have been added to my sidebar.  Feel free to read some of them if you are so inclined, and if you stumble across something you think I would like, pass it on.  You are probably right!

Mama couldn't resist!

For the record, I did try to take a picture of myself pointing to my new blogroll.  Wow.  I have never done that before.  It was really, forgive the pun, eye-opening.  I mean, when I saw the pictures I took, my eyes were seriously pointing two different directions.  What?  Did you all know my face did this and why didn't you tell me?  I hope it's just that I am tired and my lids must be heavy.  Yes, that must be it.

At Last, the Shower

After long last, and a few weeks of stressing on other topics, I can now present to you the baby shower that I threw my dear friend Andrea a couple of weeks ago.  The theme I chose was Cute as a Button, and I found the idea here.  I loved the idea and how she carried it throughout so many different aspects.  I wasn't able to do quite as much, but still, it made for a fun time.  I also liked that the idea could be gender neutral, since Andrea is not finding out her baby's gender ahead of time.
THE INVITES

To start with, I handmade the invites.  I designed them in plain old Word and printed them on my own home printer.  I took them to the next step by sewing a sleeve and a button on each of them.  I must give a special shout out to my mom for her help in the assembly line!

THE MENU
I told Andrea to be sure to bring her sweet tooth to the shower.  We had fresh fruit and chocolate covered marshmallows (one of my easy go-to items, this time embellished to look like buttons...which they did, if you squinted and used your imagination), but the pride and joy of the shower were the cupcakes.  Oh, the cupcakes.  They. Were. Amazing.  Triple Chocolate and Lemon Velvet, ordered from my new favorite place in Valley Junction, Carefree Patisserie.  I can't say enough wonderful things about these cupcakes.

THE SHOWER
All in all, I think everyone had a great time.  We didn't play any shower games, but rather just had an enjoyable time to chat and tell stories.  I didn't have much to contribute in terms of advice, but many of the other gals did, and they had funny stories, too!

THE GIFTS

As a hostess trying to make sure all of the details of the morning were flowing smoothly, I failed at taking pictures of the gifts.  I can, however, share my gift to Andrea and baby.  The first thing I got her was this print.

I have had my eye on this for a long time for myself, but since I didn't have a reason to buy it for me, I knew Andrea would like it (plus I cleared it with her husband behind her back!).  The second thing I gave her was a handmade creation - I made fabric alphabet blocks.  I totally winged the process sans pattern, but I really like how they turned out.  (Stay tuned for a future post where I explain how I made them.)  Here is the first batch.

Overall, I had a really great time throwing the shower for Andrea.  I will say, thanks to Byron, my house had never been so clean.  I also owe a huge thank you to our friend Wynn who helped tremendously with the shower.  I couldn't have done it without her!  Now I can just sit back and wait until I get the chance to meet Baby Davey in person!