Thought for the day...

Always remember what's most important in life. It will not be the "stuff" you accumulate, it will not be how many Face book friend requests' you receive, it will not be how many followers you eventually have on your blog.

All those superficial things fade away and what you once "perceived" as friends will have fallen by the wayside...

Truly the most important things in life are not "things" at all. 

Its is our health and the love of family that matter the most. 

Without that you have nothing...

The above picture is something I made a few months ago to put on my "vision board", not as a way to "see myself" but as a way to "remind me" each day what is important and to never lose sight of that...
I am posting a link HERE to one of my favorite POEMS that I have on my vision board as well. It is a wonderful reminder to all of us and I hope you enjoy the message as much as I have through the years.
~Terry

A Wordy kind of gal and a tutorial...

I have always had a love of words and writing...see that's me below at about age two, I loved writing then and love it even more now!

I think that's the reason blogging has been a fun and creative outlet for me. Also, because I've met so many really great people and so many of you out there have the same passions; beautiful living and a zest for all things creative and expressive!
So today's post is in honor of words, literature, creativity and in this case...a bit of a "mishap" from this little darling..."Pearl the girl"

Yes she looks innocent enough alright...well she's got you fooled! She can be a bit of a stinker and can get into mischief and trouble like you wouldn't believe!

Here's proof...she wanted to see what was on the table and pulled the tablecloth down...on my birthday!

Which brings me to this, my love of prose and another Pearl escapade... 
Many years ago while traveling with the hubs we wandered into an antique shop and I came across an old Mark Twain book. In the book was a poem written by him that I knew would HAVE to be in my house somewhere, someday. 

One Christmas I got my wish; sweet Mr. La Bella Vie gave me the poem as a Christmas gift in the form of Wallwords which is a rub-on applique that I promptly applied on the wall of my foyer that you see above. 
What you can't see is the table below it that my little stinker kitty, Pearl likes to sit on...and apparently pick off the letters in the name...Mark Twain!
If I didn't love her so much, I would have booted her to the moon!

So...I had to re-order poor ol' Mr. Twain's name and re-apply it which brings me to the very brief but informative tutorial of this post...applying the words to the wall...

Get out your favorite laser-level, tape the words to the wall and rub on with the tongue depressor that comes with the words...and your done! That simple!

Here's a few more examples of some of the Wallwords I've done throughout the house...

"Wine makes every meal an occasion and everyday more civilized"

(click pics to enlarge)

And last but not least...you gotta make the best of anything in life no matter what it may be. So the last place you'd expect to see "Wallwords"...the entry door to the kitty-potty-box. The inside pet door goes through the cupboard door under the sink in my laundry room, then goes through another pet door in the outside wall into the garage and into in a screened-in enclosed area for the little "Principessa" of whom would rather powder her nose in privacy thank you very much!

And on that note, I have come to the "end" (pun intended) of this highly technical post!

Have a great day everyone!


Linking up with Susan for another Metamorphosis Monday #138...go see all the other great MM's out there!

Plaids that play well together...

OK so its been a while since I've posted and you know why? Because I've been really busy playing! Playing around in my sewing room...finally! I say finally because all summer long, I've either been outside or busy with summer activities and blogging has taken a backseat until this past month. However, in this post I really have been anticipating a wonderful Fall season and getting the house ready for "cozying in". 

So in anticipation of that, I've been working on what turned out to be a huge project! A few months ago I got a new (plaid) ottoman and recliner for our family room that you see below.

the plaid fabric in the ottoman and pillows actually has the same sage green in it that my sectional is, however its difficult to see in these pictures...

I also had a plaid lumbar pillow made from the same fabric to sort of pull the room together. But once everything was in place, I soon realized, my wicker table and chairs in my kitchen nook looked awful. You can see the old pink cushion below and just how bad it looked with the new plaid...

So I ordered the same plaid fabric that's on the ottoman (by-the yard) and decided to make new cushions which turned out to be harder than I thought; upholstery fabric is difficult to sew on a home machine but it was worth it in the end.

I took the original cushion covers off,

numbered each one because in reality, each cushion is just a bit different in size from the factory so in order to make sure the new covers fit well, I wanted to keep the right cushion with the right cover.

then used them as my pattern pieces...

to cut the new plaid fabric.

 I kept all the pieces together for each pre-numbered cushion

 made new piping covers but used the original piping the cushion had on it as a cost saver but also because it was still in really good condition...

sewed it all together and came up with this new look just in time for Fall...

which I must say looks soooo much better with my new ottoman!

Next up...to re-build the TV/entertainment cabinet out of an antique armoire we have. We did have everything housed in there until we put a new TV in and it doesn't fit anymore...oh well the projects never end!

linking up with Kaitlin for another "Re-create party at 

"Not So Simple Housewife"

You all need to hope on over and see her, she has the cutest little blog!

In Anticipation of Fall...

OK so I admit it, I'm really enjoying the beginning of Fall and what I think is the first hint of the change of seasons here in the Pacific Northwest. 
Though we never really had much of a summer which you can see HERE, you can see the little bit we did have HERE and HERE and HERE. 
Autumn is the time I look forward to cozying in and snuggling with "Pearl the girl" under a warm blanket...

a warm bowl of soup that's been in my slow cooker all day...

watching Turner Classics on a rainy Sunday afternoon...

and the anticipation of the holiday season...

this is definitely my time of year! 

Now that you know my thoughts for the day, I'm hoping along with a little more time inside, I can blog a bit more as well as visit each of you to see what you've been up to, its been a busy summer I have a few projects I plan on sharing in the near future so stay tuned for more...

WE SHALL NEVER FORGET...

If you asked me if I remembered what I did last

 Tuesday I couldn't tell you, but...If you asked me if I

 remembered what I did 10 yrs ago on Tuesday

9/11/2001, I could tell you exactly where I was and

 what I was doing...

Let's "NEVER FORGET" !!!

Oh Beautiful for spacious skies,

for amber waves of grain,

 for purple mountains majesty,

above the fruited plain,

America, America!

God shed His grace on thee,

And crown thy good with brotherhood,

from sea...

to shining sea!

Get Your Kicks On Route 66

Hi everyone, today I'm linking up with Bunny Jeans Decor and More for another great week of blog hopping or should I say "Bunny Hopping"...couldn't resist the pun...sorry :0)

Anyway, thought I'd post something I made for a friend that was relocating from Oregon to Iowa for a new job and new life. This gal is just the dearest friend and loves to cook and share recipes especially for company functions and pot-lucks. So we all decided to put together a "Memory cookbook" with all of our favorite recipes that we've shared through the years as a going away gift for her.

I was flattered to be asked to come up with a way to combine the pages in one book...I didn't have a lot of time so this is what I came up with. It was quick and easy and turned out really cute...I think anyway.

I recycled an old binder I had laying around like the one below...I'm a bad blogger, I didn't take pictures before I covered it nor did I take photos as I was doing each step but you get the gist!

I had this adorable Michael Miller fabric, very retro and "cookbook-y looking"...perfect as the outside covering. 

Then I cut it to fit the binder, sprayed the outside with spray adhesive and ironed it on while turning in the raw edges inside. 

Then I cut to fit this perfect...DID I SAY P-E-R-F-E-C-T map fabric for the inside cover. I cannot tell you how thrilled I was that I found this because my friend was driving across country from Oregon to Iowa and this just fit the bill for the inside of her cookbook! 


Now I don't think she took Route 66 but she did do a lot of driving!


I used the same spray adhesive method as I did for the outside fabric and again, turned in the raw edges, glued, then pressed with a hot iron for a really clean, finished edge both inside and out.

 You can see both the inside and outside together here in the picture above.

above the inside laying open and flat...love that P-E-R-F-E-C-T fabric for her journey across country!!!

The the last picture of the outside of the binder.
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Now as a special bonus treat for reading all the way down, I'm sharing one of the recipes I contributed to the book


FUDGY COCOA BROWNIES

The best part, they are low-fat and oh-so-yummy!


Hope you had fun on Route 66 and now if you take a little road trip you'll have a little snack food to take along and won't feel guilty!

Thanks again Bunny Jean for hosting this fantastic party...love it!