Christmas Dress

In my ever overachieving way, I attempted to make Grace a hand smocked bishop dress from scratch for Christmas.  I think I pulled it off, just don't look too closely!  I promise to take and post more pictures of our sweet girl in her new dress, but for now I'll just post the one picture we had made at the Picture People today.  She is still not feeling well (praying it's those molars and they are coming quick!) so a more elaborate photo shoot will have to wait. Here she is holding Daddy's hands, I actually think this is a pretty sweet picture.

Job Stuff & Free Time

Last week I finally found (and applied for) a job that I was interested in - woohoo! It was like the job description was written for me and I know I'd enjoy what I would be doing there. It had only been posted since Monday so hopefully I got in the door early enough - I sent in my resume Friday, so we'll see what happens. FYI - I have applied for other jobs, more out of duty to fulfill my unemployment requirements than because I was excited about them, but have so far have heard nothing. I'm ok with that though. I'm sure the Lord has a plan and He's providing for all of our needs so I'm grateful!

While I really haven't had any free time with the holidays, being sick, and the wedding, last week I was finally productive. I mean, we've had clean underwear and dishes, but until last week I haven't been able to do anything that wouldn't normally have gotten done. So my first projects were to unpack, get the house cleaned, take down all the Christmas decorations, and get my craft closet reorganized with all of the fun stuff I got for Christmas. I promise to actually do something in my craft closet, and just for Deborah I'll post pictures of it all messy. =)

Anyway, with all that done, I moved on to a few photography projects I want to get done. Since we had taken down most of the pictures in the house to decorate for Christmas, I figured I'd change the pictures - why not? We've had the same pictures up for over 4 years so I decided to go through all the pictures I have in frames around the house and decide which ones would stay and emptied the rest. Then I decided which frames I wanted to keep and which were going to good will, and this week I'll work on putting new pictures in the frames I kept. I also had a few pictures I took this fall printed as 8x10s that I matted and framed for our guest room - I'm pleased with them and may do some more!

I found a lovely album on Black Friday that I decided would be a perfect wedding album (and of course was a killer deal!). I had never made a dedicated album for our engagement & pre-wedding stuff or one for our wedding photos. If you know the drama associated with our photographs you know why this has taken me so long. So I'm working on making both albums and during this sorting phase I've decided to add a whole new series of scrapbook pages to our scrapbook from 2002. Now that my craft closet is all sorted, I'll add that to my scrapping list. =)

Thursday I met my friend Elizabeth for lunch and we ended up chatting for over 3 hours! It was so wonderful to get out of the house and enjoy time with good food (Chinese!) and good conversation. Being alone all day, I'm starting to understand what my friends Lacey & Jen keep saying about the need for adult conversation - somehow talking to the cats doesn't always "cut it".

This weekend we hung out with Paul & Bethany. They had a few house projects they wanted to get done, so David helped Paul install a new light/fan in their bathroom while B & I shopped, then we changed out the outlets on their main floor swapping them to white and putting new covers on before heading to IHOP for a late dinner together. Yesterday we all headed to IKEA where their super sale encouraged us to bite the bullet and buy the stuff we needed to redo our master closet. We've never even painted it (we've lived here 4 years!) but with the stuff almost 70% off, it was a smart move. So that's added to the project list and I'm sure we'll enlist Paul & Bethany's help in assembling everything. ;)

Needless to say, I have lots and lots of projects I am hoping to complete while I'm at home over the next however long. I'll keep you posted with pictures of my at home adventures!

The Cricut

It's a Scrapbookers dream; I am now the proud owner of...a Cricut.
Envy my friends, envy me. =)

My Craft Closet!

At long last, here are the pictures of my craft closet.  I am so excited about it, it's the perfect place for me to scrapbook & sew.  David put in a new light and ran electricity in the space as well so I can use my lamp and a small space heater for the winter months - since it's in the basement and it does get a little chilly down there!

It's kind of a strange angle, but you get the idea.  

Thanks to IKEA for all the super organizational tools!

The table folds out and rolls so I can move it into the main room if I'm sewing, but for scrapbooking I just need one side up and everything is easily within reach. It's the perfect space for me to be a creative mess. =0)