Before and After: My Craft Room

I was lucky enough to get my very own craft/sewing room a few years ago when we finished the basement in our new house. I have loved having my very own space to work in. But, it has been feeling very cramped and uninspiring lately, especially with my two newest additions: my Silhouette and Madge - both absolutely lovely but both space hogs. (Madge is what I named my dressform that I got for my birthday. Madonna's nickname in London is Madge and she's a Material Girl - get it??) So, I got the very exciting idea to renovate my room. I envisioned something with a much better use of space and where only pretty and inspiring things were allowed. If it wasn't pretty, it had to go. At the same time, I had a limited budge (I wanted to keep it under $500) so I couldn't just make up a wishlist and buy whatever I wanted.

After sketching out what size of desks I wanted and searching Kijiji for them but coming up empty, I headed over to Ikea and totally scored in the As Is section - I got 2 desks exactly the size I wanted and a big dresser for less than $400! They all have a few scratches here and there but they are still definitely pretty so I'm thrilled.

Here are some before pictures of what my space looked like to start with:

It's hard to spot, but I kept my Silhouette on the floor because I had nowhere else to put it.

Messy, right? Cluttered, crowded, cramped.

Now, here's my beautiful new space:

Notice the pillow on the floor under the desk? It's covered with the same fabric as the new curtains and it's a bed for Howie - even the dog's bed is pretty!!!

I even put a new light fixture on the ceiling to cover the plain lightbulb:

Now, I should really paint the ceiling one of these days...

Family Day 2011

For Family Day this year, we didn't have the warmest weather so we decided to go sledding at a nearby hill and then head home for some hot chocolate. Here are a few pictures from our time outside.

Making my very best snow angel with Connor:

There were some cattails poking up through the snow at the bottom of the hill and I showed them to the kids:

And before long, they got turned into swords and I was being attacked by cattails!

And finally, here is a beautiful portrait of Maira that Shae made in the snow at the top of the hill:

80's Dance

Our neighbourhood elementary school marked its 25th anniversary this month and to celebrate, they held an 80's themed family dance. I thought it was so fun to introduce my kids to the styles and music of my childhood and we all had a great time dancing away to Michael Jackson, Cyndi Lauper, Footloose, etc, etc. Here are a few pictures from the night.

I-Spy Quilt

I finally finished piecing together the top of my I-Spy quilt that I've made for my family. I had some leftover squares so I decided to cut them in half and use them for a border around the outside so it'd kind of a built-in matching game where you have to try and find the other half of each strip somewhere else in the border.

I'm going to take it to my aunt's fabric store in Lethbridge and use her long-arm quilting machine to quilt a fun pattern on it. Hopefully it turns out OK, I've never used one of those things before...

And sorry if this grosses anyone out but I think it's so funny how Howie sleeps. This is him completely relaxed on the armchair in the living room that he has claimed as his own:

My Favourite Smoothie

Two posts in one week, crazy, I know. I just wanted to share my new favourite recipe. This is a protein packed smoothie that I like to make for a post-workout lunch. It's pretty high calorie for a smoothie (I think it's close to 500 calories) but it's full of protein so it fills you up for a long time and it's really healthy: they're all good calories, no empty or wasted calories here. PLUS, it's delicious and creamy and I look forward to it, I don't make it out of duty like lots of other healthy/diet foods.

OK, so here it is:

Protein Peanut Butter Banana Smoothie

1 cup regular soy milk (but vanilla or chocolate would probably be yummy too)

1 chunk of tofu (maybe 1/4 cup? I don't measure it. And it's optional, it just adds more protein and makes the drink extra creamy and smooth)

1 frozen banana

2 Tbsp of ground flax seeds (again, optional but adds nutrition)

1-2 Tbsp creamy low-fat peanut butter

1 packet of stevia

Blend it up and enjoy.

Also, I just wanted to pass on a fabulous idea I saw on a craft blog for a fun way to display your kids' artwork. I loved it so I copied it and here it is in my kitchen:

I took a piece of baseboard, painted it grey, and then nailed it to the wall. I used lots of nails and then I used rare earth magnets to attach metal binder clips to each nail. Pretty easy, and the kids love it!

My Little Princess Turns 4

Maira has always loved all things pink and girly so when I told her she could have her very first "friend" birthday party, AND that it could be a princess party, she was absolutely thrilled. I have to say I probably had as much fun as she did because of all the fun I had with the invitations, the decorations and the cake. Her friends each received an invitation that looked like this:

For decorations, I enlisted Shae's help to use paint to transform our front entry way into a castle. She and Connor also agreed to dress up in costumes and help greet the guests as they arrived.

Maira's friends all wore princess dresses and I had paper crowns for them to decorate and wear. I think the highlights of the party were when the girls went to the ball (aka played statues - they were adorable spinning around and dancing in their ballgowns) and when Jess put part of the cake on his head and pranced around the dining room (OK, maybe he didn't prance but he really did put the cake on his head).

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The next day, Hudson helped me finish off the cake!

We also had a low key family celebration for Maira's birthday. Since it was a different day from her friend party, I baked another cake. Her request for this one: purple flowers.

This is a really cute sequence of Hudson playing peekaboo with Jess:

As you can probably tell, he was roaring instead of saying peekaboo!

We all had a fun time but I have to say, I'm sure glad this annual run of kid birthdays is over for now (3 birthdays plus Christmas within 7 weeks of each other), no more birthdays until June!

And, one last thing from January of 2011: this was the month of the giant blizzards. Almost every day, I woke up and looked outside and thought "More snow? Seriously?!?!" This is a view of our front driveway. That arrow is showing the top of the snowpile beside the driveway - it's hard to tell but I promise you, that pile is taller than me. Makes shovelling pretty tough.

And here's my backyard, the snow is SO deep back there!

The city crews FINALLY came and plowed our street today so there is now a 2-story tall pile of snow in the middle of our cul-de-sac and the kids are SO excited to go out and play on it (there's only enough snow for the city to pile it up in the middle of cul-de-sacs every 5 or 6 years so this is a big deal for them) Shae was fondly reminiscing about the last time this happened, telling Maira and Connor all about it since they don't remember this happening before. At least the snow is good for something!