My Rock

The Lord is my rock, my fortress, and my Savior;

my God is my rock,

in whom I find protection.

He is my shield, the power that saves me, and my place of safety.

Psalm 18:2

I love these words. 

They mean so much to me.  I read them this morning in my quiet time, and keep going back to look at them.  They say so much about who my Jesus is.  

Today I am claiming this promise, and so very thankful it  is not because of anything I can do.  Not for sale ;) 

What a gift. 

A younger Leif... born entrepreneur.

Burlap Lampshade and new furniture

Have you seen the lampshade trend of plain metal shade skeletons with no fabric lately? This lamp in our living room tried that look for awhile, but it needed some softening to work in our space.  So burlap, doilies, and a glue gun to the rescue!  

I don't have a tutorial for this one, just that I used my hot glue gun to tack the burlap to the shade frame, then added the doilies.  

 This combination has been showing up in my art work lately too! I like the mix of textures together.

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I also finished up some furniture pieces for the shop.  They are waiting for new homes!

A fun little side table or desk:

An end table:

 Look Momma, the drawer works!

And two stools:

 I love this fabric from IKEA!

Land that I love

Welcome back to my shamefully abandoned blog! What can I say, life happens.  

I started this map a few months ago.  I saw a few different examples of them on Pinterest, but no directions, so I winged it.  Always a good choice :)

I've had it all ready to stretch over a frame and haven't gotten around to it, 

but today I finished... progress! 

Here's how to make your own:

I grabbed a USA road map by AAA.  

I must be getting old, because in order to see all the boundaries of the states I had to start outlining them in Sharpie.  

And even worse, when I got up to New England, I had to pull out another map for reference! 

Well, now you know.  Geography is not my strength.  

 After I made my lines, I started cutting out all the states.  

Yep, this took a while. 

 Cutting...

 Cutting...

 Big Pile :)
Next I started starching some of my favorite scraps of fabric.

Here comes the tedious part...
Take your states and pin them to a fabric scrap and start cutting, again!

I started laying out the states in map form to make sure they were going to fit together.

I think a cute assistant is a must in this project.  

So here's where I'm missing a few pictures.  

After I had them all laid out I started gluing them with a glue stick to a large piece of muslin.  

I think I started in the middle and worked out so I could keep it even.  

Then, I sewed around each state.  

And I'm sorry to all you Alaskan and Hawaii residents, you didn't quite make it onto the map... 

The last step was to cut a frame out of 1x2's and staple it canvas style onto the frame. 

I was going to make this for the shop, by I'm not sure if I can part with it just yet!  We'll see!

Hope your Christmas and New Years were full of joy and peace.  

Take Care!

Date Night?

 

Does this happen to anyone else?  

You start out planning this great date day, and suddenly you are ripping out carpet and ooohing and aaahhhing over the wood underneath?

 So, you spend the next 8 hours enjoying eachothers company while pulling out staples and tack strips and taking turns sanding.

Dinner and a movie is over rated anyway, right?

Rocking the day away

Meet the newest addition to my day.  

She started off in rough shape, but a little lovin' and she might just be my favorite piece of furniture.  

I can see a peaceful future for us, gently rocking away our morning quiet times together.  

Here she is after a few repairs, a little sanding, and a new upholstery job...

Don't be fooled by the serene look of these pictures though.  I'm sitting in her right now, while two little boys are right outside that window shouting orders at each other.  They are busy with the work of taking apart toys and using "spare parts" to invent a hay baler.  Nothing quiet about it!

On another fun note- Kai and I went thrifting this week and picked up these tin nesting containers.  On a whim I checked online to see what they were.  

I couldn't tell if they were new or old, they are in such great shape.  

Turned out they are vintage, and sell for 20 times what we bought them for... say Whaaaaat?  

I love treasure hunting!

Before and After

It's amazing what a little time and a can of paint can do...
 This lovely etched mirror recently got a new life,

as a chalkboard for organizing our meals.

This desk, which believe it or not started out even more 70's looking than the picture here shows...

became this fun little laptop desk.

 with some of my favorite fabric as drawer lining.

And this coffee table... (which I can't rotate the picture for, bah!)

 Got some fun color!

Finding old furniture has become a family affair with Peter and the boys helping out. I love how excited the boys get about finding something to remake and how they love to be a part of the process.  Leif is especially into helping work on and find new pieces, which makes me smile.  It's such a neat thing to be able to share what you love with your kids and see them respond with enthusiasm!