Foam Foam Everywhere - Cushion 2.0

Summer of 2012 we made this lovely cushion that baby Evie is sitting on below.

 We used old foam-filled crib mattresses.  

1 I had and 5 I bought at Treasure House for $5 each.

We cut them into 4" cubes with the electric knife I inherited from my grandmother and have only used for this purpose.

Before they were all cut up, the kids had a great time with them:

could you see the slow progress in the loft?

You totally wish you could slide down the stairs on a mattress right now don't you?

Fast forward to 2014.  The clearance corduroy I thought would hold up so well was thin bare and finally split, spilling foam everywhere.

Time to either chuck it or make a new one.  

I voted for chucking it because this cushion alone causes me more school disrruptions than any other thing!

But

Eric LOVES it.  So we set out to make Potter Cushion 2.0

I never liked how lumpy the old cushion was so we decided to cut the 4" blocks down to 2" blocks. 

great idea, Jen.

It. took. forever.

This shot is 1/4 of the way through.

Then I enlisted some child labor, ahem, told Liam how lucky he was to use the electric knife.

Eric actually finished the last bit for me on my birthday.   Perfect gift, honey!

_____

We found a fairly neutral roll of upholstery fabric on clearance at Joann.

made some alterations to the design.

it took forever to stuff!

All the work was totally worth it.

Here's the finished product.

A fitted queen sheet fits it pretty well!

It stays in place better and is far more comfortable.

Nap anyone?

Tables

For my mom, who doesn't have facebook....

We sold our beloved table for 6 

today at the garage sale of our friends.

It didn't even fit our whole family any more

let alone guests.

Here is a pic of it at our old house. 

We've had it since we were married.  

Bought it at Sam's Club.

It served us well for the past 12 years

and had the scars to prove it.

Had many many good memories at that table.

sniff sniff

I digress.

THIS has been our kitchen table for 2 days.

while we waited for our hand crafted new farm table!

A little nervous that after selling our old table

since the new one was originally going to be ready in February.

Long story short...

I was very excited when THIS was delivered this afternoon!!!

The table is 7' long!!!

It weighs a ton.

(Not sure about the bench yet.  It is bigger than I thought it would be.)

Excited about the extension though!

It will allow us to seat I think 14 people!

Now just have to decide what color to stain it.

hmmm.

oh, and buy chairs.

Wanna come over?

Don't Fence Me In

At the beginning of May we started working on our fence...

Yes, the fence we've "talked" about building for 3 years.

Should take a couple of weekends.

Should.

right.

Who knew that under about an inch of top soil our yard is solid clay!?!

I think it took us over a month to get all the fence post holes dug!

We've had many great helpers along the way!

Thanks, Ben, Justin, Ethan, Brad...

Kate....

 

our dads!

And today... 

Liam

and Owen.

So far we have two sides finished... mostly.

We're getting there. 

I must have forgotten the golden rule of home improvement...

Take you think it will cost and double it... Take how long you think it will take and quadruple it.

The kids can't wait!!!

Sew What?

Baby blankets of course!

Getting excited for my friend Kristin's baby to arrive I decided to make a blanket.

I bought a few 1/2 yds at Joann with my coupons 

and paired them with some fabrics from my stash at home.

Scoured Pinterest for ideas on block patterns.

Knew I wanted to do a subway tile pattern of some kind.

Here is my first blanket (yes, I made two) sewed into long strips

 And the strips sewn together.  Love it!

 Then I realized I had enough fabric for another blanket if I made smaller tiles.

So I cut them in half!

 Here are the blocks laid out as I decided on placement. Oh the agony.

 Finished product.

I backed it with brown and aqua floral.  With a monogram "A" for Miss Annalise of course!

I lucked out on this one I think. 

I pretty much added thin batting, sewed the edges right sides together, flipped it right sides out, pressed and sewed the edges and then sewed along 3 of the rows to quilt it.

Turned out great.  no problems.

Then I tried the same thing on the one with larger tiles.

Didn't work so much.

After ripping out 2 rows three times and abandoning the effort

I decided to cut my losses. LITERALLY.

Instead of ripping out the two rows of stitches all the way around the perimeter, I cut them off!

At that point, a blanket 1 inch smaller on all sides seemed a lot better to me than spending hours with the ripper.

Call me lazy.  I am.

(sneak peek into my inner dialog:)

But these strips looks so sweet.  All the fabrics.  and they are quite thick...

I don't want to just throw this away.

Maybe they'd make a cute hot pad?

I wonder if I could zig zag stitch them together?

Na, that will never work.

Heck, what do I got to lose?

and THIS was born!

As for the first blanket, the one with larger tiles that is 1 inch smaller all around....?

Well, it took me 3 weeks to quilt it and make a binding for it.

See?  Lazy!

But I do love it!!!

I quilted along both sides of each row.

Liam helped me figure out the perimeter was 14 feet.  So I made 14 feet of binding.

 Evie likes it!

It now resides on the quilt rack near our front door.

apparently, along with my sun hat, cardigan, and Lightning McQueen.

Maybe it will make some trips to the park.  we'll see.

VOTE FOR MY ELF!!!

I can't believe it! He made the top 85! (and I was pretty sure it was lame.)

So Macy's is holding a contest to design an Elf Balloon for the Thanksgiving Day Parade.

The top 85 picks are voted on by the public. Whoever has the most votes wins a trip to the Parade in NY!!!! So thankfully it doesn't matter that my elf is lame... its the votes that count!

So VOTE FOR MY ELF!!!!

I totally did this on a whim... because a friend who works at Macy's suggested I enter. It was fun to go on the scavenger hunt with the kids and tell the secret password to get the elf. And every now and then I just HAVE to paint something.

So there you have it... how I came to make an elf...

VOTE I think you might have to have a facebook account to vote. :(

before & after

1 beautiful, but tarnished heirloom

+

baking soda

+

elbow grease

=

wow

Now I know why

when watch old movies

you see

servants and slaves

sitting around

polishing silver all the time....

It takes forever!

Girliness

June 30th we found out Potter Version 5.0 was a girl!

Here is a beautiful cake

some sweet friends made

to help us celebrate.


As you can imagine

Kate was beside herself with excitement.

I was pretty excited myself.

Kate has always shared a room with her brothers.

We've never had a girly room in our house.

I wasted no time in painting pink on the walls.

We picked out Kate's very first bedding set.

Well, she picked it out.

It's owls.

"Because I like nature, Mom"

I was surprised she didn't go more pink and purple.

But I kind of like this one best myself.

Here she is.

She could hardly wait for Grandma to bring her "new" bed!

Finally got the other half of my old bedroom suit from my parent's house.

The dressers are in the boys room.

The drawers were actually already painted those colors from when my sister Kim had it.

Perfect.

This is before I got the canvas done.


here's after

Shamelessly copied the 18" canvas they sell in the store for $24.

Why buy it when you've had a giant square canvas from a garage sale sitting around for 6+ years.


Here's her bulletin board.

cork board cut into the shape of decals they sell for the wall.

Below are the cool bow holders I got from Katie at The Ballerina Boutique! She matched them to our room.

That's also were I got the cute flower bows Kate's been sporting.

You can find her page on Facebook.


Kate LOVES her room and has a very particular way she likes everything arranged.

Does not like it when I clean it.


Crib's ready.


Clothes in drawers.


Just waiting for Evie to join the girliness!

June: Project Play Room

In June

when I got my energy back

I decided to finally paint a mural

in the play room.

It's a big room.

A fun space.

Dedicated totally to the kids.

My favorite part...

It is in the furthest part of the house.

Across the bridge.

Therefore

people don't see it when it is

a mess

Yes, Drew's assessment is

undoubtedly

rather accurate

most days.

Don't let the following photos

of a pristine play room fool you.



Here are some photos of just the mural.

My sister Kim helped me paint the ceiling.

It is a weirdly shaped room.

Not much wall space to hang

things on the wall.

Inspiration for this mural

was from a knick knack cross

I bought on clearance

somewhere.

I did not come up with this idea on my own.

Just extrapolated it

on to

a wall.