{Holiday Crafting} My Christmas Stocking!!

This week I have put the final touches on our Christmas decor, with the very last piece being My Very Own Christmas Stocking. Finally! 

In my last post, I showed you the Christmas Stocking I made and monogrammed for Chris. I made a matching stocking for myself, and am totally in love with it!
 

The only difference between the two stockings, aside from the obviously different toes, is that while making Chris's stocking, I didn't use bias strips to make the piping, and what a mistake that was! See Chris's stocking below, I wasn't overly impressed with how the toe came out.

I learned my lesson and used bias strips to make the piping for my stocking, and I am thankful because it would have been miserable to pipe otherwise.

Don't you love the pair? Can someone please pay me to sit home and make Christmas stockings all day??

HOLLER!

Happenings Around the House

I have been sooooooooooooo swamped at work lately. For those of you new to my blog, I am a CPA (certified public accountant) and as everyone on Earth (who has filed taxes) knows, busy season is upon us. MAN am I busy! 

You probably won't be hearing a lot from for the next two months or so, but I promise that I am constantly thinking about crafting, quilting, knitting, making, crocheting, blogging, shopping, etc.

Aside from working, I have tried to fill my Sundays with a mondo-sized latte, menu planning, and cooking for the upcoming week.  

I have also tried to make the house more home-y. I have been so slowwww to decorate. It is pretty overwhelming having an entire house to pretty-up. I have made a few small changes though...

 (Loving our new shower curtain!)

 (A new rug for our master bedroom)

 (Our most recent addition is our new bed!! I am SO excited about this bed. Our room felt more like a college dorm before we got this bed. I did buy the lamps before I got the bed, so now that we have the bed, I'm not sure that the lamps match. I absolutely love them, but I think that the linen look of them competes with the headboard too much. I also am definitely not a fan of our brown sheets anymore either, White/cream sheets are definitely a must!!!)

 (Thinking about some paint colors!)

(My mom actually gave us this gorgeous mahogany chest that was from her and my father's old bedroom. It matches our bedroom furniture almost perfectly. I am so incredibly in love with it.)

 (I have been creeping owls in an out of places around the house. lol. My husband has lovingly (or maybe not) dubbed me the "Creepy Owl Lady")

Thanks for checking in! I will try and post a few times a week, hopefully my posts won't only be about food and home decor. I am desperate to do something crafty soon. A girl can only work and eat so much!

HOLLER!

Harvest Table Runner

I know that my love for Anna Maria Horner is very apparent from all of my blog posts and what not. But that love has deepened ever since I got a hold of her new cotton velveteen collection. This fabric is so luxurious! I knew that it was absolutely PERFECT for this project that I have been thinking of working on for a while now.

You can see the gorgeous sheen on this fabric. ooo lala.

I was playing around with the width. See, I wanted a wide and super-long table runner. This fabric is 54 inch wide fabric like most home decor weight fabric, about 10 inches wider than the standard quilting cotton. I only bought 1 yard (at $20/yard, eeeeek I know). So that meant that I had 36x54 fabric. Soooo given that I wanted this table runner to fit our table with both leaves in (that would make the table 96 inches long) I knew that I need to cut up the fabric into 3 pieces. So that left me with 3 18x36 inch strips.

 

Then I had to piece some backing for the runner. I just used some white and off-white fabric with a faint flower print on it. Very subtle. I started thinking that maybe this table runner was TOO long.... wouldn't even fit in our upstairs hallway! I also pieced a middle layer. At first I thought about using batting for the middle layer, but then I had that heat resistant fabric that you would typically use for potholders and ironing boards... so I used that.

Then I cut the ends to come to a point. I learned that the general rule to making the point look proportionate is dividing the width by 2. Therefore, 18/2 = 9 inches.

Then I piled all three layers together and started stitching. Notice that the velveteen and the backing were sewn right sides together so I can turn the table runner inside out.

After I sewed it all together, flipped it inside-out, and ironed it flat, it still didn't look "finished". I had the idea that maybe if I topstitched around the outside that might give it a more professional look. I used my 1/4 inch foot and topstitched around the entire outside. I am very happy with how it turned out!

Now, my favorite part. Time for some glamor shots.

Are you loving it as much as I am?

Another project checked off the bucket list!!! Wooohooo! Check out my flickr account and the sidebar on my blog for all of my finished projects. Enjoy!


Holler!

10.10.10

Today, Chris and I celebrated our 1 year wedding anniversary!

We were really living on the edge today. Did you know that your first anniversary is the "Paper Anniversary". Guess what we did?

Ripppppppppppppppppped the wallpaper off our kitchen walls! Wooohooooo!


Our kitchen before, obviously all cleared out:

I am sure that this wallpaper was the perfect choice when this kitchen was built, but we were very over it. I am confident that you all will agree.

Step 1: Rip off the top layer of the old wallpaper. It actually came off pretty easy.

Step 2: Spray the light brown, fuzzy second layer of wallpaper with this AMAZINGGGGGGGGGG product called Piranha.

 

 All we had to do was soak the fuzzy layer in this glorious product and the layer literally FELL off:

TA-DA! Wallpaper has been destroyed. The only dilemma... I can't decide on a paint color. For now, we primed the walls white. They are ready for painting any day now. If only I could select a color. I seem to hate everything paired with these medium-toned cabinets. I can't find anything that looks sufficient. Chris and I are thinking about painting the cabinets, but that will take like forever.

If you have any suggestions for paint colors, please email me! Also, if you can figure out what color hardware would match those dang cabinets... PLEASE let me know. 

Holler!