Dressers

I finally finished my dressers. They were great dressers but, the original peach color definetely wasn't my favorite with bright gold hardware. I did a base coat on the entire thing(except the marble top, in a "fossil" brown color). A lot of the time was in each step drying. Stain takes a long time to dry. I also did a base coat of black on the dresser fronts, then used crackle paint with a blue over top. And any of you that have crackled, it is pretty easy but does have some dry time involved. So, a lot of the reason this has taken so long to post is that they took so long to dry. After the crackle, then I wiped stain over the top to make the blue a little more subtle. Then I did the patterns. On the diamond pattern dresser, I had to tape..do the crackle finish. Then wait a day for it to dry thoroughly. Then retape over the part I had just done to get the diamond next to it. I know that sounds confusing but, the tape was in the way so when you got through taping, only every other diamond was exposed. Therefore you had to do half of the project then wait for it to dry then do the other half. Both dressers used the same paint colors and same base colors but, I wanted the pattern on the front of the dressers different. I wanted them to match but, not identical. The dressers are being used as side tables. This makes the room have a lot more space. Reed's dresser has a diamond pattern in it which is more of a masculine and then the scroll pattern is on my dresser which is definetely more feminine. They both turned out great!! The tops of the dressers are a rough marble. It is polished on the top but, I love that it's not perfect. What is? The colors in the dresser are brown, slate blue, and a black (the only black part you see is what shows through under the crackle of the blue. So, it is very subtle). I would love to hear what you think and I hope the steps I explained weren't too confusing. Most of you can probably just look at the pictures and tell what I did. I love how all the steps came together to create such unqiue and fun dressers.

Kitchen Wall Color

I have COLOR!!! Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, I have wanted to take out the backsplash and put in candy apple green tile but, that's not happening. I love the white subway tile that is already the backsplash so, I decided to add color around on the little bit of walls by the cabinets. I love the addition of the color. What do you think? It's such a happy color. I want my kitchen to always be the heart of the home and I think this definetely makes me happy, so that's a good start.

Entryway Completed

The first photo is the BEFORE photo. The next four pictures are the after photos. Have you ever finished a project then sat and looked at it for weeks and knew there was something missing. Well, my entry way, is just that. I loved the color and lots about it but, there was something missing. I finally made another small stencil using parts of the other stencil and made a small diamond shaped pattern. I put them between the other damask prints on the wall. They were just too far apart and to really make it look like wallpaper I needed them closer together. I added the small diamond pattern and I absolutely love it! It was just what it was missing. Well, I guess sometimes you really need a second chance to get a project right.

Creative Bug!!

I definetely have the creative bug right now!!! I stayed up til' 1 am last night painting a small wall in the kitchen. It's now candy apple green. It's fun with all the white cabinets. I also re- tuffeted the ottoman. A few buttons had been plucked off by weelittle fingers. I used an extremely tough thread that is wax coated and everything so the little fingers won't be able to pluck buttons off. I like when these creative moods come...I get a lot of projects done. Too bad they don't come very often. Oh well, it's fun while they last. I'll post pictures when I finish with everything.

Garrett goes to the MTC

My brother Garrett is headed out on his mission. I really can't believe he's 19 already. Time really flies once you leave home. The kids love hanging out with him and will miss him being at Grandma and Grandpa's home. Only uncle Jordan is left at home. It will be really weird when my parents are empty nesters. Mom, I guess you'll have to learn to cook for two instead of ten. We were able to all meet together (from colorado, vernal, and northern Utah) and have lunch at the brick oven in provo. We love spending time together and so we took this opportunity to meet just before he went in the MTC. I can't believe my baby brother is already old enough to be going on a mission. He must be because we sent him to the MTC on last wednesday and they will be sending him to Tiajuana, Mexico after two months. We will miss seeing you Garrett but, love that you are worthy to serve a mission and spread the gospel. It made me think of you today when two missionaries knocked on my home door and were tracting in the area. I love you so much and can't wait to get keep in touch by letters to see how you are doing. Boy, you look good in a suit! Love Ya!!

a star is reborn

This star was all decorating in Christmas paper magnets that were really fun. My sister redecorated her star for Valentine's and it turned out really cute!! (Good job Jennie, you can check out her blog from mine!) I wanted to hang my star in our master bathroom and change it to match the decor. I found papers in red, black, cream, brown and a little bit of green. I like how it turned out. Jennie found the adhesive magnetic sheets and made the project a breeze. It was easy as cutting, pasting, then mod podging over to protect it. I know I haven't blogged for a few weeks but I have been trying to get some projects that have been hanging around for a while. So, I know that I am blogging all at once but I finally finished and took pictures of everything. It seems that it just kept piling up and I am now digging myself back out and trying to get current. I hope ya'll will forgive me for blogging so much at one time and then the "feast of famine" theme going on. I will try to be better. I can't wait for the weather to warm up even more and for spring to come. The kids are wanting to run and play but it's hard when it's so wet and muddy outside. I am just really excited this year for spring. Bring it on!!

Mantle

I have been meaning to finish decorating the mantle for a few weeks now. As soon as I took down all the Christmas decorations, I have been wanting something I could keep up year round. That's why I was so exciting about the picture Reed gave me for Christmas. Reed really surprised me this year by getting me the picture of the Vernal temple for Christmas. This is something that I have been wanting....a nice picture of the Vernal temple for our home. So, I finally hung it this week. I know...it's february but, it took a while to get all of Christmas down and then it was leaning against the wall on the mantle for a few weeks. I finished my welcome letters and so I decided I should finish decorating the mantle. I finished my valentine wood hearts at the same time and put them up for the upcoming holiday. I think the letters turned out really cute and I LOVE my temple picture. Thank you again Reed.

Old made New

Those of you that have moved know my dilemna. Things that worked at the old house...don't work at the new. At the old house I had a tuscan themed basement. The basement is not finished at the new house, so I decided to use the metal rodwork in Abbie's room. Her room is pink and brown so the brown color of the metal worked. She needed a place to display all her artwork and some favorite pictures. Abbie and I attatched bulldog clips with ribbon and toole. It turned out cute. I love doing little projects with Abbie while Isaac is at school. Kaden wasn't too interested in helping, I guess all the pink was too much. Hee Hee Also in the move this lamp was dropped and the lampshade was cracked and broken. I threw away the lampshade and bought a self-adhesive one and bought ribbon to look like a tutu. I think it turned out cute and is a light pink color. Kinda fun little project. Just a lot of wrapping ribbon around and around. I think it turned out cute!

Heritage Doll

In Abbie's bedroom I hung a shelf made out of an antique window. It's really cool because you can see up through the shelf and yet it provides great space for those items that really are supposed to be played with day to day. We gave Abbie a doll for Christmas that is really special and won't be played with day to day. It's a heritage doll. The doll was made by my good friend and coworker, Jenny Fulwilley. She is amazing and made this one-of-a-kind doll just for me to give to Abbie. She tea stains everything and stuffs the fingers using hemostats. These dolls she makes in her free time. The jewelry is what makes it so unique. Abbie was named after my mother "Georgia" hence the name Abigail Georgia. The jewelry is from my mom when she was a little girl. Some of the peices she collected clear through high school. She collected jewelry with her initial "G" on it. So, she gave a couple peices to Abbie to put on her heritage doll. The earings are clip on's and it matches the necklace in the grouping on her lapel. The little locket I am going to put pictures of my mom and the other side of Abbie. I will take pictures this weekend when we are together and put them in. I will have to print really small pictures. The teddy bear is wearing costume jewelry that my mom let us play with when we were little. The little pearl and gold necklace is from her dad(Grandpa Willard that has passed away) that he gave to her from one of his trips when she was a little girl. I think it is so special that Abbie gets to have a peice of her heritage as a reminder in her room. Thanks Jenny for making the doll so special for me, you are a great friend. Thanks mom for helping me make a really precious doll that Abbie will remember you and why she was named after such an incredible mother!! Love you MOM! Cassy

Entryway Painted

BEFORE, MIDWAY DONE, and then the COMPLETED ENTRYWAY. I finally got some paint in my entryway. I wanted something fun and to add a little more color. I wanted it to look like a damask wallpaper. But, not wanting to spend so much on a wallpaper...plus the fun of putting it up...I went for a pain staking project with A LOT of measuring. To get it even I had to measure everything. I really like the gray-blue color. The Damask stencil I had to cut out myself because I couldn't find what I liked (surprise, surprise!)and them used four colors of paint to get the variation I wanted. It took about five hours to get it all stenciled then I washed with a blue, gray and then a white ivory wash over the top to soften. I like how it turned out. What do ya'll think? I think it definetely looks better in person than in these pictures.

Dirty Trick!

Reed officially got the best of me. My family has a tradition of doing a puzzle for new year's. I wasn't going to be with them so we decided to do a puzzle. It ended up being my puzzle....real surprise that the kids weren't real helpful. Kaden was definetely a helper taking puzzle peices OFF the puzzle. But, it ended up being a project to say the least. I would spend twenty minutes here and there when dinner was cooking and so forth. I had to pick up peices here and there that had fallen off or had been spread around by my helpers. It ended up taking me days and days to finish. I finally get all the peices put together and I am missing two puzzle peices. I couldn't believe it...all these days of work and I couldn't finish it. I searched under everything...even wondered if the dog had eaten a peice or two. But, Reed finally gets home from work and I show him my masterpeice almost finished. He was acting really funny and then went over to his coat....and my mouth about dropped to the floor. He thought it would be really funny to take a peice of the puzzle to work with him so that he could be the one to put the final peice in. So it was a little struggle to see who would put in the last peice. He put it in and then realized that there was still another peice missing. He got thinking and he had played that trick on me when I started the puzzle. He found the last peice of the puzzle in his wallet!!! I couldn't believe that he would do that. He definetely played a dirty trick on me. The funniest part about it is that he played the trick kinda on himself because he had forgotten that he played the trick on me earlier that week. So, he thought he would get to put the last peice of the puzzle in..just to get my goat but he ended up letting me put the REAL last peice of the puzzle I had spent days on. It was supposed to be something fun to do together but, I don't think I am going to put another puzzle together until I am with my family again for new year's. They can crank out a puzzle (huge ones) in no time at all. Maybe next year.... Reed, you got me good with the puzzle peice but, I'll get you back sometime. If anyone has great ideas...send them my way.

NewYears Snowmobiling

Happy New Year!! We celebrated a little differently this year! We went snowmobiling at my aunt Patsy and Uncle Larry's Cabin. Thanks for the invite!! It was so much fun! Isaac had fun helping uncle Larry drive the snowmobile. He is learning Larry's Need for SPEED!! Both Isaac and Abbie were brave enough and wanted to ride behind the snowmobiles in sleds. Even after getting dumped out a few times they kept getting back in, which surprised me, because I thought they would just want to get on the snowmobiles and ride instead. We snowmobiled over to a really great sledding hill and the kids loved it. The best part is that you slide down this really long hill...then we would snowmobile after them, pick them up and bring them back to the top to go again. The kids thought that was great! We even brought a few tubes to go riding in. Isaac talked aunt Patsy into going with him. Such great memories. Unfortunately we weren't able to stay clear til' midnight when they have a bonfire because Reed had to work the night shift at the hospital. So, we only got to see Shannon, Chris and their group for a little while before we had to head. We need to plan to go all up together. After we got home..the kids had a nice warm bubble bath and fell asleep....trying to stay awake. It was hard staying awake, even for me, after such a fun filled day. Thanks again Patsy and Larry, for inviting us to go snowmobiling. We had such a great time and loved spending time with you at the cabin.

Christmas Tree Hunting

When we went to Vernal over Thanksgiving, we went Christmas tree hunting. We found a 14 footer that we fell in love with. We had to cut two feet off the top and three feet off the bottom. That didn't bother me....I used the extra limbs as pine bowes for decorating with. Each of the kids took turn helping Reed cut the tree down. Sorry that the family picture is sideways, I must have missed turning it rightside up. Oops! We had so much fun and the tree was so much fun having a fresh Christmas tree for Christmas. I hope we can continue this tradition. The kids love being in the outdoors and hunting for the perfect tree was fun. It was cool that it started to snow while we were hunting...the first snow of the season. Magical!!

Abbie Warrior Princess

The kids loved Christmas. Our family room was a mess of toys for days. I loved watching the kids enjoy their toys. It seemed they just went from one toy to the next. They even let each other play with their toys. Isaac was showing Abbie how to use his play bow and arrow from Christmas. Then they go running back into their bedroom and come out as warriors. This was the funniest picture I got of them playing with their Christmas toys. Isaac and Kaden all took their turn being Rambo.So cute...warrior princess!