10 years...10 years since I last wrote a blog post.

So much has changed in life. I'm no longer a homeschool mom, I'm no longer a Girl Scout Leader, I'm no longer a foster parent. After spending 5 years as a library director, I am no longer working.

What am I doing?  Well, that's what I'm trying to figure out. 2023 was a strange year for my family. Life is a whirlwind sometimes and you never know when you might get the rug pulled out from under you.

What I do know, is that I will never stop creating fun artistic crafts, I will always love making things for my friends and family, and I promise I will work harder to share my creations!

Just to get everyone up to date:

I have 6 children now. 5 girls and one boy ranging in ages from 28 to 8, one Son-in-law and a brand new Granddaughter. My husband and I have been married for almost 20 years and I still find him amazing. 💘

My current interests. 

*crochet

*knit

*Reading

*macrame

*painting

*paper crafting

*silk flower arrangements

*thrift shopping

*cat snuggling

*Golden Girl watching

*wine and coffee drinking

How I decorated a baby Pirate Room for under $40

My husband and I have recently gone through the process to become foster parents. Long story short, we would love to adopt a son (we have 4 girls) and at this point in time, foster to adopt seems like the best option for us. It has been a long emotional battle so far and we are only just beginning.
So, I decided to fix up our daughter's old bedroom for a boy. One of our girls, (Zayda) has always had a DEEP love for mermaids, so I painted a mermaid on her wall a few years ago. When it came time to redecorate the room, neither Zayda nor I wanted to paint over the mermaid (even though she wasn't ever that great, she's always been kind of a manly mermaid).

After much thought and a lot of Googleing for ideas, I decided to go with a pirate theme. I figured this way, we could keep the mermaid. (mermaids go along with pirates, right???)

The ceiling needed some work. Before we purchased our house and put a new roof on it, there had been some water damage on the ceiling due to the old leaky roof. The plaster had a few cracks and there were spots. Rather than fix this problem (like normal people), I decided to paint the ceiling like a treasure map and let the spots and cracks look like they were intentional. I used mostly folk art and apple barrel craft paint that I already had. You can find this stuff at your local walmart or craft store, it's less than $1 per bottle, I love this stuff!!

Excuse the terrible picture. I couldn't get it all in one shot, so I tried to edit it together. (I need some picture editing practice)

For the treasure chest on the ceiling/treasure map, I hot glued sparkly jewels and Mardi gras beads. I also included a coin that my husband brought back with him from a mission trip to Guatemala.

The coin is a bit symbolic for us since we made the final decision to go forth with attempting to adopt after my husband's trip (He had his heart broken by an orphan he fell in love with and wished he could bring her home).

Little orphan girl <3

Next, I painted water with waves around 3/4 of the room up to the mermaid on her rock that was already on the wall. This didn't cost me anything because I already had 1/2 gallon of left over blue paint my sister had given me from a room she had painted for her kids. I try and use as much left overs as possible. If you are working on a project and only need a little bit of paint, ask your friends and family. Everyone usually has left over paint after a remodel or redecorating since they always buy a little more than they need so they don't run out. I have become really good at mixing left over paint colors to achieve the shade I need. (note: make sure you aren't mixing oil based paint and water based paint together)
I also got some left over paint from my awesome Step-Mother. It happen to be almost the exact same shade that was already on the walls (what a huge blessing). This was awesome, because I needed to do some touch ups. When the bedroom was for the girls, not only had I painted the mermaid, but also I painted their names in giant colorful bubble letters.  (Thank goodness the painted covered really well)

I knew I wanted to paint an actual pirate somewhere in the room, but I wasn't very confident in my own skills to just slap one up (after all I am the one who painted the mermaid drag queen).  So, I Googled free printable pirate coloring pictures. I found this guy http://www.grandparents.com/grandkids/coloring-pages/mr-pirate and decided to project him onto the wall and then paint him.
If you happen to have transparencies, you can print directly onto them and you are ready to go. I didn't have any (and you know me, I'm too cheap to buy any). I printed on regular paper and then traced the image onto a clear page protector with a sharpie. Bam, I was ready to project my pirate. I think he turned out pretty cute.

The last wall of the bedroom, I decided to paint with large red and white stripes. This sounded very pirate-like to me (maybe I'm crazy). This is where most of my money came in since I had to actually go and purchase this paint. I had enough painters tape to make three lines on the wall before I ran out. Pooh! I was too anxious to finish so I had to improvise. I tied some blocks to the end of a long piece of yarn and made my own plum bob. I have no idea if that is the actual word for such a contraption. I would tell you all about how this great idea worked, but it would take awhile ( I will save that for another post). Also on this wall, and all the way around the room, there is a skinny decorative trim. This trim is around most of the walls in our house and when we moved in was painted the same color as the walls. I chose to paint the trim in this room black. I think with a contrasting color that high up, it helps to make the room look bigger, because it draws your eyes upward to the ceiling.

After all that painting, my arm muscles were not very happy with me, So my Mom came over and finished the last corner. She is such a happy painter. I think if her hair were a little bit puffier, people would mistake her for Bob Ross. She does an awesome job!

Since the walls were all finished, I needed to tackle the window coverings. The room originally had pull down shades. I am not usually a fan of pull down shades, but since this is a baby's room, I went with it. I knew mini blinds are not baby friendly and I needed something to block the sun from streaming into the baby's face while it was sleeping during the day (because we all know babies don't actually sleep at night). My only problem with one blind was that it had a hole in it. Sooo, instead of buying a new one, I fixed it with a little duct tape.

For the tops of the windows, I cut triangles from some old double knit material from what I still have left of my Grandmother's stash. I used some white cotton yarn and sewed them together and wrapped them around the existing hooks from previous curtains.

When Zayda was a baby we purchased a rocking/glider and footstool. They were a pale green color, which seemed like a good idea at the time of purchase. A couple toddlers with chocolate cookies later and the chair looked like trash. I tried washing and scrubbing, but it was to far gone. I kept it forever thinking that I would have it recovered. I had some black material left over (again from one of my Grandmothers). I made simple slip covers by laying the pieces down, cutting around them , leaving a little extra for seam allowances.

Since I am a hoarder and nostalgic for strange things, I kept this (and several more) really ugly pillow that my grandmother had made for her couch (probably some time in the 70's).

I felt like the plain black chair needed a little color, but heart pillows in a boy's room seemed a little cheesy. Heart pillows in ANY room seem a little cheesy. So I recovered it with a skull and cross bones. I'm not usually the skeleton type, but a pirate bedroom kind of calls for it. I used a free printed coloring page again and  iron on wonderunder. If don't know about the greatness of Wonderunder, you should google it, it is one seriously awesome invention.

I also recovered a triangle pillow with the same material that I used to make the window covers.

Please ignore the cat hair!

The last little pirate part of the room was the baby mobile. I purchased a mobile from a second hand store for $2. It was cute, but didn't match the theme. I took it apart and made my own pirate pieces instead. 

I just cut pieces of felt and sewed them together with some beads and sequins. I completely fell in love with felt work after this project. There will be more felt work projects in my future for sure!

I guess we are all ready for a baby now. As ready as we will ever be.  We are very anxiously awaiting the call from a social working saying that she has a baby who needs us just as much as we need him. 
So for now, I pray that God gives us this chance.

Finally...Mostly....Good enough for now!

We have finally moved our girls upstairs to their new bedroom. Hurray! I have been waiting for this day for quite some time (with slight misgivings at having my little ones on a separate floor). When I first had the idea for their new bedroom, I sketched it out like I was a professional woodworker/architect. I am neither, but boy do I think I am cool, now that what I sketched has actually come to life!
Here was my sketch, (please don't laugh)

Here was the bedroom before

We had already torn down all the plaster. Apparently I forgot to take a "before we started demo" picture

 a link to my previous post about the room when we startedhttp://eleciascreativei.blogspot.com/2013/06/my-plans.html

Here is the bedroom now (well, not this very moment, because Barbie has moved in and you don't want to see that, she is a total mess)

Her cat assumes the first shelf is a cat bed!

The couldn't agree on what color to paint the new room, so I let them each chose their own side color. The both picked their favorite colors (purple and orange), so they sort of look like big L.A. Lakers fans, but, oh well, they love it!

I even painted the ceiling fan half and half

I always thought having a huge attic was sort of a wasted space, much to my Father's dismay (He owns an Insulation company, so attics are his thing!)
Building their beds into the walls have given my girls a huge amount of play area in the room. Even though we still need to finish some trim around the beds and some in the baseboard area, I moved them in anyway. It was so worth it when two days later, my 8 year old, says, "Mom, thanks for finishing my new room. I love it."
(attempting to discretely wipe tears from my eyes) "You are welcome sweetheart, I am glad you love it" 
So, let this be a lesson. If you have a crafty thought....something that could make your house/life better....go for it. Don't assume that since you aren't a carpenter/plumber/race car driver/president of the United States that you can't do it.  Anyone can do Anything they set their mind to. 

My plans!

When we first moved into our house 4 1/2 years ago, Our youngest daughter was about 4 or 5 weeks old. We decided that we would store anything that wasn't necessary to daily life in a bedroom upstairs that we weren't using, until I was able to organized and arrange stuff. We knew that we would remodel the room for our daughter, someday.
Last summer we decided that someday was now. We are still not finished. Probably if we were a normal family who just wanted the old paneling (this room was once a gun display room) and plaster removed and new drywall up, we would be finished by now, but that isn't my style.
We decided that our two younger girls would be sharing the bedroom, so in order to make more space, I decided to have the beds framed into the walls.
I drew up plans and everything. I have been drawing plans for houses since I was a child, mostly they included rooms for my pool and in-house McDonalds. I would proceed to give these plans to my father and tell him that when I was old enough he had to build them for me.  So that fact that the plans for this room are actually being carried out is quite a MAJOR accomplishment for me.
The room is still a far cry from being finished. We have only been working on it in our spare time, which is almost never, but I am already so excited to share it with you.

 

You are probably thinking wow, what a mess, but just wait till you see the finished product. I hope it comes sooner than later!!!!

shout out :)

I grew up two steps behind my sister. She is awesome. She is a South paw, so her brain  has the capacity for a lot more literal nonsense than most of us can fathom. Luckily my parents were aware of this and didn't expect me to be on her academic level. Unfortunately, I can not say the same for all of our teachers in school. After having my, towing the line of geniusness sister, I guess they expected me to measure up to her smarts. But I don't, and that is o.k. with me. I stopped measuring a long time ago (in more ways than one, I don't even want to know what my waist size is). So if you are looking for a blog that blows you away with its literary ability and what not.....

Not a bad picture, considering it was taken by a six year old!

http://www.stop-drop-roll-rachel.blogspot.com/

I love her and she is awesomely crafty too!

I can't even measure up to her hair length! :)

No more burnt pots in the back yard!!

If you know me personally, Then you probably already know that I am forgetful.  O.k. in all honesty....I am a complete SPAZ.

I love sweet tea. My mother always makes fresh tea every day, so that is what I grew up drinking. I like to brew mine in a pot over the stove, however, I am REALLY bad about forgetting that I put a pot of water on to boil. Eventually I smell the horrible stink of smoking burning metal pan, but at that point, I don't want to leave the stink in my kitchen, so I toss it into the grass in the backyard. I do eventually go retrieve the scorched pan and throw it away (O.K. fine...my husband does this for me).
I used to use metal tea kettles, but after I burned three in less than 6 months, my husband wouldn't allow me to buy any more.
So, anyway, here is my new solution to my spazzyness (yes, that is a new word that I just made up).
I now use my Keuhrig to heat the water.

I just ran the water through, without a k-cup, into a glass with tea bags in it. Let it sit for awhile and mixed it into sugar and water in the tea pitcher!
My mother used to use her coffee pot to make tea in, however, once in awhile she would make coffee in it for a guest and then our tea tasted like a coffee for several days. This does not happen with my Keuhrig! Yeah! Finally no more burnt pots littering my back yard, my coffee tastes like coffee, and my tea tastes like tea ;)

Forget Easter Eggs, this year we dyed Easter dresses!

I'm a little behind, but better late than never, right?
Like a lot of church going people, Our family has always had the tradition of new dresses on Easter Sunday.  This year my little girls (they just turned 4 years and 8 years, bless these non-teenage years!) wanted their favorite colors of dresses. Although orange seems to be a trending color right now, I couldn't find anything that cute in my price range. I will admit, my price range is pretty low since I am a stay-at-home-Mom and I'm just really cheap anyway! I found a couple of cream colored dresses at Target (I love that place!) that were on sale for $12.99 a piece.

Cream.....very pretty, but very boring. We really are NOT boring people. When I say WE, I really mean myself and my girls, because my husband would be more than happy to go with the boring crowd any day. I love him with all my heart, but he is a white wall, white ceiling kind of guy, so sometimes he freaks out a little about my choices.
I went to walmart and purchased bottles of Rit dye (purple & orange, I can't remember their offical color names). They weren't expensive, about $3.00 a piece.
I followed the "dye in your washing machine" directions. I just left the lid open on my washing machine for quite awhile so it could soak without spinning around ( I have an older washing machine, so I don't know how that would work out with some of the new machines.)
FYI: some types of fabrics dye better if you add salt to the dye bath, so be sure you read the directions on the bottle and be prepared to add about 1/2 to a full cup of salt.
The dresses turned out perfect. the only part that didn't dye was the thread, but they still looked great!

The Continental Divide

I hate top sheets. It is the feel. They are so cold and not snuggley. I usually use a flannel top sheet because I can tell myself it is more of a really light blanket...yes...that's it...a blanket.
A few nights ago, we got ready to go to bed and I realized the sheets were in the washing machine. (My three year old got grape jelly on them. Don't ask how this happened.) So, since I was to lazy to dig out another flannel, my husband grabs the top of the stack to throw on the bed, which happens to be a regular sheet. Did I mention I HATE regular top sheets. So this was how the conversation went:
I said, " I hate top sheets like that"
Gary: "Well I don't like NOT having a top sheet"
Me: "Maybe I should just cut the sheets down the middle and make my half flannel and your half regular?"
Gary (giving me a look) "Whatever"
I knew the look.  We have been married for almost 9 years. It was the "you are just stupid enough to do something like that aren't you" look. So since he followed this look up with "whatever", I figured it was a go.
So, this morning, after my husband went to work, I sewed the sheets together.
His side is white with a bit of colored stripe (which now that I look close, you can see that I didn't sew it very straight). My side is a nice fuzzy sheep flannel. I love sheep.

It's not that I am trying to keep my husband off my side of the bed. He is MORE than welcome to visit. I just love a good compromise.
Oh, I almost forgot, I will be cutting up the extra part that I cut off, to use for crocheting rugs! I NEVER throw anything away!

Starting Fresh

If only we could wake up every morning with the same renewed freshness that a New Year brings!
This year I resolve to share what I am doing (craftywise anyway). I plan to actually type out my patterns, since I mostly like to make projects up as I go. Here is a look back at some of the Christmas projects I made for my family and friends.

The pencil scarf I made for my sister (she teaches at a University). I haven't written out a pattern for this one yet, maybe soon.
The stuffed Titanic I made for my nephew:

I will try to explain this one a little better in a future post.

I am currently working on a pattern for a ladybug ear flap hat and matching slippers, so check back soon.