New Stuff

Last Week my husband took my almost-5-year-old to Florida for a short vacation to visit a friend. I decided to take that as an opportunity to redo his room, which was in dire need after the wall decal disaster. They were gone from Tuesday-Saturday and believe it or not, painting this room took me the entire time!!! The room before was a "little boy blue" and the ceiling was a lighter shade of blue (thanks to the previous owner). My son decided he wanted his room his favorite color, orange, and after painting 2 walls orange I quickly saw how bad of an idea it was. The color wasn't the problem, per say, but the orange next to the honey oak trim looked horrendous! I mean it was really bad!!!!! So since my son was expecting orange, I made the executive decision to paint one wall (which happened to not be one of the 2 that I just painted) orange. I picked that wall since it had the least amount of moulding, only a baseboard which would be mostly covered up by his bed. I decided to paint the other 3 bright white. Man it took a full gallon of orange and white to get the job done. Not to mention the several quarts of ceiling paint that it took to make the ceiling white again. There are still a few spots that need to be touched up and the ceiling could use another coat or two, but I am done for now. Here is the result:
I also decided that I would take this opportunity to try my hand at quilting. For the time being I am using the underside of my son's current bedspread until I get his quilt done. Quilting is a part of the craft world that I have yet to venture into. I have been itching to get into it and just needed a reason. I am going to start simple and just make rectangles that will be sewn vertically on the twin side spread. I had a few scraps that would work and now I am collecting fabric for the rest. I saw this baby quilt on the cover of Anna Maria Horner's new book and LOVED how she just threw all kinds of colors in there so this is my inspiration:

I am having trouble finding fabrics in some of the most important colors. I, of course, need orange to tie in the HUGE orange wall that is in his bedroom and his 2nd favorite color is yellow. Both of those colors evidently aren't very popular with the quilters, especially with cute patterns, so I decided to collaborate with my son and print my own. I had him draw some pictures, we picked one of his alien drawings and now I am in the process of printing it on a slightly patterned fat quarter that I purchased. The ink was a little clumpy so I stamped the image onto the fabric and then had to clean it up by painting in the fill. The first round is drying and the next will be the outline. I am excited to see how it turns out.

I am also getting some gifts finished up. I have a crochet project that I am working on, the picture makes it look like a large ottoman, but in reality it is only the size of a butter tub. :-)

And I am finishing up a sewing project. This is the first time that I have attempted applique. I am also embroidering on top of the applique and so far so good. I can't wait to see the final result on this either:

So I am keeping myself pretty busy. Hopefully I will have some completed projects soon to share :-)