Basketmaking 101

What a fun day! Years ago we made baskets with my oldest children, now again with my youngest

I LOVE basket making. I love all lost arts, so...it's really no surprise. I think I could go from here till my time
is over in this world just making things.....and learning how to make MORE things! SOOOO much to learn!!

 I hope my little angel enjoys the fascination of "creating" things...using her God given abilities to put things He gave us together to make something quite unique. She is definitely a budding artist......always doodling on something. I think she very much enjoyed making baskets also......:)

Happy Face

This makes me SOOOOOO happy. Living in the city with all the hustle and bustle sometimes gets to me. I keep trying to do things to make this feel more like home and one good thing I did was to plant lots of lavender plants three summers ago.

The first summer we had a terrible drought and I lost 4 of the ten I planted. I tried to nurse them along and 6 of them hung in there and made it through the toughest of times.

The second year I only was able to harvest a small amount. The second year I also planted 3 more plants, I thought were the same type. They did great, but turns out....I think they will be white lavender!

So this is my first real harvest from 6 of my plants. I will probably be able to harvest more farther along in the season. Anna and Ben helped to strip it to get it ready for drying. A process that took about 3 hours!

I am SO happy with my harvest!!!! God is showing me ways to make life in the city easier to deal with. He also has been reminding me of Hebrews 13:5 "........be content with the things that you have, for God has said "I will never leave you nor forsake you"

My Life Back

This has been an unusually busy season for me. I'm ALWAYS busy.....always crazy....but this spring has been even more different and more busy than ever. I think perhaps I'm just getting old. Things are making me more tired than ever and I'm just flat out not enjoying it. I'm looking for ways to try and enjoy more of every day. Every day is a blessing and I want to accept each and every day as exactly that. I'm praying for peace this up coming season. A little serenity. A little time to breathe and hug my children.

May God bless you richly today and may His peace.......the only peace that surpasses all understanding.....find you and embrace you<3

Good-bye Wallpaper!

Today I'm linking up with Susan at www.betweennapsontheporch.blogspot.com for Metamorphosis Monday.  Be sure to visit her site for tons of AMAZING inspirations.Wooooweee....this paper was really bad. This is our living room, and while the colors were OK, the pattern was ridiculous

                                 So....we ripped it all down, and girls...it is a BIG room.

                                    Sweet children...helping out their crazy parents.

Once we got all of the wallpaper down, you would think we would be on easy street, right? Not hardly. See those two big windows with the ladder beside them? For some reason, underneath the windows, everything was completely rotted out. The wall paper was wet, and the sheet rock crumbled in our hands.

I am sooo thankful to have a husband that knows all about carpentry and home repairs. It took a lot of work, and you know, sheet rock work is super messy, but he did a great job on fixing the whole mess.

                                                        So we finally "got her done".

Now the room seems so peaceful and serene. I love the warm colors, they just work perfectly with our stuff.     We found the stained glass at an antique shop and it was just the perfect fit for a "needy spot".

                                          As you can see, we love old things and warm colors.

                                                  Sophie LOVES my red chair.

                         I LOVE this old mirror I'd been trying to find a new home for.

                           This picture is too dark, but I really like the shadows and the glow.

The colors I used were brown paper bag on top and umber on bottom. I am soooo happy to have this room done!!! Now on to my new STUDIO!!!! Can't wait to get that finished and share. Have a great day in the Lord!

Happyfull

                     Nothing more fun in the whole world than seeing the happy faces of children.

              With spring comes laughter and swinging, chasing butterflies and eating supper outside.

                                         Oh to be a child again......to swing with true happiness.

                                      To laugh with the all your heart just because you're having fun.

                         I'm so happy spring is here to make little faces fill with inexpressible joy.
My son's girlfriend is from Columbia South America. She is very sweet. Her English is very good, but she has a few "unusual" terms. I think they are endearing. One thing she does is, when she wants to express a very strong feeling, she adds "-full" to the end of a word......any word. Like....if a dish had a very berry taste, she might say it was very berryfull, or......someone made a comment that my son treated her like Edward from Twilight..(never seen this before so I have no idea if that comment is true), but she says, no...he's much better than Edward, but he does Edwardfull things. Today I felt very happyfull, and I think I understand that to it's fullest.

OK....I Think I'm Ready

 Thanks Frenchy for reminding me to link this with Metamorphosis Monday with Susan www.Betweennapsontheporch.blogspot.com. Have a great Monday girls!!

Wow, what a BUSY winter we had!!! We did a ton of work in the house. We stripped two LARGE rooms of extreme wallpaper, painted and spruced. Now we're painting another LARGE room to be......MY STUDIO!!!!!! I am SOOOO excited about this project. This is the first house we have ever lived in where I actually had room enough to do my "own thing" in. My space is downstairs where our gallery is and it is very functional. I was totally content with that space, and very grateful for it. Then one day hubby said, "why don't we redo the music room and make it your space. You can do it any way you want". Well...I think I was so shocked that my response was not even enthusiastic. Now however, after dreaming a while....I am all about doing this space. I'm going to do shabby chic, which is going to be so fun! I can't wait! We now have one coat of paint on that room. All the walls and the ceiling. We took down the very out-dated ceiling fans and will replace those with something sweet. We'll paint the concrete floor and then I really get to start playing!!!! I'll definitely post pictures of the whole shabang, but for now, I need to show you our other projects! I'll start with our youngest son's bedroom. He's fourteen and his room was badly outdated. I'll start with a few before pictures. I actually posted these when we first started, then somehow became very distracted :-).

The room has a ton of natural light, but between this dark wallpaper and navy carpet, it felt like a dungeon.

                      Just taking the paper down made the room like so much bigger!

I had to do something to work with this navy carpet. There was no room in our budget for new carpet and this carpet is in great shape.

 

I really like this shade of blue, and with the white trim, it feels very crisp and clean.

Fun little nook for gaming.

I really wanted different bedding, but once again, big budget restraints. I did find these navy comforters at Bed, Bath and Beyond on clearance for $10.00 each. Steal.

I later decided to make the throws to go across the foot of the bed. Ties in the browns with the blues and whites. Just need to decide on window treatments and call it done.

Over all, I'm pretty happy with the room. Now if I can just get my son to keep it clean!! Any blogging advice on that???

Next I'll post on our living room makeover and then.....my studio!!! Have a great evening!!

My Baby's Not a Baby Anymore

Our oldest son turned twenty-five last week. How did that happen? I was twenty-five when he was born and it seems like yesterday. I can still see so plainly those newborn eyes looking up at me in the hospital. There is just no other feeling like that in the world.  I love that boy so much sometimes it hurts. I wish I had early pictures to post so you could see how cute he was when he was little...but at least you can see how handsome of a man he has become.

He also has a beautiful girlfriend of 3 years now that is getting ready to turn twenty-one. A beautiful girl inside and out. I love that girl dearly and will be very proud to call her my first daughter-in-love.

                                                              Zeb and his two best girls.

                               Now with his grandfather, my dad, Albert W. Davison
Zeb has grown into such an awesome young man. He has always been very independent that one. He has made us very proud. He bought his first house last summer, totally on his own, with no help at all from us. He has always paid his own way and taken great pride in his work and his conduct. It's funny how I still call him my baby, I'll just always think of him as "my boy". Have you ever read the book "I'll Love You for Always"? That's how my heart feels for my children. I'll love them for always, I'll like them forever...for now and forever my babies they'll be.