mirror makeover

The frame that I have hanging on the wall in the previous post came from this mirror. I would normally not mutilate a mirror just to get a frame, but it just so happens that the mirror was cracked. It just so happens that you can't tell that in the picture below. True story.

The mirror was a castoff from an office at school, so it was completely free. It originally belonged to Debbie, but Tina cracked it, and so it was given to Tina. She could not get the mirror to pop out of the frame, so she put it in the trash pile. I grabbed it and took it home, knowing I could work on it. The frame was originally from Walmart, and I kept laughing because it was so well made. Hardly anything I buy from Walmart is well made, but this mirror was determined.

See, I waved at ya!

Turns out the mirror had this sealant around the edge that we had to use a razor blade to separate the mirror. Charlie and I did it over the trash can outside, because we weren't sure when the mirror would fall out.

I had the frame for several weeks before deciding what to do with it, and when I got the bug to hang things on the wall, I knew it would look really good with the white plate in the middle. The little building underneath is actually the main building from my college, and it is a really neat historic building. I bought this when I graduated, but never really had a great place to display it.

One person's trash is another person's treasure, huh? Thanks Debbie and Tina!



I love my new wall decor!

before and after

We redecorated our living room and dining room last summer and I loved how it turned out. The Restrained Gold paint color really warms it up without being too bright or too beige. I love the splashes of color from the throw pillows and curtain topper.

This is the silk panel that I added to the top of some store bought curtains. I discovered putting this room together that I like very monochromatic color schemes, where one color would naturally flow into another on the the color wheel. Red to orange to gold to yellow to green, like half of the rainbow, albeit a muted one.

The problem was that I decorated on a budget, like most people do. I ran out of money when it came to accessories, and I haven't worked on it in awhile. These are the corners near our giant armoire. Big, blank corners.

Yes, that is my laptop on a TV tray. There's a plug in that corner where I charge it. Yes, I realize this next picture shows our very messy desk, where my computer would normally reside, but the plug is hard to get to and so I often plug it in elsewhere.

The blank walls were talking to me, telling me that something needed to be done. I decided to shop the house.

We are thinking about painting the kitchen. I am tired of the red, but I wanted to try it out. Every time I would see a red kitchen on TV I would really like it, but now I have discovered I really like calmer paint colors. This was nice for two and a half years, but I am ready to move on. I haven't picked out a new color yet, but I knew whatever I picked wouldn't match with the plates on the wall, and they did match the accent colors of the front room.

I pulled a plate from our master bedroom, an old window and a cutout of my college from the attic, a window mirror that my mom gave me, the plates from the kitchen and a frame that someone was giving away at school and created my look.

The little round candle thing was from the table behind the couch, but since the table is low, you couldn't see it. I chose to lean the mirror on the wall instead of hanging it up because the desk is so beautiful, and I like how it reflects the light onto the wall.

This window is from when we remodeled the kitchen and covered over a window with drywall. From the outside you can still see the outer storm window, but I had my husband pull the other one out and stick it upstairs. The repetition of the window pane look in both the window and mirror helped connect one side of the room to another.

I think I might add some photos into the window panes, or some vinyl letters to make words. Haven't gotten far enough to know what exactly I want to do with it, but I like the way the plates bring the color to that side of the wall. The room feels more complete with all the accessories in place, although I still have a few more corners that could use photos.

Hope you like it! I do.

more to show

I showed you this before, with my fancy fabric from Mood in NYC. I had this magic plan for these curtains, and the plan had to change many, many, many times. I made a couple of mistakes, but I'm getting closer to finishing them, but here's the beginning.

I found this fabric at Mood. Pre-ruffled fabric. I had never seen fabric like this before, and I had to do something with it. It called my name. It said, "Sissy, you must have a yard of me and make something special. Please, take me home." So, I did.

The other fabric was this brown with criss-cross pattern. This fabric is on the thick side, and I've seen it on bedspreads all over. Why did I want such thick curtains? Well, I didn't. But my husband, who has a glossy TV in our den, wanted to be able to close the curtains and block out the light and glare. I wanted something feminine and fun. Thus, I thought about combining the two. Genius, right?

Well, there are more problems to encounter in the next couple of posts, but the basic idea looks like the below picture. Hanging the curtains and finding a way to move them up and down has been the biggest problem. Oh, other than the fact that I accidentally had two layers of fabric on top of one another and cut a six inch slice into one of the thicker panels. My curtains ended up about five inches shorter than I planned, but after I cried about it, I just adjusted my plan.

It's been a fun project, and will be pretty functional when I actually hang them up. Well, I have part of them up now, but I am also working on some sheers to hang behind them. I wanted to be able to have the darkness Charlie was looking for when he wanted it, but the softness I wanted most of the time.

I need to finish them before I have to report to school on Monday for workdays. My summer is just about over, people. Sigh.

a little tease

This is what I have been up to lately. Well, up to when I haven't been being lazy savoring my last days of summer. They are quickly coming to an end, but I have been attempting to make curtains for our den out of the fabric I got at Mood.

Here's a tease for you. Aren't you just salivating to know what I am doing, without a pattern and on the fly? I know you are waiting on pins and needles to see what my lovely den will look like when the curtains are finished. We'll see how fast that happens.

it's been a long road from there to here

This was last week when we were practicing working with the carseat, before we knew that the baby wasn't coming home. My diaper bag was all packed and the nursery was all ready. That was last Wednesday.

Then my husband came home and told me the news about the change in our adoption status. I sat there and stared at the wall for about 10 minutes. Charlie was concerned that I was really ok, because I wasn't saying much and I wasn't reacting. Normally I am a crier, and I wasn't crying.


It's been a long week. In fact, today I realized it had been exactly a week since we found out the news, and that I expected to be bringing her home tomorrow. It's been a week of tears, of family, of prayers and comfort and chocolate peanut butter fudge ice cream. It's been seven days of realizing I don't really know how to get through this grieving process.

One irony is that we bought a new camera because we were having a new baby. I wanted to be all ready to take fantastic pictures, so we bought a Nikon fancy thing, and I love it.

I sat outside in our yard and took some photos. One of my favorite things in life is light coming through the trees. There is something magical for me about the way the late afternoon sunlight is golden and creates these amazing colors with leaves, and speckles the ground with pockets of sunshine. This is the natural part of our front yard and I stared at it for awhile.

I've been doing a lot of staring off into space. Please excuse me while my mind wanders, I think, when I catch myself doing it. Thinking about her.

Thinking pink. These are the hydrangeas we planted when the social worker was coming for our home study. We wanted the front porch to look nice and our other plants had not made it, since I often forget to water such things. And I love this picture, but it is a small reminder that I had something to look forward to when we bought these plants.

This is my 200 post. It has taken me a little over a year to write 200 letters to you all out in the blogosphere. I started blogging because I needed an outlet to deal with my emotions. Infertility takes so much out of a woman and I couldn't dump it all on my sweet husband. I wanted a place where I could put it out and let it hang. I made a rule with myself that I would never bad mouth my husband or my job (I didn't want to be one of those people who gets in trouble for what they write.) And I began to write.

I wanted to get it all out and share it and meet others who are on the same road, and I have. It has been 15 months of letting strangers into my world and opening myself up to their ideas and support. I do not know what I would do without the prayers and support, not only from the last couple of days, but from other days when I was down or heartbroken. I have made a little family, and while I know very few of you in real life, you are very real to me.

I wish I had a more upbeat post or a giveaway or something really special to share for this 200th post. But this is where I am at, and this is who I am right now. I am a tad heartbroken, but I am trying to trust God and move forward. This setback doesn't mean we won't have a baby, it just means we won't have one right now.


In the spirit of moving forward, these are centerpieces my mom and I did for a wedding coming up next weekend. Our friends Phil and Bethany are getting married, and Bethany chose a Tuscan theme for the ceremony and reception. And Bethany loves orange. Has always dreamed of having orange in her wedding. I know, it's certainly unique, but I love the way these centerpieces turned out. The wedding is going to be lovely and special and Charlie has to wear a tux, so YUM. I promise we will have pics to show off when all that is over, so you just sit back and wait.

There really isn't much more to say except that you have loved me as I am, and if you haven't, you aren't reading my blog. Those of you who do come back, I appreciate. Not just because you read and comment, but because I believe we lift each other up when we can. I am thankful that I started putting myself out there, and I will continue to do so, trusting that you all are going to be here, even when I am sad and grieving.

I'm Sissy, and I'm Out on a Limb.

renovation project

Last month we undertook a project in our house to resolve some weirdness in our den and kitchen. When we bought the house, there were three back doors: one from our laundry room, one in the kitchen, and an eight foot sliding glass door in our den. Our laundry room was still sporting the old green linoleum that didn't get finished when we re-tiled the kitchen.

From the outside our sliding glass door wasn't so pretty. The door was original to the house (built in the 60s) and was not very weatherproof. It fogged up when the heat was on and it was cold out, it fogged up when it was hot out and the A/C was on, so you can tell it was really thin glass.

Because of the way our den is structured we ended up putting our couch up against the door and pretending it was a window.

Here is the linoleum. Isn't it lovely? I mean, you can't get better than this yellow and green cobblestone design.

This is what my den looked like while the renovations were going on, with my washer and dryer in the living room. It was not fun to have everything everywhere, but we did it.

We decided to remove the back door in the laundry room and replace it with a window. My mom had torn a window out at her house and so we snatched it up and used it here. Charlie decided to put down the door himself, but he didn't want to continue the complicated brick pattern I had chosen for the kitchen, so I told him he could just do straight lines.

The den sliding glass door was replaced with two windows and a picture window in the middle. The contractor framed out the space and insulated the wall so we could keep the temperature a little more consistent.

We also wanted to replace the old door between the kitchen and laundry room, so we got one at Home Depot.


I mixed some paint together that was leftover and painted the walls. I also slapped three coats of white paint onto the shelves over the washer and dryer to make everything look nicer.


I was happy that we had some den paint leftover from the first time we painted the den and was able to easily cover the new drywall. It looks so much better than with the door there and I like the way the picture window looks in the middle.

We found some small accent tiles to fit them across the threshold between the two rooms. The whole project turned out so well and Charlie discovered that he liked putting down tile, which I was glad to hear since we have two bathrooms that are going to need tile eventually.

It was several weeks of construction and we were rushing to get it all done for both the homestudy and a house appraisal. We are so glad it is finished and I love that our laundry room looks so nice now. There is a nice flow between the two rooms and our white washer looks nice against the paint color. I am still working on getting some window treatments for both rooms to finish out the project, but I was sidetracked by getting the nursery done.

a peek at the nursery

The whole inspiration for the nursery came from this recliner that I inherited from my Dad. My dad used to rock me in this chair when I was younger, and when he died I claimed it for my own. In fact, about three weeks before he passed away my Dad and I sat in this chair and I cried and said goodbye.

I kept it to be the rocker in my future baby's room, knowing that turquoise would go with either boy or girl. I wanted it to be the legacy from baby's grandpa, so I could rock my child and tell stories about a man they will only know through that chair.

I chose this dresser years ago when I chose furniture for our guest room. I was thinking that I might want to use it in a nursery some day, so I chose something that would grow with our child. We do have a few more things to hang on the wall over the dresser, but I think it looks cute so far.

Yes, I know it's a little princessy, but I love the gauzy curtains I hung above the crib. I found some scrapbook paper and created the canvas above the bed with a quote from Shakespeare (to sleep, perchance to dream.) We're going to put up letters under the canvas once we bring baby girl home and she has a name. The paisley towel on the back of the crib is what my mom is using to make the bumper pads. It's acutally a beach towel that I found at TJMaxx a couple of years ago and never actually used at the beach.

There are shelves sitting in the crib in this shot, and a little elephant that I found somewhere. I did get a white crib skirt with pink paisley embroidered on it from Pottery Barn Kids and that is on the bottom.

We have some clothes, diapers, wipes, the carseat, the stroller, some bottles, a couple cans of formula and diaper bags ready to go. We don't have tons of things, and we have registered for other things, and we're going to a MOPS sale this weekend.

Now, if I can just get some sleep before baby comes, I'll be doing good.

I think I forgot to share this...

A couple of months ago some good friends of mine at church had a baby (congrats, Tom and Kenda) that they named Macy Rosetta . I had been to their house before and had done a faux finish in their kitchen and dining room. Now Kenda wanted me to come and paint something for their new daughter. I didn't have the time I would need to go and actually paint on the wall, so I asked her if it would be ok to do her name on canvases that we could hang on the wall. Kenda thought that was fine, so I was able to work on it at home.

I painted the canvases a pale green (and I just took the spare wall paint from when they painted the room) and then when I put a second coat on it, I brushed in some darker green to add a little more depth. (and these photos aren't so hot...taken at night with dining room lights...so washed out.)
Then I copied some letters that I took right out of Microsoft Word and drew them on the canvas. Then I erased them. I will share my secret with you: lightly ERASE the pencil marks you make if the paint you are going to be using is a light color. This will save you hours of frustration when the pencil bleeds through the letters.

I painted the pink letters once. Then I painted them again and blended in a darker color to accent the letters and I let them dry. Afterwards I drew on the letters with a glue pen and used some scrapbooking glitter (not your old art class chunky glitter) and made the letters sparkle.

Now, because Macy's middle name is Rosetta, Kenda was interested in having roses painted on the canvas. Um, I cannot paint roses. I can paint you a daisy with the best of them, but roses are really complicated flowers. Many layers and curvy petals which are seriously HARD to paint, so I thought and thought. In the end, I thought it would be neat to incorporate silk roses. I found some really neat looking antique ones at Michael's, used a nail to poke holes in the canvas and shoved them in with some hot glue. They added so much to the letters, which don't show up that well in this last photo. Ouch.

I still need to get out to their house to hang them up (soon, Kenda) over Macy's crib. I think it will be adorable and accent the room in such a cute way. They aren't super babyish, so Macy could keep them for a long time if she wanted.

This wasn't a majorly expensive project. I would say it cost around $50 to complete and most of that cost was the canvas. I could have saved quite a bit by using canvas board, which is flat and doesn't have wood on the back, but I wanted the depth. I like it.

our newest addition

A couple of weeks ago Charlie asked me if I was ready to buy a crib. I wasn't sure what I thought about it. I didn't want to get one to early and then stare at it for a year while we wait for a baby, but Charlie made a suggestion that we should have the nursery ready when the social worker comes for our homestudy. I could agree with that. Charlie gave me a budget and I got online. Of course, the one I wanted was from Pottery Barn Kids. It was $599. That wasn't the budget Charlie and I talked about though, so I had to look around a little.

Here is the "dana" crib from PB kids. Isn't it lovely?

I found a Legacy crib on Craig's list that looked a lot like the one from PB and it was waaaaayyy less. So much less. We bought it, and Charlie brought it home. Sadly, the antique white color of the crib did not match the antique white color of the dresser we planned to use in the room.

So, I took a knob from the dresser and went to my paint store. I made sure to tell them that it was for a crib so I could get the safest kind of paint, and matched it up.

It's hard to tell, but the piece on the right is the end of the crib and it is yellower than the dresser. You can tell, can't you? You all have that discerning eye, I know it.

So I sanded and painted and spent inauguration day painting the side rails. Those were quite tedious. Very tedious.

Here is the final result. I think it turned out pretty good, didn't it? AND, so similar to the one from PB for so much less.

And, my house has a crib. MY HOUSE HAS A CRIB. It is quite the step forward for us. And very "out on a limb." Hopefully within this year, this crib will have an occupant that will cuddle up in it and love how much work mommy put into it.

Me...a mommy! Wow. That's a heady thought.

in which joseph cuts off his nose to spite his face

For a couple of years now my Mom and I have been finding little figurines to paint for Christmas. We started with angels one year, then did snowmen the next year and this year she found a little kids nativity set to paint, along with a few more snowmen. I get excited about it every year, and forget just how hard it is.

Really. It's like childbirth, I guess.

We start out painting and chatting and it's all fun. Then you have tiny details to paint and don't have a brush small enough. Or you take your green paint and accidentally hit the back of your white snowman. Or you paint the figure, and it falls over and messes itself up. I spent so much time on Jesus, Mary and Joseph, getting them the right colors, and using a shiny clear coat on it, only to mess Joseph up completely. I wanted to cuss. And I don't cuss. And cussing at Joseph isn't a good idea, is it?



In this picture, you really can't tell that he's messed up, but the teeny-tiny features on their faces were impossible to get to. In the picture on the package, the eys have the whites and the irises...which I could not do at all. And there were 9 other figures to paint! I figure if I paint 3 every year, I'll have the complete set in only four years! Score.

And, to top it off, when I put Joseph back in the package and shut the lid, the lid took off his nose. I guess the paint must have softened it and now he has no nose. So next year, I'll be performing a rhinoplasty on poor Joseph.



After giving up on Joseph, I turned my attention to a snowman and painted him white with a striped scarf. I thought he turned out pretty cute, but I did have to wash him off several times when I did get the green paint on his back with a freak paint brush accident. It was a comedy of errors.

We did have a good time, some good snacks, and fun with friends. My mom and I invited three people to come and paint with us, and their figures turned out well too. They didn't have as many issues as I did, and they were amused by all my accidents. Actually, what I think was going through their minds was "she has an art degree? Seriously?"

I promise. I actually do.

Maybe this just wasn't my proudest moment.

But I did come home with a really cute glittery snowman that I introduced to the two other snowmen that were already under my tree. They were happy to meet a new friend.

And we won't have to paint again for another year. Amen.

a little sparkle

I love decorating for the holidays. I love it. I like taking my normally sedate and dare I say, elegant house, and turning it into a home that sparkles. I like glitter and I have to restrain myself from covering my house in it, but I indulge myself when buying ornaments for my tree. I worked at Michael's during one holiday season and I bought so many half price ornaments that I deemed special and unique.



I found this set of Bethlehem ornaments and loved them. They aren't scream-in-your-face religious ornaments, but subtle and lovely. They are usually one of the first ornaments I hang and I like to find them the right place on the tree. Yes, I take decorating my tree very seriously and I tend to rearrange the ornaments until I find the right balance of sparkle and color. I took this picture laying under my tree.



Then I had to figure out how to make a centerpiece for my dining table, and my dining table is huge. Last year I took my spare tree branches and made an arrangement, and I did this year too, but I decided to put that arrangement in my foyer. So I wondered what to use instead. I looked around and decided to take the Nester's advice and "shop my house." I looked around and collected all the glass and metal candlesticks, candleholders, and thingies I had. I found red, white and cream candles. I found a green velvet table runner, some cranberry garland and some leafy garland, and Voila, a centerpiece.



I was pleasantly surprised with the way it turned out. I lit all the candles and then took a step back admired the warmth and coziness that I created with things I found collecting dust in my house.



Have you started your holiday decorating yet? What is your favorite part?

nutritious....delicious

My mom recently went to an Apple Orchard and bought a huge box of apples. I like apples ok. They're all right. I can't eat a whole box of them, though.

So we decided to make pie.
Yummy, sugary, cinnamony apple pie.
Piled up high with lots of apples and put in a not so homemade crust.
Ahhh...this is the way to eat apples.

The crumbly topping melted and crisped up to make this hard sugary layer on top of the apples. It was really flavorful because we mixed several kinds of apples together to make the pie. I was really proud at how fast it came together and that we made something so yummy.