life is beautiful ~ a little nap-time craft

Callan woke up at 7am today.  Not unusually early, but I was still pretty groggy since I stayed up until just after midnight to kiss Travis goodnight (when he got home from work).  As Travis stayed in bed for a few more hours of sleep this morning, I shuffled after Callan's energetic pitter-patter of feet down the hallway.  I started a pot of coffee, as usual.  Callan played with his trains for a few minutes until he was ready for breakfast.

I turned on Pandora (At Your Name [Yahweh Yahweh] Radio).  As he ate, I got a little sewing done.  After he was finished eating, I cleaned him up, turned off my sewing machine, and sat down on the floor with Callan to play with his trains.

"Oh Happy Day" (by Fee) came on Pandora.  Callan went into the kitchen (that's where the laptop was) and just stood there smiling.  We started dancing.  10 minutes of dancing, smiles, and giggles.  Then we laid on the floor.  He looked over at me and smiled.  I smiled back.  My heart over-flowed.  It's these moments that make this life absolutely beautiful.  Snippets of momentary perfection.

"Let Faith Arise" (by Chris Tomlin) played in the background.  I closed my eyes.  I covered my face.  I sang along, in my head.  A prayerful song.  A song of thanksgiving.  Life is not always easy.  Sometimes we struggle.  Financially, emotionally, hiccups along the road, but my faith in Him gets me through.  Every time.

God has blessed me with one heck of a beautiful life.

"I lift my hands to believe again

You are my refuge, You are my strength

As I pour out my heart, these things I remember

You are faithful, God, forever"

- "Let Faith Arise", Chris Tomlin

When Callan went down for a nap, I made this little reminder.

Hand-painted on a plank of what once was a barrel out in our backyard.
It found a place to rest up on our mantle.

Life really is beautiful.

Savor life, it's too beautiful to just let it slip by.

kitchen progress

You may or may not remember my red kitchen cabinets.

This picture is from the day that we closed on the house, a year and a half ago.

It was one of those things, when we were looking at the house, that I just shrugged at and said, "oh, I can just paint them."  Easier said than done.  Way easier.

I started tackling these darn cabinets last year.  I'm not even half way done.  BUT what I do have finished is a heck of an improvement and changes the kitchen, dramatically, already, so that keeps me going.

There is a ton of scraping, sanding, priming, and painting going on.  If the cabinets were still their original wood color, this project would be easy peasy, but the fact that the cabinets are painted red, both inside and out, makes the task a much bigger headache.

I finally finished all of the upper cabinet doors last week.  What a relief to have them done, and out of the way.

I finished all of the drawer fronts, too.

This past weekend, I tackled the "island", (we call it that, although, technically, it's not), and attached bookshelf.

All of the lowers are getting painted in Valspar's "Oatlands Subtle Taupe".  This is one of those colors that changes throughout the day with the lighting.  In the morning, it's more tan than gray; it's a true tan-gray during the afternoon; and it's definitely more gray in the evening.  It looks most like this chip in the morning/early afternoon.

Crazy difference, right?!

So much lighter and brighter.

I really love it, although it's such a drastic difference, it's going to take some time to get used to the lighter color.  Not too much time, though, because it really is so much better.

I'm working on the cabinets in sections, that way it's not too overwhelming.

Here's the section that's up next.  I expect to start sometime later this week.

I need a mini break before I jump back into it.

Oh, and over the weekend, we also got some molding up in the kitchen.

We still have to caulk and patch nail holes, but the molding makes a world of difference.

I really cleans up the ceiling recess, and finishes it off.

I probably won't share anymore of the kitchen until the lower cabinets are completely finished, so it could be a few weeks.

But it's going to be a heck of a reveal.   

painted house numbers & mantle art

I have so many projects on my to-do list, but sometimes little projects just pop up out of the clear blue and make it to the top of the list.  Here are two mini-painting projects that did so.

After seeing this post on a blog I subscribe to, I knew this would be a perfect way to attempt to update our extremely outdated front door.

I didn't realize how off-center my numbers were until I finished and stood back to admire my freshly painted numbers.  I guess that's what happens when you have a 17 month old distraction trying to climb on you as you work...

But I still think it looks pretty good.

This is the other project I just finished, directly inspired from this print I came across on etsy.com.

My project budget is practically $0.00, so if I ever find something I like, I need to recreate it myself (like I did with this project) with supplies I already have.  Luckily, I had a 22x28 canvas lying around, as well as some interior house paint, and some left over artistic ability from my Interior Design days.  

I used a trick that I had seen on the same blog post where I had gotten the house number idea.  Just print out what you want transferred, rub the back of it with with some white chalk, place the piece of paper with the text you want transferred onto the surface you want it applied to, trace over the text with a pencil, and voila!  The outline of your text is clearly transferred!  And if you messed up?  Just wipe it clean and start the process over - so easy, and incredibly smart!

See how well this works?  From here, I just went over the chalk outline with pencil, so it wouldn't smudge and fade away as I painted.

I filled in my outline with some white craft paint, using very fine paint brush and a steady hand.

I love it up on our mantel.

And it pairs well with my ampersand.  

Have you finished any projects lately?  Have any projects suddenly jumped to the top of your to-do list?  Do share!