My favorite toy and a theme

Ok, can adults have a favorite toy... I sure hope so because I do. This is my favorite:

This is my Cricut machine or "my big bug" (I have a smaller version too aka "little bug") as it is so affectionately called. With this machine I can cut out shapes and letters on paper, material, vinyl and oh so much more. This machine and I spend a lot of time together. We have made scrapbook pages, cards, school projects and most recently, the theme for my hobby room.

I had some vinyl that I found at Lowes, and cut out this saying:

I think this says it all. I plan to make this my motto for this year.

Homemade art work

I'm still in the process of working on my hobby room. It really needs some things on the walls to make it look complete. I went looking through stuff that I already had to try and come up with something new. I found three artist canvases that I had bought sometime along the way but never did anything with them (don't even remember what they were for). I dusted the cobwebs off my "filing cabinet upstairs" and came up with this:

(I know they are crooked but they are acutally just laying on the counter)

I did have to go to the craft store and buy some wood cutouts to put on them - the other circles are just stamps that I had. Of course I already had the paint so this was actually a pretty inexpensive project. Total cost: (not including canvases) $3.00

These kind of match my new curtains. They are red with black and white polka dots. I told my kids that my room is starting to look like Mickey and Minnie Mouse. But that's ok because I love it.

Is it a junk room or a hobby room ???

My husband and kids called it the junk room, I called it my sewing/craft/work in progress room. But it just seemed to attract clutter. So three days after Christmas I decided something needed to be done about it. Plus, I was tired of the color and bored with everything in the room. So I took action. I got busy cleaning it out and put Carl to work. The cabinets came down and the paint went up. Same cabinets just repainted them. This is what it looked like before:

And now for the reveal.... Here is what it looks like now:

The walls went from a light blue to a nice creamy beige. The cabinets are now black - new curtains and I am loving it. We even moved the countertops around a bit and the setup works so much better.

Oh, and as for the shelf I found at the thrift store (see previous post)... here is what it looks like now:

I still need to add a few items to this shelf but you get the idea. Now if I could just get everything put back away.

Thrift store find...

Yesterday while I was out and about running some errands, I made a quick stop at the thrift store. I didn't really think that I would find anything but I was wrong. I found this:

Now I know it may not look like anything wonderful (and it's not) but I knew that it would work great in my recent makeover. And speaking of my makeover, it's about ready for it's reveal. Check back this next weekend when it should be ready to go.

See you then.

Happy New Year and a look back....

Wow, is it already a new year? Where did the last one go? Join me in a look back at some the highlights from our year:

- Sierra gets her cast off after 8 weeks (foot surgery from November 2008)

- Jake particiaptes in his last Pinewood Derby - watch out boy Scouts

- Alexis competes in her first dance competition - ended up doing a solo dance - brave little girl

- Sierra participates with the youth from church on a pioneer trek. She didn't make it the whole way because of her prior foot surgery, but was a real trooper.

- Took a road trip to Utah to see family - got to spoil Kaden - however he did break out in a rash so we sent him back to his mom.

-Visited Great-grandma Wright who had recently celebrated her 91st birthday.

- Jake played both basketball and flag football

- Carl and Paula both started new jobs this year.

Not too many highlights but enough to keep us very busy this year.

Check back soon (hopefully) to see the makeover we did after Christmas.

We have not fallen off the face of the earth....

Things have been so busy around here that I have hardly had time to breathe let alone sit down at the computer and update this.

Just a quick run down of what has been going on around here:

Jake started basketball so that takes up two nights a week with practice. He has played two games and his team has lost both. The first one was pretty sad 40 to 6 was the score. Yeah, we don't talk much about that one. This last week was better - only lost by 5 points. Final score: 19 to 14. I took my camera to the last one to get some pictures but the battery was dead. That has been my luck lately.

Alexis just keeps busy with her normal stuff. Nothing new there.

Sierra is officially a driver (with a learner's permit that is). She is pretty excited about that. Now we just need to get in those driving hours.

We got snow last week but of course it was gone by noon. It doesn't stick around very long.

We have been busy working on Christmas projects and getting ready for the season.