Union Jack

Hello. My name is Natalie....

And I am an Anglophile.

My fate was sealed years ago. I blame it on the kind of books I first read when I was young, and have loved ever since. You probably know the ones I'm talking about.

The United Kingdom Flag (Union Jack) is one of my favorites. I've been thinking about making a Union Jack quilt for a while, and it's still on my to-do-list, but this weekend I was craving a smaller scaled project. Thus, a Union Jack pillow was born.

Shabby Chic (Rachel Ashwell) used to sell a Union Jack pillow for an insane price. My version is a little more budget friendly - I used fabric from my stash (Rouenneries, Peace on Earth & coarse muslin) and covered a sofa pillow already on hand.


I won't lie, figuring out this pattern was nothing but trouble. See the pile of blocks I screwed up...

Just a bit frustrating. But in the end those rusty geometry skills came through for me.

I'm really falling for Jack. Hope my hubby doesn't mind.

Bar Stool Makeover

A couple of years ago we tossed out our bar stools (which around here means hauled to the D.I.). They were really ugly and we hadn't yet discovered spray paint or even latex paint, as it pertains to furniture. Meanwhile 2 years went by, and we still hadn't replaced them.

So a few weeks ago I was at the D.I. and what did I find?

A pair of UGLY old bar stools. Ugly doesn't scare me anymore.

I enlisted this little guy to help prime. Actually, he begged to help - my kids are enamored with paint & brushes in all forms.

Then we painted. I was tempted to go with black to match our dining table & chairs, but I've come to realize black furniture is evil incarnate - it shows everything. Dust, crumbs, mystery slime... everything you don't want to see. So we went with my old favorite, Dusty Spruce (Valspar).


Now they are as good as new.
Better than new really, because as a mom, new scares me and seriously stresses me out. I know what active young children are capable of doing to nice, new furniture and it's not pretty.

With UGLY, we're ahead of the game.

Winter Swap

To our family members (& friends) in Virginia & Maryland:

THANK YOU for swapping winters with us. While you have been digging yourselves out from under the snow, we have been:

Whistling in the tree tops.

Cruising downhill & loving it like a ride at Disneyland (on her birthday, too!).

Swinging in the hammock, happy as can be.

Running around barefoot with the sunlight bouncing off our untamed hair.

OK, barefoot may be pushing it. But it has been altogether lovely.

Thank you. Thank you. THANK YOU.

Vintage Sheet Quilt - Blues

I didn't mean to be away from my blog for so long, I just haven't had a lot to post about. No pretty pictures to share, and I wouldn't know how to post without something visual to distract from my crazy ramblings. But, I did finally manage to snap out of my lazy funk (for a bit) and pieced a new vintage sheet quilt using only my blue, green and purple inventory. So in honor of the winter blues, a blues quilt.


For the first time ever, I've decided to do something fancy with the back of one of my quilts. I think I'm liking it better than the front. Here's a wrinkly little peek...

Hope to have it quilted soon, but don't hold your breath. My kids are off track for 3 weeks (year round school). Ay Carumba!
*Also been doing more reading. Read Hunger Games & Catching Fire. Couldn't stop thinking about them, so I read a few others to get them off my brain, including one on the Readers Choice table at the library called Jane Austen Ruined My Life. I wanted to like it, but in the end it was disappointing at best. Such a wimpy heroine - but then again, if I'm comparing characters to Katniss and Peeta, they all will seem like whiners. Next up... The Book Thief. If you have any suggestions, send them my way.

Hibernating

Winter can be beautiful, but it's a beauty I appreciate more the less I am exposed to it. Lately all I want to do is curl up in velour sweat pants, with my favorite micro-mink throw (George Costanza would understand both these choices) in front of a roaring fire, nose in a book. Although sometimes sitting over a heater vent works just as well.


Went to the library a few days ago and came home with a stack of books and a handful of DVDs - the delicious kind that you'll never find at RedBox like the never before seen by me, Monarch of the Glen Season 7 (yep, still a geek).

Wednesday I read this...

Very pleased with it - until I discovered the other book by the same author, which is on reserve for me, is the PRE-quel. Reading them out of order drives me NUTS.

Spent Thursday putting the house back together so I could spend all day today reading this one...

Also really good. Love this series. I've never been a leisurely reader. I wolf them down, and then I want more.

What were my little peeps doing while I was feasting on the written word?

Whipping up some eggs. Seriously, this rockin' little man played with Play-Doh for hours. Played until what started out as 20 new colorful containers morphed into one big brown blob on the center of the kitchen island, with rainbow Play-Doh confetti blanketing the kitchen floor. What a MESS! But I was able to read a novel, in its entirety.

And, because I don't know how to read on an empty stomach, I took a break to make this.


Three loaves of 10 grams of fat per slice, pumpkin perfection. Thank goodness my foodie resolution was in regards to caffeinated soda and not dessert. Sure, the recipe read Pumpkin Bread, but I'm no fool - it was dessert.

Well I'm off - have a hot date with some micro-mink and a Scottish Laird.

Hope January is treating you well.