Art!

I've never really done a post about art, probably because it's taken us a while to build up our collection.

We have a little bit of everything, some originals, some prints, some very random items....I'll just share a few pieces here.

An original painting:

From World Market (I love circles):

A print of my favorite painting from the Art Institute of Chicago:

A card from Etsy with a quote from my favorite movie:

And a wooden movie poster of my favorite movie (of course):

A card from Paris:

A Super Girl print signed by the artist who painted it:

Quite the variety, right?  The comic stuff and movie stuff we hang in the office.  The rest is throughout the house, mostly the living room and the bedroom.

My whole point of this post though is that we recently got 3 new pieces of art that I wanted to share.  The first one is the anniversary gift that I got from my husband in April:

I had seen something like this in Chicago when we were there last July and I mentioned how cool it was.  He remembered and got me one!  You can pick the letters you want (they have a variety of each letter).  And each letter he picked has a special meaning.  The 'S' is for the path we're on together, the 'P' reminded him of a 'p' on a parking garage in Lincoln, Nebraska (where we first met a long time ago), the train tracks because we love traveling together, etc.  I love it!  (It spells out our last name by the way).

We hung it over the buffet in the dining room:

The next piece is really cool...unfortunately though it didn't get to stay here at home.  It now lives at my husband's office.

My husband is a huge Daredevil fan.  He likes all Marvel characters, but especially Daredevil.  Daredevil is an attorney who fights crime.  My husband is a prosecuting attorney who puts bad guys in jail.  See?  It makes sense.

He got the original artwork from a Daredevil comic book which was the pencil drawing and the inking.  It is of Matt Murdock (a.k.a. Daredevil) falling off a building.  He is clearly in his attorney get-up, but as he's falling, you can see his Daredevil suit underneath.

Sorry for the poor picture....I didn't want to take the wrapping off of the frame because he was transporting it to work.  Pencil is on the left, ink on the right (although I'm sure you could have figured that out.

Cool, huh?  He's hanging it in his office at work.

The last piece is something we got at an art fair last year while my family was here visiting.  It's my lovebirds!

This photo does it no justice at all...the coloring is so much more vibrant in 'real life'!  I hung it up in my entryway.

So that's it.  We finally got around to framing them, which was a good feeling!

I'm no art expert or anything...I just like what I like.  Whether it be Super Girl, an Eiffel Tower from Paris, or a love birds painting.  There's always something to look at our house!

The Newest Member of Our Family

Ok, so maybe it's our extended family.  This is Bella.  Well...her name is not 100% yet, but I have a feeling that will be her name.  We adopted her from the shelter for my mother-in-law.  She's wanted a dog for quite a while and when we seen this one we got that feeling.  She was the one.  

She's been at my mother-in-laws since 3:30 this afternoon.  She's been cuddled, received hundreds of kisses, eaten dinner, played outside, and inspected her new home.  She seems to like it.  She has her own bed, playpen, and many toys.

She is so loved already!!  We are glad to have another fur baby in the family.

How to Make Little Tiny Bear Beds Out of Altoid Tins for Your 4-Year-Old Niece

How's that for a long blog title?

So a few weeks back, I was perusing the many blogs that I read on a daily basis, and one of them had a link to the most adorable little bed made out of an Altoid tin.

It had a little 'sheet' attached to the bottom, a pillow, a blanket, and a bear.  Only it was all hand sewn and felt.

I don't sew.  Not even little stuff like that.  But I loved the idea so much that I became determined to re-create it somehow for my niece.

Once I had brainstormed,  I went to Hobby Lobby and headed straight for the dollhouse section.  Baby bears!  Little tiny ones!  And even tinier ones!  Then I found a little package of flour and sugar sacks...pillows!

Then I hit up the fabric section.  I went to the end of one of the aisles which is known as the 'remnant' section:  the miscellaneous scraps that are, well, remnants.  I picked out 4 different kinds and was then finished. (I highly suggest this....the remnants were perfect, and were priced between .47 - 5.00.)

Here's my supplies all laid out and ready to go:

The first thing I did was make a template to use for the 'sheet' on the bottom of the tin.  Simple...I just traced the bottom of the tin on paper and then pinned it to the fabric and cut it out.  It is very important to have good fabric sheers.  Mine are Fiskars....I love them!

I cut one one sheet, and adhered it to the bottom of the large Altoid tin with adhesive called 'Liquid Stitch' (also found in the fabric area at Hobby Lobby).  At first I wasn't sure it would work, because it's made to adhere fabric to fabric, not fabric to metal.  But it worked perfectly!

I decided to do two layers of sheets though.  One just seemed too thin and some parts were a little blotchy because of the adhesive.  But two sheets worked well.

Then it was time for the pillow placement.

I looked at my assortment of flour and sugar sacks, and picked the smallest one.

Hmm.

Houston, we have a problem.  The pillow worked fine when the tin was open, but it was too fluffy that I couldn't get the lid closed.

Fortunately, the pillows had a teeny tiny hole on one end where they had sewn the corners, so I got out my tweezers and took about 3/4 of the stuffing out.  So the bears' pillow wasn't quite as fluffy now, but at least they didn't get their heads smashed in when the tin closed.

Now it was time for the blanket.  I didn't get many pictures of this process, unfortunately I only got a picture of the final product:

There's not really an easy way to do this...I pretty much just eyeballed how much I would need, and then started cutting, folding, and using the Liquid Stitch to 'hem' the blanket.

Then it was time to tuck them in:

Awwwww!!

I pretty much did the same thing for the little tiny baby bear bed.

Except he didn't get a pillow.  His bed was just too small.  Babies aren't supposed to have pillows anyways.

"I want a blanket"

Okay.

His blanket is flannel.

Done!

I loved how they turned out.  Sure, they aren't hand sewn, but I think they're better!  The 'fancy' one that I found online was cute, but everything was attached.  The pillow, the blanket.  What fun is that?  The only thing that is attached on mine is the bottom sheet.  The pillow, blanket, and bears are all removable.  (if my niece loses them, I will gladly make more.  I have extra pillows and loads of extra material!)  That's half the fun!  I used to hate it when things were attached on my toys.  (like a baby attached to the mama, etc.)

Hopefully my niece will have as much fun playing with them as I had making them.  They are boxed up and I'm sending them out tomorrow!

Rosa

We have a cleaning lady named Rosa.

She comes every Tuesday.  I know this is a luxury.  I know I am very, very fortunate.  She has changed my life, and I know that sounds cheesy and corny and dramatic, but it is true.

I'm a pretty low maintenance gal.  I don't get my hair done regularly.  I don't get my nails done.  I don't get pedicures but once or twice a year.  I don't buy expensive clothes.

Instead, I write out Rosa a check every week, and in turn she makes me a sane, relaxed woman.

We have five animals.  FIVE.  That are indoors 100% of the time.  If we didn't have animals, I would not need Rosa.  But we do.  So I need Rosa.

Rosa is a wonderful, wonderful lady.  I don't speak with her often (her English is not the greatest).  She and her husband come faithfully every Tuesday and clean my house from top to bottom.  And when I say top to bottom...I mean it.  Which brings me to the whole point of this post.

Every Tuesday I come home from work and spend about 10 minutes putting everything back in place.  It makes me smile.  They move furniture.  They mop underneath our bed EVERY WEEK.  They dust the top of bookshelves.  The top of the fridge.  They even dust the top of the kitchen cabinets (you know that weird space between the top of the cabinets and the ceiling?).

So everything is a bit 'off' when I come home on Tuesdays.  And I love it.  I love pushing the couch a few inches back.  I love letting down my bedroom curtains (they knot them up when they are mopping).  I love straightening the pictures that have moved when they are dusting them.

Rosa has some quirks too, which I also love.  For example, I was storing all of my fall boots underneath the bed.  That was the only thing under there.  Nope, Rosa wasn't having it.  For about three Tuesdays, she had removed them stacked them neatly in the closet.  She won.  They now have a home in the garage during the summer.

She is a lifesaver.  Before her, I wasn't able to relax.  I was constantly cleaning.  Constantly picking up messes and figuring out which room to focus on that evening.  I couldn't even sit down and watch tv for 30 minutes without feeling guilty because the house wasn't clean.

We still do chores, but it's every day stuff:  laundry, cleaning the cat box, dishwasher, etc.  My stress level has gone from high to almost non-existent.  It really has been a blessing.

Even with the quirks: