Before
In the rush to get our house looking as presentable as possible before our parents got here for the baptism I ended up getting one room mostly done. Now when the UPS man comes to drop off my books (we have a horrible library here, and only one little book store) I wont be
embarrassed to open the door to him.
The Living Room (stupidly named because you don't live in the living room, you live in the family room) is a hard room because it is long and narrow.
I have no idea how to arrange the furniture (I'm standing by the front door), the color on the wall is NOT what I thought it would be and I still need to slip cover the chair, stain the bookcase and add drapes, but it will just have to do for a year or two (until I finally feel up to tackling it again....maybe at Ella's baptism). Even though it turned out no where near what I had in my head I still love it when I walk into it because of a few touches that I adore. Here they are, the things that make this room part of my
home:
Firstly the art my mother got me for Christmas.
It is a painting by Sandra
Rast and the mother and toddler in the picture look uncannily like Me and
Livi. It is in a beautifully impressionistic style (which I adore) and I love it.
The second thing is the family rules sign I made. I was looking at some on
Etsy when I thought "I could do that." That phrase gets me in so much trouble, but occasionally (like the
lego necklaces or this sign) it turns out awesome. Toot toot.
It's twice as big as the ones I was looking at, cost half as much to make myself, and I got to hand pick all the sayings on there.
If you can find the
Beesley family motto on their props to you! I think my little
Stott families new motto should be "Oh, I can't understand whining. Try talking in a normal voice," but that gets pretty lengthy to put on a board so I just put "No Whining."
The third thing(s) are all on the bookcase in the back of the room. There is my princess art book, all our family photo albums, and inspired (directly copied) by my beautiful sister, and the Checkout Girl, the felt 'anniversary' home I made.
Forth is my piano and what is on top. I like the pictures, but the
felty I won from my sisters blog makes me grin every time I see it.
Her description is pretty awesome too:
"Campfire Stories"
The father hedgehog decided he needed to toughen up his kid, and thus took him to go rough it in the wilderness (I imagine it being in the desert). The son (I'll call him "Mikey") was used to having a bedtime story, and thus asked his father to stand in for what was usually his mother's niche. The father, being what I like to call a "Dad", used this opportunity to tell his son about the "Petshop of Doom". Upon returning home, Mikey was unable to sleep in his own bed for the next two weeks without night terrors, and consequently his mother forbid any more camping trips or scary stories. This scene is the pivotal moment where Mikey and his father got so close to bonding. . . and yet, alas, it was not to be.
If you want to see more of her creations she is on a
felty marathon, making 52 this year and they are all funny, so check her out at: thejujubee.blogspot.com
That's it for now. Hopefully we go more than 2 days being healthy and I can get more of my house wrapped up. I'm not counting on it though.
like mice...
or rabbits. 
I'm not sure when it started, but one day I noticed there were art projects up on ALL my walls.
Even in my bedroom. I ultimately had to ask what was going on and was informed Ella was using her new easel A LOT and wanted to basically make our entire house into a gallery. We had to have a talk about asking first, and trying to keep the art to the main family room. I was feeling a little grumbly, asking myself (in my head) "where had she gotten the idea that it was okay to go around taping anything up on the walls" when I walked into the living room:
Oh, yeah. Because I do it all the time.
