Culture

Some people grow up thinking "Classical" music is boring. I, on the other hand, love it. I spent 7 years of my life playing in the orchestra (violin and viola, though I was terrible). My sister is an AMAZING harpist and I had the privilege of going to one of her concerts last weekend. The second half was The Planets by Gustav Holst. It's one of my ALL TIME FAVORITE pieces, and it was so neat to hear my sister be a really important part of it. Here is my favorite movement (not their actual performance), but they are all worth checking out:



 And here is the movement I most enjoyed hearing her play. There are some really neat harmonics in the harp, especially toward the end.

 

A Little Bit of Knitting...

I have been SUPER crafty lately, but not so great about taking pictures of my craftiness. Sometimes I take Instagram pics of my knitting, but I have yet to photograph the final pieces so far. In the meantime, here are some "WIP" pics for you...

I knitted my first real sock last week. I used an adorable yarn by Paton that self stripes. Self-striping yarn is seriously like crack for a knitter, you ALWAYS have to get to the next stripe! I finished the sock, it's okay, it doesn't fit great because I made size 9 in the pattern and it turns out my feet are not as fat as I thought they were. It's fine though, I'm excited to make the match.

With the leftover yarn I started knitting a sock for Little Miss C. For this sock I used the Lifestyle Toe Up Sock design, and Judy's Magic Cast On to make the toe. I LOVE this technique and love how it turned out. Little Miss C was SO excited that I started knitting a sock for her. 

Here's a continuation of the sock for Little Miss C. (Can you tell I worked on it a lot in the car in between school pickups?) I really like the Lifestyle design, no need for a gauge, or a pattern really. In this picture I had just learned how to do short row heels for toe-up socks and I was about to take the plunge and start the heel. I finished the sock the next day, pic to come soon. Little Miss C loves it.

This is Little Miss C's birthday present. I wish I could go more into detail what it is right now, but I want to write a more thorough post on it. It is going really fast though, and I have another 4 inches done since this photo was taken last night. 

I also finished a sweater for myself, I need to reblock it and take some photos as it turned out quite lovely. Cold weather always makes me want to curl up with a fresh skein of yarn and needles and just knit away. More pics to come soon, blessings!

Almost There....

Hey everyone! We have had a REALLY productive week with the basement and I wanted to share our progress. We are 4 walls away from finishing framing the walls, and we have already started the soffits. It's definitely a slowly but surely project, but sometimes weeks like this pop up and it feels like we have come such a long way!

For reminders, here are the befores:

And here is where we are currently at:

This is where the living room will be. It's currently the cutting area, and we let the kids play with the pile of extra blocks to make castles.

Here's a look at the south side of the hallway. This wall was a BEAR to build, and fit inside the room we built it in by about 4 inches, but my awesome hubby got it up and did a great job! This side has the entrance to the storage room (currently a.k.a. THE MESS) and the craft room.

Here's a look at the north side of that same hallway. Entrance to the bathroom (still to be built after tub is installed,) linen closet, and kids' playroom.

This is the bathroom. It's 6 feet wide, so we are debating between putting a 6 ft. long tub, or a 5 ft. long tub with a *small* storage space next to it. Thoughts, anyone?

Here is the kiddos' playroom. They are so excited! This is also what remains of our GIANT wood pile we had when we started this project. Might need to go shopping soon for some more wood...

This is the closet in the kiddos' room. It's pretty deep, with plenty of room for shelving inside. You can also see the entrance to the water heater closet. We still need to build the door headers on this wall.

This little nook ended up being kind of a surprise design. We had originally planned on having the kids' room and craft room doors both at a 45 degree angle to reflect what we have upstairs, but we couldn't figure out a way to make that secure enough to stay up so we had to make the kids' room a regular 90 degrees and ended up with this fun little nook. Big Man E wants to make this his "lego" area, most likely though at first it will be IKEA shelving.

Here is the entrance to the craft room I had to take a picture of this spot because I am SO PROUD of the 45 degree angle doorway that I cut the wood for all by myself. This room is HUGE and we have some awesome plans for it!

This is the closet in my craft room. The doors are 6 feet wide and it's 40 inches deep. Can we say, MASSIVE?! I think Harry Potter would be happy to live there. Hopefully it will be enough room for all of my crafty stuff/photography gear/sewing stuff etc....

This is another surprise nook we ended up with. We had to move the door to the storage room and ended up with this little nook area. My hubby is VERY excited about it, as am I. Plans for this nook include 2 docking stations for laptops with at least one using a dual monitor setup. This way hubby can work from home and LOCK THE DOOR so kids (and I) don't bug him while he is working, and we both can use a computer at the same time. Maybe a LAN party here and there too will be in order....

Last pic for now, this is the linen closet in the hallway. I have actually toyed with the idea of me and hubby moving downstairs and having all the kids upstairs since the rooms down here are so massive and going to be so beautiful. Maybe someday when they are grown, I just don't think I could give up my soaker tub :) 

So far we have done ALL of the framing ourselves, my dad helping and hubby and I at about 90% of the framing. We used the amazing videos from http://basementfinishingvideos.com  to learn how to do it and it has been a huge blessing. We did have to adjust the techniques to account for the floating walls required in the state of Colorado but for the most part it is the same. We are hoping to work on the soffits this week and maybe even get the bathtub in place so we can frame the rest of the bathroom. After we are 100% done with the framing I am planning a video walkthrough, so stay tuned!

Quick Little Basement Update

Believe it or not, I actually have more cards to post! I just haven't had time to photograph them. I probably will on Friday...

Just wanted to share a quick update on our basement remodel. It's definitely moving right along, although more slowly than I had hoped. Surprisingly, Dave and I have done about 85% of the framing that is finished so far. We feel very proud of ourselves! Who knew we would be capable of planning carpentry items, using scary tools like a ramset and nail gun, and even overcoming problems as they arise. It really is going very well right now! I don't have fully updated pics yet, but here are a few for now:

This is what I mean when I say it amazes me that Dave and I can figure out how to build a wall like this all by ourselves. We had to account for 4 adjacent walls, plumbing for a sink, pipes on the ceiling, a beam that comes down lower, and a gas valve that needed to be accessible. Voila! The heaviest wall ever.

Big Man E loves to help. Here he is making his own "levels."

This is definitely not the most recent progress by a long shot, but it at least shows how fast this really can go. At this point we are completely done with exterior walls and slowly but surely building the interior walls. We are definitely on our way!

Botanical Cards 5

This one is my favorite so far.

Find this card in my Etsy shop here

Paper is by K&Company

Sentiment Sticker by Cloud9Designs

Botanical Cards 4

GAH! Do you know how hard it is to photograph foil? Let's just say this one looks WAY better in person...

Find this card in my Etsy shop here

Paper and die cut by K&Company

Sentiment Sticker by Cloud9Designs

Botannical Cards 3

As my bestie says, "Put a bird on it!"

Find this card in my Etsy shop here

Paper is by K&Company

Sentiment Sticker is by Cloud9Designs

Botannical Cards 2

Find this card in my Etsy shop here

Paper is by K&Company

Friendship Sticker is by Cloud9Designs

Botanical Cards

I have always LOVED K&Company paper. It was one of the first brands that drew me in to scrapbooking, and some of my earliest pages were adorned with carefully cut flowers from paper that I often thought was too pretty to use. I found a small stack of paper and a package of die cuts (no hand cutting for this series! Hooray!) on sale at Joann's for 40% off. As I am sitting typing this, I have a total of 5 cards finished so far in this series, but I have more materials to make many, many more. I plan on doing a series with the jewel tones sets I found, then showing something else for a bit, then coming back and showing the fall tones. Enjoy!

Find this card in my Etsy shop here

Paper and Die Cuts are by K&Company

Sentiment Sticker is by Cloud9Design

Halloween Cards 6

Find this card in my Etsy shop here

Paper is Die Cuts With a View Happy Hauntings

I think I'm tired of Halloween cards, how about you? Tomorrow we move on to another series! Which one was your favorite?

Halloween Cards 5

Meh, this is another one I don't care for. Oh well :)

Find this card in my Etsy Shop here

Paper is Die Cuts With a View Happy Hauntings Stack

Halloween Cards 4

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Paper is Die Cuts With a View Happy Hauntings Paper Stack

Halloween Cards 3

I think this one is my favorite in this series...

Find this card in my Etsy shop here

Paper is Die Cuts With a View Happy Hauntings

Halloween Cards 2

Find this card in my Etsy shop here

Paper is from Die Cuts With a View Happy Haunting Stack

Halloween Cards 1

Here is another stack I have had lying around my house for ages. I figured hey, it's fall, and this is the closest thing I have to fall materials right now. Some of these cards I am happy with, some I am not. I always tell my husband though, "just because it's not my favorite doesn't mean it won't be someone else's favorite." Knowing my luck, one of the cards I dislike will be the first to sell in my shop. Figures :)

PS this is one of the cards I can't stand. Just getting it out of the way....

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Green Stack Card 2 (The End)

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