Blue Monday

Hi everyone,
I have the day off today so I thought I would participate with you all for Blue Monday!

Thank you Smiling Sally for organizing this fun event each week. To view other participants hop on over to her blog and join in the fun!

I have some wonderful new blue additions to my home that I would love to share with you - This first picture I have actually shared before...

This is a beautful blue quilt that I bought in Hawaii while we were visiting our daughter at her college in Oahu. I bought it because it reminded me of my mother. To recap the story, my brother and I decided to have a memorial service for my mom on the Big Island where my aunt lives. My mother LOVED Hawaii, so we decided to have a memorial service for her on the beach that she loved. As we were placing Lei's in the water on that special day, a beautiful sea turtle swam by. It is such a heartfelt memory for me that when I saw this quilt a few years later in Hawaii, I wanted to preserve the memory of that special day. It has sea turtles swimming throughout the quilt - It is such a special treasure to me - plus - it is blue - my favorite color that I spread throughout my house!

I have shared this picture of dining room chairs that I recovered, in a past post. To read the full post click here.

I have decided to try using some more of the toile material that I used for my chairs, in some curtains for the big bay window in our dining room.

I just tied the fabric up temporarily with ribbons for now - This is a work in progress that I won't be able to finish until after my classes are done for this quarter. I have been SO busy with schoolwork that I haven't been able do much else. I really should be finishing up homework today- but I needed a break - what better way to fill up my time then sharing a post with you today!

:-)

I wanted to see if the toile fabric would look okay here - or if it would be too busy - what do you think? I am not too sure if I will end up making curtains or just draping it into swathes like you see here - I could add dark blue tassels...any ideas? I would love suggestions!

Sorry that the pictures are so dark -I took them too early this morning.

Recently our neighborhood had a community garage sale and I found this great plate rack for $5.00! I have been looking for plates to use with it at my favorite Goodwill - I knew that if I was patient, I would find just what I was looking for.

Aren't these lovely? I got two of them for .99 cents apiece! I love it when that happens! If you haven't gone to your local thrift store lately I highly recommend it - you will be surprised at the treasures you can find there if you are patient. These are ironstone plates - on the back of them it reads"Johnson Brothers Stoke-On Trent England Coaching Scenes. Made in England."

I am sure that they would have cost more if I would have found them in an antique store. I love me a good bargain - don't you?

Here is another beautiful blue plate that I found at my favorite flea market here in Atlanta called "The Classy Flea" I am kicking myself for only picking up one of these - there were four of them available at $7.95 a piece. I went back to get more of them later and of course they were gone! ugh!

I have a pillar shelf in my kitchen that is a fun place to display some of my blue treasures. It is painted white and I felt that it didn't show my blue and white pieces to their best advantage so I followed a fellow bloggers suggestion and added some scrapbook paper to the shelves.

From this....

To THIS.... What do you think? My hubby thinks it is too busy...

I feel that it adds a needed splash of color - as you can see I LOVE the color blue!

Thanks for stopping by to visit me today for Blue Monday - I enjoyed sharing my blues with you!

Blessings on your day today,

Time Well Spent

Today was a rare day off for me. I actually have the rest of the week off and am enjoying every minute of it! I can't say that I have been doing much lying around as you see in the cute picture above - I have been playing catch up and getting a few things done around here.

Remember the dilemma I have been having with color for my dining room in this post? Well, I have been working on this room and I am excited to show you what I have done so far.

Say goodbye to the ugly original covering to this old chair...

And say hello to the new and improved chair covering! I am so proud of myself - this is my first attempt at doing this. It was super easy and VERY forgiving! I found a great tutorial here.

I am so motivated now to finish my window treatments for this room and put pictures on the wall. I will show pictures when I get that part done. For now - I am playing with the room arrangement.

Table arrangement with candlesticks... or...

(Wish I could find an interesting wine cupboard or something to store hubby's collection that you see in the corner - the garage maybe?

~Big grin~)

Table arrangement without candlesticks.

As you can see - Ginger is "helping" me by being directly underfoot throughout the whole process. She loves it when I am home all day and rarely leaves my side.

What do you think Ginger?

Blessings on your day today,

Kymber and Ginger

W.I.P.(Work In Progress) Wednesday Color Dilemma

I love color! Why I can't seem to pull color together for my home is the big question of the day. I am in a rut and am looking for advise and direction from all of you wonderful decorators out there!

I have now lived in this beautiful home for one year. I still can't believe it has been a whole year already! Time flies - doesn't it? We still have some rooms in our home that we haven't put pictures up in yet. I have been in a state of indecision and because I tend to be a perfectionist - it has been easier to just put it off. Enough is enough - I NEED to get my house finished and I need your expert advise.

When we moved here, our dining room walls were painted a lovely hunter green color. They look so nice against the white wainscoting that I haven't been able to paint it another color. I tend to love the color blue. I have it in almost every room of my house so I really have been fighting the urge to use it once again in THIS room.

Heres my dilemma:
I have this beautiful wall quilt that means so much to me - I finally decided to have my husband put it up on the wall in our dining room.



Those of you who have read my blog for awhile, know how sentimental I am! I purchased this quilt a few years ago after we had a memorial service for my mom on a beautiful beach on the Big Island of Hawaii. During our family gathering - when we were putting Lei's out in the water, a giant sea turtle swam through right at that moment. It was such a special moment to me that when we saw this beautiful quilt in one of the stores in Hawaii, I knew I had to have it! As you can see - there are
sea turtles everywhere on this quilt!

Here is a different angle so you can get an idea of the wall space I have to work with. I am thinking about adding some white plates/platters on the two sides to try to balance it all out. What do you think?

We were going to use reds in this room - we purchased a table and chair set from a wonderful store here in Atlanta called the Classy Flea. I have written about this wonderful store in several of my past posts and if you are familiar with Susan - she has written some great posts that she calls "Flea Fridays" about terrific finds that you can get at this store. She is the reason that I stopped in one day - I am now officially hooked and you will find many beautiful things in my house that I have purchased from The Classy Flea.

Here is another picture of the hutch that I purchased from there and as you can see sitting on the top - is a NEW item - my cute little bird cage that I just found during a visit last weekend!

Look at those bare walls! ~oops!~ I am digressing again ...

We purchased this table and plan to refinish it - (don't look too closely at the dust) my hubby likes the look of the striped red in the seat covers so I have been on the look out at the fabric store for something that will work to recover them with. I can't seem to settle on this color though - because in MY mind - everything will clash. We bought this rug at a garage sale. It will have to do until I can find something better. It clashes with the red and now my quilt does too! Should I just give up and go with blues in here again?

I have this fabric bolt that I was going to make curtains out of at my old house and now my hubby isn't too keen on using it in this home. I love toile - but I already have alot of it in my kitchen - do I want to use it in yet another room?

Should I use it to recover these ugly chairs?


I can also use it for curtains.....
UGH! I wish this came easier for me - I marvel at how you talented ladies are able to effortlessly add color to your homes and they just seem to flow!

This is why I have such a hard time deciding on colors for a quilt that I want to make - my color choices never seem to look right to me so I get stuck in indecision.

I love the rich colors of the blues and the green in this room - just don't know how to tie it all together with other colors. HELP!

On a DIFFERENT note...

Not too much happening on my WIP crafts....

Finished up this block - finally! Beginning to cut out fabric for the February block - (slightly behind- but who cares?)

Working on my Grandmothers Flower Garden hexagons in the evenings...

Handwork that I do while sitting with my honey watching television in the evenings! It is so relaxing to me and even though the process is slow - every little bit counts and brings me closer to finishing this quilt! I keep the paper pieces in to help stabilize it until I am ready to put it all together.

Blessings on your creative day,
Kymber

Pink Saturday

It's Pink Saturday again and I had so much fun last week I thought I would join in the fun again! Thanks to Beverly at How Sweet the Sound for starting this fun event. Be sure to visit Beverly's blog to see a complete list of participants for this week.

Since I showed you the pinks in my bathroom last week, I thought that I would show you one of my guest bedrooms this week. This room is a work in progress.(actually - all of the rooms in my house are!) We moved here in June and we are still trying to put things together! There is so much left to do.


I am such a girly girl and wanted one room in my house to be really feminine. I can only do so much "girly" stuff in the Master bedroom. My husband is pretty good about letting me do whatever I want - but I try to tone it down for him. I decided to go all out in the guest room though. I still need to get a headboard for the bed yet, but it's a start!

I love the bedspread for this room - I was happy to find it at TJ Maxx (don't you just love that store?) I have put the softest sheets and blankets on this bed - I want our guests to be comfortable in here so they will stay a long time. ~smile~



I've had this picture for a long time and I am so glad that it works well in this room. I love bunnies and flowers - a perfect combination!








I bought this picture many years ago for my husband on our anniversary. I have always loved this passage from the Bible. One more picture for this room - I didn't know I had so much pink!



As I was looking around for pink in my house, I ran across this precious book. I bought this for my mother years ago. It is a journal that is made just for mothers to put their thoughts down so that children can hold onto memories when they may not be there to tell the tales of their lives.

My mother, as I have written about before, had been sick for a long time and we knew that her time with us was short. By giving her this book I was able to capture things about her that she had never told me before. I only wish I had given it to her sooner as her memory was starting to fade. What she did write I will always cherish. There are beautiful writings in this book about her relationships with her siblings and parents. It is such a treasure! The book asks questions that your mother is supposed to answer - such as:

• Describe one of your favorite dress-up outfits as a child. On what occasions would you wear it?


• Who was your favorite teacher and why?


• When did you first go to church - what are your first memories of church?


• What are the things you are most glad you tried?

I could go on and on! The questions in this book really help you to get to know the beautiful person that your mother was/is. It is priceless to me now!

If you haven't seen this book, I highly recommend getting this for your mother, or getting it for yourself to write in it for your children. I found the link on Amazon if you would like to look at it.

This cute little tea cup and saucer were given to me by my mother in law. It held a little tea rose bouquet. I love how unique it is! Right now it sits in my dining room hutch but I may end up putting it in my guest room. I may put it atop the nightstand with an african violet in the cup!

Of course Ginger wanted to show you her pink for today! How could anyone mistake her for a boy - She is such a little lady!

I hope that you enjoyed my "Pinks". Look for updates to come on my room projects - as I finish the rooms I will be showing you the end results!
Blessings,

Kymber

Pink Saturday

This is my first Pink Saturday post and I am so excited to be joining in the fun! Thanks to Beverly at How Sweet The Sound for starting this fun event. Be sure to visit Beverly's blog to see a complete list of participants.

I thought it fitting to show you a bathroom in our home that is made up of various shades of pink and burgundy. I call it the Rose Room - can you see why? :-)

I have enjoyed collecting rose items over the years. I have a few things left that I want to do in here - namely choosing a color for the walls that will compliment and not overwhelm this room. As you can see - there is a lot going on in here!

I love this heart plaque. I have always been drawn to "Victorian"decor. The shelf is something that I embellished years ago out of necessity.

When my daughter was young, she was in gymnastics. She loved to do cartwheels throughout the house. I had a hutch where I displayed all of my fine china that I received from my great-grandmother... Do you see where I am going with this?

My sweet daughter clipped the edge of a beautiful teapot that my grandma had given me and it fell to the floor and shattered into pieces before I could catch it. I was devastated and so was she!

I saved all of the pieces because I couldn't bear to throw them away. One day I read about mosaic designs in a magazine and I knew what I was going to do with the pieces. my girlfriend came over and finished the deed of breaking the teapot into smaller pieces because I couldn't bring myself to do it. After adhering the pieces onto the painted shelf, I grouted it, wiped it clean and what you see is the finished result! It was a fun project to do. If you are interested in doing a mosaic project of your own, check out this great HGTV article.

I am still able to hold onto a part of my beloved grandmother - all was not lost after all!

I hope one day to do more mosaic pieces like this - unfortunately, I have MORE precious items that weren't able to survive my children's roughhousing. I guess when you have seven children - you are likely to have some mishaps now and again. :-)

I found this shower curtain on ebay. It was one of the few times I actually won and got a good price in the process! I hope to pull a color out of this shower curtain to use for the paint color in the room. Maybe a light shade of mocha perhaps? I really am at a loss when it comes to paint colors!

(Pay no attention to the towels in this bathroom - I didn't even notice that they were all askew when I took the pictures!)

Okay - now the towel is straight - but it is off center - Grrr!

Isn't this a cute metal toleware piece? I got it at one of my favorite stores here in Atlanta "The Classy Flea." I am always on the lookout for toleware pieces and couldn't pass this one up.

Okay.... again - Do.not.look.at.the.towel! ACK! What was I thinking? Did I just throw things together in here?

I am really proud of this picture. It was a card that I got free from Hallmark - some promo deal they had going - I don't remember. I picked up the frame for .25 at Goodwill and voila! A cute picture for pennies! I will probably spray paint the frame white to match the bathroom colors better.

Can you tell I also love candles? When guests come over they are always afraid their hair will go up in flames - but really - doesn't everything look better in the glow of candlelight?

I am so glad that you stopped by for my first Pink Saturday post! It has been a lot of fun showing all of my pink treasures to you! Now I am off to see what you have to show today!

Blessings,

Kymber