Finishing Projects IS Simplying!

Here is the fam lounging on the large pillows I made. The front is made from decorator fabric and the back is made from a fuzzy blanket.



This is the cushion made for the plowman's chair in the den. The front is decorator fabric and the back is plain brown fabric. I made ties to hold it in place. We are making covered buttons to put on the cushion to finish it.



These are two small 16x16 pillows made out of the leftover fuzzy blanket.



Lastly I made 3 curtains out of the decorator fabric, backed with plain brown fabric and edged with brown cording.



I had no patterns for any of the home stuff I am doing. I prefer to work without patterns and just figure it out as I go along.

4 Priorities

It seems that everyone is touting having 4 priorities that you focus your attention on:

Zen Habits

Far Beyond the Stars

Live It With Less - The Big 4

So I have been doing a lot of thinking about my big 4.

Right now, I am concentrating less on what I ultimately want to do, and more on what will get me there, therefore my big 4 for the month of May is:

1. Get the girls' promoted to 3rd grade (they are due to graduate to 2nd, but their teacher agrees with me they would be bored in 2nd and do better in 3rd)- so far I have met with their teacher, who gave her blessing and recommended that I meet with the principal. I have emailed the principal and intend to call her tomorrow. I understand they don't have a history of skipping students, but I think my girls deserve to be in a class that challenges them.

2. Finish all projects in the home that I am responsible for and continue decluttering. I have finished all the pillows, curtains, and cushions for the den. I am waiting for my husband to help me finish making the covered buttons and once I sew those on, the den is done. I have cut and started sewing the kitchen curtains. I have cut the curtains, shams, and roll pillow covers for the bedroom. I hope to have all this sewn tonight. Then all I will have to do is paint our family tree painting. I am decluttering each day, never purging less than 5 items a day. Husband is collecting them all in the garage for an upcoming garage sale.

3. Get work in order. Ugh. This is the one I am dreading. Due to a family emergency and several doctor appointments last week, I have only been at work less than 2 days in the last 2 weeks. I have errands to run in the morning and intend to stay a little later each day this week to try to catch up.

4. Blog. I want to keep this blog up to date as much as possible, not just to track my progress on simplifying, but also to document my recent art projects, home projects, and general goings on. I have a tendency to start and not finish and I want to make this blog a priority..

Now onto sewing! The faster I get this stuff done, the faster I can get to organizing and decluttering, which is much more fun right now!

Garage sales, sewing, and game night, oh my!

We got up early this morning to start off our garage sale shopping season. We love garage sales. This is the primary way I get new clothes for the girls and occassionally I get a nice find or two for myself. Thad usually gets a gadget or two as well.
We got a couple of things for the house:
This beauty, we intend to hang in the dining room. We have just the empty space for it.

These baskets fit so perfectly with our decor we couldn't pass them up. Thad thinks we should fill them with peat moss, potting soil and plants and hang them out front. I'm undecided.



Of course I found some books. And the sale benefitted a local library, so I was glad to oblige with some books for me and some for the girls.

Tris had to spend her hard earned money on this and a video game. They had great fun playing darts on the garage door once they figured out it was magnetic.

Tab was lured in by this marionette tiger.

We got several clothing items (great brands) for the girls this summer and this cute little bench to sit in front of their window. They can use it for overflow toys.


I got a beautiful silver tiny tea set that I just really wanted. The lady seemed upset to part with it for $5 but she finally did. I envision pretend tea parties with the girls outside this summer.


As part of my effort to destress my life, I finished a project that had been nagging at me. I finally sewed the cushion for our plowman's chair. I still have to add buttons, but it looks pretty nice. You can see it matches the pillows I made weeks ago that the teen is using to sheild himself from the camera.




Tonight consitituted our first official Family Game Night. I had bought Blokus for 4 players. We had a blast except Thad got mad at me when I kept heckling him even after I got out of the game. Hence the angry face. It was nice when the teen voluntarily joined in the game....


For Christmas, my mom gave the girls a butterfly habitat. Hubby pulled it down to order the cocoons. Right after he sent off the request, the girls found dozens in the yard...