The Best of Christmas 2012

Larsen Family Christmas 2012: The Highlight Reel

• Homemade gingerbread house, complete with chimney and lots of candy sampling (thanks, mom, you are the best Nana ever!)

•  Christmas Eve Nativity Play, complete with adoring and adorable shepherds and their sheepdog

• Christmas Jammies!

•  Pillow Pets from Auntie Misty and Uncle Drew. Complete with handlebars for jaunty rides around the kitchen....

•  My dad made this cradle for my dolls when I was a little girl. I repainted and stenciled it and made a patchwork doll quilt for Alyssa.

•  Great time with family

•  a healthy sense of humor

•  and, of course, some really cool toys to play with.

Now, if only I can get my NOOK to synch up with my computer so I can actually use it....

Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas!

I dedicate this post to shoes

As Cinderella once noted, "the right shoe can change your life." I'm not sure I'd take it that far, but this little project was pretty cool. I first got the idea from a craft blog nearly a year ago and was dying for the chance to try it myself. I found the perfect pair of boring heels for $3 at Goodwill, but never got around to fabric shopping.

Over Thanksgiving we were in Utah with most of the Larsen clan and the girls decided we wanted some fun projects, and this was perfect. Well, at least I thought it was perfect--a few of the patterns were tricky to make but we stuck it out!

Serious chaos

 Here is the whole layout. We didn't think to put them in the same order, so I tried to label them. Sometimes it's hard to connect the "before" with the "after".... It's a super easy project involving mod podge, fabric, cheap shoes from goodwill, DI, or your closet, and an exacto knife. Want more info? Click here for a flats tutorial, here for a heels/wedges tutorial, and here for the original inspiration. For what it's worth, we used outdoor mod podge because it's more water proof, and we decided that heels are much easier to make patterns for than flats. You only need 1/8 yard of fabric for a pair of shoes and it's easier to match up abstract designs than stripes.

Click on this to see it BIG

The guys were great sports about of crafting. Mostly because they were shut in with a bunch of computers playing Command & Conquer Generals for an entire day.

So, anyone else have a pair of still comfy but rarely worn shoes in their closet that need a $2 makeover? :o)

Thanksgiving 2011

What a wonderful week! I have a scattered handful of pictures that fail to capture much of the awesomeness. First, there was driving.

She played peek a boo with herself for a few hours

Quit yawning and pull over!

We split our drive to Utah over two days and stayed the night with our fabulous friends, the Birks, who moved to Hendersen, Nevada a few months ago just to be closer to us. Really, they moved for Adam's job as a lawyer, but we couldn't be happier that they're closer! Thanks again for letting us crash at your place--we loved seeing you and holding that brand new baby Olivia!

We've known each other since there were only four of us! We now have a cute bunch of kids...

The rest of the trip was a whirlwind of Nerts (Bekah, you are still the reigning champion so you can keep the belt buckle for now...), Acquire, Settlers, Family Feud, eating, cooking, shopping, crafting, and 14 hours of Generals Command & Conquer. While the boys locked themselves in with a bunch of computers to play, the girls made Christmas ornaments and some fabulously amazing shoes. Pictures of that project to come, as it seems I didn't take any with my camera! (Emily, help me out here!). The girls pitched in to tie the quilt I've been making for Eric's grandpa in memory of Grandma Gay.

Some fabulous looking ladies

There was also this:

There were 9 nerf guns (one automatic) and about 75 foam nerf arrows. We found them stuck to walls, in closets, in the bathroom....it was CARNAGE.

And our Thanksgiving tradition: bowling. Eric pulled a 186 the second game after a nearly flawless 8 frames.

with Peeta

She loves her Uncle Brent

You're welcome to take our kids anytime, Bekah and Grant!

So excited to meet your baby BOY in April!

Thanks again to Stephen and Emily for letting us takeover your house for the week, to mom for all the wonderful cooking and company, to Bekah for our nice chats and girl time, to Carlissa for your quilting guru-ness and pregnancy gung-ho, to Brent for being a great uncle to my kiddos, to Stephen for helping my husband get his fill of blowing stuff up, to Grant for teaching Scotty killer wrestling moves, to Emily for getting time to talk just us, to dad for letting me actually beat you at Acquire, and to my husband for all his help packing and driving and hanging out. Who's ready for the next vacation?

Larsens go Pumpkin

 Believe it or not, with all of my enthusiasm for the holiday and my love of all things crafty, I'm not a huge "decorate the house for holidays" sort of girl. Maybe if I had the budget...

The sign was $3 at goodwill, the wreath was free through freecycle, and the jars I had laying around the house...am I cheap? Wait, don't answer that. I know I'm cheap thrifty. I guess I figure that if I'm going to spend money, I'll get something I really *need* like new couches, instead of just something I like.

Still, I have to add a least a few touches.

oops, our house landed on a witch! (I blame the haboob). We've decided it's the wicked-ish witch of the southwest, since all the other directions seem to be taken.

We are awesome.

I got this great idea from a blog who adapted it from Martha Stewart, and it was actually really fun to make in addition to being very easy. Roll paint around the inside of a jar and let it sit on the counter for a few days to dry? I can do that. Of course, I don't own a cricut/sizzix/sillouette/vinyl cutting machine so I had to make do. Black sharpie on masking tape cut out with scissors? That's how we do it in Larsenland.

(and I probably just lost any future debate I might have had about needing one of said vinyl cutting machines. Darn my make-do-with-whatever-craftiness!)

I might put treats or something in them later on, but for now they serve absolutely no function. Except awesomeness. And attractiveness. And you just can't charge for that.

Still Crafty

My recent excuses for the lack of blogging are as follows: 1) haven't had the camera out much and posts without pictures are lame. 2) Alyssa is a climbing monkey who keeps me hopping all day long 3) life isn't always exciting as a stay at home mom 4) I've been busy doing fun stuff instead of writing about it!

Ok, ok, I just made all of those reasons up. The real reason I haven't been blogging is that football season just started, and we invested in cable. I mean, I'm helping Scotty memorize the entire Book of Mormon, compose symphonies with full orchestration, and recreate the entire artistic career of Monet. And Alyssa is fluent in three languages. Believe what you will :o)

For Alyssa's birthday I decided I wanted to make her a chair. I found this toddler papasan chair for $1 at a garage sale. It was great! except the frame was a nasty pinkish color, the fabric rubbed off when you touched it, and there was a gaping hole on the bottom.

click to see this bigger

Here's what I came up with. I made the cover removable (the top and bottom pieces are only connected on one side and both have elastic hems to hook over the frame of the chair). I figure, if it's not washable, it shouldn't be around children. I also made the top portion fitted so it would stay in place better on the chair and look like a chair even without someone sitting in it. And the verdict? I think she likes it.

happy birthday! happy climbing...

A plethora of projects

It's official: when it comes to hobbies I have a serious case of ADHD. One week I read 3 novels, the next I'm redesigning my entire blog, for about a day I actually enjoy cooking and trash my kitchen, then spend the next three days detailing my floorboards and the inside of my washing machine. These past two weeks I've been in a DIY decorating frenzy.

First up? A much better looking fan. The promised details and pictures.

Eric has been bugged by this fan since we moved in, but since it functions perfectly it seemed silly to pay $100 for a new one. Bring on the spraypaint!
1. Old school? Black, brass, grainy wood, nasty globes? CHECK.
2. Yes, it really was that bad.
3. Metal primer spraypaint ($3). Already it looks much better!
4. Hammered silver spraypaint ($6). Sometimes this didn't come out as even as I would have liked but once I got the hang of it it was super easy.
5. Espresso brown spray paint ($3). We then coated everything with 2 coats of clear sealer in satin ($4). For the next fan we plan to use a more glossy finish.
6. New globes ($4.50 for all three) from the Goodwill. Yay!
7. Eric was a great sport in letting me experiment. He probably thought we'd have to end up buying a whole new fan but he just nodded and smiled while I rambled about spraypaint and directed him toward "how to uninstall a ceiling fan" videos on Youtube. (it's actually not that hard, although you have to hold the fan above your head while standing on a ladder...)
8. Ta da! Total cost = $20. We have leftover brown spray paint for the next fan...

She's Crafty

I've been on a crafting binge lately. Are you a crafter? Some people just aren't into this stuff. Some are fabulous scrapbookers. Or sew amazing clothes. Or decorate their homes fabulously. I can't say that I'm particularly good at any one craft...but I can make a decent showing at most of them and I have a blast jumping from project to project. I second what I wrote previously about the joy of creating something.

So, what have I been up to?
1. Choreography and staging for an hour long youth production based on the Book of Mormon for the youth Book of Mormon Journey (think Pioneer trek but based on the BoM) in my mom's stake.

2. Editing the video of the recorded production.

3. Creating and scrapbooking a photobook for my mom with pictures from the production and thoughts from those involved.

4. A bulletin board for clipping Alyssa's hair flowers, bows, and clips, since she pulls them off the low hanging ribbon and chews on them.

5. A way to hang the quilt that matches Alyssa's room on the wall.

6. Heart shaped hooks for hanging her jacket, towel, and hat.

7. More painted and fabric covered boxes for storage.

8. Tie dyed Easter Eggs. I've been wanting to do this for months but waited for Easter as an excuse to create a few dozen hard boiled eggs. This is seriously easy and fun to do--I'd recommend it to anyone! Next year I'm planning to throw a tie-dying party and have everyone bring a few silk ties. We can have more variety without having to spend more on ties!

9. Hanging more pictures! I've added our most recent kid pictures to the hodgepodge in the hallway and finally gotten around to hanging this picture that I made last fall...

10. Updating the old-fashioned ceiling fans in our front room. This is a multiple step project but I'm getting there, bit by bit, so you'll have to wait for pictures of the entire process....


What's up next on the list?
1. Painting Scotty's room (I've designed it and picked paint colors already)
2. Making and hanging curtains in Scotty's room.
3. Making a t shirt quilt in memory of my Grandma Gay (I have the layout arranged and the pieces roughly cut).
4. Finishing the other two ceiling fans (one in the front room and one in the master bedroom)
5. Painting the end tables and mini-bookshelf so our mismatched furniture looks more coordinated :o)
6. Reupholstering the purple chairs in our living room. Bring out the staple gun! Just looking for the perfect fabric.
7. Paying someone to haul out the random rock and weeds in our backyard and put in a sprinkler system and grass. We've finally got this arranged, so sometime in the next few weeks we'll sign the contract, fork over some hard earned money, and watch the magic. I'll be sure to take lots of pictures, as it is guaranteed to be an impressive transformation...