I've been updating my family room over the last few months.  I don't share pictures of it very often.  Just little tid bits here and there.  Because, although I have about a million windows in my house, I can't seem to get enough light in to get some good pictures.  I really wish I had some better photography skills, but I don't.  Hopefully someday :)  Anyways, it's still not finished but the main parts are done.  

The two sofas, the recliner (for the man of the house), the ottoman...then the second ottoman (the fabric on the first one kept pulling the top cushion off center so we had it replaced.  It had more teal and brown in it but luckily I found another fabric that I thought worked with my color scheme.  Unfortunately, my pillows just look a little out of place now :)

 I'm loving some table space to finally be able to display more family photos.

And well.  After all this, I decided we needed a new snuggle quilt for watching TV with.

So, I decided to use my pattern, Square Dance.  I almost quadrupled the size and now it's big enough for even my 6' 3" husband.  

Minky on the back was of course a necessity.

This pattern is charm pack friendly.  And I like that although the blocks aren't huge, it still works well to showcase some of those bigger print fabrics.

If this tickles your fancy and you want to make one too...hop on over to my Etsy Shop where you can use this coupon code (SQUAREDANCE) to receive 20% off a Square Dance pattern of your own!  

*Coupon is good till the end of the month.

And hey, if you didn't know ~ I now have digital patterns available for quick and easy download!

Oh.  And did I mention that I collected so much fabric for this quilt that I decided to make up some charm packs?  There are only two left though so snatch them up soon if you're interested!

Click here to go to my Etsy Shop.

Thanks for stopping by today!  I hope you enjoyed seeing a little peak into my never-ending work in progress ~ my home :)

Happy quilting!

~Amber

Whoops

Sometimes I can be a bit on the quiet side...

but I really didn't mean to post these photos earlier today with absolutely no words to go with them!  In fact, I didn't mean to post these photos at all!

Don't know what happened there, but I started getting comments in my "inbox" about them so I thought I'd better address the situation :)

I had taken these photos yesterday per a request from my sister wanting to do a post on "collections" over at her lovely blog, Serenade for Solitude (post coming soon???)

Anyways, let me tell you about my little quilt collection...

When I first got married I spied a picture in a magazine of a beautiful armoire full of gorgeous quilts.  The picture spoke to me and I decided that one day I was going to have one of my own.

After expressing this desire to my sweet hubby he told me that when I had enough quilts to fill one ~ he would buy me one.  So, one day (many years later) I decided that, in fact, I did have enough quilts to fill an armoire.   I was out shopping with my mom when I spied a cute one and was reminded of that promise he had made me.  So I went home and reminded him about it (in my sweetest voice ever).  I shopped around a little bit more and found this one that would fit perfectly in the little nook in my entry.

He bought it for me as a gift for Valentines Day a few years ago 

(from a store that is no longer in business for those of you askin' - sorry). 

Up until yesterday, I had about twice as many quilts in it as you see in there now.  But, I decided less is more.  In each of these quilts there is about 2 or 3 smaller quilts stuffed inside them.  I like that you can see more of each quilt now.  And for some reason, I think it makes more of a statement this way.  AND, I don't have to be as embarrassed about the number of quilts I own because people don't see all of them now!  And between you and me, there is another big stack of them in my sewing room closet :)  But, I love them.  I use them.  I need them (for work purposes).  I do give some away but I don't think anyone can appreciate them as much as the people in this house.

Although I could probably fill another armoire at any given moment ~ I am thankful for the one I have and for the quilts we own to give us warmth.  I'm thankful for a wonderful husband who is supportive of my hobby and little business.  I'm thankful to be able to express myself creatively through color and pattern and I'm thankful to all of you who let me share my passion with you!

Wishing you all a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday ~ full of family and friends 

(which are life's GREATEST blessings)!

 ~ Amber

Dreaming...

For the last few years my husband and I have gone back and forth about moving.  And, for the last few years we have had a giant hole in one of our leather couches.  When we decided about six months ago that we would probably be staying in this house for many years to come, I told my husband that it was "time".  Time, to buck up and get new couches. 

Shortly thereafter he put a rubber mallet through the wall above my fireplace.

I guess to a guy,

new couches = a new wall-mount flat screen TV,

which to a girl, means new stone and a new mantle in which she can hang Christmas stockings from (which is all I've ever wanted in life).

So, for the last few months my husband has been trying to "make all my dreams come true" by replacing our old fireplace surround,

which looked like this: 

With a new stone surround and mantle that look like this:

[55" flat-screen TV coming soon]

Didn't he do a good job?  Did it all by himself, yes he did.  I couldn't be prouder.  And my favorite part (other than the fact that this Christmas I finally get to display my cute stockings on my cute topiary stocking holders downstairs in the family room where they should be) is that the front of the mantle is on hinges so it opens up to hold all of our TV components and such.  Clever, eh?

So here comes the fun part, right?  Those new couches I've been dreaming of!  Well, trying to figure out a practical and stylish and affordable and comfortable seating situation for our little family of five (Molly, our black lab puppy, is now a big consideration in this decision) is not as easy as it seems.

I've been doing lots of research and lots of looking and quite frankly ~ it's not happening for me.  I wanted to bang this purchase out.  I mean, I'm a busy girl.  I've got stuff to do.  I don't have time to spend a year looking for the perfect sofa.  And it's hard to please everyone and meet all of our criteria.  I'm getting tired of all the "looking" and am starting to wonder if I'll ever find the perfect couches for us...

So I thought that while I continue to dream about my "someday" family room space that I would share with you some of my favorite finds from some of my favorite local stores. 

I LOVE the lines of this sectional.  Traditional with clean, minimal lines.  I love the color and the fabric and the price but not really practical for my family.  If it was slip covered then maybe... 

(And it can't be ordered in any other fabrics in case you're wondering.)

Same deal with this sofa...

I love, love, love this sectional with the antiqued white feet and the ticking striped fabric but it's way out of my price range and again, probably not very family friendly.

(Sorry, I had to sneak this picture in there because I'm loving these glass bottles right now and want every one of them).

I love this chair.  Love the fabric.  Love the price.  But, the husband thinks it will be uncomfortable and too small for his 6' 3" body.

Um, can you say CUTE?!?  I LOVE this blue chevron upholstered chair.  It makes me happy and I really think I need it.  But the husband is hoping for a reclining chair instead.

 And last but not least, this grey-ish blue display cabinet.  So cute, right???

As you can see, my want list may have expanded to include a few other things besides just new couches but I'm just trying to make our house a home :)

I've decided that I want what I can't have.  I love the light, lineny look but I know it's not practical.  I'm also trying to figure out a way to make 5 people happy (well, four plus a dog) but it's just not happening.   

I think it's time to adjust my "vision" for this space.

Do you have any advice?

How do you make your wants coincide with the needs of your family and budget?  Where do you compromise?  OR do you???

All Hallows Eve Portrait

I love this time of year, don't you?

I love the crisp autumn air.

Scarves and cozy sweaters.

Soups and pumpkin pie cake.

I love the fallen leaves in my yard.  

And the thrill of my children raking them up in huge piles

just to jump in them over and over again.

I love family get-togethers.

And thinking about my blessings.

I love the festivities of the coming months.

And I love my newly finished "All Hallows Eve Portrait" wall-hanging.

It's my only finish as of late and I think it's the perfect little quilt to take our home from the cold, dark nights of Octobers' tricks and treats

into a cozy, thankful November. 

The pattern, "All Hallows Eve Portrait" can be found in Joanna Figueroa's Fresh Vintage Issue #17.

Let's Talk "Beds"

 Why is it that kids like to take pictures of anything and everything?  They'll take pictures of a blank wall, a computer screen, a pile of junk, the floor...

Well yesterday afternoon I walked into my little girls room and found her making her bed.  Weird right?  I mean, I hadn't even asked her to!  Normally it's like pulling teeth to get her to clean her room.  I guess it struck me as a little odd but I didn't think too much about it.  A little while later I went to get my camera and it wasn't where I had left it.  I finally found it upstairs on the kids sofa.  When I went to pull some pictures off my camera last night I found a plethora of wonderful pictures that my little girl had taken, including this one:

I'm glad she loves her bed (and my camera).  Whatever inspires her to clean her room is fine by me though :)  At least she had the sense to make the bed before she took a photo. 

So yesterday, I mentioned a little bit about an awesome Labor Day deal I scored on a queen size bed.  Here's the bed and here's the deal:

I found a very similar bed at an outlet store for $399.  I almost bought it for our guest room until my husband told me to slow down :)  You see, I was hoping to buy the $399 brown bed for our guest room as well as another queen size white bed for my daughters room.  But as always, my conservative husband pulled back the reigns.  So I didn't buy either bed, but I did continue on my merry way to look for the best deal on a white bed.

I went to about 5 stores and then at the last shop that I had planned on going to yesterday ~ I saw it.  Sitting on the front porch of this cute little barn/furniture store.  I saw the magic words:

"For Sale", "Queen" and "$150".  It also said, "small crack and scratch".  Well, we looked all over and this is all we could find: 

There was no crack.  Just a couple of little scratches that a little wood stain could fix.  Simple enough, right?  My mom guarded it while I got a sales person and after making sure it really was everything I had hoped for (and getting the go ahead from the husband) ~ I bought it!  I can't believe my deal.  It was less than HALF of the price of the original bed.  I guess it pays to shop around!

I think the new bed will go really nicely with this quilt I just finished. 

But now I need your opinion.  Wall color ~ what do you think?  Green?  Aqua?  Brown? Blue? Beige? What would you do?

Oh, and in case any of you are curious, this is the head board/foot board that I bought for my little girl.  It will be here in about 4 weeks.  Try to picture it with the French Roses quilt (from the first photo in this post). 

I may need your opinion on paint colors for that room too when the bed arrives.  Stay tuned :)

Oh, one last thing ~ I've had a couple people tell me that they've tried and couldn't leave a comment on my blog.  If you are experiencing that problem, will you please send me an email at adctd2qultng@gmail.com?  I LOVE to hear from you and definitely want to fix the problem if it's happening more than I realize.  Thanks!  ~ Amber

Blessed

My little sister's posts always remind me to focus on the positive...

It's a little hard when you're getting reading for a really big event.  Things are bound to be stressful and to not always go the way you want...

But today, at this moment, I am focusing on the positive.

~ Watching my son play baseball on a warm Spring night.

~ A daughter who tells me I look beautiful.

~ Friends who help, care, understand, forgive, listen

and tell me I'll have to just let it go.

~ 3 new pattern instructions completed!!!

~ News that one set of instructions only needed one hyphenation!  (Usually there are lots more corrections I have to make after my mom edits.  It's a miracle!) 

~ Black bananas (and a date with Calli's banana bread recipe.) 

~ A clean kitchen

Even in the hard times, we are all:

Look for the Little Things...

I have a friend that loves me...

She must.

Because I received this little beauty on my doorstep today.

It's not my birthday.

It's not National Friendship Day

[I don't think.  Hmmm.  I better go google that...]

And, it's not Christmas.

Is it because she knows it would look really cute in my kitchen? 

Or, because we are kindred spirits forever because we were kicked out of church college together? :) 

(I still maintain the fact that I was/am a really good girl ~ I promise :)

Or, because she heard that I cooked my first roast ever a few weeks ago and she thinks I've earned it? 

[Yes, I've been married for almost 14 years.

My husband has to fend for himself in the red meat department.]

Well, whatever the reason,

thank you, Lizzie. 

You spoil me rotten.

Leftovers

I had 3 hearts left over from a little
Valentine's Day project I did last month...

So I decided to make a pillow.

{Love is good anytime of year, right?}

For the pillow itself, I used Bunny Hill's Lily and Will Quilted Texture in Ivory.  I wanted it to have a little bit of a vintage look to go with these nice civil war era pinks that I picked up at American Quilting in Orem, UT. 

I found the perfect color of pink rick rack at Material Girls in South Jordan, UT.  Not too bright ~ kind of vintagy.  (Sorry I don't have the color name or brand of that.) 

A quick and simple project.

Before and After

We love our home, but when we bought it about 7 years ago, it was in need of some major updating. 

Since we've moved in, we've:

re-modeled the kitchen,

refinished the wood floors, 

landscaped the backyard,

installed new front doors

and painted our little hearts out.  

One thing we had put off until a few weeks ago, was getting new carpet.  The old carpet was in bad shape.  After calling every company in the phone book and getting the best price (with the company we wanted to use), we FINALLY got our new carpet a couple of weeks ago.

Here's what it looked like before:

Sick right?

Well here's what it looks like now:



Notice any other change in that picture?

Do you remember how I've been complaining about how busy I've been lately? 

Well, during all of this carpet talk, I somehow got

roped into/"volunteered" (it's debatable at this point)

to paint our 3 sets of banisters.  We knew that if we wanted to get our home updated into this century that we had to do the painting before the carpet was installed.  At first we talked to someone about doing it for us.  But after finding out that the painter would just spray paint it white and then antique it with a dark brown glaze, I knew that it was something I could handle.  With a lot of elbow grease and some help from my dad, we painted and glazed all of our banisters before the new carpet went in.  We saved about $1000 by doing it ourselves (which will hopefully go towards granite in our bathrooms or that new couch we've been needing.)  Of course we're paying our painter/friend for his time too though. 

Anyways, it was a hard week of blood, sweat and tears

(o.k. I might be exaggerating a bit),

but in the end it was worth it.

I Am...

of little words right now.

This past month has been VERY busy.

~ Home renovation projects.

~3 "just for fun quilts" have [or will] back from the quilter any second.

~ A pattern that's just about to make it's debut.

~ 2 more quilt tops finished,

including this little Valentine's Day throw:

And that little basket there, is my "market basket".  Isn't she cute?  I picked her up the other day at Finder's Keepers in American Fork, UT (love that store!) for $15.  It had a quilt all rolled up inside so maybe that's why I was drawn to it...

Sorry you haven't been hearing from me much.   I've been a busy girl.  Lots to show you in the next little while...

Have a good day!

Stash Manicuring ~ Holiday Style

I was all ready to guest post over at Stash Manicure on Monday, but there was a little mix up so I thought I'd share my thoughts with you on more ways to use up your scraps!  Specifically, for making Christmas projects.

Over the last year or two I have been adding a few details to my Christmas decor.  They've been simple projects, but have used up quite a bit of my red and green scraps.  As you can see, my colors are quite traditional.

Above, you can see a simple table runner I made using red, green and white 2-1/2" squares.  Putting the colors in a diagonal pattern adds interest and I love that I was able to make it just the right size to fit my entry table. 

It's patchwork and it's simple, but it adds the perfect amount of color to that table.  If I didn't have something under those decorations, the table would look very boring and unfinished.  This little baby was made solely with scraps and you KNOW that makes me happy :)

Next, I had an idea that I wanted to do using holly berries and leaves.  This little runner sits on my coffee table in my family room.  It was a good way to use up small pieces of greens and reds.  Green rick rack added the right finishing touch.

But still, I had more red and beige scraps that I couldn't stand to have laying around, so I had to make a little something for my kitchen table.  This one will be good because it is neutral enough to work for Valentine's Day, Fourth of July, whatever.

But then I got looking and I found that I had even more red, green and white scraps!  Oh, what to do, what to do!?!

So I got to work making a few dresdens using the EZ Dresden ruler by Darlene Zimmerman.  Dresdens are fun, but only require a teeny tiny bit of fabric for each point so I'm thinking about doing a pieced sashing, as well as using up more scraps for the centers.  Hopefully by then I'll have made a dent in my  red/green stash.

I have much more red (than I do green) so I think most of my dresdens will be red and white.  Kind of peppermint-ish, don't 'cha think?

That's the great thing about quilting.  There are no rules.  So I can do whatever the heck I want!  It's great!

I'm still auditioning fabrics for the backgrounds, but this beige polka dot is what I thought looked best from my stash.  We'll see though.  I only have a yard of the beige/green polka dot so I'll either have to:

*use lots of different backgrounds

*make a small quilt

*break down and buy some more or other fabric

Hmm...I'll have to think about that one.

This was my second favorite option from my stash.  What do you think (it's kind of pink-ish)?  Yay or nay?

 

Well, that's just me ~ playing around.

What are YOU playing with today?

And the stockings were hung...

 

Can I say that?

I think I can because my friend designed 'em.

I just had to share because the only mantle we have in our house is in our master bedroom so no one ever gets to see them.  They make me happy though.

I love my stocking holders too.

I got them through Ballard Designs a few years ago.

It's a good store.

It makes me happy too. 

While browsing through their online catalog today I found some fun things! 

Isn't this bookend perfect?

And these pillows?

[Maybe there's some design inspiration there for some of you?]

And how cute is this button garland? 

Oh, and I really need one of these storage ottomans...

to go with a couple of these...

plus a couple of new couches.

[Seriously.  Ours has a HUGE hole in it.

We have to keep a quilt over it to hide the hole.]

I'm not sure how I got onto Ballard or this list of cute things because none of them are really on my Christmas list this year.  Maybe when I do my GIVEAWAY next week I'll have to have you guess what IS on my list.  [New pattern coming VERY soon = pattern & layer cake giveaway!]

Check back soon!