A Week of Living Color

An heirloom dresser, a free-cycled nightstand, and one very hip desk are having serious makeovers this week. What do you think of the palette? It's all those bold & colorful f i e s t a s we hosted last week.

June and I took a trip to Home Depot. She chose the lemongrass green for her dresser.

I tried to talk her out of it, reminding her, "It's forever June. It was your grandpa's dresser when he was a baby. Then it was Dad's. Now you have it, you really want me to paint it bright green?"

She remained confident in her decision. Dang.

I may still have a chance to go a little more subtle with color and save the great, bold green for something less forever and heirloom quality. Only because I am older and the mom.

Here is a sample of the knobs I bought on sale several months ago from Anthropologie for the makeover.

June wants the mango orange for her free-cycled nightstand. Now I love that decision.

The older girls are getting a very retro desk. The furniture style is from one of my most favorite eras: midcentury modern. It was serendipity when I found it. I was supposed to be at my Photoshop class and decided to just slip in the D. I. for a 5 minute furniture and dish check. There are probably 4 layers of paint to strip, but the price tag was unbeatable: $10. The color plan: Teal green for the main color and beet pink complimenting the inside next to the drawers.

A Birthday Topper for a Cute Babycake

And now, the after party blues. Here's my handmade crown for the birthday boy. So sad it's over.

We've had celebrations all week for little Danny, who by now you may be tired of seeing here. He and Mo are the cutest little creations I could share this week. Thank you for tolerating my biased auntie posts, but it's what I filled my cup with all week and it's overflowing. Have a party this holiday weekend, and have it with those you love!

Mo & Danny Celebrate May 26- Danny's First Birthday

The Hogle Zoo has become a work of art over the last several years. The sounds and movements all over the park are intriguing to curious children. Morris paid more attention to the mechanical spitting dinosaurs, the music box of the animal carousel, and the blowing bronze elephant, than to the sleeping tigers or swinging tamarinds. It blew my mind. He wanted to visit those interactive animal exhibits several times, but seeing the live giraffe with it's exotic wavy spots and long eyelashes once, was good enough.

What a cute little hatchling, even with his self-haircut mullet.

Best $1.50 spent today.

In the evening, my neighbor to the back of us, kindly took Mo on several loops around his property on the "tractor" until it finally "ran out of gas". Yet another highlight of the day. He even allowed him to steer most of the way.

We've had a few sweet endings this week. The Draper Sweet Tooth Fairy set us up with some nice treats for the cousins to all share. We cut them up into quarters and had at it.

There were gifts of bubbles, wooden construction trucks and guys, a Toy Story game and the best company of cousins little boys visiting from Arizona could want, not to mention all the flavors of frosting we could want to lick off our faces.

Makes for a happy birthday boy.

Compositions of a Fourteen Year Old

My second daughter, Elsa, needs some well deserved credit. I never have time during my creative escapes to capture images of my projects, so she takes a lot of pictures for me so I can document. I think I need to give her a mention at some point. Most of my fiesta pictures from Sunday night, she took. I had to share this one, because the color is great and her composition is pretty interesting. It's also proof I hate to iron.

stacked cocktail napkins

Interesting perspectives, for a fourteen year old. She has a very good, artistic eye and seems to focus on the not so obvious.

Elsa took a play by play of Danny discovering that he had free reign over his cake. But first, where is he?

Danny, let's go eat some cake!

Photographing her little sister, June

One red sneaker

So credits to Elsa for all her great photographs.

Confessions of a Shopoholic: Week of May 16-21

I can't believe I found one of these at Deseret Industries. Any ideas on what this is called and it's purpose? You couture experts ought to know. According to Threads Magazine it is one of the top five tools a seamstress needs. Read all about it h e r e. I once had one, I believe Matt threw it away at one of my clutter low points, (meaning high volume of clutter). He didn't know what it was, and it looked as if it could be used as a weapon of some sorts, possibly against him, so his thought was to just eliminate the temptation from the pile. A $35-$45 mistake. I hate buying things twice. So glad this mistake only ended up costing me $2 and no tax. If you want to learn how to use one of these really well, go to The Finishing School and take one of their beginning or intermediate adult night classes from Sarah. She is an amazing teacher, extremely gifted, and very knowledgeable about the fashion world and textiles. I learned so much about quality constructed clothing. This is a whole other topic...

Below is another find at the D.I., very "grandma-like" I realize, but such a great piece for a bridal shower, wedding or tea party.

An Italian raffia hat. Gosh, another $2 price tag. Be watching for this in my 4th of July display and quite possibly used in a themed party I'm dreaming up for summer. My mother wore a similar style hat in a picture my dad took of her years ago.

I love Salt Water Taffy. All those colorful bins at the grocery store just whispered sweet temptations to me. I started thinking ahead for my big 4th of July barbecue candy jar line up. Sweets Candy flavors pictured: vanilla (white), red licorice (red swirl) and cotton candy (pale blue)

Sprinkles, sprinkles, sprinkles. I can't have enough choices in my baking storage. In a time of crisis, someone could be found smiling if their solar oven cooked cupcakes were peppered with red, white and blue stars or red pearlized dragees.

I know these have made the rounds on blogs, but they are still keeping their fun factor. The stripes just feel like a party is right around the bend. I use the twine in multiple colors for about everything. Cheap for the yardage you get out of it.

I love polka dots too. These are some wooden spoons I painted up for maybe a hostess gift or a future bride. They wil be packaged with other kitchen miscellaneous, such as one of those darling striped tea towels I've appliqued in the background.

Feliz Cumpleanos for Daniel!

He turns one this week.

He's here from Arizona.

Excuse for a fiesta!

Here we go...

Mojitos, Mormon Style

It's South of the Border vittles.

The homemade version of Macaroni Grill's Lemon Passion Cake was our sweet ending tonight. I'm not normally a chain food diner, but this cake is cause for the one exception. A tres leches mixture saturating a dense lemon cake, lemon mousse & sweetened whipped cream topping, and don't forget the homemade caramel drizzled on top. It was a 6+ hour ordeal to make, quite literally. I'd like to think it was worth the time though.

My little elfkin nephew, affectionately known as "Mo Mo", brother to our guest of honor this evening. The bruises and cuts on the right side of his head? Well, that is a whole other post about why child safety gates are not all that safe.

My lilacs from the backyard are exquisite right now. Their fragrance with all this rain permiates the room with the smell of outside.