Hearts Full of Joy

noah's room

my 17 year old took matters into her own hands and informed me that we were finally going to paint the stripes on little man's wall two saturdays ago (the saturday after pageant ended - more on pageant to come). i had originally planned to make these stripes vertical, but after separate input from both gloria and traci (who both have amazing decorating sense) i realized that horizontal would look great (and be much easier - yay!).
 
back in february brock and i had painted his walls blue, added the vinyl letters and maps, and hung the roman blinds (the blinds were all brock). the cans of paint for the stripes have been waiting in his room since we moved in a year ago, and the painting supplies have been waiting since february.

his room still needs so finishing touches, including the quilt i have cut out (shhh, don't tell him, it will hopefully get done in time for christmas).

happy 4th of july!

 

updated shop photo

new signs and new quilts on display  

left: bow tie circa 1890 (love the americana feel), right: flag quilt, my design (a super easy and fun project from when noah was a newborn and i needed something simple to work on)

touch-ups

we are still making changes around the house, tweaking and re-arranging, painting, hanging things on the walls, etc.
tv nook:

i am finally displaying some of my hong kong tresures - the flower shaped object is a antique silk hand embroidered baby collar, the rectangular hanging is a machine embroidered mass-produced chinese embroidery, the little red shoes on the cabinet are antique silk hand embroidered baby shoes, all found in hong kong.

we have been wanting a large plant to put behind the sofa, but didn't want to spend for a big plant. i found this at aldi for $8.99. i LOVE aldi. i am their fan on facebook. i love them that much. the framed print is an antique japanese wood block print of a kimono pattern from the mid 1800s.

living room:

another $8.99 plant from aldi. and a stack of my online photo books/scrapbooks on our antique chinese chair. i LOVE online scrapbooking.

gracie with our "new" antique piano. we got it for a steal, and love it. lexi has since polished it up and is looks even better. it took 8 grown men to get it itnot the house, and i was afraid they were going to injure themselves. it is that heavy.

another $8.99 plant, a wedding kimono (thank you gloria!) that needs to be steamed, hong kong cabinet, antique water pitcher & basin (gift from brock), and my favorite antique quilt.

noah's room:

all four walls are painted, and thanks to gloria & tracey's input, i have decided to do horizontal striping on one wall rather than vertical as planned.

mia & gracie's room:

i purchased this vinyl lettering in white before i had decided to paint the walls yellow, and hoped it would still show up. it didn't, even if you knew it was there. so i tried coloring it with a pink crayola marker, and love the water color-like results.

we downsized mia's bed (which had been the original plan) and moved her double mattress to the new guest bed that brock built. it is just her size now, and leaves more play space in the room. the cute head board was left behind by a renter who never paid any rent. one good thing came from that experience....

sunny & bright

we are still painting, and painting, and enjoying ourselves around the house. our latest paint job, somehow completed amidst stomach flu, was the upstairs bathroom.

we wanted to do something warm, bright, and bold, and the bathroom is the perfect place. we took the color scheme from my fishy quilt.

the walls are "homestead apricot" and "butterscotch cream". i was looking for a shower curtain liner in the bath department at target (i love target) and realized that our bathroom colors are not at all popular at present. but we like them. i love the the walls glow, especially when the sun lights them up.

i recently unwrapped this "peasant painting", found in hong kong 6 years ago, for the first time since it was wrapped for our move from japan almost 2 years ago (yes, we are still unpacking), and didn't know where i could put it in the house.... it looks great in the fabulously bright bathroom. we noticed that the glass was a little smudgy, so I wiped it off and got black, black pollution soot all over my rag. i don't miss that aspect of life in tokyo at all.

happy valentine's day!

i love all things vintage, and i have completely fallen in love with vintage valentines....so sweet, so simple, so innocent (usually, except when, surprise! they're not!). i recently found a precious group of 40 valentines on ebay that had belonged to a brother & sister: jean & harold nightingale.
  if the sweet little pictures and sentiments on the fronts aren't enough, the adorable "to & froms", carefully written in cursive with pencil make these valentiens even more precious.

"To Harold Nightingale, From Junior Miller"
"Olive from Pearl Gischman"
To Maple, From Viola Bomaugh"

 

three years ago i found a ownderful piece of fabric at the tokyo great international quilt festival (lexi, tashi, & i so missed being there this year at the end of january...but brock surprised us by attending while he was htere on business and bringing us back some surprises) that was printed with darling vintage valentines in red on white. it was my inspiration for making this little "drunkard's path" valentine's quilt:

one of my favorite little poems on it says, "I'm not your valentine, but gee! The whole world knows I want to be!" this year i found a valentine with that same message inside, and so cute on the front!:

i made the quilt in the background of this photo last valentine's day.

tashi loves vintage just as much as i, and and we found these sweet litte vintage valentine cupcake sticks for her birthday party:

chocolate cupcakes filles with chocolate chipp cheesecake.

continual improvement?

christmas is over and put away, a new year has begun...
time to get back to home improvement and break out the painting mess again:
after months of waiting & planning, we finally continued the blue paint from the living room into the formal dining room that serves as our T.V. room, and then painted the far wall of the T.V. room red. then we did a big furniture switcheroo, and this is the result: (still needs pictures hung on the wall, etc)

we're still working on the formal living room space....more photos to come.

thanksgiving weekend in quincy, we found the hutch we had been hoping for, and at a price we liked (i even got them to come down from the special sale price) for our dining area at the antiques mall. and yesterday, between (hundreds of) coats of red paint, i filled it up. some of the dishes are new, some are antique, most are from japan. the red & white nine-patch snowball baby quilt is from the late 1800s.

we plan on replacing the knobs (we plan on a lot of things).
the quincy antique mall also had the most adorable nile green hutch from the 1940s that would look just perfect in mia & gracie's room stacked with antique baby quilts and books....but i can't figure out where it could go, unless i got rid of their bookshelf. plus, we really don't need to spend any more money...but it's such a great price, and so adorable!
also in november, i finally had this april 1935 volume of "farmer's wife" framed at "hobby lobby". i found this treasure at "mrs. clemen's" antiques in hannibal, mo. the summer before last. i was antiquing with gloria (just like when i found the hutch). it hangs next to the hutch in our dining area.

and here is a back splash idea i had. the plates & cannisters are also from hannibal - the "hickory stick" quilt shop.

the blue paint is actually the same in all three of the above photos. the hutch photo is probably the most accurate.

when i bought these fun things in hannibal in summer "07, i had no idea i would be using them to decorate my home so nearby. life is funny & unexpected.

all is calm, all is bright

i love this space between christmas & new years. it may be my favorite time of year. the rush and hustle are over, all is calm, all is bright. time isn't over scheduled. kids are at home and relaxed. there are new games to play and new puzzles to put together, and new books to read as a family. the warm glow of christmas lingers the newness of a new year beckons.
i learned to love this time during our life in japan when everything would shut down for a week or more before and after new years. our first year there, '95/'96, we were shocked to find that everything was closed: banks - including atm's!, grocery stores,post offices, every type of store, absolutely everything. we were shocked, and we liked it. we spent time together as a fmaily, without any outside pressures. msot of our american and foriegn friends went back home for the chrismtas season. our japanese friends went to their grandparents' inteh countryside. we were left alone in tokyo. and we learned to treasure it. the pollution subsided, because there were no delivery trucks on the roads. we could see glorious views of "mountain fuji", as tiny tashi called it, without the pollution clouding our way.

i did get to some of my sugar plum sewing, finishing two projects up after christmas, so they well be ready to be enjoyed next year.
i have wanted to make this little gingerbread guy since i first saw the pattern in American Patchwork & Quilting, dec 2004. i did make one last year, but gave it away. this one stays with us. just as with the pillows, the felted wool works up to quick and easy. the red heart was a wool skirt that someone gave me and i felted in the washer & dryer. all but one of the fabrics in the patchwork border were in the big bag of fabric that landed on my porch. i love that. the eyes are tiny antique bone buttons - i collected some of the funnest things while i was running my antique quilt business.

the quilt is a printed panel, cheater cloth. this isn't me preferred method of making quilt, but it is fast and easy. and i can assuage my conscience by remembering that cheater cloth existed even in the mid 1800s. i love that this panel focuses on christ, not santa or snowmen (or gingerbread men). i made and sold two of these last year. and cut one apart to make christmas pillows. this one stays with us, for now.

thunderstorms that shook & rattled our cupboards like an earthquake on saturday washed away all of the snow and ice, leaving green grass and clear blue skies. it is difficult to believe it is the same landscape we looked out on and photographed last week. i went for a walk today, and felt like it was early spring. but i'm not fooled... the ice and snow won't stay away for long.

cozy christmas

we are settling in for several cozy snowy, icy days at home as a family, through christmas. my perfect dream come true - snow falling outside, and nowhere we have to go. we have a few gifts to deliver, a few to wrap, some yummy baking, and lots of enjoying each other to do. and we're looking forward to it.
i'm catching up on some christmas sewing projects. i took these pillows (supplies purchased last year & left untouched) on my trip to utah and was able to whip them up by the time i returned. wool felt is so fast and easy. now i have other visions of sugar plum sewing to do, but only if it doesn't interfere with enjoying my family & feeling the spirit of christmas.

savoring the season

this year we are enjoying our christmas decorating more than ever before. we think that it's because we feel so happily at home.

and our tree is here.

i love having our nativities up and and the continual reminders of the savior's birth. the first presidency christmas devotional was everything it should be and even more. i am so grateful for this season and the opportunities to draw closer to the savior.

merry christmas from our house to yours.