Improvise

It always takes me forever to start hanging things on the wall after moving into a new home.

I just don't "feel" it right away. I'm too focused on the rest of our existence to worry about what should adorn the walls.

That doesn't mean I don't like wall art, though.

I saw this fun guitar painting at TJ Maxx a while back, and it haunted me for a few weeks.

When I returned a while later for another purpose, I was delighted to find that it was still there and the price had been reduced.

I thought it might be great for the boys' room, but I later decided it should hang next to Craig Grayson's drum set in the school room.

The hook from the previous picture was a bit too high for the guitar painting, but I was unwilling to make a new hole in the wall.

I started brainstorming on what to use to make it hang lower, and a guitar strap came to mind.

We don't have an extra guitar strap, so I thought of the next best thing.

With boys having major growth spurts, that means there will inevitably be belts that are still in good enough shape to reuse.

Voila!

(Thanks, Graham!)

I Did It! (Finally)

I mentioned earlier that I've been planning to make a duvet cover for Gabriela, but I had hoped to surprise her.

I've had my eye on this fabric for a couple of years, and I finally bought it recently at a 50%-off sale.

The only thing I still lacked was a window of time with Gabriela away from the house, so as to surprise her.

Today was that day.

After searching a bit online for some direction, I had it all figured out in my head and just decided to wing it. I ended up saving the striped fabric that was supposed to be the accent. I'll use that for pillows, instead.

Anyway, it turned out that, after taking the girls to work with him, Craig decided to come home early.

Yikes!

I wasn't quite finished, but I was on the last step of assembling the cover. The older children tried to create a barrier in the doorway of the sewing room. Not realizing what they were doing, Gabriela crawled between their legs to come and ask me a question.

Oh well.

She was surprised. It just happened in the sewing room, rather than in her bedroom like I had planned.

I love giving her new things. She gets so excited. I felt sorry for her when she realized that she had inadvertently ruined her own surprise. I assured her that it was perfectly OK, and she spent the rest of the day thanking me and talking about how exciting bedtime would be tonight.

This was my very first time ever making piping. I actually made this way ahead of time and set it aside. Gabriela thought that I was planning to use it in my room. Tee-Hee!

Hats off to all those heroes who can perfectly match a directional pattern when piecing fabric together to make up width. I aspire to achieve that status some day... but not anytime soon, please.

I used a yellow sheet from Target for the backing.

Time to make pillows...