3.23.2010

i did it all for the nookie

as in the craft-nook! oh baby. since i am an idiot i didn't realize how awesome the transformation would be so i don't have hideous "before" pictures to show you how bad of a situation we had going on pre-makeover. go ahead and assume that it looked like and episode of TLC's Hoarders: Buried Alive and that will make the end result extra impressive for you.
.
our guest bedroom has always been just barely able to even be called that. it has a futon in it with some sheets on it so it qualifies just my the skin of its dust ruffle (yuck, there probably is a lot of dead skin cells in there too). really it is the junk room. if our house was hogwarts, harry would have hidden his inherited potions book in there (can i just note that i TOTALLY knew the diadem of ravenclaw was in there in book 7). everything that doesn't really have a place in the rest of our house gets chucked in this room. we have never done anything to decorate or spruce up this little slice of purgatory. (don't you want to come be a guest at our house TONIGHT!?!?)
.
in the corner of the room was this stupid purchase of a little desk that we made when we first moved in when we had dreams of a "study" and a" home office." at some point i inherited my brothers old college computer and it went on the desk along with a nasty snarl of random cords all behind it. since we have a much nicer laptop in the living room, the big black desktop beast NEVER got used and i became confused as to why we had it and why it enraged me every time i laid eyes upon it.
.
on top of this, all of my sewing stuff had been living in the living room (nice). this was so i could watch TV and hang out with jesse while i did my sewthang. when not in use, all my fabric, tools and other sewing accoutrement was shoved into corners, under couches and beneath tables. this gave the room an appearance of never really being tidy even when it was. claw my eyes out with annoyance.
.
so in anticipation of trying to sell the house we did the old two birds one stone routine and gutted all the old desk inhabitants (donating them to our church) and made me a little craft nook. now the living room looks so much less cluttered and i don't have stress every time i see and old computer junking up our guest room for no freaking reason. de-cluttering is seriously good for the soul. plus i built a pretty groovy nook, if i do say so myself. i am kind of in love with it.

notice the paintings. the matching 3 are a set i made with my buddy grayson one day when we were bored and the one on the left is one he painted for us for christmas this year. also my business degree from georgia tech, you know, for the irony.

the first project to fly out of the nook was a new ironing board cover. due to some adhesive mishaps, judah food stains and generally poor upkeep, this thing looked like colonial-era toilet paper and was all sticky and scratchy. plus the design was so blah and not worthy to be in my nook (in any sense).

before...yucky snore

i whipped out my trusty copy of ye old 101 one yard wonders sewing book and a repurposed receiving blanket that i LOVE the pattern of (from judah's godparents dan and lukas) and used the string and cord-stop hardware from the old cover and had this sucker churned out lickety split while jesse and i watched tech's first round ncaa tournament win (the futon is very accommodating in couch form for a supportive husband who can watch TV and cheer me on).
.
AHHHHHHH-fter
.
AND i recently bought a fresh and lovely pack of new cloth diapers to make some snazzy burp cloths to try to sell on etsy or make for friends. i couldn't really commit to a letter or monogram to put up for sale without having an order first, but i couldn't just make up some random lettered model to show off. then i remembered we were going to meet little miss elsa lynn mcdade the next day.
.
elsa is the adorable daughter or our good friends nate and erin mcdade who are missionaries in puebla, mexico, where i did a semester of campus ministry as an exchange student while jesse was in spain. elsa is almost exactly 3 months younger than judah and a fellow blog subject. since we were too lazy to cook and bring something to their welcome to the USA fiesta, i figured a crafty gift would suffice.

awesome initials. i like to call her "ELMer" in my head.

i was so proud of this little number that i considered changing judah's name to Euclid Lamentations Musselman just so i could steal the burp cloth and keep it for myself. it's kind of pristine.

in a hilarious twist i forgot the cloth when we left for the party, but luckily jesse is with the mcdades in mexico as we speak since he was leaving for a church trip there anyway so he got to deliver it. this of course has left me as a single mom whose morning sickness decided to show up 3 hours after i put husbo on the plane.

only in pregnancy do i have the kind of explosive vomiting that leads to picking bits of my dinner from between my toes afterwards. but throwing up also is the only thing that gets rid of the yucky sickness, so i will pinky-floss mongolian beef all day long if it means i get to feel instantly better. let's all hope that jesse makes one of the flights tomorrow so that he can be home for our first OB appointment on thursday (think single-baby thoughts!) and so that he can rescue me from this really difficult phase. once again, single parents, y'all are my heroes.

4 comments:

  1. I love your new space... do you still want to move?

    ReplyDelete
  2. I am jealous you pulled your guest room together. I cannot stand spaces that are full of clutter am about to have rage on my living room which has a crib, all of my photos, Christmas decorations, xerox cartridges, and a zillion other unfinished products in it.

    Oh- and I am now following you. I should be number 79 which is totally depressing. I wanted to be number 80 so I would have another chance to win some craftiness.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Amy Franck's comment reminded me to become a follower so give her credit for the 80th follower...I messed up my name, though...bout time to get used to my married name since we got married in August.

    ReplyDelete
  4. OK, I'm dying here...you know I have pneumonia, right--so why are you so freakin' hilarious??? I am seriously about to heave myself as I have been laughing my head off, which makes me cough vehemently, but I just can't stop. You're awesome--remember me when you're a famous writer...I told you so!!!!

    ps Love the craft nook. It's delightful!

    ReplyDelete