the Lovestrands

Halloween Costume Party

2011-11-15T19:05:00.000-06:00

This year the Kuhn-Clark household hosted thier first, hopefully annual, Halloween Costume Party. The invitations specified the party started at 7:30, so what do us townies do? Throw a chivalry and arrive at 7 instead! I had never heard of a chivalry before, and when it was described to me (when a couple get married you show up at their house banging pots and pans) it made no sense whatsoever, but when in Baldwin...

We stealthily drove up to their house and gathered (there were about 9 of us involved) and then ran around with various noisy items and were met by a confused Kathleen on the deck.

A photo of the Wicked Witch and Scarecrow with their host gift:

Part of the chivalry team, 2 nuns, a priest and a monk:

Tourists from the front:

Tourists from the back:

Eric, also known as Captain Stubing:

Traci and Toby, a bathtub and a potty:

It was a fun event that involved great food, some shots with friends, and topped the night off with American Idol-version karoke.

More Typography

2011-11-15T18:49:00.000-06:00

This was my first attempt at a typography painting, given as a hostess gift for a costume party we attended this year. Not too shabby!

An autumn-inspired typography board currently hanging in our kitchen.

I've got 2 more in the works, one for my studio and one as a gift. I love that each one is different and personal.

Table Runner - Part Two

2011-11-15T18:39:00.002-06:00

This will be short and sweet as all the photos I took have been "accidentally" deleted off our camera. The recipient did enjoy her present though!

Table Runner - Part One

2011-10-20T10:21:00.005-05:00

Working on a belated birthday gift for a girlfriend. She requested something "seasonal" and so here we go! The first stop was Joann's for fabric. Could spend hours there coming up with different fabric combos and thinking of other projects to made. But this time stayed with the mission at hand, and in order to keep the time in check I brought Lucy with :)

I've used this pattern book, A Star for all Seasons, a few times for other gifts, it's very easy to follow.

Whenever Max hears the sewing machine running he immediately comes in and wants to help. He's actually very good at putting pins back in the pin cushion!

Squaring the star blocks.

A pile of star blocks ready for the next step.

I'm hoping Part Two of this post will be a finished product. Right now I'm assemby-lining the borders and the top will be complete!

What are you making these days?

Typography Take One

2011-10-10T13:14:00.000-05:00

I've been seeing various forms of typography word art all over the internet world and wanted to take a stab at it. I had a remnant black canvas sitting in storage and a Cricut collecting dust, so Saturday night I got a wild hair to go for it!

Supplies used: black craft paint, canvas, clear glue, paper, Cricut machine, and the fabulous Modge Podge.

I wanted to create a kind of family values sign to hang up on the photo wall, so I thought of some words and went to town cutting in different sizes. I was limited to the two cartridges of fonts I have (standard George and a Disney font). I had a couple cream/black papers to use up that kind of coordinated the whole thing.

Here's a photo of the gluing process - very sticky business that glue!

After gluing down all the words in the form I liked, I did a couple coats of Modge Podge to secure it all down. First time I've ever used Modge Podge, can you believe it? Certainly won't be the last either!

It now resides on our photo wall.

Now my crafty mind's abuzz with all the possibilities - handpainted stencils on wood, holiday themed phrases, favorite Biblical passages, homemade gifts...

TDC Inspiration - Candy Corn

2011-09-26T14:55:00.000-05:00

I've been in the fall decorating mood and when I saw this post from Sarah, I thought super-easy, super-cute and super-cheap. I haven't broken out the hot glue gun in years and now that it's out, I have many ideas! I'm thinkin' a window wreath for every occassion - gumdrops or peppermints for Christmas, conversation hearts for Valentine's day...

Anyway, this project should have been super-cheap but I had NO coupons for Joann's when the inspiration hit and foam is rarely on sale. (I have heard that the dollar store sells faux wreaths, note to self for next time!) And I'm thinkin' for even more cheapness to buy the holiday candy during the post-holiday sale (as long as I want to wait until next year to display it).

Here are a couple shots of the pre-display candy corn goodness:

I used a TON of glue gun sticks for the wreath. That puppy is secure! I didn't have any fabulous ribbon to hang it from so I dug through my fabric scraps and found these black remnants, sewed them into a very long strip, measured how long I wanted it to hang, cut and sewed the 2 ends together to make a secure "loop". This now adorns our kitchen window and I love it! (Photo coming soon)

I am determined to not break out the 3 buckets of Halloween decor until October 1st, so things will fill up more in a week or so.!

Kitchen Transition - Before and After

2011-09-21T13:12:00.002-05:00

Our kitchen has transitioned over the past 6 years. It has always been a perfectly good kitchen, but I had visions of what my "dream kitchen" would look like. Adding a bit of farmhouse charm to a new-ish construction house is quite an undertaking, but not impossible if you have a vision and are related to the man(woman) power!

Since moving in in 2005 we have added hardwood flooring, granite countertops and tile surround (fall/winter 2007), new appliances in 2010, painted twice, leading up to Labor Day 2011 weekend when the biggest, least expensive yet most labor intensive, most dramatic change to the house to-date, project started.

Island color: Sherwin Williams "Lemon Verbena"

All other cabinetry: Sherwin Williams "Summer White"
Hardware: Martha Stewart "soft iron"

Ceiling: White beadboard

Labor: Lovestrands Inc.

Details: Highly recommend using all oil-based primers and paints (and you'll need a good gallon of mineral spirits for the cleanup). During this project I had pink eye twice. Apparently no longer a childhood ailment. Thankfully we perservered with lots of elbow grease coming in from across the yard. In all, this project took two weeks to complete. The island took one weekend, we spent the next week removing the rest of the doors/hardware, and a week of sanding/priming/painting. Oil-based paints take a good day to dry and you'll need a couple coats on each side of the doors.

Kitchen before.

Kitchen during - sanded and ready for priming.

Father and son sanding team.

Almost there - bases painted and ready for doors!

Kitchen after.

Some day we will figure out our DSLR camera and take the kind of pictures you see on websites, but one thing at a time.

Time for a Change

2011-08-23T14:26:00.000-05:00

This site was originally created to journal our family's happenings. While I will still post family updates, I'm also interested in other aspects of blogging, including better photography and all the widgets, as well as documenting some of our hobbies. This will be my practice area for all that fun stuff until I feel comfortable to branch out into a more topical blog on my own.

Tiny Dancer

2011-01-20T11:49:00.002-06:00

A few of my favorite things

2011-01-20T11:28:00.008-06:00

Favorite Books:

What I'm reading now

What I read over the holidays and am currently borrowing out to friends (recommend it to all the ladies!)

A daily "must read" and what I gather on Saturday mornings to discuss

Favorite Etsy shops:

http://www.etsy.com/shop/violetsarebleu - repurposing vintage jewelry

http://www.etsy.com/shop/tiedupmemories - repurposing vintage jewelry (notice a trend here?)

http://www.etsy.com/shop/purseona - have had mine for 2 years now, time for another

Favorite Blogs:

Pretty much anything that inspires creativity - home decor, fashion, creativity and spiritually - fidn the links on the LEFT

Happy Halloween!

2010-12-16T09:39:00.003-06:00

This is sad, I haven't even looked at Halloween pictures til the middle of December! Uncle Eric was over to help carve and take the kids out trick-or-treating with Troy and Paul.

Apples in the Bathroom

2010-10-29T11:04:00.010-05:00

The kids have always eaten apples, but in sliced form, and for Lucy, with no skins. I brought home a bag of apples this week and they think the best thing is getting to eat them whole. I'm not going to remind Lucy that they have skins on either. They eat the apples down to the seeds and stem. Way to go!

Cake Balls

2010-10-28T16:19:00.013-05:00

Just going through photos from this summer and I remember I was going to post this super duper easy recipe of putziness and fun-ness with a step-by-step photo montage. I have seen these on various websites and made them for a friend's pre-baby arrival gathering in a girl theme this past July. I have also seen these made with chocolate cake/chocolate frosting and really can be made with any cake/frosting combo you could ever desire. This one was done with strawberry cake and strawberry frosting and dipped in white speckled Wilton's candy coating (love those Joann's 50% off coupons for this sort of thing!). Not only are these great to serve at parties, but also look cute bundled together for gifts or "planted" as a boquet! (No, you don't have to pay me for these ideas.)

YOU'LL NEED:

Box of cake mix (and ingredients to make cake)

complimenting tub of frosting

lollipop sticks

candy coating

FOAM (VERY important!)

Step 1: Make cake in cake pan as directed. While cake is baking let helper lick the beaters (or yourself if you have no helper...important to NOT let any of this go to waste!)

Step 2: Let cake cool.

Step 3: Crumble all your hard work up into a large bowl as shown below. Now add in half a tub of frosting to that.
Step 4: Mix it all together so it's all a big moist ball of cakey gooness. If still dry, add more frosting. Can never have too much frosting.

Step 5: Roll the cake mixture into 1" balls. I put in fridge to keep them "solid" while I prepped the rest.

Step 6: Melt candy pieces in microwave per instructions on the package. Set up your station: foam pieces (to stick the pops in while they harden), lollipop sticks, melted dip, cake balls.

Step 7: IMPORTANT - dip the end of the lollipop stick into candy coating before putting a cake ball on it. This helps the ball stay on the stick while you dip it. I actually put them in the fridge for a couple minutes so this would harden.

Step 8: Take your cake ball-on-a-stick and dunk it in the candy coating. Put other end of stick in foam. Put thes in the fridge or freezer to completely solidify.

Step 9: If desired, melt another color of coating and drizzle it over the pops for super craftyness.

Enjoy! I would recommend keeping these refrigerated until you are able to enjoy them. I dare you to eat just one!

My Faith Box

2010-10-26T19:57:00.002-05:00

I'm a winner! Actually the whole family is. You've seen me post a Fall Challenge from a blog that I follow "Women Living Well". One of their Good Morning Girls offered a giveaway of a My Faith Box to one lucky winner. In the end, Angela's husband said every woman who entered should get one. In return we would blog/share with our friends about the My Faith Box - these would make excellent baby shower/baptism gifts. You can read more about the giveaway here. With Lucy having just received her first bible at age 3 from church, we are talking about God a lot and this is a great item to keep a record of her faith trek!

To see and order a My Faith Box/My Faith Book

Week 4 - Making Your Home a Haven

2010-10-25T09:24:00.003-05:00

Where has October gone? I am just getting weeks 1 and 2 established in our home. (The candle is almost gone, darn, time for ANOTHER). And the music collection just got added to as I broke out the Mandisa that has been held captive in my husband's Camry, only allowing a listen as I drive to Saturday morning bible study :)

This weekend was the Women of Faith conference. Seriously, if you are one of the 3 women that reads this blog, are you attending and if not, why not? I take away something different every year and this year I took away a few things about friendship. And thankfully my friend Annette bought the worship CD that I downloaded and it's now added to our daily "background music"! Already counting the days til next year's conference!

Week 4 is about our children and holy horses do I need to work on this. Being a full time working mom, I often am so busy organizing meals, cleaning house, running errands that I don't think I'm spending nearly enough time making those happy childhood memories.

In fact, my children are taking it upon themselves to make them on their own. For example, Max successfully dialed 9-1-1 a week and a half ago from our home phone. Funny ha ha. Well this morning he successfully pressed the right combination while playing with my BlackBerry and dialed 9-1-1 again. They now have my name and birth date down at Baldwin P.D. and are probably keeping tally and sending me a bill!

Stay tuned for more happy family memory-making!

Zoo Boo 2010

2010-10-18T14:14:00.005-05:00

Last night we went to Zoo Boo at Como Zoo in St. Paul with all the kids. It was a good time, nice weather, and it was very organized to get us through without any pile ups!

This is Max, looking thrilled with his costume!

Trick or Treat!
Doing a "witchy" face. That's what the girls are, witches, but the hats are not child friendly. Must figure this out before next weekend.

Ain't that the truth...

Week 3 - Making your home a haven

2010-10-18T14:08:00.002-05:00

http://womenlivingwell-courtney.blogspot.com/2010/10/cleaning-up-clutter-challenge.html

It's week 3 and I'm finally getting around to week 2's task - music in the home. I have minimal relaxing music, how sad! I did find 2 that have worked, a Frank Sinatra hits and the Manhattan Transfer Christmas CD. So those have been playing in the house today and I will say that lunch with the kids was rather uneventful (no tattling, fighting) and I'm blaming that on the music!

Week 3 is right up my alley, cleaning up the clutter in your home. Egads. Clutter begets clutter that's for sure. Not sure where to start as if I did as suggested, buy a basket where clutter usually happens, you would find baskets every 3 feet in my house. Trying to think of another solution. I like the idea of taking a garbage bag and running through the house for 20 minutes, but I'm guessing the children would have no more toys to play with when I got done. I have a week to figure this out :)

This upcoming weekend is the annual Women of Faith event at the Xcel. This is my 5th year going and it's money well spent. I usually come away from it with some sort of "to do" or focus in my life. Can't wait to see what this year brings!

Go Max!

2010-10-13T10:34:00.002-05:00

Max had his 18-month appointment yesterday and here are the stats:

31" tall (15th percentile)
23.4 lbs (15th percentile)
head 49 cm (90th percentile)

So he's a peanut with a big head. He has the cutest smile ever, signs "please" all the time, can lay down and throw a tantrum at the drop of a hat, does not like to read books but likes to wrestle and pull hair. Still trying to learn what the word "gentle" means. He's all boy!

Week 2 - Making your home a haven

2010-10-11T12:20:00.003-05:00

http://womenlivingwell-courtney.blogspot.com/2010/09/making-your-home-haven-fall-challenge.html

The candle has been burning when I remember to light it at home, right in our kitchen. We picked up an awesome soy candle while on our anniversary trip to the North Shore last weekend. (Yes I know I do make soy candles but as I can attest to anyone, I do not like to make my own crafts but only craft for others!) The scent is "Autumn Pear" and I love it. So the purpose of the Women Living Well fall challenge, week one, was to say a prayer for peace on your home every time you looked at the candle. I think I did accomplish that once or twice. There were other prayers said such as "God, make Max stop pulling everyone's hair." and "Dear Jesus, I wish these two kids would take a nap already."

This week's part of the challenge is to have soft music playing in the background of your house. Seriously the only "soft" music we have would be in the form of Christmas instrumentals. Lucy is going through a Michael Jackson phase and that's just not going to bring a sense of calmness on our house this week, so I better go dig out the Perry Como...

Making Your Home A Haven - Fall Challenge

2010-09-28T08:18:00.002-05:00

I am linking up to one of my new favorite blogs, Women Living Well, for her fall challenge. It starts with a candle so it has me hooked :)

Last Days of Summer

2010-09-23T07:16:00.010-05:00

Summer is over and Fall is here, my favorite season, and we're starting out with rain and flood warnings. Since we have been flooded twice in the past year and things happen in 3's I'm holding my breath. In fact, if our basement floods again, you can send someone over to the house to commit me in the hospital.

Enough negative talk though, let's look at some photos of the last days of summer:

Team work:

Team work is over:

Troy lets Lisa mow the lawn for the first time!

Looks like a back to school shot, but I think this was before church. Lucy in her new free purse with her money in it:

Loves to help dad wash the dishes:

Breakfast of champions - powdered donuts. Notice the evil donut face:

Mom whipped out a couple aprons yesterday to be used at the Craft Show at the Orchard. My first ever time doing something like this, details closer to the date (November 22nd).

Too cute for words

2010-09-22T20:27:00.002-05:00

Baby Stuff

2010-08-25T21:33:00.010-05:00

We're in business! Please go to http://sellnswap.blogspot.com if you were directed here for "Baby Stuff".

At the Car Wash

2010-08-25T21:11:00.003-05:00

Some photos of the kids helping dad wash the car last Sunday. Looks like Lucy was more interested in washing her brother though.

And a couple pictures of Max eating Dilly Bars. You'd think it was summer around here all these treats.

Life has been busy all summer. We are now fully moved back into the basement after the great flood of August 11, 2010. 2 times in one year, if it happens again the For Sale sign is going up "as is". ugh.

Abby has been gone almost 2 weeks now. Sometimes I think it's getting easier every day and then we'll find things like a new box of dog biscuits Troy had bought that day, or Max playing in a basket of dog toys. Ironically when things happen to you, you tend to notice it in the news and happening elsewhere. The night she died there was a news clip of Mark Dayton (running for MN govenor) telling someone to turn the a/c on in his vehicle for his dogs while he did a press conference. The following weekend's "Sainted and Tainted" section had a couple articles chastizing people leaving their dogs in a vehicle during these hot days. I keep thinking, I know how it feels to have the shoe on the other foot. If you are so concerned about an animal being left in a hot car, don't write a letter to your paper, go in to the store and find the owner. Maybe that person was like me and was so absorbed in everything else going on at once, she didn't even know the dog was in the car. It's easy to judge when you haven't been in that situation, but I can tell you honestly that if I ever see an animal in a car on a hot day, I'm going in the store to find that owner!

To end on a happy note, my favorite time of year is arriving. It commences with the Great MN Get-together!

July 7, 2003 - August 12, 2010

2010-08-12T21:24:00.003-05:00

Today we lost our dear dog, Abby. It happened tragically and I'm still trying to wrap my brain around it. I missed her at dinner tonight, not by our feet to pick up Max's scraps. Or when I shut the garage door tonight, when she usually runs in tripping the garage safety light. Or in Lucy's room tonight, where she normally lays while I read bedtime stories. I'll miss her crazy snoring at night. I just can't believe she's gone. I'll miss taking her on walks and her running to the street to greet every dog that walks by. I'll miss tossing her popcorn during movies. I'll miss her trying to shove herself under the bed during fireworks.

We haven't told the kids yet figuring we'll see when Lucy brings it up. Tonight at bedtime she told Troy to say a special prayer for Abby. Kids know more than we think they do.

As our hearts grieve for our family member, we are thankful for all the good years we did have. She was great with our kids and loved us all unconditionally. R.I.P.