Someone's getting in the spirit!

I happened upon Ruthie Allen's twitter yesterday and was so excited to see this:

And the attached picture:

Yay!  Ruthie, I'm in love!!  I adore the pattern you chose for the fabric.

Has anyone else been inspired to create your own ornaments or other Christmas decorations?  If so, I'd LOVE to see them!  Who knows.  You might get featured on here like Ruthie Allen!  You can send your inspired DIY items to rachelshouseblog@gmail.com.

I will do this to my house one day...cause I'm crazy like that.

Christmas is coming!

My dad was a fanatic about Christmas.  He owned 13 trees.  Every year, he turned an entire room into a life-sized walk through of a snowy scene.  He called it his winter wonderland room.  He also had a 100,000 light display in his front yard that made the paper.  I didn't know my father very well, but I know that my love of Christmas and all things handmade comes from him.

Here's a few things that have inspired me in my Christmas decorating efforts this year:

No, I will not be using miniature plastic deer in my decor.  But the apothecary jars I bought for April's shower will look lovely on my dining room table filled with pine cones, ornaments and other lovely Christmas things.

I'm definitely wanting to do a wreath this year.  A traditional wreath?  Nope.  Something more like this...

...or maybe more like this.  Yes, more like this.

The colors in this next pic are spot on with my inspiration for the tree this year.  This says snowy white winter wonderland wrapped in a warm blanket to me.  I'm feeling the monochromatic look this year, but rest assured my house will never lack in the color department. I have a full sized tree that will look beautiful with this scheme, but I also have two other trees.  More on those later. :)

This could be my favorite ornament ever. LOVE!!!!

I'll be sure to post pictures of the finished product of all my Christmas adventures soon!  Anyone else doing something new or different for decorations this year?

Happy Day of Thanks

Whether you're spending this Thanksgiving with family, friends or a microwave dinner, I hope you remember to take a little time to thank God for His amazingness.  Have a good one!

Thanksgiving

Emma is in recovery.  We still have no earthly idea what is making her break out into hives, but her medicine is seeming to work at least enough to avoid more ER visits.  She is such a trooper.  They say that dogs that go through this can sometimes get so distraught about the itching, they will scratch and bite themselves until they bleed.  Makes me cry just thinking about it.  We have a visit in Charleston, South Carolina, with a dermatologist soon, so hopefully we'll be able to get to the bottom of it.  Until then, here's a quick shot I took of Emma as I was prepping for April's baby shower.  Her look says "why are you not playing with me?!" haha I love her so much.

I hope you all enjoy a wonderful and warm Thanksgiving this year!  

Christmas Tree Progress Part 2

I am over the moon for these simple, elegant and whimsical ornaments!  They were super easy to make but a few of them were a little time consuming.

Clockwise from the top left: 

The snow bunny ornament was simply white fuzzy yarn hot glued onto an egg shaped styrofoam form.  A rough hemp yarn as the hanger was the perfect contrast to the soft ball of white.

The hemp ball was done the same way as the white ornament, but it took forEVER because the hemp was very thin and required lots of wrapping.

The capiz shells were already in my craft room.  I bought them from Pottery Barn about six months ago in hopes I could make a chandelier from them.  I made 12 of these little babies by simply drilling a hole through the top and stringing a ribbon to hang.  They are the perfect unconventional filler ornament for this very unconventional tree.

The last ornament was made from a sleeve of one of my favorite sweaters.  I accidentally shrunk it last year in the dryer (oops) but couldn't bear to get rid of it in case I lost 50 lbs or something.  After a year's time and the realization that 50 lbs is never going to come off (haha), I took the plunge and made four of these super cute beaded snuggly ornaments.  The entire tree's concept was centered around the idea of a cuddly, warm sweater on a snowy day.  I think I hit it square on the head with this one.  The beads took forever, but added the perfect touch of glam to the monochromatic theme.  Love!

Believe it or not, there are more to come!!  Check back soon. :)

Christmas tree progress :)

I went out and bought materials for ornaments last night.  Instead of going to sleep right after like I should have, I stayed up way too late.  I couldn't help it! I was totally inspired by the idea of a tree that resembles a winter wonderland and warm wooly sweater.  I'm pretty happy with what I have so far, but I'm thinking I may need a bit of sparkle in some of the other trimmings.  More on that soon. :)

April's Baby Shower

I can't tell you how blessed I felt for being included in the group of girls at April's baby shower.  It was a great night and I had a fantastic time playing host for the first time ever!  April made me promise not to take pictures during the party, but I couldn't resist getting a few images beforehand of all my hard work!  Here are a few highlights of the decor.

Party favors in Tiffany-blue boxes.

Amy Turner did a FABulous job with the invites.  Simple, super cute, and meshed seamlessly with the rest of the decor.

I turned my mug holder into a placement for one the games for the night.  We each brought a baby picture and then tried to figure out who was who.  I loved seeing how competitive some of the girls were!

Yes, that's me.  Go ahead and laugh. I do!

I wanted to have something to give April to remember the shower by, so I decided to do a guestbook of sorts.  Each girl wrote a sweet note to April, a prayer for Josiah, or just something funny.  I'll put all this together in a little scrapbook along with images from the party as her gift from me.  Some of the girls wrote really heartfelt and beautiful things, so I hope she loves it!

The fabric flowers on all the clothespins was one of my favorite projects for this event.  You can get the how-to here: http://heyjenrenee.blogspot.com/2010/03/fabric-flower-tutorial.html  I used tutorial No.2 for these but I love both!

$4 flowers. :)

I debated on whether or not to do balloons, but I think it was the perfect finishing touch.

I <3 mason jars.  Each girl got a mason jar as their drink glass as well with lemon slices for lemonade, lime for soda and cucumber for water.  It was super cute and super yum!

A big thanks to Tammy for making the yummy cupcakes, Amy for making the fajitas, and Amanda for all the dips and chips!  The girls did an amazing job with all the food and April got exactly what she wanted.

At each of the stations (food, guest book, and party favor tables) I placed a framed image explaining what to do in one simple word.  This was one of the more tedious projects, but I loved every minute of it!  I am always looking for an excuse to start another cross-stitch project. :)

Here's a quick shot of all the girls crammed into my living room.

And one more with me (thanks Makeda for taking this shot).

Also, thanks to Kensey and Christi for adding to the help of the night as well as everyone who helped me clean up afterwards.  You all are a fabulous group of girls!!!  I had a great time and I know April appreciated every one of you being there.  Hugs to all of you!!

Baby Shower Design

I was so excited and honored to host my very close friend April's baby shower.  I have only been to two baby showers EVER and have never hosted a party in my life, so I had quite the learning curve with food, invitations, decorations, entertainment, presents...the list goes on and on! Thank goodness I had lots of help with food and invites.

To get myself excited about hosting this important event in April's life, I did what I always do.  I created an inspiration folder.  Here's a few images I found on the internet that got me excited and inspired to make April's day beautiful:

I love the home-made feel of these images.  It's very southern, very casual, and I think even more appropriate for a baby shower than the wedding these first images were pulled from!

This next image was my inspiration for one of the games we'll be playing.  So cute!

April specifically asked for jelly beans in jars as party favors, so I'll be doing something along the lines of this.

I can't wait to show you what I came up with!  Here's a little sneak peek of my interpretation.  Stay tuned for another post on the whole night!

falling into nothing as the earth stops rotating

My life has come to a complete halt.  A week ago, I woke up early to find my puppy had an extremely swollen face, muzzle and neck.  She was having trouble breathing.  The world began to revolve a bit slower at that moment.  I rushed her to the vet ER and they said she had a severe allergic reaction...to something.  They could not say what, but they expected after a steroid shot and benadryl, she would be fine.  And she was. For four days.

Andrew found her the second time, again it happened over night.  I was away for work and he called me early.  As I slowly woke from a deep sleep, he left me a voicemail that I'll never forget. "It happened again. We're on our way to the ER. Pray for Emma."  At that moment, I felt so helpless.  I was a four hour car ride away and could do NOTHING but wait for the verdict.  Would my puppy be ok?  Andrew called me 90 minutes later, saying they gave her another dose of benadryl but couldn't give her a steroid because she had a mite on her back.  Fine, whatever.  As long as she's safe.  By the time I heard from him, I was already on my way home from the coast.

The very next day, I noticed her muzzle and neck starting to clear (yay) but that she had a bunch of patches of raised hair all over her back.  Then her neck.  Then her chest.  Eyelids.  Forehead.  Muzzle.  I thought I was seeing what had given her a swollen muzzle.  It must have been bug bites.  Right?  As the  day progressed, the "bites" got bigger and bigger.  Until I realized.  It wasn't bites.  It was happening again.  Except this time, it was everywhere.  Our third trip to the ER left us feeling helpless and hopeless.  The only thing the doctors said was that things like this were rare and hard to diagnose.  It could be anything.  It doesn't have to be something new to her.  She could have developed a new allergy to something that has been around since she was born.  Dogs can be allergic to bug bites, vaccines, medications, food, dust, pollen, other dogs and even people.  ALL of which she has been exposed to in the last week.  The only thing we can do is monitor when the breakouts start and count back twenty to thirty minutes to see what she was doing then.

At that moment, the earth stopped rotating.  I stopped breathing.  Nothing else mattered except keeping Emma alive and figuring out how to stop this terrible thing from ever happening to her again.

The doctor said to think about what happened each time she broke out in hives.  So that's what we've been doing.  Each time, she was sleeping.  Soooo, she's allergic to sleep.  Or not.  Right now, we think she may be allergic to her blanket or the detergent used to clean it.  But that is only a guess.  We really have no idea, to be honest, but clutching at something is better than falling fast into nothing.  My dog is my child.  We don't plan to have kids, but I treat Emma like the daughter she is.  If you don't like dogs or don't understand the connection, go back through this post and insert the word "baby" for the word "dog".  If you have ever had a sick child, think about if the doctors told you they couldn't figure out what was making your child sick.  It would kill your insides.  That's how I feel right about now.  I hope that my happy ending to this awful week will come in a blog post soon.  If you are a praying person, please pray that we figure all this out and that Emma returns to her normal, not so puffy, self.

Merry Christmas! Already!!!

The holidays are right around the corner.  Can you believe it?!  I feel like we just packed up last year's stuff, but no!  The last few years when I pulled out our holiday decorations, I was less than enthused, so I've decided this year I'm changing things up a bit!  Over the last week or so, I've been gathering inspiration images for a new Christmas trees design scheme.  I'm thinking all whites, creams, browns, and golds with a DIY twist.  Winter Wonderland meets Martha Stewart.  Here's my inspiration file from my desktop.  What do you think?

Now to make it all.  I hope I have time!!