What to do with Antique Buttons?

When I was in Midland a couple weeks ago sewing Anna's crib bedding, my mom and I were digging through some drawers to find sewing scissors and stumbled upon her aunt's antique button collection in the bottom of a drawer. They had been sitting there untouched for a few years and as soon as I saw them all, a light bulb went off and I had an idea to create something from them. I quickly pulled them all out and stashed them in my suitcase to haul back to Richardson.

Here they are; a little dusty and dirty but with a quick cleaning and organizing, I was ready to being my latest project. My great aunt (Marcella) was a collector of pretty much anything and everything. She was a hoarder long before the TLC show "Hoarders" started airing and when my grandmother (Mutti) saw this show for the first time, she was amazed that other people across the US had the same thing. She always thought Aunt Marcella was the only one and to be honest, so did I! She was an extremely talented artist who painted beautiful porcelain pieces from complete china sets to serving dishes to Christmas ornaments and everything in between. I don't think there was anything she hadn't attempted to paint. Her house in North Dakota was full of many treasured collections including stamps, buttons (see in the pictures here), china, costume jewelry, cards, linens, newspapers, etc. She kept every single card and newspaper she ever received and even had an inventory log to see who sent her cards for holidays and birthdays every year. Oh and if you didn't send her a thank you card, she would call my mom or Mutti to make sure they knew we hadn't sent a proper thank you. Sometimes my mom would even get "in trouble" for not sending thank you notes to Aunt Marcella quick enough!

I thought it would be fun to make a button wreath out of all the old buttons so I picked up a foam wreath and some burlap from Michael's for very cheap and all it took was a dozen sticks of hot glue and a couple hours of gluing to create this wreath for my mom. I have no idea what she'll do with it - hopefully hang it somewhere in her house, but at least the buttons aren't sitting unused or unseen in the bottom of a drawer anymore!

Keith keeps asking what I am going to do once I am finished with all of my current projects, but I have a feeling I will always find or create more projects to work on. I love being busy and can't seem to sit still when I'm at home...

Happy Birthday Hal!

Last Monday was my father-in-laws birthday and we headed to a wonderful little BYOB Italian cafe near our house, Venezia's, for dinner. Hal and Janet absolutely love this place and are almost on a first name basis with all the staff. Janet is semi-obsessed with their lobster ravioli (she never orders anything else) and Keith and I love their pizza. We brought Hal and Janet a bottle of Willamette Valley Pinot Noir from Oregon and I had a Texas Best non-alcoholic beer so not to worry, I wasn't really drinking!

We gave Hal an Apple TV so now all 3 of the Denton men (Blake, Keith and Hal) all own one. Blake was the first one to get one so when Keith saw it in action while visiting Singapore, he couldn't stop talking about it. I ended up giving one to Keith for our anniversary and then he showed his dad his new gadget and we thought it would be the perfect new "toy" for Hal.

Hal, I hope you had a wonderful birthday and a great trip to Napa Valley!!

Weekend Warriors

I put my mom and Mutti to the ultimate test two weeks ago when I was in Midland. I drove into town with a mission - to make the crib bumper pads for Anna's bedding. Of course the pattern I found online was 9 pages long and had more steps than one could imagine but I thought that since my mom and grandmother had made clothes, curtains, tablecloths, and everything under the sun, that this would be a breeze! Little did I know that neither of them had sewed in years so we spent hours and hours pouring over the instruction manuals and after giving up on the New Home sewing maching after countless hours of trying to get it to work, I headed to Mutti's house for 5 hours on Saturday to use the fancy Bernina machine.

Mom reading the instructions and trying to remember how to thread the bobbin and the needle. We couldn't get the thread to sew properly so at 10 pm, we gave up. I finally figured out days later that the reason the machine wasn't working was because there was about 20 years worth of lent built up inside the machine so as soon as I cleaned it, the machine worked like a charm. I just wish we would have figured that out when I was in Midland!

Gizmo thought the bumper pad inserts were his new dog bed!

Notice we switched sewing machines...this one worked much better!

The finished product...FINALLY! They turned out really cute and thank you to my mom and Mutti for spending too many hours helping me create them. They had no idea they would truly spend an entire weekend relearning how to use their sewing machines!!

My mom woke up at 6 am on Sunday to finish sewing and when I woke up 2 hours later (oops!), they were almost 100% complete. I finished stitching the seams on the ties and since Mutti didn't skip church like we did, she came over after to see the finished bumper pads. Mom wanted to make sure I left Midland with the finished pads so we all 3 worked feverioushy to have them finished by Sunday!

THANK YOU MOM AND MUTTI...I OWE YOU!!

Projects for the nursery...

It is official, I have the "nesting syndrome" where I feel like I need to make everything for the nursery. I am not sure why I have a problem with going to a store and just buying bedding, frames, etc. but I feel the need to make all sorts of fun projects! Keith probably thinks I'm a little insane but hopefully the finished product will be worth all of the work I've done.

Since the nursery (aka. Anna's room!) is painted a lavender color, it has been hard to find a mobile to match so I thought I could make one using tissue paper flowers that I ordered from overstock.com.

This is what I found when I opened the package and I guess I didn't realize I had to put them together myself! I also figured out that I could have made these for $1 but oh well, at least I know for next time. About 30 minutes later and a lot of fidgeting with the tissue paper, the end result was exactly what I was looking for!

I just added some string and hung them from the ceiling in the corner of the nursery. Super cute and hopefully they will entertain Anna in a few months! The picture is a little fuzzy because I borrowed it from Janet's blog since I haven't taken one yet.

I have had another project in mind but just needed a trip to Canton to find exactly what I was looking for. My friend, Jessica, and I headed out to Canton a few weeks ago in search of the perfectly imperfect stained glass window. We absolutely LOVE Canton and yes, our husbands think we're obsessed but it's such a fun adventure every time we head out to the flea market. We had been looking for hours and finally stumbled upon a lady in the garage sale area (I swear, there are hundreds of acres of this and how we found her, I have no idea!) and she had a number of windows for sale. I found the perfect one with purple, yellow and green. I should have taken a before picture because it was painted black and missing chunks out of the wood next to the glass. Nothing a little caulk, sanding and white paint couldn't fix...here she is in all her glory as I hung it above the changing table/dresser in the nursery.

I hung the window with some old chain we had leftover from our light fixture in the kitchen (good thing we save all the extras from our projects) and since my mom and Mutti taught me how to sew a few weeks ago, I made the chain cover from leftover fabric from the baby bedding. Not to worry, I'll update everyone on that story in a few days! I can't sew much, but I think I've mastered a straight line with my mom's sewing machine from the 1970's!

Cason was my helper! Isn't he the cutest?

Spring in in Bloom!

One of my favorite seasons of the year is spring time because of all the gorgeous flowers in bloom. My dad had the greenest thumb of anyone I knew and he desperately wanted to pass that along to me and while I have a long ways to go, everytime I see beautiful blooming flowers, it reminds me of him. My dad sent me 200 bulbs for my birthday in December and I quickly planted them as soon as I received them. He struck a deal with a local nursery in Oregon where he bought thousands of flower bulbs for only $500. He planted most of them at his house in Oregon (you've seen pictures of all the daffodils at his house from a previous blog) but he saved some to mail to me. Ever since Keith and I purchased our house over 3 years ago, my dad was adament that we have flowers in our yard. Each time he would visit, I could always count on a trip to Home Depot or Lowe's to stock up on flowers and plants. Of course my dad would "supervise" the planting or once even took a nap while I planted a dozen gardenia bushes outside. That was just my dad...the best supervisor/director I knew! I was looking at some old pictures of when we first moved into our house and the weekend my sister graduated from college (UTA, Winter 2007), my dad stayed with us and he insisted we plant pansies just a few hours before Harriet's graduation. His pants were covered in mud and didn't bother changing for the cermony but I had to laugh when looking at these photos because he actually did help dig the holes for the flowers and Keith got to plant them. Mind you, it was December and absolutely freezing outside and the last thing Keith wanted to do was plant flowers...

I was nervous the bulbs woudn't survive the huge snow storms and frosts we got earlier this year but thankfully most of the flowers survived with only a few not making the cut. A few weeks ago, all the flowers started to come alive and it just brightened each and every day when I was driving up to the house. They were just beautiful!

I know a lot of posts lately have been about my dad and they are not meant to be sad at all but a joyous way to remember him. He was such a huge part of my life!

Our little girl's name is...

This has been by far the most difficult part; picking a name for our baby girl. Granted, we still have 3 months to go before we meet her but we wanted to be able to tell friends and family what her name was going to be. I liked probably too many names and Keith had a favorite from the beginning. We wanted to have a family name incorporated and after thinking for what seemed like forever, our little girl's name is ANNA MICHELLE DENTON. Whew, it feels great to be able to say that! Anna comes from my family (actually both my mom and dad's side...here's a little of my family's history. We are related to Anna Raguet, who was once courted and almost married Sam Houston. My middle name (and my dad's middle name) is Raguet and Harriet's is Anna - I think she got the better end of that deal! On my mom's side, there are a set of twins that date back many generations named Harriet and Anna so the name Anna has a lot of family history plus it is beautiful.) If you want to read more about Anna Raguet, click here: http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/firfd

Michelle is Keith's sister's (Julie) middle name and we thought the names together had a nice little ring to it. :)

So, now that the cat is out of the hat, I wanted to share a project I made last week. I drug Keith out to the McKinney Trade Days two weeks ago (kind of like Canton but really small) and we picked up with old window for a steal of $10. It had potential written all over it but just needed a little love and some white paint.

Before...

After scraping off some of the paint that was peeling off, and a little sanding, this window got a fresh coat of paint, modge-podged wood letters with scrapbook paper, spray painted dragonflies and drawer pulls from World Market, I had this as a finished product to hang in the nursery. It turned out SO cute!

There is a serious glare from the ceiling fan/light, so I promise it looks better in person!

While at the McKinney Trade Days, Keith and I found these giant dinosaurs priced at "only" $4500 and had to take a picture to send to Pierce. He absolutely loves dinosaurs, especially T-Rex, and while we were in Singapore, it was all he could talk about. After sending this picture to Camille, Pierce had her print it off for him so he could hang in his room...too cute.

Oregon - I LOVE this place

After being in Oregon for the week of my dad's funeral, we still had a lot of unfinished business (by no means is it all done yet) but Harriet and I went to Oregon a few weeks ago to see dad's house freshly painted and cleaned up and have a few business meetings.

Harriet clipping off some rose bush stems to transport back to Texas. Let's hope we can have dad's roses bloom in our own yards!

View of dad's house from the hillside

My dad planted thousands of flower bulbs in the fall and the daffodils were just starting to bloom when Harriet and I were there. He sent me a couple hundred bulbs for my birthday in December and they are blooming as well. I'll have to post some pictures as the tulips are just beautiful. I smile every time I see flowers because I know how much they meant to my dad. He absolutely loved them!

Side view of my dad's house. The logs on the deck all came from his property and were hand carved by one of his good friends.

This little stream that feeds into the nearby Mohawk River runs through my dad's property. Harriet was nervous I was going to fall into the water! On the other side of the river, there are apple, plum and peach trees.

Harriet and Sue getting a few more rose clippings from the rose garden for us to take back to Texas. My dad always told us that these rose bushes were his grandmother's he brought from Texas to Oregon so we thought we would try our hand at bringing them back home.

Up on the mountain behind my dad's house. He planted 5,000 trees 15 years ago and this is one of the many that has survived. I can remember years ago having to walk all over this hillside taking off the protective netting of the baby trees so they could grow correctly. I can't believe they are so big already! We actually scattered my dad's ashes beneath this very tree on January 28, the day after his funeral and birthday. We wanted to take a picture of it so we could hopefully remember the location for years to come. Someone else will own this property hopefully soon but we are going to be those people coming back in a few years to ask if we can walk up the hillside to see my dad.

We love you Dad!

The horse trail up the mountain.

We stayed with Sue (thank you so much for having us) as dad's house was completely empty and we would have had to sleep in sleeping bags on the floors!

I truly hope Harriet and I will be able to visit Oregon at least every year going forward and be able to take our kids on some of the same adventures my dad would take us on. My dad lived in Oregon for over 20 years and we spent each and every summer in Oregon along with Christmas, Thanksgiving and countless other holidays. My dad lived on 18 acres and had vegetable gardens, raspberry and blackberry gardens, a pond full of trout he stocked each summer, horses, and all the adventure kids could ask for. It was an amazing experience being able to spend so much time with him each summer. We never ran out of things to do in Oregon as he was just an hour from the ocean, an hour from the ski slopes and was surrounded by national parks, lakes and rivers that were just minutes away. Not to mention all the festivals, farmer's markets, concerts and soccer camps we enjoyed while visiting.

Oregon is a magical place and we will always have a huge spot in our hearts for this area.