Mother's Day...Take Two

WARNING!!!! THIS POST CONTAINS ALOT OF PICTURES!!!!!
We spent the Saturday before Mother's Day at Vollmer Farms. It really is a GREAT place to take the kids. They have made a lot of changes over the years and they have all been for the better. They had so many neat things for the girls to do. Our oldest didn't go because she would rather stay with Grandma. We went for the purpose of picking strawberries, but got so much more out of the trip. One of the things they did was this: Yes, I know...quite interesting. My husband acts as if he knows what he's doing. Ha! They also had the neatest swings. They were made to look like horses. Aren't they cute? Our last stop before picking strawberries was the cow ride. Are these not the niftiest little things you've ever seen? Then it was off to pick strawberries. Our middle child took the job very seriously and didn't eat any while she was picking. Our youngest was doing a great job until here daddy give her the idea that she could actually eat them. Let's just say that opened up a can of worms. Notice the strawberry juice dripping from her hand down to her arm! This was her brand new white bow. Note to self: don't wear new bows to pick strawberries. Who would've thought she's get strawberry juice in her hair!!!!!She didn't know how to stop...her father didn't either. Once we got them focused again, we were able to fill up 4 baskets.
We paid for the strawberries and upon checking out, look what I found. I fell in love with this ring, so for the low low price of $4, my husband got away with a great mother's day gift. Then we made our way into the homemade ice cream shop. I decided on a chocolate milkshake. I must admit that it was possibly the best shake I've ever had. My husband and his brother decided on this...you know, because he couldn't have possibly eaten enough strawberries in the field. It is just one of the neatest places I've ever been. Last but not least, here is my favorite part of Vollmer Farms:It is certified organic and they have a lot more than just strawberries. They have anything you can possibly think of and then some. If you don't want to pick it yourself, they have all kinds of produce already picked. Look it up sometime and if it's close to you, then make a trip. I promise you will not be disappointed!

Mother's Day Part 1

I know that everyone thinks their Mother's Day gift was the best and it couldn't possibly be a better one out there. I am no exception to that rule. My mother's day started a little early with a gift my daughter made a preschool. She had to fill in the blanks to a couple of questions. I took a picture but you can't clearly see the answers so I will tell you what it said.1. My mother likes to cook. (Correct...I just don't like to clean up the mess it makes.)
2. My mother is 32 years old. (correct)
3. My mother's favorite food is pickles. (WRONG!!! I don't even eat them. She said the reason she put that was because we planted them in our garden. I think she was referring to the zucchini.)
4. My mother's favorite sport is working. ( I love how she thinks working is a sport and she thinks I enjoy it :))
5. My mother's favorite color is red. (not really)
6. My mother's name is... (she doesn't know my blog name is The Sassy Seamstress)
7. My mother is good at sewing. (I'm glad she thinks so!)
8. I love it when my mother holds me. (so sweet)
9. My mother likes it when I help her wash the dishes. (See #1)

And the absolute best one of all and the one that brought tears to my eyes:

10. My mother is great because...she takes me to church.The fact that she can appreciate that at the age of 5 is amazing to me.

Formal Transformation

We are not "formal" people. We don't believe that you should have a room if you aren't going to use it. We felt the need to change our formal living room into more of a sitting room. It houses our piano and our girls love dance to the music. Before I show you these pictures, I'd like to apologize for the quality. My printer is not connected to the computer at the moment, therefore I can't scan pictures. I had to get creative, so I decided to take a picture of the picture (with my camera phone) and email it to myself. The only thing I can promise is that the quality WILL be poor. Here is what the room looked like when we moved in almost 6 years ago:

It was one of the only rooms in the house that didn't have white walls. After seeing the paint color they chose for this room, I'm kinda glad they didn't paint any of the other rooms. This room was painted almost as soon as we moved. I couldn't stand to look in there when it was green. It stayed this color until about a month ago. I decided that I wanted to add some detail to the room, so we did a little wainscoting. When I say "we", I mean the trim guys. Another hidden agenda I had was to paint the room a deep rich brown. Well, remember those great friends we have that gave us the door and also did the candles? Guess what...they did us another favor. So that you don't think we are total moochers, you should know that I have made a few of the window treatments in her house. We do alot of talent trading! :) Ok, so back to the story. A few years ago, she took week long classes (8 hours a day) to learn alot of faux techniques. I hope I'm using the right terminology. I don't want to degrade or insult anything she does. Anyway, she did a technique in one of her rooms that I loved!!!! She offered to do it at my house and I gladly excepted. My room is a little small and doesn't have excessive natural light. I could've never done this technique if I hadn't done the wainscoting. All in all, I am very pleased with how this room turned out. As soon as I finished the window treatments, I took a picture. They put the icing on the cake. I am planning on getting a potrait done of the girls to hang above the sofa. Who knows how long that will take. For now, this will do.

Dress for a Cause

Remember the bubble dress I was gonna make for FCA banquet? I think I actually said I was going to make 3. Well, here IT is. That's right. I only made one of these bad boys. I just couldn't figure out what size to make the other ones in and I ran out of time. I thought it looked a little too simple when I finished it. I had envisioned it monogrammed but wasn't sure others (the bidders) would be able to have the same vision. So, I added this pretty little pink bow. Something that could be easily removed or you could still monogram it regardless. I made another 2 piece outfit that you can barely see in the above picture. Then, at the last minute (and by last minute I mean about 5 hours before the banquet) I decided to try a pillowcase dress. I had always wanted to make one, and this was my opportunity. You usually see these made with vintage pillow cases. I have a few from my husband's grandmother that I intend to turn into dresses. This ended up being my favorite. You can easily use a modern pillowcase. Find one with a pretty trim (like the one above) or you can buy a plain one and add a ribbon. Or if you are super talented you can crochet around the bottom and make it look "vintage". I personally will rely on my mother-in-law for this. The sad part is that it literally took my less than 30 minutes to make...from start to finish. It also got the highest bid at the auction. Hind sight...I wish I had just made three of these. Oh well. Live and learn. I should also point out the monogrammed candles in the background. A good friend of mine (the same people who gave us the door) monograms candles and they are wonderful. So easy to do and they make great gifts. She donated three of these for the auction. Maybe (with her permission) I'll do a tutorial one day!

A New View

This will be a short and quick post. There's not but so much you can say about a front door. This is what I used to look at every time I was home. I never realized how closed off I felt. We moved into this house almost six years ago. Shortly after we moved, a good friend of our gave us a door that was taken from a house that was doing some renovations. We loved the door, but never took the opportunity (or time) to hang it. Since we were having some trim work done, we decided to ask the guys if they could hang the door for us. They did and boy oh boy has my view changed. Now my home feels brighter and it is so refreshing. Here is what I see now: What a difference a door makes!

I'm Back...I Think!

It's finally time to show you what the Sassy Seamstress has been up to all these weeks. In addition to making Easter dresses and other dresses, we have been doing some home improvements. I am definitely going to save the best for last, but I'll start with the laundry room. None of the rooms are completely done...they all need stuff on the walls, but I knew you wouldn't want to wait 10 years for the updates. Here is the before picture:

I must admit that I had already cleaned out the back portion of the laundry room quite a bit before I took this picture.


We had a door that separated the front part of the laundry room from the back part. This door had no purpose other than to take of space. Let me rephrase that. Other than hiding the junk that was thrown behind the door, it was just taking up space. So, we removed the door. My wonderful husband decided to get me a brand new washer and dryer for Christmas. He knows that a general rule of thumb is "never get your wife anything that plugs in as a gift", but I was willing to make an exception in this case. This soon became a project where one thing leads to another. While we were going to be taking out the old washer and dryer, we decided to tile the floor in the laundry room. It was previously a very dingy looking (I feel like the lady in the ALL commercial..."dingy") linoleum. We've always wanted to replace it and now was as good a time as any. I knew that I wanted to paint while everything was out as well, so I decided to use some paint I already had. Well, that didn't look very good with the cabinets, so I decided to paint and glaze the cabinets. Then, my husband (who has learned a little about decorating in our 10 years of marriage) said he didn't think that paint color was going to match our new washer and dryer. I agreed and we headed to the store to pick out another paint sample. I asked my husband if he could build a new storage unit in there to help organize things a little better for me. I should also mention that I had a little help from a dear friend Pink Dreaming. I would link you to her, but she hasn't posted in almost a year!!!!!! No...I'm not bitter at all. :) She loves to organize and she gave me just the insight I needed in there. As you can tell, I needed a lot of insight when it came to organization. My husband decided to have someone else build the storage unit for me. We all know he really doesn't have the time to do it, so I was glad he passed this along to the professionals. And here is the end result (minus the knobs for the cabinets...I lost the screws...oops!)

I am loving the new space. I use it for all my "stock piling needs". It basically works as an overflow pantry now. It also has a table which I can throw my laundry on when I take it out of the dryer. If I can't fold it right away, then it is not on my sofa in my family room staring at me. If I have drop in visitors, they never know that there is a load of laundry waiting to be folded! Love it! Stay tuned for other exciting projects.