Here she is!

As promised here is my $3 foot stool from Value Village. Here she is before the redo.
This is what I found after I took out the 3 millions staples on the bottom of this baby. That seriously took the longest in the whole process. It took about 30 minutes and really sore fingers to take out all the staples.
This is the fabric that was used to cover her up. I absolutely love this fabric and am now wishing I would have bought more. Too late! It lives in Utah and was bought 12 months ago, so sad!
Here she is!!!!!! What do you think?
It only took about 15 minutes to sand and paint the legs an antique white (my new favourite white) and about another 10 minutes to put on the new fabric. As much as I love her I must give her up. So I will be selling her this week......How much would this even go for, who knows?

-Alauna

Curtains and a sneak peak!

I have slowly been making curtains for our place as I am not into the yellow smoke stained curtains that are in place in half the house still. I got this tutorial from here. If you are into interior design and DIY this is a GREAT site. Super lovin' it. I am going to make pelmet boxes above them in a brown fabric to cover the hardware on the side and give them some interest, but that might be awhile as I have a few projects in the works that I am super excited about. These roman shades were super easy, cheap and give a clean look which I am looking for in our living room.
Here is my killer value village buy a couple weeks ago. I know she doesn't look like much now, but wait until I post the after picture of my $3 beauty. I have her done, but due to lighting issues (meaning I don't get home until dark and I am not a fan of interior lighting for pictures) you have to wait until I can get a decent picture. What do you think?
Had our first Hope Classic 2010 planning session this week! I think it went really well and it got me super stoked about the 5k and 8k run happening in August. Mark your calendars everyone, should be tons of fun (or at least food and a chance to learn about Spina Bifida and how it affects everyone).

-Alauna

I am finally getting around to posting pictures of my latest projects....Minus, before photos. I know, I know, I am super horrified at myself because my sickness and laziness won out and I am now regretting this after the fact. So you need to imagine this stuff not a radcore as it is now. I made this Christmas stocking shelf out of a cedar fence board, cabinet knobs and a wood burner. It took about 30 minutes to burn the writing into the cedar board and about 1 hour total, so not too shabby. I also made the stocking, but it is not quite finished as I really hate sewing with a passion and can only handle so much at any given time (I have been slowly sewing my curtains for our new place and so the stocking did not take precedent over my curtains, our current mini-blinds are yellow and stinky from the previous smoking tenants). I am not quite sure how I am going to finish off this stocking (and the rest of them for that matter) but I guess I don't have to worry about that for another year now!

The rents bought this lamp for me at Homesense for super cheap during a boxing day sale. It used to have a bright white base and a black lamp shade. I really loved the lamp but it didn't so much go with the turquoise, brown and antique white colours of our home. So I took out my trusty antique white spray paint and quickly fixed the situation. I also reupholstered the shade with some extra fabric and ribbon I had laying around for another project.

Lastly, I got a killer deal at Value Village this week while I was visiting my dentist that lives on the exact opposite side of the city from me. I got a sweet rolled arm bench and footstool for $35 together! SWEEEEEEETT! I have to reupholster both as they are totally hideous with the current fabric situation, but I will remedy that in time! The picture below is a twin of the one I bought, except picture a bench with fabric about 100 times uglier and dirtier. I have my work cut out for me. Will post more when I get around to taking pictures and finishing projects.

-Alauna

Always Makes Me Happy.

One of my favorites. Almost like "You wanna mess with me?!?!", mixed with "Get me off my Face!"

-Trevor

Las fotos de Sterling

I decided to post a few pics of the little guy seeing as how I haven't been putting up as many as I used to. Here is Sterls' Christmas Card photo (I wanted to wait to post until people received their cards so it was a surprise). Yes, I was so sick I didn't mail out my cards until way after Christmas! He fell asleep at lunch today at Dana's house. This may seem normal to other parents but this is the first time that Sterling has ever fallen asleep somewhere other then his bed or the car. So freakin' cute!

Sterling and Papa at Banff Springs Hotel giving each other the stare down.

Sterling chillin at Dana's house, yet again. I have recruited Dana to take pictures of Sterls because I have been slacking. Well, actually I am just stealing the photos she is taking and posting them.

On sad news for Sterls: Another child needs to try out the midget wheelchair next week so we must give it back :(. Sad I know, he was absolutely loving it and I think he will really miss it until his chair comes in. I think that won't be for another month and a half to 2 months from when he loses the chair. I know it doesn't seem like that long to other people, but it does to me! I also know other kids need to this wheelchair too, but it is still a sad day! Good luck to the next child, Sterling has really worn this chair in for them. Constantly trying to run things and people over to entertain himself and which has ultimately lead to the destruction of my newly painted walls. Yes, my paint job looks about 10 years old from my knee down now, but at least from my knee up my walls are still pristine!

-Alauna

Beans

Dana (my sister-in-law) took some photos while she was watching Sterly Beans while I am at work. They are pretty cute so I thought I would share! The first is of Everett, Josh (Sterling's cousins) and Sterling having races on their wheels.
These are of Sterls feeding Everett. Yes, that is in fact one of his favourite things to do and not so much one of mine. He is always trying to feed me his slobbery half eaten food!

Look at them...Wow, I really think that you can tell they are cousins. They just have a similar look about them.

I just refinished the lamp that my parents got me for Christmas. I am pretty stoked on the end results. I will post when I get home! No, I didn't take before pictures because I was lazy and am now regretting it because it looks like a whole different lamp. I did however buy these tiny pine dressers from Ikea that I am going to refinish in black and silver leaf this week. I am so anxious to start this process but work just keeps getting in the way, dangit! More pictures to come this week of my projects....

-Alauna

My post on posting.

Yes, I haven't been back in weeks. I know! It isn't that I have not had anything to post because I really have. It was the evil thing called sickness that prevented me from this action. I took four days off before Christmas so that I could have 2 full weeks off of work during Christmas to visit my family that has traveled from yonder to visit for Christmas (Mog and Pog come from Utah, Colin, Stacey and family from Saskatoon and Ry and Kay from Rossland, BC). That didn't work out too well. The first day I had off I got super sick. I felt fine most of the day and then instantly I just had to throw-up. No I am not pregnant! My whole family assumed the same until they all followed in sickness within 12 hours. Yup, everyone got the super flu over Christmas (everyone being Me, Sterling, Mog, Pog, Colin, Stacey, Lucas, Chloe, Tyler, Dana, Stacy, Angus, Sean, Kelli, Cameron, Ryan, Kaylee, Scott (there would have been more people but they had already had this flu a few weeks before)). So I pretty much spent the whole first week of my time off throwing up and being really sick. The second week I got a bad cough due to my asthma. I have had this bad cough for 2 1/2 months that has made me not able to sleep or really even function properly. After I got the flu my immune system was so down that my cough started up really bad and made me cough every 5 seconds for 5 days straight. I went to several doctors that told me to come back when it was worse. I don't think a cough can get worse and I have had it for 2 1/2 months. I finally found one that told me I have cough variant asthma and gave me a couple inhalers to stop the coughing. So a week after I am finally almost back to normal. But feeling rather ripped off. I missed my whole 2 weeks of Christmas vacation being sick. I missed Christmas eve (we do tons of fun things together as a huge family like 26 people). Yup, missed that. I didn't even wrap Sterling's Christmas gifts. I didn't take any photos. Not one of Christmas! I am so sad now. This is the first Christmas that Sterling has had that he got excited over his gifts and I missed it all.

I have done a few projects and gotten a few new projects to start on when things level out and I clean my house from not doing anything for 2 weeks straight. Project that I have done:
Rad lamp (loved the shape, colour didn't match decor)
Christmas shelf
New Stockings

Projects to do:
Rockingchair $15 at Interfaith furniture store
Wooden Highchair
Captains bed

I will be posting pictures of my projects when I get a chance.

Sterling went to Meylo clinic yesterday and got a perfect bill of health for now. Yea! He has to get a kidney ultrasound and MRI before his next clinic in 6 months, but he will always have to get both of those frequently to make sure that they prevent anything from happening before it gets too serious. He was the hit around all the other kids and parents at clinic! He was just rolling around being his cute little self and all the other kids and parents couldn't stop smiling and playing with him.

How do you stop your 17 month old from throwing huge tantrums? Sterling was such a mellow easy going little baby. Most of the time he is still his charming little self but every once and a while starting about a month ago he started throwing massive tantrums where he grunts and goes red and then flails his arms wildly around hitting everything and everyone around him and pulling my hair. I don't give into his little tantrums but I also can't get them to stop. Yeah, gotta love your child screaming like you are beating them in public.

-Alauna