oh, the possibilities...

After book club on Wednesday night, I had to run to JoAnn's to pick up a few things. What was intended to be just a quick errand turned into an hour and a half of aimless browsing. Which isn't such a bad thing since my aimless browsing lead me to Gutermann thread at 40% off (plus a 20% coupon on top of that - oh yeah)! I couldn't resist the temptation of all the gorgeous colors! Since I already own an assortment of pink threads, I decided to focus on growing my blues. There are just so many possibilities with all the colors that I can't wait to see them in action. And I'm sure it won't take long for me to find an excuse to use them all. In fact, my machine is buzzing away with one of the pretty teal threads as I speak...music to my ears!

graduation gifties

My mother-in-law, Joni, and I were talking and she asked if I knew anyone who did monogramming. I sheepishly said, "Um, I do." I was, of course, eager to have another project (read: an excuse to use my new toy), but nervous because this is the first person, besides my mom, for whom I would do some monogramming-yikes! She had the super-cute idea to monogram laundry bags (guess you know what I will be giving all high school grads from now on)! Excited to have another project, but with no guarantees of how this would turn out, I took her bags and went to embroidering. Here are the results:

I finished the last one on Monday night:

 What do you think? Does anyone else have any cute ideas?

art appreciation

I walked down to the first floor of my office building to make a deposit and noticed some new art hanging in the office. Two special edition prints have been created by Anderson Design Group to raise funds for the Nashville flood relief. Here is the link so you can check them out yourselves: Spirit of Nashville. I fell in love with the guitar one-which surprised me, because as you will see, I am most likely going to hang flowery things on my wall, not guitars. Since the proceeds were going to a good cause, I ordered it that day. For those of you who live in Nashville, you can avoid pesky shipping charges and just pick the print up yourself, like I did. I immediately went to Micheal's and much to my surprise, found a frame with the exact dimensions of the print-on sale of course! Here is my new art, proudly displayed in my living room to remind me of the time that I realized that I live in the most amazing city!

The artwork hanging didn't stop there. Since Brannon had everything out, we went ahead and hung some personal artwork that I have been dying to get on the walls. After two visits to Paint Along in Brentwood, my breakfast nook is bursting with color!

Ever since I moved into the downtown Pinnacle office, I have appreciated the artwork that is displayed everywhere in the office. This inspired me to put more emphasis on placing art in my own home. We still have two prints that need to be framed and one canvas to hang, but this is a pretty good start for now!

adventures in embroidery

I have recently realized that I love getting Better Homes & Gardens magazine and that I love to peruse craft blogs. However, I really did not have an avenue for allowing my inner craftiness out. So, I decided I wanted not just a sewing machine, but a sewing and embroidery machine. And my wonderful husband did not so much as bat an eyelash when I informed him that I wanted said machine. So one HSN video later, and I fell in love with the Singer SES 1000 (kinda sounds like a car)! With some moral support from my mom, I went straight to embroidering:

 So I started with burp cloths...

 

Then tried bibs...

Next was towels, totes and onesies after that...

Beach bags for my sis-n-laws.

This was a graduation present for Erica's sister.

Onesies for a few baby showers/late baby gifts (I'm a little behind on my gift giving)

 

 

So, after one botched bib and two botched onesies and some help from my friend Julie, I think I am getting the hang of this!