fall is coming

Fall is my favorite season out of the whole year.  I love the crisp weather, leaving the windows open, wearing scarves and sweaters, all the fun activities and of course decorating.  This past weekend after meeting some great friends for lunch Jay, C and myself headed to JoAnne’s and I snagged some essentials: a wreath frame, a big piece of foam, some fat quarters and of the most fall-atious of all fabrics...burlap.  Two wonderful yards of brown, orange and green/gray burlap, it was splendid!  I could hardly wait to get home and get C down for bed that night so I could get to play with all my craft store goods!

I started by digging into the big piece of styrofoam.  I found a font that I liked and then blew it up to the size I needed it to be.  The great thing about the letter H is that I could make it so big that only a quarter of the letter printed, but because it is so symmetrical I could just fold it different ways to get the whole letter.  So, I used the print out as a stencil, got a steak knife and went to work carving out a big letter H.  I had it pictured in my mind exactly how I wanted it to look....raggy strips of funky fabric wrapped around a letter H, looking slightly eclectic.  Well, it turns out I am neither eclectic nor funky, although I long to be both, that is just not me.  This is the hideous creation that I came up with.

I think somehow it actually looked even worse in real life.  It was bad, real bad.  After some problem solving with much thought I decided to leave the fabric as is and take strips of my oh, so pretty burlap and this is what I got...much better, if I do say so myself!

I love the texture of the little burlap bits that hang off and the color is much more pleasing to the eye than the other.  It is not funky or eclectic, but much more me!  This lovely quick little craft got hung in the dining room over the mirror.

I think it goes well and I love the bright dash of orange that the burlap strip gives off.  Just when it looked like my dining room had a burlap monster blow up inside it, I started my next burlap project, a bubble wrap wreath that I saw on pinterest.  It was super easy, quick and cheap.  The directions wanted you to pin each “bubble” with a straight pin, but I thought it would be cheaper to hot glue them on.  A day later I am just getting the feeling back in my finger tips from the constant burning from the glue, but hey, I must of saved at least four dollars!  This is the final product hanging above the mantle on the mirror.

Things to excuse:

The fact that you can see about an inch of dust and grime on the mirror.

That I completed multiple projects with burlap (but isn’t it soooo fall).

That I put both projects on a mirror.

I also stole this idea from pinterest.  I would show you what the original looked like, but it is far to embarrassing.  There is no comparison between the two, mine looks VERY homemade.  In my defense Jay and I was not going to guzzle down six very pricey beers and buy a sticker machine just to get the look that I saw.  Instead we enjoyed six root beers and I just painted the letters on the bottles by hand.

Now, all I need is something for the door.  I think I am going to recreate a wreath I made when we first got married.  All I need is a square piece of foam, hot glue gun and a gazillion pinecones.  I also need to make something for the table, maybe a nice fall runner?  I am still looking and getting some ideas together.  For now, these wonderful beauties are decorating the table.  My lovely husband got them for me on Friday after he went grocery shopping to make us a yummy steak dinner.

Last but not least, I love being able to get all my holiday tackiness out by teaching fifth grade.  The kids enjoy the goofy, nerdy treats and projects and Jay appreciates it because it is kept out of the house.  To celebrate the beginning of October I have the makings of Witches Brew for the kiddos:

one bag of popcorn or petrified brains

one bag of pretzels or skeleton ribs

one bag of marshmellows or shriveled up lungs

one bag of candy corn or old witch teeth (she really should have brushed)

one bag of m&m’s or rotted eyeballs

Mix all up in witches caldron, serve into a pointy ice cream cone or a witches hat!

The kids get a kick out of it and I will incorporate a Halloween-y story that they can practice some of their newly adopted fifth grade summary writing skills on while munching on their brew!

Happy fall everyone!

-melissa

goodbye summer

As summer ends and a new school year is just around the corner it makes me a little excited inside.  The end of summer is always such a great time to start so many things.  How about like cleaning the house, becoming organized, running again, eating better, getting on a great schedule, so on and so forth.

This year is just a tinge different for me than in years past.  This year while I happily trot off to go set up my classroom, prepare new binders and dream of bulletin boards and lesson plans I will be leaving something very precious behind.  My little C will either be staying home with dear old dad (aka the jay in jayhess.com) or spending the day with one of our sweet friends and her lovely family.  I have had many people ask how I am doing with being apart from little C with a lowered tone to their voice and sense of somberness in their eyes.  I know that is purely out of concern and love.  To answer everyones questions is... I am very ready!

I know that to some, it might sound awful.  I am sorry.  I have been away from something I really enjoy doing (although I might not admit it come January) for almost six months now.  I have not gone six months without a job since I was 15.  I now completely understand what a stay at home mom gig entails, and I am not cut out for it!  I know, it is a full time job, but I need to go to work to get a break! I am looking forward to my own little world again that I can mostly control (key on the mostly).  I know that there will be some days that I miss Charlotte and days when I can not wait to go pick her up.  But I know that she is in a good home around good people.  I also know that a happy mommy (and in my case, working mommy) is a happy family.

So anyways, back to the starting of new things, getting the wind back in my sails, cleaning up this place, organizing, decorating, getting fit... you know... an overall fall rehaul!  I have been working slowly on some projects and have even gotten Jay involved in a good amount of them (shocking I know, but he is such a good sport).  Here are some things that has been happening in the Hess House and Mrs. Hess’ Classroom over the past week or two:

New focus wall in family room:

It is by no means complete, but the bones are up.  We pulled some of the Richmond and Cincinnati artwork from the office, the honeymoon photo collage from the master and Jay made the sign after I showed him one on pinterest. (thanks pinterest)

In addition to what is there, Jay would like to add some smaller photo’s and I would like to add these! (thank you again, pinterest)

New mantel decor:

We used to have this large swirl candle holder from pottery barn, but it was so seven years ago and always hard to come up with new ways to decorate.  This is more simple and I think the mirror makes the room look bigger.

New family room wall art:

We made our first official family trips to two of my favorite places: Ikea and uFab.  Staple gun, one cute and handy hubby and twenty minutes later we have some interchangeable (this is just for fall) and cheap wall art.

Classroom:

These are current pictures of my ever evolving classroom.

Some new things for this year are these signs, created by my super handy husband with the ideas stolen from pinterest (yep, you should really check out pinterest if you haven’t yet).

Well, that is some of things that I have been up to, not including sewing projects for new babies, old babies and around the house.  I would like to dedicate this blog to the ladies who encouraged me to sleep train my child (so now I have time to dream and create again) and of course pinterest (because really I don’t dream and create, I just copy). Moohaha!

-melissa

avoiding cabin fever by getting crafty

Charlotte has been in our lives now for 16 days, I have been home for 13 of those days and I am ashamed to say I already have a big dose of cabin fever.  I blame part of the fever on the weather, it has been rainy and cold in the great Va now for days.  I blame the other part on that horrible pediatrician that told us we could not leave the house for one month.  Either way I know that is my job to make sure that I do not go nuts and only I can control my attitude and this crazy fever that I have currently.  The best way for me to avoid this is by crafting.  I am not much of a crafter when it comes to holiday wreathes and potpourri arrangements, but I do love to sew.  So I have lined up some projects that in my opinion are very needed in the world and will keep me busy!

The first project that I have in mind is for Benjamin, my too cute nephew who lives in Ohio.  I think it is essential that he has a wonderfully handcrafted Easter present from his Auntie Mo and Uncle Jay.  After scouring my sewing blogs I have found these...

from the longthread.com.  I will post pictures as soon as they are finished.  Hopefully they will be perfect for him even if he doesn’t understand the whole bowling thing.  He can always chuck them across the house or use them as a weapon for the family dog...sorry Molly!

The second project that I have in mind has been in the back of my head floating around since around Christmas.  We have a good family friend that has a beach quilt.  I think it is the greatest idea to have a quilt that goes with you and your family every year to the beach.  I love the idea of having year after year of family pictures at the beach on top of the same family quilt.  I think it will be lovely to see the quilt age with the family over time.  So with all those lovely sentiments and gushy feelings out of the way, Jay and I went shopping online (remember I can not yet leave the house, not even for my favorite fabric stores) to find a fabric pack (called a jelly roll in the sewing world) that we both loved and thought would be perfect for a family beach quilt.  One of the first companies that we first searched was Moda, they are a great company with very diverse prints.  I like that the fabrics do not look like they have been designed by some old bird but also do not look too modern.  We settled on this.......

We thought that it would go perfectly with the quilt pattern that we had chosen from cluckclucksew.com

Now this project will be significantly more difficult and take up way more time than the cute bunnies for Benjamin, but I need to get working on it now if I want it complete by our Ocracoke trip in July which means I need to stop blogging!

-melissa