more storage for canning

The time finally came. The time where I clearly needed more space if I planned to continue canning as much as I have been. We filled our little jar shelf that used to sit in this space and then another two shelves in the pantry, a half shelf in the garage of empty jars, and still we were squeezing jar into random places. Random places that I would, of course, forget about when I needed a particular item. We've talked about added more jar storage in this space for nearly a year, and the time finally came.

We hired another parent from our kids' school to build this shelf unit, then I immediately set to work on the painting. The paint on the top 3 shelves are drying as I type, but I just couldn't wait any longer to get some of these jars out of the hallway!

The best I can figure, this shelf will hold about 250 jars of varying sizes, which is about how many we have right now. If I decide to can more than that, we'll still have to utilize part of the pantry, but at least the bulk of our jars will be in a single, organized location.

Bring on the summer! I'm ready to start canning!

PS. Have you visited The Book Children recently? There's a giveaway right now so check it out!

an update for the dining room

For several months now, we've had an update for the dining room on our agenda. This room was originally painted within months of moving in almost 10 years ago! It definitely served us well, but the paint was fading and the curtains were nearly faded through. 

First we had to recover from the Christmas updates to the kids' rooms. Then, we had to wait on the painting until I had the new curtains finished for this room. Our dining room faces the street and gets all of the morning sun. Living without a curtain in these windows is not a possibility! Finally, the stars aligned, the hardware and paint were purchased, and the curtains were sewn. For about $80 in cloth, hardware, and paint, we gained an updated look in the dining room.

Before:

After:

In addition to the new curtains, we relocated the keyboard and the stemware that cluttered the top of the wine cabinet. We also moved the Nikki McClure prints to this room from their old home, which is getting an update soon.

I'm happy that this Pyrex print matches the new curtains so nicely. It needs a larger frame and matting to really fill this space though.

The curtain fabric is from Michael Miller's Put a Lid on It line. I fell in love with it nearly a year ago, and the dining room update was really planned around this fabric.

The orange walls make the photographs look a bit darker, but the room is just as light as it was before and even lighter when the curtains are drawn. The heavy red drapes we had before really blocked out the light in this space. I'm definitely happy with the updates we made here.

updates in the library

I wish I had taken a few "before" shots of the library. Then you could how much more orderly this room has become over the last month. Alas, I was so focused on the reorganization, that the before shots completely slipped my mind. Suffice to say, there was double-parking of books, many books laying on their sides on top of other books, and general chaos that happens when you outgrow the number of shelves available for occupation. Not to mention, unless you knew where a book was located, it was often a wild goose chase. With space so tight, we'd long given up our original topical shelf organization. Paul and I spent a weekend at the beginning of January completely removing every book from the library shelves, shedding a number of books from our collection, then reorganizing by topic.

And the reason that we were able to reorganize the entire library and make room for new books that will undoubtably make their way into our home, we decided to add bookshelves to our bedroom. Well, I decided. The whole undertaking was a surprise for Paul for Christmas. My parents were so generous to stop at Ikea and squeeze these 83" tall shelves into their car to bring them to me. Then, the weekend before Christmas, while Paul was out for the morning, my dad put them together. Paul was thrilled and many of his books have been relocated to this shelf. Now we have plenty of room to expand in both locations, which is thrilling to me!

Also, back to the library, I don't think I ever shared about this beautiful desk (ignore the mess of cords underneath) that Paul bought me back in the summer. A friend has a vintage shop downtown, and we saw this Paul McCobb desk with satellite legs one weekend while we were visiting her shop. I was smitten, and while I was out of town with the kids the next week, Paul bought it for me and located it to the library for a surprise when I returned.

Then back around Thanksgiving, another friend was getting rid of this vintage typewriter. When I swooned over the picture on Facebook, he offered it in exchange for a handknit hat. The best investment of a hat that I ever made! I intend to have it cleaned and hopefully fixed soon. Until then, we just admire her beauty.

Back in the early fall, when we were visiting a favorite local coffee haunt (because coffee served out of an Airstream is always better), we stumbled through the furniture showroom next door and walked away with the perfect chair to go with our desk, on sale, no less. The laptop at that desk has become the kids laptop, for homework and other queries, which means they are using the desk more than I am at this point. For now, anyway.

At the same furniture shop, we found this amazing piece of modern design, the Node chair, and we knew that we couldn't leave without it. The chair and desk part completely swivel. The kids use it quite often for drawing, especially while listening to audiobooks on the laptop across the room.

With the addition of these pieces of furniture (the first we've bought in years), I think our library has become much more useful, and usable. The kids spend a great deal of time in there now, and they still have plenty of floorspace, as they often play Legos, etc, in there while listening to stories.

sprucing up the library

Our library received a makeover about 2 months ago (has it really been that long?!) that seemed to take forever to finish because I waited until just before the holidays to begin, then of course, had no time to work on the curtains. The previous curtains in the library were actually the reason for the sprucing. They dry rotted right in the window (it's a southwest facing window), and they were sheer, which didn't work very well for our sometimes guest room anyway.

So after perusing etsy for what felt like months, I finally stumbled on a fabric I liked: It's a Hoot by Moda Fabrics in Pistachio. I *thought* the blue in the fabric would match the previous wall color, but alas, when the fabric arrived, the blue was more aqua, and the wall color was not going to be able to remain the same. So...we painted the walls celery, using a no-VOC paint, of course and then rearranged a bit. The lamp and end table were borrowed from other spots in the house where they weren't seeing much use. Fortunately it took me SO long to get around to sewing the new curtains, that my friend, Jenni, came to visit and offered to do the sewing (and even lined them!) for me, then had them completed and mailed back to me in a week. She's the best!


The everything wall received it's semi-annual sprucing at the same time and we decided, ahem, to buy a tv to hang on the library wall. While I was aghast at Paul's first mention of hanging a tv in here, neither of us have really ever liked the centerpiece, mantle-top tv in the family room, which was what we were trying to eliminate. The new tv in the library is not very large and hardly noticeable in a room with wall-to-wall randomness. Not to mention we rarely watch any kind of tv (we have no cable) so having it out of the way is wonderful.


We did keep Wills on the wall to keep us honest in our book buying. How can you look him in the eye and read a cheesy romance novel?!


Unfortunately the result of all the library sprucing and tv switching means that we are now left with a hole in our living room. Or a bare wall, more precisely. Over Christmas it worked well with some greenery, candles, and some tall glass trees. I couldn't leave the glass trees because they were just too Christmasy, and the greenery is not going to last forever so I need a good decorating idea for this space.


I'm sure we'll stumble across a sculpture or other art piece sometime that will be wonderful for this space, but I know that if I just go looking for one, it won't be perfect and probably will be too costly. Perfect art pieces need to be stumbled upon, I think. But if you have an idea for something to occupy the space for the short term, I'm all ears. :)

a space for Finn's work

This is the art shelf that sits in the corner of our breakfast nook beside the kitchen bar.

This is the space that has been cleared for Finn's work on the art shelf.

This is the clementine box that has been selected as a holder for Finn's work.

This is the clementine box, painted with chalkboard paint, selected to hold Finn's work.

This is "Finn's work" box in it's new residence on the art shelf in the breakfast nook, right by the table where he likes to work.

Speaking of Finn's work, I recently discovered the site Montessori for Everyone which has some great free downloads. Finn is thrilled with his new cards to work with and several of them have been particularly applicable to our trip to the sheep farm this past weekend.

We've talked about sweaters, yarn and where they come from, as well as the names for mommy and daddy sheep and their baby lambs. These cards came in a set with other "where they come from" cards and other "animal families" from the Montessori for Everyone cultural materials section of the free downloads.

I also really liked the What Doesn't Belong cards, which I haven't presented to Finn just yet. I'm not sure he has the concept of which picture does not belong in each group of four. I was also concerned that he wouldn't learn the concept, he would just learn which item didn't belong and then always know where to place his X card.

So I created my own sheet of What Doesn't Belong cards so I can have more cards to mix together and hopefully reinforce the concept without just teaching the 4 specific cards that were available for download on Montessori for Everyone. If you'd like to print the following sheet, just click on the picture, and it should come up in a standard letter size for printing.

corners of...glass

When I posted a "corners of" post last, I had a thought that it might become a weekly series here. Alas, two and a half months have past, and I'm finally getting around to another one! But here we are...and here are my corners of glass.

When I was much younger, I remember watching a movie which showed one of the characters blowing glass. Watching the glowing hot lump of glass turn into a beautiful vase, I thought that was surely the most fascinating, and brave, form of artwork I'd ever seen. With one glassblowing class now under my belt (when Finn was 3 weeks old, no less!), I'm happy to leave glassblowing for those less afraid of blowtorches and molten glass and admire the few pieces that I still have from my class. And of course, those I've acquired from other fabulous glass artists.

Hanging over our breakfast nook bay window, glass orbs from a local artist.

The way the light bends and changes through the texture and color of the glass can be amazing sometimes.

The "extras" sit in a bowl on a library shelf. Only 2 of these are from a local artist, one is from Asheville and the other is from a trip to Italy. (The green wool ball in the back is from our trip to Ireland.) I love how seeing these pieces can transport me back to where I was and what I was doing at that time.

A funky little artistic piece made with copper and glass hangs in our kitchen window, a reminder of a fun Christmas party gift exchange.

This next piece sits in my bedroom window. Made from stained glass and copper, it is part of my art-o-mat collection.

And one of the remainders from my glassblowing class, a long, skinny doggy. :)

And a pile of beads. I've intentioned to make them into a ceiling fan chain pull, but that clearly hasn't happened yet.

Even Elizabeth's gotten in on the action a little bit with this glass she covered at yarn camp last year. It looks beautiful with a candle inside!

corners of...pottery

I recently came to the realization that although my blog's name calls us an art family, and I frequently share our family arts and crafts, I don't often speak of mine or Paul's artistic interests. I thought I might start sharing a bit of that here and there as the opportunity affords itself. Foremost I keep this blog as a journal for my kids so I thought they might enjoy someday seeing these posts about the art that filled their childhood spaces. Or maybe they will flip past these journaling pages wondering why I spent so much time talking about my knitting and the art on our walls. Who knows!

My first artistic passion blossomed out of my custody arrangement when Elizabeth's dad and I first split up. I really needed something to occupy my Tuesdays, when Elizabeth spent the evening with her dad, to take my mind off the current situation. What started out as a one-time class to explore throwing pottery, an art form I'd always admired, became 3 straight years of non-stop pottery classes including a 3 month stint taking one-on-one lessons with a master potter. I don't think that all those lessons brought me to any level of expertise, but I'd never been able to truly lose myself in any type of art before, regardless of the finished product, and to find that deep relaxation which comes from practicing a true artistic passion.

The following pieces are scattered throughout our house, although this is less than 1/4 of the pottery in our house and most was made by me, except where otherwise notated.

{hand-built polka-dotted mushroom}

{Elizabeth's face bowl, reminiscent of local tradition}

{wheel-thrown bulb vase}

{first raku piece, with metallic glaze}

{a print I made for our kitchen

from a photograph of of a vase I threw}

{pottery in our headboard,

furthest on right was a gift from South Dakota}

{crystalline pottery from Seagrove}

{Paulie's pottery mask}

My most treasured new piece of pottery is this pendant that Finn made me for Mother's Day this year. How thrilling to have my littlest make me such a sweet piece of pottery! As his first piece it certainly holds a special place in my heart.

Although I truly enjoy and have grown immensely through pottery, my life now as a working mama to 4 little ones doesn't leave much time for pottery anymore. I'm ok with that for now since I've found other creative endeavors to keep me busy. I know that one day my arms will be less full and my hands less busy and I'll find my way back to the world of pottery on a regular basis. For now it just fills me with joy to have pottery around the house, in these corners.