Dry spell...

Thank you for all of the closet suggestions. I've decided for now to not paint the closets. Mainly because my list of stuff I want to do is ever growing and I'm getting worried about getting it all done. So the closets will stay the way that they are for now.

Also, I realize that this blog has been lacking. I've been a little uninspired lately, so I'm going to try harder to get the creative juices flowing again...

Closet question...

I want your opinion on something...

If you are re-painting a room do you re-paint the closet? I have a few rooms I'm going to paint and the new color is very different than the color it is now. Should I take the time to paint the closet or do I just leave it?

Photo from the Container Store

Stripes...

I'm pretty much in love with these little green and taupe stripped leg warmers I just finished. I can't wait to pull them up over some chubby baby legs...

Sproost...

My friend Ashley told me about this great Interior Design website called Sproost that has a test you can take to determine your own personal design style. I took this test a few months back and it said that I was 33% contemporary, 33% modern elegance, and 34% cottage chic. I was a little surprised by the results... because I like modern and contemporary but I do think that I'm a little more cottage chic.

I went back today and re-took the quiz. I was very serious this time, looked at the pictures and gave my true honest answer. This time it said that I was...

100% Rustic Revival

Amen... just look at this picture. I do love the mix of modern and country. I like solid clean colors. I like to throw in plants and prints here and there but this room feels like home to me. This is more of what I would like to achieve someday in my home. I would love to get a cow print rug (sorry animal lovers...) and put a set of antlers on the wall... as long as it was modern and classy and not cabin fever.

Go take the quiz! I think I'm going to have to re-take it again in a little while just to double check... it's fun!

Coconut Macaroons...

Oh man, these are the best cookies ever. If you like coconut that is. We are coconut fans over here and we can not get enough of these cookies. I was looking for a good macaroon recipe around Christmas time and found this one over at all recipes. I picked this one because it said that it had won many first place ribbons at the state fair... ya sounds like a good one to me! Also, I like to cook, but I have a hard time with recipes that have a million different ingredients in them. I like to keep things simple and this is a very simple recipe.

Coconut Macaroons

2/3 cup all-purpose flour
5 1/2 cups flaked coconut
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 (14 ounce) can sweetened condensed milk
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

DIRECTIONS
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line cookie sheets with parchment paper or aluminum foil.
In a large bowl, stir together the flour, coconut and salt. Stir in the sweetened condensed milk and vanilla using your hands until well blended. Use an ice cream scoop (or you know, a spoon) to drop dough onto the prepared cookie sheets. Cookies should be about golf ball size.
Bake for 12 to 15 minutes in the preheated oven, until coconut is toasted.

*** I like to insert my own little goodness in here. I think that most things taste better dipped in chocolate (at least when it comes to cookies) so I like to melt some semi-sweet chocolate chips and dip the cookies in that. Then I put them in the fridge for the chocolate to harden. At Christmas we also dipped the chocolate part into little crushed up candy canes. Very sweet and good!

Baby leg warmers...

I finished my first set of baby leg warmers this weekend. The only problem was that I had to find a baby to try them on!!! I don't know of any newborns around here... so I had to wait till we saw Trent's sister to try them on her baby.
I think that they turned out pretty cute! I'm going to make little Amelia some that are a bit more girly.

Fancy Jean Quilt...

Holy cow... I have the most amazing sister in law. My SIL Nicole has more talent in her little finger than I will ever have in my whole body!!! Too bad she's too busy sewing up cool stuff to keep a blog huh (that and take care of her 3 1/2 kids...) She whipped up this amazing jean quilt for my other SIL's wedding shower that was on Saturday. By whipped up I mean she started this on Wednesday and had the whole thing done and ready to go Saturday morning. Unreal!

She used these adorable 1940's prints for all the squares. By the time I got my camera out they had already rolled most of the quilt so I didn't get a picture of the whole thing. But I was so impressed. She also brought a bowl of spring colored taffy to munch on while we tied... because all the colors were springy. She put my jean quilt to shame... However, this is not a competition! I love that I can get good ideas from her and she is constantly teaching me new things about quilting.

Double pointed needles...

I've been pretty obsessed with knitting lately... which is pretty funny considering that I have only knit one hat in my whole life! I just can't stop thinking about it! I saw these adorable baby leggings on a blog and haven't been able to think about much else since.

One thing that I learned a few years back is that even when something might seem impossible... it most likely is not. It just might take some more effort that "normal" but most things are totally doable. For the past few weeks I've been on a quest to find a baby leg warmer pattern. I found a few and have altered them a bit to make something that I like. The next problem... needing to knit with double pointed needles (what?).

I looked up a great tutorial on YouTube to help "teach me" how to do this. It was a wonderful tutorial and so I was off to the craft store to buy some of the most delicious yarn I've seen...

Next thing I know... the dream is becoming a reality. I can indeed knit myself (or you know, someone smaller) some adorable baby leg warmers on these double pointed needles.

I feel a little funny knitting these while the temperatures are climbing quickly around here. Before I'm done with them I'm sure that it will be around 115 degrees and the only thing any baby for miles around will be wearing are diapers... if they are lucky! But as life works, the day will come when there will be a baby around with cold little legs... and I will be prepared. I'm so excited! They are turning out pretty cute!

The next goal is to make some with TWO colors!! Sounds impossible right now but I'm sure somehow I'll figure it out!

Knit Pillow...

I've been really into knitting lately. I love these knit pillows from West Elm. I don't think that I'm advanced enough to knit myself something like this... but I love them! They would be a perfect cozy addition to a bed.

Wedding Album...

It's finally done!!! Six years and three months later (to the day...) I finally finished our wedding album. I like it. It's simple, it has all of my pictures in one place. It makes me happy! Come take a trip down memory lane with me ...

(Sorry for the picture quality here...) This is the page for the day we got engaged. Yellow bandanna is the one I was wearing when we got engaged.

The little hearts are some of the ones that I saved that Trent used to propose to me. I was working at a girls camp and I was hiking with my campers when he proposed. These were all scattered on the trail tied to flowers. They say things that he liked about me on them... Ahhh...

Some mock engagement pictures that we took our at the Great Salt Lake. We had little brine flies all over us... gross.


Our REAL engagement photo shoot. Also on this page I put a copy of our wedding invitation.

Bridal shower page. I saved one of the invitations from the bridal shower my friend Ashley threw. Just lots of pictures of people sitting around...

This is my bridal picture page... pretty lame if you ask me. I didn't know what to do with this page so I just sewed some fabric on there. I don't know what that's suppose to look like... a veil? An old Kleenex? Don't know... but one thing with sewing on paper, once you sew it on you can't take it back!!!

I LOVE THIS PAGE!!! I saved this one for last because I wasn't sure exactly what I wanted to do with it. This is the page about the day that we actually got married and it has all of the pictures that were taken at the temple in the pages that follow. I decided to make a bouquet like the one that I had that day. We had our reception a week after our wedding so I didn't have a bouquet that day. I wasn't worried about it, but Trent bought me a beautiful winter bouquet from Costco and I loved it! It was perfect. I had a fun time recreating it. The only thing missing is the pine cone, yes there was a pine cone in the bouquet... but I wasn't sure how to do that and I didn't want to "ruin" the page so I left it out.

We had a wedding dinner following our sealing at the Lion House in Salt Lake. I wrote Trent a song when we were dating and surprised him that night by playing it at the dinner. So for that page I sewed a little guitar and printed out the words to the song that I wrote and put it on the page.
This is the page for our reception. All of the dresses that the bridesmaids wore and the sisters etc. were made, so we had some fabric scraps of everything. My cousin made me a pillow out of all the fabric scraps that has been tucked away in my cedar chest for some time. So I took one of the panels off of the pillow and sewed it onto the page. I also have a napkin from the reception and some leopard ribbon that I used to make my garter belt. I had to throw leopard print into that wedding somehow!!

Lots of reception pictures in here. Can any of you pick yourself out? Ashley, Shannon, Jules, Amy, Erinn, Berlee, Angela!!! Lots of you in there to share this special day with us!

Last but not least the honeymoon. We went up to Yellowstone and went snowmobiling for our honeymoon. It was so great! Nice to "take a break" every once in a while but it was so cold that we didn't break for long! I would love to go back there in the winter and snowmobile around again. I saved a map that we had of the different trails around there.


So there you have it. My non scrapbooked scrapbook! I know that some of you think that this is the same thing as scrapbooking, but I tell you what. It was so EASY and CHEAP and fun to put together. It really didn't take any time at all. I used the same color thread on everything and didn't use one dot of glue. If you would like to review the "book scrapping" method you can refer back to it here.

My new friend Neti...

I would like to introduce you all to my new best friend Neti...

I usually don't buy my friends, but this was an exception. I have this horrible head cold right now and have been trying to tough it out. Yesterday my sinuses were just killing me. So I decided to head over to Whole Foods and pick up one of these gems. I'd been wanting to try one for a while but was a little hesitant. I don't normally care for water up the nose if you know what I mean. But I was desperate!

How it works is you fill it with warm water and a little salt. Then you hold the little spout to your nose and tilt your head to the side. It flushes out your nose/sinuses/head and the water drains out the other nostril (I don't care for the word nostril... but it had to be said.)

Honestly, it was weird. It took a little practice to actually get it to drain right and not feel like I was just pouring water in my nose. My ears felt a little funny after (they are all connected up there after all) but within minutes my head started to feel a little better.

Today when I woke up, NO SINUS PAIN!! I'm so glad! I think this one is a keeper!

I really like home remedies. I would much MUCH rather try something out at home before rushing to a doctor just to get on medication. There is a book that I like called The Prescription for Nutritional Healing which has some really good remedies in it. However, I'm a little leery of trying too many herbal remedies. I don't really like putting things into my body that I'm not totally sure what they will do. There are some herbs out there that can cause a lot of problems, so I only try the herb stuff if it's been well tested and is a more common herb. There are some other remedies that I've tried that I will now swear by such as taking ginger pills for motion sickness. I wont go on a road trip or a plane without it. Also the old nasty bitter straight cranberry juice for UTI's. Work great!

So yes, the neti pot is now a keeper on my list of home remedies. What home remedies have you found that work?

Family blog link...

I've had a few people tell me that they haven't been able to find my family blog. Sorry, I don't want to link it here anymore... so if you would like to have it just e-mail me at naturallymeg (at) gmail.com.

Meg's salad...

Oh how I love a good salad. A few years ago I made a salad almost everyday for my lunch. It was my experimenting time, to see if I could master a good salad. I found a certain mixture of goodness that I haven't been able to stray from since. Every time I make a salad I make THIS salad. I love it. It makes me happy.

The goods...

lettuce (I like green leaf or the box of Costco greens)

tomato

avocado

craisens

feta

a little Parmesan cheese sprinkled on top

That's it! I try to keep these things on hand at all times so that I can whip up my favorite salad whenever. I rarely will add anything else to this... usually I make it without the feta because it's so dang pricey, but it's better with it!

Ruffles...

Sorry that I don't have any projects to post about. I currently have five college kids sleeping on my floor for spring break... including the floor to my sewing room. So instead, I'll just dream of pretty things that I can make someday.

I've never been much of a girly girl. But for some reason I've been so drawn to ruffles lately it's ridiculous! Here are a few ruffles that have caught my eye lately...

Ruffle shower curtain for Anthropologie...

Ruffle skirt from Target...

I spent most of last night while I was laying in bed trying to figure out how I could make that shower curtain. Out of bed sheets?? That might be the way to go. I almost snagged that skirt at Target the other day but it was just a tad too short... Don't be too surprised if you see some ruffle projects making their appearance here soon.

Little Bunnies...

I know that it's still March... but I've already started to think about Easter. I don't think that I really did much for Easter last year. No Easter baskets, no new clothes! Boring huh? Well, I don't want to miss out on the Easter fun this year so I'm already starting to think about what I want to do.

One thing on my list is to try to make these sweet little knitted bunnies for Tru's basket. I think that they are just adorable! I've never knitted with double pointed needles so hopefully I can figure it out.