The sun shines bright....

As the song goes...

Photo Gene Burch Photography

"The sun shines bright on my Old Kentucky Home"....

May is a spectacular month to be living in the bluegrass state. Aside from the beautiful flowers and trees that are in bloom, the first Saturday in May is reserved for the Kentucky Derby. The most exciting 2 minutes in sports!

At the Oaks race in 2010

I've mentioned before that I grew up in Salt Lake City, but am happily a resident of Louisville, Kentucky for 16 years now.  I've always tried to "bloom" where I was planted and embracing all the good things that Kentucky has to offer is part of that to me.

Last year I did a series on my blog to celebrate the Derby.... With the Derby coming up next week I thought I'd do a little round up of the ideas that were shared.

First if you'd like to learn a little bit more about the Kentucky Derby...

Rain rain go away....

Hello!!!

How was your Easter weekend?   Ours was rainy... but aside from that we had a very nice Easter with wonderful church service and fun food with friends and family...

When I say rainy I'm not kidding- we are at 317% of normal rainfall for April. It pretty much started raining on Friday and hasn't stopped since then.

In the 5 minutes on Easter Sunday that it was not raining, I rushed the kids outside to get some photos of them in their Easter duds..

As you can see it was a highly successful photo shoot...

all better

okay,

I'm back... 

Sparkly Lucky T-shirt

**product provided to me by Silhouette, but all opinions are my own**

It's Spring here in Kentucky... which means one thing...

Derby!!

Anyone who has seen the movie Secretariat this year probably has heard a little bit about the "most exciting 2 minutes in sports."  Well it's a pretty big deal here!  The Kentucky Derby is the first Saturday in May, and every year the city rolls out the welcome mat for all of our out of town visitors.  Locals celebrate too, with lots of fun events in the weeks leading up to Derby.

When Silhouette sent me their Rhinestone Starter kit to play with I knew right away what I wanted to make! A derby shirt for my daughter.

Here's how I did it:

Tropicana Winner!!

Congrats to:

christal couturier said...
I hug and kiss my babies, then have my coffee and OJ

You won the $100 Visa gift card from Tropicana!! I sent you an email with instructions to claim your prize!

And if you didn't win this time don't stress!! Tropicana is giving away a 2nd $100 gift card to a Polkadot Chair reader!

Just click here to enter!!

Crazy Town

As I was thinking about what to blog about this week, I had a few "just okay" ideas running through my head, I started to write a few then stopped.

my nephew, a couple of Easter's ago...

I decided instead of trying to throw together a post this week, I'd just post the truth...

which is... I'm just really really behind right now... and I'm tired...

We got back from our trip. Then at 6 am the next day went back to the old routine, school, work, kids, housework, sports, etc. I've cleaned out the winter clothes, rearranged the living room,  moved patio furniture, worked in the yard, and even managed to break the garage door (genius move on my part).

I don't have anything crafty to share today.  So sorry...

But soon.... I've got Easter dresses on the brain & patio cushions to sew... So please, stay tuned...

home.

We are back from a much anticipated Spring Break trip and I am happy to report we found some Sunshine! 

We spent a few days on the "Happiest Place on the Ocean"... Which apparently was many people's "happiest" place last week,  since it was really crowded.

Win a $100 Visa Gift Card from Tropicana!!! (again... aren't they cool?)

Hey there!!!

We are just back from Spring Break and trying our best to "catch up". We had a wonderful trip full of lots of sunshine and sand! Just what you want for a Spring break trip!

Guess what???

Tropicana is giving away ANOTHER $100 VISA GIFT CARD!!! 

Click Here to ENTER

go check it out... I'm also sharing one of our families favorite smoothie recipes!!

Boys Bedroom Redo...

Okay to kick of my theme of "home" this month, I thought I'd share with you photos of my sons room that we recently redid. I shared a little 'sneek peek' on my facebook page last month and thought I'd share the details with you today.

This room has been through a few transformations. When we moved in it was a nice, clean,  blank slate and looked like this:

Shortly after we moved in, we decided to paint it.  My son has ALWAYS loved the color yellow and I mean LOVE. When he was little he always had to have a yellow cup and a yellow plate, a yellow shirt- you get the idea. So we decided to paint his room yellow... (big surprise)

First we added board and batten molding all around.

We put a shelf on one wall with these fun star blocks to hold it up.

Then per his request we painted the room yellow. 

After a couple of years he started complaining that it was too dark and he wanted something lighter.   I had seen the movie 500 Days of Summer and fell IN LOVE with the chalkboard wall in the main characters room.  I was dying to try it somewhere in our house,  so I thought we'd try out painting chalkboard paint behind his bed...

I wanted to "paint" a picture frame on top of the chalk paint but I was vetoed by him and his dad. They said to leave it blank so he can color it like he wants.

I have been collecting "A"'s for a couple of years now and hung them all on the wall over the chalkboard paint (which by the way is wonderful to hang things on, you can write on the wall to mark where you want your nails).

I found a quilt at the Pottery Barn outlet in Ohio and decided to match one of the grays for the wall.

The lighter gray is MUCH brighter in the room and shows off his red furniture well. The portrait I just painted of him matched up perfectly too, so I hung it in there- is it weird to have a portrait of yourself in your room? I couldn't decide..

We added lots of hooks to the molding, make a perfect spot to hang stuff up, and I find that kids are much more likely to hang something up on a hook than a hanger.

I'm happy with how it turned out, and more importantly so is he... hopefully we will not be repainting this room again for a very long time!

linking up:

April's blog theme: Home

It seemed only right after March's theme of "journey" to have Aprils theme be "home".. because after you have been away there is nothing like coming home.  You know that wonderful feeling of being able to sleep in your own bed again.

Since January we have been busy getting some much needed things done around the house, rooms painted, closets organized and a lot of de junking! So I thought I'd share with you some of the things I've been working on and a few of the things on my "to do" list for Spring...

-- and if you think that the theme this month is just a good excuse for me to get some projects done around the house, well, you're right... You know what they say about those two poor birds and the one stone. :)

Ironically I'm not at home for the start of this... I'm sitting with my July bag full of magazines and chocolate relaxing somewhere warm...

 I've got some posts scheduled while I am gone but I'll be unreachable most of the week.  So if you email just know it will be a bit before I get back to you.

Since all of my patterns are now self downloading in the shop, it will remain open this week! Any shippable items will ship after I return.

Shabby Apple Winner

Congrats to


Arin said...
My favorite is the Sierra Nevada and bonvoyage dresses

March 27, 2011 4:24 PM

You won the Shabby Apple giveaway!
I hope you will love your new dress!!

Don't forget you can still use the code "polkadotchair" to get 10% off your order!

April Fools Anyone?

So I thought about posting something silly or clever for April Fool's today- like I'm pregnant (NOT) or I'm quitting blogging (NOT) or I'm moving (NOT)... but instead thought I'd share with you this idea from 2 years ago.

I made these little "burgers" 2 years ago for a scout night at church- I thought the boys would get a kick out of them... Yes, I know bakerella has made them too since then and hers are WAY CUTER... 

but these require NO BAKING... so if you are looking for a fun dessert tonight they don't take much time- 

you can read the post about how I made them here...

And... Happy April Fool's day... we'll see what pranks my kids try to pull on me this year :)