It's 9 days until Christmas and we are back in project mode. I spent much of the weekend sewing on something I can't show you. I do so wish I could! I did also sew the curtain for Elanor's bathroom. You'll see that before long.

Steve spent the weekend helping Chris get the sheetrock in the bathroom ready to paint and getting the trim up. I don't have a picture but I will tomorrow.

Steve also started building our new living room TV cabinet. This is where the TV is now:

When we moved in there was a built-in desk here with shelves above. It made no sense and we changed it by building in this structure. This is a really deep space and there is a lot of wasted space behind the facade. Now that televisions are so slim, it makes no sense.

I took a photo of the shelves back in there. Below, the dark on the left is the edge of the TV. The edge of the fabric you see is a curtain I made to hang behind the TV to hide the mess behind. 

Steve hit upon the idea of storing our Christmas stuff in the wasted area. But how to get to it? I had an idea… a cabinet much like the built-in, but on casters! We drew the plans yesterday morning after cleaning house and Steve got to work. It is 57" wide x 81 1/2" tall x 16" deep. That leaves a space that is 57 x 81 1/2 x 20 behind it.

Saturday Steve got the wood and supplies ready and started cutting, routing, and sanding. Today he really moved out…

He got the casters on and it is now standing up in the garage!

The upper shelves are not in yet, nor is the lower back piece or the facings. I will begin painting what I can tomorrow. Between this and the bathroom, I will probably be painting all day long. Steve still has to build some cabinet doors for the top and bottom areas but that can happen after Christmas. 

Once the cabinet is finished enough that we can move the equipment into it, we will and then we'll gut the existing space. I will lay the Pergo laminate floor (it's bare concrete now) and paint the walls. We'll put up adjustable shelves for the Christmas decorations. Who knows, maybe I can put everything in its new place on December 27!

I'm proud of the job he's doing on this – it is exactly what I asked for. I know that I am very lucky to have a husband who enjoys a good project! 

I think every one of us has a go-to movie. For Steve and me it's the newest Star Trek movie. I have no idea how many times we've watched it, but we will watch it many more times and still love it. 

I'm hunting a movie and could use some suggestions (since ours are dated). What is your favorite movie?

Julie Herman at Jaybird posted a tutorial on how to bind a hex quilt. Click here:

http://www.jaybirdquilts.com/2012/11/how-to-bind-120-angles-tutorial.html

In case you missed it, the new and improved Google Maps app for the iPhone was released today. Oh happy, happy day!

You can read about the new app in an article in The Atlantic or you can do what I did and follow the links to the iTunes App Store.

If you have 6 minutes to look at some lovely places, this is for you… And the music is nice too!

I got to thinking about glitter while I was in NYC. Once home at a family dinner we all decided that a glittered nativity scene would be wonderful. Judy, Lorna’s mom, found this set for me at the Bonham Trade Days last Saturday:

It is ceramic and actually kind of pretty as it is. The tallest figure is 4″ tall. I’ve heard the best glue for glitter is Mod Podge and luckily I had some. My thought was to use the German Glass Glitter that you see in the photo. I was imagining something sort of subtle but sparkly. 

Last night Mom came for dinner and I started glittering. After I got the lamb done she said that the glitter really didn’t show much. I ignored her and kept on glittering. She then suggested that really, some color could look good. Gold perhaps. I got the idea that she really, really thought color would be better.

Mom has good instincts and I will admit that the clear glass glitter was indeed subtle. So I washed the first two pieces and pulled out the Martha Stewart glitter set.

As I was washing off the clear glitter Mom protested that it looked fine but once she saw these she decided that color was better – and there were lots of choices! She wanted gold but I did not so I chose aquamarine.

I do admit that the color is more eye-catching than the clear glitter was. I ran out of aquamarine before I got to the baby Jesus, so he got glittered in silver. But then I noticed that there were some areas that I had missed and I was out of glitter. Oh my. 

I went to JoAnn’s today looking for more glitter and found out that I’d have to buy another $30 set to get that one color. Not doing that. But I did find this MS glitter mixing set.

It works! The bottles are a nice place to mix different colors of glitter to make a new color and the little funnel and scoop are well proportioned. The bottles dispense the glitter pretty well. And the set was 40% off! 

Here’s how the newly glittered nativity set turned out:

OK, gold would also have been pretty. (You are never too old to be reminded that your mother is often right.) That said, I like this color and I like the way the figures catch the light. Steve is less happy with the new dusting of glitter in the breakfast room but he’s sort of resigned to that at Christmas.

So there you go… one more Christmas project idea! You really needed one more, didn’t you?