Art | myMCMlife.com

Phone Photo Friday

12/09/2011

When I’ve got work to do and the baby just wants to be held…Moby wrap to the rescue!

2 Comments | Art, Art: kids room, Art: Phone Photo Friday, Family, Family: Me, Family: Precious/Ali | Tagged: baby, baby wearing, cell phone photography, moby wrap, Phone Photo Friday, precious, work from home | Permalink
Posted by mahlbrandt

Our Home at Night

12/07/2011

I took these pictures for our real estate agent over the weekend. I really do love this house. I hope the person/people who buy it love it as much as we did.

4 Comments | Art, Art: gardening, Art: mid-century design, Art: modern design | Tagged: landscape lighting, mid-century modern, night, our house, ranch | Permalink
Posted by mahlbrandt

Wishing You a Shiny Brite Christmas

12/06/2011

I brought this poster design back into my etsy shop for a couple that wouldn’t leave me alone about it. (Sorry it took me so long!) Anyone else want one? The shipping is higher price to make sure it gets to you more quickly.

2 Comments | Art, Art: graphic design, Art: mid-century design | Tagged: Christmas, poster, shiny brite | Permalink
Posted by mahlbrandt

This & That

12/05/2011

• Last week I was “in” court by speaker phone. That’s the third time I’ve been in court in the past month. Oh, how my life has changed.

• Precious had her first “solid” food this weekend, if rice cereal counts as a solid. She seemed to like it but learning how to swallow it will take some time.

• My mom was asked to testify at a brunch for her bible study/prayer group this week, about the miracle God did for us and Precious. She asked if I’d say something afterward. I wrote a 5 minute speech and I’ve rehearsed it in front of Photo Booth five times because I get nervous speaking in front of groups. But I have a lot to say. (In case you haven’t noticed…)

• We had the first of two court-ordered, pre-TPR, supervised visits with Precious’ birth mom last week. It felt so strange going into it—it’s a mess and the situation is unnatural in so many ways—but it went much better than I expected. That’s a whole blog post in itself.

• I’m really thankful for the adoption attorney we found. She seems super amazing and her price is great.

• Thank you to all of you who have donated to our adoption fundraiser! Just through this blog post, we’ve already collected over $500. We are blessed and amazed. You guys are the best!

• I keep finding money lately. Mostly quarters. In random places.

• I helped my parents put up their Christmas tree on Saturday and then on Sunday my mom helped me with ours. (Jason is in Texas.) Precious loves how shiny and sparkly it is. She’s gonna make Christmas so much more fun this year.

• Our house, our beloved MCM ranch, is officially on the market now. I’m sad because I love it but I’m also excited about the new season we’re moving into. I am not really looking forward to keeping the house clean ALL THE TIME…

2 Comments | Art, Art: interior design, Family, Family: Foster Parenting, Family: Me, Family: Precious/Ali | Tagged: adoption, babies, birth parent, christmas tree, foster parenting, fundraiser, parenting | Permalink
Posted by mahlbrandt

Phone Photo Friday

12/02/2011

Leave a Comment » | Art, Art: Phone Photo Friday | Tagged: cell phone photography, Phone Photo Friday | Permalink
Posted by mahlbrandt

Big Announcement: We’ve Got Land

11/30/2011

As if we don’t have enough going on with Precious and her pending adoption, Jason and I have also been working on another big project. We’re building a house! Well, we will be once we sell our little mid-century modern ranch. But, we have purchased a piece of land. It’s really rare for land to become available in our 1950s-70s developed neighborhood, but the house that originally sat here was removed after a fire. This lovely, treed, flat, half-acre lot is less than a mile from our current home and just 6 houses down from my parents house. That probably sounds too close to most people but we have a great relationship and I love that Precious and our other future kids will be able to walk to over to Grandma and Grandpa’s.

We found a local architect, Ryan Thewes, that we’re really excited to work with. He’s studied with students of Frank Lloyd Wright and he does a lot of modern design. We think he’s the perfect architect to bring the mix of mid-century and modern that we’re hoping for. Building a house is something we’ve been dreaming of for a long time but assumed it would be in our distant future. When the perfect lot opened up, we decide to take a leap of faith. God has blessed us with great friends and family who helped us work everything out.

Our biggest motivation for moving out of the home we absolutely love: more space and bedrooms for more kids. We tossed around the idea of building on but ultimately decided to move on. Our home is three bedroom but one of the rooms is Jason’s studio which leaves just one room for kids. That worked great for the past 5 years but we’ve moved into a new season. Now that we have Precious for good, with DCS regulations for foster homes we would only be able to take one more child and she’d have to be a girl close to Precious’ age. We have it in our hearts to continue fostering more kids so more bedrooms are a must.

Here are some pictures I took on the property back in October the day we met Ryan there with our friend and real estate agent Jeremy (and his dog Maggie.):

You can bet I’ll be blogging about our experience all along the way. We’re super excited!

8 Comments | Art: new home build | Tagged: architecture, land, mid-century modern, Nashville, new construction, new home, property | Permalink
Posted by mahlbrandt

Design*Sponge at Home, in Nashville!

11/28/2011

Are you a fan of Design*Sponge? It was one of my first favorite blogs and I’ve gotten a lot of inspiration through the site in the past few years. We submitted a before and after project a few years ago, some old office chairs we found in a dumpster and turned into a patio bench and chair. About a year ago, I was contact by one of the staff at Design Sponge asking if they could include our project in their upcoming book. Of course I agreed.

Well the book, Design*Sponge at Home, is out! Grace Bonney and the team have been doing a national book tour. When I found out they were coming to West Elm in Nashville on November 15th, I quickly bought a ticket to the pre-party craft event, which included a copy of the book and the opportunity to meet Grace and get my book signed. (Little did I know Nov. 15 was going to be such a crazy, landmark day in our lives…)

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I went alone but ended up meeting a girl who lives on our street and running into a friend of a friend I haven’t seen in years. (Renata, Jenni says hi!) Since I arrived late, I got a short personal tutorial from Grace on how to make a freezer paper stencil to create a custom hand painted cloth napkin.

After the craft, Jason came to meet me for snacks, silly photos in the photo booth, and to get our book signed by Grace. (He took the photos with me in them. Thanks honey!) Grace seemed genuinely excited to meet us and asked more about our bench project. Plus, I now have my very own signed copy of the gorgeous book sitting on our coffee table, ready to inspire a bunch more projects.

3 Comments | Art, Art: before & after, Art: gardening, Art: interior design, Art: modern design | Tagged: book, book tour, design sponge, design sponge at home, design*sponge, Nashville, west elm | Permalink
Posted by mahlbrandt

Phone Photo Friday

11/25/2011

Leave a Comment » | Art, Art: Phone Photo Friday, Family | Tagged: cell phone photography, dinner, Family, Phone Photo Friday, thanksgiving | Permalink
Posted by mahlbrandt

I Told You She’s Precious

11/24/2011

Thanksgiving 2011. I can’t think of a better time to share the sweet face of our little Precious girl. Getting full custody of her last week was an unexpected gift and wonderful blessing. God is so good!

Jason has been working on an acoustic guitar lullabies album to be dedicated to our sweet daughter. The whole album should be done in early 2012 but since we suddenly need to come up with several thousand dollars for a private adoption attorney to settle all this mess, Jason has decided to release one song early as an adoption fundraiser. The first song is “Hush Little Baby.” I know I’m biased but it’s a truly beautiful, layered finger-style guitar rendition. Think Phil Keaggy, Tommy Emmanuel, Chet Atkins style. I can’t wait to hear the rest!

Click here to make a minimum donation of $1 and I will email an mp3 of the song, “Hush Little Baby” by Jason Ahlbrandt within 3 business days. It’ll be well worth your dollar, I promise. (Of course, if you’re motivated to give more than a dollar, that would be tremendously appreciated!) Thank you for your help!

12 Comments | Art, Art: music, Faith, Family, Family: Foster Parenting, Family: Jason, Family: Precious/Ali | Tagged: acoustic, adoption, Family, fundraiser, guitar, lullabies, music, precious, thanksgiving | Permalink
Posted by mahlbrandt

DIY Baby Pants and Socks

11/21/2011

A couple weekends ago, I totally got my craft on. I like crafting and I enjoy sewing but it’s been a loooong time since I’ve had my sewing machine out. It used to belong to my Granny who was a wonderful seamstress. She made my junior prom dress. I named my sewing machine Dorothy after her. Rabbit trail, sorry…

There has been a Pinterest challenge going around to actually make something that you might have pinned as a project to do. I wasn’t officially participating but I’ve had these baby socks from Made By Joel on my project list for a long time. It was a quick and easy project with great results. I made 3 pairs, 1 of which I gave to our friends for their new baby boy.

I saw a tutorial a while back for making baby pants out of an old sweate r (my favorite) and another DIY for making them out of a t-shirt. Precious has an abundant supply of pink pants so I’m trying to introduce more colors in her wardrobe. These three websites already do a good job giving DIY instructions so I’ll just show some (or a lot of) pictures of my processes and the finished products.