I recently had a debate with myself about getting prints of my photos.  When I received my first camera as a child, prints were the only option.  We took 24 pictures — being careful not to waste any pictures on “unnecessary” subjects — then we dropped the film off at the store, waited a day (an extremely long wait for a 10-year-old), and came back to pick up the prints.  Simple as that.  We then put the prints neatly into an album and the album on a shelf.  Done.

Now, with digital photography completely taking over, we can take as many pictures as our hearts’ desire with no regard to “waste.”  We see the photo immediately on the camera, and take another and another, as many as those ever-increasingly-sized memory cards will hold.  When we feel like it, we upload/email/sync the photos to our computer.  And then what?  We can email the photos, post them on blog, share on Facebook, and on and on.  But what about those prints and albums we used to set on the shelf and pull out when the grandparents came to visit? That’s the exact question I’ve been debating.  For quite a while, I tried going totally digital and not buying prints or albums.  After two years, though, I realized that I never looked back at those photos on my computer, and missed just pulling out an album to look back through the great memories it holds.  Well, last week I ordered some 300+ prints from events over the last two years.  So, the sentimental me who likes to pull out a photo album to browse occasionally won over the practical me who thinks about the 9 cent per photo cost and about packing those albums next time we move.  I’m sure I’ll have the same debate next year   What do you think on the prints vs. digital debate?  Have you gone completely digital, or do you cling to the album of prints?

Here’s an idea for somewhere in the middle — use photos as your home decor.  It’s personal and a whole lot cheaper than art – so it fits both the sentimental and practical sides.  I created this wall collage from photos NGHubby and I have taken in our travels.

We also use family photos in our decor, from our wedding pictures to this frame — perfectly made for those of us with nine siblings

How do you use your photos?  I’d love to hear your ideas.

- Clarissa

These photos came from another loyal NGH fan, Midwest Mom.  She wrote a fun email about her “garden” with some nice photos.  These are a couple photos of her perennial garden.

And her monstrous tomato plants…

And these next photos are, in her words, “the reason we don’t have a real garden.”

What a cute fawn!  I’m thinking it’s worth the trade-off.

- Clarissa

Amazingly, my calla lily photos inspired loyal NGH reader, Lois, to get outside and take some photos of her blooming flower garden.  She is a much better photographer than I — check out these gorgeous photos.

This is a Peruvian Lily (or daffodil, we’ve found conflicting reports) that I actually gave Lois a few years ago.  I just love how fragile they look.

And here is Lois’ cute flower garden setup.  Recognize those cannas?  Lois provided all of my canna lily bulbs from their “siblings” in her garden.  In front of the cannas are her Peruvian Lilies, Gladiolus from Denmark, and snap dragons adding some color in the front.  How creative!

Have photos of your own to show?  Leave your website in a comment, or email your photos to clarissa@nextgenerationhousewife.com.

- Clarissa

I couldn’t even make something up this good.  Just yesterday I posted the story and photos of our flower garden.  A loyal reader, Midwest Mom, asked me to post pictures when the calla lily blooms.  NGHubby read that comment yesterday afternoon and chuckled, saying, “ha – if the calla lily blooms.”  Well, you will never guess what greeted us this morning as we looked out on the garden from the breakfast table…

Can you believe it?  If you say yes, I’ll think you’re lying because I still can’t quite believe it.  Isn’t it gorgeous?

I’ll keep watching for more, but really the whole flower garden could shrivel up now and I’d call it a success.  Hopefully that doesn’t happen, though, because it would be sweet to have some more flowers.  How exciting!

And just because the calla lily bloomed, we don’t want to neglect the roses…

Do you have good flower garden photos?  I’d love to see — feel free to post a link in the comments!

- Clarissa

Remember a couple months ago when I told you about the flower garden we were building?  Of course you don’t, that was a couple months ago…

But it’s not forgotten at our house.  We finished the brick and dirt-filling, NGHubby carefully planted many (now we are learning TOO many) bulbs, and I diligently water each day (ok, so I set up the sprinklers to water each day, but that’s still diligent, right?).  Here’s how the garden looked three weeks ago…

And then just last week…

Even my calla lilies are growing.  These bulbs were my birthday present from NGHubby because I just love calla lilies.  Each year he would give me an indoor calla lily plant, and for some reason I could never keep it alive.  So, this year he decided to give me outdoor bulbs and so far they are thriving!

And, how about these orange roses?

We’re hitting the hot time of summer, so hopefully our plants can keep up with the Oklahoman temps.  For that matter, hopefully I can keep up with the Oklahoman temps.  I’ll keep ya posted.

- Clarissa

This post is a replay from pre-NextGenerationHousewife.com days that I wrote about the bedroom curtains I made.  I’m replaying it now because after painting the bedroom, I’ve FINALLY completely finished these curtains.  Hope you enjoy this post about the curtains, and then I’ll follow up with the finished product.

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In my never-ending quest to finish at least a few of my on-going projects, I finally finished the bedroom curtains and am very proud of how they turned out.  I had purchased the fabric on clearance long ago, but just like wine, I believe it is best aged in the closet for awhile before use. Although this is a milestone in my bedroom curtain project, it can’t quite be crossed off the “to-do” spreadsheet yet (yes, I know, I have a to-do spreadsheet — just keep reading) because, as you will see in the photo, the curtain rods now need to be raised.  In all of my reading on the latest decorating trends, I learned that full-length curtains should start about 6 inches from the ceiling even if the window stops lower.  As an extra tidbit — if your windows are not full-length and the 6 inch rule does not apply, a good rule of thumb is to place the curtain rod 1/3 of the distance from the top of the window to the ceiling.  That is probably completely worthless information to 99% of you, but I thought there may be just one person who enjoys the tip.  Anyway, here are a couple pics…

Hanging curtain (too long right now, but you get the idea)

I even lined the curtain so it hangs nicely and looks expensive

This one’s for you, Mom — the perfect corners on the back

My very devoted helper through each step of the way

- Clarissa

Back when I was a toddler I had this joke that I thought was absolutely hilarious.  I would tell it to anyone who would play along over and over and over and…

Clarissa: Knock, knock

Poor person unaware of what was coming or a very patient family member: Who’s there?

Clarissa: Banana

Same kind soul: Banana who?

Clarissa: Knock, knock (trying to contain giggles)

Slightly annoyed other person: Who’s there?

Clarissa: Banana (hahaha)

Person rolling his/her eyes: Banana who?

Clarissa: Knock, knock!!

…and this continued until I could tell the person was just about to walk away and then it would go…

Clarissa: Knock, knock

Very annoyed person ready to leave: Who’s there?

Clarissa: Orange

Other person who is intrigued by the change in answer: Orange who?

Clarissa: Orange you glad I didn’t say banana?!? (And then histerical laughter ensued, of course, only by me.

So, where am I going with this?  I love orange!  The fruit’s ok, but I love the color.  Adam has either come to also like orange or just deals with my craziness, so this weekend we painted a wall of the bedroom orange. Here’s a during picture (nevermind the ugly paint clothes, that’s why they’re paint clothes)…

Again, I always forget to take before pictures, but here’s one from very early in the process when Adam’s taking down the curtain.

And the big reveal — after picture…

Doesn’t it match our quilt nicely?  I’m happy with that.

Because it’s a very dark (some may say burnt) orange, we only did one wall and plan to do something else on the other walls.  That something else is yet to be determined but may involve an orange stripe, stenciling, or a lighter complimentary color.  Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

- Clarissa

Possibly my favorite part of decorating for Christmas is the Christmas tree.  When I was young we would go out to a tree farm, tromp through the snow, and cut down a tree (picture the beginning of “Christmas Vacation”).  Then we got a little wiser and started buying pre-cut trees, but still stood out in the snow debating between trees to find the perfect one.  Now that I live in a slightly warmer climate, the experience is much easier (although I have to admit it does take a little something away from the trip.  I haven’t decided yet if it’s a good something or bad something, just something).  Once the perfect tree has been tied to the car and brought home, it’s time to decorate!

I know many people are into the perfect-looking coordinated Christmas tree, but I prefer the “throw every ornament on the tree” look.  While it doesn’t make for the perfectly coordinated Pottery Barn tree, it is full of memories that we enjoy discussing throughout the Christmas season.

I’ve been playing with some different settings on my camera lately, so we’ll see what you think…

Of course, the angel

A couple of our “First Christmas” ornaments (as a couple, that is)

A pretty little “New Home” ornament that is a rookie on our tree this year

And of course our “First Christmas” (real first)

I had to pick the ornament that portrayed me as an angel — HA, not after THAT Christmas.

Do you have a favorite ornament on your tree?

- Clarissa

A long time ago I mentioned the living room curtains that I was starting.  You probably thought I forgot to show you the finished product, but oh no, I didn’t forget.  There just isn’t a finished product yet.  This project started easy enough, but then quickly blew up into a much more difficult project.

First, I wanted brick-colored curtain fabric — how hard could that be?  I will tell you – very.  There’s maroon, burgundy, merlot, claret, spice, clay, and 500 more, but where’s the brick?  After bringing most of the aforementioned ones home and then returning each the following day, I finally found brick!  I thought that had been the most difficult part of the project – ha!

Next was to create a valance that fit the room, portrayed the balance of formality/informality I wanted, and worked with the curtain rod I had already purchased on clearance.  I sifted through many websites and books for valance ideas and finally found the PERFECT one.  Since I could figure out exactly how it was assembled, I actually purchased a pattern for the valance (If I haven’t said before, I hate buying patterns because I always think I can reverse engineer anything from the picture).  So, after giving in to using a pattern, I bought some super cheap material to create a prototype before using the expensive stuff.  Well, it’s very lucky I did because this “perfect” idea looked horrible on our wall.  Here’s a pic if you don’t believe me…

Yes, that is King Kong fabric, nice?

Well, it was all drape-y and pretty which was great, but just didn’t fit the rest of our straight line, clean-looking style at all.  So I scrapped that and went back to the picture books.  This time I picked a more flat simple design and created it.  I did reverse engineer that one which is excellent since I was completely unimpressed with that one too.  By that time I was so frustrated there isn’t even a picture to show.  But then inspiration struck and I drew up (what I think is) a cool idea that is straight and simple while not completely flat.

This has turned into a much longer story than it deserves, but the point is that I’m finally happy enough with a design to work on the “real” fabric.  It’s still taking much longer than I would like, but this might be part of the problem…

I’ll keep you updated and hopefully someday will have a finished result to show.  If it works, maybe I’ll even create a pattern so you don’t have to go through the headaches I did.  I sense a completed valance soon!

- Clarissa

Yup, that’s me IN the freezer.  ‘Cuz why not?

No, really I was trying to fix the ice maker.  Somehow (my guess is from a glass being stuffed into the ice cube compartment where it didn’t exactly fit) a piece of the icemaker got pulled off.  After examining the piece,  I couldn’t find anywhere on it that was “broken” so I figured it could just be clicked back into place.  The problem was we had no idea where it came from, how it was to fit back together, nor how to get close enough to see any of it.  After my search for Samsung icemaker diagrams in the manual and online came up totally dry, I decided to just climb in the freezer and see if I could figure it out by sight.  The story really isn’t all that exciting, but I felt I needed to explain the pic a little.

How’d it end?  I was able to see exactly where the piece fit, clicked it back in, and voila — a good-as-new ice maker.  All in a day’s work

- Clarissa