Hello Valentine!

"We"/Yellow Finch.Gray Day has created a fun Valentines Day Coloring Sheet for your littles - featuring Robit Robot - he's always looking for love.

  Visit Yellow Finch.Gray Day's Hello Valentine! post to see the latest Robit Robot Plush "Friends" for sale available on Etsy!

"Save Image As" -> to your computer

Print -> select 'fit to page' option if necessary

And color away!

+ be sure to send photos of your little ones with their coloring sheets, or pics/scans of their finished pages to yellowfinch.grayday@yahoo.com. I would love to showcase them soon!

visit yellow finch.gray day on etsy

Project: Birth Announcement Artwork

  We are less than a month away from welcoming our new, baby nephew into the world. Until he arrives, and his name is revealed, Kevin and I have been referring to him as Baby Francis. We can't wait to finally meet him - and in preparation, I've been working on few different layouts of Birth Announcement style artwork.

   Here's a few of the text graphics that I was inspired by - suitable for framing, hanging in a nursery, or to be sent out as a birth announcement:

  After a few versions - some of which got a little too busy - I scaled back simplified, and stuck with an easy, casual aesthetic: not too modern, not super traditional - along the lines of what I've been doing with Yellow Finch.Gray Day and the "2013 To-Do List"

  Here's what I came up with so far using Brooke and Owen as sample names and info :)

  I've been thinking about preparing a few customizable options to have available for sale at Yellow Finch.Gray Day on Etsy - what do you think?

Oh Rigby

  Rigby sure loves his brother Finch - like on bath day: Rigby went first, and then Kevin took Finch into the bathroom for his turn.

   Here is Rigby waiting ever so patiently for big bro to come out...

  And all Little Riggs wanted to do was snuggle when he came home, after his "fix'n surgery", sporting his lovely new cone (which he broke by day 4, and we had to buy a new one...).

McBrides Gots Leaks

  That's right, the house is leaking...still...  Back when we FIRST moved in, we had leaking {see post} which was "repaired" by the warranty the previous owners had purchased for the house. Then LAST year = more leaking, and after some super severe weather we filed an insurance claim. This time, $9k was paid out from insurance and we had an entirely new roof put on, some insulation replaced, and the venting done properly for a roof with a pitch as low as ours. Deal. Great - no more SUPER severe weather for the year, and no more leaking.
  Fast forward to two days before Christmas - just this past December = leaking. New leaks, leaks in the same places as before, all around leakiness. Perfect. So now we have bowls and paper towels pieces scattered around the house to catch the drops. If we didn't have place mats AND a tablecloth on the table, it would have been ruined when we came from being gone for Christmas. Just lovely.

  "Hey Joey Rooftops, your new roof isn't working out so well" (the guy from the roofing company's name really is Joey, so "Joey Rooftops" is how he is listed in my phone. Like an Italian mob kind of name...)

  "Hey Elisa, the roof we put on is perfect. This "new" leaking is being caused by ______ "<- insert 4 different reasons here:
  Could be...
- need new, foam insulation in there...
- need to replace soffit vents...
- your house is being kept too humid, turn off your humidifier (which we did: still leaking and a few scratchy, sore throats later)...
- the exhaust from your furnace on the side of your house is pointing too much up at the soffit vents,  making moisture up in the 5 inches of "attic" space....

  All of the leaks have a lovely brown, dirty tint - so it's easy to spot when and where new leaks occur...

Lovely. Leaking in right above the front door - waiting to welcome you to our leaky home. 

Coming down the wall right onto to our framed photos. Nice.

What have we here? Oh, that's just the ceiling to the master bathroom we remodeled last year. Not a big deal...

Our main, hallway bathroom now featured these lovely folded paper towels shoved in between the light fixture and mirror - the poopy colored drips have been coming in at the light, running down the wall behind the mirror and show up on the vanity counter top. Sweet.

Rigby let us use some of his puppy training pads to keep in the closet...otherwise, this gross spot would be on the carpet waiting to greet us every time we need clothes...

Leaks not featured:
- onto the kitchen counter
- from the center beam in the living room
- onto the tile in the front entryway
- onto the dining room table
- from the light fixture above the stairs
- and a few more little drops here and there....

And the official verdict is: need to replace soffit vents...but can we get it in writing that this will be the fix? We will see...

Silent Auction items for Addy's Benefit

  Coming up this Saturday, Jan. 19th, is a benefit for my cousin Joe's little girl Addy (3 years old). She is one sick girl: diagnosed last year with Aplastic Anemia- but is on the mend. COTA (Children's Organ Transplant Association) is raising money to help cover costs for the bone marrow transplant Addy received in December - her little brother Cayden (1 year old), was the donor. It was a pretty rough holiday season spent in the hospital, recovering, and going through chemo, but Addy is one tough little girl. I can't even imagine how exhausted Joe, and his lovely wife April, must be: going through all of this with both of their children and living at the hospital.
  Click here to see details about the benefit event and how you can help:

Addy with little bro Cayden + always smiling and making the best of her home away from home

  My Mother-In-Law, Deb, and I both created items that we've donated for the Silent Auction at the benefit - we just couldn't pass up this opportunity to help out little Addy and her family - and what better way than by making things - it's what we love to do! Hopefully our stuff goes for BIG BUCKS! So here is pre-benefit peek:

  Deb created this AMAZING ceramic Fairy House - all built and glazed by hand - all of the little details take so much time and patience + I LOVE the color. THIS Fairy House is already headed to the benefit next weekend (complete with little LED candle to glow-through the little windows), but more stunning ceramic work from Deb can be found in her Enchanted Houses etsy shop.

Deb really achieved these great copper, bronze and teal tones.  So nice. + Love the little snail hidden on the back side next to the little windows with shutters :)

  And I donated a Jimmy Doll with "Jimmy's Tree" book - This stuffed, plush Jimmy Doll is hand-made (with help from my mom - she's the best stuffer and arm-sewer-on-er in all the lands) out of speckled gray plush fabric. "Jimmy's Tree" is a little 8-page story I wrote and illustrated back in school featuring Jimmy, who decides at the end, that things always get better no matter how rough things are.

I hand-covered + hand-bound this hard cover, hinged story book + added a little fun with beads the strings

+ here's a peek at a few of the illustrations inside:

   + My parents have been doing a little fundraising of their own to help Addy. They donated all of the earnings from their homemade Caramel & Cinnamon Popcorn that they sold at Finch's Holiday Boutique last month. Now that is the most delicious way to raise money ever!

Looking forward to next week's benefit + sending prayers to Addy and family.

Red Pepper Eggs = Yum

  ...or more like "Eggs IN Red Pepper"...  This simple, little breakfast is just too tasty not to share and at only 190 calories, we had it with juice and coffee/chai tea, and thought it was a lovely Sunday morning meal :)

Wheat toast, Egg, Red Pepper Ring, Fresh Mozzerlla - Yum!

McBrides All Fired Up!

   Not that our house isn't warm, its our fireplaces that are lacking in the warmth department - and that just doesn't make any sense right?
   Back when we came across our house during the house hunt, we thought the two wood burning fireplaces were a major bonus. Kevin was even pumped about chopping wood! Our home inspection didn't turn up any issues with either fireplace, so we were pretty bummed when we tried our first fire upstairs last winter to find that the downstairs smelled like smoke - REALLY bad. So we tried to master the cross-ventilation and ensure that all the smoke was sucked up the chimney where it belonged and had a guy out to clean the chimney and inspect the flue, etc.
   It was discovered that our downstairs fire-box was cracked and would not be suitable for a fire unless fixed, which would be SUPER costly, and that there was something else going on that would make it pretty near impossible not to have a smokey-smelling basement when using the fireplace upstairs. Lame!
   SO! It's was decided! Gas inserts it is! We shopped around at a few fireplace retailers and were really impressed with Fireside Hearth & Home - not far from our place in Minnetonka, MN.

BEFORE = all that brass!

Left: Upstairs Fireplace with stone ledge hearth, Right: with solid brick hearth
- both complete with big brass surround and good old Chicago Brick

Ripped out!

Installed....kind of...doesn't look the greatest, but it sat this way for a week so the inspector could
come by - he barely glanced at it and said "looks good"

And now!!!

The ALL NEW upstairs fireplace along side our recently hung artwork wall

a look at our mantel - as holiday as it got after the boutique was over

And here is how downstairs turned out. We rehung the mantel - after it fell off and hit me in the head last year... Is my head okay? You can decide.

We hung this great framed print from Society6 called "Lost In Stripes" by Bianca Green + added this fun orange, tin clock I picked up at General Store of Minnetonka, along with a little white ceramic luminary, with 'punched' holes that allow the candlelight to glow through, that we nabbed from Crabtree Ceramics @ Finch's Boutique in Dec.

We went with a black surround for downstairs with a nice double-line frame with curved top.

What do you think of the fireplaces Finch & Rigby?

We're all warm and cozy here at the McBride's now!