Holiday Lampscaping

This past spring my husband and I started to redecorate our livingroom.  I really wanted some glass lamps that you could fill with sand/shells/sea glass, etc.  I was not willing to pay the price of some of the ones I had looked at.  One night we were in the mall at Crate & Barrel (the store I refused to pay $250 for one lamp) and I remembered JC Penny has a lighting department.  So we ventured over there.  I found a glass cylinder style lamp and they were on clearance for $32 a piece.  I told my husband that I know I will find what I was looking for and that is not quiet what I was looking for.  Well I never did find what I was looking for. 

So a day or two later, I went back to JC Penny and bought the lamps they had.  I actually really like them now but they still need "something" to dress them up.  The shade is a plain white drum shade.   Very plain for my taste.  One day I was watching the Nate Berkus Show and they were dressing up lamp shades.  I knew exactly what I was going to do.  I bought some black velvet ribbon and glued it around the shade at the top and bottom.  I look at it this way, the shade now has mascara on.  lol

Now that it is the holidays I wanted to take the base one step further.  I wanted to put something in it but didn't want to do the whole thing full of ornaments.  After a while I realize what I wanted to do. 

Here is the finish "project."

The bottom of the lamp base needed to be plugged.  So I cut two pieces of foamcore to block anything getting out.  After the foamcore was in place I filled the bottom with a couple inches of Kosher Salt.  Yes, salt.  I searched everywhere for something different and couldn't find anything.  Good thing a box of Kosher salt is really cheap.  Anyway, I went outside to my pine trees for a couple of clippings.  The ornaments are new from Target.  The first lamp has a Christmas card in it from my parents.  The bottom one is the picture of my family that will be mailed with our holiday cards. 

I am really happy with the way the lamp bases came out.

Winter White Flower arrangement

One of my favorite hobbies is floral arranging.  I am in the midst of planning our annual New Year's Eve party and I always have fresh flowers for the tables. This year I am thinking of going all white flowers with a hint of color (not yet decided on). 

While grocery shopping last weekend I passed the flowers to take a look.  I found a bouquet of all white mums.  Then I found another bouquet with mostly white flowers and a few colored mums.  I decided those would do. 

After sorting out the colored flowers, the greens and rest of the flowers this is what I came up with. The lilies are still so fragrant.

 

Table Top Ironboard

I am still perusing the internet for some craftroom/sewing room ideas.  I came across Pleasant-Home's site showing her studio.  I saw her tabletop ironboard and realized that was exactly what I wanted for my peninsula.  I am realizing while I am working at the peninsula I have little room if the full size ironboard is behind but infront of my counter area. 

I thought it looked easy enough to make.  I remembered we had a couple pieces of MDF leftover from my shelves, so I decided to use one of those.  I gathered up some batting, fabric, MDF and off to the garage I went.  (My neighbors must think I am weird using the air compressor at 6:45am). 

I started by placing the batting down on a work surface and then laying the MDF ontop.  I pulled the batting tight and stapled to the backside of the MDF.  Then I flattened the fabric on the work surface and placed the MDF ontop.  I pulled the fabric taut and stapled in place.  Simple and easy to do. 

Here is my tabletop ironboard:

Terrace Veranda Easy Brick Quilt

I decided I wanted to do a larger quilt.  Nothing fancy since I'm not up to that level yet.  Give me straight seams and cutting any day!  Enters the Easy Brick quilt pattern from Moda Bake Shop. 

One day I spent  cutting the fabric out, sewed the white square to a print and then layed it out for the overall pattern. 

The next day I spent 2 hours sewing all the blocks together to make the cover.  I am so excited how it looks to this point. 

I have bought some contrasting fabric for the backing and will be working on that later today.

Thanksgiving runner

In the past couple of years I have had my Mother-In-Law, Sister-in-Law and her kids over for Thanksgiving dinner.  Afterwards the rest of my husband's family will come over for desserts.  So I decided to make a nice Fall themed table runner.  Why do I wait till the week or two before a holiday to sew something? Is it me or do others find themselves in the same boat???

Anyway,  I found some fall material at Joann Fabric and got to work on it.  I wanted to try something that looks somewhat easy to make.  It was pretty easy to make until I got to the part of quilting it.  Instead of an all over quilt pattern, decided I only wanted to do an edging.  I bought a template for some swirls, traced it out and got to work on it.  Oh boy, I better stick with sewing straight lines. 

You can see for yourself. 

I tried to quilt an Acorn on the larger squares. 

Craftroom addition

In the past I have shown pictures of my craftroom makeover.  Well I have made another change to it. 

Lately, I have been sewing more than usual.  I generally cut my fabric out on the dining room table or the hard wood floors annd we all know the hazards (sore back/knees) of doing this.  I knew there had to be a better way of cutting.  One day I found myself sitting down here in the craftroom day dreaming of changes.  So off I went to search the internet for some creativity.  I was impressed by all the sewing rooms I found.  Wow some are just unbelievable. 

After looking for a while, I knew what I wanted to do.  You see I have an 9 square cubbie shelving system and I wanted to make a peninsula out of it.  My idea was to pull it away from the wall 4 feet.  So my cutting area would be 4x3.  I talked my husband into this idea and off to Home Depot we went.  We bought a full sheet of MDF and had the store employee cut it down.  Not only did I get the 4x3 countertop, I also have two large shelves below. 

One day while my husband was at worked I took the organizer shelf out to the garage, sanded it and painted it white.  Next was the countertop's turn for a coat of black paint.  Yes, I have to make sure my countertops match the other one in the room. 

I am very happy with the way my peninsula came out.  It is the perfect height for cutting without breaking my back. 

By the way, I had talked my husband into making a flip up iron board on the other side. 
  

The King and Queen are Reunited

A while ago I posted a photo of a Bergere chair I had reupholstered for my livingroom.  I knew I wanted another but could not find one anywhere.  After giving up hope, I was looking around Craigslist and found an ad for two chairs.  One of them is a Bergere style but smaller than the one I had.  I sent an email to the listing sellar and picked it up the next morning.  In the picture below the one of the left is the one I really wanted but got both chairs for $40.00.  Both are in great shape.

 

The chair project got put on hold due to the fact it was summer and awfully hot in the garage.  Then my husband and I repainted the livingroom.  Once the livingroom was repainted I knew it was time to get working on the chair.  I can honestly say I do not like caning on a chair or at all.  I spent many many hours ripping out the caning on the backrest.  When the spackle to fill in where the caning was, I worked on stripping/sanding and repainting the chair.  I am so glad I over ordered the fabric since I had to rip the seat cover off twice.  Do you know how hard it is to remove upholstery staples???  When I got the seat cover under control I stapled all of the double welt on the chair.  Now it was off to the sewing machine.  I had ripped apart the original seat cushion to use as my pattern.  I have found every sewing project I do I always end up ripping it apart.  I realized when I was half way done with makine the slipcover for the down cushion, I sewed the zipper on the front side not the backside.  Let's just say me and my seam ripper were good friends.  lol

Well enough of my ramblings, here is the find chair with the king sized match. 

My husband thinks the cushion on the "queen" looks funny but I keep telling him it is because of the feathers in the cushion.  I also make a back cushion for the "king, which you can not tell by the photo.  The red throw pillow were store bought.

Off to the next reupholstery project (the pinkish chair in the first photo).