Looking for some motivation!

Well girls, I think I am slumping into the winter blues. How did it get so cold so fast? I told DH that I think I would be a better bear. The thought of hanging out in my house or the next few months sleeping and eating sounds like a pretty good plan. I promise that if you were to enter my "cave" I would welcome you gladly and try to get you to stay.

Since that isn't going to happen, I need some motivation. I need a good half-time locker room talk. Someone to tell me to get up off my seat and get some work done! We are trying to get the last cabinets from my mom's house today so we can finally set up the workshop in the garage. Currently, we can't even get my car in there. The goal this weekend is to be able to do so. I am writing this down so you can hold me accountable for our accomplishments this weekend.

Hope you have a great weekend. Enjoy the sunshine!

I like marking off projects!

Although none of these are big projects they are things I have been thinking about for some time. It is nice to mark them off the mental "To Do" List.

These little booklets are some gifts I made for the girls in my Sunday School class. I have been working on these for some time. I would run out of rings or we would have new students join us and I wouldn't have them all complete. But tonight, I have finally finished all the ones I have information for. If new girls come, I will make theirs for them later. The idea is that they will begin to write down some of their favorite verses of scripture. This will allow them to find it easily when they want. I hope they like them. I asked them their favorite color and tried to find paper that matched their personality.

The next item on the completed list is this cute little gift for my Secret Pal. I found the tutorial for the precious bird ornament here.
Thanks Chick #3 for the Mason jar. It is filled with Dark Chocolate w/ Almonds by Dove!

Next up is this rustic shelf that I picked up when out boodling this summer. I have been wanting to clean it up and bring it into my studio for some time. The few little things it needed were some weird curved pieces of aluminum needed to be removed. This left some exposed wood that needed some paint. These little fixes took me forever to get around to, but I finally did and I like that it gives me some space to store some smaller items. It is hard to see in the picture, but the shelf is Martha Stewart Aegean Sea. (Thanks again Chick #3). Originally the shelf was more green, but the blue went over it nicely and I sanded the entire piece which allowed some of the green to peak through.

And last, but certainly not least is my lampshade. You may remember from a previous post that I had a lamp in great need of a lampshade. I knew I wanted more of a drum style shade and I knew I wanted to put fabric rosettes on it. It took me longer to find the shade than it did to make the flowers. I tried several stores and could never find a drum shade small enough. Finally, while making a quick run through Goodwill last Saturday after another trip with things from my mom's house, I came across the perfect shade. And of course it was cheap - $1. I snatched it up and by Sunday morning had this cute little lamp in my living room.

What do you guys think?

Grandmother's Memories

I know this isn't a project but I just had to share this with you guys. I found this beautiful set of dishes at yes....Goodwill. I know they don't 'match' what I have or even the colors in my kitchen so why are they displayed in my glass cabnits? Well....Growing up I spent allot of time at my grandmothers house. She displayed these dishes in the kitchen and anytime we had a family get together she served meals on this set of dishes. So yesterday I was looking around at Goodwill for a table and spotted these. I was SO happy to have found them. They bring back so many memories and I could not just let them stay there when I knew I had the perfect spot for them. I think they look good in the cabnits. And everytime I see them....I think of the many meals that we shared as family which she treasured. My Anut has her set of dishes....who knows....maybe one day I will pass them on to my grandchilderen.

Am I crazy?

I need some feedback. While cleaning up my mom's house I have been thinking about the furniture pieces there and if they would better fit my needs than pieces I already have. The realtor and the picture tech person were there on Wednesday and they were going on and on about the drop leaf table my mom had. I hadn't thought much about it because she had purchased it after I had lived there. However, I started to look at it more closely and it really is beautiful. I don't have a picture of it yet, but will soon. She also has some high back chairs with wooden arms. Again, no picture.

So...I got to thinking. Should I replace my dining room table (kitchen table from previous house) with this drop leaf table, Place the high back chairs at either end and mix and match the rest of the chairs? I want to slipcover the chairs in a rustic linen slipcover. I have a picture of this on my phone that I will post when my DS returns from his volunteer shift at the elementary school.

It would have a bit of the feel that the chair on the right does.

Photo courtesy of Seems To Be

Have I lost my mind? Does this sound remotely feasible and fashionable? Can you even begin to answer without any of the aforementioned pictures?

Remake of Pillow

Remember the round pillow with the seersucker? I didn't like it on the seersucker pad so I took it apart and made an even larger Muslin base for the pillow. I thought that putting a solid color between the two uses of seersucker would give the separation it needed. Well, I just didn't like it on the bench. So I moved it to the very dark leather couch in the family room. I like it better there, but I realize making a round pillow is difficult. You can see from the photo that the pillow is a bit lopsided. That may be some of what is bothering me about the pillow. It also made me realize how dark that couch is. Ugh!

Any ideas for making a round pillow actually round? I used round templates, but somewhere between the cutting and the sewing it got off!

Serene Coastal Bedroom or Nautical Nightmare?

Last week I finally decided to tackle the master bedroom. We painted it over two years ago and had not put anything on the walls since. I just could not make up my mind on what to do. So I decided to go coastal and if that did not work, I would just start over. I found a frame at Goodwill last week and brought it home, painted it and hung it over my bedside table/chest. I added the starfish and the plaster footprints of the children that we created at the beach several years ago. I also placed the naked lampshade on my table as well with a few knickknacks (?). The bench that I bought in Bowling Green was sanded, painted and sanded again and placed in the bedroom. I still need to add cushions to the bench but I thought it best not to wait till that is complete before I posted. Who knows when that will happen? For now I have the down comforter from our bed piled on the bench. The wooden piece hanging over the bench with the shells was an idea that I had seen in a magazine a while back and really wanted to incorporate that somewhere. This is where it ended up. The shells are all from a collection of my grandmother's. The white shelves on each side were originally in daughter's bedroom many moons ago and I thought that they may be just right to fill this space. I added more beach stuff on the shelves. The painted beach quote over the tall chest was a purchase from one of my favorite beach stores, Pickets, in Sea Grove from several years ago. Lastly, I took the down comforter off the bed and decided to use the pale blue coverlet as a bedspread, added coral sheets and two shams from TJ Maxx to add a little color. I will have to let this look grow on me a little bit more. At first, it seemed as if I had closed myself in too much with the addition of so many things at once. I will just have to wait and see if this stays as is. What do you think?

CopyCat

I mentioned earlier that my bench needed some pillows to soften it up a bit. Well, yesterday, I remembered the sweet vintage pillowcase that I had in my linen closet. This sweet little embroidered flower pillowcase has been with me since my marriage to my wonderful hubby.

The Enjoy Life pillow is a knock off. I have been eyeing a similar pillow at HomeGoods and decided that I could surely make one just as cute. Not sure I care for the seersucker pillow against the seersucker seat cushion. May have to deconstruct it and do another layer for the base that is the muslin repeated. The stitching was pretty easy. I just printed the words on my computer in a simple font and used it as a stencil for my stitching. It does ned a bit more stuffing around the edges to fill it in.

I really like the pillow itself, just not sure about it on the cushion. Any thoughts?