Weekend trip a bust.

 

We decided to forgo the camping trip this weekend because the weather people were calling for a rain/snow mixture. We were kind of bummed, but I am glad we called it off because it did indeed snow on Sunday. YUCK!!!

Spring wherefore art thou??

So instead we went to my Mom and Dad’s house.  We took a turkey and made a nice big yummy meal on Sunday.  On the way out there on Saturday I made the BG take me to Gathered Treasures, a little primitive shop in Grand Ledge, MI.

I got the cutest shelf for my kitchen.  Here it is all undecorated and hanging in my kitchen.  It looks lonely doesn’t it? It needs some do-dads sitting on it.  Oh darn, guess I will have to shop some more =) LOL

 

 

I also bought these little shoes. They came with their very own shoe box. Love em!

 

And lastly, I am not sure what it is with blocks lately but I seem to be block crazy??

 

Hope your Monday is a smashing success! Later gators, Melissa

Thank you Veterans !

 

Happy Veterans Day! Thank you to all the men and women who serve their country!  Thanks to my favorite guy on the planet MY DAD, my brother, my grandpa’s, my uncles, and my cousins who all served in the military! AND lets not forget to remember the wives and families who keep the home fires burning while their loved ones are away!!

 

What a mess!!! Look at my poor sewing room:

 

Twigs, and branches, and berries OH MY!@! I am doing one more arrangement ( I bought a huge bunch of sweet annie that I am going to Christmas-ize) and then it’s clean up time so I can get back to sewing in a semi-clean room.  I think I may even reorganize my stash…man sounding ambitious aren’t I ?

We’ll see what really happens today. I do have the ever lovin’ pile of never ending laundry to do as well. It’s so much more fun to sew and create though isn’t it ? I need a maid. Will someone please get me a maid?

Here were the arrangements I made for the homestead yesterday.

1. Stocking made from red ticking, greens and the sparkly candy canes I made a few days ago.

2. I had another empty cheese box , and we can’t have empty containers at Christmas time, so I made a couple gruby gingerbread men and stuffed them and some greens in the box along with some of the chenille candy canes, bells, and pine cones.

 

3. A tiny jar that just fits on my downstairs bathroom shelf

4. A tisket a tasket a little red basket:

I am almost done boring you with my greenery arrangements. I will take pictures of the final decorating and then stop I promise!! Then I will get back to boring you with my sewing =) LOL.

later gators!

Melissa

Crafting, Shopping, AND a giveaway!

Hello my Bloggity-blog friends!

Guess what? I saw snow flakes today!! Yep, that’s right. Actual snow fell today all the way a week into November! When I was a kid it would already be covering the ground by now. Whimpy snow!! What is wrong with you? Hurry up and cover the ground already!!

Blackbird Primitives had their Christmas open house today.  So I of course had to go and see what adorable things they had displayed.  I am really thinking their stuff is on the expensive side for prim’s…but they are handmade, so I do feel good to buy something from someone who lovingly crafted it.

Remember the harvest mouse I got last time I went?  Here is my fancy link if you wanna go see it. ( I don’t want to take the time to write in html…sigh) http://cornbreadandbeansquilting.wordpress.com/2008/09/27/ahhh-the-weekend/

Well I really think I love the stuff that ladies makes. I am in love with her little mice. So I bought another one that I think I am going to use in a stocking project I am cooking up. Please excuse my daughters art work, she has been toting this picture around for a week showing it to everyone??? Today alone she has placed it in at least 4 different spots in the living room. Might she be a budding decorator? I think she might =)

 

I also bought this little santa crow:

 

AND some silicone candle lights for one of the baby trees:

Then I tooled around town and picked up some stuff I need for crafting. When I got home I started melting candle wax to dip my candy canes in. I got a tutorial off of This Simple Life’s blog on how to make grubby candy canes so I am excited to see how they turn out. And The Pickled Pepper Patch had a how-to on sparkly candy canes.

Here is my progress:

 

The plain muslin ones will be dipped in wax and covered with cinnamon, and the ones with the red ticking will get a coat of glass glitter. I also needed some chenille candy canes for some projects I am cooking up so I picked up some pipe cleaners from the dollar store and twisted them up. And of corse they needed to get “primed” up a bit so I sprayed them with Distress It. This stuff is soooo cool!! For small projects it’s so nice rather than making a huge dye batch you can just spray it where you want it.

 

I better go before the wax cools off =) Later Gators! Melissa

 

p.s.

Sandy at For the Love of Prims is hosting a 100th post giveaway. It looks like such an awesome bundle of handmade goodness!!! http://fortheloveofprims.blogspot.com/2008/11/100th-post-giveaway.html

I’m a Decorating Maniac!

So after cleaning and dusting like my Mother in law was coming over for dinner (she wasn’t) I have managed to cover the floors with bits of twigs, leaves, floral foam, etc. in my decorating cyclone =)

I am not nearly finished, it usually takes a week or two to get everything just right. I haven’t put the Christmas trees up (the big ones anyway) yet. So I will just post a few things to show you what I have been up to.

I like to include some outdoor elements in my shelf swags because I don’t use real pine boughs (although I am going to one year I swear!) Usually I would go into my own garden and pick some leaves and herbs and things, but since I don’t have a garden anymore (cry) I had to improvise. I found some hydrangea outside the bookstore that was almost dried all up. I had picked some of their little stash of dried bushes before so I snagged some to decorate with this year.

I made this arrangment to sit on top of the t.v cabinet out of an old tool box. I just filled it with greenery and doo dads.

 

This one I made from a cheese box, gruby candles, and rusty bells.

 

And here are a couple of little arrangments I made using rusty tin cups:

 

I am going to tackle the stair railing next, I think I will have to hang our stockings there since my fireplace mantle wouldn’t fit in our tiny living room.  So I better be off. Lots to do!!

P.S.

 I saw this sign at Menards while I was buying a new tree stand yesterday. I had to have it for my sewing room door!!  As soon as I am done with all the initial decorating I plan to head up to my elfshop and get to sewing!!!

Lator Gators!

Melissa

A very primitive, frugal solution for my messy cupboard.

My old kitchen

Okay I fibbed to myself a little when I said I don’t miss owning our old house. Well I don’t miss OWNING it, but I do miss living in it. I desperately miss my enormous kitchen.  We had lazy susans, pantries, and cupboard galore, with all the little slidy outie doors and modern conveniences. We had a dining room so my table and all my primitive furniture could have it’s very own spot. There was just SO much more room. I have been fretting over where I will put my Christmas trees this season. I used to put up 3 full sized trees, and many little ones.  I guess there won’t be anywhere to sit this holiday season cause chairs are gonna have to go before my trees are =)

My old dining room

In the spirit of rolling with the punches, one of my old cupboards that used to be in the family room at our old place, had to take on a new roll and become kitchen storage. There are like 3 cupboards in our town house kitchen, bummer.  I used to just fold quilts and put them in the bottom of this and decorate the top part seasonally, but now as you can see it’s new purpose is to hold food stuffs, and dishes that just wont fit anywhere else.

I was soooo sick of looking at this stuff. It just looks so messy and yucky. So today I couldn’t stand it any longer and decided to do something about it.  I got out my awesome super-tea-stained muslin and made a curtain for it.

Here is a little Fabulos Notionables #4 for you:

Its a hem helper that Ruth (I told you she was cool!) told me about. The other side has many lines with different measurements. You just fold your fabric to the line you want and press! It makes the perfect fold! I have used this baby many times. 

 

 

Here is how my little primitive curtain turned out! Viola…no more ugly food and dishes to look at ..ahhhhh. And it only cost me a dollar fifty. =)

Now that makes me happy =) And here is another thing that made me happy. While I was getting my little $1.50 curtain rod to hang the curtain, I picked up this new little rug for the front door. It was only 4 bucks, I couldn’t resist!

 

But here’s a thing that made me sad, when I tried to leave the store with my dollar fifty curtain rod and four dollar rug my car was DEAD!!! I tried to get a jump, but the battery just wasn’t feeling well.  We just finished paying off this car last year and since then it has been sick more than it has been well. Urggg. Its only 6 years old! They don’t make em like they used to, do they? So the ole grey car is still sitting in the parking lot, the BG picked me up and brought me home. We’ll have to buy a new battery tonight and go rescue it. So much for being frugal. =)~

Lator gators~! Melissa

Ahhh the weekend!!

I woke up this morning and decided I would take a little trip! I drove to Marshall, this really cute town next to ours that is packed with antique stores.  There is a little primitive shop called Blackbird Primitives that I just discovered a few weeks ago. It is so coolio!! I got a little fall mouse, an antique algebra book, a grungy votive holder, two wooden apples, a mouse in a boot, a crow on a saltbox house, and boo blocks with a prim candle.

Here are my treasures:

My shopping loot.

I am in a block swap organized by Nanette over at http://fredashive.blogspot.com/.

It is my very first ever block exchange!! I am pretty darned excited.

Here is my first block:

It’s really fun picking out christmas/winter bits to sew up!

Well I am headed out to vaccume, sew and hang out with the fam!

Lator gators, Melissa

Loose Ends

 

The rainy view out our slider..that is the BG

 

 

So it is STILL raining like crazy here in Michigan. There are puddles in the back yard, and the eves were so full that it started overflowing and pouring into our basement window well. We had to put a bucket in our basement to catch the water. The BG just went out and rigged up an umbrella over the window well outside to help keep the water out =)

It is times like these that make me happy that we are just renting a town house. I seriously don’t miss owning a house much at all.  Plus someone else mows the lawn and rakes the leaves!!! WOO HOO.

 

 

 

Here are some of the things I have been up to today

I went into my sewing room, lit a fall-ie candle and starting diggin in.

 

 

I found my staple gun and stapled these hand appliqued blocks into a frame my dad made for me. I had the blocks secured in the frame with batting and cork board but they kept falling out.  They are’t gonna move now!! ha

flower pots from the book Window Quilts

I have also been putting borders on these halloween kitties. I am going to add a few more then quilt it.

Putting on borders.

I did a little rearranging of stuff around the house

The quilt on the inside door of my tv cabinet

Some pumpkins I made out of muslin, painted, then stuck a stick in em.

I will probably go poke around in my sewing room some more, and maybe just maybe do some bindings (yuck.)

Later gators,

Melissa

Call Me Crazy

I know most people try to eek out the last few weeks of summer, not I. I plunge head first, full force into fall about the 2nd week in August. I creep down to the basement where waiting for me are my old friends the “Fall Boxes.”  They are full of all the delicious colors of Autumn…rusts, burnt sienas, golds, chocolates, caramels YUMMMM. They hold my grungy pumpkin men, scary witches, black cats, and harvest delights. I love decorating for fall almost as much as Christmas, and as I start doing Christmas right after Halloween I MUST start early for fall so I can enjoy it! =) 

One of the first quilts I ever made.

Hutch made for me by my Dad filled with Autumn.

 

Close up to the flora and fauna.

I love Whimiscals...this is one of many I have made of their patterns.

I am finding a peculiar thing as I poke around placing my treasures. We moved from a huge house to a much smaller town house this past spring. There were many more rooms at our old abode, and I always managed to fill each of them up with fall stuff.  I don’t know what is going on, as I am sure there is some sort of physic’s law that says smaller places hold less things….but I really feel like I don’t have enough decorations!! Oh well I guess I will have to go shopping…darn! heheh

One of my favorite pumpkin guys.

 

ahhhhh fall

I had so many fall quilts kits and patterns sitting around in my sewing room, I had to choose just a couple to work on and finish for this years fall season.  This little pumpkin fella I finished in two days…now comes the part I hate..the binding. And he will be ready to hang up.

Pattern by Jan Patek

 This quilt I finished last year, and the machine quilter got it back to me months ago. I finally put the binding on it last month.  If you are gathering that I hate doing the binding ….you would be correct!

The crazy quilt stiching on this one took forever!

Here is a panel quilt from Thimbleberries that I am almost done quilting, and a nice shot of my messing sewing room….hey you can’t quilt without making a mess, am I right?

Almost done! shewwww

Well off to sew…maybe I can get a few more simple fall quilts done before I drag out the christmas/winter fabric!