Have I mentioned how I much I love Marissa’s In the Fishbowl e-course? Well, I really do love it.  She has brought up some really tough (for me)questions about why I do what I do, why do I love it, and most importantly how do I see myself in relation to my work. THe last one is the hard one for me. There is more. So much more that she has covered.  It’s been hard for me to really figure this all out. My thoughts and ideas seem so fragmented, but I feel progress in straightening all this out in my head.  Slowly, slowly, slowly.

During this last session, Marissa spoke a lot about blog presence and making your blog a place you love and want to be, like your favorite room in your home.  I do love my blog, and feel some freshening up needed in terms of a new banner (it’s been a while) .  Then she spoke about inspiration or vision boards. The whole thing got me thinking about my craft room and my boards. My craft room has been in a disastrous state for a while and it has not been a space of creativity. I’ve been camped out on the dining room table. I decided to put an end to that and cleaned everything! EVERYTHING. It was liberating. I threw a bag of stuff away and a box of stuff to donate to goodwill. I also tackled my inspiration wall.  It was wonderful, like I cleared out my head a bit.

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I hung new art up, new images that I love from magazines and covered the drawers of my FIRA drawers.  I accomplished so much today and am ready to tackle the rest of the house.  The kid’s room and living room (which is covered with toys)is on at the top of the list.  I feel energized and excited to get this cleaning out of my system.

Now, I’m off to watch Glee!!! Yippeeeee!!

I made this to hang right by the door, just under the keys to help us remember our fabric grocery bags.  For a long time we were doing so well, but we’ve forgotten a few too many times in the last couple of weeks.

It’s made on a small 4 x 6 wooden plaque (I have tons of these from long ago) and used a small scrap of vintage fabric for the bag.

Another great way to remember is to give the job of remembering to your kids.  I know my guys LOVE to remind us when we are forgetting something.

If you are coming from watching my re-run show on Martha Stewart, welcome.  You can read more about my experience on the following posts…

Pinch me I’m dreaming
Big Day Giveaway
Q&A and Thank you

Looking back, I still can’t believe that I was on the show.  Seams very surreal.  When I see myself up on the screen with Martha, I think, “who is that girl?”  Just boggles my mind still.

My craft room is the hottest room in the summer and the coldest in the winter.  I thought maybe if I could finally put curtains up, it might help keep the morning sun from warming it up so quickly.

One of the reasons it had taken me so long, was trying to decide of the fabric.  I knew I should use something from my vintage linen collection, because I have tons of it, but I couldn’t settle on anything I had.  Then one day the hubby put up a rod and threw a random sheet up.  It was totally horrible.  Dark and just wrong in every way. It was exactly the motivation I needed to get something pretty and light up.  I cannot be creative in a dark, cave-like room! On further assessment of my stash, I discovered that I could use a few of my pretty vintage pillowcases.

All it took was 3 pillowcases cut in half to make 6 panels. I mixed them up a bit and they were sewn together. I made two curtains (three panels each) so I could open them if I wanted. I also used some old cotton lace to make the tabs.  Easy peasy,  I love them and my room is still bright and cheery.

I found this old lamp shade at the thrift store for a whole 1 dollar.   Perfect for a lampshade recovering project ~ great size and lines too.  The fabric I bought ages ago and had just enough to try this out. I had the glue and the perfect matching bias tape for the edging so this project cost next to nothing.

I used this handy video for assistance. I did everything outside because of the glue fumes, which were very yucky.  And I highly recommend a drop cloth.  The sticky spray glue is not easy to wash off of things. Other than that, the project was fairly easy.

I saw these very cool origami stars on Zen Crafting via crafty crow (Have I mentioned how much I love Crafty Crow?  Awesome website, and the kids love it too).  Anyway, not only did I happen to have the exact origami paper that is on the tutorial, but knew I somehow had to make a garland out of it.

I strung the stars together with silver embroidery floss and added buttons on the stars as well as in between.  I love how it looks, especially hanging from my otherwise boring fireplace mantel.

And how do you like our fresh Noble Fir.  It is our first real tree with the kids and the house smells amazing.  After weighing the pros and cons of artificial and cut, in the end we decided that biodegradability, supporting small tree farms and the yummy aesthetics was best.  We are in love with this tree and will be sad when it goes.

Happy Friday and have a nice weekend.

I spent some time re-organizing my craft room over the weekend.  I took 2 very large bags and a box of stuff to the goodwill.  Even after that, I STILL have too much crap.  But, I’ve only finished phase one.  Phase two will involve going through boxes of paper (letters, fliers, school stuff) and condensing, condensing, condensing.  I know I can empty 2 boxes from THIS shelf, giving me room for my scrap fabric bin and and stuffing/interfacing/felt bin.  I know I can do it, I know I can!

I also moved things around and created a new sewing/inspiration space.  I was inspired by my new lamp I bought ($10) while thrifting with this and this fabulous gals.  What could be more fun?  Thrifting with fellow crafting bloggers! Imagine that.  Most people I know don’t even know what a blog is, let alone why I like to craft so much.  So, it was a real treat. Thanks gals!

So now that I have this great lamp, I can craft at night and see everything I’m doing. It’s so nice.  I also bought that little wooden doll house door up on the shelf.  Soon to be painted and become a fairy door.  The fairies live in our walls you know, and they need access to our house at night.  In case they get hungry or want to play with the cat. I’m pretty sure they are the ones responsible for missing socks.

Here is the whole thing.  Eight feet tall, 6 feet wide.  Sanded, primed and painted.

It is packed with all of my cookbooks, some dishes, an archaic stereo system and a special kid’s section.  The bottom cabinets store books and magazines.

The kid’s section was, of course, inspired by The Creative Family.   I wanted a place for their creative supplies.  The dining table is always the place for creative playing and this sits right next to it.  It’s stocked with scrap paper, drawing paper, colored construction paper, a few reference books, notepads, pencils, scissors, pencil sharpener, brushes, markers, crayons, paint, glue and the all important string. You never know what you might need to tie up (hopefully not your brother).  The dinosaurs are there to keep things playful.

I had originally made it so that they could get what they needed whenever they wanted, but the doors on this cabinet are hard to open and close, which has actually been the only reason why it has stayed so organized.  They still use everything pretty frequently, but mom and dad have to open and assist, which I think, keeps things a bit tidier.  When you need something, something else has to be put back.  It works so far.

I FINALLY finished painting my China cabinet.  A few weeks ago actually.  It’s been so nice to look at considering we had been looking at THIS for the last 10 months.

It was the windowed doors that kept me at arms distance.  When I finally dove in, it wasn’t that bad.  Took me from 7am – 2pm to finish her up.  I was in mission mode.  You should see me in mission mode, I’m crazy! I don’t think I ate anything the whole time.  Maybe some tea.

The original knobs on this cabinet were antiqued bronze.  Not really my style. I was going to go hunt for thrifted/used knob, but that could have taken another ten months.  Then my husband said, “I’m surprised you’re not painting them”.  **light bulb!**

Here’s what I did:

Step 1 : Wash, dry and prime, using matte spray paint. Allow to dry completely.

Step 2 :  Spray base-coat. This color should be a lighter color then the top coat color.  I used Design Master Olive Bright #790 (it’s what I had on hand). Allow to dry.

Step 3 : Mix paint & glazing medium 3:1.  I used 3 tsp clear glazing medium with 1 tsp acrylic craft paint ~ Delta Ceramcoat Laguna Blue.  It should have a thin consistancy. Brush on a good amount, making sure to get all the cracks and crevises.  Allow to set for about 20-30 seconds then wipe gently with a damp washcloth, only removing paint on the flat and raised surfaces.

Step 4 :  Spray a protective finish.  I actually didn’t do this and they have held up well so far, but this might not be a bad thing to do if you are going to be handling them often.

Tomorrow I will show the whole cabinet and a peek at the inside.

Happy Monday

1. purple sage, 2. gold blossom lantana, 3. confetti lantana, 4. peachy pink bouganvilla, 5. Flower unknown, 6. Mexican bird of paradise, 7. trailing purple lantana, 8. yellow cat’s claw vine, 9. fusia bouganvilla

All of the blooms in my yard are making me extremely happy right now. Most of these flowering plants were here when we moved in, but we planted the lantanas and sage last spring.

See the middle flower there?  It came from a package of mystery seeds.  We threw them outside to see what would happen and these little pinkish, open-faced flowers popped up.  They are very tall, with thin bushy stems.  Any ideas?

Ah, yes! Cosmos! Thanks so much!

Thrifted vintage pillowcases make me very happy, as you may have guessed.  But, a novel idea came to me the other day, to use them as actual pillowcases for pillows!  On the bed! Yeah, brilliant I know.  It makes me very happy to use some of my stash in this way.