A Quest!

Have you ever seen that show on DIY called 'I Want That'?  Well I found this idea on what else, Pinterest, and I Want That!  Here is a pic:

source:Under the Sycamore

 So I have been on a quest to find doilies!  I already have some that were my grandmother's as well as DH's grandmother's. But I needed more.  So off I went to the thrift shops.  Ouch!  I think sometimes they think because we are in 'the OC', they can charge ridiulous prices.  $5 for one doily?  So I went to the local Flea Market yesterday!  By the way if you are in South Orange County on the first Sunday of the month, check out the Antique Market at the Big Park in Irvine.  Lots of fun and there is a Farmer's Market as well!

Well I found a number of spaces with $1 bins with doilies!  I purchased 10 of them, so I need to dig around and find mine to get this done!  But...  Today I am weeding the back garden.  I started yesterday and told DH I would finish today and clean up.  Sun is finally out here, so will be nice to have the patio and garden done.

What do you have on your to-do list?

Have fun doing it!

Laura
 
PS:  Rachel over at Reduce, Reuse, Upcycle is featuring my chandy! Thanks Rachel!

A day off!

Tomorrow is going to be interesting.  We will have no power from 9-5.  I know that doesn't seem like a big deal, and it really isn't, but it has never happened here!  We got notice from the power company that they will be doing maintenance tomorrow, it may not be that long, but they want to cover their bases. The thing that is freaking DS out is no computer or TV!!!  What will he do?  Sort of makes me chuckle!

In light of that I began working on niece #1's graduation rag quilt.  She is graduating the end of the month and DD and DM and I will be flying back to ATL  for the ceremony.  I made rag quilts for all the nieces and nephews 9 Christmas's ago when I first started sewing them.  Where did the time fly?  She will be attending USC (University of South Carolina) in the fall on a dance scholarship.  Here is a pic of her quilt all layed out:  (I don't think she reads this, I hope!)

Can you tell her fav color is pink?  These are 10" squares and it is 6 rows by 7 rows.  I will take a 1 inch seam to be snipped.  Here it is after the rows have been sewn.

I try to find fabric that matches the person receiving the quilt.  Hence the square of ballerina's,and all the hearts!  This is my niece!  We only have a JoAnn's fabric here and I have learned when you see a fabric you like buy it, cause it may not be there next week!

So tomorrow no sewing, but I think I will hit up the thrift shops, haven't been there in a while.

Have a great Thursday!

Toodles,

Laura

Hope you are all having a great 1st day of May!  Thanks for all the kind comments on my new chandelier!  I love how it turned out and am glad you think the same! 

Do you have big plans this month?  Getting ready for Summer Vacation, ready for school to be out?
Well now that my kiddo's are in college, can I still call them kiddo's?, I am not so into school being out, although I know they are looking forward to it later this month.  DH has decided no summer vacation this year, we will just do a fall fishing trip like last year, maybe longer!

So DD and DM (dear Mom), and I are flying to Atlanta the end of May for my nieces graduation.  Sad to say my brother has lived there over 20 years and we have never been!  It is over Memorial Day weekend, so probably not a lot of spare time, with family gatherings and such, but I do look forward to having at least maybe one free afternoon.  Any ideas on what to do?  Suggestions recommended!

I also have another niece graduating the first part of June and a neighbor graduating the middle of June.  So I have 3 graduation rag quilts to get made!  I have all the flannel for the first one, but still looking for the right fabrics for the others.  Seems that when you are looking for something is when you can't find it!

Hope you all have a great day!  Here are a few shots from my garden, although not today, another dreary, misty California day?



Laura

From old brass to old iron!

So I have wanted to recycle a brass chandelier and use it in the back patio for the longest time.  I love the look and was going to use our old one, but it got tossed before I could!  So I was real happy when this one came my way. Plus it was FREE!!!  It had lights going up and down, so took awhile to take out the electrical inards, but finally I got it.

And here is what she looked like before I transformed her.

Here is the after.  I reworked some of the pieces parts to make it what I wanted!

The weather here has not been cooperating, so it took me awhile to get her done!  I found some Rustoleum textured spray paint on clearance at JoAnn's for .97.  Old Iron is the color.  Gotta love those red tags!  I think textured spray paint takes a few more coats for coverage.  So after a few days, and a little rain delay, here she is!

I love how she turned out.  I found these cute little candle cups at the .99 store.  They were 2/.99.  They fit perfectly. And tealights fit exactly!

The chunkiness of them reminds me of an old insulator.  As you can see I haven't hung her yet, cause I want to use a pulley system so she can be raised and lowered over the table.  Waiting for the weekend so DH can help me with that, but I do have the supplies.

 So hopefully she will be in her new home soon.  Here is a few more pics.

I think I may look for some beads or crystals to hang from her as well.  The total cost, was for the rope, hardware to hang her, 2 cans of paint for .97 and 1 additional can at full price, and the candle cups. 
So about $15.00.  Can't wait to get her up and have dinner on the patio.

Hope you like her.

Laura

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PS:  She is hung!  Wanted to show you the pics, got her hung this afternoon (Sat).  Love it!

Love my new/old chairs!

Last July I painted our tired adriondack chairs.  It was a process but they turned out great!

But mother nature was not kind to them and they were looking sorty of 'rustic', per DH!  See that post here.
Here are a few of the disaster pics:

They were pretty bad and I was ready to throw away the 'lemons', but DH had me thinking better of it!  After a little elbow grease, stain and sealer, they look amazing!  Here is my lovely 'lemonade', along with the new pillow covers I made.

Love the patina with the stain added to the wood where the paint came off.  They definitely look 'rustic'.  Much better!

Sometimes thinking out of the box, gets you the best results!









Have a great weekend.

Laura


  

Weather!

I have been meaning to post finished pics of the green chairs, but here in So Cal, we have had the weirdest weather!  On Monday it drizzled all day.  All day!  I had to run outside in my jammies and pull all the pillows, wipe down the new cushions and cover them with a tarp!  Today we are supposed to get up to an inch of rain!  What is up with that! 

I am excited to show you what I have done with this baby!
I got it from the contractor my Mom used for her bathroom.  He was redoing another house in the area and was going to throw it away!  I have been wanting to redo one for the patio for forever!  Here it is in destruction mode.  Took forever, but I finally got all the wiring out and reconfigured it to look like this:

I have been trying to spray paint it, but the weather is giving me fits!  I found some textured rustoleum spray paint on clearance at JoAnn;'s for .97 a can, but it takes longer to cover with the texture.  I am almost done, but it may be a day or two before I get it hung up.  Oy.

DH has been working crazy hours, 10 hours a day 7 days a week, for the past few weeks, so getting something hung, well I will have to do it myself, which he won't like, or I wait.  Maybe when I get it ready to hang I will take a few pics for you to see. 

Ok enough complaining, hope you are having a great week weather and all.

Toodles,

Laura

A little pillow happy!

In the process of 'refreshing' the patio, I needed to recover a bunch of pillows that we had been using outside.  A few on the porch swing, and the a few more on the chairs.  The 'rustic' green chairs turned out great!  I will post a pic of them at the end.  But now I want to talk about pillows.

As you know outdoor fabric can be pretty expensive.  But I have found a way to go around that!  Recently I found some outdoor fabric on the red tag table at JoAnn's.  It was $8 a yard, which is OK, but I knew that they routinely discount that table by 50% off!  Lucky for me that was this week!  I was thrilled, because they added a few more outdoor fabric choices to the mix!
Here is what I did.
I used the awesome envelope pillow cover tutorial over at Stephanie's blog, Under the Table and Dreaming.  So easy peasy.  I purchased 1 yard of the discounted fabrics and a few remnants as well.  That is another secret, if you are looking for fabric and it is on sale, check the remnant bin.  Not only will you get the sale price but it will be 50% off!
Here is the before:

Faded and in need of a little pop of color!  And here is the after:

So much better!  I redid the cushion as well, recycling our old dining chair cushions, that is another post!  The fabric on the far right was one of the one's from the red tag table, so it was $4 for a yard, which I can get 2 covers out of!  The fabric on the far left I purchased last year on sale, and the red and tan one was a remnant which was $5.64. (Here is how the remanant pricing works, the fabric is on sale for $13.99/yd, it was .806 of a yard, so $11.28, then you take 50% of that!) The other red print is a pillow I purchased from HD at the end of the season last year.
Here is another cool fabric I love, this was on the red tag table.  Last week it wasn't!

I am gong to make bolster pillows, reusing the old dining chair cushions,  for the green chairs with this.  Funny thing is, they have high back cushions out of this same fabric at HD for $35!  I really liked them but they were too much for DH.  So pillows it is! 
I love doing this it is so easy and brings a new life to the patio area.  Now I want to go read on the swing!

Here is a peek at the renewed green chairs:

I will take better pics when I get the pillows done.

Have a great week, and if you need fabric, don't forget to check out JoAnn's!

Toodles,

Laura