Got Scraps?

Of fabric, that is!  I tend to save most of my scraps.  Comes from my Mom I guess.  I remember we had a scrap box in the hall closet.  Mom made most of her clothes as well as mine, so there were lots of scraps.  I am sure that is what I learned to sew on, using Mom's old green Singer!  Now days I make lots of flannel rag quilts. Here is a quick Tute.   Mostly for gifts, but I found that with making the big quilts I have lots of little scraps.  Plus I have a addiction to flannel remnants!  I buy lots, especially when flannel is on sale.  Then they are even cheaper!  You can get 1/2 yd remnant for about .75! 

Here is my scrap pile, and the shelves of baskets to try and keep it organized.  Try being the operative word! 

A few years ago a friend of mine told me about an organization she helps head up.  Threads of Love!  They are a great grass roots group that makes blankets for preemies and babies that are sick, as well as vests for the little ones that have to have tubes and such.  Here is the link to my local chapter.  Threads

So I started making mini rag quilts for the babies!  Usually I just cut 5 or 6" squares and make the traditional patchwork quilt.  But this time I wanted to do something different.  I had lots of scraps that were too small to cut squares out of, so I came up with this.

This is the side that I will snip to 'rag', and the pic below is the other side.

And after snipping and washing, here is the finished product.

I love how it turned out.  I just laid it out and had to cut and adjust as I went along, but since it isn't that big, it was not a big deal.  I have also made a few traditional quilts, but I think I will try another one like this for a boy.
Motto is, don't throw away your scraps, you never know who they will benefit!

Have a great weekend,

Toodles,

Laura

Grandma's Patio

Sorry I haven't posted in a while.  With DD going off to college, I have lots of projects to tackle, just have to decide which ones to do first!  I finished up a few quilts, and then was working on this special project.

A month ago we went to my Mom's for her birthday.  She had lunch on her patio and while it was nice I noticed that her patio was a little sad.  I asked her if she ever came out to use it, and she said no!  Well looking around, I wouldn't either!  So it was decided we would redo Mom's patio, and since it was the end of summer I was going to hit all the clearance sales!

Here is a before:

A little crowded and a little dull.  So here is what we came up with.  DH came along for his muscle!

A nice seating area for conversation.  The bench was on the front porch never used.  Added some color with rugs and her favorite color, purple, with plants.

A dining area  with a new table and chairs.  She came out to see it before she left for the day.  Was totally surprised by how much bigger it looked.

Added a few candles and a lantern for ambiance.  Love how it turned out.  I did a few planters as well so she has lots of color and used a few different sages and salvias for the hummingbirds.

I am glad we could help give her something she can enjoy.  Hopefully for many years to come.

Have a great weekend.

Toodles,

Laura

Simple Easy Jewelry Board

Oy, it has been quite a week!  DD leaves on Saturday, actually we take her south 60 miles and unpack her stuff in the University Village Apartments!  There are no dorms here, but a full 2 bedroom 2 bath apartment with a full kitchen!   There are 4 girls sharing this unit, 2 in each room.  It is not just clothes and bath stuff, but kitchen stuff as well.  My living room looks like a storage bin!
Yesterday I was helping her pack, the girl has waaayyy too many clothes! And we figured out she needed some way to store/display her long necklaces, like we did here.  Since no nails or hooks are allowed, only 3M Command hooks, needed to find something easy and cheap!

She got this wonderful quilt as a graduation gift from a neighbor.  It is just beautiful, she does such amazing work. Of course DD wanted fabric for her jewelry board to match the quilt.  Yeah right, I thought!  But I did luck out and find a fabric at Joann's that matched!  So here is what I did.
I bought a bulletin board at Joann's, on sale for $5.24,  just your regular cork board with a wood frame.  Then I bought the fabric with a 50% off coupon and some upholstery tacks, they are longer than your regular thumb tack.
Got out the staple gun and hammer and this is what we have.

Sorry for the bad lighting.  This is just leaning up against her bed now, I will take a pic when we install it in her room.  She can adjust the tacks as needed they are easy to remove and put back in. 

I borrowed the idea from hello beauty blog.  Just need to figure out something to attach to the bottom for rings and earrings and such.  Maybe a little tin of some sort...


Have a great week,

Laura

My creative space!

When we redid the house 3 years ago, the office/sewing room wasn't really in the plans.  But when DH went away fishing for the weekend, I went to the consignment store and found an awesome desk/hutch combo.  It just needed a little paint and toile!    I talked about it here.  That was great for the desk portion, but I really wanted a large sewing table that I could spread out on.  I searched and searched and either they were too small or too expensive.  Enter IKEA!  Can you hear the angels sing! 

We bought a 96" laminate counter and used sawhorse legs for the base!  It is awesome, I skirted it so there is lots of storage underneath.

I am always working on a few projects so this is a clean as it gets!  To the left of the counter is my old file cabinet that I painted and decopaged, then we still had space to fill.  Our awesome contractor made me a cool counter that covers the file cabinet as well.  With shelves above to hold all my supplies I am in craft heaven.

I skirted that with a piece of burlap and used hem tape to iron on ribbon trim.  Sorry for the bad pic.  He angled the far edge by the closet so I can still access it.  I have storage bins on wheels under there for easy access.  The other side is my cutting table which is our old buffet.  That will have to be another post, as I have been cutting flannel and it is a mess! 


Toodles,

        Laura

   

A little Jute with that please!

So if you remember, I have been making these cool screen satchels since March.  See here.








Well I thought I would try something different for the straps!  I had been looking for the black stripped jute that is used for furniture, but to no avail.  Then we were down at San Marcos, turning in DD's housing app, this was in May, I am slow ")  I had looked up fabric stores to visit while there, and found a little fabric store in downtown Escondido, Yardage Town.  I immediately found the jute I had been looking for and there was a 20% discount on Tuesdays, score!  I bought the whole thing!.  Fast forward to a few weeks ago and I made up this bag.  What do you think?






I used the jute for the straps instead of the pet screen fabric.  It is lined with a cute stripped muslin and has a darling cross zipper pull.  Wish I had bought more of those!

Like the other ones it has 6 pockets on the outside and 6 on the inside.  I have only one of these made up, it is on etsy.  But I can make more if there is a need.

Hope you like it.  Off to sew!

Laura

Spruced up with a little Spruce!

So remember when I said I was painting patio furniture last time? Love how the turquoise table turned out, and knew we could only improve the worn out chairs.   So we Spruced them up with Spruce green rustoleum paint!  Lurve how they turned out.

Here is a before shot:

This is from my lantern post.  You can see how tired and uuggly both the chairs and table were.
Here are a few more shots.

I bought these about 6 years ago from Amazon, it seemed like a great deal, and once we put them together it was!  But the first heavy rain came and the stain washed away with the rain!  We always have to remember to move them off the patio whenever it is supposed to rain!  DH doesn't like stains on the cement!.  We had always talked about painting them and using a good primer like Zinsser to cover the stain.  Well last week was that time!  With out further ado, here are the new and greatly improved chairs!

We had a few summer showers yesterday morning, so they are a little wet, but they held up great!  I love how the turquoise pops and matches the lanterns above.  It is so amazing what a little paint can do!  Don't you agree?  Another view.

Here are a few more pics, love how they turned out.

( Hot and sticky today. I think they may need a pillow, what do you think? ")

Have a great one!

Laura

























 

Everyone needs a little turquoise!

So I have been doing a little painting in the back.  Our patio furniture was looking way tired.
Here is this little table I have had for about 7 or 8 years.  Got it at a Tarjeh end of summer sale.  It is very sad and tired. 

So I decided it needed a bit of color!  Bright color!
I taped it off to paint the top only.  A little turquoise please!

So after a little distressing and adding some old oak gel stain, here is the new happy table!

When I gel stained the top I did the legs and sides as well, so they whole thing looks new!  I love the bright shot of color.  She usually sits between 2 adriondack chairs but they are getting a fresh coat of spruce green.  But I wanted to show you the table, I love how it turned out!










 
Have a great day!

Toodles,

Laura


Linking to:
The Shabby Creek Cottage!