BARE WALLS AND MUSKETEERS!

Because I have been busy painting, I haven't been up to my craft room in almost two weeks.  Well, that is not entirely true - I have gone up there to take items up and put them on my desk, we have used my computer up there to Skype with our son and I have been on the computer a few times for a couple of minutes, but for anything else, that space has been vacant.

Last night I decided to head up to the computer and do some surfing.  Because I have so many bare walls in this house, my first stop was Craftsy!  I know - most people would head to the wall art isle in a trendy shop - but then I am not most people!

Bare walls to me means, photography or projects.  I do love art, but I can't afford the art that I love, so instead I tend to make my own.

A year or so ago I found a quilted wall hanging on Craftsy of a bookcase.  I saved it to my favourites to maybe purchase and make some day.  There certainly was no wall space available in my other house, so I really gave it no more thought. When I went into Craftsy last night I headed to my favourites.  I had 54 projects saved in there - one being the bookcase wall hanging.  This time I purchased it, printed it, and saved it to my hard drive.  Next time I am near a fabric store, I will pick up the fabric for the background and the shelves.   This quilt is going to go on my sun room wall above the love seat where I do most of my reading and stitching.

Way down on page three of my favourites I came across a block that I had completely forgotten I had saved.  This one has me really excited.  It is a block that was designed to be part of a Breast Cancer quilt.  That in itself is special to me, but I know why I saved this block and it does have a bit to do with breast cancer, but more to do with friendship.

When I moved to a new school in Grade 7, I met several special girls who would become life-long friends.  Who knew that 48 years later we would still be in contact and sharing our lives with one another!

Two of them and I were inseparable during our junior and senior high school years.  We were always together, in class and out of class.  We were called "The Three Musketeers" by many, including ourselves.  Every time I see an image of three girls or three women together it makes me think of us - "The Three Musketeers"!

We all turned 60 last year, and two of us have had and survived Breast Cancer, so is it any wonder that I would be drawn to this quilt block?

I am making this one into a wall hanging for my butter room... and if I get it right the first time, there will be a couple more made for the other Musketeers as well.  I can't wait to get started on this one.  I have enough scraps to make this in almost any colour.

I thought I might paint the second guest room this weekend - but perhaps I can find something much better to do with my time - do ya think?

BUTTER!

Happy March!  I am a day late and a dollar short, but never-the-less, the greeting stands!  I am not sure what constitutes a Lion or a Lamb, but for us March came in bitterly cold on the heels of a blizzard just the day before - so perhaps for us it was a Lion's beginning.  I will declare it so!

Hopefully the Lamb will be around at the end of the month.

I have completed painting the guest bedroom on the main floor.  I can only describe the walls as Butter!  I love how the room looks.  I am accenting it with blues and whites to tone down the butter a bit, but it is a happy room, even so it's walls are bare.

I have an embroidery piece that my Mother did when she was expecting her first child - my oldest brother Wayne in 1942.  It is the child's prayer "Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep".

I was going to hang it when my own so was born in 1988, but it didn't fit in with clouds, rainbows and teddy bears, so I tucked it away to use somewhere later on. 

I now have the perfect place for it.  I need to find a frame, but once I do, it will be hanging in the butter room.

I never saw my Mother embroider in her later years  - too bad, because she was very good at it.  This piece is beautifully done in a mixture of cross stitch, straight and satin stitches, done on linen.  The detail is wonderful.  It is a heirloom to be handed down to the generations to come, and now that embroidery has come back into Vogue - there is a good possibility that someone in the family might cherish it as much as I do.

Now I am moving my painting efforts down to the basement bedroom.  That room is going to be butter as well, but down there the butter will look much darker - closer to warm honey than butter.  

I am making myself hungry.  Guess it's time to go down for breakfast and get my day started.  

Enjoy your day!

IT MAKES PERFECT SENSE!

It is time to take the camera out for a walk.  Actually it is time to strap my camera bag on my shoulder every time I step outside.  Have you noticed what is going on outside your door?

I had a Grandfather who watched nature very carefully - and likewise his son (my Dad) does the same.  I didn't always pay attention to their predictions based on what they were observing from nature - but I did become someone who does enjoy watching the world around me - just for the pure pleasure of what I am seeing.

And I am not talking about people.  Personally, I don't find a lot of pleasure in people at all - unless it is a child, or someone I love.

No I am talking about the pleasure of watching a bird at a feeder, or a tree when it shakes itself awake in early spring and decides to shoot green from it's brown winter branches.  Snow when it melts - it is so pretty how it sweats itself away - even ice, that we have come to detest so much  - it is beautiful ... the colours within it, the veins running through it...... Frost - there is nothing prettier than frost!

There is much to see out there, if you open your eyes and take it all in.

Look up - can you believe that beautiful deep blue up there?  You can't get that particular colour from any can...

While you are looking, don't forget to listen!

I know all about listening in the city.  I used to stand outside in the dark mornings of winter and wait at the curb while Gary went to fetch the car from the back.  I heard a lot of city noise... but I also heard the wind singing through the bare-limbed trees, and yes at that early morning hour I even heard the Sparrows in the shrubs across the street, waking up and having a chatter together about the new day - or whatever it is they are discussing at that time of the morning!

I am learning so much more about listening, here in the country.  It is a lot harder to listen to quiet.  One gets mesmerized by the silence - but sound is still present there too.

The other night I had Molly out for her last potty break after 11pm.  It was dark, except for our bright light over the door, and the Christmas lights that are still lit around our little barn shed.  There was no wind noise - but I knew there was a bit of wind, because the buckle on the rope on the flagpole was ever so gently tapping on the metal pole.  Ping, Ping, Ping.

If I stopped huffing my breath for a second -I could faintly hear my neighbour's wind chime  about 400 ft away, just barely making a sound.  Tink, Tink, Tink.  And yes - ever so faintly somewhere ( perhaps in the evergreens that border my property) birds were quietly saying good night.

I might have missed all these sounds, had I not been listening to the silence around me.

We have senses for a reason.  Sight, Sound, Smell.  Do we use them for anything exceptional?  I don't think so - we take them for granted, that's what we do.

Take them outside, give them some exercises.. you might be pleasantly surprised how wonderful you will feel after you do this.

Of course if you live anywhere near me , you might want to wait a day or two to take those senses outside.  We had a blizzard here last night, and although the sun is shinning brightly deceiving us into believing that spring is near, it is frigid cold with a wind chill that will freeze skin in here minutes.  The only thing we are going to be feeling outside today is frustration, and maybe a little bit of pain...if we stay out too long!

REPURPOSE FRIDAY THE THIRD!

Here we are, another Friday Re- purpose day!

I have been concentrating a lot of my attention on lighting the past few weeks.  We have a big square box of florescent lighting on our kitchen ceiling that I really don't want.  Even if I did want it, we have learned that the larger florescent bulbs are being phased out, just like the regular lights bulbs have been, and that we will eventually have to replace that fixture anyway.... Music to my ears!

I know what I want to replace it with and my idea came straight out of the re- purposed light fixtures I have been seeing on the Internet... Check out these awesome light fixtures made from repurposed items.

I know these are not for everyone - but for my kitchen - they are so perfect... and what great ideas for using some items from the kitchen - and maybe even the barn or workshop!

 

 

I love all these lights for sure for a kitchen, and some of them would be awesome in other rooms of the home as well..

Imagine my surprise when I opened the new Home Hardware Catalogue and found this!  Bingo!  I'll take two, PLEASE!

Lets step outdoors for a moment:

This lovely shady nook was shared to me on Face book.  I would love to have one of these in my garden.   Can you image sitting outside on a sunny warm morning with your cup of coffee or tea and just enjoying the morning garden, bees and birds?  All made from repurposed wood.

or here... old doors made into a lovely little sheltered sitting area in the garden...

cynthiabanessa.com

And wouldn't it be cool to have this sitting on a feature rock, or wall somewhere nearby to catch your eye?

annsgardenpath.blogspot.com

I think so...

Have a great weekend everyone!

CHILD'S PLAY!

Where has this week gone?  I haven't been able to post much this week - I have been painting again and I bought even more paint again yesterday.!

Yes sirree...

The main floor is more than half done - and we have started in the family room downstairs, so there is painting going on all over the place at the moment.

I bought paint yesterday for the two spare bedrooms -  one on the main floor and one in the basement.  At the moment they are white - like every other room in this house was.  I am painting both rooms a deep yellow.  The one on the main floor will be accented with blues, and whites and the one downstairs will be accented with greens and other yellows.

Tomorrow we are going to Neepawa to order our island top.  While there, we will stop and see my Aunt who is still in the hospital, and I want to check out the thrift shop there (have not done that one yet) as well.  It will be a beautiful day for a drive, and hopefully we will be able to finally find the counter top we want for our island.

I have to tell you about Tuesday tho...

My cousin, his wife and their little granddaughter came for a visit on Tuesday afternoon.  Their little granddaughter is just turning 4 and is the most adorable - and smart little cutie that I have ever seen.

She wanted to see Auntie Dale's dolls so upstairs we went to the doll room and she didn't know what to do or where to look first.  She was very good - I half expected her to start touching everything but she didn't.

I had just moved my Litho Tin Dollhouse on to the floor last week, and she honed into that vintage toy like a bee to a flower.  I gave her a couple of my not- at -all -valuable Barbie-type dolls and some smaller little dolls, and she played with the house and furniture and dolls the way I believe a child might have played with that house in the 1950's.

We haven't had a small child around us since our own son was small, so this was a special treat for Gary and I.  When it came time for me to make supper I threw some clothes and some dolls in a basket and we headed down to the sun room.  There again - while the adults were occupied - she played.

After supper she wanted me to come and play Barbies with her, so I got down on the floor with her and we played dolls.  We dressed and undressed our Barbies, they had conversations, and all the while I was down there, I thought - "Wow - this is so great to be able to be on the floor and play dolls with this little human doll."

It was a fun afternoon and evening, and I hope she comes back to play again.  Maybe next time we will have a tea party with my china dishes from my own childhood.

Awe - can you imagine what fun that would be!

IFFY WEATHER AND SOME NEW PROJECTS!

How was every one's weekend?

 It was a mixed bag weather-wise here this weekend.  We had mild temperatures and rain on Friday night, and then snow and -25 on Saturday night.  Woke up Sunday morning to bright sun and very cold temperatures, and by noon the warm up had started and the clouds had rolled in again.  Up and down we go... it seems to be the way this winter has been.  It is frustrating to be teased with the mild spring-like weather and then to have to hunker down to the cold again - but every day, we get a day closer to true spring  - so I am going to force myself to be generous with my comments about the weather!

I had a busy weekend.  I finally cleaned the horrid mess in the studio, rearranged the dolls, sorted through some craft supplies, did a vacuum and a general dusting in the studio, and then I headed downstairs and worked some cleaning magic on my kitchen, living room and sun room floors.

Even though my new island is not ready to be used as such, I moved it to the spot it will be when finished and moved the kitchen table to a new place in the kitchen - if anything it has made the kitchen larger yet!  I do know one thing - the island is going to be a fantastic addition to our kitchen, and once we get the top on it and some stools around it - I rather doubt we will use our kitchen table all that much.

By midday Sunday I was bored with cleaning so I decided to spend some time checking out some red work patterns on the Internet.   I found a lot that are so cute, a person could just never have enough wall space for them all... I might make some up even so...

Then I saw this...

I love the sentiment in this so much...

I was going to stitch it, but decided I would try something else instead.











What I came up with is a very small plaque for a tiny space in my kitchen. I used a small frame I had picked up for .10 at a thrift store, and I covered it with some card stock paper,  made the little note with another piece of paper and then embellished it with a few of my little treasures.

Next project:

I found this Robin Hood Flour sack in a bunch of material that was my Mother's.  I have kept it all these years thinking some day I would do something with it.

Now that I have a big country kitchen, I know exactly what I want to do with it - so stay tuned... I hope my idea works as well in actual fact as it is working in my brain!

Time to get to work!

REPURPOSE FRIDAY - THE SECOND!

I have had more fun than you can imagine, gathering the images for this weeks edition of Re purpose Friday.

I am trying really hard to give everyone something they would like to see.  Not everyone is interested in gardens, or country decorating, or even old stuff.  Keep an open mind... even if you are a minimalist or like the super modern look - there may be something here you like.

This time, I will try and do it right -and give you not only the image, but the link to the image on the Internet, where there is one available.

So Enjoy....

I will start off with some things for the garden made from everyday household items.  Check these out!

How adorable is this bird feeder, and flowers made from forks, spoons and is that a shaker in the middle?  Of course this arrangement of flowers requires knowing someone with a welder - but I have seen the same thing made with plastic utensils - and those only require a glue gun and they can be painted!

dishfunctionaldesigns.blogspot.com

This next picture is so cool.   A yard such as mine could use some of these at night!  My apologies  to Rust Oleum - the information with this image stated that these glowing pots were made by painting pots with glow-in- the- dark Rust Oleum paint.  According to Rust-Oleum there is no such product.

indulgy.com

These lights are so adorable  - and they could be used inside the house - or out on the patio.  No need to use real tea-lights  - there are battery operated ones now that would do just as well.

homedit.com

I am sure there still are a lot of these microwave carts around - (red face ) - I inherited one with this house that I converted into my little temporary island - but now that I have the makings for a real island - I just might do this...

                                                                             Sweet....



But the absolutely best thing I found today is this!

anvilironworks.co.uk

This is the best piece of scrap iron art I think I have ever seen.  Wish it were standing in my garden!

So there you have your inspirations for the week.

See you next week!