My Family

Hello, dear friends.I hope that you all had a great Christmas with family and friends. I feel a little sad that it is over, and especially sad that my daughter and her family have returned to Florida. 

This was a pretty exciting Christmas for me as it is the first time that any family members besides my dad have come up here to spend Christmas with us. We usually celebrate early just prior to the holiday when we go down to Florida to pick up my dad and bring him back here for a few weeks. This year he was going to come up with my daughter, Kym, and her family,  but at the last minute he decided to stay home, worrying that the hours in the car would be too hard on him. I was sad about that, but we did have a few great days with the kids. 

Following are two priceless photos from Christmas morning.

Tanner, who is 7,

coming down the stairs that morning...

Jordyn, who is 12, after opening a gag gift.

Hubby cleaned out his closet before the 

holidays and found this old yellow touch tone

trim line phone, and thought we would have

some fun with the kids.

Jordyn absolutely loved it.

Either that, or she has already

learned the fine art of diplomacy!

We plugged it into one of our phone jacks

and called my dad (an old phone company

retiree) from it. 

It still worked!...

The day after Christmas we decided to take some nice family photos outside. I am posting my favorite, taken on our front porch.

Shawn, Kym

Santa, Tanner and Jordyn...

I hope that you got to take some great photos of your

own Christmas!

Time moves so quickly and the children change so fast. 

Merry Christmas!

Wishing you and your

families 

a blessed and

wonderful Christmas!

The beauty of The Season...

Santa shares the Christmas tree...

...with a sweet little owl.

They left a little room

for the smallest touch of red...

And a little flock of sheep

haven't forgotten...

...the real meaning of Christmas...

I hope that you are enjoying the beauty of

this Christmas season!

Little holiday touches...

Happy Sunday! I hope that you are just about ready for Christmas. But are we ever really ready? 

Last January we completed giving our master bathroom a makeover, but since I had so much other decorating to do with my family coming to visit, I didn't think I would really bother decorating our bathroom, since no one but us really uses it anyway. As a matter of fact, I don't think I ever even showed it to you in its completed state (I will do that in a future post!). I promise.

The other day I ran into a new Dollar Tree store that had just opened. I couldn't believe all the nice things they had, so when I came home, my decorating-the-bathroom-spree took place in three minutes, and for three dollars, no less!

I fell in love with these little glittered deer

(two for a buck!)

and they now prance

below our shelf that sits over the tub...

And who could resist these glittered

snowflakes with bells?

(Also two for a buck!)

You can't decorate on a budget

for much less than that!!

Who can figure?

Have a wonderful evening, friends, 

and many thanks for coming by. 

Christmas stockings from an old cutter quilt...

Happy Sunday, friends! 

This post is a little late in coming, but I'm finally getting around to showing you what I did with the old cutter quilt that you saw here.

My daughter, hubby and my grandchildren are coming up here from Florida for Christmas this year, bringing my dad with them. I really can't wait, and decided to do something special since they don't have a fireplace "down in the tropics". So here is what became of that old quilt.

Three Christmas stockings created for the left side of the 

fireplace...

...and four for the right side...

I embellished them all slightly different,

using vintage laces, doilies, and hankies,

and added some glitz with 

old rhinestone brooches and pins...

I wanted to be able to use them again

for whoever visits us in the future,

so I used glitter letters for the first letter

in each person's name.

They were 98 cents each in WalMart,

and even came with these sweet

 little swirly hooks,

which happen to match the hooks that I 

use for the ornaments on the 

Christmas tree.

It gave me such joy to be able to work on

that quilt while I was thinking about

the lady long ago who worked on it 

the first time.

I hope I did her proud!

And as for the large leftover piece of that quilt? 

I think that I may make a table runner or a 

tree skirt out of it,

but there will likely be no time to do that this

year.

***********************************

By the way,

I discovered an easy way of making these stockings

where you sew the stocking and lining in one

process, rather that having to make the lining

separately, and then sew it to the stocking.

I was in the process of creating a tutorial,

but will not likely have time to complete it

before Christmas.

Maybe I can strive for a "Christmas in July" 

next year.

What do you think?

I hope that your decorating is moving faster than mine!

A Fabric Collage Book: Babies, Buggies and Black Velvet

Good morning and happy Saturday! I'm sorry that I've neglected this blog for awhile, but time seems to have gotten away from me.

I had mentioned in an earlier post that one of my art endeavors was to be featured in the Winter issue of Sew Somerset, and it hit newsstands on December first. It was an honor to be featured, and the really funny part is that the article that appeared behind mine was by a gal that I knew when I lived down in Florida. Things can't get much more coincidental than that!

Below are some photos that I had taken of my book before I sent it off to Somerset. I am sharing them with you since the publishers took their own photos, and mine are a little different. I hope you enjoy seeing them as much as I enjoyed working on the book, which was probably one of my "busiest" projects. I fashioned it after an old Victorian photo album, and the inspiration came from my growing collection of Victorian photos depicting babies in their beautiful buggies. I imagined what they might have been thinking when the photos were taken so many years ago, and this project was born.

Almost all of the items used were vintage. 

The cover is black velvet,

vintage laces,

a hankie,

brooch,

and crinkled seam binding...

A button and lace binding...

The inside front cover 

and first page with

doilies and burnout velvet...

This is one of my favorite old photos,

and you have seen me use it before...

Use of a frog closure...

Silk, lace, and old buttons...

Doesn't she look like she is

watching something?

Pretty old sheet music...

More lace, buttons, silk,

and copies of the backs of

cabinet cards...

What was this beautiful baby thinking

about?

The last page and the inside of the back cover.

I used the fringe because there was fringe

on this baby's buggy...

Instructions for making this book are in Sew Somerset! 

I hope that you have a great weekend, and thanks for

stopping by!

A lovely cutter quilt: The Pontiac Star

Good morning friends!

I think that I mentioned a while back that I started collecting cutter quilt pieces. If you don't know what these are, they are old quilts that can no longer be used for their intended purpose, as they may have tears in them, be badly stained in some areas, have sections that are shattered due to the deterioration of the fabrics that were used, and so forth. Some of them are quite beautiful and crafters have been using them for a while for all sorts of things, from making stuffed toys to holiday decorations to pin cushions, and more. Folding them up and displaying them in baskets has also become another use for them.

If you read this blog you know that I love to decorate with neutrals along with a punch of black (who puts black ornaments on their Christmas tree, anyway?!), so imagine my excitement when I found a beautiful cutter quilt on eBay recently, one using only two colors, namely cream and black calico. The calico has a tiny print, and this was the only fabric used besides the solid cream. And there was only one other bidder (my heartfelt apologies to the other bidder). I'll let the pictures do the talking!

I gently washed it in my washing machine,

using plenty of Ultra Downy Infusions 

fabric softener,

the lavender serenity scent.

What beautiful piecing and hand-stitching

on this lovely old quilt...

I want to cry every time I 

envision it on a bed. 

But that is not meant to be. 

Even the borders are beautiful...

The defect on this one:

It seemed to have met a sad fate.

When folded in quarters

a torn out section is right through

all four sections.

Doesn't this look like a heart? 

This makes it all the more special,

as MY heart skipped a beat when

I first saw it...

Below you see it folded into quarters, 

with the hole completely through...

Here it is laid out on the bed in my studio,

folded in half...

There were no stains at all on this quilt.

Below you see the only other torn area, 

which is actually very small...

I bought this quilt for a very special purpose,

which I will reveal in the near future.

I want it to become a keepsake that

will honor the lady who put so much time

into this beautiful creation.

I cut off the pieces that I needed,

and below is the long and perfect piece 

that is left.

I also have a plan for this...

What would you do with this old beauty?

Can you guess what I will do with it?

You might find a small clue in one of the photos

above!

More to come in a future post.

What creations are you working on lately?

A little family of mice...

Happy Wednesday evening!

I couldn't resist sharing these few Halloween photos of my son and his family as they went trick-or-treating on Halloween (they live down in Florida, as you may remember). My grandson, Jason, was Mickey Mouse, and his little sister, Avery, was Minnie. Aren't they just the cutest little mice you've ever seen? Sorry, but this grandmother is a little partial!

My son said that he tried to get some ears for 

himself, but the adult sizes were all sold out.

Fancy that!

Happy Haunting!

Wishing you all a safe and fun

Halloween!

A snake in the grass, or at least one on the wind chimes!

Good morning!

This is a funny thing. Well, I guess that would depend on how you look at it. A couple of weeks ago Hubby saw our cat Ollie sitting on the back of the settee in the screened porch looking out of the upper part of the screen. Ollie was chattering away, as cats often do when they see a bird. Imagine Hubby's surprise when he looked up...

...and saw this...

Mr. Slither was enjoying a rest

lounging on our wind chimes...

Though snakes are not my favorite beings,

I must confess that it was fascinating

watching him at close range.

We think that he was a Black Snake

and not poisonous,

but did not make any attempt to find out.

Bear in mind that these wind chimes 

are about two feet in height, 

and Mr. Slither was wrapped around them

three times in some spots.

Since I took these photos through the screen, 

they are not very good, 

but I think you get the idea...

After a while he got tired of us staring at him,

especially when Hubby tapped the screen,

and he slithered off.

The snake, not Hubby.

If you look closely below,

you can barely see him in the center of

the photo moving down the thin branch of

the Tardiva Hydrangea bush that is in front

of the screen. 

And he moved like lightening.

This answered our question as to how

he got up there in the first place...

By the way, at our garden wedding,

we walked down "the aisle" to 

Pachelbel's Canon in D.

We bought these wind chimes

because they play that song.

I wonder of Mr. Slither would have danced to the music.