PHFR all in one

Every once in a while, I stumble across a thing that fits the whole "Pretty, Happy, Funny, Real" philosophy.

Today I give you....

Crocheted Stones.

(idea from here)

Pretty? I think they are.

Funny? Rocks covered in yarn...yeah, my hubby thought it was.

Happy? Well, they make me smile every time I look at them.

Real? Don't think it comes much realer than rocks from our beach.

Cost? $0.00 - I had the Aunt Lydia's cotton crochet thread and as I mentioned above, the rocks are from our beach. Time? about 20 minutes per stone -my crochet skillz aren't fully mad yet. A quick, happy little project that makes me smile and bemuses my husband. I call it a "Win-win"!

Click over to check out the other PHFR posts! 

Vintage linens

Hi, I'm Dusa and I'm addicted to vintage linens. I buy them, repair them, wash them, iron them, then tuck them in a drawer waiting for the 'perfect' time. Which never seems to arrive. So I decided to do something about it.

Here, I added two similar doilies (and a crocheted medallion) to some small pillows.

I matted this one on some fabric and hung it in a thrifted frame.

(And yes, there is one under the lamp, too)

Ditto for here. But I think there are only so many linens I can hang before the CatMan complains about living in a granny house.

Any ideas how I can utilize more of my stash?

Buried

Buried in a friend's garage, under coats of paint (who paints fabric anyway??), was this little treasure. It has come to live with me, stay tuned for the makeover.

Wedding gift preview

For my niece's shower:

The napkins are heavy white cotton, thrifted from somewhere a long time ago. I bleached them out, cut apart a doily that had seen better days, and used the bits as embroidery in the corners.

The tablecloth was started by my great grandmother, found in a trunk of her fabric, finished by me, and the crocheted edging was done by my great aunt.

Since I don't have kids, I'm making sure the heirlooms I have get passed on to my nieces and nephews.

*facepaw*

Don't you hate it when you're happily working on a pattern (that you've knit before) and somewhere about 1/2 way through you realize, "Hey I forgot an integral step (dropping the stitches) the creates the whole look I'm going for!"

Yeah, me too!

Put a coat on it...

Everything is better with a coat (or two) of paint. The black coasters below were originally pewter, but that's not really where I live so I painted them. I don't have a good spray painting location, so I painted them with some "Black Licorice" craft paint into which I mixed some gold glaze. Once everything was dry, they got a lacquer coat to seal. The mum-shaped coaster was a thrift store find that I painted in my trim color "Popcorn White", then sealed. I plan on using this one as a ring dish. The little footed vase got the black/gold treatment too. 

I stripped this utensil drawer, then painted it same butterscotch yellow as the paper I used to line it, then distressed the edges with a dark green. I screwed in two tiny eye hooks and hung it in my craft room. My collection of small doo-dads is now safely out of the cats' paths of destruction.

Seating area so far

This is where the CatMan and I sit to watch TV. Usually the futon is covered with a dropcloth and there is at least one cat holding court on it. I shooed them away so I could get this picture. If you look in the mirror above the futon, you will see Jack stalking away in disgust. The mirror is actually the white one from my previous post. I slapped a little green craft paint on the frame and then sanded it for an aged finish which I think nicely complements the splotchy glass. The other pic is a watercolor of Hickory Run State Park which is known in PA for its immense boulder field.

The green bench is next up on the refinishing docket.

Little projects

 

 I "Etsied" some knobs for the linen cupboard project. The ones I found were 2 parts: a knob and a back plate. The back plate is too big for the cupboard, but perfect for the white ceramic knobs I have on our closet doors. A quick spray paint session later and I have a finishing touch!

Here are few other items on the project docket. Stay tuned!

Needling

Work continues on the crocheted stars (using this tutorial) -

I'm thinking of felting them and stringing a garland.

And I finished the Jelly bean scarf.

Gifts

Here are a few gifts I've been working on the past few weeks.

This is for my friend L. who is battling cancer. It is a vintage embroidery hoop, topped with natural muslin and embroidered with floss, felt, and vintage buttons. I wanted the effect of a garden rendered in a primitive style, similar to the rugs found here. 

My niece,H. graduated from college this past weekend. She is the first in my immediate family to have finished a four year school and I'm so proud of her. She's also getting married at the end of this year, but I didn't want this moment to pass by unacknowledged. I found the leather journal and pen online, and had some fabric in my stash that united the 2 greens perfectly. So I whipped up a little book bungee/pen holder based in part on this tutorial and this bookmark. (Unfortunately, the weather and the lighting were not cooperating in time for me to get a good picture AND get the presents off in the mail!)

In my craft room [Happy]

Linked up to this little party -
Here's a follow up to this post.

My crafting chair: a recycled flannel pillow case, shortened and slightly tailored to fit over the back of the chair. The doily was Plattsburgh thrift mall find: isn't the donkey cute?

Here is the Ovenex cookie sheet done over as the bulletin board.

The bumper sticker says, "What happens here, stays here. But nothing ever really happens." The genie card is a birthday card from the CatMan. On the front, the genie is saying, "You have one more wish", and the dog is saying, "You may want to give this some thought" with two shiny balls of yarn in front of the cat. The inside of the card shows the cat ecstatic over the third ball of yarn. The fortune cookie fortunes say "Generosity and perfection are your everlasting goals." (yikes, they nailed that one!) and "You have a house with beautiful gardens in your future." (I believe it's an eternal one.)

On top, the photo in the black frame is a teenage CatMan, complete with um...crazy hair. The little turtle pin is the first piece of jewelry I remember getting: my grandmother gave it to me when I was 6 years old. There's also an vintage, 3-sided wooden ruler (my parents still have one in their junk drawer at home), and a little orange ninja (orange is my favorite color, and I tease the CatMan all the time about 'being a ninja').

The other items just make me smile: a little forest-y Christmas ornament, Adirondack chairs that look similar to the one in an old photo of my grandfather, a friend's herd of llamas, and a happy little boy with the caption "Jump In."

Sprucing up the craft room

After a thrifting/junqing trip this weekend with my friend Barbara, I had some changing up to do in the craft room.

A pretty crocheted cotton runner now serves as a curtain (with this as a tie back). The green chair was starting to get a bit faded, so I took an old flannel pillow case and made a cover for the chair back. I also draped an embroidered doily over the finished cover: it's a sweet little donkey with a mouthful of flowers. I'm a bit obsessed with vintage linens - you know, like some people are about ceramic animals.

I also found this over the weekend, lurking behind a piece of furniture, filled with trash. 'Tis mine now. I'm pretty sure the CatMan is trying to ignore the tole painted items that are encroaching on the CattyAbode.

I bagged the idea of recovering my current bulletin board and instead went with converting an Ovenex cookie sheet to a magnetic board similar to this:

image courtesy of susantiques on etsy.

I used Rustoleum black glossy paint to give a nice even background and then glued little magnets to some vintage buttons (also found this weekend).

My craft room is my girly space and one where I indulge in fluff and frou-frou (well as much as I can being a neat freak/stuff purger). I like dressing her up a little.

A spring wreath.

This is my front door's new spring wreath. I used the tutorial found here. And the flowers are from here. The wreath's colors are much springier in person - it's just our hallway has crappy lighting. I'm thinking of painting the door at some point this year...citrus? chartreuse? robin's egg?

Looking for spring

I had some KYarns gift certificates from Christmas so off to the yarn store I went. Some wool for me, some washcloth cotton (to knit up for my mom), and a pattern for a spring vest.

I immediately had to knit the bright sock yarn (the Regia yarn in the pic above). Here's my start of the Jellybean scarf: I'm using the oblique lace (diagonal lace) pattern. I love it so much, I edited the picture for use as my spring blog header.

I did finish my Serenity socks for my friend Jane. The yarn is Deborah Norville's Serenity sock yarn in a heather blue colorway purchased from Joann's. Two years ago or so, I was all about the sock knitting. Now, not feeling it so much. But I enjoy the process when I finally do get a pair on the needles.

Martha and I

Have been doing a little sewing lately.

Welcome me to the world of cell phones (yeah, I was the last one in my family to have one - and that includes my school age nieces and nephews). I needed a little case, so out came the scrap bag.

The inside lining is from a sweatshirt that was too warm and had a stain. However the phone seems to love it. The lace is a remnant found in some long abandoned corner of a flea market/antique store which I previously used for this project.

Some miscellaneous sewing included finally finishing a set of pillowcases out of  vintage calico (so springy and pretty) and 2 sets of rags torn and hemmed up from Goodwill flannel crib sheets. I also finished a set of pillowcases from a Ralph Lauren twin sheet (also a Goodwill find). I am in love with the colors and will post a pic soon.

Happy weekend - I'm off to Target and the Plattsburgh indoor flea market/antique mall. Who knows what treasures I will come home with...

Spring thoughts

Here are my attempts at crocheting little stars. Actually some of them turned out more like flowers. I'll take what I can get. The cool thing is that each one gets better and easier!

I picked up a few vintage embroidery hoops last summer. I wasn't sure what I was going to do with them, but since then I've been inspired to create some cute springy motifs. I covered the buttons with some of my stash and invested in some embroidery floss. I still have 4 hoops left...maybe one for each season?

If at first

you don't succeed, gouge a big hole in your wall and try again!

Fixing this corner of the drywall in my craft room was making me guano loco. So finally, I took my Exacto knife and cut out as much of the old compound as I could. I guess the angle of the wall  coupled with the new addition settling prohibited a smooth job the first time, so I figured starting over with drywall mesh and compound was the way to go. It's curing right now. My goal is to add the skim coat and repaint the corner by this weekend. It already looks (and feels) much better. 

While I was working painting and staining projects this weekend, I realized I had never shown you a picture of my paint storage. It's a mesh cart I got from Target about a year ago (didn't see it on their website, though). The bottom drawer holds little cans of stain and touch up cans of all our wall colors. The second drawer is primers, spackle compounds, and the trim paints. The top drawer is painting supplies like rollers, steel wool, sponges, trimmers and stirrers. The basket on the top holds spray paints, polyurethane, the paintbrush cleaning jar, metal brush for cleaning bristles, and my much-loved angled paintbrush. The beauty of this cart is that it wheels easily in and out of the kitchen closet which means I don't have to dig for what I want. One of the best $20.00 I've ever spent.

A Cinderfella story

Once upon a time, there was a Viking Artline chair. His green vinyl coat was tattered and someone had splashed his body with flesh-toned paint. He thought his last days were destined to be spent on the porch of a small little junque shop and he shivered at the thought of Vermit winters.

One morning just as he had given up all hope, Queen Dusa spied him on her way into work. She contacted the proprietress of the the junque shop to pay his bail. In short order, the Viking moved to her castle, where he languished for several months in his deplorable state. Finally Queen Dusa lovingly dismantled him, removing his torn vinyl and painted sacrilege. She applied baths of Red Mahogany and Gunstock Miniwax stain to his wood, and gave him new cotton padding and a jacket of grey tweedy suiting fabric.

He has regained his rightful place in the Mid-Century court where he shall live happily ever after!

Oh, the indignity!

Of a cat hat. A co-worker saw this pattern and thought it looked like fun. I knitted one up, but it was too small for all the cats except Isabelle. I modified the pattern a tad, and the other two were fine! No, Izzy isn't mad - she's 'just drawn that way'. And yes that's a yellow, treble crochet mohawk.

All the seasonal decorations have been purged down and organized into 3 boxes. I'm looking forward to  going to just one place to find what I need.  

At the last minute

I needed to come up with a quick gift, so I raided the stash and found this Knit Picks "Get Away" yarn (picked up for 1.00/skein at the local Goodwill). 3 skeins later, the simple YO lace scarf is done, wrapped, and gone.

We received this paper cutting as a Christmas card in 1991 (it's signed and dated - which is the only reason I know when we received it!) I've had it stashed away since then and last week, decided to actually do something with it. I found a dollar store frame, some dark blue fabric (with light blue stars) and a little spray adhesive later, I have a print I can keep over my kitchen sink until February - or when I can't stand looking at snow anymore!)