I started my etsy shop today! I think etsy is great! Cheers to all of you who are on etsy and to friends who encouraged me to give it a try!
To celebrate, I am giving away a handmade bag! First: Visit my etsy shop and leave a comment on this blog of your favorite bag along with the title of the bag! Second: Be a follower of my blog if you are not already! If you post your favorite bag and link it to my etsy site on your blog, there is a prize inside the bag! Please let me know if you have posted a bag on your blog! I will post sales and other promotions on this blog!
I will do a drawing on April 1st and it's no April Fool's joke! Thanks!
Enjoy! Fill your day with a Bag of JOY!
The prize drawing will close at 12 pm-- April 1st! Thanks for entering! Good Luck!
Join the party
Here are three ideas for Toile! Enjoy!
Add fun flavor to a wire-framed ice cream parlor chair with toile in fuchsia and white. Add trim around the edges for a finished look.
Bon Appetit, Embellish glass plates with tinted toile patterns to create your own special dinnerware. First, make a color photocopy of a toile pattern in red. Then copy the toile design in mirror image onto transfer paper made for glass. Apply the transfer to the back of the plate, conforming it to the plate's curves with a hair dryer. Bake the plate in the oven to adhere the image to the glass. Remember to not submerge the finished plate in water and always was the front by hand.
Toile Tuffet, Fashion colorful furnishings for the feet by embellishing a do-it-yourself footstool kit with colorful toile. With a yellow background, this toile's accents of red, green, pink and blue add colorful country charm to your decor! Enhance the colors with a complementary checked skirt and upholstered button to create a warm harmony of hues. The following pictures are from Pretty Organized!You will love her blog!
Happy National Quilt Day!
As our country looks forward to 2009 with a new president and new hope for our country. The National Quilting Association thought it would be appropriate this year, to devote National Quilting Day, to the home. The housing market is in decline and foreclosures are on the rise, with greater numbers of homeless families to follow."
Check with your local Habitat for Humanity organization for their needs or homeless shelters to receive the completed quilts.
Welcome Home! Check it out!
Here are a few favorite treats for Easter! treats
My kids love to make seasonal treats, especially cupcakes and cakes! Today, as I was reading my email, I was greeted with these lovely little treats from my good friend Betty, you all know her well! Thank goodness for dear Betty!
The coconut cake has been around for many generations and it still brings a smile to my face! I love Betty's simple recipes and creative ideas!
Here is a fun little Easter Bunny to make for some yummy treats! Here is the tutorial on how to make it!
If you like old photos, charms, ribbons, lace, doilies, antique buttons, then you will enjoy creating this classy heirloom! These keepsakes were created by using a domed glass frame, velvet fabrics, or scrapbook paper for the background. The small frames were purchased at Michaels. The photos are reduced childhood pictures of my parents from "days gone by". I chose charms that portrayed their personalities and hobbies. (That was the fun part) Kids can enjoy this fun craft. I made one with my daughter.
My sister in law made these beautiful creations of my grandparents for a family reunion! I have cheirished and loved them! Her talents go far! (double click to see the detail of embroidery and the beautiful craftmanship with the ribbon!)
We have a family reunion every summer, between my brothers and sisters, we all take turns being in charge. We use to have a auction of handmade items to help cover the costs of the reunion. Often, my Mother would make a quilt that was always a big hit! Cheers to Family Reunions! Enjoy!
Cheers to Richmond, Virginia! Who loves Virginia? Give us a comment! My son just received his mission call to Richmond, Virginia! We are all so excited for him!
(picture: James River on the Blueridge pkwy)
I have always had a weakness for these little playhouses!
Wow, look how cute!
Cheers to Out Of The Crayon Box! What a great idea, so cute and so original!
What fun! I would love to make this! Hmmmmmmm...A great project for Santa's workshop!
We all need a little "JOY"! I've come to enjoy making these bags! The funnest part is coordinating the fabrics and embellishing the bags with a little glitz and glamour!
Welcome to Fabulous Friday! I want to re-organize my craft room! I found these great tips from Home and Garden Enjoy!
Design Tip: Give yourself easy access to supplies. Open storage puts ribbons, scissors and paints within reach and right where you want them. You might never run out of glue, but you will have to dust more often.
Design Tip: Customize the space to fit your needs. If your craft room is small, take advantage of corners and height with L-shaped desks and built-ins.
Design Tip: Designating zones in your craft room is a great way to get things done efficiently. This clever ironing board solution means the iron never has to be packed up and put away.
Design Tip: Designating zones in your craft room is a great way to get things done efficiently. This clever ironing board solution means the iron never has to be packed up and put away
Design Tip: A craft room doesn't have to look like your creations blew up everywhere. Keep it clean with closed storage that allows you to be organized without the pressure of looking pretty.
Design Tip: Allow 3-6 months to design and organize your craft room, even though you want to start crafting right away. Determine the room's layout by considering how you work and the supplies you need to store. Also factor in the time it takes to install cabinets or put together furniture.
There are things that a model home has that our homes never will:
A fresh start. When designing a model, designers begin with a clean slate. They come in at the ground level and specify every single finish and detail in the home–tile, grout, wall colors, flooring, cabinetry–to make sure the whole house coheres. Most of us make do with what’s there.
No baggage. Model designers don’t come to the project with favorite pieces of art they’ve collected or furnishings they’re attached to. Instead, they custom order and select art, mats and frames, and every stick of furniture to coordinate with the interior scheme.
No arguments. Model home designers don’t have to argue with spouses or kids over how to do a room. They just get their way.
Real money. Because builders know that the more decked out the model is, the more homes and upgrades they will sell, and the faster they will sell them, they give designers the budget and okay to do the whole house. I can only dream.
Smoke and mirrors. Model designers order furniture that allows foot traffic to flow and that makes rooms look larger when necessary.
Less stuff. Because their goal is to let people see the home and its architecture, not the stuff, they allow zero clutter.
False fronts. When staging bookshelves, they select books for their covers, not their contents. Sometimes they cover all books on a shelf in the same leather. Who buys books only for the color of their covers?
Theme rooms. Designers typically peg one child’s room for, say, a boy golfer, and another for a girl horseback rider. In the boy’s room, they’ll have four golf shirts, a bag of clubs, three golf hats, and golf ball handles on the faucet. The girl’s room will have tall riding boots, a crop, and some jodhpurs. No real kid is that one dimensional.
Storage Style. Model master closets feature a monochromatic wardrobe that ties into the master decor, meaning all the outfits go with the bedspread, and who buys clothes that way?
Color is fickle and changes depending on your light. A wall color that looks great in your friend’s house could flop in yours. Don’t go from just the paint chip, which is actually ink, not paint.
When you decide on a general color, say a robin’s egg blue, or a marigold, get several quarts to test. Some companies, including Ralph Lauren, sell little test bags of color, which are cheaper than quarts.
Paints with low levels of VOCs (volatile organic compounds) are environmentally friendlier than traditional paints and don’t cost much more. Although they sometimes go on a little runnier, they won’t give you a headache from fumes.
Consider using exterior paints inside. Their pigments are often more intense.
Test the paint in the room where it will go. Use two coats. Ideally, test the paint on 16″ x 16″ pieces of drywall that are the same texture as your walls. You can get these for just a few dollars at your local home improvement store (sometimes free). This is better than test patches on your walls because they can ghost through the final paint color and haunt you for years to go. Using panels lets you move the colors around so you can see them in different lights and on different walls. Panels also let you place carpet candidates near the panels to see how they go together.
Before deciding, observe the colors at different times of day.
Color forecast for 2008/2009: They’re predicting that the hot colors will be earthy browns and brownish grays; more complex blues, like purpled navy; slick reds with names like ribbon and lacquer, which would be complicated reds, not simple ones like stoplight red; new greens emphasizing yellowed greens of nature; and yellow in all its hues (even whites will be buttery).
What’s out for 2008: Wimpy colors, including anything pastel (ditch the seafoam green).
To avoid dating your house with your color choices, Jameson suggests that you go with colors from nature: “Nature is always in style. Subtle earth tones such as green, brown, beige, and putty make a wonderful backdrop.” Then, she says, if you have nature-inspired neutrals on walls, countertops, and floors, you’re free to experiment with trendy colors and patterns with pillows, art, rugs, and accessories.
Hippity Hop, it's Easter on its way! These are so cute and fun to make! Here are the directions from Splitcoast Stampers! There is a print out template! Have fun and ENJOY!
