Sunny Days

We have had some beautiful days in NC lately. This is is a shot of Hubby and I sitting in the new part of the backyard. It was a sunny warm day, but the wind was a little crazy. I sat in the grass for awhile. he joined me. I love this shot because as we sat there talking I was taking incognito shots. We both look so happy to be sitting in the sun.  Grey sweatshirts and black sunglasses. The trees behind us are so bare and windblown. The sky so blue with whispy white clouds.

My house only gets sun on the front door for about hour. I never seem to be home for this  occasion. Today I was there! Such a cute color scheme with detail on the porch.

When the new fence in the yard went up, I just about had a serious heart failure. I looked out the laundry room window and thought this beautiful treasure had been cut down. Just one limb was lopped off, to my relief. Another tree is growing in it as well. I am unsure of the other type of tree. I know what this one tree is for many reasons. It is a Camellia.  This is a particular variety that I am not familiar with. My Grandmother, Nana, has many variety in her yard. However, they are not like mine. A more typically variety was planted at my Mom's family plot. Unfortunately, someone was allowed to cut that tree down. Possibly, the angst behind seeing chopped one in my yard.  My mom has one in her yard now. So does my Dad. I have to say the ones at my Nana's house are huge 15 ft bushes and there must be 4 varieties  that have impressively different blooms. They bloom at different times during the chilly weather with multiple shades. I am in heaven, I have never seen a Camellia tree that blooms like this! It is an amazing display!

Camellias are dripping off of this tiny tree. I love how it reminds me of Alice in Wonderland.

While sitting in the yard I asked Hubby to pull this out of the ground. It is says that it is a Seltzer Drug Bottle. I think that there must be 6 more buried in the base of the pecan tree. The bottles are small, no bigger than my hand. My yard is even more like Alice in Wonderland. Bottles in the bottom of trees.

Vintage Buttons and Turtles

I have a nice collection of vintage buttons and earrings all were my great-aunts. I have always wanted to glue some to posts for earrings. I pulled out a few choice sets of buttons. I used E-6000 that is the best clear glue ever. I am letting them sit for a day. I stuck sewing pins through the button holes on the back so that I might add a dangle bead or something.  I am thinking this is a good thing to sell on etsy. I have to figure out what to do with the collection of turtles. My mom is a turtle lover, but I am not so sure that she would go for that many of them.  I'll see what happens. I will show off the button earrings soon too!

First Project from B-day fabric

This was the first project that I have created from the fabric that I bought. The flowers match every single hand bag that I own. Obviously, I love the colors in this fabric. The brick looking fabric is part of the new Amy Butler, Central Park group.  I was starting to ruin my glasses by dropping my keys down on them. Hopefully this will protect them. I made it slightly too small, but it still works. Next time I'll know better.

My Birthday Gifts

My Birthday was last week. I got some great gifts. Mainly because I bought most of them for myself. My hubby did give me a Kaffe quilt book that is Amazing! Many bonus points to him for remembering that hint!

I also went to the fabric store and bought myself a heck of a lot of fabric that I have been wanting. This is only part of it. I think that I went a little nuts. I found a new shop to go to. So I took my day off and treated myself to a Whole Foods breakfast bar on the way. I found the fabric store in the middle of a construction nightmare, but it was totally worth walking through the super crazy scaffolding around the building. I almost teared up when I was greeted with a southern hello, I felt like I was home. The lady in this store was awesome! Much much better than the other stores and my experiences with folks that work in fabric stores. She knew what she was doing, helping me pair the fabrics. Oh the racks of Moda were all so beautiful, which I never get see in person before I buy. I spent over two hours in the small store, soo much to take in. I am so pleased that I have found this spot. I have a few projects in mind. I will share soon.

Sewing room

This is my office/ sewing room. I am sitting on a futon on the other side of the room. I made the desk out of a solid wood door and PVC legs. Believe me it is one heavy/ sturdy sewing table. I have a large self healing mat at the left end. The self is sitting on recycled milk crates. I recently bought the letter press tray at the NC state flea market for $5. I love it for showing off all the antique sewing notions I have. I have many painted glass jars holding crafting goodies. I also have put to use my blue jean boxes and pin cushion. The shiny black filing cabinet is super duper heavy and sturdy. My dad saved it for me from the neighbors and repainted it for me. I love it. It holds a ton. All of the pencil artwork was done by a friend/ old roommate. I have lots more of his artwork. I have enjoyed having this space to sprawl out and create in. I have huge bins of fabric under the table. I generally have a ironing board set up where the chair is. I just got awesome lighting to help me out on these dark dripping winter days!

New Recycled Bag

I am lucky to have three days off this week. I have been trying to make a few of these recycled bags. I use blue jeans mostly to make the bags.  In this case I used a pair of super heavy duty Abercrombie and Fitch khaki. They were mine in high school, they have super deep pockets, which is perfect for this project. The had one small stain on the knee, but other wise in perfect condition. I think that was the only part of the pants that I didn't use. I generally reserve the long leg panels to make recycled bowls.  I love this Amy Butler lotus fabric, it was the perfect complement to the light khaki. Here are a few shots of the progression of making the pants into the bag. In this case the leg pieces were used as panels around the Amy Butler fabric. I will show you the finished product soon!

Valentines

I have always enjoyed Valentines Day. Mostly because it is right around my birthday. I have many Valentines themed birthday celebrations. I started hand making my valentines for family a couple of years ago. I love these mostly because I am using up thing I have at home. When I got married we made our own  wedding invitations. We ordered too many beautifully lined envelopes. I purposely made the cards to fit in these envelopes because they seem romantic to me. All of the scrap-booking, construction, card-stock paper I have had stored away for awhile. Most I simply folded in half and cut hearts in the middle. I use the cut out heart on the next valentine. I wrote my message on the back in a washable marker. The prisma colors bleed through too much.