Cleaning & Creating

 Greetings lovely friends & readers

It has been wayyyy too hot to work outdoors this past week plus the Inside was looking like it was desperately in need of some attention ... this dry weather brings the dust which just coats everything.  

Oh This Is ME to a tee !!

I decided to start with some jobs that I had been putting off for a VeRy long time!

The vintage Chandelier in our bedroom was constantly blowing bulbs - one every few days sometimes.  The Mr ordered some fancy filament bulbs through our electrician who assured us they would last for years.

  I decided to clean the chandelier as it has been years a very long time since I had done this.  I cleaned all the crystals with vinegar water & wiped down the rest of the light thoroughly.  How it shines now - the new bulbs are just wonderful & I am so thrilled with it. 

I have Indian Cotton drapes in my lounge with crochet panels at the hems.  I love these drapes & have 8 drops ... 2 at each set of French Doors & then 4 at the big picture window at the end of my lounge.

  I last washed them in January 2020,  so they were looking dull & grubby.  I can wash a pair at a time in my machine on Delicates, hang them out quite wet & then iron them.  The ironing takes FoReVeR! All those gathers & the crochet lace at the bottoms ... I began doing a pair a day so it took me 4 days in total.  I worked out it took me over an hour to iron each pair. 

Of course ... there was quite a bit of this going on ... Little One thought they made the most wonderful hut under the ironing board & just look at all those tassels to play with !!  😸 

 I cleaned all the windows & doors thoroughly & hung them all back up.  Phew what a mission it was but it felt great to have it done.  

The Before

I did not have it on my list to clean out the Linen cupboard but when I went to get fresh pillowcases the whole lot fell down on my head.  That did it!!  I hauled everything out.  Many items that came home from Mum's had been shoved in & older items pushed to the back.  I plonked all the piles on my dining-room floor to sort through.

I decided to use up some plastic baskets that I no longer used in my craft room.   As you can see - I had the utmost helpful assistant (!!)  Can you believe dear friends - I removed 62 items from this cupboard ??!!  Does one person seriously need 24 handtowels ??!!

The Mr took quite a bit for wiping rags, I kept some cotton sheets for dropcloths & the rest went to the Salvation Army Op-Shop - here is my car boot load to prove it.

And the "After" ... Yes I even labelled the baskets because I am pathetic thorough like that  😉

This stack of primitive boxes were all stacked inside each other in my sewing cupboard.  I think they came from my friend Elaine quite sometime ago & I'd never used them for anything.  I decided to revamp them & use them for storage in my craft room.  The labels mostly came off easily, some of them required a scraping & a light sand.  

I wanted to paint each one a different colour but just use what I already had on hand.  Some of these paints were hard & needed water adding to soften them a bit.  But they did the trick okay. 

These are the colours I used from top to bottom.  Pavlova, Grey Mist, Aged White, Soft Duck Egg & Old Linen.  I lightly sanded them & then added some of the left-over botanical transfers from when I revamped the stool 

in * this Post * 

A good coat of wax to each box & they are ready to use & look much nicer don't you think?

This was Mum's favourite silk scarf, hand dyed, & purchased on one of our trips to Australia - she loved to wear this & the colours really suited her.  I knew I wouldn't wear it so I decided to cut it up & make it into lavender bags.

I got 10 bags altogether - the silk was a horrid thing to sew.  I filled them with this years dried lavender from my garden.  As I am going to be gifting alot of these I decided to make a label for the back just to add that special touch.  My sewing room smells wonderful  💜

My dear friend Julie is downsizing & gifted me this beautiful picture that she thought I might enjoy.  I just love it & it fits in perfectly on my mantel along with some other gold/brass coloured items.  So special.

Wishing you all a wonderful weekend dear friends - thank you so very much for your visits here today,

Remember to be kind to yourselves & to each other,

With much love & friendship,

Julie & the furry ones x0x0x