A Bed Headboard, A Lampshade & A Tree Church

Greetings lovely friends & readers

When I repainted my bedroom almost a year ago now, one of the things I'd always planned to do was to somehow raise my bed headboard.  

You can see from the photo above left, that when I stacked all my cushions on my bed, you could not see the headboard at all .. only the end spindles poking out at the sides (right hand pic).  Our headboard was purchased second hand from Trademe & tho' I liked the style,  I'd never especially liked the orange tinge that the oak wood had.  

 I asked The Mr to cut some blocks of wood to affix to the base of the headboard - he asked me "what length ?". 

This is how I measure things dear friends!   Because I am a visual person I needed to stack old red bricks under the headboard in order to get a rough idea of how long I wanted my pieces of wood to be ... a tape measure was of no use as I could not stand back & look at it & get a visual feel for it.  The Mr thought I'd gone quite insane by this point!

I was working on it down the end of my Lounge where there is good lighting

I think it was late spring before I actually got the blocks of wood cut to size.  I simply pushed them under a table & there they stayed until after Christmas when I found the time to tackle this project.  Now my thoughts were that I would attach the wood, paint the headboard & it would be back in my room in 3 days maximum!!!  Famous last words 😉  In the end it took nearly a month to finish this project!  

Although I bought strong wood glue for the legs The Mr still insisted upon drilling holes & adding dowel to each piece before gluing on the new lengths.  Then leaving it for 24 hours to dry.  I washed the headboard down with sugar soap & then wanted to attach these decals that I'd had for this project for several months. 

I measured out the 3 sections & didn't just eyeball where they went as I am prone to do  😉

I wanted to paint it in the same Linen colour that I'd used on this mirror,   Mum's Glory box & Bedside Cabinet.  I gave it an undercoat of white to tone down the orange wood first.  After I'd given it 2 coats I ran out of Linen paint 😖 ... No sorry, we're not making that brand any more!   I ended up having to buy Linen in another brand which turned out lighter but thankfully I had enough to finish the front & just use the lighter shade on the back.  Also the new paint took 8 days to arrive from Auckland, a journey of less than 2 hours away !!

Finally, yesterday I was able to put it back in position in my bedroom.  I used white wax on the decals & clear wax on the rest of it - I love how the white wax makes the decals really pop.  

Despite the hiccups along the way, I am thrilled with how it turned out & love that it is now visible above my bed cushions.  The plain Euro Cushion in the middle is my next little project as I am making a cover for it using more of the French General fabrics.  And the little cat on the left hand side is most certainly not meant to be there (!!)

While I was waiting for the new paint to arrive (8 long days!) I decided to revamp this old lamp which I used to use in my craft cottage.  It's not showing up well here but the shade was discoloured & fly-spot marked.  I washed it gently in warm soapy water & dried well in the sun.  I wanted to make a pleated shade for it & used this tutorial * here * as I'd seen this technique on YouTube.

The fiddliest part was cutting & ironing all the lengths of fabric.  My dear friend Shirley had given me some fat quarters of this gorgeous French General range called "Antoinette" & I thought this blue tiny floral one was perfect.  Instead of hot glue as the tutorial suggests, I preferred to use my craft glue as I find it less messy.

My shade ended up taking 42 lengths including the top & bottom one.  I had thought to add a fringe to the bottom but decided I liked it plain & simple.  💙

My original intention was to paint the base a pale duck egg shade but I thought it looked just fine left as the white ceramic base & I rather liked the slightly retro look of it.  

It is now 3 years since I first visited The Tree Church with my friend Sue.       You can read about that visit in             this post * here *    

Sue & I decided we were long overdue another outing there so we met up last Sunday, on the most gorgeous blue sky day.   Although I took many photos I thought I'd try & share these videos, taken by Sue -  the first one approaching the church & the second one inside.  I hope they come out okay dear friends as I've not shared a video on here before.   

Click the small square bottom right to enlarge & turn your sound volume right up  😊

Sue calls these topiary cloud trees "Dr Seuss Trees"

I baked an Oaty Caramel Slice & took a thermos of boiling water so we could drink tea & sit & enjoy the surroundings.  It was just a wonderful morning, the birds were singing loudly & it felt so peaceful, serene & relaxing.

                                                  Plus it was wonderful to catch up with Sue again  🤍

We are getting light rain here today friends - the kind of rain you could stand in & barely get wet.    Yesterday I got out my lace box to look for vintage lace trims for the Euro cushion cover I am making ... it didn't take long for Madam Pip to find it & curl herself away 😕 - luckily I quickly tossed a pillowslip under her first.

Thank you as always dear friends, for your welcome visits here today,

Wishing you a wonderful rest-of-the-week ... remember to be kind to yourselves & to each other,

With much love & friendship to you all,