Three Small Things .......................

Sunday Greetings dear friends & readers,

Three small things emerged from the chaos of my sewing room this past week

Considering I don't actually have a sewing room at the moment, this is quite an accomplishment

I have moved my machine to the dining table - yes accompanied by the cats - & am using the dining room floor as a cutting table!!

This Verse appealed to me very much this week !!!

My lovely friend Jane contacted me after I wrote in this post about the gorgeous mustard wool blanket I had been gifted

Jane inquired if it was to be cut up for craft work & if so, could she please have a rectangular shaped cushion made from part of it??

Although I did have "some assistance" with the cutting out of the cushion, whilst down on the floor ....

.... I did manage to complete it for Jane, & also pick any stray cat hairs out of the finished article

The grey buttons were in my Button Jar & I felt they just set off the finished article nicely

My friend Donna gifted me this lovely water colour painting two christmas's ago 

I loved it - especially as I collect enamelware in these colourings ... however the watercolour sat in a folder for many months

I had wanted to frame it but the only frame I ever came across that was just perfect, had a price tag on it of $89.95 ... which unfortunately was out of my budget.

If they had just removed the "8" from in front, I might have been able to afford it!!

This little frame was the perfect size & was on sale at The Warehouse for just $12

I bought it on impulse because I decided the watercolour had sat in a folder for long enough

After two coats of the green Amulet paint that I am so addicted to fond of, I felt it just set off the watercolour perfectly

. . . . & I put together this little vignette on my rustic dresser
(in amongst the chaos that is currently the rest of the house!!!)

When I was gifted a small bag of doilies & old linens late last year, much of it was beyond repair & unusable.

However in the very bottom of the bag was this old piece of patchwork, which I think had been a cushion cover in a former life

 I unpicked the back of it & carefully washed it ... it was very delicate & tore on some of the edges as the fabric was so thin & worn

I decided I would like to make it into a small table mat as, although faded, I loved the colours & fabrics & someone had taken the time to hand quilt it at one time

I cut off the torn edges, added a vintage cotton lace & then backed it with a plain piece of cotton

Then I hand quilted around the outer edges of the patchwork  ... Pippi made sure I didn't miss any stitches & Blackie tested it out for snugability for me !!!

I really love how it has turned out & hope to find a special place for it in our new lounge area ... perhaps on top of a small cream table would look lovely

Also I am so pleased that the old piece of patchwork has been given a second chance at life

The pile of white on the very bottom is our lounge ceiling!!!

The Mr bought the big trailer home from the farm yesterday & we began the huge task of clearing up our lawn .... indeed it didn't take us long to fill the trailer & there are still at least 3 more loads this size to be taken away

The red chair is for folk whose arms are too tired (yours truly) to throw the wood way up high !!!

We had some gentle rain in the night which will help to green up the brown patches of lawn again.

I hope you have a wonderful week ahead dear readers & find some creative time amongst it all

Thanks to all of you who stopped by ... your visits are so very much appreciated
sending much love & friendship to you all,
Julie & the furry ones x0x0x0

Falling Ceilings & Going Batty

Tuesday Afternoon Greetings dear friends & readers,

We have just had a long weekend here in New Zealand in which we celebrated Waitangi Day

We had visitors to stay which is not really, quite what you want when you are in the midst of alterations

The Mr - in his wisdom - decided to take the old lounge ceiling down, right in the middle of visitors !!!!

The builders had accidently put their foot right through it during the week ... no matter, it was coming down anyway

My son climbed up into the rafters & pushed his gumboot really hard through the hole ... a large section came crashing down.

Oh No I thought ... this is going to all just come down in pieces & take forever

I turned my back to shut my bedroom door to stop the dust from going through

I heard a loud Woooooossshhh !!!!!

Oh Yes sirree ... that is the entire ceiling fallen down ...layers of insul fluff & all !!!!

Luckily we had put a huge tarpaulin down on the floor first !!

It took us all day to break it up into sections & cart it all outside & then ME to clean up the remaining fluff & also to console the cats !!!

My son Kayne checking the T.V. was undamaged

Cleaned up finally ... looking through the old part to the new addition

Yes we also spent the long weekend lining all the walls with pink batts

The lounge ceiling as it is for now . .  . & Yes I do worry about little visits from rodents during the night !!!!!

This will be my large new (2nd hand) picture window looking out from the new section of lounge towards the garden

Enough about alterations ... honestly friends ... they are a nightmare to live through ... I can fully understand why people just chose to move out for the duration.

During the chaos of it all I have been going regularly on Mondays to look after my grandson Alec

I always take some stitching with me to work on while he naps 
(tho' I must admit that sometimes I am tempted to have a wee nap myself!!!)

These wooden noticeboards were on sale at The Warehouse a couple of years quite some time ago now

They were in the half marked price bin ... my absolute favourite place !!

When Leanne Beasley published her Vignette Magazine I only ever bought 3 copies as they were quite expensive here in New Zealand.
Issue One had a lovely noticeboard decorated with this gorgeous "Remember" Stitchery

 I decided to use this for my noticeboard revamp

Each Monday this project would come with me to Alec's house ... I finally finished it just last week.
  I framed it using this wonderful tutorial from Jenny of elephantz

I laced it tightly over some thin wadding & heavy card ... then I fitted it in the wooden frame to cover the Pukeko's

My original plan had been to paint the wood cream - but I quite like how it set off the stitchery colours in its natural state.
I glued a border of ricrac around the edge of my stitchery.

As I had originally purchased two noticeboards I have now traced off my 2nd "Remember stitchery" to begin working on on my "Alec days"

Alec has begun to crawl - more of a "commando type crawl" but it gets him across the ground well enough

Sarah sent me this lovely photo of him outside on the weekend practising his "press ups" ... I just love the determined expression on his little face & he reminds me of his Daddy so very much

The Mr grows Japanese Millet at the farm as feed for the cows.  Some paddocks of it get made into silage for winter feed & some paddocks get break-fed now to keep the cows going through the drier months.
He also grows sunflowers in amongst the millet as they add oil to the cows diet & they love eating them.

I was helping The Mr with some farm chores last week & snapped some pics of the gorgeous sunflowers waving their happy faces upwards

No matter what anyone says ... I believe you can't help but feel happy looking at these gorgeous flowers

And then Nicole, the girl that milks the cows for us at the farm, took this lovely picture of her young daughter Izzy in amongst them 

It is the time of year for picking & drying my statice ... I love to see my Dads old ladder fill up each year as I hang bunches from it to dry

And lastly - & especially for my dear friend Willie - Yes the cats are unfortunately  - back on the table !!! And quite honestly, at this stage, I could not care less !!! (Even though I am ashamed to admit that)

Lord & Lady Muck !!!!

Thank you So much dear friends for your visit today,
May the rest of the week bring you all good, kind & happy things
(& no alterations to live through!!!)
with much love & friendship,
Julie, Blackie & Pippi Longstocking
x0x0x0x0

Chaos & Calamity

Greetings dear friends & readers,

When The Mr & I moved to our home here 18 years ago now ... our lounge ceiling was dippy, droopy & saggy (a little like the two of us truth be told)

When we moved in here & ran a lick of paint around the lounge we simply got our paint rollers & shoved it really firmly back up as hard as we jolly well could because . . .

We planned to replace it "real soon"!!!

18 years later ... the time had finally come.  
The Mr in his wisdom, decided now would be a good time to do a small lounge extension.

We got our plans drawn up, found a builder, got our permit, lost our builder, found another one  .... then proceeded to wait 13 long months for work to commence

Waiting for work to commence with a large section of deck removed

Last week . . . work actually begun !!!
This is currently my lovely back door interior exit

This is currently my lovely back door exterior entrance

These are currently my lovely french doors leading off my lounge

And this is currently my especially lovely garden area

Due to all the trauma of workers & their power tools & suchlike . . . . guess what has happened ???

Yep ... you guessed right !!!

Cats back on the table .... lace cloth and all !!!

In the midst of the chaos & the calamity of it all ... I have managed to complete a couple of orders

My friend Pauline requested baby rattles for newly born twin girls as well as another customer Fay, who requested a baby girl rattle also.
I made up 4 pink & one blue for them to have a selection to choose from.
The pattern is from this beautiful book from Amy's blog nanacompany

My friend Joyce has moved to a new home & I wanted to give her a small housewarming gift.
I remembered that her new kitchen was in modern greys with a touch of red so decided to decorate her a teatowel

The pattern for this design is a free download from KerryAnne's lovely blog Shabby Art Boutique .  .  .

.  .  .  though KerryAnne's teatowel has 5 houses across it, I could only fit 4 on mine. 
I also stitched "Joyce's Kitchen" onto my teatowel.

As Joyce is a wonderful gardener I popped in a cake of lemon myrtle "Gardeners Soap" as well.
While in town today running some errands I delivered Joyces housewarming gift to her  ... she was delighted with her present & immediately hung her teatowel on her oven door handle.


My little grandson Alec has just turned 8 months old. He experienced his first trip to the seaside over Christmas ... his parents took him to Raglan beach.  I loved the photos they shared with me of their outing ...

Needless to say, he slept very well that night !!!

Thank you dear friends for visiting with me today ... I hope to keep you updated on our building progress but I am a little concerned that I do not currently have enough chocolate stashes to see me through this entire process.

I shall have to rectify that.
Wishing you all a wonderful end to your week,
with much love & friendship,
Julie, Blackie & Pippi Longstocking
x0x0x0

Making a pact with myself ................

Greetings dear friends & readers

Please tell me what is different (And wonderful) about the picture below ???

For those of you that noticed ... Yes indeedy there is No cat basket on the table !!!!!!!!
 Just a lovely jug of flowers,  a candle & Not a cat hair in sight !!!!

(long may it last)

                                                                  

Last week, I made a pact with myself .  .  .

pact ... to agree .... an agreement or compact between two or more parties or nations ...

The pact was that I would remove two items per day from my sleepout & either give them away, throw them away or do something with them
It began easily enough .... there are a zillion empty cardboard boxes in there, so it was simple enough to just remove several of those.
Until The Mr pointed out to me ... it's all very well stacking up piles on the deck table but you actually need to do something with them!!!

So I began with the smallest articles first .  .  .

Two small wooden bowls & a serviette holder/ letter rack from the Church Op Shop
The little carved wooden bowl got painted using my Cottage Cream wallpaint, then lightly sanded & made into a pincushion using some of my pretty Tilda fabrics

I loved the way the rough sanding seemed to make the carving on the side show up more

The taller wooden bowl got the same treatment, but I added some pompom trim & braiding to the middle to break up the depth of it

The little wooden serviette holder (or letter rack) got painted & sanded quite heavily to give a real chippy paint effect
I then added some brass embellishments & found a cute pack of cottagey serviettes to complete it.

This wooden letter rack got the same paint & rough sanding ... then embellished with some wooden butterfly cutouts ... this is able to be hung on the wall or can stand up all by itself   :-)

And last - but by no means least - this cheap wooden slatted box got painted & very lightly sanded ... just to add a touch of shabby chic to it

 I lined the bottom with a lovely scrap booking paper ... actually a "christmas paper" apparently ... but on sale for half price !!

Just a simple embellishment for the ends completed it

I have been lucky enough to have been gifted two gorgeous vintage items this past week
The first is this unusual teapot ... an elderly customer wondered if I might like to paint & plant it ??

I am thinking with its twin spouts it might be useful for when I have large groups having a cuppa here?
The second item was this gorgeous old woollen blanket - a gift from my lovely friend, Marie

I had not seen a blanket in this beautiful mustard & grey colouring before & I just adore it.

Thank you so much for your visit here today ... the sun is out & I am off to garden in a shady spot .  .  .

.  .  .  in this garden here actually by the old wringer washing machine.
I hope the rest of the week is kind to you dear readers,
with much love & friendship,
Julie, Blackie & Pippi Longstocking
x0x0x0x0