Painting & Papercraft ............ (Catch Up #1)

Greetings dear friends & readers & Welcome to Spring!
My absolute favourite season of them all !!

 Tho' if you could see our weather as I sit here typing this, you would surely be saying "we think Julie, perhaps you may need your head examined just a tad?!"

I have been busy with creative pastimes but have been remiss in my blogging efforts so have decided (again) 
to schedule a series of Catch Up Posts as I did back in July.
Today we have Catch Up # 1 😊

Longtime readers of my blog will know I use the French Doors at the end of my lounge as a little glasshouse to grow my babies tears in front of ... in fact all houseplants do well there.

I have been potting up lots of babies tears in old china containers to sell at my market stall in November ... I am hoping to have them well established by then.

These two wooden book racks/shelves were languishing in my sleepout for a few years quite some time.
I bought them inside last week & gave them a wash & a paint, both with leftover chalk paint. 
The left one I painted in Pale Duck Egg & the right one in Robins Egg.

I found some vintage Cath Kidston wallpaper in my craft wardrobe ... I had purchased this from my friend Catherine's online store last year.

I decided to wallpaper the book racks tho' to be honest, I was none too sure what I was doing.
I found some old wallpaper paste & tried to just use remnants of the vintage wallpaper.
Miss Pippi however, assured me she knew exactly what to do & would "supervise the task from her basket!!"

(Miss Pippi, who has the attention span of a flea, quickly grew bored & had frequent little naps while I toiled away)

In the end I was delighted with the finished results ... I fussy cut some of the leftover flowers & glued them on the backs of the book racks & also odd ones on the outer sides

The "Robins Egg" shade

The "Pale Duck Egg" Shade

Once they were dry I gave them a coat of modpodge to seal the papers & then waxed the rest of the wooden 
chalk painted areas.


My dear friend Sandy had this red wooden stool for quite sometime, but found as she no longer used this colour in her decor,  it was put away out of sight.  
She asked me to paint it for her & had a vision of a "french navy colouring" ... Sandy gave me a handbag of the exact colour she was visualising & I trotted off to my local Resene Colour Shop for a colour chart.

We both agreed on a gorgeous blue shade called "Bunting" ... I am always delighted when I love the names of the colours I am working with, fickle person that I am 😉

Sandy's stool got 3 coats over a period of several days by the fire ... our weather has certainly Not been 
outdoors painting weather!

When Sandy took it home I realised I had forgotten to take an "after" photo so I asked her to please send me some through when she had it in its new place.
Oh My! I was Not disappointed!   It looks stunning as I'm sure you will agree!

I confess I have been casting my eye around my Home to see what I can paint in this gorgeous Bunting shade!

Last Wednesday, while it poured with rain (again!) I sat at my worktable & cut out Tilda paper angels which I had 
had Laser copied onto thin card.

I gave them all doiley dresses & adorned them with lace & flowers ... I strung some sets of 4 up as bunting & then kept some single ... these are destined for my craft stall
I think I will package some up in cellophane bags ... I am hoping they may sell well as otherwise I am going to have alot of paper angels strung around my Home!!

Yesterday morning I drove over to Tirau to meet up with my friend & fellow blogger Sue from the blog Kiwikids
She is over from Australia to visit with her Mum who lives in Tauranga.

Sue & I met up at a lovely local cafe that we have frequented before ... Alley Cats Cafe

We had an enjoyable morning tea & the time whizzed by as it always does when we catch up ... as we were leaving Sue presented me with this gorgeous parcel of goodies - a magazine & some mouth watering fabrics!
Thanks So Much Sue ... I am still drooling over everything, you are So Kind!!

Thank you all So Much for staying with me friends. 
I will be back in a couple of days with Catch Up Post #2 
In the meantime, I will leave you with my two furry friends tucked up on the couch this wild wintery Waikato afternoon!
Cheerio for now & thanks so much for your visits,
With much love & friendship to you all,
Julie & the furry ones x0x0x0

A Chair for Sid

Greetings dear friends & readers from a wet wintery Waikato!

Last week I spent about half an hour out in my woodshed seaching for a bag of pinecones I was sure were out there.

I did not manage to find the pinecones but I did come across this wee wooden childs chair

Now even though I currently have a gazillion things on my "to do list" - I decided then & there I wanted to 
revamp this chair for Sid, my youngest grandson. 

I took it outside to the wintery sun & gave it a good scrub & a bit of a scrape down where it had originally 
been varnished.
It was a good solid wooden chair, built really strongly.

When painting in winter it always pays to warm the wood up first - makes for a better paint application!

I decided to stay with a black/white colour theme in keeping with the decor in Sid's home.
I purchased 2 Resene Testpots ... Wan White & Just Black
The black went on really easily & covered well ... I had some issues when I masked the black to do the white rungs 
& the masking tape removed some of my black paint 😖

Lots Some touching up was required ... I was pleased with the end result however!
Now ....  I needed a small cushion for the seat part!

This fabric in my local Patchwork Shop was just perfect as Sid is very much into farm animals & especially Cows!
Also it was the exact colourway, so I purchased a fat 1/4

It didn't take long to run up a small padded cushion which can easily be removed if desired.

I took the chair around last night to show Sid & his parents ... this photo came through later in the evening which just made me smile so much!

My dear little grandson was delighted with his new (upcycled) chair 😊

There has also been some more coathanger covering going on here at Threadbear

I covered another 4 coathangers with some vintage wool blanket scraps & embellished them with crochet 
bits & bobs from my stash

These ones (& the two below) will be used as stock for my Christmas Stall
I have never sold these before so am hoping they are well received.

The top one above is an upcycled vintage embroidered pillowslip & the one below is from a vintage tablecloth ... the other edge was stained & torn but this edge was in immaculate condition

I like to sew up a little lavender bag & attach to these dainty ones

I have been continuing on with knitting the Pot Scrubby's that I wrote about in this post
It states that one ball of Wash Knit Yarn makes 4 scrubby's so I am hoping this is accurate

These are made from a free pattern available * here *

Well dear friends, time to fill the wood basket again!
It is a wet & wild day here at Threadbear HQ & a certain little madam fairy is tucked up on the couch .  .  .  .

.  .  .  .  while Blackie has prime position by the fire & is currently wondering if I can manage to keep 
putting wood on without disturbing him too much!!

I hope you are keeping warm or cool where-ever you might be?
Thanks so much for stopping by to "visit me" here today,
With much love & friendship to you all,
Julie & the furry ones x0x0x

A White Peace Angel

Wintery Greetings dear friends & readers,

While cleaning out the large wardrobe in my sewing room I came across two items that inspired me to 
create a new Angel

The Christmas decoration on the left was purchased last year from the "bargain bin" in the Christmas Heirloom Shop ... it was marked down to $7.
The bunch of glittery silk flowers/leaves were passed on to me by my friend Gail ... unsold product from when she closed her Gift Shop ... the first thing I thought when I saw them was "angel wings"
So I felt inspired to create an all white Angel & decorate her using these two items 

She came together rather well using fabrics & trims I already had on hand ... I used an older Rosalie Quinlan pattern called Charlotte, though I have decided to name her "Peace Angel"
The christmas snowflake decoration sat perfectly in her hands &, after dismantling some of the glittery leaves & removing the bobbles, the "wings" worked out just as I had envisioned.
I hung her on my door for a day or two to walk past her as I like to do with my dolls ... often another idea will come to me - which is exactly what happened!

I decided she needed painted shoes ... I didn't like her bare feet.
Deciding to paint shoes at this stage is somewhat tricky ... also not having any pale grey paint on hand can be a bit tricky, so I tentatively mixed the white & black paints I did have until I was happy with the colour.

Although I loved her hair & her silver bows,  I felt she needed some sort of halo.
 Halo's are rather short in supply around here so ...... I needed to construct one.
 I found some welding wire in the Mr's shed which I bent into shape & hot glued some silver sequins onto it.

I was happy with her pale grey shoes which I trimmed with some lace & dainty silver bows 😍

I am delighted with her Halo & felt it just finished her off nicely

My Peace Angel measures 75 cms tall

Beautiful Peace Angel 💜
(I am pleased I cut out two bodies as now I would like to make a Cream Angel.)

Miss Pippi was ecstatic last week when I came home with a brand new ball of knitting cotton that she somehow decided was just for her!!

I have been enjoying making up these Waffle Knit Dishcloths & because there are 4 rows to a pattern, they seem 
to grow quite quickly.
The pattern is a free download from *here* if you should like to have a go yourself

Over the weekend we had two glorious days where the sun shone & the washing dried on the line for a change.
I managed to spray paint some coathangers out on my brick path in the sunshine.

(these are to create some more wool blanket coathangers)

As the Mr was away riding Moto X I even took my lunch out onto the deck & drooled over a magazine on loan 
from my friend Sally.

Today however, we are back to arctic temperatures & the two are nestled in their basket on my work table, the fire is roaring & I have just rung & ordered another load of firewood to be delivered!

This morning I made Oaty Ginger Crunch ... I can put the kettle on if you would like to pop by for a cuppa?

I hope the week is treating you kindly dear readers,
Thanks so much for your visits here today,
With much love & friendship to you all,
Julie & the furry ones x0x0x

Home Again

Greetings dear friends & readers.
Another month has slipped on by & we have only one month of winter remaining before we welcome
 my favourite season - Spring!

I had a good trip down to Mum's but it is always lovely to be home again ... these two below missed me & as well as refusing to eat, fat blackie went missing for a day & a night while I was away

He has slept most of the time since my return, so I am guessing he covered a fair distance in his wanderings.


I had a large box of junk unwanted treasures in my car to deliver to one of the Op Shops in Mums town ... I knew Mum had a few things to add to this box.
These two items below were on the top of the box ... they were miniature clotheslines that had been for sale in my Cottage for a very long time.

Just prior to my journey I pulled them back out of the box as I had an idea for them 😉

I had this lovely Christmas panel in my stash so - upon my return home - I made each clothesline a simple hanging "quilt" from one of the squares in my panel

I tightened the strings & gave the wood a polish with a slightly darker oil - they came up well.
I attached my "quilt" with some festive pegs, then made 2 small buntings from hessian scraps & filled the cane baskets with greenery & pip berries.

I attached a wooden "flag" to each pole with a small brass nail.
I thought they turned out rather well & would look lovely adorning a small Christmas table.
Hopefully they will sell at my craft stall.

Just prior to my trip away, I put the finishing touches on another (condensed milk tin) flower
You can read about my first attempt at these flowers * here *

This one was made in some pretty Tilda fabrics in green/blue tonings 

I now have two flowers for my craft stall but if they don't sell, I am quite happy to keep them as I love them both 💗



My friend Donna had made me this gorgeous handknitted & felted pot for my birthday 
& decorated it with felt pom poms

Mum gave me some birthday money so I purchased a shiny, healthy Peace Lily on my trip home
 which just sat perfectly in the pot.

Though there was definately no time for any shopping this trip, I had to spend time waiting for a prescription for Mum at the one & only Pharmacy in her town.  This just happens to be beside & opposite a large Hospice & SPCA shop ... so of course, I felt compelled to go for a quick squizz!

These treasures above were from the Hospice Shop ... doileys, mother-of-pearl buttons, a wooden trug & a good novel - & below were my finds from the SPCA shop

I could not leave these epp flowers & hexies behind ... someones lovingly stitched handwork ... all for just $4 a bagfull

These dainty little dishes were $3 each ... Oh how I love them so ... they remind me of cross stitch

I have put backs on each of them & hung them beside my Tilda Angel so I can look at, & enjoy them 💗

Speaking of gorgeous vintage treasures, my dear friend Sally has opened an online store Hollyhock Vintage
You can visit Sally to have a browse at the shelves of her store or go Here to visit her facebook page ... she has some very tempting pieces in there that I could just see living at my Home !

My sister in law Leonie gifted me this beautiful soy Kearose Candle while I was down at Mums ... I had helped her with a large cleaning job & she wanted to thank me.
The fragrance is French Pear + Vanilla & it smells so divine burning in my lounge.

Finally dear friends, 3 days before my trip away, I got to spend the morning at my eldest grandsons Daycare for Grandparents Morning.
It was a wonderful time ... he is a busy little boy & was quite delighted to show Granny all the activities.

Just wonderful & such a special time 💜

Thanks so much for your visits today ... it is always lovely to have you stop by,
Wishing you all a wonderful week ahead ... be kind to yourselves & to each other,
With much love & friendship,
Julie & the furry ones x0x0x