This Past Week I .............................

Greetings lovely friends & readers  

It was another busy week here at Threadbear HQ 💗

This past week I received some wonderful surprise mail, all the way from the U.K. 

Sid was most taken with the card of the Owl, the Pussycat & the pea green boat !!

Pam - a longtime reader of my blog, wanted to send me something to say Thank You for my blog & all the links & tutorials that I share with you all out here in blogland, so she stitched me this absolutely beautiful Needlebook & filled it with goodies before sending it across the oceans & the miles to me here at the bottom of the world. 

 

The front (left pic) & even the back (right pic) had a gorgeous design stitched on it

Pam's work is just exquisite & I know this will be treasured as well as Very Well Used.

Thank You So Much Pam for your kindness & generosity. 💕

This past week I was able to meet up with my Craft Group ladies again - we are allowed to have small gatherings indoors now, so we all met up at Maureen's home last Monday.

This is what the table looked like as we all worked on beaded Christmas trees that Gail & Maureen had stitched onto fabric for us ready to embellish.  All we had to bring along was a selection of charms, beads & any broken jewellery bits.  None of us finished our trees (there was lots of chatting & catching up) but I have clicked a few pics of our works-in-progress.

I just loved the top left hand pic of the doiley tree Maureen had made & would love to make one similar.

Joyce's one (top left) was almost finished - Sharlaine's is the green one.

I think these two were Sally & Liz's ... I will show more pics when the girls (& myself) complete them. Some of us are going to frame ours & some will make into wallhangings.

This past week I had a haircut which delighted me immensely 😊

  Also I took all the vintage china off my dining room dresser & gently washed it all after a winter of fires & dust.  

I decided to take the beautiful birthday quilt my dear friend Leeanne made me, off my bed for the summer so I found a way to drape it over my dresser & thought it looked lovely with the china all around it.

When I was happy with the arrangement of all my china I added just a couple of simple Christmas touches to the dresser.

This past week I dug out this Christmas Pattern that I purchased (about 4 Christmas's ago) from Grandmothers Garden

The Pattern is called Christmas Bowl Fillers & comes complete with a pre-printed panel from Bonnie Sullivan of All Through The Night designs.  You applique the preprinted designs with wool felt - I had fun sorting through my scraps of wool felt & Miss Pip very graciously approved my choices for me 😉

Once the handwork was done I quickly sewed & stuffed them into tight little cushions & then I added some feathery wool to the outer edges to give it a fluffy Christmas look.  I also stitched some tiny charms to several of the cushions.

I have had this tiered tray for ages but never ever used it so I really enjoyed doing a Christmas display in it using my new cushions/bowl fillers.

These 6 wool felt decorations were handstitched by me way back in early January in this post * here * - this was an Op Shop kitset purchased for $5.  It is lovely to be able to add them to my Christmas displays this year.

You might remember on my last trip to Mum's in early October I purchased these 2 china tureens ($6 & $4) from the SPCA shop.  You can read about them * here *  

They were both minus their lids but I had thought I would like to fill the larger one with my citrus potpourri & make up a candle in the smaller size one.

Yesterday I did just that & I am so pleased with how they both turned out - the candle fragrance is Christmas Time, which I thought was perfect & the potpourri smells of delicious orange/clove scents.

The Mr is away riding Moto X this weekend so I am hoping to finish all my Christmas decorating.  I am usually always a not-before-1st-December kind of girl but this year I am trying to be more organised & it has felt like it's bringing a little Joy to things.  I have been thoroughly enjoying watching "Christmas House Tour" YouTube videos & I may do a little pictorial House Tour when I am finished so long as I don't bore you senseless 😉

Wishing you all a wonderful rest of the weekend dear friends,

Thank You - as always - for your visits here today,

With much love & friendship to you All,

Julie & the furry ones x0x0x

Dinosaurs .......... & Some Christmas Touches 🎄💝

 Greetings lovely friends & readers

Although the past two days have been sunny, the week prior was wet & windy & wild.  Though I am always thankful for any rain at this time of year as it gives the garden such a good drink, the winds were just dreadful.

A vase of spring roses picked before the winds bashed them 💕

On the wettest days these two took up residence on my couch - I was quick enough to toss a cotton sheet over my good quilt & cushions.  As you can see one has the entire length of the couch & one gets to curl up in the little space left over 😉

I had purchased this gorgeous Dinosaur fabric from my local Patchwork Shop just prior to Lockdown. I wanted to make each of my Grandsons a pillowcase for Christmas.  I used this simple tutorial * Here *  which I find fast & effective to make up.

The top left hand photo shows the back of the T-Rex one. This was a cot panel that I cut down to pillowcase size. 

I made Sid a Triceratops Crown & we both coloured it in - he loved it & wore it for two days running before asking me to cut it down for his toy Tiger.  I bury dinosaurs in the sandpit & then he uncovers them using my paint brushes & tells me about the fossils he unearths. 

After he went home on Monday I decided to put my Christmas Tree up & add the lights.  I thought it would fill in several hours the following day while we decorated it together.

Let me tell you friends ... that boy is a trooper.  He had far more stamina & staying power than his Granny did. I wanted to stop after about half an hour & have a cuppa but he kept on going until every single last decoration was on the tree & believe me ... there are alot !!

And he didn't just put them all down at low height either - he climbed on the little stool & spread them around at all different levels.  He did a wonderful job & I was most impressed but most importantly - he loved it !!

And I might add ... we did not even get the felt tree skirt around the tree before Madam Pip came along, curled up on it & promptly went to sleep!!

On my last trip to Mum's I purchased these wooden discs in her local Variety store - $2 for a bag of 10.  I had some Christmas paper serviettes left over from last year so I mod-podged some on to the wooden discs & made lovely tags to tie onto packages for Christmas.  This was such a fun & simple task that I thoroughly enjoyed.

I must be honest & say that the next task was definitely Not fun & enjoyable.    I have loved these shabby twig trees for a long time - they are a free tutorial on Kerryanne's blog.    I just found it so incredibly fiddly & ended up having to spray starch/iron my fabric strips to stop them from all turning towards the back.   I had no cream coloured bells so I painted a rusty bell & I won't go in to detail about how time consuming that task was suffice to say I won't be making anymore of these. 😉

I made a felt matchbox mouse to gift to a friend.   

(This used to be a free downloadable pattern but I can no longer find the link to it.  If anyone should want to make one then email me & I can send you my pattern.) 

I have long admired these teeny tiny stockings that are all over Instagram & finally got around to making myself a set.  I stuffed mine with wadding & then added greenery & pip berries to the tops. These are just pegged on to my Christmas ribbon with tiny pegs from the $2 Shop.  

I made mine up using some primitive duller coloured fabrics but I would rather like to make myself a pink set too 💗

Thank You so much for your ever-welcome visits here today dear friends,

Wishing you all a wonderful weekend - remember to be kind to yourselves & to each other.

With much love & friendship to you all,

Julie & the furry ones x0x0x0x

Under My House ............

Greetings lovely friends & readers

Gosh here it is the 11th already ... over a week gone by so fast !

When we extended the deck around 3/4's of our house we hung a large swinging door at one end so that we could access the cavity underneath at any time.  

It's a good place to store old garden pots, bamboo stakes & other garden-related paraphernalia.  I crawled under there last week as I wanted a pot for a maidenhair fern.  It's not pleasant under there - its dark & full of cobwebs but I did find some hidden junk treasure.

 This chipped ceramic pot was the perfect size for my fern so I gave it 2 coats of Chalk Paint in the colour Grey Mist.  Before it dried I picked any black cat hairs out of it 😉

I finished it off with this Re-design transfer & a couple of coats of clear wax.  

Now we have the birds, the bees & the butterflies 😊

Once we finish with fires for the year I give the firebox a good clean out & fill with pinecones. I polish the hearth & surrounding bricks & I like to sit my plants along the hearth for the summer months.

Also under the house I found these two rusty old watering cans.  I hauled them out as I had a plan for one of them.

I painted it with some leftover black chalk paint that had nearly gone hard, but which I added water to.  Then I used up some of the Iron Orchid transfers that I had left over from when when I upcycled the vintage Saws

I sprayed it with 2 coats of matt finish polyacrylic to protect it.

I planned to sit it outside on the deck by my Mangle & the saws. 

I had thought about planting it with some black mondo grass however when I posted a photo & mentioned this on Instagram the majority of people said Leave it as it is.  What do you think dear blog readers ... plant or leave as is ??

The kitchen smelt a delicious mix of Sweet Lime & Mandarin & also Christmas Tree fragrance

We had atrocious weather last week with strong winds & rain so I spent a pleasant morning in my kitchen making up some candles into vintage containers & using up the last of my Soy Wax.  I plan to give most of these as Christmas Gifts.

I came across this box full of vintage Tala cookie cutters in the back of a cupboard.  I thought about donating them but then decided to make up some play dough for Sid to play with .  .  .  .

.  .  .  .  which he very much enjoyed & the cookie cutters were a big hit !

Thank You so very much for your visits & for stopping by here today dear friends,

With much love & friendship to you all,

Julie & the furry ones x0x0x

These Lockdown Days ......................................

Greetings lovely friends & readers

The days & weeks continue to go by so very fast - we are still in Lockdown Level 3 here so many of my days are still taken up with looking after Sid. 

I can hardly believe we turn the calendars over to November tomorrow !!

I just Love this photo my son sent me of Sid with Darcy - just a boy & his dog, two scruffs together  - happiness indeed 💙

(Sid uses my kindling wood to make fences & enclosures)

On Friday we went down to the Pond to feed the fish & while we were gone, another big black T-Rex got inside the dinosaur enclosure!  Oh dear - we must've left the gate open 😲 !!

 

While hunting in a drawer for a piece of flannelette I came across these vintage flour sacks.  I thought they would be ideal to make some outdoor cushions with as I needed some for my rustic garden seat down by the Pond. I made an inner & stuffed them quite loosely as I wanted them to feel squishy. 

They are perfect for the seat & it doesn't matter if they get left out in the odd rain shower.  The cherry blossom tree (Shimidsu Sakura) is in full bloom at the moment.

While ratting around under my house looking for a planter pot I came across this vintage childs table & chair set.  I pulled them out & gave them a scrub - they were Very rusty.  I thought I would like to paint them up & maybe gift to my step grandaughter Juno for Christmas.

The Mr made me sand them first & then spray them all over with an anti rust Primer.  I usually want to take the quickest, simplest method but he makes me do things properly as he is boring fussy particular like that 😉

It is very much a matter of using up what's on hand in these current Lockdown times. The chair is painted in Dulux Lake Camp (testpot) & the table is left over paint from my fire surround - Dulux Ngataringa Bay. 

I was most excited as I had these gorgeous rabbit transfers that I planned to use on them - purchased from * Here *

I was able to do a click-&-collect with my local Mitre 10 store & purchase some new rubber feet for each item which just finished them off perfectly. (I should add here that it took 3 goes to get the right size!!!)

Rather than waxing  I decided to spray both items with a matt finish polyacrylic which I had on hand - I think this will give a better protection should Juno happen to draw on the table.

I'm really delighted with how these turned out & hope Juno gets lots of happy hours using them. 😊

The Magazine is the Spring 2018 Issue - No 26

This vintage Tilda charm pack was tucked into my birthday gift this year from my dearest friend Leeanne.  My heart skipped several beats 💗!!  I had earmarked this pattern in the above issue of Simply Vintage Magazine to make the Spring Cushion.

The pattern is by Tweetledee Design Co  ... I decided to make mine up into a table runner as I did not have anywhere for another cushion.

I just adore the faded florals of these earlier Tilda ranges & am not so partial to some of their newer brighter ranges.  This charm pack was called "All that is Spring" 

The Needleturn applique always takes me out of my comfort zone but finally I was happy with my centre panel.

I just did some simple straight line machine quilting across the pieced blocks.

It fits perfectly tucked into my Spring display ... I picked a small vase of Seafoam roses yesterday before the rain bashed them all.  It's hard to believe only one more month of Spring time left.

I saw this on Instagram last week & it made me smile ... all that Lockdown Baking & Eating has resulted in "Covid Curves" so I could definately relate 😉  I hope it makes you smile too dear friends.

Wishing you all a wonderful week ahead - be kind to yourselves & to each other,

Thank You So much for stopping by here today,

With much love & friendship to you All,

Julie & the furry ones x0x0x