A Much Needed Post

Hi!  Hi, hi, hi!  Hi, hi, hi!  I'm so excited to be blogging, I can hardly stand it! 

Life has been too much work and not nearly enough play lately.  You know how I can tell?  First, the last post was a month ago - ugh!  Second, I am about to explode like a cork out of a champagne bottle if I don't get something written (or made, or sewn, or constructed.)  Know the feeling?!

I've done a few mini-projects out of necessity, but they aren't cutting it.  I've sewn a stuffed animal holder for O's room and a black-out curtain for the one window that didn't have one - both were quick, sloppy projects that didn't satisfy my itch.  Although, O really likes the stuffed animal holder hanging above his bed (it's just a couple of pockets sewn to a larger piece of fabric,) so that's good.  I've also tried some new recipes, like Emeril's baked mac and cheese with bacon from the Food Network Magazine which the guys loved!  However, it's not been enough to help me find the balance that comes with some serious making, crafting, or re-inventing!

So, step one toward balance is to write this blog entry.  *Big sigh with a grin*  Step two is to do a few of the projects I've been contemplating (or at least one of them - he, he.)  Also, to share some of the cool things I've come across.

Yesterday I was looking at plans from Knock-Off Wood's Ana White for wall cubby shelves.They are on my list to make for the arts and crafts room, which needs to be reolcated btw, as I've completely outgrown it.

I found a round foot stool on metal casters at a garage sale this summer.  It's currently covered in baby-poo yellow pleather and my plan is to make a slip cover for it out of some awesome upholstery weight linen I scored at a different garage sale for $4.  I am thinking I may try a flowy drop ruffle around the slip cover, we'll see.  I will post some before/after pics, as I don't have a pic to post today.

Then there are the felted wool embellishments I enjoy making.  Mostly flowers for now, but I'd like to try some new things, and I'd like to fatten the stock in my Etsy shop for holiday shoppers.  I have tried some different techniques after making flowers with friends one weekend and seeing the cool ideas they came up with.  The result was very frilly and fun flowers, but they still need some finishing touches and I need more time experimenting!

On a side note, my mother-in-law and sister-in-law have launched a website for their awesome felted wool mittens, Asbury Mitten Company.  Check it out!  You might recognize some of the same felted wool in my flowers, since I started making them with some of their scraps.  It's really been a fun new medium for me this year and I owe them a big thank you for introducing me to "fabulous felting."

Enjoy your weekend, friends.  If you have a project in your sights, please share with us.  It's always fun to hear what everyone else is working on (besides WORK, right?!)  Happy Friday!!

The Other G of Summer - Garage Sales

Good morning!  A week has already passed since my last post; so much for sharing garage sale finds a day after I shared our garden progress.  But then, if you can't do as you please with your blog, in what area of life can you enjoy such freedom?!  Tra, la, la, la, la.  This seems to be the theme of summer.  *big grin*

On to the meat of the post!  With the end of the week upon us and the prime garage sale days it brings, below are a few of my favorite finds from the summer.  But first, a little background - my mission in 2010 is to renew our home, brighten it up, and change our furnishings from "Pottery Barn or Crate and Barrel circa 1999" to something more eclectic and casual with vintage touches sprinkled in.  I jokingly told our neighbor I'm on a mission to sell or consign every "new" piece of furniture we own in exchange for something comfortably used.  Along the way I'm incorporating fun fabrics, lots of ticking stripes, vintage light fixtures, and slip covers (for now - I'd love to replace our couch etc.)

You've seen the perfect little desk from a farmhouse yard sale earlier this summer, and the makeover of the $2.95 thrift store find, so here's the $5 table from my return trip to July's estate sale.  Ta-da!  The crock, books, and milk bottle holding the massive hydrangea are all garage sale finds as well.  I love this new corner of my dining room - much better than the tacky fake ficus tree that sat there for the past 4 years! 

Here is the $2 side table discovered at a neighborhood sale displaying the $1 quilt I found at the same sale.  I'm ashamed to say I've paid more for a glass drawer pull like the one on this table before!  All the table required was a little scrub down, and it was ready for use!

Finally, here are before and afters of the $5 chandelier that replaced our heavy black Home Depot chandelier.  It took some serious clean-up, reshaping, and 2 cans of "Canvas White" spray paint, but it looks great!  I only wish our Nikon was fixed so I could've gotten better pics.  (note: the little pink sticky notes are to mark which arms need re-wiring, as only 3 lights work for now, so turn a blind eye as I have.  Patience is NOT my middle name so I'd rather enjoy it as is for a while until my hubby has a chance to work on the wiring.)

Before

After

  There have been so many other treats and treasures from garage sales, estate sales and yard sales this summer.  I love it.  I love that it keeps the items someone else is done with out of our landfills.  I love the opportunity it's given me to teach O about money's value, spending it, and making choices about what we want.  Finally, I love the thrill of a gorgeous discovery and figuring out where it will fit into our home.  Happy hunting!

The Two G's of Summer - Gardens and Garage Sales!

Hi, friends!  I cannot believe how difficult it is to post entries these days.  Between play dates, trying to stay cool at the splash pad or beach, garage sales, gardening/landscaping, and all of the fun BBQ's and festivals of the season, we all seem to collapse into bed totally exhausted (but happy) each night.  I figure you're all doing much of the same, so like me, you probably aren't keeping up on reading all of the wonderful blogs entries either!

Here are a few highlights of the two G's that dominate summer - gardens and garage sales.

Gardens... When we moved into our home 6 years ago there were no gardens or landscape to speak of.  The prior owners had 5 kids and understandably had their focus elsewhere.  Here is what our backyard looked like. 

We started slowly, as we'd never done this sort of thing before, and added a few things.  We put in some pavers for our fire pit, mulched the area where no grass would grow and our dogs use for their "business", and transplanted some hosta.  Here are the pics a year later.  The white string is for the fence that was about to be installed to keep said doggies safe.

Over the years we've experimented with this and that, but were still not sure what we wanted to do with our space.  We knew mowing the hill at the back of our property was tough so we wanted to limit that.  Also, we'd talked with the city about the RIVER that rages through our yard due to the slope and the engineer's suggestion was a dry riverbed to direct the water and give it a place to flow in the spring and during heavy rains.  So last year we paid a friend-of-a-friend to provide some consulting.  He owns a successful landscape business and had some wonderful ideas for us! 

The result is a plan to incorporate some larger rocks and "planting pockets" into the dry river bed to naturalize it.  Plant perennials on the hill that don't require much maintenance or water and mulch them so there's no mowing.  Plant some trailing vines and creeping plants to cascade over the rocks and hills.  We started this work last summer and got to this point. 

My wonderful hubby has started digging the dry river bed and filling it with rock we dug out of the front last year (we pulled out ancient, overgrown arborvitae and rock, planting perennials, yews, and blue spruce in their place and mulching.)  Last weekend we went out to my dad's and loaded up larger rocks from a farmer's rock pile so we could start on the planting pockets.  We finished the first one last night, yippee!  Here it is, along with our progress to date. 

There is so much satisfaction in a project like this for me.  Do any of you feel the same way?  Knowing that I get to enjoy the beauty and cultivate the growth/maturity of our efforts is particularly rewarding.  Not to mention that I love working together with my husband (it isn't always rosy, but it's a great opportunity to work through some of our communication glitches and enforce our compromise skills - even practice concession occasionally!)  Thanks for letting me share our landscape journey - it's near and dear to us and we'd welcome your reactions and suggestions.

I do believe this post is long enough, so we'll have to save the other G (garage sale) for tomorrow.  I have some fab finds we've incorporated into our home and I am excited to share with you!  Enjoy your day, my friends.  ~J

I'm so excited, and I just can't hide it {or how my heart swells with Joy for $25}

Friday and Saturday yielded such outstanding, inspiring, exciting finds that simply had to pop in to share them with you!  

First, apologies for the crummy photography.  Our Nikon D40 took a tumble out of the back of the car a month ago and has yet to be repaired (or replaced? *Gasp*)  That leaves me with the little point and shoot camera which even in macro mode, doesn't produce very detailed pics.  This long apology is necessary because the photos just don't do this stuff justice I tell you, it's so great and I'm so inspired to begin transforming, creating, and incorporating it into our home and our life!!

Details of the finds: 
*One garage sale with 5 boxes of fabric found in a mother-in-law's attic, each scrap was $.25.  This sale was a block over from my house and I met a really cool mom of 3, so we're certain to meet again at the neighborhood playground that's also a block away.  Such a bonus! 
*One estate sale happened upon by accident on our way home from Farmer's Market yesterday morn.  As it was the final day of the sale, everything was 50% off!!

First the fabric:  This piece is 53x35 and begging to be stretched on a wooden frame and hung on the wall.  It's from Finland circa 1972 (and totally my colors - love that bright citrus!)

Here are the rest of my scavenged scraps----(can you see the little green critter at the base of the apple?!  Wish I had my good camera - ugh!)  What ideas spring to mind when you see this stack?

The estate sale gave me some new projects and a bit of whimsy for our expanding garden.  I dug the chair out of a corner in the basement, there was no price on it, and the worker's response was that he'd check on the price but couldn't imagine it would be worth much.  The result - I paid $3 and felt that it was indeed worth A LOT.  The white plant stand only needs to be cleaned up and filled with pots of flowers.  Next year I think I'll use it to grow herbs.  The side table/magazine rack will stay in its weathered state, but I will probably replace the glass top with something a bit more preschooler-friendly.  Either a fabric covered board, a brightly painted top, or maybe a rustic tiled surface?  Maybe this is my hubby's chance to try a mosaic?  What do you think? 

Finally, the textile pieces from the estate sale.  A couple of fun dresses that look to be a perfect fit for my friend Jen and her daughter (wish I could've gotten a better picture of each so you could see the rhinestone studs on the pink dress and the texture of the fabric on the red/white one), a soft linen pillow case embroidered with yellow flowers (my color!) a softly worn white mid-weight blanket for O's bed (reminds me of grandma's,) and a great quilt which was hiding under a cheesy pink satin bed set (only $3 folks!!)

Time to sign off the computer, close down its screen, and head outside!  Talk with you soon, friends!  Hope your weekend has been wonderful.  ~Joy

June already?! Here's a quick update...

Where, oh where, did May go?!  And further more, I seem to have misplaced the beginning of June.  Oh well, here I am!! 

Of course I've/we've been busy as ever (hence the seemingly lost time.)  I celebrated a birthday, celebrated the end of a lovely loved-one's life, bid farewell to my 9-5 job of the past 7 years and all of the friends there whom I will deeply miss, went to Boston to train for one of my new "quasi-jobs", visited family out of state and squeezed in some felted wool crafting while there.  Side note: my mother-in-law makes the most lovely recycled wool mittens and my sister-in-law makes gorgeous matching scarves, so I took some scraps and made embellishments!  FUN STUFF!

Next, we welcomed summer by spending Memorial Day weekend on 2 different MN lakes in 2 days, visiting even more family, hit numerous garage sales and brought home even more new treasures (see desk pic with CUTE ceramic dogs!)  Both fit perfectly and were garage sale scores!   

Sprinkle in a few wonderful summer play dates, a bit of gardening, some breezy bike rides and walks, and you've almost got it.  In short, some days I feel like I've just thrown a rope around this big, giant, horse-of-a-life and yelled, "let her buck" at the top of my lungs!!  You know I love it and wouldn't have it any other way, don't you?  How's THAT for a descriptive of the past month?  Woo-hoo!!

Coming up I'll share some pics of the seasonal decor change in my main bath that's underway, and some pics of the wonderful thrifted fabric I've found at both stores and garage sales of late.  Right now though, I have a list of 20 fun (and not-so-fun) things to tackle and I'm excited to see how far I get. 
1. Blog entry written, CHECK!!

What's up next on your list for the weekend - or SUMMER in general?!  Please, share with us.  I'd love to hear.  xoxo ~J

Shopping for a good cause

My friend Abby alerted me to a fundraising garage sale last Saturday at the Textile Center in Minneapolis.  Cool, cool, cool!  My sister and I, who are both garage sale (and thrift store) junkies and avid crafters who also love to sew, decided to check it out.  Three hours later we emerged with giant grins on our faces and giant bags full of goodies!  We had so much fun searching for buried treasure on the tables and tables and tables of donated items for sale.

My sister scored sunny yarn in yellows, corals, and oranges for knitting ($7 for what you see in the photo.)  She showed amazing restraint!  I fully indulged and left the sale with fabrics, trims, felt, notions, beads, googly eyes, sequins and all manner of other fun things.  Here are a few pics we took while sorting all of the goodies... This event is DEFINITELY on our calendars for next year.

If you're unfamiliar with the Textile Center, a National Center for Fiber Art, please peek at their website.  They offer classes & workshops on a variety of fun topics like knitting & felting, sewing, design & creativity, as well as summer camps for children ages 6 to 16, and kids' classes.  At their home in the Prospect Park neighborhood of Minneapolis they have a shop and library (you can also search their catalog of books online.)  The "Textile Mobile" is their fun way to do community outreach, taking textile arts experiences on the road, and it's for hire!

What amazing, cool, or interesting community resources and organizations have you discovered of late?  Please share so we can also check them out, or search for a comparable organization in our own community!!

Signing off on this sunny Tuesday evening - time to get outside (again!)  Enjoy your evening, my friends.