Little corners around the house...

Thought I would show you a few corners of our home:

Our masters bathroom. I love toile, but this is the only room I have it in. It's nothing fancy: no great tile work in the tub, or steam showers, or expensive sinks, just a simple bathroom. One thing I did do was not add a closet...instead I used 2 different parts of a hutch: the bottom of one hutch and the top of another and painted it black. The little tiny drawers in the middle are actually cd holders I bought at Staples office supply. They fit perfectly in that space. I labeled (of course I labeled, I label everything) each drawer: q-tips, nail polish, deodorant, medicine, hair clips etc. There is another black corner cabinet that holds towels and such. The little folding screen is for the cat's litter box. I know... an unmentionable, but I'm keeping it real as they say on other blogs. I don't know about you, but it's easier to keep it in there because it always gets scooped and it's not in the main part of the house. Ok, enough about that. The little opening is the door for her to go through, and I made it out of toile, what could be better.

As I'm looking at this picture, wow, once you take down all the Christmas decorations, I need to put back some color in there.

This little bucket of tulips is in a little corner of our bathroom next to the sink, but on the floor. I change out the flowers for each season. I know...silk...but they serve a very important purpose and have to be fake. In that bucket is my hair dryer that is always plugged in. I hide the dryer and the cord so it's always ready when I need it, but not out in the open for all to see. I just lift out the flowers, dry my hair and when I'm done plunk the flowers back on top!

That little night stand in our bedroom was my grandfathers. It was actually in his workshop. He was a cabinet maker and he kept his tools in there!! The patina is just great...all the scratches and dings.

This is a jar of sea glass that sits on the night stand beside the bed. We live on the east coast about 10 minutes from the beach. This jar is a collection of bits and pieces from different spots over many, many years. The kids still love finding it!

This is a corner in a master bedroom...looks like a good place to read, but I don't use it much. My husband reads the newspaper on Sunday while watching football. Maybe I should start doing my hand sewing there. The light is good there and my eye sight is getting worse. I'm up +2.25 on the glasses you buy in the store. Yikes. I'm too young for that, well not really, but still. (that was off topic) back to the room.

The second picture below is a close up of the ottoman uncovered. The chair and the ottoman are from a 1990's couch set. The couches are long gone, but I loved the shape of the chair, so my sister made me a slip cover. That's one thing I'll never attempt...slipcovers. I love my sister for doing that.

Hope you enjoyed the peek.

Have a great day,

~Karen~

Tee or Tea...

I'm sure people have seen these before, but thought I would share my favorite things that are always next to my sewing machine. These tees keep the bobbin with it's matching spool of thread and keeps my sewing table looking cheery all year long. They are so easy to make: just take your favorite silk flower off the stem and hot glue it to a golf tee (I use the longer tees to help with taller spools of thread).

Thought I would also share another tea with you. I LOVE tea and drink it pretty much all day long. I received this tea as a hostess gift over the holidays. It is from Tea Forte and is spectacular!!! The little pyramid with the "f" on it is the package it comes in and the one on the far right is the silken tea bag. These are just too cute for words. I haven't used the last three that I have, because I just keep them on the counter as a little decoration where I make my tea. I've even saved the wrapping as a template to make the pyramid gift boxes in different sizes. I'll use them for small gifts, candy, fudge or truffles . Wouldn't they be cute made with all the great paper that's out there now? Oh well, add that to my "to do" list.

Hope you enjoyed the tea or was it tee...either way have a great night.
~Karen~

"O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree"...

Ok, I know what you are doing right now: you are humming or singing that Christmas song and you are thinking I have lost my mind talking about a Christmas tree in January. I am back to talk about organizing again. In November, my husband and I decided that our 15 year old, 10 foot Christmas tree had seen better days. We invested in a new 12 foot slender tree and we love it. However, I hated to part with our old tree. It had 12 rows with each row having 6 branches, plus the topper. I found several uses for all the branches: tucked them in baskets, made swags out of them, used them on the mantel, in hutches and on the chandelier. You name it, I found a place for them. The only thing I had left was the metal tree trunk and the 32" base. Well, I found the perfect renew, reuse and recycle...it is my gift wrap center!!!

• I unwound all the greenery off the shorter branches (lengths varied 12"-18" inches) to bare wire (see first picture)
• I only used 2 parts of the trunk secured in the base (total height, just under 6')
• then I place only 3 branches in each row, instead of 6, skipping every other hole.
• I use the shorter wires for all my ribbons
• one row has tape and scissors
• the bottom rows have all my gift bags
• I was thinking about using the longer branches that I have and slip a roll of wrapping paper on there.

I have recently moved my sewing room into our basement. I have so much more room, but no natural light. It was worth the move, because now I have all my crafting/sewing/wrapping needs in one place. The area is large enough to handle the gift tree.

Maybe if you have an older tree or find one in a second hand shop, you may look at it differently. The pictures aren't that great, but remember it's in the basement.

I'm off to go sew, but the song "O Christmas Tree" is stuck in my head!!

~Karen~

"Top" of the morning to you...

Are you a topper?? I love to make quilt tops and then make more quilt tops and so on and so on. My favorite parts of the quilting process are picking out the fabric, finding the perfect pattern and then piecing the top. The making of the quilt sandwich and the quilting part...hmmm, not so much. Don't get me wrong, I have done my fair share of quilting, especially for gifts. To help ease this topping addiction, I started selling just quilt tops on ebay about 3 years ago. I haven't done it for a long time now, but what a fun process. I sewed my heart out and made a little extra money to buy more fabric!!! Thought I would show you some pictures of tops I've made in the past. Sorry for the quality of the photos...if I only knew I would be blogging in the future!!

This is a Moda Kitty quilt top:

Another Moda:

Thimbleberries Table runner:

Thimbleberries Checker Board, I covered buttons for the playing pieces:

Thimbleberries Fall Wall Hanging:

3D patriotic pinwheel table runner

Thimbleberrries Table Runner:

Christmas Table Runner with real ribbon on each gift package:

Quilt by the month:

Thimbleberries pillow to match a little doll quilt (not paper pieced...I don't recommend it)

Hope you enjoyed the show and have a great weekend...

~Karen~

Some special quilts...

Even though I'm not quilting at the moment, thought I would show you a few pictures of quilts that I've made in the past. I have sewn most of my life...clothes for the girls when they were younger, curtains, pillows. You know, all the usual things, but I started quilting in 1998. I took my first class and made this quilt. It is a small lap quilt made with homespuns. Yikes! not a good fabric to learn to quilt with...that stuff stretches. This is my one and only hand tied quilt.




This next one is a scrappy zig zag.

This red, white and blue quilt is my first using setting triangles and a quilting technique on my machine that looks like hand quilting. You use white thread on the top and clear thread in the bobbin.

















This next one is very sentimental in many ways. I made it for my mom. She was the seamstress in the family...a perfectionist. She sewed everything, she even made my wedding dress and hand sewed on every bead and pearl. She never ventured into quilting though. I made this quilt with the spools of thread pattern made with all different colors of purple...her favorite color. I was piecing this quilt on the Tuesday morning of 9/11 while watching The Today Show. We all know where we were and what we were doing on that dreadful day. This quilt was the first and only one so far that I have hand quilted. My mom loved this quilt...she passed away the summer of 2007 from a very long battle with Parkinson's Disease. I miss her so much.



This last quilt I'll show today is a wall hanging I made for my sister after we lost our mom. I made up this pattern and used all my favorite fabrics from 3 Sisters by Moda. The center of the quilt has fabric frames where I placed sepia toned pictures of my mom and sister when she was little. I sewed some of my mom's favorite sewing tools, rulers and even a little personalized label my mom always sewed into everything she made. There are also little fabric envelopes where my sister can tuck in little memories of our mom. (sorry for the not so great pictures. The last one seems to be the true colors of the quilt.) I borrowed this quilt from my sister recently to take pictures of it for the heading of this blog. Keeps mom in little places all over.





Hope you all have a wonderful day and kiss the ones you love!!

~Karen~

It's not #1, but I love it...

Although quilting is my #1 hobby, organizing is right up there at #2. I haven't quilted since before Christmas, so I have nothing to show you right now (soon though...I have a gift certificate to my favorite quilt shop to buy fabric. Yay!!) Thought I would show you some of my favorite organizing must haves from the office supply. They are business cards, name badge holders and clear protective sheets.

I use the clear protective sheets for patterns, magazine clippings, recipes etc. They're great because you can clip them in a three ring binder. I use Microsoft word for the business cards to print hang tags for gifts, gift bags and gift baskets. When the girls were younger, I would write encouraging words and slip it in their lunch bags. I also use the cards with the name badge holders. The holders already have holes in them to tie onto baskets or boxes with a cute little ribbon. You can easily change out the card in the holder when you change the contents of the baskets. The picture below shows the baskets in our medicine closet, labeled so everyone can find what they need. The baskets on the stairs are called "crap" baskets. I know, not a great name, but when I find everyone's crap (hairbrushes, nail polish, shoes, jewelry, gloves, scarves, etc) all over the house, I pick it up and put it in the basket on the stairs. When anyone is on their way up the stairs, they grab the basket to unload in their rooms. Don't ask how long it takes them to put their stuff away once they unload it, that's a whole different story!!

I'm new to posting, so I wanted to try and link again. Jodi really helped me out with this. Oh look, yay, it worked. Thanks Jodi...you're the best.

More organizing to come and hopefully some sewing!!

And Sew it begins...

Here we go! I'm jumping into blogging feet first. I've loved reading and following so many blogs this past year, I thought I'd venture into one myself. I really want to thank 2 wonderful people that I've met through blogging. Jodi http://simplythisthatandtheother.blogspot.com/ and Vanessa http://adayinthelifeofthechristensons.blogspot.com/ They have encouraged me so much...I wouldn't have started this without them. I have so much to learn about all of this...like how to link to a blog, because I know that can't be right. Oh well, wish me luck!!!

~Karen~