Month: July 2013

Some Summer Reminders

~ Michelle

I don’t like to think that it’s already almost the end of July. I am enjoying the wonderful warm weather, and fun things like the pool party I’m going to tonight make summer so enjoyable – I want it to last a LOT longer than it will!

But summer is known not to last that long. So I try to keep little reminders for the rest of the year: photos of my favorite flowers in bloom, berries from either my raspberries or strawberries that I hide from my devouring family and freeze, I’m always looking for some way to make the season last longer and my enjoyment of it last too.

This year I decided to do something I haven’t done for years. I dried some of my flowers – my peonies to be exact. I have both white ones and dark pink ones. I cut both so I’d have a long stem once they were dried, and then shook them good to make sure I wasn’t bringing any ants in the house with them. I gave them another quick spray wash in the sink, and shook them off again. I found another couple of ants this way. Then I hung them upside down to dry.

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These are the white ones. They’re freshly cut so the heads are still big, fluffy and full.

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And here they are after drying for a week or so. You can see how much the heads have shrunk down. By drying them upside down like this, the flower heads close rather than open while drying.

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And finally I felt these were about as dry as they were going to get. I almost didn’t want to cut them down. I rather liked them hanging on the wall on either side of my dinning room.

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Here they are in a vase on my dinning room table. I’ve had to alert my dear hubby about them too. I did this years ago and had a vase of red ones on the table. He saw ‘dead’ flowers’ and threw them out on me! So hopefully with the heads up, these ones will last well into winter.

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And one last photo. This close up photo shows the detail of the petals. They’re all dried and will stay upright like this; and in the middle of winter, this lovely reminder will say that something beautiful will bloom again!

On a sewing note, I read that Andrea from Satin Bird Designs just finished her first Shelley bra. You can read about it on her blog. Good for her! The Shelley is a wonderful pattern. Makes me want to sew another bra so badly! But I’m determined to lose some more weight and see what sort of difference it will make for me. I’m really hoping I’ll be able to find fitting easier, but so far that’s not happening. We’ll have to see. I may just break down and sew something just because I’m missing sewing SO much!

Happy creating!

My (Nearly) Finished Wine Cart

~ Michelle

My little blog has been SO neglected recently. But our family has been quite busy. My oldest son got a new job, a new car and is set to start in a week, and my youngest son graduated from high school. So both of my boys have kept me busy.

There hasn’t been any time for sewing recently, so I packed up my sewing machine and put it in my bedroom. I didn’t want the reminder that I had no time to sit down and work on patterns or sew.

However, I did find a little time to finish up my wine cart.

tray sitting on top

Here is the cart – I painted the whole cart in Midnight reloved Vintage Paint. And then did some dry brushing on the edges to make it look distressed. For the dry brushing I used Storm paint by reloved.

Detail of racks

This shows the dry brushing a little better. I wasn’t trying to be super neat about it. Often distress on a piece of furniture isn’t uniform or ‘neat’ – so unlike sewing!

tray moved over

Here’s the tray – all black, with a bit of ‘distressing’ along the sides. The only part of my cart I’m still undecided about is how I’ll finish the bottom of the tray. I have a couple of ideas, but did decide against the decoupage.

One possible tray bottom

Here’s one idea I have for the bottom of the tray. I have a few pieces of cotton paper. It’s lovely paper and I was thinking I’ll put some Mod Podge over it to make it more water-resistant.

another possible tray bottom

And here’s another paper I have. It’s the same material, just a different pattern. I haven’t yet decided between these two, but did have a couple of other thoughts too like using lace or a doily. I’ll just wait until I find that perfect ‘ah ha!’ and go with that.

But until I do, it is ‘finished’ enough to use.

tray on side

Here’s my not-sure-if-it’s-finished wine cart. I do have to say I really enjoyed working with the reloved Vintage Paint. No priming at all – that’s my kind of painting. I do have 3 other furniture makeovers planned for the summer. Two antique end tables and a bookcase, but those are all big priming-involved-projects – stripping, sanding, staining and sealing. Whew. But I’m sure they’ll be lovely when they’re done and worth the effort.

Happy creating!