Studio Facelift...part 1

When we first built my sewing studio I envisioned lots of shelves filled with sparkling supplies. What was I thinking!??! The end result was clutter. Every time I walked into the room I was stressed out about all of the stuff I could see on the shelves. Decorative boxes didn't help.

I told DH I needed cabinets. He was less than thrilled as he had just put up all those shelves. Not to mention the fact that cabinets are expensive. Still I whined about it as much as I could.

Fast forward a few years later...DH bought me one set of cabinets at a rummage sale. I immediately took down half of the shelves..and dragged the lower cabinets in myself. The upper cabinets found a nice place to live in storage on the other side of the basement  :(

Fast forward another year...we gutted our master bath (I'll post more about that at another time) and I immediately declared the bathroom cabinets MINE. I dragged them into my studio and removed the rest of the shelves.

Fast forward 6 months...we re-modeled our laundry room and once again I declared the cabinets MINE. This time they were upper cabinets. They moved into the basement storage with the 1st set of upper cabinets. sigh. I now had a complete set of cabinets, the problem was that half of them were in storage.

Every week I politely and nicely asked DH to hang the cabinets. Okay..maybe I did pester him about it. Non-stop.

Fast forward 6 more months....the upper cabinets...were still living in storage. I told DH that I wanted him to hang them for my birthday. Sooooo...FINALLY last week for my birthday, the cabinets got hung!!  Hooray!! Happy Birthday to me. And I got to help (okay it wasn't much fun..but I was willing to do just about anything to get those cabinets up.)

I'm still in the process of putting things away. I decided that since I had to clear off so much surface space inorder to hang the cabinets it was the perfect time to purge the room and get rid of stuff I'm just not going to use. There is a huge pile of stuff on my studio floor waiting to go to Goodwill, and I've already filled two trash bags, and two recycle bags.

Once my studio is put back together and camera ready I'll post photos for everyone. I have one photo I can share now...it's my stabilizer cabinet. Almost all of my embrodiery stabilizer fits in it. Horray!! Dust free and out of site. Just how I like it.

stabilizer goodness

Our summer projects

What a difference paint makes!!!

 It's 60 degrees out today. A little unusual for a WI November...but I'm not complaining. I thought it would be a great day to reflect upon the projects that we got done around our house this past summer.

Usually for our anniversary DH and I buy a tree or two and have them planted in our yard. This year we bought rocks. So romantic..I know. Try not to be jealous  ;)

Many days were spent putting down landscape fabric, and spreading rocks. It
was not fun. Talk about a work out, every muscle in my body ached. Ouchie.

Look real lights...not solar powered!

DH also wired in some lights, AND finally agreed with me about painting the front door! Bye bye ugly green paint. Then end result - gorgeous! We should have done this years ago.

Freshly painted front door. I love it.

The rocks look fantastic. DH promises they will stay in place over winter and we won't have to buy more each year like we did when we had mulch.

The front door is bright & inviting. It's no longer dark & scary. Okay maybe it was never scary..but it certainly was dark.






We also poured a concrete slab next to our garage..the perfect parking spot for our trailer. That's right the entire driveway will be clear this winter! That will make plowing sooo much easier. After all when you live in WI you have to plan for winter. 

Our house, with the freshly painted entrance and landscape lights installed.

Of course we already have a long list of projects planed for 2012...stay tuned for updates.

Birthday Ribbons

My niece just turned 3, and she loves headbands. So I decided to glam some up for her. While I was at it..I jazzed up some pony tail holders too. I have to admit they are soo cute I was tempted to make some for myself.





First I wrapped the ribbons around dowels and baked them in the oven at 250 degrees for 20 min.

The result is super fun boingy curly ribbons. 

 Zombies not included.

Next up - I cut the ribbons into 3 and 4 inch lengths. A few of them were 3 1/2 inches. I also cut up some flat ribbons and some ric rac to the same lengths. The variety in ribbons and ric rac lengths helped make the finished pom poms fuller and spikier.

Then I folded the ribbons in half (so they formed the letter V) and stitched them together at the bottom.  Some I sewed directly onto small pony tail holders...others I sewed onto a small piece of felt and then glued to the headbands. (I bought the headbands per-wrapped in ribbon. I was all about doing this project fast).

 This one is my favorite. I love the colors..and the bounciness of it.

I got extra creative and added a fabric flower and button to this headband.

The end result..fabulous headbands and pony tail holders. 

My niece is going to love them!