Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people. Eleanor Roosevelt

Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Tricks? Or Treats?

It's the night that all kids dream of. A night filled with costumes and candies. Treat or trick?
I have both at my house. Those kids are in for a surprise!
First up, horribly bloody pumpkin cupcakes. Some are even clotting. Eewww!
Then we have the ugliest cupcakes ever seen. But hopefully the insides will make up for their looks. Oreo stuffed cupcakes with oreo frosting.
Monster munch for all those monsters needing a snack. I'd rather it be this than my fingers and toes!
Package it all up in a to-go container.
Have them all stacked by the door.
And for the vampires out there, I have a cute little box filled with munchies.
The only thing left to do, is don my witchy apparel. So I'm off to find my witchy personality. I said witchy, not B-----. That I already have down!


Oh and before I forget, This is the pattern that my Halloween quilt came from. As you can see, I don't follow rules to a "T". But this is where it started.
I meant to add this yesterday but as usual, I got side tracked.

Have a wonderful day and behave! I'll try to do the same.
Take care, Brandie

Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Cheddar Moon Finish

Late last night I finished. With an aching back I stuck the whole quilt in the wash and finally relaxed in front of the TV. Boy did my back need that!
A Halloween finish with a day to spare.
My favorite quilt! Ever! I love the colors and I LOVE the cheddar.
Sorry, I'm not really wordy today. I'm still tired. But some of that is Thanks to the furry who jumped on me at 5:30 this morning. Way too early for me.
So far the furry hasn't slowed down. Hubby found him in front of the microwave this morning. Not were furries are suppose to be!
I think he thinks his name is Dorian OMG. This is yelled at him all day long! Every time he gets into something else. I need a squirt bottle permanently to my hand. Sheez!
But Hubby thought he looked so cute so he snapped a few pictures of him on his new domain.
Today I will be sanitizing all the counter tops and baking Halloween goodies.
No more sewing for a few days. Till I come up with a new project or an old one.

Take care, Brandie

Monday, October 29, 2012

Wicked Webs

It all started with one. Then another.
Until I had half the blocks covered in webs.
Don't they look cool?! I love the orange thread on black. I'm using a "Connecting Threads" thread. It's a bit like a "King Tut" from Superior.
I like them for quilting. But, I don't like that I don't know a color or a number after I unwrap the thread. So if I run out, I'm going to have to guess at which orange I'm using.
I'm still trying to decide if I should use black thread over the star blocks or continue in orange. I'm going to have to try one and see what it looks like and be prepared to un-sew.
All the webs are different. Some are only half completed because of a moon or a leaf in it's way. But I'm really happy with the way it has turned out so far. Maybe because it's whimsical and not so stuffy?

I also did a new thing. I dyed my backing. Yup, I dyed it.
Last year? Or maybe the year before, I bought 2 king sized sheet sets from a discount store.
Really, who could pass up orange pok-a-dots from Ralph Lauren? Not me, that's for sure! They just were too big for my bed. But I wasn't going to let them go to waste.
They were only $15 per set. How much would that much fabric cost? I knew that I could use them as fabric and maybe a backing (or two).
Except that these dots were a little bright for this current Halloween quilt.
This picture doesn't have a huge contrast but you can see that the side (left) that Max is laying on, is a brighter orange. The right side is the same fabric after a bath with Taupe Rit dye.
I learned this from Barb. Barb has been a fountain of information.
You know those letters I put on my Jubilee quilt? That idea came from her too!
I'm often lurking and learning from her blog.
If you haven't already, go check out her blog, she's wonderful and sew creative!

Back to my webs!
Take care, Brandie

Thursday, October 25, 2012

Button, Button

Who has some buttons?
Well I do!
This was my Grandmother's button collection. I was lucky enough to inherit it. But that sometimes poses the question, "What are you going to do with all those Buttons?"

After so many questions about the button pumpkin, I thought I show you where they came from. Sorry, I have horrible light in my dining room/sewing room. The first picture is without flash and grainy. The second pictures isn't any better with light. But you get the drift.
Whites, blacks, brass, browns, blues, purples, yellows, reds, pinks, greens and a few silver
My Grandmother had already taken the time to arrange her collection into separate colors. Thank goodness! But I didn't like her plastic tool boxes that she keep them in so I put them into these jars. The largest being gallons, to the smallest being pint sized.

I'm not sure where all the buttons came from but I can say that some of them were found by me.
In our town, we had a local "Hart's Fabric" store. In the middle of the store was a large claw foot tub filled with buttons. If you were a child, this is were you hung out while your adult looked at fabric. Everyone of my friends, cousins and yes, even Hubby hung out there. It was a town tradition.

I've come across a few of those above buttons while looking for the perfect addition to my project.

My Grandmother did not wear a lot of orange. But she did save everything. So these orange buttons may have been clipped from tired garments. Then those sad garments would have then been put in the "Rag Bag" in the hall closet. Nothing was wasted. In fact 7 years after my Grandmother's passing, my Aunt (who inherited the family home) is still bringing me removed zippers, pieces of fabric, ribbon, yarn and still more buttons.

I'm always looking for uses for these buttons. I think it would be wonderful to share them with all my family members. To date I've made 1 monogramed button pillow, 1 baby blanket with really large buttons and a wedding shower button pillow. I need more ideas!

The funny thing is, no matter what jar I take buttons from, the jar never seems to have any less buttons. I did manage to almost use up all the orange buttons. I may only have about twenty left. I just threw them back into the red jar.
I've used so many white buttons that I was sure to make a dent, but NO.

I hope you enjoyed seeing yet another family member succumb to hoarding. But, if you ever need a button, you know who to ask!

Take care, Brandie


Tuesday, October 23, 2012

Button Art

I spent all of this morning and part of the early afternoon sewing buttons to my...
Well, to a piece of canvas. I decided that that the canvas was a better place than my underwear.
16 green buttons, 13 brown buttons and if I counted correctly, 116 orange buttons. Making a total of 145 buttons. That's alot of buttons!
Why? because can you think of a cuter way to use inherited orange buttons? I didn't think so.
Now I have a unique (ish) fall decoration made from my Grandmother's button collection. And again, I don't see a dent in the button jar that I used.

I'm still working on the appliqued border of my Halloween quilt. I have one side done and I should have the other side done soon. Hopefully by next Wednesday.
Even though I probably won't have the quilt quilted by then, I still plan on using the flimsy as decoration.
Other than that, I'm not doing much. I'm being lazy again. I'm blaming it on the weather.

Take care, Brandie

Thursday, October 18, 2012

A Shorty Post

 There is proof that I haven't been too lazy and just sitting around around reading.
I did a really simple panel. All I did was quilt it and add a binding. Simple stuff, but after painting a ceiling and trim, this is all fun.
I now have this quilt hanging on the fridge. Someone keeps jumping up on it and dragging it down. I'll give you one guess who it is.
 I try to sew when someone takes their nap. somethings this works, but most often it doesn't.
Like now. I just waited to cut a few bias strips to make a vine on the Halloween quilt. But no, I had to have help. If I'm not careful, he's going to lose part of his tail and then I'd be the bad guy!
 I tried to put up a fence using my ruler.
"Really, you think that's going to keep ME out?"

Same old, same old going on here. But I do have my hallway ceiling and all the trim painted, so that room is completed.
Next I need to tackle the popcorn in the kitchen. But every time I think about it I lose my ambition. Do I really want to do it. Yes it'll look better. But it's going to be so messy! Than I'll have to paint the ceiling. But it'll look 100 percent better. You'll never be happy till that popcorn is gone.
These are the thoughts that go around and around in my head.

I think I lost my ambition somewhere...

Take care, Brandie

Thursday, October 11, 2012

Jubilee

 Here it is, my finished Jubilee quilt. Except maybe not finished. As I was loading the pictures and making adjustments, I noticed that I forgot the berries on the "C" side.
 Pretty silly of me, but not unexpected.
I started this quilt in March of 2010. It is a Kim Mclean pattern, well part of it. The rest came from some place in my head.
The basket and the red blocks are from Kim's pattern. But I got tired of all that appliqué and left it hanging as a curtain for over a year.
Then my Guild started a UFO contest (which I'm failing miserably at). I added this to my list as an incentive to finish.
I also thought if I added this year's date, so I'd have to finish it or be a liar.
And because I'm not sure if I'll ever finish a truly special quilt for my own 50 th, I jumped on the band wagon with other bloggers who were celebrating the 50 th. I've got 8 more years till my true Jubilee, but  I'm not sure if I'm up to this again. At this moment, I'm spent.

So there you have it, a finish, two years from start to finish. *sigh*

I think I need a bigger room just to get a proper picture.
Take care, Brandie

Wednesday, October 10, 2012

Window How-To

 Ok, I'm going to try to answer some questions about this window.
This window was found in an old shed, just laying in the dirt, kind of like you see in the picture.
It has just six panes of original glass. The rest of the window was never found.
All the molding is there, except the bottom. If you look closely, you can see a piece on the right under the glass.

I cleaned all the loose glass in the sink, with gloves on because of my clumsiness. I then vacuumed the wood and remaining glass. Then it was cleaned up with wet rags and windex. Both sides.

Next I glued the whole thing back together. I brushed glue on all the wood! Some of the wood was very brittle and I thought the glue would help add some strength.
I waited several days for my glue applications to dry.

I went to three hardware stores looking for "carved wooden brackets with fancy scrolls". Most of the men just looked at me and then directed me to the metal shelf brackets. Silly men, even I know the difference between metal and wood! Of course I gave them an out saying, "It's probably all in my head", blah blah blah.

But I knew those shelves in my head existed, so I looked for myself at Lowes and what you see is what I imagined. Carved wooden brackets.

I then turned the window over, after days of drying. I very carefully glued and screwed a small piece of plain molding to the back to secure the wooden brackets, marrying the window and bracket.

Three more small pieces of plain molding were used as the shelf on top of the brackets.
I then got my wet brush of chalk paint that I was using in the kitchen (BTW, you can keep a wet paint brush in a Ziplock in the frig while waiting for your first coat of paint to dry. I do this all the time. My family knows not to eat them) and brushed some of the wonderful paint onto it. While still trying to keep the woods character and not painting over the rusted hinge and latch. That helps keep that antique look.
I didn't do as well as Hubby did with the antique spice shelf. But I still like it.

Oh and I added a hanger to hang it on my outside house.

I hope I answered all your questions, if not just ask me.

BUT, there are a couple of you (Donna T and Robin E) that are no comment replies. Apparently I have been sending replies to the moon.
So we are going to fix that. This is what you need to do.
You need to go to your profile and edit your email.
This does not show it to everyone, just who you send a message to.
You need to make sure that you click on "show your email".

If this doesn't make sense, Google "no reply comment blogger". This should help and then I can reply to you personally instead of sending messages to the moon!
I hope to hear from you soon!

Take care Brandie


Tuesday, October 9, 2012

Pumpkin Shelf

Remember this broken down dirty window. It also had a makeover this week.
It went from this above,
To this.
With a couple of wooden brackets.
A little bit of paint.
To a cute place to display a Halloween vignette.

Happy haunting!

Brandie

Monday, October 8, 2012

Bye, Bye Brick

I am not sorry to see it go, I just wish I came up with this idea 10 or 20 years ago.
Before. Now imagine this brick paired with a crazy vegetable wallpaper
It was too much!
For years this kitchen has had too many patterns going on in it. I have tried many different things over the years to help, but this is by far the best-est solution!
After. What a difference!
New paint, newly painted floor and the best addition ever, wainscot!
The new look fits the old sink style and makes it look cohesive. I love it!
A quick antiquing stop found us this old-new spicy shelf. I had a hard time with the aged look but Hubby liked the look so I'm going to try to like it. So far so good. I cleaned it up with clorox and Hubby gave it a few strokes with a dry paint brush to help it match a little better. I'm thinking I can live with this new look and ignore those holes in it.
See what I mean about the wainscoting matching the sink style. I think that after all these years, there is finally a togetherness in this room.
If you look closely at the hutch, you can see that the kitchen has a few Halloween decorations too.
How about a closer look. I may add a few ghastly articles to my panty jars. Oh what fun to be had!

This was my weekend report.
I am so kicking my butt that I didn't do this years ago! It was a quick, cheap fix (about $50). I love that too!
There were a few casualties.
One, my faithful jig saw started smoking on my last piece. Of course it was the last piece because of all the cuts and angles I needed to make. So I did that with a hand saw.
Two. I think I broke my middle toe. I tripped, kicked a 4 inch box and now I have a beautiful blue toe that doesn't like to be inside any shoes. Have I mentioned how clumsy I am?

Well it's time to go elevate my foot.
Take care, Brandie

Wednesday, October 3, 2012

One Shade of Gray


 No more poopy brown! I now have a nice fresh coat of gray. Which is project 3 from the same can of black paint.
 I had a few colors that I'd been thinking of using. They were my inspiration to mix my own paint.
 A few drops of black and a many drops of beige, mixed into some leftover white. Equals, gray.
 I also used a new tool. I'd never seen one before, but after doing my bedroom with a putty knife, I thought this was a tool to have. I tested it out in the hallway. Way faster! And it cleans up (mostly) into a bag. It's a great tool to have, if you are unlucky enough to have popcorn ceilings.
Before

After

Good thing my hallway is long and narrow. It made it a breeze.
I still have to plaster the holes in the ceiling and paint it, but that shouldn't take too much time.

At some point I'll be using the tool in the kitchen. I'm not looking forward to that, but I hate the dirty looking ceiling more.
I still think who ever added popcorn to these ceilings was either lazy or had a bad sense of taste.

I feel a much deserved rest coming on.  I'll post when I have something more that a white ceiling to show you.
Take care, Brandie

Tuesday, October 2, 2012

Check It Out

Project two from the same can of paint.
My kitchen floor needed a redo. A serious redo. I had decided that some of those quaint seams in the floor had to go this time around. They were a catch all for every crumb in the house.
It's it so pretty? Not!
So I got out the cement joint filler and went to town. I covered every knot, crack and every seam.
See that beautiful brick wall? Well you won't for long. Next week it'll be covered by wainscoting.
I painted two coats of black, each night before bed.
Guess who tried to help? Dorian!
That cat got through every blockade and every barrier. I had to cut the black paint off him!
Drying time, looking over my plywood barrier
Then I found a tall piece of leftover plywood to keep him out, temporarily.
I had finally blocked him long enough to paint the beige checks. Long enough for the paint to dry during the day. Long enough to get a clear varnish on, when he streaked in and ran across the the floor. I caught him by the tail and pulled him out. That's when he noticed his feet were sticky. he was spreading those toes and shaking those legs trying to get the "tape" off his feet.
And of course I had painted myself out of the two rooms that had rags in them. So I used a dirty sock to clean his feet before they turned to glass.
I'm laughing now, but the cat was in trouble then! He had to spent a time out in the bedroom. When I came back for him, he was just laying on the bed staring at the door. I went into him and explained that he needed to stay out of there and be a good boy. I think it went in one ear and out the other. Because he went right back to trying to get back into the kitchen.
I've since noticed that the tip of his tail has a crispy spot thanks to the varnish, Oh well! I may have to cut that off too.

I have always wanted a black and white checked floor. I should have done it last time I painted. I love the feel of the Polycrylic on my feet. I hope this seals the floor better than last time and makes it easier to clean.

Today I will be using that same black paint on my third project.
I still haven't been back to my machine but I'm hoping today isn't going to be as long the previous projects.

Take care,
Brandie