Photos to start the day

This is what I just saw as I opened the door to let our dog, Georgie, outside.

We get some gorgeous sunrises here. One just has to be up early enough to see them. My problem is not being awake and up. It is making the effort to look outside and see the beauty that greets the day. So many times we get so caught up in the busyness of our life that we forget to take the time to enjoy God's majesty. It is displayed in everything around us. We just need to be aware of it.

I have photos of another project that I finished up. It is a vintage cutwork tablecloth that I found at a local antique shop that I layered over top of some beautiful varigated peach fabric and quilted. It measures about 43" square.

Here is a detail photo of the quilting.

And another.

I hope that you have a wonderful day. Let the Son of Righteousness shine in your heart just like the sun rise shines every morning to signal a new day to honor Him.

Be kind and grateful today.

Photos of projects

I was cleaning up my email account and found some photos that I never completed downloading of some projects that I finished up so I thought that I would share them today.
The first photo is of an Oriental piece that I converged 2 preprinted Oriental scenes into one piece. One of the panels was a beautiful panel that had cranes and flowers on and the other panel was an outline drawing of a geisha girl with fans. There is a series of 4 of these geisha girls portraying the 4 seasons. This one happens to be doing a dance with fans. I have all 4 panels and plan on doing a series of these.
Here is the photo and then I will explain how I did it.

I cut both panels apart in vertical strips. The strips are of gradating sizes. It is important not to cut through her face so careful planning has to be done to avoid ill placed cuts. The pieces are then sewn together alternating between the 2 panels in order to recreate the scene on the panels. I also wanted to add color the geisha girl panel since she was a black a cream line drawing. I used Shiva paint sticks to add color to her fans and headpiece and I used permanent ink markers to add the color on the band portion of her kimono. The rest of the color is added with the thread work as I quilted the piece. The concept was to have the colors from the floral panel to flow into the geisha girl panel.

Here is a detail of the quilting.

You can see the color that the quilting added to her costume. I used the same color thread in the background area so that you would see the texture but not detract color wise with the girl and her kimono.

Here is a detail photo of some of the background quilting that I did in the background of the floral pieces.

I love how this turned out and I have the other 3 quilt tops ready to start quilting that utilize the same technique. I would like to get them all done and enter them as a set into some of the quilt shows this year. I will have to work hard to get it done but it will be so worth it. I love working with these types of panels and creating something wonderful with them. I hope you have enjoyed how I made these and I also hope that it inspires you to try something similar.

Have a great day, remember to be grateful for something small today and do some kind act of generosity toward your fellow mankind.

Christmas decoration photos

Yesterday was quite a busy day but I was able to get the living room presentable for photos of the decorations. Here is the Christmas tree.

I was surprised that I couldn't find any tree lights at Wal-Mart. I ended up getting them at Big Lots.
I also got two sets of sparkly ornaments. I tried to stay with a red, white and gold color theme to the tree but I added pretty much all the ornaments that were glass regardless of color.

Here is the table scape on the entertainment buffet.

I used a gold wreath for a base, set my mom's punch bowl inside the wreath and filled it with red and white ornaments. I also tucked a birds nest into the front of the wreath and placed a bird ornament in front of the nest.

The kitchen buffet got a simpler arrangement of candles and Hallmark animated characters.

I still have to get downstairs and clean out the storage closet and then put all the boxes away. That will be my morning project and then I will work on putting 2 small bookcases together for my brother Bill. He needs extra storage in his apartment.

Today looks like a good day to finish up lots of little ends to projects. I have lots to get done before Christmas arrives. Lots to do indeed.

Have a great day and find one thing to be grateful for and one kindness to do for someone else.

Mishmash of stuff

I got the tree decorated yesterday. The wreath is on the door and the decorations are in place except for some minor tweaking. I have not got the boxes put away yet though. I ran out of time and energy yesterday to do that.

I had been in the mood for some good homemade Tomato-Basil Soup, so I made that yesterday afternoon and had that along with a smoked gouda and havarti toasted cheese sandwich. It was so good.

Today is Prime Timers Christmas party/meal at the church. We are having a white elephant gift exchange. I haven't even gotten my gift ready. Mentally I am just not making the needed connections. I have got to get my act together.

After Prime Timers I have to run over to Domestic Sewing Center and pick up my sewing machine. It was sent back to the company for repairs since it was still under warranty. It will be interesting to see what they said was wrong with it, it wouldn't zigzag. I will also take my spare machine over and have them check it out. I think the foot pedal is going bad on it but it also needs a good cleaning so I might as well leave it when I pick up the other one. It is a long trip but since they don't charge a service fee on machines bought there it makes it worth it and they are so friendly. If I have enough energy I might check out Target while I am over there. So I will be running around a lot today.

Well, today's post is rather short but I have a lot to do before going out for the day so I need to get going. I will post photos tomorrow of the Christmas decorations.

Have a great day and remember to be thankful for something today and do something kind for someone else too.

Getting on board with Christmas

Last week was a very low energy week and I feel that I didn't get a whole lot done so I now feel the pressure to get a lot done this week in preparation for Christmas. I started to decorate yesterday but got derailed because I need to get some new Christmas lights for the tree. I have 3 strings but 2 of them only half of the lights work. I am sure that I have more lights somewhere probably in the attic which I am not going to try to navigate. So this morning I am going to run into town and pick up some lights. I will also go get a pattern from a friend on making star ornaments. So there might be a post on these cute ornaments in the future.

So my projects for today are,
1. get lights for the tree
2. get the pattern
3. decorate the tree
4. get rest of the decorations placed
5. clean out the storage room where the decorations reside
6. put all the boxes back in storage room once done with them
7. vacuum and clean up the living room once everything is decorated.

In the meantime I will give you a sneak peak of what chaos the living room is in during the decorating process.

There is the tree that I can't go any further with until I get the lights on it.

Getting through that maze is a challenge. Soon it will be passable again. (I hope.)

I need to come up with a really nice display/centerpiece for the buffet.

That should be enough for today and tomorrow I should have photos of the tree and decorations for you.

Have a great day. Hope everything is beautiful for you today but remember that it might get ugly and disfunctional for a while before it falls into place and becomes beautiful and functional. Be grateful for life today and do something nice for someone else.

Office tour finished

Today I will finish up the tour of my office makeover. I finally got my window treatment up. The curtains had been out on the back porch for the summer but now with winter coming (woke up to snow on the ground this morning) I washed them up and hung them in the office.

I had been reluctant to hang them earlier because one of our dogs ate my last curtains I had up but our dear Abby passed away several weeks ago so they are safe now.

Here are a couple shots of the tight corner of the room. The closet and the bookcase I mentioned yesterday.

I took the doors off of the closet to make the area more accessible. Since I had lots of quilts to display there the doors were not needed.

Here is the bookcase at the end of the bed.

With the bookcases split apart I get balance and function in the room and I love all the dark wood against the blue/green of the walls and the white accents.

The finishing touch was to replace the generic 30 year old light fixture cover. I had a white wire basket that I added blue/green glass discs to along with Mardi Gras beads and glass necklace crystals. I attached the basket to the ceiling with cup hooks. It was so easy to create, it just took time and patience.

Well, I hope that you enjoyed the tour of my office space. It is tiny but really functional.

Have a great day and remember to be grateful today for something unexpected. Try to see the good in adversity and the good in others around you.

More office makeover

Well, I left off yesterday after showing you the wall treatment I did in my office and what the room looked like as you look in from the hallway. Today I will share with you some of the details of the room.

Let's start off with a look at my desk area. Here is a photo of the desk. Of course you realise it doesn't look that neat right now as I am sitting here creating this post.

My desk is made up of an old treadle sewing machine base that I topped off with a mahogany top that my DH made for me. This top has been used for so many purposes. I have used it on 2 short wrought iron bases for a coffee table, on this same sewing machine base as a sofa table, and against the wall as a console table. Now it is serving duty as my desk top in my office. I love the rich wood tones and it is 5 feet long so it makes an ample surface to spread out and do lots of paperwork. I have room for my laptop, the phone, a wire basket (not in the photo) that I can keep all my frequently used books and folders in. As I look at my desk right now I need to do some editing of items so that I can get back to just the important things. Prime real estate here, I have stuff that can go else where in the room and declutter my work surface a bit.

I used the short wrought iron stands underneath my desk on the ends to place my printer, printer paper on the bottom shelf of one and books and other frequently used items on the other one. I have a ton of Longaberger baskets and so I took the set of hexagon shaped baskets and hung them on the wall and placed pictures of the grandbabies in them. As the pictures are just sitting in the baskets they can easily be replaced with newer photos as they grow and change. I could also put small items in the baskets in front of the photos if I had some, such as a rattle, a baby bootie, or a little hair clip.

On either side of the desk I placed small bookcases that I got at an auction this past summer to store more booksoffice supplies etc. The bookcase is in 3 sections, the end pieces are on either side of the desk and the main section is at the foot of the bed creating a day bed effect. It is hard to get a photo of it as it is a tight fit between the bed and the closet but I will try to get a good photo and post that tomorrow.

As you can see the room has shaped up ralther well and I will finish the tour of it tomorrow. Hopefully you will get some ideas of things that would work for you in your home. My personal favorite that I have shared with your so far are the baskets masquerading as picture frames.

I hope you have enjoyed my office tour, remember to do something unexpected for someone else today and find one thing to be grateful for.