Pay It Forward Swap

Yes I have MIA again, you know how it is summer comes around and there is so much to do or you just want to enjoy the sunshine!  Life in this household got a little hectic, so there was not much enjoying the sunshine!

We remodeled our basement in May, and then at the end of may I went out to work, just temporary, in-between working we managed to fit in a family holiday in June, and in August I stopped working and we remodeled the boys bathroom a few weeks ago and then a week later we remodeled the kitchen so there was not much spare time for blogging or much else.  But I do have lots of posts to share on the remodel process, when I get around to writing the posts.  My craft room is starting to look just how I imagined it, and I am excited to share it with you, I just need to get my butt into gear and take some decent photos of it. 

In the mean time I have something else to share!

Back in January, I signed up on  blog for a Pay it Forward Swap  and way back in May I received this gorgeous pouch (all the way from Australia) from Kat who blogs over at Diary of a Flutter Kat. 

 

She stalked me well and chose to make a pouch with a cup of tea on it!  How cute is it, look at the lace on the zipper, how girly, and if you know me having two boys means I love girlie.

The Back of the pouch, so cute, love the lace.

I knew when I signed up to this that it would be a while before I could fill my side of the pay it forward, and not long after receiving the gorgeous pouch from Kat, life got a little crazy busy around here, so I didn't post this post because I like to get things in the mail quickly and not have them hanging over me.
But now here goes....
Who would like to pay it forward with me & receive a little handmade gift from UKMUMINUSA   ??????

 

So now it is my turn to Pay it forward and if you want to join in then this is how it works:

**  I will make a little something for the first 3 people who comment on this post and  send me an email with their address saying  they want to play.
**  It will be a surprise and it will arrive when you least expect it.
**  I will have 365 days to do it in. What's the catch? To get a handmade present from me, you have to play too! This means YOU pledge to send a little handmade something to 3 readers of your blog (but remember you will have 365 days to make and send it too). It needs to be handmade.
**  You must have a blog.
**  Once you receive your "little something", you must post about your Pay it Forward on your blog to keep the fun going - be sure to use the Pay It Forward badge.

More progress

 

 

I have a ceiling!

 

Progress - Closets and boxing in the air ducts

Progress, boxing in the air ducts and the start of what looks like some closets!!!

 

 

Part 1 Craft Room Remodeling

I have been MIA yet again, I have so much to share but just so little time to actually type it all up and take pictures.

Since my last post I started working full time which has now gone down to part time, we went on vacation, remodeled our basement and installed hardwood flooring in our family room, my new craft room and our theatre room.  So I have lots of things to share and show you, but it might just take a little while to get around to showing you.  So first off I want to show you what my craft room looked like once I had boxed everything up in preparation for the remodel of it.

I have crafted in this room for 5 years now, and when we first bought this house we had big plans of getting it done straight away so I had my own space, but that never happened and I lived with no ceiling and shared it with the spiders and cob webs, and it was not an ideal place to craft in as it just didn’t feel very clean to me so more often than not I used the kitchen table.

Here goes

Check back to see the progress ……………………

Refurbished Chair

 

I meant to post about this chair weeks ago, but life got in the way, I took the photos a while ago but just have not had the time to write up this post and share this with you. 

Another post on refurbishing, I can say I am hooked on doing this!

I originally bought this chair from Home Goods/TJMaxx on clearance for $30, talk about a  bargain and I have always had plans to do something with it, but it sat in our bedroom in all its brown glory for over 3 years!  Not until I recovered  the bench in this post did I realise how easy it is to change something from a bit blah to WOW! so after recovering the bench I knew that I would be able to do this chair and not make a complete mess of it.

Here is what she looked like before I sanded, primed, painted and recovered her. She didn’t look to bad really just not to my taste, can you see I still had the plastic protective coating on the chair!!! and stenciling is really not my thing!

And here she is

Bar Stool Makeover

 

Yes I am on a refurbishing kick at the moment, I am loving the more or less instant reward that you get doing this.  These stools were easy peasy to refurbish, again I just covered over the top of the old fabric and stapled away.

As you can see this stool was covered in a brown micro suede fabric, it wasn’t old or stained I just fancied a change and wanted to just update the stools.

 

  This is what the stools looked like after, much better I think.

And here is a side by side so you get the idea.

Bench Makeover

 

Something a little different and certainly a first for me.  I have always wanted to have a go at reupholstering a piece of furniture but for some reason it has always scared me. 

At the weekend I just made the suggestion to my hubby about reupholstering this bench and no sooner had I said it and he started taking it apart!!! I was totally shocked!!! now there was no turning back (OK that’s a little bit dramatic he only took the top of the seat off the legs).

So here is the before.  Pretty boring don’t you think?

And here it is after, I am loving this fabric.

Off we went to Hancock's Fabric Store (yes I said we, I persuaded hubbie to come along, after all he had nothing better to do than to amuse me!!!)  Finding the right fabric was easy as soon as we saw it we new it was what we wanted, actually hubbie saw it first and decided that was the one he wanted, I was surprised at this as I didn’t think that was his style, wow after nearly 20 years of marriage he never ceases to surprise me, so I will let him take the credit for choosing the fabric.  So not to bore you here is the finished bench, please excuse the photos, the sun is shining today and I just cannot seem to get a good photo, I am not complaining though I am loving this sunny weather.

Decorated Eggs For Easter

Something different to share with you today.

I have been playing around with eggs!  Not real eggs, but those yucky plastic eggs that come in a multitude of different colours!
My eggs started off like this.


I painted the eggs white with primer spray paint, that was fun! you should of seen them flying all over the place from the pressure of the spray!  I had to paint them in stages to get a good even coverage, so patience was needed at this point, not my strong point when I am doing a project.  Then it was just a case of adding some scrapbook rub-ons,  Easy peasy, don’t you think.  I am sharing this over at Brambleberry Cottage

Another Sweet Pea Tote

I have wanted to make this Sweet Pea Tote bag for absolutely ages but have had a very hard time trying to find the “O” rings for it.  I checked out Michaels, Hobby Lobby and eventually found them locally at Hancock fabrics.  If you don’t have a Hancock s fabric store near you then I am reliably informed by Veronica of SewVery that you can find them at a number of stores on Etsy. 

I finally made this Sweet Pea Tote today, and I have to tell you, this is one very large bag.  I made this bag using Simplicity Pattern 2396 View C or D. This Sweet Pea Tote pattern, has to be the easiest one I have made so far, and it was extremely easy to cut out and put together. Especially seeing as I didn’t follow the pattern exactly! 

Originally I had cut out the pattern pieces to make it patchwork,  like you can see in the pattern photo, I had some scraps of Joel Dewberry fabric that I had left over from other bags I made, but I just could not decide on what other fabrics I had that would go with it.  I decided to scrap that idea and make the bag out of one piece of fabric instead of doing it patchwork like in the pattern instructions,  This made the bag even easier to make as I did not have to mess about with bias binding and the outside was basically just  two pieces of fabric.

This was my first time using magnetic snaps and I couldn’t believe how easy they are to use, I wish I had known this before as I would have used one in the Amy Butler Birdie Sling Bag that I made.  I can definitely seeing me using more magnetic snaps in the future.

 

 

To see how it looks if I had followed the Pattern, then check out the absolutely gorgeous bag that Veronica of SewVery made, she used some of my favourite fabric by Joel Dewberry.  I love her version.