It's been a good day.

We decided after 48 hours of tummy troubles to take the doggy to the vet. We went to a new place as our last vet used to charge an arm and a leg, but we thought we were doing the best thing for our pup by going to the "expensive" vet. Silliness. Exam, shot, 3 pills....$50! Our old vet would charge us that just to walk in the door! Hopefully we will all get some sleep tonight as we are all tired and getting a bit cranky from taking him out every few hours around the clock. I'm sure the doggy doesn't enjoy it much either.

I ordered a small amount of wool from Ram in the Thicket to make another penny rug and more green for shamrocks. That's the beauty of Ram in the Thicket, you can just buy a small amount (3x18 inches) or as much as you need. I got my package today! I love getting mail!

You can see from this next picture how well the 'burnt sugar' and 'barnboard' go together. I have sunflowers planned for those two. The 'barnboard' is a new addition all the way from across the pond! It has a tweedy look to it with shades of golds, greys, and brown. Burnt sugar is the gold and vergennes is the green. Love that green!

Maybe I will do a little stitching tonight if all goes well with the pup. I think he is ready for a nice long nap after his trip to the vet! Me too, and I didn't even have to take him. Thank you hubby!

I hope you are all having a nice Saturday as well. Stay warm!

Oh boy!

I'm still nursing a sick doggy and I'm pooped - no pun intended! He was up every few hours last night to go potty and again this morning, so even though hubs helped a few times last night I still didn't get much sleep. It's like having a newborn baby!

Here he is last Fall enjoying all of the smells that come across on the breeze. Some days his nose is always up in the air!



Look out for that leaf!



Enjoying the Fall leaves

 We had a ton of snow fall very early this morning so it turned into a snow day. Kiddo was happy and I was happy I had one less thing to do this morning since I was so tired.

It's going to be a bottomless coffee cup kind of day!

No stitching for me today, just work.

Stay warm!

I had the strangest dream.......

I think we were at home (though it wasn't our current home) and there was this sort of shed in the backyard where my MIL kept her 'extras' for decorating or whatever, not real sure. I never really looked in it because it was all 'country' and not my style, but then I really took a look around one evening when it was raining (and for some reason this shed didn't really have windows) and I noticed lots of prim goodies! I said to hubs that it's raining and it will get ruined, might as well take it inside. lol. So I grabbed tons of stuff (it seemed to be set up like a store, everything set up nice on display) and took it to my house and decorated with it.

It was so bizarre! I wish it were true. *sigh* I could hold all of my prim goodies in my hands if I had to. I think with future thrift store excursions and garage sales this summer, and after we get the walls painted in our kitchen and living room, I might just start prim cozying up our house to make a home! It's only been three years. lol.

I think I might be a little sleep deprived and hence the strange dream. I do get plenty of sleep, it's just not in 8 hour segments. I'm a night owl, but the rest of the world revolves around day shift. Silly. : )  I put the kiddo on the bus only to come home to hubs telling me the doggy has "The Big D." You know what I'm talkin about. It's just noon and we have been out three times and hubs took him out twice. Poor guy. I'm making him rice and chicken. I read that we are supposed to hold food for 24 hours, but have you ever tried to keep food from a pug (he is pug/beagle mix)??? It ain't gonna happen. So we will just give him little helpings of rice and chicken. It's going to be a long day, but thankfully he is very good at telling me he has to go, go, go!!!    : )  He is snuggled up on an old comforter on the floor next to the computer desk so I can keep an eye on him. Such a good boy when he isn't feeling well.

Hopefully you are all having a nicer Thursday. : )  Stay warm!

A little stitching.....

I had some extra time today and decided to finally get started on a candle mat. I'm a huge procrastinator. Part of it is that I'm afraid to actually cut into a new piece of wool or material and use it. I'm the same way with scrapbooking. My son is almost 14 and I have three pages completed, and one isn't even of him! lol! I'm afraid that my end product won't look like it did in my mind's eye. On top of the procrastination I'm a perfectionist. It makes getting anything done almost impossible.

I took the plunge today and cut into a new piece of wool. Well, it's new, but I've had it for months, afraid to cut into it. Geez Louise, you can buy more lady. That's what I kept telling myself. Here is a sneak peek of a candle mat that will probably be finished in the next day or two....if I keep on track. It should be easy peasy now that I got past the wool problem. : )

Brrr!

Mother Nature tricked us last week. After many days of near zero overnight temperatures and not much warmer during the day, we had temperatures close to 60F! I knew it was too good to be true as here in Ohio we usually get slammed until March. Yesterday afternoon as I was getting ready to leave for work, the skies opened up and snow, snow, and more snow began falling. It fell so quick that rush hour was a disaster. Luckily I work close to home, but I ran into a few snags as cars were blocking both sides of the road I was trying to go down as they were sliding up a hill. I love my Jeep! I had no problems, even going down our long drive that hadn't been plowed.

I snapped this picture out my kitchen window about 5p.m. It's not a great view (I get to look at the garage out my kitchen window, but I'm happy to have that window and the beautiful light it gives), but the snow looked beautiful hanging on the overgrown lilac bush.

You can see my little terrarium hanging out there. It was loving the sun, but now that it's cold again I think I need to move it to a warmer area in the house.

You can't see in the pic, but our kitchen walls are bright yellow. I always thought I would like a yellow kitchen, but not this yellow. It's too bright and it makes the cabinets look cold and cheap. They are a busy wood grain that I don't like. We debated painting the cabinets (we've seen some awesome black cabinets on another blog), but decided painting the walls is probably something we should tackle first. Painting the cabinets seemed so final, but the wall color can always be changed if it doesn't work out.

I went to Home Depot on Saturday and grabbed three sample pots of Behr paint. Love those! I grabbed a medium brown to paint the walls behind the cabinets (trying to make the cabinets disappear was my idea) and a dark brown to paint the trim as the white trim just wasn't doing it for me. The other walls in the kitchen will be painted a soft light brown to warm up the space...hopefully. Keep your fingers crossed for me! lol!

Stay warm!

Dining room decorating suggestions please

We have a 1930s bungalow. If you look at its original footprint, it is absolutely tiny. The old living room is the room the front door opens into (the house has been added onto and has a big family room in the back, so this room is basically a thruway). I don't know how anyone made that a living room as due to the location of the windows, stairs to the upstairs, front door, and doorway (which originally had french doors) to the dining room, there isn't a single wall large enough for a sofa! lol. I guess the house wasn't built for a large family and maybe they just wanted a few arm chairs to sit in.

The dining room is the next room you will find and it's seldom used. It's not that it's a fancy room, it's just that it tends to be more of a walkway into the rest of the house and the poor table gets ignored for meals more often than it should. I painted those two front rooms the same mustard yellow color we painted at our rental house, loved it that much, but added a dark red wall (after six coats of paint, I don't think I will do that again!). I would not have painted that red wall had I known three years later we would be given the room divider from my parents. Funny that it's called that as in my parents house I don't remember it ever being anywhere but up against a wall. It is the same on both sides except the doors only open on one side. It was the first piece of furniture my parents purchased with their wedding money (I believe that was in 1967). There is lots of sun shining in the windows today, but on a cloudy day the room divider just gets lost against the red wall. The red is a huge improvement over the white walls with gold cherub angels holding pink ribbons that were painted there previously.

It's definitely a 60s piece of furniture. So in order to tone down those details, I used a quilted wall hanging made and given to me by my husband's Aunt Patti. It fit perfectly to cover the the front of the doors and the shelf. Did I make a good choice? Please ignore the items to the left and underneath the room divider that I thought were 'hiding.'   : )

This piece of furniture is also where I put everything breakable. lol. It's a mix of lots of things that I love, but they don't exactly fit into the prim style I've fallen in love with in the past few months. The crab cookie jar (I'm a self-proclaimed crab! : )  ), the dragonfly vases my mother-in-law gave to me a year ago for Christmas (I have loved dragonflies for years now), my favorite green leaf pottery from a local potter, our wedding album, the red and yellow glass vase that we saw being made on our honeymoon in St. Augustine, Florida, and a few wedding photos on top of one of the placemats (dragonflies again!) my sister Cathy made for me a few years ago along with a book my sister Denise gave to me this Christmas.

It's funny how I didn't notice the dust until I take photos and upload them to my blog. Eeek!

There are four of these wall sconces in the dining room. Ick. Shiny brass is not my thing. These can't be the original shades either as you can see they don't even fit. I can't wait to get my hands on some black spray paint. I think I can live with the white shades if I can get rid of the shiny brass. Has anyone ever sprayed sconces like this? Any suggestions? I'm thinking that I can get away with just masking off the wall with painter's tape and newspaper, shutting the power off, taking out the bulb and protecting that area, and just spraying them that way without having to take them down.

And here is the chair that I mentioned in my previous post. It definitely needs a chair pad! The little stool was made by my son last year in school (age 12). I used it as a prop while taking some pictures for my etsy shop. I'm thinking of making a little hooked rug for the top, but can't see adding tacks to it, so it might just be a hooked rug mat that I end up sitting on top. lol.

And lastly, the grace I grew up saying before dinner. My mom found it at a craft fair a few years ago and it matched my dining room wall colors perfectly. Believe me, they are mustard. Can't seem to capture the color on the camera.

We don't have a lot of furniture and most of it is secondhand from family and friends, but a lot of our house is empty. I mean we have what we need, but looking at some of your blogs and your decor that are definitely not empty, our house is empty in comparison! My husband loves seeing empty spots. I find comfort in being surrounded by 'things.' I moved around a few bookshelves in my craft room a few weeks ago, ended up putting them all next to each other in a corner, and I absolutely love it. My stitching chair faces these shelves along with the TV, and I find it extremely cozy that I can't see the wall. lol. Hubs and I are definitely on opposite ends of the decor spectrum, but I hope we can meet somewhere in the middle.

Okay, off to do some dusting! : )

Digging out old stuff

I've rediscovered rug punching with yarn. I tried this years ago before I tried hooking with wool strips as I could easily get my hands on yarn to try it. I didn't have a rug punch, so I used a hook that my friend Jeanette gave me. Yes that's right, I hooked yarn with a traditional rug hook. lol. It wasn't easy, the yarn would break every so often, but I did it. I also used burlap since it is a cheap foundation fabric.

Then I got the itch to really get into it. My husband bought me a lovely Morton frame and won me a Bliss strip cutter on ebay. This was probably back in 2003. I made a few Christmas gifts that year using my wool yarn. A star door hanger for my father-in-law (I added a moose button to the center), a hot pad for my sister.....I honestly can't remember what else I made and I don't think I took pictures. What was I thinking?!?!

Fast forward a few years to 2007. I got the bright idea to hook a rug for real. My middle sister was getting married and I thought I would make a rug with their last name. Then there was a hiccup. There was a situation with the last name (long story, but in short her husband was going to change his last name as he had his mother's last name and thought he would take his father's last name finally, so my sister wasn't sure what name she was going to have. lol!) and I never got started. I did, however, purchase a yard of monk's cloth from my local quilt shop. That is also where I had been buying my wool yarn. It was beautiful yarn too. I believe it was called Lopi. The gray was my favorite.

So here I am, pulling out my goodies to see what I can do with them. I did find an old rug punch from probably the 70s while digging through my mom's craft stuff in her basement. It works okay, but I would love to get my hands on an Oxford rug punch. Either way, this old rug punch is much easier to use than a traditional rug hook!

I think I will attempt a chair pad for one of our dining room chairs (secondhand set that I used to sit at as a child at a friend's house) that has been worn more than the others. This chair sits off in a corner of the dining room and I think it's a good starting project. I only have a three or four colors of wool yarn left and with only change in my pocket it will have to do for now. I don't mind using what I have. I'm a thrifty gal.

I know what you (and my husband!) are thinking...."Can't this girl just pick a craft and stick with it?" Nope. : ) So while at the main branch of the "big city" downtown library yesterday, I pulled five or so books off the shelf; Amy Oxford's book, a punch needle book, and a few rug hooking books. I do have to share that we were at the library because my son was participating in the county spelling bee. He placed in the top 7 so he will go on to the next round in a few weeks. Yay!

That's it for now, until I get brave enough to actually start punching on that monk's cloth. Sometimes the hardest part is getting started!

I'm not one for celebrating Valentine's Day, but I hope you all enjoy the rest of your weekend how ever you wish.  : )


*** My Bliss cutter has a size 5 blade on it that came with the cutter when we won it on ebay. If anyone would like to trade, I'd be up for that. I think I would prefer an 8 (that's wider, right?). I'm a primitive hookin' gal. ***

Coil wrapped fabric bowls

I had a happy little surprise when I went to make my coil bowl yesterday. I grabbed my clothesline to start wrapping, and realized it was already wrapped! The fabric was similar to the color of the clothesline and I didn't notice. lol. So, I got to sew right away. It's a very simple technique, not prim at all due to the sewing machine, but the bowls turn out ot be pretty sturdy and functional.

I decided to try adding handles to make it a little more interesting.

As you can see from this not-so-great photo, I ended up with a shape similar to a straw hat. Not by choice, however. I realized later, after I went to the library and took out the book again that describes this technique, that I was sewing it on the machine the wrong way, hence I couldn't get the height on the sides that I did when I made them the first time a few years ago.

The blue bowl and the green bowl are the ones I made a few years ago. They sit on my nightstand holding miscellaneous objects from my pockets, mostly loose change. I swear it multiplies in my pocket!

In this next picture you can see the wrapping on the blue bowl. Wrap, wrap, wrap, glue, wrap, wrap wrap.......for about 20-50 feet of clothesline.....then sew, sew, sew!

Very fun to make! The technique is described in the book "It's a Wrap!" by Susan Breier. 

I've got nothing on those of you who make real wood baskets, but I did enjoy making these. It's also a good way to use up scraps. 

Would these look great mixed in with your prims, or would the zig-zag stitch put you off?  Let me know what you think.  : )



I saw it, I swear I did!

The sun that is! It was here for a few days, but has decided to leave us again. I have proof though. See, it was shining on my little mossy terrarium! It's holding it's own that little terrarium, but I might have to swap out some moss sooner than I was hoping. It looks much cuter sitting on my windowsill than this picture shows.

I made a little woven heart using a tutorial from Wooly Red Rug/LJ Fibers. This one is made from wool blend felt and is headed to my sweet little niece for Valentine's Day. I think I will add a loop of ribbon and a button so she can hang it up somewhere in her room.

I made these salt dough Valentine's Day guys around Christmas time with extra salt dough. As you can see, I had plans to add a ribbon to hang these, but forgot after I dipped them in wax. Oops. I made some "stitched" hearts, but they never got painted. So many crafts, so little time!

I'm going to try and stitch up a fabric bowl today. I loved making these a few years ago and haven't made one since, but thought they would make a nice Easter basket and it's almost that time. I hope to have pictures to share in a few days.

Stay warm!

Blog help

I can't seem to figure this one out. I used to have my email set to "feltandbuttons" but figured out I can change it to my business email, the @sugarhousecreations one. The problem is, some of my comment emails come to the felt email and some come to the sugar one. I don't get it! And the kicker is, I deleted the felt email with Google and Friend Connect, so it shouldn't even have that one in it's "system." lol. Anyone have any ideas how I can fix this? I've checked all my settings and they all say the sugar email is the one active. lol. Grrrrr.

Update: I knew I would figure it out as soon as I posted. lol. There was one more place that I needed to change in my settings. Now I can reply to you all when you comment! : )  I was afraid to respond from the other email address thinking you won't know who the heck this feltandbuttons person was. lol.