Show and Tell Friday: Grandma’s Things

Posted on July 18, 2008 by Barbara Harper

Kelli at There’s No Place Like Home hosts “Show and Tell Friday” asking “Do you have a something special to share with us? It could be a trinket from grade school, a piece of jewelry, an antique find. Your show and tell can be old or new. Use your imagination and dig through those old boxes in your closet if you have to! Feel free to share pictures and if there’s a story behind your special something, that’s even better! If you would like to join in, all you have to do is post your “Show and Tell” on your blog, copy the post link, come over here and add it to Mr. Linky. Guidelines are here.

As many of you know, my mother-in-law just moved here to SC from ID and now lives in an assisted living facility just a few minutes from us. Since Mom was limited in how much could be carried on the plane, my sister-in-law has been sending us a few boxes at a time of Mom’s things.

One of the first boxes to arrive contained one of my all-time favorite pictures of my father-in-law, the flag from his funeral, and his VFW hat with several pins. My husband and youngest son put them together in my mother-in-law’s room like this:

I thought that made such a nice little vignette and added a touch of home to her room. It was her idea to put the cap on the picture frame like that — a nice touch!

Here are a few close-ups of some of the items:

I don’t know who put the medals in the case with the flag, but I thought it was a good idea.

Also in the package, among other things, was this little cross-stitched piece I did for Jim’s mom several years ago:

And this is my work-in-progress for her room, almost done. All that is left is a little border.

I wanted to persevere and finish it tonight, but it was after 11 p.m. when I got to this stage and I felt I’d better lay it aside — when I work on things like this too late I tend to make more mistakes. Yellow is her favorite color. I am thinking of making one for myself in shades of pink. 🙂 It’s small — maybe 4 x 5 inches — so I thought I’d have it whipped up in a week or so, but it’s talking longer. The shape is a little warped from being stretched in the hoop. but it will straighten out when it is washed and pressed.

You can go to Kelli’s to see more Show and Tell partcipants.

Show and Tell Friday: Cross stitched gifts for Dad

Posted on June 27, 2008 by Barbara Harper

I meant to “show” these around Father’s Day, but forgot. But I thought I would go ahead and show them now while I was thinking about it instead of waiting til next Father’s Day.

These are a couple of gifts I cross-stitched for my husband years ago.

Show and Tell Friday: Finished cross stitch and recent finds

Posted on June 20, 2008 by Barbara Harper

I finished the cross stitch piece I was working on!

Now I just have to get it framed.

I also wanted to share a couple of things I found online recently. Somehow I don’t seem to find much when I go thrift store shopping, but I was happy to “score” some good deals online.

I had been looking for a pink tablecloth and napkins for I don’t know how long and couldn’t find any: then last week I stumbled upon them unexpectedly. Every Friday the Make Mine Pink group of shops have special sales based around a common theme. Last week’s theme focused on kitchen items, and I found these pretty pink damask napkins and tablecloth at Sweet Necessi-teas.

My pictures aren’t doing them justice, but they’re gorgeous! The tablecloth is smaller than my table, but I think I can turn it diagonally and use it that way, maybe over a white tablecloth. I should have tried that for this picture…maybe tomorrow!

Speckled Egg is one of my favorite craft and decorating blogs. I love to go there just to feast my eyes and be inspired. Every now and then she mentions some things for sale at her shop, often little things that can be used on cards or collages. A while back I bought from her a packet of metal pieces that looked like they came from old jewelry. I had looked at it when I first got it, but got to looking at it again this morning while decluttering a couple of rooms in the house. I found what looks like a broken pin that I thought was just beautiful.

Those of you who have been reading here for a while know I love hearts, and I also love old-fashioned-looking jewelry. I think I can ask my husband to cut off the metal pin on the back and I can glue a new one on, and, voila! A vintage-looking brooch! If I remember correctly Anne wore a pin sort of similar to this in the Anne Of Green Gables film sequel in which she was a teacher, only hers was a locket-type thing with a clock in it. I do think it had a bow on top, and the clock was in a dangly heart. Now I am going to have to go back and look!!

You can click on the button above to find more Show And Tells or to join in. And if you do drop by and have read this far, I hope you’ll leave a comment letting me know. Last week’s Show and Tell showed over a hundred views — but 17 comments. I am grateful for any comments and don’t mean to sound like I am begging for more (though I guess it does sound that way…), but I’d just love to have my visitors say hello every now and then. 🙂

Show and Tell Friday: Sewing Decorations

Posted on June 6, 2008 by Barbara Harper

This week I wanted to show some of my decorations and other things related to sewing. Some day I hope to have a combination sewing/craft/guest room where these will go, but for now they are scattered throughout the house.

I don’t know if you can tell from the picture, but this has kind of a 3-D effect with the spools, buttons, and machine being raised.

My mom gave me this. It’s supposed to hold spools of thread but I didn’t want them to get dusty. I think it is cute, though.

This is a little miniature from Boyd’s Bears that my husband gave me.

This is a little removable tray inside the box.

This is what it says inside the lid of the box. 🙂

This is another little Boyd’s Bear box, also from my husband.

This is not a decoration in itself, though some day I may prop this on a shelf in said sewing room.

It holds stationery:

These are some little tins I got very cheaply at Wal-Mart. They open like old-fashioned lunch boxes used to.

I showed this in an earlier S&T about cross-stitched gifts. My sister made this for me. It is a Paula Vaughn design. The calligraphy is from Doorposts.

You can see more Show and Tells at Kelli’s.

Happy Friday!

“I Remember Laura” blogathon

Posted on June 2, 2008 by Barbara Harper

Quill Cottage is hosting an “I Remember Laura” blogathon on Mondays through the month of June in memory of Laura Ingalls Wilder, author if the “Little House” series of books. Each week will focus on a particular theme: this week is quilts, week 2 will feature buttons, week 3, family recipes, and week 4, books and music. There will also be an art swap going on each week in connection with the theme: Click on the picture for more information.

I don’t remember when I was first introduced to the “Little House” series. I must have read some of them as a child because I was familiar with some of the stories, and in me early married years I bought and read the whole series and thoroughly loved them. I think I have read them more than once and probably will again.

This week’s theme is Quilting Memories, and participants can be found here. I appreciate that in Laura’s time girls were taught needle arts at an early age, and I wish that trend continued. It was a necessity then: there were no Wal-Marts in which to but inexpensive bedding. But besides the necessity, it was a way to teach industriousness, neatness, and even math skills. Years ago I read a quote from an unnamed pioneer woman that went something like, “I make my quilts warm to keep my family from freezing. I make them beautiful to keep my heart from breaking.” That resonated with me. We can kind of romanticize pioneer life in our minds, but it had to be bleak at times, starting completely from scratch, knowing you had to focus on the essentials first before beautifying (we went through this with our fixer-upper of a first house. It got discouraging having to deal with the roof and electricity and hot water heaters before ever getting to painting, wallpapering, and decorating. I can imagine this feeling was multiplied in pioneer days). There would have been the hope and excitement of what was to come, but there had to have been long, tiring, bleak days along the way, especially during the winter. So quilts and other needle arts were also a way to beautify the home and exercise creativity.

I am afraid I don’t come from a family of crafters, much less quilters. I took one adult ed. class in quilting but never really went on with it from there. I love and admire quilting, though: I remember going to one quilt show and just being in awe of the detail, creativity, and work involved.

Besides looking “homey,” quilts are also a great way to incorporate a color scheme into a room. That is what I had in mind with this store-bought quilt from Wal-Mart several years ago. Our bedroom in our previous home had pink, blue, and green wallpaper which the previous owner had installed. Those colors are my favorites, and all the wall decorations and such we collected during that time were in those colors. When we moved and I needed to replace our bedspread anyway, I could find bedding in several different combinations of two of those colors, but not all three in any one set, until I found this quilt.

I just realized that one of the pillow shams is missing in this picture. 😳 For some reason my husband’s came apart and we’ve just been using regular pillow cases.

And even though this isn’t quilted, this is a bedspread crocheted my my great Aunt Dot: it is the only thing like it I have passed down from family:

And even though this isn’t part of the theme this week, another of the needle arts Laura and her sister Mary had to work on were samplers. In our early married years my decorating preferences leaned toward the early American style (possibly even as a result of reading Laura’s books, I cant remember), and it was in that time frame that I started this sampler.

Back to quilting: the only other items I own that relate to quilting are a pillow I did in that one class I mentioned, which I don’t think I have any more, and these Paula Vaughn prints my husband bought for me years ago.

It’s hard to tell from this photo, but each print focuses on one aspect of needle arts. The third one features a quilt.

I have always wanted to make a quilt like this one, but I honestly don’t know if I have the skills. 🙂 Quilting tends to be more exact than a lot of other crafts I do.

Quilts are prominent in many of Paula’s designs, and this combines quilts and cross stitch in this gift my sister made for me several years ago.

Show and Tell Friday

Posted on May 30, 2008 by Barbara Harper

I’ve made some progress on my cross stitch project. The last time I showed it it looked like this:

Now it looks like this:

I still have to do a mop and bucket to the left along with the caption underneath, but the end is in sight!

I found this lamp in a catalog a few years ago and I really liked its uniqueness. I don’t remember how much it was, but I do remember it was very reasonable.

It really aggravates my family, though, that if you touch it in just the right way, the little pieces fall out. We’ve been talking about securing them with plasti-tak but haven’t yet.

I know, I know, there is red there, and I have said I don’t like red — but it looks like kind of a dark pinkish red to me. 😀

The lamp is in the family room, which also has a mantle. Here are a few of the things there:

These are the only Willow Tree figurines I have, which is fine, because I don’t have the space for another collection. But I love these because of the father, mother and boys, since I have boys. There was another one of just a boy holding a heart which I also thought of getting since we have three boys. My guys think these look really weird. 🙄 I love the graceful beauty of these pieces. The little plaque in the middle was given to me by a secret sister from our ladies group at church a few years ago.

For more Show and Tells or to join in click n the button above.

Show and Tell: Handmade edition

Posted on May 16, 2008 by Barbara Harper

Last week Kelli suggested that this week we “show and tell” about things we have made. I was going to show this when I was done, but I thought I would go ahead and show you my latest work in progress.

This is the first cross stitch I have done in at least…15 years or more, I think. Many of you know that I have been having to keep my foot elevated off and on since January due to cellulitis, so I decided to do something productive with that time (though sometimes I sleep, watch TV, or read during that time). There are multitudes of mistakes in this, mainly due to miscounting, but I don’t think they’re noticeable unless you were comparing it with the pattern. The ol’ eyes aren’t what they used to be!! But I am enjoying it immensely and kicking myself for letting so much time pass without getting back into this.

The title of this pattern is “Take Tine To Be Holy” — a good reminder!

I think I’ve already shown most other things I have on hand that I have made, but here is a quick “rerun.”

Someone asked how I made this button wreath. I told more about it here, but basically I just cut the shape out of cardboard and glued the button on with a hot glue gun, using the flat, plain buttons as a base and then the decorative buttons on top.

This was made some 23 years ago when my first baby was expected or maybe after he was born. It’s put away now since all my babies are taller than I am. 😦 But it was one of my favorite pieces.

I made the lampshade here, not the cross stitch — that was a gift from a niece. Someone asked in the comments how I made it. I wrote more about it here, but it was in a class. At the time there were patterns for how to cut out the shade plus a pattern for the decorative part available at craft stores, then an Exacto knife was used around the edges of the leaves and they were bent in a little so the light would shine through. Then the shade was glued to the top and bottom rings. I saw lampshade-making paraphernalia at Michaels’ a while back, but it was more designed for gluing fabric onto it. I googled “pierced lampshade” just now to see if patterns were still sold and got mainly places where you could buy already-made ones, but then I Googled “pattern for pierced lampshade” and found a few sources, so they’re still out there. This particular pattern was from an instruction booklet titled “Shades of Yesteryear” by Marion Pond, and I did find a copy of it just now on eBay.

And lastly:

Well, God made them…I just carried them 😀

(This post was updated to answer questions from the comments section.)

Interesting stuff

Posted on April 9, 2008 by Barbara Harper

Isn’t that just the most creative post title you’ve ever seen? 🙄

Just wanted to share a few interesting — er – erudite — um — cool links.

Karla Dornacher is giving away a Morning Glory Garden Clip Art Collection for use in scrapbooking, crafts, women’s ministry events, etc. I love Karla’s art work and have referred to it before, and this is just lovely. All you have to do is comment on any post on her blog during the month of April to be entered in the contest.

I discovered Nesting Place when Mrs. Wilt at The Sparrow’s Nest linked to her Window Mistreatments 101 and another explanation of window mistreatments. Her window mistreatments most often don’t require sewing — or hardware! I love her creativity and humor. Her motto: “It doesn’t have to be perfect to be beautiful.” If you click on “window mistreatments” in her sidebar under “Labels,” you’ll see several variations.

I love seeing other people’s handcrafted cards, and these at This and That are just gorgeous. CPS also regularly shows handmade cards by several different designers and just recently had a tutorial on Hybrid Cardmaking — using the computer as well as scrapbooking and stamping supplies. I am nowhere near this level of cardmaking, but it’s inspiring to see these!

Mrs. Wilt at The Sparrow’s Nest has deemed April “A Month of Modesty” and has been posting almost every day this month on that topic. One post I appreciated the most was “How Shall We Then Dress.”

I never thought much about childhood food allergies until a good friend’s daughter developed quite serious allergies to several foods and sometimes had trouble getting other people her daughter interacted with to take them seriously. One of my blog friends, Janeen, deals with the same issues. She linked recently to one of the scariest stories I have read in a long time about a child having a severe reaction to a piece of candy from a teacher who was supposed to know about her allergies and who had access to safe alternatives. Food allergies are serious. Even deadly. And usually complicated — as Janeen wrote recently, it’s not just a matter of being peanut-free or milk-free or whatever. People who work with children need to be very careful. Even as just a neighborhood mom, I would check with a child’s parents before giving them anything to eat.

Finally, thanks to those who have been praying about my leg. The red area is almost gone. In fact, some times everything looks clear, but then a little redness will flare up during the day. The thing that scares me is that it had almost cleared up before — but then it recurred covering about twice as much area as it did the first time. I’m trying not to be fearful of that every time it looks to be a little redder than it was — I am still keeping my foot up off and on throughout the day and praying a lot that the Lord will heal it completely — and trying to just leave whatever happens with Him.

Taking the plunge

Posted on February 27, 2008 by Barbara Harper

It all started with the Bloggy Giveaways…

One blogger was giving away copies of Leisure Arts magazine she had found in a thrift store. I loved that magazine back when it was in print — it was one of my all time favorite craft magazines. I didn’t enter the contest, though, because I thought I had several issues of it.

That prompted me to look at my “stash” of old craft magazines, and to my dismay, I only found five issues of Leisure Arts. I may have others in a box somewhere.

But I do have at least six magazine storage boxes of craft magazines, not to mention a couple of stacks tucked away in drawers. I had stopped adding to them because I had so many, but I had kept them for years thinking they were too nice to dissemble. However, they are taking up valuable space. My bookshelves are overrun, some shelves with double rows of books, and my craft storage area is at a premium.

So I decided the time had come. I needed to go through my craft magazines, pull out what I thought I might realistically do some day, and toss the rest.

Though I was sad about it at first, the more I sorted through them, the more comfortable I was with my decision. The first stack I picked up was from the 80s. Some of the projects were woefully outdated (remember “country” white ducks and geese with blue neckerchiefs?), some of the crafts themselves not something I would ever take up (remember quilling?) A lot of the pages were filled with old ads, old columns about then-new books and popular trends, etc. I might still keep a couple just to remember them by if there are any with a lot of classic or favorite projects.

In the craft world, as in other areas, “what goes around comes around.” It’s funny how different crafts come and go through the years with little differences. So many people do beaded necklaces now, and I thought that was a relatively new thing, but I found some in those 80s magazines that look like they could have been made today.

This is the top level of the cabinet where I keep craft supplies and ladies’ ministry stuff.

Looks awful, doesn’t it? And I have even cleaned out a few things already. But I have a ways to go. This tends to be where I “stuff” things in this room when I am doing a quick clean-up of tabletops and work spaces. There is a shoe box full of photos as well as another stack that I need to work on some time…

I’ve been going through the magazines and marking things of interest in the evenings when we’re watching TV or the guys are all on their various electronic devices. My computer is a desktop in the ~~hodgepodge room~~ sunroom, so if everyone else is in the living room with their laptops or PDAs or whatever, sometimes I’ll go in there and read or go through recipe magazines, or, now, old craft magazines. (Family togetherness in the new millennium! LOL!) I don’t pull out the pages right then because the patterns are usually in the middle of the magazine on a large sheet that needs to be pulled out of the staples. The sheet is printed on front and back, and I would need to either cut out or photocopy the ones I want. So I am doing that in a separate step, and that will give me another opportunity to weed out even further the projects I really want to keep.

Probably most of what I have are Crafts Magazine, which is still in print. I do still look at it occasionally, especially around Valentine’s Day and the spring issues. But I have developed a more discerning eye about what to keep: I have so many craft projects stacked up already I am trying to be careful about adding to them.

Besides Leisure Arts, another favorite was Country Handcrafts.

I wish this was still in print, too. This makes me wish I knew how to knit!

I am finding that Leisure Arts’ projects are pretty classic.

If we ever have a little girl in the house…

Sigh! Love that!

Remember soft sculpture? I never did it, but I remember when you could see little piggies in craft magazines everywhere.

No, I’m not keeping this one! 🙂

I’ve noticed that there don’t seem to be many general craft magazines any more besides Crafts. They seem to be broken up into specialty ones dealing with individual crafts like scrapbooking, quilting, cross stitch, painting, etc.

It’s been inspiring to go back through these. And I feel good that I am working on getting this area organized and pared down.

Show and Tell Friday: Sampler and raisin rack

Posted on January 25, 2008 by Barbara Harper

I’ve mentioned before that, though I’ve cross-stitched several things over the years, most were for gifts and I don’t have many in my home. One of the pieces I do have is not one of my favorites. I probably should change that and work on some new ones, huh? 🙂

When I first started cross-stitching, samplers were very popular, as was the whole Early American look. So I made this.

I do still like it ok when I really look at it again, but there are so many more beautiful patterns that have come out since then.

At one time we wanted to build a log cabin, and this would have fit right in. Now, though, I’m leaning more toward almost Victorian decor.

Around the same time I bought this, which I was told was a rack that used to be used for drying raisins. This one was decoupaged.