Thursday, December 31, 2009

Trip to Terrain- Part 1

(Entrance to Terrian in Oct 2009. They had so many varieties of pumpkins throughout the store but this large white beauty stole the show!)

In the continued effort to clean off my digital camera I am finally blogging about my fall trip to Terrain! This fall I attended a wedding for a friend in Philly and much to my surprise and amazement my hotel was less than a 1/2 mile from the store! I even made my husband leave early so we could go to the store before the wedding and I have to admit I took more photo's of Terrain than the wedding. Whoops! But the inspiration! Oh, the eye candy!

(Congrete container with two evergreens and grass. I love the monotone of plant color but the texture difference are the show stopper. The wind was blowing the day I was there and the grass made the arrangement very fluid.)

I have always loved gardening. Much of my garden has been confined to containers while we rented but now that we purchased a house... you better watch out! I want my landscaping to be beautiful throughout the seasons so I am being very deliberate with plant decisions and hardscape. My landscaping is going to be a project that will grow and mature over time since I can't make the financial investment to get it done in one year so I want to make sure that as I continue to make purchases and plant foundation plants it will all work out in the end.

I want to get married again here!

I really loved the simplicity of the signage they had throughout the outside portion of the store. Inexpensive burlap screenprinted in grey.

Close up. Couldn't you imagine an elaborate garden party with Welcome banners made like these? Or for a farmers market?

There are many more photo's to share. I loved sorting through them again. Rediscovering these photos is not helping my spring itch!


Tuesday, December 29, 2009

After Xmas Vacation

(Vintage bark cloth with contemporary navy blue polka dot. Fawn applique drawn by me.)

I am on vacation all this week. So I am getting a lot of the pesky "to-do's" crossed off my list. One of those items was downloading pictures from the camera. The bag pictured above is a recent favorite. It was the first one that sold at my recent craft show. Good thing I thought ahead and I have another one cut out ready to sew. :)

(I miss summer! I've ordered my Burpee catalog this week. December isn't even over with and I am already itching for spring!)

I forgot all about these beautiful red pepper. Friends of ours gave them too us at the end of summer. I am not a huge fan of peppers, but I do like roasted red peppers in several recipes. So I spent the time and roasted them all up. Then stored them in the fridge covered in olive oil. And then they molded. That was crap.

(oh, baby!)

And this is the project I started today! I got this vintage flexsteel sofa from my in-laws basement. The cushions are trash. They have completely deteriorated into nasty dust. This week I had planned to visit a localish fabric distributor to pick out upholstry fabric, but don't you know they are also taking a vacation the exact same time I am! What a bummer! But I am pushing ahead regardless. Today I started making a muslin pattern to use for the tailored slipcover I am planning to make for it. So far so good. Tomorrow I finish the test cover and order a new cushion. I can't wait til this is finished!

Saturday, December 19, 2009

Snow day!

I may not be blogging often, but that doesn't mean I haven't been busy! My good friend volunteered her mother's house for an open house spotlighting all her crafty friends and those with home businesses. So I got to work and sewed, sewed, sewed.

Here are a few photo's of things I made. In the mean time we are completely snowed in today. Which is OK with me. This weekend was a free weekend for us. Yay! No plans! We slept in. Enjoyed a hot drink before we headed outside to play in the snow. By 9am we already had 6 inches on the ground.
It's now 1pm and we have passed the 8'' mark. And it's windy too. So you can't even tell we shoveled out our walkways and driveway. We are taking it easy today. I spend most of the morning warming back up with my favorite drink. 1 scoop of hot chocolate mix (dark chocolate swiss miss) + coffee+ dollop of cream. Homemade mocha. Yum! I have seen recipes for homemade gifts where you mix instant coffee with hot chocolate mix in a mason jar. Make some homemade marshmallows and BAM! excellent and yummy!

I'm working on getting the kitchen in order and then it's upstairs to the sewing room to finish a custom bag. Then it's time to make a tree skirt. I picked up the fabric from a local shop and I love it. It's festive but not commercial. No santa's, no snowmen. I'll post pics soon enough.
And I completely missed any Xmas etsy business. But oh well. I'll have to get some pics done soon from the items that didn't sell at the craft open house. Or I can just save them for Mother's Day because the same friend volunteered my house for another open house 3 weeks before Mother's Day! But I also had some friends volunteer to help clean so how could I say no?