Christmas Decorating

I’ve been thinking for years now how someone NEEDS to make a magazine that comes out in August or September that gives all us folks some ideas to decorate for Christmas. I can see the ideas and copy them but don’t come up with the ideas myself. So I’ve thought this would really be nice for someone to do for all us folks that NEED ideas every year on decorations.

Every year I try to decorate different because I like it different but I use the same decorations on my tree year after year. I AM tired of them but that can get into some expense buying new ones every year. I try to just do a different color.

This year I am already thinking and wondering HOW I am going to decorate! Was here at B.A.M. (Books A Million) and actually found a magazine called Christmas Cottage!!! WOW someone had the SAME thought I have had! IT EVEN SAYS, Joyful Holiday Ideas on the cover! It’s a special collectors issue. Hmmmm in looking online I see they had it out last year as well and I am sitting here wondering HOW I missed it! 

Anyway if you are wondering how you’re going to decorate to, check it out!

Rose

Projects

Was just on a forum and saw something I’d like to make one of for decorating our table up for Thanksgiving. I have this box a friend of ours gave me many years ago and I have had NO IDEA what I could use it for until now. I saw this idea and thought of the box right off. I also have a swag that I have grown MORE than tired of that I could tear apart to use for part of my fillers. Then all I would have to do is find some squash and pumpkins to lay on it like Jennifer did. Jennifer does some awesome displays! I love what she does because it’s so unique and always very nice! She always inspires me! To see some of her work you can go HERE TO SEE IT. I don’t remember if she sells her things or not. You may have to register for the site to be able to see her displays but I can assure you, you will love her stuff and you could also get inspired like she does me.

Here’s my box I was referring to. Ignore all my mess because I have been in here working on some wooden buttons for my sewing room and THAT’S WHY I LOVE the room. I can walk out and leave it as is.  

Here is the swag I am going to use for the wooden box. Then I will put me some pumpkins or something on it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

See WHY my heading is “Projects”? This is one of my buttons I have got primer on. Going to paint it black probably. Still trying to decide. You can find the circles at Hobby Lobby but you will have to drill your own holes in them. This one below was a cheese ball base. I sanded it really well before I put primer on it.

This next one is much larger. I put the little spools of ribbon in the pic so you could see how large it is. I have several different sized buttons. I am going to group a few together for a display and I will run ribbon through the holes so it will look like the thread. I had to get hubby to draw out the holes for me on the other ones because I got wayyyy off on my holes on some of them. BUT when I get the ribbon in there I don’t think it will be quite as noticeable. It’s hard to judge where to drill the holes.

See how hubby found the centers and then found out where the holes needed drilling? Cool huh? Some I have primed already and some I don’t. You can see all my fabrics (2 pix down) that I need to fold up at the end of the table in the box. It’s higher than the table is. lol When hubby and I had the house built 20 something years ago now, he, and our builder and I built the table. We used it for several years but it was just too large for our small dining room and when we had company someone always had to get up to let someone else around the table. I’m just sooo glad I didn’t get rid of it because it is PERFECT for my sewing room!!!! We finally finished the sewing machine tables and we had some left over wood I am having to store under the table but hopefully it wont be there for long. I/we are going to build some shelves on the far wall from the floor to the ceiling for storing things on. In the second pic you can see the table a little better. I had to put down some plastic under the table so I can varnish it again and it wont get on my floor.

I am SO GLAD the room is as large as it is because if it had been 1-2 foot smaller I would not have had space to put all the sewing stuff!

I finally got some of my pix framed for the wall. Going to use black and some pinks in my colors with the green wall.

 

Come back to see more later. I will get this project done to but it may take me biting off pieces of it at a time to get it all finished but I am determined I am going to finish this one and I just HOPE I am happy with it all when I do get finished with it. So may times I in vision my projects in my head and then when I do finish them it doesn’t look like I had it in my head. lol But hang in there with me and we’ll get er done.

Rose

Canning Soup

Don’t you just love it when you get to can up a bunch of things for the winter time for your family? I know I do, and I canned up 16 quarts of Beef Vegetable soup yesterday. I had another quart and a half but I put it in the fridge for us for lunch today because hubby was chomping at the bits to eat some of it. He came inside saying how gooood it smelled. (wink) I eat a small bowl of it myself at lunch time yesterday. He was out mowing and had already eaten by the time I got to. You know how it is when you’re doing something you can’t just stop on, you have to finish before you can eat. I had to finish cooking it in the microwave though since it wasn’t completely done. (it hadn’t been canned yet)

To find out how long to pressure can my soup I checked HERE. It said to can it for 75 minutes at 11 pound pressure. I actually canned it for longer than that though. I always use my timer so I can make sure on the time.

The ingredients in it are, peas, tomatoes, tomato juice, butter beans, corn, onions, potatoes, carrots, string beans, and I’m sure I’m forgetting something.

I got the recipe from HERE. Gina over at HomeJoys has some awesome looking recipes on her blog!!! I also canned her Chicken Corn Soup a couple weeks back. It’s really good to! I think this is the best soup I have EVER made though! It is SO yummy! I didn’t get but 17 1/2 quarts but I was missing a couple ingredients that I  thought I had. I remember standing over the celery in the grocery store and I must have gotten side tracked because when I went to get my celery out of the fridge there was none there. I had about 1/2 pint bag in there that I had cut up  and had left over from making the chicken corn soup. So I used that and added some celery salt to help flavor it. I also added more beef broth because I really love the broth in soups.

More shots of the canned soup.

I WILL be making this one again! Gina said on her blog that she saves her chicken broth when she boils chicken and when she is ready to open a jar of her chicken soup she uses the broth and throws in some noodles in it and get the noodles cooked and then she throws in the jar of soup and heats it through. That way you have way more soup. I plan on doing that with my beef soup but using beef broth instead of chicken broth.

Rose

Organizing

Worked on the sewing room a little bit last night trying to get the sewing machines fixed on the table. Also tried to organize it some so I will able to find my things. I will make me some little boxes to go in the cabinet cubes later on when I can get the time and feel a little better. The embroider machine is under the one window. Then the serger in close to the window in the front. Then the other sewing machine is there close to the first window where the pole lamp is standing. Now I should be able to just sit down and sew which will be so neat!

I found me some black frame picture frames on Friday when we took my husbands Aunt shopping. I have some old pix of pattern covers for aprons I want to hang to decorate it up some. I am waiting for my roll of vinyl paper to come in so I can get the quotes made for the border at the top. They’re going to be black as well.

I was noticing the other table that is under the window, I need to move it out some. I guess I am going to have to move the filing cabinet that is in the corner So I can have the table out some more. When I put the chair in there to use the embroider machine it’s a little tight. I can deal with it but I think I want it out a little bit.

I am going to attach a hinge on the side of the cube cabinet and put me a ironing board on there. Will have to put a little spindle leg on the ironing board and it will fold back when I don’t need it. That will really be handy when I am sewing and need to press a seam!

I’ve got to keep my eyes peeled at garage sales and thrift stores for me another office chair and hopefully I can recover them in the same fabric so they will match.  I have several pieces of upholstery fabric I have found at the thrift stores so I have plenty to choose from.

I hope to soon get started on the balloon valances. I will post pix of those to show you to.

Rose

Sewing Table

Working on the sewing table some more today.

In the pic below we are attaching the legs and the book case to the counter top. When we flipped it up right we realized it had a bow in the middle of it. So now we’ve got to put another leg in the back area on it. But we quit working on it since hubby was ready to quit and it was getting a little dark on us to.

I’ve got to sand it and fill in the screw holes and then paint it. Now we have one more to go.

Another view of it. The other table will butt up to this one from the side where the legs are to form the L.  I think I might paint the legs and the book case the same color the top is.

Hopefully it will rain for a few more days so we can get this project finished!

Stay tuned for more on the sewing tables.

Rose

Cube Book Cases

Well we got one of the cube book cases made today. I found some directions online but we really didn’t follow them because we had to have the book case a certain size since I wanted them for the legs of my sewing table. I think the lady that had the plans for the cube book shelves was Anna White. They were like 6-9 cubes and I couldn’t go but with 4 because my table top for the sewing machines isn’t but like 29” wide. You can search google and find her free plans if you’re interested in them. It’s not hard at all to make.

This is the side of it. We made it from 1x12” pine boards. It’s not finished yet as you can see. Anyway I wanted the little cut out at the bottom on each side so it would look like it had some little legs. Plus I have laminate flooring in the sew room and I didn’t want it sitting flat on it.

We’ve also got to put the back on it yet. It got dark on us this evening when we were trying to make it. Plus we were about to starve to death so we had to eat dinner.

We don’t have a table saw or anything like that. We only have a skill saw which we can’t cut a straight line with. lol And we have a jig saw and a band saw but the boards are too long to use the band saw.

I haven’t decided yet what color I am going to paint it. But it will probably be a light green color.  I’ve got to fill all the screw holes and sand it down.

 

Now we’ve got to make one more of them. I found some laminate counter shelves at the thrift store back at the end of last summer. There is a long one and a short one. I am going to use these cubes for each end for the counter tops to sit on. That way I will have some storage areas and like I said yesterday it will be in an L shape and have legs where the L meets in the corner and then these cubes on the ends.

I also found THIS last night and got really excited because these things are high when you need to buy several! So now I’ve got more decisions to make! lol What color to make my little baskets for the cubes? They will probably be pink though since I wanted to use green and pink and maybe some black. Plus after we get these cube cases made I am going to start getting the 1x12” boards to do the wall shelves with and I want to do them in cubes like I blogged about a few weeks back. SO I will need to make several of these little baskets.

Yesterday I posted that I wanted to use the fence post tops for the legs but when we got to figuring how wide it was going to be I didn’t think they would look right since they are quite large. The little case isn’t but 29” wide. I am SO EXCITED to finally have one of them almost finished!!! The wood and counter tops have been lying on the sewing room floor for ages it seems like. So I decided to do the sides like this so it would have some legs.

We have a tropical depression out in the gulf and it’s putting some rain on us. It’s been too hot to do anything outside so we haven’t been able to get them made until now. With all the rain it’s brought the temps are down and so I hit hubby up to lets get started on the sewing machine tables today.

Stay tuned for more on the cube cases.

Rose

Sewing Table

I was just telling a sister in law of mine how my husband and I need to get started making my sewing machine tables while we have some cooler weather with this little tropical storm. It’s bringing us some much needed rain AND cooler weather! It’s been so hot I wouldn’t dare try to make the shelves we need for the tables.

I want to put these THINGS for the 4 legs on each shelf. Naturally I will put them upside down so the ball part will be touching the floor.

The book cases I want are something like THESE but I want to use this post top for the legs.

I saved this next pic so I could show my husband what I was wanting and I can’t remember WHERE I found this pic. But this is how I want to make them but I want the post tops as the feet on them as I already said. I will paint mine as well. Isn’t this a pretty room in the pic below? I wish you couldn’t see my sewing room from my living room so I could paint mine blue to. But don’t think the green color I have my living room and this pretty blue would look right side by side. BUT I sure do love this blue! In fact it looks to be the very same color I have painted our bedroom.

Anyway the reason I wanted to use the post tops as the feet on mine is because I have the laminated floor covering in my sewing room and I figured it would do better with the whole book case not sitting on the laminate flooring.

My sewing machine tables will be sitting against the wall and in an L shape since I have two laminated counter tops. We will make one book case for each end of the L shape and on the ends that the L touches I have some legs to put on each top. IF that makes any sense to you. Anyway like I was telling my sister in law, with this rain it’s cooler out now so I am thinking of trying to get hubby to lets start on them tomorrow morning. Hopefully I can get him to do it.

I have 3 machines that will sit on these tables. A serger, an embroider machine and a sewing machine.

Stay tuned for more about the sewing table.

Rose