Where Bloggers Create 7/24/09

Karen over at MyDesertCottage has invited us to participate in her "Where Bloggers Create" today and since I have spent a great deal of time creating my own blogging/craft/creative spots, I opted in. Please go visit her to view all the others who are sweet enough to show us where they sit each day to do all the lovely things you see on the blogs. It's fun and exciting to look at each person's space. And it just may spur you on with ideas on how to beautify your home or just a room or a vignette within a room even.
~*~

As I've said many times before we moved 4 years ago from a 5,000 sq. ft. on a rolling hill acre house to this 1800 sq. ft. house on a sub-division lot more manageable. The move necessitated a severe cut in furnishings and space for us. BUT we do love it here. We have 4 bedrooms - master bedroom on one side of the house and the other 3 on the other side of house. Only one serves its purpose as a bedroom - ours. The other 3 are hubby's office, my craft/sewing room and a computer/home office for me, so I really have 2 rooms for such. They are small rooms however.

I've given it much thought though and creating can be several ways under the umbrella of "creative." While I love creating items by sewing, I also create by decorating my home and writing, blogging and photographing many things. I want to do it all—or at least as much as I can—before I leave this earth and I don't have many more years left to do it all. So come with me for a tour.........

We are entering the craft/sewing room from the hallway. This is what you see when approaching. There are very, very few "spaces" in my home that are not feminine, girly, romantic, froufrou or pink.

View of the whole room.

The blue school desk I've had for maybe 35 or 40 years. It's been many colors and has been blue for about 25 years now. I've been so busy with other things I've not had time to strip it and repaint it another color. The little brown vintage school desk was purchased a few months ago and has not gotten the attention it deserves but it will soon. This is where I sew. There is hardly a spot in this room that isn't taken up with something. I doubt I could squeeze one more item in. I plan on giving away some of the fabric and craft supplies to a little girl I know who loves to craft.

Shelves hold a great deal of stuff in this room.

This is where I paint. Several people, my daughter included, have told me to paint, decoupage or mosaic the top of this vintage school desk also. Nuuuuuuu, never will happen. That is the original desktop and I love it, but mainly because it is indestructible! I can wipe anything up from it—paint, Mod Podge, hot glue, anything! I did, however, put a shabby chic roses fabric on the front after I painted the sides and back. It was pretty ugly before I did that. And I got that darling little chair at TJMaxx in Boise and love the look of it also.

Can we say "shelves of fabric" here? Yep, lots of fabric but truly I've seen people with much, much more than this. Some of the shelves DO hold craft things. I plan on doing some more birdhouses and trying once again to sell them. *Sigh*...............

Trust me when I tell you THIS is looking neat for this photoshoot. Usually this room is a nightmare, including the desktop!

We are now leaving this room and traveling down the hall to my home office/computer room. I'm a computer nut! Love them.

~*~

As we come out of the craft/sewing room and head down the hall to the front of the house we approach the my office/computer room.

My view upon entering the room. My daughter gave me those hanging lanterns. They are really beautiful when lit. I made a cord cover for them with some very pink toile. I love my window seat and the view out of that window onto the roses in the front yard and the street.

Also upon entering the room you will see my desk. This is the hub of our home, not the kitchen. I'd eat out 5 nights a week if we could. I'm in here most of the time. I do everything on this computer—skype and chat with kids, pay bills, blog(!), buy things on line, play at being a photographer and editor and generally conduct business. :-) BTW, that desk is a cottage style but I wanted something froufrou on the front besides the white so I velcro-ed it to the desk. When the glue wouldn't hold on the fabric I stapled it with my stapler and it's holding nicely. No one would ever know unless they got up very close to see the staples.

My view as I sit at this desk and work. That is an old wood bench we've had for about 25 years and painted it red. The paint is now flaking off and I just threw a Rachel Ashwell cover over it and a bench pillow until I decide if I want to paint it again or not. Probably not. I like it like this. The little shelves in the corner hold items I made that did not sell on ebay. Their loss. I'll probably give most of it away now.

Close up view of my desktop area.
I bought 3 chair covers from a lady on the web and gave one to my daughter and one to another woman blogger who is a stay-at-home mom and struggling to make ends meet on a budget. She needed a lift-me-up! But this was my favorite chair cover.
My desktop is usually clean. What you see is what is usually on it except for my camera which I was using to snap this shot. The white thing on the left front corner is my JBL Creature with tiny speakers on each side of the monitor. It gives me fantastic sound when listening to music on iTunes. My monitor is an Apple Cinema Display and I run Apple OSX Leopard on it. I can't wait until Snow Leopard OS comes out next year! OSX is the most fantastic operating system there is.

Yes, this dress hangs there all the time. A friend had it and makes pillows and stuff out of old wedding gowns she collects. I got this one for a steal. My motto is "froufrou up"!

If I am selling something or just want to post a blog about it, this is where I do my photoshoot on it. This has changed over the last few years but this works just fine for me now.


This little shelf holds all my computer stuff on the top shelf and just miscellaneous items on the other two. Subject to change, of course. I have done photoshoots on this also.
A closer view of the corner of the window seat and the shelves. There is also a lot of computer paraphernalia on the top 2 shelves. My coffee filter rose is in that vase on the top. My daughter made me the mosaic old sewing drawer and I bought the hand painted one from a woman on ebay several years ago.

We now head out the door down the hallway where I have some Charles Wysocki americana limited edition art prints hanging on the walls. He is one of my favorite artists. That little shelf contains things people have given me in swaps and items I made that never sold. I guess I'm not too good at selling, huh??? ;-)

So there you have my "creating" spaces, chicks. Thank you for visiting. I now have to go check out the other participants.
~*~

Random Thought:

Look at the world around you whimsically. I do and it never ceases to delight me because it gives me such a laugh.

Pink Saturday 12/27/08

Beverly at How sweet the sound emailed me recently to remind me of Pink Saturday and whether I was participating or not this week. Well, as things go I almost forgot about it until this evening!!! So while hubs was talking to his sister in Pennsylvania I grabbed the camera, turned out all the lights in whatever room I was photographing and snapped pix. He's used to it by now so he just kept right on talkin' to that chick and I just scurried around trying to find some pink things that you haven't already seen. This was a next to impossible task! But I'll post some pink "fluff" for ya because I do NOT want to disappoint Beverly. ;-)

While this isn't PINK it is lovely. I discovered it today while taking down our tree and putting ornaments away. (Yesssss, once the Christmas day is done that tree comes down to give us more room. BUT we have figured out a place we can put it next year to leave it up a tad longer.)

Anyway, this ornament was packed away in some soft cotton batting and I'd almost forgotten about it. Someone special gave it to me many years ago and I thought I'd share it with you. I didn't put it back in the ornament box but intend to hang it somewhere in my office or sewing/craft room. It isn't light but actually heavy and I'm sure it's fragile.

Look at those gorgeous grapes and the gold on this beauty. I absolutely love it.

A pretty pink box I keep my Sculpy in, a purple box I keep decoupage ephemera in, a pink toile box I keep my finished clay roses in and a pink rose box I keep "secrets" in. *Wink*

You may not have seen these little birdhouses I make. Not really for the birds but just full of barkcloth fabrics, "icing" and roses. I've never been successful at selling most of them and that's my gain as I place them around my house for my pleasure. "Their loss; my gain!" But they truly are a labor of love, intensive to make and absolutely stunning when seen in person.

This is one of the first I made. I started from the bottom up. I cut out foam board, glued it together and added all the lace, fabric, roses and stuff you see on here. It also is truly lovely. Ooooh, not because I made it but because of the lovely rose fabrics all over it.

This one was made with House Inc. fabric. Very very expensive - about $30.00 a yard but it never sold either. I added the pink "icing" and it looks so lovely with the Waverly polka dot fabric I hated to sell it but then it didn't sell so my gain again! I'm very philosophical about it. My interest in selling is to share some of these beauties, not to make money so it isn't essential that they sell.

This one I went over the top with!! I added so much stuff just because I wanted to - tiny birds, paper roses, buttons, vintage lace trim and vintage fabric, leaves around the bottom with little flowers. Adorable.

Just because I thought I'd add one more "PINK" item for you to see. Hah. Have a wonderful day, my sweet chicks.
Beverly, I DID it!!!! Now to sit down and chat with the hubs..... *Sigh*..........

Pink Saturday 8/23/08

Here it is again - Pink Saturday. Last week there were 80 participants and that's good. I, however, never did get around to visiting all of them and for that I'm very sorry. That's just a lot of surfing and I simply didn't have time with all the other things in life.

I have favorite bloggers I visit. Some just because they may need a lift that day. Some because I simply like reading what they write. Some because of the "eye candy" it provides and we ALLLLL know how I feel about "eye candy"! ;-) Some because I have a history with them and they make my day and make me happy - my ebay group. :-) Some because someone said, "Connie, you're gonna love this blogger so go see her." Well, I've whittled my favs down to about 120 now. Yep, that's just the ones I visit pretty regularly. I have a feeling I'm going to have to "whittle" some more. But I definitely try and visit as many as I can. I may not leave a comment if it doesn't particularly warrant a comment but most times I do.

Now, part of why I blog is to help all you chicks make your homes beautiful. That can involve many, many things - from having a loving home to having a comfortable home people like to visit for the "comfortableness" to simply making "all things beautiful" in the home. (Messy teenagers excepted here!) So let's look at how you can have gorgeous containers out of some "mundane" things.

Old pickle, olive and marshmallow creme jars are what I've done to make these lovely jars. Spray the lids, add roses to the tops if you desire, add some decoupage of your kitchen or whatever you desire (I always do roses.) - and this can even be pix of the munchkins(!) - and then start putting "stuff" in them. I've combined things in these jars and still have to add more stuff to a couple of them, but I'm putting nails, screws, picture holders, etc. in one of them. The other has just snippets of ribbon, fringe, just anything that adds color to it or that you can think of that you'd use everyday and want to be handy while "pizzazzing" up the place. So don't throw those jars out; put them to good use, chickees!

My little wall pocket where I put papers until I'm ready to file them.

My packing supplies! Yep, I will occasionally send out something in these pink envelopes. They sure do get noticed when someone pulls them out of the mailbox!

This is a faux rose and you've seen it many, many times over in my photos but it is the most realistic rose I've ever seen in silk. It has fooled just about everyone who has seen them in my home. It is truly exquisite and I was lucky enough to buy all that the store had of these. I have them all over the house. I've never seen them again anywhere. :-(

Since it is "pink saturday" I thought I'd show off this "pink" coupon I got. I've obliterated some of it so it can't be copied and taken advantage of, but not many "coupons" come in PINK! :-)

Steal of the day..........uhhhh, I mean my "best deal" of the day. These sheets were $7.99 each and the pillow cases were 2 for $3.99!!!!!!!! Squeeeeeeeal!! Now, I'm not needing sheets at the moment but I simply could NOT pass these up. They are high-end decorator sheets and pillow cases. PLEASE enlarge the pix to view the tone-on-tone loveliness of these beauties. Just so gorgeous and SOFT!

I have been waking up at 3 or 4 in the morning lately because I'm so jazzed with energy. (My ebay group is starting to worry! Hah) But I'm fine, just so much to do I need to start early. ;-) Anyway, I got up and started making a pillow for the popup trailer Love Bunny just got. (Yes, it will be frou frou-y and I'm working on it!) I have this quilt that I finally cut into and made this darling little pillow to take camping. The quilt is double sided so one side of the pillow is one pattern and the other side of the pillow is the other rose pattern. Came out quite cute I think. The one in the background is a bed pillow that just may get to travel to the campgrounds also. ;-)

A cute little card someone gave me last year. Pink mice chicks having a cup of tea.

I made this polka dot rose to put on this little letter holder about 5 years ago. It is on a paper holder for a wall next to a desk. It has specialty rose papers in it also. Now I've learned there is a blog called the Polka Dot Rose! Cute.

A sweet tag given to me last year for my birthday which is coming up next friday the 29th!! Yippeeeee...........

Okay, little chicks, get busy and make your home gorgeous - no matter what your style. I've given you enough "hints" for this day..............

My Friday Night Date

Every friday night my sweetie takes me out for dinner. It's called "Date Night" and I get to do what I want to do. No, it doesn't include looking at model trains, which is hubby's hobby! But it can include looking at fabric shops! Hah! Well, my choice was Michael's craft store and I was armed with 3 coupons. Yeaaaaaaaaaa......3 coupons! I spent 2 of them on these 4 little shelves and the other one on some stuff for hubby. See, I ain't entirely heartless!! ;-)

I plan on painting them either white or a pale pink. Did I ever mention to all ya chicks out there that "PINK" is my favorite color??? Hmmmm......??? Yep, it is. I may even paint some of my roses on them. Or I may just decoupage them. Haven't decided yet.

I spent just about all day yesterday painting some clay pots white. I'm not fond of the clay look and just decided to cross one more thing off of my to-d0 list.

Today I want to clean my house for sunday. I've made a decision that I need to devote my sunday to the Lord, although I don't clean it or do any work on sunday. I've given it much thought and discussed it with hubby after seeing a woman's blog who stated the same thing. Polly's blog is a treat for the eyes as well. So I'm spending more time with hubby and doing more "spiritual" things on sabbath day.