Please don't mind all my junk all over the vanity! HA. I LOVE how big the mirror is.



and the chair...

Honestly I am quite embarassed to post these first few pictures and the stories behind them.

I will start with a back story. (sorry, its long...i know)
Parents married for 17 years.
Left for college in the fall of 2000
My mom left two days after the new year.

Needless to say my dad...was hurt. I don't even know if he saw it coming.

He would sleep on the couch because he didn't want to sleep in 'thier' bed.
On breaks I would stay with my dad and he still slept on the couch.
I graduated and lived back at home.

I had a childhood cat - Patty  she got senile and she would just pee in that room.
Carpet and all (THAT IS WHERE I WAS EMBARASSED) I hated to have people over. You could smell it.
Patty died, he closed the door. Like the room didn't exist.

2005 I moved in with my boyfriend.
2007 Moved back home
Since then I have been doing small things to improve the house.

I finally convinced him to let me go into the forbidden room. Actually, I called Purple Heart and made a pick-up date. My dad couldnt really say no at that point!

Removed all the furniture (including a king size waterbed), boxes of clothes and shoes my mom left, boxes of items he was 'collecting', etc.

Tore up the carpet. I knew we had hardwood floors! It was so sad because I knew the horror I would find underneath.  (again embarassing to even think about posting these pictures)




I did a lot of reading online. I used oxyclean and bleach and water mixtures. I used vinegar. Even some crazy stong solution from Home Depot. The stains were DEEP!

With a 5 inch orbital hand sander, I went to work. I sanded what I could. I sanded FOREVER!
Progess after some sanding:




I bought some stain. The darkest I could find with out going for ebony. I really didnt want to paint the floors which was the other option in my head. Other than tearing up the board and re-doing the whole floor.
After one coat:


 
After two coats: (i am still tempted to do another coat - but my father told me we can do it later - i worked hard enough)



We moved in furniture. He refused to buy a new bed and being the pack rat he is. Salvaged my old futon I was throwing away - 3 years ago! Where he stores all this stuff - im still clueless. I think theres more hidden rooms I dont know about.

I made him curtains because well curtains are EXPENSIVE. Bought all new pillows, sheets, comforter. I plan on painting the walls because the room is so dark (with that ugly wood panelling)




I can say after 7 years of seeing him sleeping on a couch, I am so excited he has slept in there two full nights (i just finished 2 days ago - a 2 month ordeal - start to almost finished). Old habits are hard to break. But having your own room is priceless.

thank you about the turkey cloth. It was alot of fun to make!!!! it is double knitted.

Here is the other side:

I had bought two of these tote bags at wal-mart. I just got around to embroidering the second one for my aunts birthday.

The flowers are Jenny Hart and the parrot is from a coloring book.

Enjoy.

I have finished my moms commissioned Tree Air Freshener Cozy.

One side has a palm tree i cut out of felt and embroidered onto the fabric - i got to use my varigated thread. i was uber excited!


Side two has a cupcake with felt, embroidery and beads as sprinkles.



I really enjoyed playing with felt as part of my embroidering process.

Here is my package from Macreede. Thank you so much, everything is so wonderful.

Black, white and gray. oh how i love these colors! The shape is so cool. I wanna learn to crochet!!!


I really need to learn to crochet. These just look so amazing.


ohhhh a bath poof - it reminds of white confetti cake with all the colors in it.


And all my extra goodies. I was SPOILED! Wonderful vanilla lotion, body wash and bath crystals. Peppermint fizzies for my feet. ( i have never used these and am excited to do so!) A candle that smells really great. A hair wrap towel....oh i always wanted one and just never bought one.  And a cute washcloth that expands when it gets wet.


Thank you again Macreede. I really enjoyed being your swap partner.

I figured this was more embroidery than a sewing project.

I love for my car to smell nice, but I hate to spend good money on pretty air fresheners that never smell that great. The tree ones always smell nice and there are so many scents to choose from. But they are U-G-L-Y!

I came up with an idea to make a cozy to cover them.

My best friends little brother is graduating high school and instead of just giving money. I thought I would make something personal for his new car.  He played soccer forever and his number...you guessed it - 2.

I took two peices of material - 5x7. Embroidered my images. Hemmed the bottoms. Sewed the sides and top. Leaving a small gap in the center at the top. I tried to do the hand embroidered eyelet at the top for the string to poke through. (If you try on of these, make sure you dont make the hole too large because the tops of the trees will also poke through!)

So, on to the pics. (I inserted a closed tree to show to how it fit)





I told my mother about my idea and she already commissioned me for one with palm tree/beach theme.

my friend Mike just got his own place. He just bought the dining room table. Which is all black wood. I decided to make him placemats since the first time we all had dinner there he used kitchen towels so the dinnerware didnt scratch his new table.

My new love is the Dover Clip Art books. I found one with pin up girls. And Ikea has plain thick cotton placemats for 99 cents!  What a cheap housewarming gift.  I didnt want to go crazy with color, so i thought all black thread would work perfect for all the images.

I am going to make a series of 4.

Here is my first one: a mermaid (please don't mind the pencil marks)

Close up:


The whole placemat:


Second: Female Buccaneer

Close up:


Whole placemat:

This is my first swap. I hope this is good for a teaser shot. I have seen some people post closeups of the objects;  just bits and pieces. I thought it would be fun to show the package as a whole all wrapped up.

I bought a jean jacket last year and couldn't wait to do something crafty to it. I was going to paint it, sew stuff to it. But I could never figure out what I really wanted.  Until I bought Jennys book. I love the sparrow/swallow patterns.

Sitting home sick yesterday with a tummy virus, I decided to put a small one above the breast pocket and a larger one on the back lower right pattern.

Back:


Front:

Up close: