An early Christmas present...and it's white!!

How lucky am I? One of our sons is a furniture maker and I had mentioned a while ago that I wouldn't mind a new bookshelf for my ever growing collection of magazines! A couple of weeks back he asked if I'd like him to make it for me for Christmas. We worked out the measurements and he dropped it in the other night as he wanted to clear his shed!

 

And of course I had fun dressing it which included a few Christmas decorations.

I also got the ivory paint can out and sprayed a couple of things. First the Christmas trees and then a couple of brass looking candle holders.

 

And some closer shots of the bits and pieces in the bookshelf.

I think this will be my last post before Christmas, so hope your Christmas is a happy one.

Gingerbread Sleigh

Just a quick post...we received this beautiful gingerbread sleigh which was made by a friend. Each piece was intricatally decorated.

 

 

I am hoping to finish work today (I'm my own boss so can make that decision!!). I am planning to get the spray paint and glitter out to decorate some things in preparation for hosting Christmas with my family. Looking forward to it!

Hope your Christmas lead up is going well. 

Personalised Christmas Placemats

Wow, what a week...as many of you would be aware many parts of Australia received an enormous amount of rain over the past week with many peoples homes and entire towns being flooded. We can't complain but we did have lots of water come pouring in our family room windows which saw us empty out the linen cupboard of sheets and towels and use all our tarpaulins to try and stop it soaking into the carpet.  The carpet is still drying but we came out of it ok. Hence not much blogging going on this week!!!

In 2007 we had all of Paul's family up for Christmas. I wanted to give them some sort of keepsake of the day, so I made some personalised placemats with digital scrapbooking. I created them on the computer, printed and laminated them.  Each placemat was the same but had a picture of them with their name.  We had 17 people so there were 17 placemats!

 

A couple of elements I used for the placemat were a gold leaf and gold lace.

You can dowload the transparent png files to use in your own projects. Download lace here. Download the leaf here.

Another year I made some other placemats and coasters using Gold cardboard. I cut out the star shape in the middle and laminated it. I then used the star shape and pasted it onto a square piece of cream card, laminated it and used it as the coaster.

 

Here are a few shots of our family room on Tuesday night when the heavy rains invaded our space.

We had someone come in and soak up the water from the carpets which got very wet despite our attempts at keeping it off. A few days later and its not too bad but we have a commercial fan still going this morning, trying to dry the last of it up as it has still been soaking it up from the cement underneath.

Anyway as I said we were the lucky ones, not too much damage and we didn't loose power like many others around our area.

You always know Christmas is on it's way when the cherry's appear in the shops. We got given a large bag from a local grower...yum!

A few garage sale finds for Christmas

As all my family are coming for Christmas this year I am starting to plan decorations and food etc. A few things I have been thinking of getting was some large glass jars to put candles in to dot around the outdoor area and a larger candle candelabra than the one I already have.

Well what do you know...on visiting a couple of garage sales on Saturday morning I found a box of large glass fowler jars and a candelabra!!! Also a couple of other things that might make an appearance at Christmas time!

The Jars...$5 the lot!

 

The candle holder for $2....I will give it the white paint treatment!

 

And a few other things for $3. I'll also give the basket a spray of white paint.

 

This old 'Church' vase...that's what I call them as that's what the ladies always used at Church for their beautiful flower decorations!

I might create a Christmas arrangement with gold painted branches and some sort of simple decorations...need to think about that more.

Here is a shot of my wheelbarrow by the back door. The petunias are starting to flower nicely. On the weekend I planted lobellia's amongst them, so by Christmas time it should be full of colour.

Christmas sidebar freebies

I'm getting a bit excited with the approach of Christmas day and all the festivities that happen along the way.
We are having all my family coming for Christmas this year (20 at last count). As we live in a regional area they are all travelling between 2 and 3 hours to be with us this year. It's always good when we have a family Christmas up here as they all usually stay for a few days and make it a mini holiday.

A couple of years ago when I had a different blog I created some Christmas sidebar graphics so thought I may as well offer them again for you to use in whatever way you please.
Click on any of the below images, right click your mouse and save to your computer. You can give the image a link back to my blog but it is not essential. Enjoy!

My favourite shabby quilts

As much as I love quiting and quilts it's never something that I really got into making myself besides a couple of real simple ones. I've tended to buy them along the way.
Here are a few of my favourites.

 

And my most favourite is about 6 years old and I use it most nights. It lives on my recliner and when I sit down and relax at the end of the day it just becomes automatic to put it over me...a bit like a security blanket. I always take it whenever we go away as well. It's so soft. I've always hand washed it in velvet soap whicih makes it smell nice too!

A few posts ago I featured my sister at her art class working on some tulips. Here is her finished piece. Not bad for something that was meant to be a test piece.  Excuse the photo as it was taken off my phone, so not very good quality.

Quilt Hangers

Our second son is a qualified furniture/cabinet maker with a local business. In his spare time he is kept busy making various items for people. He was approached by a local retail outlet to make some white compression quilt hangers, which he has done.

There are many wood stained hangers out there but those with shabby chic quilts might be interested in these Antique white ones he has made. They are a simple design which goes with today's minimilistic type style. Here are a couple of pics, one with the different sizes and one just to show how the quilt is held.

The compression quilt hanger is designed to hang your quilt, wall hanging or tapestry firmly across the width of the hanger. The material is held securely between 2 pieces of timber that are compressed together by tightening the knobs. Your quilt will not come into contact with the screw thread of the knob, ensuring that your quilt is not damaged. The back piece gets screwed to the wall with screws and fittings that are supplied with the hanger. The screws will not be seen.

The quilt hangers come in three sizes, 900mm, 1200mm and 1500mm and there are 3 x 60mm screws, 3 x 50mm wall plugs for brick walls and 3 wall mates for gyprock walls also included.

If you are interested just email me and I'll provide more details. They are available to Australian residents only.

Easy cushion cover

In the November edition of Notebook magazine there was instructions to make a cushion cover with a shirt-front. It's super easy. I wanted to use the shirt-front as the back for my cushion as I had a nice piece of fabric that I wanted to turn into a cushion for our guest room.
Simply find a shirt that complements the colour of the front of your cushion.

Cut the shirt-front to size.

Place right sides together and sew all the way around. This is the great part, because all you do is undo the buttons to turn it the right way out and place the cushion insert inside.  Whalla a new cushion cover!

I have seen one on a blog with a pretty white ruffled shirt which was used for the front of the cushion but I couldn't find it to show you.

Hope you are enjoying your weekend.