Patience and Persistence Pays Off

There is a little stretch of wall in the walkway between the living room leading to the family room that I have been needing a table for. Because it functions more or less as a hallway, the table had to be narrow, not more than 12-13”.

This is the table that had been there until now. It was too small, and it was wobbly, making it an unsafe place to display much of anything. (The frame was temporary.)

The last several weeks I had really kicked my search into high gear. Hours were spent on craigslist, special trips made to antique malls, and of course the regular thrift shop rounds. I saw several that might have worked, but it had to be cheap. I saw several that were super cheap and might have worked, but weren’t exactly what I wanted.

This week, on one of my regular consignment store stops, there it was. It was long side-to-side, but it was only 12” front to back. Price check: $65. Doable. I was standing there looking at it and measuring it, and another lady came up like I wasn’t even there and started running her hand across it. As soon as she backed away, I picked it up and took it to the front. Things go really fast at this store, and I couldn’t leave it to chance.

Look how well it fits in the space.

More importantly, it’s not a hazard to passers-by. You can see how anything much more than 12” deep would have been in the way.

One of my wishes was a little bit of storage, at least a drawer, at the very least a shelf on the bottom for display. I got the shelf. Maybe I could put some of those displaced pantry baskets there. What do you think? I don’t know.

Oak furniture is not typically one of my favorites. In fact, when I first got this, I was thinking paint. I still might, but I’d almost feel bad to do it, because it does have a very nice finish, even if it is oak.

Either way, it’s a perfect fit, it’s sturdy, and I can display lots of things on it. Including Aunt Maggie, a family heirloom clock, which I never had a good place for before. I’m so glad to have her familiar tick-tock, tick-tock and on the hour and half-hour her Bong!Bong!Bong! . It sounds like home.

I’m sure I could have found a perfect table much sooner if I had been willing to pay a lot more. In fact, I saw an ideal little chest of drawers at an antique mall, but it was $400. Out of the question.

Time after time, patiently continuing to search has turned up the right item at the right price. I guess that’s why it’s called bargain hunting.

Start ’em Young

Back in September (exactly one month ago today, actually) on one of the nights it was Pinkerbelle’s turn to set the table, she did this:

We all had one. She came up with it and did it herself. I’m not sure where she got the idea, because I certainly don’t make us place cards. She wanted me to take a picture and put it on my blog; got the photo, but didn't blog it until...

Today, I was over at The Shabby Nest looking at Wendy’s beautiful table setting. Guess what she did? Scroll down to the second-to-last photo.

Apparently I have a future decorator on my hands!

Pantry Labels

Thanks for your encouraging words yesterday...actually, I like it better too!

Yesterday I spent about an hour wandering around Hobby Lobby trying to figure out how to make the labels for my new pantry bins. I wanted chalkboard, but I wanted it fast.

I looked at wooden tags that would involve painting. I didn’t want to wait for that. I looked for chalkboard vinyl paper. Couldn’t find any. While perusing the scrapbooking section, I decided just to buy one 33cent sheet of black cardstock.

At home I had some burlap. For a sturdy backing, I used a piece of cardboard that they put in the bag at Archiver’s to keep the scrapbook paper from bending. Any scrap of medium cardboard would work fine.

This photo shows a progression. Cut the cardboard to the desired size, glue it to a larger piece of burlap, then fray the edges of the burlap and trim to about 1/4”.

I used Fabri-Tac glue that I got at Hobby Lobby for applying my sons’ Boy Scout patches. It’s heavy duty stuff. You could probably just use regular glue, but it would take longer to dry. This stuff adhered almost instantly, like a glue gun without the burned fingers. I applied the glue right around and up to the edge of the cardboard so that the burlap wouldn’t fray beyond that edge.

Next , I cut the black cardstock slightly smaller than the cardboard pieces. I used regular chalk to write on it, which worked fine, but obviously you can’t erase it, so you’ve got to get it just how you want it the first time (or have an endless supply of black cardstock, which I didn’t).

The thing is, it smudged if you touched it. I needed some kind of fixative. I tried hairspray.

At first the chalk nearly disappeared, but once it dried, it looked fine again, and it didn’t smudge!

At this point, I consider the cardstock a temporary solution, so I just used a little piece of tape to stick it to the burlap tag. That way I can easily change it if I want to. (I know that technically you’re not supposed to store onions and potatoes together, but I’m a rebel.)

Rats. This morning it smudges.

Well, like I said, temporary. Liquid chalk or a white paint pen might be the solution here.

There you go! You get the idea. Cute labels for your pantry.

Do-Over

A few months ago, I reorganized my pantry. We spent a Saturday afternoon driving around to different Walgreens stores so I could get enough of the baskets I wanted.

The thing is, even at the time I had a little feeling in the back of my head that the baskets weren’t right for the job. I suppressed it, though, because I had seen lots of pantries with baskets around the blogs, and I wanted my pantry to look pretty like ya’ll’s. And I wanted it to be blog-worthy. I wanted to impress you.

Act like a high-schooler much? Um, yah.

So here’s the basket-ed pantry. It looks nice, but as I suspected, these baskets weren’t practical. They didn’t slide well on the wire shelves (the wicker sometimes snagged), and they were too tall to easily get things in and out of without sliding. You also couldn’t easily see what was in them, and in reality, they weren’t quite big enough. Are you impressed?

So, a couple weeks ago I sucked it up and went back to Walmart and got the Sterilite bins that I originally rejected. Today I got around to redoing the whole thing.

Here it is now, much more functional, and you know, it still looks pretty good. Plus, I still have all those baskets to do other things with. Tomorrow I will tell you about how I labeled them; I think it helped cute-ify it.

The moral of this story is this: in your home, do what works for you (do not apply this to moral decisions about life in general). Don’t do something just because you think the bloggers will like it. For the most part, none of them will ever be in your home anyway, and none of them will have to live with it on a daily basis. And you'll be happier in the end.

Here endeth the lesson. I’m probably the only one who needed to learn it.

Over the Top

My friend Amanda at Serenity Now (love that name, though I’m more on the “insanity later” spectrum) has bestowed me with the “Over the Top” award! Thanks, Amanda! This one looks fun: I have to answer each question with just one word. (A few of the answers may make more sense if you know that I wrote this at 10 pm last night.)

1.Where is your cell phone? purse

2.Your hair? reddish

3. Your mother? heaven

4. Your father? preacher

5. Your favorite food? sweet

6. Your dream last night? strange

7. Your favorite drink? iced coffee

8. Your dream/goal? contentment

9. What room are you in? dining

10. Your hobby? blogging

11. Your fear? cancer

12. Where do you want to be in 6 years? happy

13. Where were you last night? home

14.Something you aren’t? outgoing

15. Muffins? banana-chocolate chip

16. Wish list item? deck

17. Where did you grow up? Ontario, Canada

18. Last thing you did? snack

19. What are you wearing? pajamas

20. Your TV? ancient

21. Your pets? exhausting

22. Your friends? scattered

23. Your life? repetitive

24. Your mood? reflective

25. Missing someone? sisters

27. Something you’re not wearing? shoes

28. Your favorite store? thrift

29. Your favorite color? red

30. When was the last time you laughed? today

31. Last time you cried? forget

32. Best Friend? Craig

33. One place that I go over and over again? bed

34. One person who emails me regularly? Dixie

35. Favorite place to eat? Rendezvous Cafe

I’m going to pass this on to anybody who wants it, anybody who needs material for their blog today, or anybody who just thinks it would be fun. Leave a comment and let me know if you do it, because I’d like to read it!

Total Overhaul

Today I became quite…intimate… with my seam ripper. It was a rocky relationship; tempers flared. But in the end, we were able to pull it off.

I totally started over on my felted wool bag.

I liked it, but I knew I wouldn’t use it because the straps were way too bulky. I wasn’t quite sure where I was going, but I knew the straps had to come off. I cut pieces off, I ripped out seams, I sewed new ones.

And ripped the new ones out again, and sewed them up again. My sewing machine is having tension issues. If you sew, you know that bad tension can really mess things up. And in turn, give you tension issues, like screaming and slamming things down in disgust.

But I digress. I turned the two straps into one long one. I made a lining out of scraps of drop cloth. When I was, at last, finished, I decided that I needed some closure.

No, not the kind you get by burning your ex-boyfriend’s love letters, although there were moments when I definitely considered doing the equivalent to my sewing machine. Whatever that would be.

What I needed was a button. At the antique mall last Saturday, I bought two bags of vintage buttons. I found one that worked, sewed it on, and made a little strap to button up the bag.

And here’s the finished product:

I think the butterscotch-colored button adds a little pizzazz. And look, I even have a pocket for my cell phone!

Okay, so the inside’s not too pretty. I still have a little clean-up to do on dangling threads. But it’s functional, and I really like the outside, and I will definitely use this second reincarnation of the wool sweater, which was the whole point in the first place.

Oh, and here’s a tip for you from Dixie. Shaving your felted wool will greatly reduce the fuzzies.

Recycled Wool Sweater Becomes Tote Bag

Last year my friend Dixie (happy birthday, Dixie!) introduced me to Betz White and the concept of felting wool sweaters for repurposing. I even picked up some sweaters at the thrift store for that purpose.

Then I recently saw Wendy’s sweater tote, subsequently found one at Canadian Living, and decided a tote would be my first felting project.

I found a men’s large 100% wool sweater on the dollar rack the thrift store. I liked the tone-on-tone stripe.

After two trips through the washing machine on hot with high agitation, and machine drying, it shrank down to this (use the couch cushions for size comparison).

I cut it apart:

The above linked instructions just used the shoulders as the handles, but I wanted longer straps to be able to carry it over my shoulder. So, I cut two basically equal pieces from the sleeves.

I pinned and sewed across the bottom (wrong side out). The instructions show turning it so that the sweater side seams are down the front and back; I didn’t do that since I was changing it up a little. I did sew a gusset, as shown on the Canadian Living diagrams.

After turning it right side out, I pinned the pieces of sleeves to the shoulder sections (which I had cut apart at the seam) and sewed straight across. There were two of these, forming two straps.

Felted wool will not ravel, but for a finished look, I turned all the raw edges under and sewed around.

Here’s the finished bag!

This was fun (other than the sewing machine giving me fits; I think it may be on its way out), and the end result looks pretty good, but I learned a few things.

1.The two wool straps are too thick and bulky to comfortably carry on my shoulder. Next time, I’m going to modify it to a single-strapped bag.

2. A lining would make the bag more functional, and neater looking on the inside.

3. Hand-sewing certain sections would make for less frustration while topstitching on the machine, and a nicer looking finished product.

I plan to try this again and will show you any improvements I’ve made.

Edit: Go here to see how I remade this bag.