Let The Home Renovations Begin! Craft Room to Master Bedroom

Once I was in the thick of the home renovations, I found it difficult to stop!  Even though I had severely pinched a nerve in my neck during the kitchen reno, I was not ready to slow down.

I asked hubby what he thought about switching up our larger bedroom with the smaller craft room.  I reasoned that I spend more waking time in the sewing room than I do in the bedroom. And after all, when we are in the bedroom, we are in the bed, so why do we need a large room!  Am I right or what?

So he agreed! HAPPY DAY! I'M GETTING A LARGER SEWING ROOM! (next post, lol)

But first, I have to move everything from the sewing room into "the man cave."

Yowsa!  I have a lot of stuff!  Time to turn the "craft" room solely into a "sewing" room. With the exception of our computers of course.

I have a ton of yarn and bow making supplies out in the shed now. I must make a craigs list posting!

Alright, here it is, the bedroom reno:

The craft room gutted and cleaned

I painted a line around the room because I wanted to use two paint colors and add some chair rail.

My color choices: Glidden Sea Spray for the upper and  Glidden Ground Nutmeg for the lower. After using the Valspar from Lowes the for the kitchen, I chose these from Walmart for the bedroom. Much better coverage in my opinion!)

Hubby hard at work!

We did new trim in the ENTIRE room! Baseboards, doors, and added the chair rail.

My first ever decoupage project!  I loved this paisley fabric  I already had in my stash and thought it would be perfect for this!  I also decided to accent with the green. Valspar Spritz of Lime. I went back to the Valspar simply because they have better sample sizes than walmart does and you can choose your color sample, where as walmart has a limited selection of premade samples.

After doing all the brown, I decided to add a pop of blue instead of all brown!

YAY!  The king bed fits perfectly!  My rug is not large enough for the room so hubby gets the cold hardwood in the mornings, lol.

Some artwork I picked out

There is a distinct love theme here

Hubby bought this for me as a gift years ago, the heart has our names in it. (Darren + Jennifer)

I loved all the colors in the piece and actually bought it before we ever thought of moving rooms!

Gotta have the tv!  And a new door to boot! Lowes carries doors that do not have the holes precut for only 19.00 and my hubby is Mr. Handyman so that was not an issue.

My handmade bench I picked up at Salvation Army, which I paid way too much for but I feel in love and it's for a good cause right!  I got this bit of fabric at a rummage sale, I plan to use it to cover a cushion for the bench...maybe!

So it's cliched, I don't care, I love they way it fits in to the whole romantic air of the room.  See my cute lampshade too!  And these would be my makeshift curtains!  Yes, they are a shower curtain folded in half, lol. I am supposed to be sewing new curtains, not blogging, but dang, I needed to catch up!  The curtains are the same paisley material I used to decoupage the built in.  I am thinking I might use that same fabric for the bench cushion...maybe! lol

Yes, another cliched, but again, I don't care, it's my bedroom and I like it, lol.  I am planning to do a collage of pictures all around this.  I have been gathering pictures of Hubby and me over the past 21 years to use here.

And there you have it!  Our new little love nest!  I can't even begin to express what a warm space this really is.  It is so romantic and cozy. I love snuggling up with hubby at night.

So of course this is all well and good, but all of my sewing room is STILL in the mancave, so up next is the SEWING ROOM!!! YAYAYAYAY!!!!

Let The Home Renovations Begin! Kitchen/Living Room

So the story goes as follows:

End of March-Beginning of April time frame.

In-laws are in town for a visit.

Father-in-Law (FIL) is an electrician who always does small projects for me when he is visiting.

FIL: So what kind of projects are you working on

ME: We are kicking around the idea of making a breakfast bar between the kitchen and living room. Darren (Hubby) says that it is not a load bearing wall so we should be fine to make a breakfast bar here.  But I kinda wonder what it would be like to take the entire wall out.

FIL: Let's find out!

TWO HOURS LATER THE ENTIRE WALL BETWEEN MY KITCHEN AND LIVING ROOM WAS GONE!

Hubby doing some measuring on the living room side

Hubby Directing son

FIL on the kitchen side

Two hours and a lot of dust later!  No wall!!!

Just a big open space...So now what do I do with this? You can see that I had previously painted my cabinets white and green.

I decided I wanted to do decorative bead board as a backing to the cabinets...still green...

Then I painted all the cabinets a beautiful steel grey (Valspar Steel City to be exact) and I used Valspar Pearl Ash on the inside.

I decided to use the bead board on the lower cabinet doors too!

I went bold with Valspar Apple a Day

Still finding a home for everything but decorating coming along beautifully!

This is pretty much where we are at right now.  The exception is that we have a portable island that we have had for many years lined up with the dishwasher lengthwise in the kitchen.  The cabinets to the right will be going into the pantry and I will be adding a small retro kitchen table on that wall. I also still have a ton of painting to do as well as new flooring to install and a couple more can lights to bring balance to the room.  Part two of our kitchen/living room reno will be starting soon!

And I loved the red so much I decided to paint my entry door with it!
 My sweet little grandson Liam!

My house has been in a cloud of dust for what feels like months now!  Oh wait, it has been months!  You know, once one project starts, another is bound to be close behind!

Adult Sized Dora Inspired Back Pack

I have been insanely busy over the past three months!  March 10th was the last post I had made.  At that time I had just finished the thread rack. Well the thread rack has a new home in my new sewing room!  So let me catch you up to date with a series of posts.

The Dora Backpack turned out so good I was so happy to do this project.

The first project I was working on after the rack was a Dora Backpack for an adult sized mascot costume.  The woman had the costume minus the backpack and asked if I could do one up for her.

A little peek at the inside

This was the first time I had used the satin stitch on my machine!  I was pleased with the results!

Some vintage buttons, because I like to try to add a little vintage touch here and there on my projects :)

Can't see it to well in the photo, but  I did pockets on either side and  did a pretty little flower stitch across the top of each.

Homemade Thread Rack

I finally decided I really needed a rack to hold all of my threads.  I was getting really tired of digging through my drawer trying to find the exact shade I need or needlessly purchasing thread I already have!

I thought about buying one, but HEY, I have a handy, dandy hubby who is perfectly capable of BUILDING one for me!  And he sure does love doing projects for me (why yes, I am a lucky gal!).

So we went to Lowes and picked out some wood and some dowels and TA-DA here is my new thread rack!

I will take credit for the paint and the fabric across the back and for my cute flower in the corner and for them not all being at the exact same angle, lol, I got impatient and did not carefully make sure they were all tilted exactly alike before I glued them.   But, I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE, my new thread rack.

It could even be made for less or for free by using reclaimed materials!!!

Easy Peasy Baby!

Deployment Yellow Ribbon Bag

I have been a busy, busy girl!

A few weeks ago I did a project for a customer.  I was very honored to create this bag for her, honoring her husbands service in the U.S. Army.

I created this bag using one med. size Army top. Tutorial to follow in the coming weeks.

Front of bag using back of top, pockets and collar

Back of bag using two wide panels from the front of the top sewn together in the center as well as another large pocket.  Sides of the purse were created using the lower half of the sleeves including the cuff

Side of bag using the lower half of the sleeve and re positioning the pencil pocket

Inside of bag again using large pocket on one side, and two smaller pockets on the other, over  lapping to create a small pocket in the center, so there are actually five total pockets on the inside of this bag.

Today's Bargain Fabrics

I just got home from a quick trip to my favorite place...THE THRIFT STORE!!!!

I would say a good 90% of my stash is reclaimed fabric.  I can not resist a great deal on beautiful fabric.

One man/woman's discards is this sewers treasure!

But seriously, I love bargain shopping for fabric, I could care less how old or "out of season" it is, if I like it, I like it.

Fabric to me is much like a blank canvas to a painter, or the lump of clay to the sculptor, I look at a piece of fabric and see it's potential, I think about what the original owner may have intended for it, it's just a pure delight for me to purchase fabric; new or reclaimed, but reclaimed is much more fun (not to mention affordable)!

So here is what I found today:

Can you say SUMMER DRESS!!!! 3.25 yards, $1.99

Tote Bag Anyone?  Cyrus Clark Teflon 1.75 yards, $1.49

Cute little nautical themed purse, oh this could get too fun with some red ribbon and vintage anchor buttons!!! 3 yards, $1.99

    

New Purse Design

Phew!  It took me maybe three weeks to do this bag because I was ill for two weeks, but I finally got it done!  My inspiration for this bag came from this purse. I had someone who loved it, but I just didn't think it was quite right for her, so I came up with this one instead:

The Front

This purse had a few firsts for me as well!

First Zipper!  Not too bad!

Three extra pockets

I am so proud of my first zipper I have to show it twice!

The Back

My first time doing feet...there is a learning curve to these things, lol

So in hindsight, I would not use cotton batting again!  The layers were just too much.  I know you can't really see it in the pictures, but this purse is kinda cuddly with all that fluff, lol.  I had used it with success in other bags, but not so much with this one.

I would definitely do the feet before sewing the bottom on, after is not the time to do it, lol.

And just because two of my grandchildren were in the room while I was taking pictures:

Lilliana

Darren

So that's it!  What do you think?  I am looking forward to starting a new project tomorrow!  Be back soon!

New Fabric Added to Stash!

I just can not resist going to the fabric store, GAH!  My hubby is so patient and loving and has learned to just grin and bear it, lol.  Here's a look at what I added to my stash today:

 It was not until I took these pictures that I realized these prints are identical except for the colors!  Guess there was something about it that piqued my interest!

This is actually a yard of the paisley and six coordinating fat quarters :)

This is an upholstery fabric for patio furniture, but it works so well for tote bags.

I can't wait to get started on some new bags!!!!