Happy birthday to my son-in-law

I want to wish a Happy Birthday to my son-in-law, Michael. He's a wonderful husband and Daddy. So blessed to call him my son-in-law. 

Happy Birthday, Michael.

A nice surprise...

My front porch was starting to get a little worn down. It needed some of the wood replaced and a set of steps added as an attachment instead of the temp stairs that were by it. I came home the other day and their was lumber beside my porch. Next day, I came home and I had new porch railings and brand new steps. I was thrilled. So this morning, I enjoyed sitting outside with my morning Pepsi waiting for the sunrise and enjoying my little mums started to bloom. 

They are going to come back this week and stain everything to match, but I am loving sitting on the new porch. I would have gotten a picture of the sunrise, but it did get a little cold so I ended up going back in the house. Enjoy your weekend! 

Friday Foto Friends

I am thankful today to Ms. Debbie who sponsors Friday Foto Friends. I posted about a tomato pin cushion the other day and was wondering why tomatoes in a sewing room? Ms. Debbie did some research and found out the history behind the tomato pin cushion. It is fascinating. You need to go to this link later and check it out. 

https://www.rileyblakedesigns.com/pennyrose/blog/2017/02/07/the-history-of-tomato-pincushions/

Then I told one of our mutual friends, Georgeanna, about what Debbie found out. She was fascinated as well. Then Georgeanna told me about a lady who has a booth at Patriot Park October Craft Festival in Pigeon Forge, TN that makes pin cushions. Georgeanna said she buys one every year in assorted fabrics and always gets the apple. So then I had to, of course, Google apple pin cushions. Totally adorable.

And that was so different from the tomato it made think of the old saying "comparing apples and oranges." Then a light bulb went on and I looked up orange fruit pin cushion. And found this cutie pie.

Then using the word fruit made me think of strawberries. So I found one of those as well.

All those thoughts of fruit made me think of fruits and veggies and harvest time for fall. So I of course thought of pumpkins.  

Finding those two pumpkins made me think of pumpkin patches, especially when one of the Google searches brought up a bunch of the pumpkin pin cushions.

Which reminded me of Halloween and Jack-o-lanterns soooo.....you guessed it I had to Google that as well in pin cushions.

Then I realized I had searched for orange fruit pin cushions so it wouldn't just pull up orange colored ones. So I tried to search one more time for orange pin cushions, leaving out the word fruit. Turns out that the orange pin cushion is actually a flower from South Africa which reminded me I need to go water my flowers. 

Does it worry you just a little bit just how crazy my mind works? One thing always leads to another and I apparently have trouble focusing. Must be why I never get anything done. Have an awesome weekend!

Crafting & Sewing

As I work on redoing my sewing/crafting room, I keep heading back to Pinterest and Etsy for ideas. I need a new sewing machine cover. Maybe something with some red in it. 

Then I saw this design where it is similar to a place mat, just flipped over the machine.

I really love the fabric choices on this one. 

But I think the one where I could just make the "flap" style cover and put the ribbons on the side to tie it is the way I might go. Going to look for fabric over the next few weeks.  

Trying to think of a few things to incorporate. Here are some thoughts, but I won't do them all because I don't want red overkill. But I would love to find a vintage toy sewing machine to set with some vintage red sewing themed items to set across the top of the book shelves.

I mentioned before that my cousin uses picnic baskets for storage. I like this red one. I'm going to do a lot of antiquing over the next month or so. I'm going to look for one of these.

I am always seeing vintage cans and tins in good shape. This is a great idea to hold pencils, markers, paint brushes, scissors, etc. I need to start watching for some of these as well. 

I always come back to my blog posts to look at the ideas of things I want to remember. Well, this picture below is cute, but I am only saving it because of the little Russian nesting doll in the picture. I have one that is red, blue and yellow. A sweet gal who was on a work visa one summer worked with Allen at Dollywood. When her folks came to visit, her mother brought me an actual Russian Nesting Doll from Russia. I need to incorporate her as part of my red room.

I need a new curtain in the sewing room. The plaid is overkill with everything else in red, but maybe a valance only in the checkered fabric. I'll have to think about that.

I would love to find this small enamel cabinet. I had one similar to this years and years ago. I wish I had never gotten rid of it.

A cute idea for a small vintage rack holding some thread and a pin cushion. I have never, ever understood how they came up with a tomato designed pin cushion. I see no relationship to tomatoes and sewing, but they have been around forever. I may have to get one.

But I also like this pin cushion. Spray painted Styrofoam ball in in a gelatin mold cup. A little lace and a pretty button. Especially a button that looks like a Russian nesting doll face. OH! I just had an idea. I could separate my nesting dolls. I could put my thimbles in the big one, my plastic canvas needles in one, cross stitch needles in one and sewing needles in one. (The baby one doesn't open so it would just be for display.) I am loving that idea and set them beside this pin cushion on my shelf. 

Well, I have definitely came up with lots of things to think about. Now, I need you to help me think. I am doing the room in the majority of red, but need to sprinkle some other colors in there so it isn't too overwhelming. What do you think about Navy blue and yellows scattered throughout the reds? Or do you think a lighter blue than Navy or some other color totally? I appreciate your thoughts. 

Do you use Twitter?

I am a Facebook junkie. I love it for communicating with family and friends. But Twitter? Not so much. I am not a "tweeter". I don't full understand the whole concept behind the #.

I download the app once a year to keep up with everything for the Thirty-One conference and to share with friends while I am there. Then after conference, I take the app off my phone. I add it back during the voting weeks for The Voice and take it off again. I don't think people my age tweet as much as the younger generation. One of my favorite quotes of Sheldon's on Big Bang Theory is "Everyone was set a twitter. Although oddly enough, no one tweeted.

My favorite cartoon ever on the subject of Twitter is this one:

Yep, that's me. On Facebook while everybody else is tweeting. Have a great day!

In the Word on Wednesday

My friend, Jonathan King, is a very talented poet and songwriter. I love seeing all his work. But recently he has begun to take an even bigger interest in photography. He has learned how to use many apps and filters to create some unique items. He recently took a photo of a door and wagon wheel in one of the old homesteads in Cades Cove in the Smokies. He did some of his editing tricks and overlayed it with a bible verse and this was the result. I really like this.

Some cute ideas..

I wanted to share with you some cute ideas I found. This one is from my niece, Cindi. She did it with the tree leaves being her little boys hand prints. Isn't it adorable.

Another project Cindi did that I am absolutely in love with. It is pics of her, her husband Matt and their children Haylee and Chase. This is just the most precious project ever.

I can't wait to see what her next project is. In the meantime, here are some ideas I've seen that I like. This was recommended with a Dollar Tree cookie sheet. I recommend if you do one, pay a little more for a better sheet. The Dollar Tree one I tried looked cute, but when the temp in the house got cold or warm it would pop up or down on the corner and was really cheap so it didn't hang good. But it is a cute idea.

These are little plastic "drawer" units that you can get at Dollar Tree. The lady that did these bought pieces of wood for the side but I would probably just paint the sides with the new wood gel paint that can go on plastic to make it look like wood.

For the drawer fronts, she bought these label holders and knobs and Michael's to dress it up a bit. The end result is adorable.

This was really cute as well. A wall calendar with 31 paint chips in various shades. They put it in a frame and now use the glass on the frame as a dry erase board that they can change by simply erasing one month and entering the next.

What a cute idea for a night stand. Vintage suitcases stacked up the height of the bed. Now that is adorable. They put a picture frame on the top to "trim it out".

Cute and instant bookmarks. They used a scrapbook corner punch to round the edges and punched and hole and inserted string. Really cute.

This is the inside of a dresser drawer. They put cork in the bottom of the drawer, covered with material or paper and hung it on the wall for a cute cork board.

Another neat idea. Buy a frame with a mat, but cover the mat with a map of the area you vacation or get married,  honeymoon, whatever. Then cover the mat with a map of that area.

I have saved the most brilliant one for last. I absolutely hate garment bags. They are too bulky and when I travel I would only use them for my dressy tops. So they were so big my tops slip all over the place in them and were really wrinkled when I got where I was going. I saw this today. I had a spare pillow case and I pulled out my tops for when I go to the beach. It works! My pillow case was plain yellow but now I want one with a pretty design. It fits on good and snug but not to snug. I was able to get three shirts in one standard pillow case. I may get a queen and put a few more shirts in it. Things won't wrinkle now.

There are my cute finds for the day. Have a great day!