"Stuff I'm loving" Saturday

As I wander around blog land and the Internet I see so many wonderful things to make, great ideas and inspiration. Some people are so clever. I'm not talking about the perfect house/life  people. I'm talking about real every day people.  I bookmark a lot of them away for future reference, but I've decided to share some of them with you. Maybe this will become a regular feature of things I found in the past week or two or maybe it wont make it beyond this one post but this week I've been totally inspired by heaps of really cool things and wanted to share.

Marg's Ricotta and Spinach Cannelloni- I'm not a big fan of Cannelloni .  I made it once 20 years ago and vowed never to make it again. Thank Goodness I didn't listen to myself.  What I loved so much about this is that it's meatless (and we all know from my failed Meatless Monday experiment how much I love meatless meals-NOT  ) but I  LOVED it and managed to fill the cannelloni tubes without coating myself, the bench and the walls (very much) Definitely a keeper. Snaffle this recipe quick!

Some people are just clever. Lisa D over at Recaptured Charm refinished a cabinet. Yeah I know some of you aren't into furniture restoration/re-purposing. Wander over and have a look at what she did with it and I'm sure you'll be saying "Wow".  I just sat here in complete awe. And while you're there she's having a butterfly  jewellery giveaway.

The most impressive  quilt I saw this week was over at Love to Quilt. Quilting Queen's  Chinese Checkers Quilt is just stunning. There is something about multi-coloured bright quilts that just makes my heart sing. Since I failed miserably at maths at school and this involves something called a 60 degree angle, I'll likely never make one of my own , unless I become a quilting genius at some point. Thank Goodness  I can live vicariously through other people's eye candy and creativity.

For those of you with kid-lets, check out this great idea for party favours at Cap Creations.  Little fishes swimming in soap. In a bag ! Just like a fish you buy from the pet store!  Easy, Cheap and Impressive. You can even download the tags for free.

And I'm still really excited about the EQ7 giveaway. The 10 lucky participants have been chosen, and are running contests on their blogs. Many of those contests are now closed but Mary at Mequilter , and Ann at Prairie Primrose Stitches still have active contests. Wander over and comment if you're interested in a chance of winning  a copy of EQ7 for yourself.

I'm off to quilt! Hope your Saturday rocks.

How was I supposed to know what kind of wood it was?

Scenario: You buy a coffee table on EBay that the seller swears is solid wood and is in fabulous condition. When you get it home your husband informs you it’s veneer. (I'm not a forest ranger - how do I know what kind of wood it is?) You throw it out the back in disgust because you just paid 20 bucks for a  piece of crap you can’t use.

Confession relevant to this post: With our current computer desk, I sit in the reclining swivel chair, lean back and have my feet on the desk. All. The.Time. I'm doing it now. It’s comfy. It’s an old desk. I’m a slob. Take your pick.

We're planning  to renovate the computer room this year.  Our current desk is 18 years old, and we inherited it from my parents when they upgraded about 5 years ago. My Dad made it out of packing crates. It’s lovely, and  it’s quirky and  I’m sentimental but it’s time for change. I have a vision. The vision does not include me having my feet on the desk in future or the packing crate desk. What to do? Inspiration! We need an ottoman.

The ugly veneer coffee table might just have a second life after all.

                 

Armed with only with an ugly coffee table,  black spray paint, freecycle foam, a voracious command of swear words and 3/4 of a metre of material, I create. Stand back...this could get messy folks. My vision is sometimes less than visionary.

Voila- the finished result

I'm on a roll peeps...projects are working out almost like I planned left, right and centre. And I got to use my staple gun. Lots! There's 862 staples in the bottom of this baby. This ottoman weighs 400 pounds.  Now I just gotta keep the mojo going for the desk re-do.

It appears Miss Pyjamas is sentimental too. She has announced her intention of taking the packing crate desk when she gets her own place in the next few months, so my Dad’s desk will get a third owner and live to be a desk another day. Sentimental me is happy.

This post is also linked up to Lit and Laundry  Finished for Friday

Project Tease

This is part of my latest project...

I'm in love with those circles.

Not very practical but sometimes you just have to follow your heart.

Fabulous February Update

As part of Fabulous February I looked at the household projects that needed to be started or finished (or both) The back patio was looking a bit like a second hand yard. Not pretty.  My big priority was getting my hands on a staple gun for one of the projects. When I think of one of us wielding a staple gun I am transported to a memory of my childhood and my mother saying "Put that down or someone's going to lose an eye " We didn't own a staple gun in my childhood, but the "Put that down or"...rule applied it seemed to almost everything.   Both of us  kids managed to get to adulthood with the right number of eyes so the naggng paid off. Thanks Mum.

We lashed out and bought  a staple gun and how freaking awesome is this tool? I’ve been running around ever since looking for things to staple. I’m going to select projects from now on purely on the basis of whether I can somehow work my staple gun into the process and I’m pretty sure I can sell my sewing machine because now I can just staple a quilt together. Love , Love Love the staple gun.

As usual, I digress. But thanks for sticking  there with me, waiting for me to get to the point. Did I mention how much I love my staple gun?

So far Mr Pyjamas and I have managed to finish two of the million projects I had in mind for this month. Whooooooo Hoooooooooo we’re on fire!

This is the side of the house BPC. (Before Project Completion). We all have an area like this – a neglected area that nobody ever goes to and nobody ever sees, except the neighbours, so you completely ignore it – and said neighbours whisper about how lazy you are and how awful your garden/yard /house looks.

See how the dogs look surprised because they've never seen us in this part of the yard before?

This is the same area now....after one hour on a Sunday morning. I'm going to get some mulch for those garden beds.

Completely inspired by Chad over at Bald Man Mod Pad , the second project really appealed to me for the back wall of our house. I saw it a while back and thought "I'm so gonna do this". It was a true recycling project. The filing cabinets cost us nothing. They were being turfed out at my work because they were occupationally unsafe as filing cabinets, and when we removed the drawers and runners we offered those bits on freecycle. Someone took them for shed storage.

Take two condemned filing cabinets, rip the guts out and paint them

Take a messy part of your back yard and clean it up thereby limiting opportunities for your neighbours to talk about your laziness.

Finished  planters. Gorgeous. Pat yourself on the back, and enjoy the envious stares from the neighbours.

Paint was a leftover from a previous project, pavers to raise them off the concrete were leftovers, and plants were moved into the planter from another part of our garden. This project cost us $36.00 for dirt. (Does it seem strange to anyone else we had to pay for dirt?)

Projects three and four are under way as we speak. One is being accompanied by the copious use of profane language by Mr. Pyjamas. Apparently that helps with the process somehow.

By the way I had an awesome childhood and my mother wasn’t a bigger nag than anyone else’s mother. However she was a worrier about safety. We weren’t allowed to play with guns, knives, sticks or any other sharp objects. (Go Figure!)We still found creative ways to injure ourselves, like the time my sister rode her bike off the edge of the verandah into the rose bushes and the time I had an 8 kilo rock drop on my head. Mum  also had an abnormal obsession about us getting our fingers trapped in slamming doors. Aside from that she was completely normal and an ultra-cool Mum.  Love ya Patty. Thanks for giving a rats about whether I had to go through life as a cyclops.

It's All Go Here

So it turned out to be a productive day.

Aside from the usual Saturday stuff , watering pot plants, washing and the like, we painted the old filing cabinets in preparation for their new life as garden planters.  I had fun spray painting an old table with black gloss paint to turn it into an ottoman, (I  now have fingernails that make me look goth and we're going out to dinner tonight) I popped out to buy new sunglasses and came home with two pairs for the price of one and I got some blocks completed for Bluebird Quilts 9 patch quilt for Illene. I'm pretty sure my 1/4 inch foot isn't exactly 1/4 of an inch.

Needless to say I didn't touch my HST quilt. There's always tomorrow before the Rob Thomas concert.

I'm off to put on black eye liner, black lipstick and heavy eye shadow to make it look like my black fingernails are a fashion mistake and not a painting mistake.

A Melting Pot of Random-ness

I'm just sitting here stuffing my face with a Cherry Ripe reflecting on my day....

I go back to work Monday and I don't feel I’ve achieved much this week, so I vowed to make today an action day. I’m usually pretty good at getting through my “To Do” lists but this week with being away I feel like I’ve been slack. I also think I expect way to much of myself but that’s a whole ‘nother blog post. I just don’t do “relaxing” very well. Or maybe my relaxing looks like other people’s work. Whatever. All I know is if I'm not doing something  I'm feeling lazy.

We have been in the market for a new desk for our computer area for a while. Everything I like is about $400.00. Being the scrooge I am about some things (fabric isn’t one of them) I decided to look pre-loved a while back but nothing was taking my fancy. I don’t want something ordinary and I don’t want crappy wobbly veneer Ikea rubbish. (Apologies to anyone who likes Ikea, and the Ikea people)  I finally found a possibility  on Ebay. The universe appears to be  are smiling on me (no doubt to atone for her shocking behaviour of last week )  because it’s one street away from my house and the price is right. If I win I can carry it home. Im bid nipping so hopefully I'll get it for a fair price. ( please don’t send me hate mail for being a sniper)

I can see lots of beautiful remodeling possibilities with the desk, especially after I viewed it this morning. My heart beat just a little faster when I saw it, because its 40-50 year old solid oak. I'm seeing this done up in a funky style, although I'm not sure what that will look like just yet. Assuming I win it.

Off to my favourite op shop after desk gawking,  just for a look see- I haven’t been there in about a month or so. I managed to get some crazy bargains.

3 metres of  material - far right.
1 vintage sheet (in the middle )  You would think after all my bitching about THAT quilt , I would never want to see another vintage sheet again as long as I live, but this was too pretty to pass up.

A material offcut (far left ) which will make a lovely cushion for my sofa.

This jar for my button collection . I have some gorgeous vintage buttons.

Toys for Ethan. The caterpillar is Lamaze, the Ladybird is Playgro, and Elmo is Fisher Price. Retail these toys would cost at least $110.00. Op Shop price= $12.50.

I came home and made a triple lot of my famous Rendang Curry in the crockpot for dinner. We had people over tonight and I made awesome oven rice. My friend Sandra has a friend, Carl, who is a chef and he made this for a dinner we were at recently. Easy Peasy, great when you have lots of people and sooooooooo delicious, so I snaffled the recipe. By the way “Cooking around the World with Saj and Pyjamas ” resumes next week, so expect much hilarity about our cooking misadventures in future blog posts.  Betcha can't wait for that !

Off to do the weekly grocery shop after lunch ( which was a slapped together promite sandwich) Came home and trying to find places to put everything was a challenge …I felt like a squirrel storing nuts for the winter .I've reached new levels of ridiculous with stockpiling food and groceries. I am beginning to suspect I starved to death in a previous life and have carried that little fear over to this one.  I’m too scared to go into my pantry because I’m pretty sure my tinned tomatoes are breeding in there. I cannot think of any  reason we need 3 kilos of dessicated coconut.  If there is ever a diarrhea outbreak in my suburb I'll have it covered with all the toilet paper  I have, and I could wash dishes for the Australian Army and not have to nip out for dishwashing liquid.

Football starts again in about 6 weeks. We have season tickets to the Adelaide Crows. I like going to the matches, but hate the fact that Mr. Pyjamas must watch all 8 games of football every single weekend in football season. One year I swear we spoke  only 83 words to each other  between April and September because he was glued to the television watching constant football. I'm a prolific quilter in winter....

So I have managed to do  ummm..let's see....no sewing since I got home 48 hours ago.

I'm posting this now to keep myself honest ..I almost cut material last night for a new quilt. I have decided that is ridiculous and I have promised myself I must finish one of the three I already have in the pipeline BEFORE I wield scissors on my Flower Bucket Fabric. But I really do want to cut it....

Now, if you’ll excuse me I’m about to give  Elmo, the Caterpillar and the Ladybug a bath in the washing machine.

Before and After .....

Since we're blog buddies and all, I wanted to show you some pictures of my house.

Our house is  a standard 3 bedroom, 1 bathroom, 2 car garage built in late 1979. It's old enough to need lots of work but not old enough to have true character. With a house that's the vintage of mine you kinda have to breathe personality into them.

Mr. Pyjamas lived in this house BM...(Before Me) and when I moved in 9 years ago  it was decorated in the "really bad batchelor pad" style. Ugh! I got rid of the coffee table that had been spray painted silver and had carpet nailed to the top of it, the gross recliner chairs, the copper occasional table...the list goes on. Actually I got rid of pretty much everything.

 Two years ago we did a long overdue makeover on our master bedroom- taking it from drab to fab.  We stripped the room and started again- ceiling to floor, including knocking out a wall to build a HUGE wardrobe. The revolting white queen anne wardrobe we had might have been the height of fashion in late 1979 but it had certainly seen better days.

We went from this....

To this

But lately I've been getting a bit bored with the look of our room, so I just bought two new sets of completely different bed linen .

That's Mordecai... he's a star and I'm paparazzi

I think this bed needs throws and cushions,  but my white vintage hob nail chenille is currently on Miss Pyjamas bed and I haven't decided what colour cushions this needs. I dont think it needs more black and white. I'll shelve the cushion idea  for a while and think about it.

Last year we stripped the lounge room and started again , including taking out metres of cedar wall panelling and putting in a new wall. This before picture doesn't show the cedar panelling ..it was truly gross. I still dream about it's disgusting-ness. We had a 30 year old gas heater built into the wall at the other end of the loungeroom, and in built dark wood shelving as well.

This is what it looks like now...

Unbelievably this is the same view as the "Before" picture.

Other views:

That wall used to be cedar panelling shelving and a very ugly built in gas heater.

The other two bedrooms have been made over too. But I'm not showing them because at the moment our guest room is my sewing room because my sewing room is temporarily Miss Pyjamas room. Some pics of that another time perhaps.  

We are planning a new kitchen installation for mid this year , which I am wildly excited about. I cannot wait to have the kitchen done !

Just Chillin'....

In my holidays I get to live the life I dream about ...I love who I am during that time. Creative, completely calm, not juggling too many things at once, a go with the flow kind of girl, immersing myself in a project ( or maybe two )  I can just ...be.

These are the beaded tie backs I made yesterday for the master bedroom. The pair came in at under ten bucks. Suck on that Spotlight!- who wanted 20 bucks each for theirs and they weren't half as stunning.

I found this deco looking jar yesterday in my op shop travels,  that I'm using as a vase/display for some of our eclectic decorations. It was half price and cost $1.50 . Perfect!

I spent the morning smashing old mirrors into pieces for a project I'm working on. It was cheap therapy. I got the mirrors for free, so it was actually completely costless therapy.

I managed to sneak in some quilting as well.

I headed on over (methaphorically speaking) to my local freecycle group and begged for some filing cabinets. No responses yet but I'm hopeful.

I even got some housework and washing done and planned dinner. (Prawns with garlic parmesan cream sauce, wedges and salad- You're welcome to drop by and join us- we have two extra people  tonight so what's one or two more)

Seriously nominate me for sainthood.

Christmas Bauble Wreath

This is nothing new...people are blogging about this all over the internet, but it's a new idea to me , and probably quite new to most people in my corner of the world.

I've noticed that our northern hemisphere friends seem to do a lot more "decorating" than we do. For example, I keep reading blog posts about "Fall Decor" "Halloween Decorating" "Thanksgiving Decorating" and the like. Do people seriously tart up or change their homes for a season? I'm not criticising, it's just that it's not really done here and the idea is alien to most Aussies I think.  I feel all cosmopolitan if I change my throw rug in winter. My point is we dont really do that much Christmas decorating. And dammit I feel left out. Curse you internet for showing me what I'm missing!

Anyway back to the project ...I got the idea from Thrifty Decor Chick, who mentioned that it was originally done by Eddie Ross so I wandered over there for a look as well. I have to tell you I was so darn taken with this idea, that with 55 minutes before the shops closed tonight I was yelling at my daughter and mother to get in the car so I could go and buy baubles.  

People are blogging that this costs about ten bucks to make. Maybe baubles are cheaper in other parts of the world- or maybe we have bigger coathangers or something because all up it cost me about $20.00 bucks to make this but I love the effect and nobody else I know has one, so I'm pretty pleased with the overall result. I'll try to hit the post Christmas sales to see if I can get cheap baubles in green, gold and red to make one for next year for another part of the house.

Tres Gorgeous