Janet of All Trades

   The idea to make turkey feather head pieces for my nephews came in to my head on the Monday before Thanksgiving and I thought I had plenty of time to make them. Just cutting a few feathers out of felt and a quick stitch on a piece of brown grosgrain ribbon. Well I completed about an hour before we left for dinner. They came out cuter than expected, But the wears are much cuter in their feather headdress. Sleepy Andrew at top and startled Wesley at bottom enjoyed their first Thanksgiving!

I have become obsessed lately with Mirrors. I had been thinking we need one in our new living room and started searching. I was sad discover how expensive a bit of glass and wood can be. I gave up and looked for other items for the wall. Then I discovered one on Craigslist for $35 and it is perfect and will post photos of when the wall is done. I also found one on Ebay for the bedroom to complete headboard wall. Now I see this one and I want to make it for make my Studio? Only thing is you need 22 antique yard sticks! I think I have three and I don't want to part with them just yet. Now something tells me that this is now going to be more expensive than the two mirrors I just bought. I will file this one a way for someday when my yard stick colletion gets bigger.

I just had project pop into my head and with only a few days to finish it. It has something to do with the up coming holiday, this handsome turkey and these wonderful color of fabric. I will have to get my sewing and crafting skills moving since I only have a few days! Stay tuned to see the finished product or if I even finish it at all!

I finally got to almost finishing the twine trees this weekend. They are just about done with the exception a few needing to be gilded. As I have said before, they are easy but time consuming because of the size of the twine. I spray painted them gold and silver and the gold tended to look more like bronze. This could be for two reasons, one is that the twine is dark to begin with and it may be showing thru and the other is my spray paint may be old! Can't remember buying it but I had it on my paint shelf. The silver I think looks the best and now comes the big decision of whether to keep a mixture of both or paint the remaining silver? I will have to think about it and decided later over this Holiday weekend once I start decorating.

I love organization. I haven't always been this way. As a child my room was always a disaster. I could never find anything. I think that is why I love organization now, everything has it's place. And that is have why I am love this utility room/laundry room since it is artfully organized and there is still room for more. It just makes me calm looking at it since it brings together all the things I enjoy..Gardening, a bit of crafting and laundry...Sigh...

My photo wall obsession continues as now I notice them in every magazine. This image is from Lowe's Creative Ideas Magazine and I think I like this one because it is symmetrical and it is pleasing to my eyes. It could be the colors as well since they are very serene and the antique bird prints are timeless. On to the progress of my wall. I have purchased all the frames and will be attempting to hang and arrange them over the weekend. I am still working on my living room as well since the last of the orange has not been painted yet as well as the freshening up of the other two walls. Still have lot on my mind not to mention the Twine trees,christmas card ideas, numerous pillows,christmas decorations and what else..oh yeah photo wall.

I have been struggling with a photo wall for a few days now since I don't want to make a decorating mistake. Then I came across this photo in DIY Magazine Winter 2009 that makes me relax and think that it will all be okay if I just put a little thought and time into it. I have purchased several frames this week for a photo wall over our bed. I have six prints that I would like to use but I don't think they all will fit. So I will either use three or five to keep in the odd looks better than even rule. My first attempt was a sleek silver frame with white matte. Well it just didn't look right with the dark wood of the bed and the antique look of the prints. Second attempt, I bought two similar but different frames with an antique copper tone look to them. They both look good although one is larger (and more expensive) and I would only need three. The other one is smaller and I could do three or five depending on the placement or if I wanted to add some other items for visual

I write down titles of books that I would like to read but never seem to get to all of them. Recently I just finished The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown. It was a interesting book that taught me more about the Masons, but I found it lacking something that Mr Brown's last two books had. It was if the book started to get very interesting in the middle and then seemed to drag along until the end. I can say that it almost felt the the book was specifically written to be a movie someday. I also have another of Dan Brown's Digital Fortress on the reading list. Picked this up on a whim and it about code breaking. I find that his lesser know books are better than his super best sellers (AKA Angels & Demons). Lastly is Power Failure, which I will request from the library at some point, is about Sherron Walkins who was an Enron whistleblower. It is her account of what happened at Enron. It peaked my interest after saw a documentary on Enron and how it made me think that life is stranger

It was a Beautiful Day and Wedding on Saturday. It was sunny and 65 degrees a gorgeous day for a Wedding. The bride was stunning and the groom was glowing. The flower girl and ring bearer were so adorable that I needed to post this photo. They were the most well behaved children I have ever seen at a wedding. The performed their duties flawlessly and with similes. I love this photo and the look on the ring bearers face. Just Beautiful!

This weekend we are celebrating a family wedding of a lovely couple and it is sure to be a fun occasion. In the ten years since my wedding so much has changed. I had my invitations printed by a mail order company and now everyone is creating there own online. I would have loved to have done that but I guess I just thought it was tradition to have them professionally printed. I probably would have changed them several times and would still be working on them today. In any case each Wedding is different like invitations so I can't wait to see what this Wedding has in store for me.

It's mid week and my brain is at a stand still. I have been thinking about the twine trees to much since I know I won't get to them this weekend. Thanksgiving is only two weeks away and then it will be time to decorate.  Still need to buy another tree, paint a few more walls,reconfigure some art work and think about Christmas presents. Too much for my brain to handle this am so I will just look at this beautiful sunrise captured in my backyard.

The next attempt of the Twine trees with a large twine. This time it actually is Sisal. It is a bit more fibrous and makes the trees a little hairy. I will need to trim them a little before I spray paint since I am likely to have globs of hairy paint. I do think they look a little better with more texture and can't want to see them painted gold. I thinking maybe some in gold and some in silver. This is the smallest size and yesterdays was a medium size, so I may also need a larger one as well. Back to work for now and I will update you on the gilding!

 Over the weekend  I attempted to make Twine Christmas trees. I already had all the materials and I thought it would be an easy process. It was very easy but a little time consuming since the twine I was using was quite thin and I think the next one I make I will use a thicker twine since it might have more texture and width. This is how it started out looking. It was simple to wind the twine around and it stuck quite nicely to the styrofoam. Just wind and wind and wind until you reach the end.  The next step is to finish them off with some gold spray paint. Hopefully I can get to it this week and post the beautiful results.

I have started to thinking about Christmas and the decorating that comes with it. I love to decorate a little different each each and tend to follow some sort of theme. The theme is usually inspired by a piece of ribbon or color of an ornament. Last year I made a few small cone trees out of garland. They didn't quote come out the way I wanted so this year I may reconfigure them with ribbon or string. I had seen some lovely understated glitter trees some where in my travels and could not seem to locate the image. I did find these although, one made from string and the others a little Alice in Wonderland like with polka dots. I think mine will be somewhere in between. Maybe a gold spray paint on the twine wrapped version but I will keep thinking!

There is a threat of snow today and it looks very grey out. I can say that I am not ready for winter and either is my garden. I usually wait until after Halloween to take care of it, but with the coming weekend looking busy, I am not sure when I will get to it. I don't like to be the kind of person who leaves pots,furniture and other summer things out all winter. It looks like you just don't care about your garden. Plus it is not good for Tera Cotta pots to be exposed to extreme temperatures and believe me I know. I have had a few lovely pots destroyed with cracks by winter's cold frozen fingers. For now I will have to hope that winter approaches a little slower this year for the sake of my laziness.

Halloween was a rainy windy day here, but luckily the rain and wind stopped just in time for Trick or Treaters. It was very cold although and most of the little ones had winter coats and boots on. How sad! To greet them to our house I had these lovely guys. They are so simple and looked scary with just a glow of light behind them. I have yet to name them but have time to think since they are rolled up and stored away for next Halloween.

We have a bare wall above our bed. At one time a garbage picked piece of trellis once hung there, but that was before the new headboard and I fell it needs a little respect. I was searching on Vintage Printables and found a few images that I like. I was looking for a more tropical flower, but really couldn't find anything I liked. I found these three images,although I don't like the middle one, I printed it just to complete the look. The will eventually have frames and still no sure if I should go a combination of three or four. That is if I can find some that I like.

It is done, well almost. I have one small wall to finish. But here are the before photos of the main wall and hall way. After the first coat: And at last, with furniture and tv in place.... The camera makes it look much more orange that it is but it really is warm and cozy and makes the living room seem bigger!