Rediscovering My Passion for Crafts

 I have always admired my friends who are creative, who produce and display their "art" in their homes. You walk into their house and know right away, these are artists! 

I love handmade items; knit or woven pillows, macramé and woven wall art.  I like to knit and have made many scarfs (and baby blankets) for people over the years.  When we moved, we wanted to limit all of the "extra stuff" we had.  My daughter's had left a lot of the things I made them at the house when they moved out on their own. When I was packing, going thru everything, they chose not to have me keep or send it for them.  I regret that, as I really loved so many of the projects I did; the colors, the stitch I chose to learn - many of them had "extras" such as antique buttons or jewels sewn on them.  

I recently knit my mom a scarf... she loved it!  I had one extra skein of yarn so I made myself a cowl and thought, "this would make a beautiful pillow! " I could not find that yarn again, so I went to my new favorite yarn store in New Hope called Twist!  The owner of the shop is lovely and everyone I have met there has been so helpful.  I bought a beautifully dyed yarn called Rasta and fell in love with the colors.  

The knitters there that day helped me figure out how large of a panel I could make, using a seed stitch with one skein of yarn ... I brought a sample swatch of my knitting to show them, to ask their advice.

I used a circular needle #13 and am so happy with how it came out!

Here you can see how vibrant the colors are!

This yarn brand has so many gorgeous hand dyed colorways and they are so soft and saturated! Offered in so many colorways!

When I finished I wanted to make a pillow shell in a color that would work so that you would not see it "grin" through. I planned to go to the fabric store to buy solid fabric and a pillow insert.

I got very lucky and found a ready made pillow with a very cool design at Target for $20 in the perfect color .... however I did not want a square pillow, I wanted a boudoir  (rectangle) shape.

I opened the pillow at the seam, took out some of the stuffing, cut the fabric back to the size I wanted.  I then sewed the pillow closed to fit the size of my knitting; (pillow was 18 x 18 in - I made it 18 x 14 in.). Using embroidery thread to match the base pillow, I stitched the my knitting to the back of the pillow, so that I could use the pillow on either side!

I could not be  happier with the outcome!

I love adding my own touch to the house, especially when it comes out this good!

Don't let your inhibitions or fear that it won't be "good enough" stop you from allowing your creative mind to work!

Guest Room Reno... Downsizing? Start the process of staging your house!

This post is about how easy it is to change a few things and give a room a whole new look.  You have to think outside the box, if you will... move around some furniture, art, lamps.  Whether you need a new look or, like us, you are thinking... "why do we need this much space", it is always fun to update your home.  

A little background before I dive into the design stuff... ( you can skip to the bottom, but you might enjoy how we got here).

We have been "empty nesters" as most will call it for over 6 years now.  The home we purchased to raise our children was a mindful planned out venture.... best school district, close to your temple for easy car pooling to hebrew school, and their friends in both plus right here in our neighborhood.  I realize what a luxury this is!  Now this house has too many rooms... we keep their bedroom doors closed most of the time.  So basically we are living in our bedroom/bathroom and the first floor.

When each of our daughters moved out; whether it was to move into their first college dorm room, apartment on campus, locally or in NYC with friends, we always did what we could to help... and boy do we feel we have moved them enough for a lifetime!

The issue is that with every one of their moves, we gained more STUFF!  As they moved out on their own as adults, a lot was left behind... much due to the fact that one moved across country with as much of her belongings that would fit in her civic!  The other is in a NYC apartment... need I say more?!

We are both still working, so location for us is still really good for our commutes. Mine is down the stairs and to the left.  My husband; some of you know as my Handy Husband, has a reasonable drive to the Shore.  As we consider where to "move" where do we "want to be" we have started to "downsize our belongings"... and over time ridding ourselves of items we really do not need or have purpose for - such as VHS tapes of Disney movies!  LOL.  With Disney Plus, we can always access the kids old favorites for when the time comes to share them with their kids, if we are so blessed.  Old printers, an end table, hangers upon hangers... really trying to minimize what we keep.

OKAY - design posts... getting to it!

As we ponder these questions we have started looking at locations and some homes for sale.  This means we need to be ready to put our house on the market if we are to find something we love - we will need to act very quickly!

So, another bedroom renovation to show you!  It is the last room in the house that still had wall to wall carpet.  I mean... what else were we going to do on a rainy Memorial Day weekend towards the end of (we hope!) Pandemic?!!

We didn't fully re-decorate, this room was in pretty good shape.  We moved the furniture around, packed up the stuffed animals and books on the shelves and tore up the carpet!  We added this fantastic area rug we found online, changed the bedding, threw out the old ugly bedskirt and bought some new accent pillows.  

*Craziest thing is that this area rug is the same as one that we fell in love with in a house we saw when looking at options .... by chance, compared the images we took and it is exactly the same!  

How lucky was that!

Take a look....

A few new decorative pillows and it looks like a new room!  Minus the 30 year old TV!  Sorry, again I did not take true before photos - these before shots show the room a little after as we got started...

BEFORE SHOTS

Worst part was tearing the carpet out and all the staples that had to be removed from the floor.

The best part?  An amazing hard wood oak floor underneath, that we think was never exposed!

AFTER THE RUG WAS REMOVED.... same bedding, pillows, etc...

This just was not enough for me... I wanted this room to "feel better" so when someone walked in to see it they would think

.... I want to stay here!

We moved the dressers to one wall, will eventually hang the mirror.

FINAL SHOT

Moving around the dressers made a difference in how much larger the room feels!  

With the addition of new bedding (a quilt set I designed for a Wal-Mart private label program, new decorative pillows, a new cushion for the chair (actually the original red one I bought...) swapping the throws, nightstand and the lamp from another room, buying an accent rug... the room came to life!  

I am going to take down the shelving for a more open look and I did add that cute Frieda framed piece I found at Home Sense!