Look What My Hands Have Made

My New Bed Skirt from Damask Table cloths

Oh it has been too long since I have written, I am ashamed to say...however, I have been creating a bit around my home and thought I would share what I have been up to. This last summer I was given a big bag of beautiful linens. I couldn't believe the generosity of my dear sweet friends, Carolyn and Tom. Tom's mom had passed away and they were dealing with her estate and gave me these linens because they knew I would appreciate them and use them! So of course, I had to put them to good use. Not only to remember them by, but also because these linens were so beautiful.   Well in and among this bag were several antique, white, Damask, table cloths and of course dollies galore!

 My Sweet Little Lamp Shades

                                                                       

Believe it or not I decided to cut up(yes I did and yes I cringed when I did it!) and use the table cloths for skirting for my king duvet in our master bed room and I used one of the cut work, round doilies,  to make designer- like covered lampshades to fit the antique sconces I purchased from the Farm Chicks Show last June. I chose this doily because of the heavy scalloped edge and simple but raised thread work.Yardage at the fabric store, for this project, would have cost me an arm and a leg because of the design I wanted. Not to mention, I would never be able to find anything this fine and durable. For the lamp shades, I found  a self adhesive, designer shade at Joann Fabrics-perfect! This handy and simple product, allows you to remove the protective covering, use the covering to trace the paper as your pattern, then cut and stick on your fabric.Super simple! Both shades took me less than 15 min. to make!

Details of Skirting

The old saying the right tool, for the right job is so true. So instead of spending my money on yardage, I spent it on a ruffler foot for my Bernina sewing machine. Oh- my- word- this baby is worth it's weight in gold!! AND it  allowed me to create my dream bed covering in- oh about 30 min.- Waaa Hooo! Now I already had a handmade duvet cover that my mother had passed down to me and this is what I used to attache my skirting to.Then I put my decorative duvet on top. This way I can change out the duvet if I need to wash it or just need to change decore.  So here it is in all its lovely-ness!

Bee Keeping and Honey Eating

Oh I can't wait! Bee keeping and honey eating. I have wanted to keep bees for about 5 years but my adventure was always met with apathy from those closest to me. It is hard to pursue a dream if everyone around you is poo-poo-ing it. But, I have finally won over my best friend, my husband. And together we are going to keep these amazing, busy, little creatures.

Just last week we picked up our hive kits and soon we will begin the adventure of building our hives. Our bees are due to arrive around the end of March so we had better get cracking!

I already have a hive design in mind. Now, if they are going to be in our yard they will be wonderful to look at. Our bee keeping teacher just smiles at me every time I tell him that they have to be pretty. I envision copper trim and a tin tile roof with periwinkle blue and cornflower blue paint. When they are done I will post a picture. For now I continue to dream...