New Milestone Giveaway! And Bees!

Things have been silent here on the blog for a couple of months.  My husband had knee replacement surgery so I have been a busy bee helping him plus doing the extra the things around the house that he normally does.  Things are getting back to normal now, thankfully.
So here I am with three things.  First, I am back with another Spoonflower contest.  This week's theme is Bees.  It was difficult to decide between my designs and polling my friends resulted in a three way tie so I went with this one.  Please consider voting.

Busy Bees Blue

Here are other two designs.

Busy Bees on Lavendar

Busy Bees on Yellow Daisies

 And now for the milestone.  I have finally broken the 100 favorites barrier on Spoonflower for one of my designs.   To celebrate I am giving away three yards of fabric of any of my designs.  To be entered into the drawing, simply comment on my blog naming your favorite of my designs from my shop.  To get an extra entry favorite my design on Spoonflower.  These entries will be combined with my Facebook entries.  The drawing will be May 1st.

And for the last little giveaway.  Spoonflower is giving away a swatch of their new fabric Cotton Lawn Ultra.  Simply enter the coupon code freelawn.

A little Bee PSA

Fierce Little Rose

This week's post features more sewing for my daughter.  She is still really into pink, so, while I have other colors of this design in my shop I went with her favorites.  I made two items for her in organic cotton knit, a drop waist dress with a Peter Pan collar and scalloped skirt and a pair of pants with a tuxedo strip.  I just love this photo of her looking fierce.
For the dress I used two of my designs, Hexie Roses Deep Hues (the top) and Profusion of Roses in Reds (the skirt.)  For the accents, I used Damask Matisse Style by littlerhodydesign.
The pants have a flower button waistband and use my Hexie Roses Deep Hues design and littlerhodydesign's Damask Matisse Style for the tuxedo stripe.
 My daughter is such a fun model it provides and extra incentive to sew for her.

Spring Romance

This week I am highlighting some of my more romantic inspired fabrics.  First of all is my entry into the Steampunk Valentine contest.  It was inspired by Victorian valentines and Steampunk costumes.  I love the playfulness of Steampunk.  I even included my favorite Steampunk singer, Professor Elemental, because he has a song that just makes me so happy.  Please consider voting.  The design will be available as fabric, wallpaper or giftwrap within a month.  Let me know if you need it sooner.

These next designs are not Steampunk but they are all about the beginning of spring.  They are inspired by heart shapes, flowers and the little florets on the trees as they begin to blossom.  These fabrics are available in my Spoonflower shop.

Unveiling

OK, breaking news!  I have been working on this for a while and the kinks are still not all worked out, more collections will be added but I think it is ready to unveil....
I have a website! If you have made an item with my fabric, you may be featured in my Customer Projects page. If you have made something with my designs and would like to be added, let me know.

Little Drawers

Anyone who has moved knows that there is always a lot of set up to do in the new place.  It seems that every new space has different requirements.  In our new home it seems we need more desks.  So I have lost my sewing desk but it has been replaced with our old, and now too small dining table.  The good news is that I now have space for my cutting mat and sewing machine all in one area.  The bad news is I lost all of the drawer space of my former sewing desk.  I have a lot of little tools and pens that I prefer tucked away in drawers.  After looking into my local options, I found an older cabinet for the larger items and a little wooden drawer cabinet in a craft store for the rest. 
The little cabinet seemed to be just the perfect size for my wallpaper sample of Ghana Fantastic Floral on White Petite  from my Ghana Floral Collection and indeed I was able to wrap it in the design.  I simply removed the drawer pulls and traced around the drawer faces to get a total wrap look.  I really like the little black drawer pulls in contrast with the light and bright design.  Now my supplies will be happy!

 

Ghana Fantastic Floral on White Petite

Christmas Celebrations

When I first went to Boston to visit my husband's family, it was during winter break between college semesters.  They took me to see Christmas Revels and I absolutely loved the show. The Revels is a series of vignettes celebrating folk customs around winter for the current theme.  No matter the theme there are always certain elements, Morris Dancers, a mystery play with St George and the dragon, the Abbots Bromley Horn Dance, a dance with the audience and a lovely poem by Susan Cooper, The Shortest Day.   Christmas Revels and other seasonal shows run in several US cities. You can find your closest Revels here and further links for a taste of the Revels.

Susan Cooper reading The Shortest Day

This week's Spoonflower contest is for a monochromatic winter scene toile design.  My design below is based on remembrances of Christmas Revels past.  Hope you can take time to vote for designs you like.

Bunkbed Remake

The boys have had bunkbeds since my middle child moved out of the baby bed.  Now that we are entering tween territory we needed separate beds.  I really didn't want to buy new beds so I plotted a way to reuse the bunk bed.

Here is the original IKEA MYDAL bunk bed

My husband and I had discussed making this bunk into two separate beds when we were disassembling the bed in Dakar.  So we went ahead and measured the height of the cornerposts for a new bed and marked them for each bunk. 
The bed below was designed for my oldest son (my middle child's headboard is not yet finished.)  He wanted that flat, modern headboard which really is the easiest thing in the world to do.  I purchased a nicely veneered piece of plywood at the hardware store and had them cut the bunkbed posts down at our premeasured marks. After, we sanded the whole thing and wiped it down.
By now you probably have guessed my love of the Krylon spray paints and I do love the 2 in 1 paint plus primer paints but this bed was made of untreated wood so I really felt I needed a base coat.  We used a spray on primer followed by the hammered textured spray on paint in black.  I think the reflective properties of the paint make it look like a charcoal grey instead but that works as well.  Following painting we reassembled the bed and attached the headboard in front of the headboard corner posts.
My son is pretty happy with his bed.  See how it compares to the MALM bed on the IKEA site which is the bed he wanted.  I think we spent about $30 total on paint and the plywood, not bad for a 'new' bed.