Jennadesigns

Moving back over to blogger

April 2, 2013 By admin Leave a Comment

Just a quick note here for my subscribers – I’m moving back over to Blogger hosting, as I’ve become frustrated with the inability to drive traffic to my blog here by a lack of subscription options available on the WordPress platform.

So, if you’re one of my nine e-mail subscribers, please hop back over to Jennadesigns on Blogspot and follow me there. All of my posts have been exported over there as well. You can follow via e-mail, via Bloglovin’, or on Google reader until July, as Google reader will be retired then.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Planted my thrifted turtle

April 1, 2013 By admin Leave a Comment

The turtle planter I’d found while out thrifting a couple weeks ago finally has succulents. Four $4, the little guy was just too cute to not take home. He now resides on my kitchen counter, where I can admire him while doing dishes. Of course, little hands had to help with the set up of the shot.

And my, are those hands ever attached to the cutest little girl. My Hannah could not have been any sweeter this morning… and all about posing to top! Such a soulful little face this girl has. I couldn’t be more proud to call her mine!

Filed Under: Children, Decor, Plants, Thrifting Tagged With: Children, decor, plants, thrifting

A Happy Easter to All

March 31, 2013 By admin Leave a Comment

Yesterday, we mixed up the Easter egg dye and let the kids go to town decorating their eggs. Isaac made this beautiful red speckled egg with a nice sentiment.

Isaac and Hannah got in the egg-decorating spirit while Danny – who decided he was “too old” to color more than the one mandatory egg – entertained us with his antics.

In the end, I even picked up a Sharpie and colored an egg for my little girl – filled with flowers and a sweet sentiment of my own. I dyed it a brilliant shade of blue especially for Hannah.

All and all what started out with spilled green dye and a few frustrated tears, turned into a fun family afternoon! The kids were so goofy dying their eggs that I ended up taking 276 photos to end up with these few good ones! Have to appreciate that they were having a good time, though, as that’s what’s it is all about!

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Sitting down at the machine again

March 30, 2013 By admin Leave a Comment

My parents took my kids for a couple of days, giving me free time to sit down at the machine and sew again – an man, did it feel good! On Thursday evening, I dove into my scraps bins, choosing coordinating fabrics to make Japanese X and plus block for the top of a pillow. I used Amy Gunson’s tutorial, which can be found here on her blog Badskirt. I went with a color scheme of pinks, purple and blues for the most part. I was able to cut all the fabric for the four blocks on Thursday night. Friday morning, I got up and sat down at the machine and began piecing them. They came together so much faster than I’d anticipated and I was thrilled! The blocks finish up at 8 inches square.

Because of all the tiny piecing, and the fact that some of the seams are sewn on the bias for the “X” portion of the block, I was concerned that my points wouldn’t line up well, but that didn’t seam to be an issue, thankfully! I did an insane amount of pressing and more pressing after each seam and I think that really helped. I am a big believer in ironing seams, all in one direction in this case, however I do iron seams open at times too when I’m concerned about bulk. Again, this wasn’t as issue with these blocks.

I really adore the scrappy nature of these blocks. Although I wanted them to look scrappy, I didn’t want them to look too scrappy, so I used only two background prints – a dark purple and a more busy purple and white fabric. Two of the blocks have the purple while the other two have the more busy print. These blocks are going to become the front of a pillow for a swap I’m doing … so I ended up deciding on the best layout and stitching them together into one 15-inch finished block.

I am seriously thrilled with how these look, and hope my swap partner will be too. I want to make a 20-inch square completed pillow, so I will be adding borders to this block to make it larger. I did attempt to add a border yesterday, but my math skills were clearly acting up, so it was ripped out. It ended up being a blessing because I came up with a border idea I like even better in my head. Today, I’m hoping to add the borders and begin quilting the top.

I am a little late on this swap, even after having gotten a “mental health” extension earlier in the month (more on that later). I’m hoping to get this done within the next couple of days and off to my partner, but at the same time, I’m not about to rush it. Swapping is about making something above and beyond what you might make for yourself and this pillow will be no exception!

However, that said, I found these blocks almost addicting in that they were so much fun – from picking out fabrics, to piecing to sewing the final sections together – that I am almost tempted to make myself a pillow out of these. Heaven knows I have enough scraps with which to work I could probably make a couple king size quilts!

Either way, it got me back at my sewing machine, which has been missed. Now that I’ve been feeling better – going on two weeks – I see a lot more sewing in my future and a lot more projects getting done around our home!

If you like this block and want to be overwhelmed with inspiration, check out the Flickr group Japanese X and + Quilt Along. There’s also a group of ladies on Instagram making these blocks as well. Search the hashtag #xandplusalong.

Filed Under: Inspiration, Quilting, Sewing, Swaps Tagged With: inspiration, quilting, sewing, swaps

Crazy thrift store find

March 29, 2013 By admin Leave a Comment

We all hear about those insanely crazy thrift store finds – the bowl bought at Goodwill for $4 that ends up being a priceless piece of history valued at more than a couple hundred thousand dollars – and we all shake our heads. When we go thrifting, for the most part, we find a lot of junk … mixed with a couple of great steals here and there – a piece of Pyrex to add to our collections or a Catherine Holm enamelware Dutch Oven that someone didn’t recognize as being what it was and marked it at $1.99. Thrifters live for those finds.

This Strawberry Shortcake mug is mine. I bought this mug for 50 cents so many years ago that I couldn’t even tell you where anymore. I bought it because it reminded me of an ornament I had for our Christmas tree as a child many years ago. This Strawberry Shortcake ornament was SO heavy that it could only be hung on the lowest and sturdiest of branches and I can remember my mom almost sighing as she handed it to me to hang on the tree, knowing that it would often fall off, or bend the branch over in some unattractive fashion. I figured this little milk glass mug would be the perfect addition to daily life and make me smile when I drank my coffee out of it, reminiscing about my childhood and an item and experience that I valued at the time. I think I drank coffee in it twice before my nature got the better of me and I searched for some information on it online – because I was simply curious about it … did it come in a set? When was it made? Who made it? Etc. …

Imagine my surprise when I learned that it was actually quite uncommon, rare if you will. A quick search on Ebay showed a handful of similar mugs selling for between $100 and $200 over the past few years. I never drank coffee in it again, and squirreled it away in the cupboard, afraid of breaking the thing! And it sat there for years, until I moved in with my parents following my divorce. I brought the mug and hid it away in their cabinet, never using it.

What makes it rare is that it was manufactured in 1981, the year after the four-piece white milk glass mug set was make by Anchor Hocking/Fire King. I short run of the main characters was done then, with the characters in different poses than on the original set from the year earlier. In the 1980 Strawberry Shortcake mug, Strawberry is sitting on a strawberry. On my mug, she is holding a watering can and reaching for a butterfly while standing next to a strawberry plant. If you look, you’ll find tons of mugs with the main character sitting on the strawberry, but few with Strawberry Shortcake in this pose.

One day last year, I came upstairs to find my then-3-year-old daughter drinking hot chocolate out of it, holding it precariously over the quartz counter tops and waving the cup around, overjoyed to have had hot chocolate for the first time. I practically bolted across the room, grabbed the mug, and poured her hot chocolate into a kid cup. I quickly washed out the Strawberry Shortcake mug, dried it, and found some bubble wrap. I wrapped it and hid it away in my room. Then I moved, and it came with me here, still hidden away in my room, wrapped in bubble wrap.

The other day I was looking for some business cards I had had printed for my Etsy shop, which happened to be in the basket that held the mug. When I pulled it off the shelf, the mug came tumbling down with it … I caught it, fortunately. And it was at that moment I realized that if I was never going to use it, was afraid of even handling the thing for fear of breaking it, it was high time I passed it on to someone who would appreciate its worth. So consulted my Instagram collector friends for pricing strategies and listed it on Ebay.

Click the image above to go to the Ebay auction page if you’re interested in reading more. So, we will see what happens! There’s three days of the auction remaining …

In the mean time … I’d love to hear what surprises you found while thrifting. Have you ever come across something that the people pricing obviously had no idea of it’s value? Drop me a comment – I’d love to read about it!

Filed Under: Thrifting, Vintage Tagged With: thrifting, vintage

Fun thrifting lately

March 28, 2013 By admin 1 Comment

It has been a good couple of weeks thrifting around these parts, and I thought I’d share some of my favorite finds with you. In the small town where I live, we have this little store named “Neat Repeats” that sells a lot of vintage and other pre-owned items. I’ve had good luck shopping there … in fact, it is where I found the little Remington typewriter a couple of months back. A quick stop the other day was no exception. I came home with a couple of beautiful metal Thermos, two strawberry pots, another metal embroidery hoop, a great mid-century alarm clock in working condition and a cute little turtle planter I’d been eying up the past couple times I’d stopped in.

I ended up selling the strawberry pots to an Instagram contact … it turns out they were actually cookie jars missing their lids, not planters as we’d thought originally. She loves them and is going to use them to house items on her kitchen counter. I was happy they found a home with someone excited to have them, as they aren’t necessarily my taste. The small profit I made from passing those along made getting the little turtle planter for nothing, which made me happy. I purchased some small succulents and will be potting him today!

I recently picked up a third metal Thermos, so I guess you could say I have a collection now! However, they are not something I collect, so they will likely find their way to my Etsy shop when it re-opens. I must admit though, I love the designs, the colors and the graphics are so amazing!

The little alarm clock is amazing and I knew once Mike saw it, we’d be keeping it. In fact, I bought it because I knew he’d love it. Sure enough, as soon as he saw it, I knew it would find a place on his nightstand, and it did. I love the subtle ticking noise it makes in the room. The style of the numbers and design of the clock reminds me of an Art Deco piece, which is a style near and dear to Mike’s heart. If you look closely, the second hand actually ends with an “S” at it’s tip!

I scored the vintage sheet behind the alarm clock as well that day … one of my favorite prints in a colorway I didn’t have. I have it in blue and I have a fat quarter of it in pink squirreled away somewhere, but this was the first yellow I’d seen. Mike still doesn’t quite understand my fascination with vintage sheets and retro prints from the 60s and 70s, but I guess I don’t exactly expect him to. This is where our age difference … which isn’t much of an issue in everyday life … really makes itself known. While Mike grew up with these things, some of this stuff is before my time… and partly why I find it so fascinating. Mike leans more towards items from the 30s-50s while I lean towards things from the 50s-70s, and I guess that makes sense considering our nearly 20 year age difference.

Which would explain why I was over the moon at finding this great Home Sweet Home clock from the late 70s in the lower left of the photo above and Mike couldn’t believe I’d spent money on a stamped plastic clock in such a 70s font. I wanted to paint the clock a bright pastel and hang it in our daughter’s room, but I had a couple of IG contacts who also fell in love with it when I’d posted my find. So, after Mike made it clear it wasn’t in his taste, I decided to pass it off to one of them and it went to go finish off a woman’s space in California. I cannot wait to see what she does with it when she gets it!

I also snagged these great lion plaques … they are about a foot tall and 1.5 inches deep. While I’m not fond of their gold color, a can of spray paint should fancy them up perfectly! I think sometimes thrifting is all about knowing what you can and cannot do with a piece and also what is trendy and popular and what people will pay money for. I could easily paint and sell these lions in my Etsy shop and they’d be the perfect addition to someone’s nursery out there. When the weather warms and spray painting is again an option, I plan to do just that!

My favorite find this day was the Dymo tape maker – in chrome, this model is from the 60s. I paid $4.50 for it and plan to keep it. I recently picked up some 3D Dymo tape … the 3/8-inch size … from Walmart and I’m hoping that the spool fits, or can be made to fit, in this puncher. I created a new board on Pinterest for Dymo tape ideas and have been having fun thinking of all the ways I can incorporate punched labels into my life. Yes, I’m an OCD junkie like that!

I also snatched up these cork-backed hard Orla Kiely placemats when I saw them in the kitchen section. I recognized the pattern as being one of hers immediately and then did some research when I got home. Turns out these aren’t vintage, but were manufactured for Target in 2009. However, the run was a short one and they are still highly sought after. They don’t go with our decor, so again, they will likely find their way to Etsy at some point. Or be passed on to a friend who collects Orla Kiely items.

This week, I took my son and we discovered a couple more fun finds, including this Hermes typewriter from 1971, and a great old picture frame that I will likely repaint. It’s hung on the wall in my bedroom already, with clothes pins and string for hanging and switching out art easily, but I plan to beautify it a bit in the near future.

I also discovered a set of very old postal stamps, for which I was more than willing to pay the $15 asking price. The font is amazing and the other stamps which coordinate are just perfect! I ended up with the number 1-0, a dollar sign, a cents sign, Air Mail, Fragile, “Item received in damaged condition by _____” and “Item not received” stamps. While most people might see them and have no idea what to do with them, I immediately knew that they would become beautiful stamped additions to a bunch of paintings I have planned in the future! I love the look of stenciled and stamped images over the top of beautiful paintings … so I’m going to give something similar a try in the near future. I have three canvases that need coats of gesso, and then I’m ready to paint!

Right now, I’m digging out from under my massive vintage sheet sale – dealing with invoicing customers and the issues of people removing comments from items they’d bid on and won, has been frustrating, so I delayed doing a second sale at this time. However, I plan to write up a tutorial on selling on Instagram, detailing the process – what I did to prep, how I promoted my sale, ideas to get others to promote your sale, best way to upload photos of items for sale, and then invoicing and shipping, as well as what I learned and what I’d do differently the next time around. I know there are a lot of people that sell on IG, or consider it, so I thought it would be a helpful topic to cover. Don’t get me wrong, my sale was hugely successful, but there were unexpected road bumps that it would have been nice to have anticipated!

So, look for that in the next couple of days. In the mean time – drop me a note and let me know what great thrifiting finds you’ve run across lately. I love hearing about other people’s thrifting successes!

Filed Under: Frugal, Thrifting, Vintage Tagged With: Frugal, thrifting, vintage

Adding to the stash and patiently waiting for Lush

March 27, 2013 By admin 2 Comments

I was a bit naughty last week and purchased all of this lovely voile fabric from Sew Mama Sew during their $6/yard voile sale on Anna Maria Horner’s voile fabrics. I love the first fabric, pastry line, which is going to be perfect for backing a quilt … when I finish a quilt … but that’s another story. The others fabrics are intended to become Wiksten Tova tunics and tanks. The final voile on the right is going to be one side of an infinity scarf. There’s a great tutorial for infinity scarves here by Lindsay of The Cottage Home.

I do have a small stash of voile, but this definitely gave me a lot more to work with. I hope one day to make a lap quilt out of some of my Good Folks voile, backed with that pastry line in magenta in the photo above on the far left. But, the rest of it … I’m looking forward to rounding out my pitifully bare wardrobe with some handmade goodness. Now that my serger is working again!

Since I was ordering anyways … I rounded out my order with some cotton goodies as well, including some on sale Echino in cheater patchwork, another great print from Suzuko Koseki – postmodern in pink from Yuwa fabricss. I’d received a bit of this print in another colorway in a swap with Brooke of April Two Eighty and loved it, so I snatched up a half yard. I also grabbed a hard of cotton Anna Maria Horner’s Clippings in Passion, that great butterfly print in the upper right from her LouLouThi collection. I have other prints of this and at $6 a yard, this was a great add to use in a someday quilt.

And because I heard it was all the craze in the blog and Instagram world, I picked up a charm pack of Moda’s new line pj&j by Basic Grey to see what all the fuss was about. And I have to admit … there are a LOT of great fabrics in this line … I can see buying a whole fat quarter set when available!

The boys don’t know it, but I’ve been slowly adding green solids to my stash, all Kona cottons, as well as a variegated green – Moda grunge in green. There are going to become the background fabric for a pixelated Minecraft Creeper pillow. I drew up a quick sketch, colored in squares and calculated fabric requirements for this project this past weekend. I plan on surprising the Danny and Isaac with these pillows, which will be two dimensional replicas of their favorite character in the computer game Minecraft. If you have a teenage boy or two, it’s likely you’ve heard of this game.

I’ll have a tutorial together by the end of next week for all of you who’d like to make the same – I cannot be the only one out their with teenage boys absorbed by this game!

I also recently ordered a yard and a half of this Anna Maria Horner laminate – Saffron – which I am going to use to recover our dining room chairs. I recently purchased a new dining room table which came with four upholstered chair … in a microfiber dark brown fabric. I have three children who live here … you can just imagine what they look like after two months! So, I’m cleaning them well, letting them dry thoroughly and then recovering over the original fabric with the wipe-clean laminate. The saffron should coordinate well with our dark cherry table and I can stop fretting about the state of the chair upholstery!

I am also guilty of buying a yard of this fun print – Kodachrome in Pavement – part of the Cosmo Cricket line 2wenty Thr3e for Moda. I purchased this because it is an identical match to the scrapbook paper I am planning to decoupage onto the fronts of the Ikea storage units I use for my sewing supplies. I wanted to make camera patchwork pillows for the couch and had recently purchased a yard of a different retro camera print to do that with. However, I like this much better and it matches perfectly! It’s going to be a good mail week, I think. In fact, it already has been – it started with this:

I also snatched up a box of surprise scraps from Percelit on Instagram when she offered them up for $20. I received a large Flat Rate box, stuffed to the gills with scraps, including some large pieces. I love almost every piece – there’s a couple that aren’t quite me – and I was thrilled to find a couple of wonderful new additions to my fabric stash.

These are two large scraps of Erin Michael’s Uptown line by Moda, namely Mod Mum. Erin Michael is the fabric designer behind Lush, a beautiful fabric line that was just becoming unavailable as I started really getting into quilting. Uptown is the line that came before Lush and they share a similar color palate.

I have managed to piece together a small collection of fat quarters and half yards and have horded it like nobody’s business since then. This is a picture of the prints that I have managed to get, the majority of which by swapping in Flickr groups for other out of print fabrics.

The print I’ve never been able to get my hands on is her paint-by-number deer print, which I was over the moon to learn was being reprinted this summer! Moda is printing a new release of a combination collection called Lush Uptown this summer of her Lush Uptown this summer, and you can bet your ass I’m going to be buying some! Precuts are expected in June and yardage in July. You can see the new line here at Pink Castle Fabrics.

Might be the only fabric I’m buying after this, as I need to start sewing and stop hording. Fabric hording is a disease I tell you … I need a support group!

So, tell me, what fabric line do you hoard/covet?

Filed Under: Fabric Tagged With: fabric

Acts of kindness and thoughts on friendship

March 26, 2013 By admin 1 Comment

I mailed this large flat rate box out late last week, to a dear friend of mine who lives far away in Texas. Her name is Angie and she is someone who has become very special to me in a relatively short period of time. It was received yesterday, to tears on her end, and on mine. I’d caught her off guard with a random act of kindness, as she had no idea I was doing this for her. These are sometimes the best surprises.

Angie and I share a lot of things in common. In fact, last night, Mike even commented that based on our messages to each other yesterday, it sounded as if we were kindred souls, and I think that is very much the case. I met Angie this winter on Instagram and we became fast friends. She loves to collect Pyrex and vintage sheets, she sews, and she is creative and fun with a quirky personality that just draws you in. She reminded me so much of myself, only under different circumstances. We quickly became friends and exchanged phone numbers, messages and phone calls between the frozen tundra of Wisconsin and the much more temperate climate of southern Texas. I have to admit, while I knew Angie lived in Texas, the first time I talked to her on the phone, her southern accent completely caught me off guard to the point it was almost funny! That’s how much I think of her as like myself.

I had told Angie about Susannah Conway’s Unraveling the Year Ahead: 2013 project, and she downloaded a copy of the workbook and did it on her end, choosing “hope” as her word for 2013. For this surprise, I decided to make her a mug rug with her word, “hope,” embroidered on it. I found a script font I liked and enlarged it, then cut it out, ironed a piece of fusible webbing onto the back of a great vintage sheet I had on hand and traced the word (backwards, so that when you flipped it over, it read right forwards) onto the back of the webbing.

I cut the word out, fused it to the base of the mug rug – a beautiful dark tan slubby 100-percent linen I’d densely quilted with straight lines and soft yellow thread – and carefully stitched around the cursive word. I then used my free motion quilting foot, underlined the word and added a bunch of floating free-motion quilted hearts. I have very little free motion quilting experience, so this was something new for me! But I wanted to try it and be able to carry out my idea for Angie’s mug rug.

I backed the mug run in a coordinating vintage sheet print, added my label and then added binding in the same sheet fabric is the word “hope.” This picture above was the only picture I posted on Instagram about the project, and I purposefully did that so that she wouldn’t know what I was up to, but would know I was sewing again, which is something we were both looking forward to.

Here it is finished. I absolutely love how it turned out. Angie loves to drink tea, and I included a pair of Japanese floral mugs with her mug rug, in colors that matched perfectly. With this mug rug, I hoped that Angie could be reminded of her word and the power behind it each time she sipped her tea. As well as know that a friend was thinking of her, often.

It is no secret here that I suffer from depression, often not well-controlled by medication. Angie is in a similar situation and because of some of our shared experiences, we understand each other at a level that most other people don’t. I know that finding friends like her is rare – at least it is in my life – and it’s something to be honored and celebrated. I know I can call or text her at any time – day or night – and she will be there for me, and vice versa. That is priceless in today’s society.

In Angie’s “Happy Mail” I also included a set of Pyrex Autumn Harvest Bake, Serve and Store casseroles I’d thrifted for her in mint condition, as well as a bunch of great vintage sheets in various sizes to add to her stash, a piece of funky retro vintage fabric I’d thrifted and promised to split with her weeks earlier, and a handmade card, featuring her word “hope” yet again. (Yes, it’s amazing what you can fit in a large flat rate box! And I like to consider myself the queen of packing well!)

I think seeing Angie receive her package and go through it bit by bit – she sent me photos as she did – made my day even more than hers. The sweet sentiment she texted me at the end, brought tears to my eyes that spilled down my cheeks. Happy tears. I’ll take those as often as I can get them.

I hope she doesn’t mind, but I’m going to share a snippet of what she said, because I think that if more people went out of their way to show others how much they meant to them, this world would be a much nicer place in which to live. I know I believe strongly in the pay-it-forward principle and Angie does too. Here’s a bit of what she wrote:

“Yes, I’m bawling my eyes out … because you took the time to put all of this together in the midst of cooking, cleaning, children, blogging, sewing, and battling depression too … you took the time to remind me to have hope … because you understand better than anyone how important hope is … I cannot thank you enough …”

Angie – this post is for you, and us. I told you personally yesterday when we talked on the phone how much our friendship meant, but I also want the rest of the world to know too. When I’m having a rough day, your encouragement and comfort gives me the strength to push through it and the determination to try again the following day. You make me believe – my word for 2013 – in myself, and others. You brighten my spirits every time I talk to you and I so enjoy that we have so many common interests. Finding a “kindred spirit” as Mike would call it, is rare. I’ve been around long enough to know that’s definitely the case. So, thank you. For being my friend. I appreciate it more than you will ever know.

Angie and I both are aiming at the same goal – to attend Sewing Summit – a modern sewing and blogging conference – in Salt Lake City together and be roomies. This year, it’s scheduled for September 19-21. Attending this event would be huge for us, but I don’t know if this year it’s feasible financially for either of us. But it’s in my three-year plan that by 2015, I will attend this – with Angie. It would give us the chance to meet in person and celebrate our friendship over two things we are both passionate about. I cannot think of a better way!

(It’s either that, or I’m getting in the car and driving to Texas to meet Angie, picking up another mutual friend – Trisha – in Cleveland on the way. Trisha and I can thrift the rest of the way to southern Texas and then camp out at Angie’s where we will thrift some more, amass gigantic collections of Pyrex and sew in Angie’s sewing cottage in the back yard!)

The bottom line is this, while I know how much Angie enjoyed receiving her package yesterday, to me, when given the choice of giving or receiving, I’d pick giving any day. One cannot underestimate just how good it feels to know that you made someone’s day, through your actions. My tears yesterday were those of happy tears … and I hope for many more like them in the future. Thank you Angie!

Filed Under: Depression, Friendship, Inspiration, Sewing, Thoughts Tagged With: depression, friendship, inspiration, sewing, Thoughts

Huge vintage sheet de-stash: sale prep-work underway

March 25, 2013 By admin 1 Comment

There has been a great deal of laundry going on in my house lately, and it isn’t because the kids are being messier than normal … instead it’s because I’ve decided to let go of a great deal of my vintage sheets and linen stash. In the past, I was the creative mind behind Jenna’s Attic, an Etsy shop that sold vintage sheets and other vintage goodies. My sheets were the majority of my business, and I had thrifted lots over the years I operated that shop, which helped pay bills during nursing school.

Well, nursing school is over, I’m an RN now, and still have plenty of bills, but a lot less time. So, I’ve gone through all my storage of sheets, washed and dried them all, sorted and folded them and am planning a huge de-stash sale via Instagram on Tuesday, March 26 at 7 p.m. (CST). In fact, I ended up with SO many sheets (way over 100 … probably more like 200) that I’m also going to try and list half on Tuesday evening and then the remaining half on Thursday throughout the day, starting at 10 a.m. – giving more people the opportunity to purchase them and no overloading everyone IG stream with sheets!

It’s been a great deal of work thus far, but also fun to go through my stash and find those favorite sheets – the ones that you knew you’d practically cry when you ran out of … and I’ll admit, while there are a lot of them and they’re taking up a great deal of space in my dining room at the moment, I’m enjoying seeing them in all their prettiness.

 (These are some of my "keepers")

It has also been nice to go through my stash and weed out the sheets I plan to keep, as well as actually cut up the sheets I’d bought as “cutters” – those that have great fabric left along the edges but are faded in the center, or have something spilled on them, etc. I went through and cut those into useable pieces and discarded the remnants.

As an added incentive for my Instagram contacts to post and follow @jennadesigndestash, I’m offering up a number of 10-packs of fat quarter vintage sheets. Looking through my stash, it looks like I’ll have about 5 bundles of those to give away on Tuesday night, which should be fun! I love being able to treat someone and I appreciate the added promotion such incentives bring. On Thursday during the day, I have a number of vintage sheet scrap packs for those that re-posted and are following me.

So, if you’re interested in adding to your vintage sheet stash, or you’re just beginning to sew with vintage sheets, come check out my de-stash sale on Tuesday, March 26 at 7 p.m. (CST) via Instagram. My username over there is @jennadesigndestash. I’ll have approximately 50-75 sheets to sell, as well as medium flat rate boxes and flat rate envelopes of vintage sheets that have already been cut. I’ve already done the work for you, so if you’re looking to sew with vintage sheets – or just want to decorate your home with them, whether on the bed or on the walls in frames or embroidery hoops – then come check it out!

For those of you who need some inspiration for what to do with vintage sheets, check out my Pinterest board – Upcycled Vintage Linens. There, you will find lots of great ideas – some that require large amounts of vintage sheets and others that require small amounts (or what we in the crafting world, call “cutters” – pieces of sheet that are perfect for craft projects, but wouldn’t make a great sheet for putting on the bed.). I spent a good portion of yesterday updating the board to give you as many ideas as possible!

So, tell me, what would you do with some pretty new-to-you vintage linens?

Filed Under: Fabric, Thrifting, Vintage Tagged With: fabric, thrifting, vintage

Crafting with my daughter

March 24, 2013 By admin Leave a Comment

I’ve been wanting to make a sign for Hannah’s bedroom door since we moved in here in January. I’d been considering my options, and finally decided on something that she could help me with – crafting with Mama is always more fun than Mama just making something herself, right? Hannah certainly thought so.

I purchased a wooden letter “H” for Hannah at Hobby Lobby for roughly $1.50 when they were half-off. It stands approximately 12-inches tall and is 1/2 thick. I also picked up a book of scrapbook paper for $12 with a 40% off coupon in some very fun and totally not cheesy papers. I’m not a scrapbooker, and there are very few scrapbook papers I do like, so finding a book where I liked literally every sheet was unusual, and I had to purchase it!

I planned to use the scrapbook paper to decoupage with Modge Podge onto the front of the letter. Hannah picked out a beautiful sheet of paper with butterflies on it to decorate her “H.” But first, we decided that it was important to paint the edges of the letter a complimentary color, as it was white wood originally. I poured Hannah some paint in a ramekin and prepped the surface with some parchment paper for easy cleanup.

Once she was finished painting the letter, I smoothed out the paint coverage so that there were no lumps on the front of the letter that would leave marks when I applied the cut out scrapbooking paper. But first, I let her go to town with the paint and a brush!

She certainly had fun painting her letter and Mike and I had fun watching and capturing the moment in photos.

Then later, when Hannah was daycare, I traced the letter onto her chosen piece of scrapbook paper and cut it out carefully with an Exacto knife, making sure to stay just inside the line I’d traced so that it didn’t hang over the edge of the letter when applied.

I applied a thin layer of Modge Podge to the top surface of the letter and then positioned the cut out scrapbook paper on top of the letter. Once it had adhered and dried some, about 10 minutes or so, I applied a liberal layer of Modge Podge to the top of the scrapbook paper and sides of the letter. I let that dry, about 20 minutes and added a butterfly cut-out and a couple of small flags from the remaining paper to the top and middle of the left side of the letter, then applied a second coat. Once that was dry – this I let dry for a couple of hours – I lightly sanded the edges with a block of sandpaper and gave it a final Modge Podge coat.

Now all that’s left is to hang it on her bedroom door, which I’m going to do as soon as I can figure out how without damaging the door. I was going to use a 3M Command strip and hanger but I cannot locate them in the garage … so I might have to buy more tomorrow when I’m out and about!

Filed Under: Children, Crafts, Decor, Tutorial, Uncategorized Tagged With: Children, craft, decor, tutorial