My Latest Challenge Project

I have signed up for another challenge with Clare & these are my challenge photos:

These are what I have chosen to use in my project:

A lovely old chair.

  Some bright fabric I bought a while ago because I couldn't resist it,

+ a pot of paint

So you can see the size of the flowers, quite big. 

Molly had to check out if it's a comfy chair, lol.

Watch this space to see the finished product. :-)

Cubes Makeover

I'm on a mission to get my house just the way I want it. We've lived in this house for 4 years now, & we have made quite a few changes/improvements, but there is so much more I want to do. The main object of the exercise, is to de-clutter as much stuff as possible. I get ridiculously attached to 'things,' & instead of all those things making me happy, I feel like I'm dragging them all along behind me, & boy are they weighing me down! 
Every so often Rowan & I daydream about moving to another country, & it all sounds so wonderful, but then I think about all the stuff I have collected over 54 years, & the idea of moving anywhere, let alone to another country, is a nightmare. SO, I'm getting rid of as much as possible to make life lighter & easier. The house will work for me, instead of against me, it will be quicker & easier to keep clean & tidy, & I'll know where everything is. 
My focus is on the lounge/dining/kitchen, which is an open plan area. Because it's a bit overwhelming to attack 3 rooms I'm breaking it down into areas. I've nearly finished 2 walls of the loungeroom, & here is a peek at a project for wall 1. The cubes were in another room, & I had an antique kitchen dresser in this position. I decided to jazz up the cubes & display things I love & will be keeping.

Before, boring.

After: I cut 3mm MDF squares, covered one side with
wallpaper & arranged them in the back of the cubes. 

 Just a few of my favourite things. As I work my way through the house I'll add more treasures. The typewriter was my dad's. I chose the wallpaper behind it with some yellow in it, as yellow was dad's favourite colour.

My Miniature Quilt Shop in Homespun Magazine

I received an email from Emma at Homespun magazine earlier this year asking if a pic of my dollhouse quilts, could be shown in an upcoming edition of Homespun magazine article on miniatures. I said yes please, & mentioned I also had a miniature quilt shop. Emma was interested in seeing pics of it so I sent a few through & Emma asked if they could be used too. I took this opportunity to add some more things to the shop before taking more pics for the article. Here it is in the September 2014 issue. I thought it would be a good time to blog my little shop for my regulars to see, & if anyone has come via Homespun, Hi & Welcome.

I built this mini quilt shop many years ago. It was a kit that I bought at an annual miniature & dollhouse show in Sydney. I built the little classroom to match, & added the side door to join the rooms. The shop is 1/12th scale, meaning 1 " = 12" which is a standard measure for most miniatures.

The quilt shop.

 I made the two quilts, the one behind the counter is hand pieced & hand quilted. The blocks are 1/2" square. The house quilt is made of pre-printed house fabric. I bought the beautiful braid rug, it is hand made.

The bolts of fabric are just fabric wrapped & glued around a piece of cardboard

The knitting corner.

Quilt shop from above.

The classroom.

I filled the stand with lots of mini magazines & mini fat 1/16ths.
I made the noticeboard & painted the scene on the stand.

The table in the corner holds a teapot & teaset,

because a classroom without a cuppa is no fun!

   The design board is a piece of felt glued to cardboard.

The class room from above.

Creative Challenge Reveal!

I signed up for a craft challenge a few weeks ago. The idea was that Clare would send me a random picture, & a colour. & I would use these to create 'something.'

Here is the challenge blog post:

http://clarescraftroom.blogspot.com.au/2014/07/are-you-up-for-creative-challenge.html

Clare emailed me these pics to base my project on:

I'll be the first to admit that my creative juices have pretty much dried up of late. I've been running on auto-pilot for quite a while now & it's hard to get my brain to focus. 

First I thought about making a small quilt, but I knew it would just get shoved in a cupboard with all the other small quilts I've made. I  love working with felt & haven't done so for a while, so that seemed very appealing. I do have a bit of pincushion obsession, & I tend to have them out on display so I can enjoy them, so I figured this would be a good way to go.

It's very simple as you can see, but it ended up taking a few days on & off as I tweaked it, & unpicked a bit here & there to change it. I enjoyed just pottering with it, & as I'm not up to much else at the moment I didn't feel guilty just faffing about with it. I also enjoyed the change from crocheting which I've been doing for the past 5 weeks. It's hard to tell the size by the pics the base has a 4" diameter.

My initial 6 week recuperation stage is nearly over so I'll be able to start doing more which will be good. No heavy lifting till next year, but I'm not sorry about that! :-)

Pop over to Clare's blog to see what other people did with their challenge.
http://clarescraftroom.blogspot.com.au/

Thanks Clare for a fun challenge!