BOO!!

It's been so long since I have posted to my beloved blog, I have forgotten how to use it. Bear with me as I really have missed this outlet and plan on posting more often. It will be a learning process all over again.



We  need a new computer, but right now I just had a tech come and help me update this one so I could load pictures from my phone.

Here goes.

I'm starting with the decorating of my entry way. Lots of inspiration on social media led me to think I wanted to decorate it for Halloween before I do my traditional Fall and Thanksgiving. Also two years ago, I made a Halloween bench pillow that just sat on the bench by itself because I had no other Halloween decorations.

I really struggled for a couple of weeks. I shopped and nothing seemed right. I finally decided on a black and white scheme as the pillow has a lot of  black and white. Then there is my white wicker bench and white shelf. But nothing was working or coming together. Then my friend Suzanne said something that really resonated with me as I was just not coming up with anything. She said "It's because you don't like Halloween". Well, I guess she knows me better than I know myself. I was loving seeing all the clever Halloween decorations on social media, but they just weren't me and my entry.

 I found this Black and White throw on Amazon really cheap! It's scratchy and not cozy at all, but perfect for my bench.

This little quilt I had made a couple of weeks earlier was perfect for over the bench and added some much needed color.

 Now when I went shopping I had a plan and it all came together. I found a few things at Hobby Lobby and some at Beverly Fabrics. The rest I just shopped from my own stash.

This wall is directly in front of the door when you open it. The bench and shelf is back to the right of the door. I usually have blue and white dishes here, a welcome sign and a couple of pictures, so I tried to use the nails that were there. Decorating around our alarm system is a challenge.

 Mr. SS put this shelf up for our first Christmas in the house, so I always decorate it for the holidays.

 I found this at HL and have always wanted a Gather sign. I will use it after Halloween somewhere else in the house.

I had the white pumpkin and think the polka dot one came from Marshall's. I planned on using gauze on the shelf, but forgot to pick some up, so used a fabric I had. I always like to add a candy jar so I have something to put another bow on.

Love this sequined black pumpkin and not sure why I picked up the jar. I guess I was getting my spooky on or trying. 

The checked plates were from HL.

 You will find this little bear and chair in my house somewhere at all times. It's very sentimental to me, and I just change his bow accordingly.

One of the things I love about my bench pillow.

So, Boo, a black cat, fabric called Spooky Delights (used for the little quilt), a black pumpkin, a spooky black crow on a jar and a lot of Black and White checks is about as spooky as this girl gets, but I am so pleased whenever I look over at this corner.

Happy Valentines Day

It seems the only time I post any more is on a holiday. I had so much fun decorating for Valentines Day, I wanted to take pictures and post so I have them for inspiration next year. My table decorations were inspired by my longtime good friend Suzanne.
You've read about her many times here. She is the retired owner of my favorite quilt store Strawberry Patches. She moved to Kansas last summer and I miss her more than I can say. We have been friends since college. She dated and married a high school friend of my Mr. SS's. We married these friends the same year, had our baby boys about the same time, cooked, sewed and shopped together. She has been my inspiration for most of my adult life in more ways than decorating and sewing. Her love and zest for life, her determination, courage, and strength have always been a shining light.  I could go on, but let's get on to Valentines Day. Love you, Suzanne.

This is a glance at my hutch. There are a few Valentine's specific decorations, but mostly just everything I could find red and white in my cupboards.

The three tiered stand is new and I found it at Home Goods. I love it because it looks like tart pans and fits my country farmhouse, cottage style. Again, most everything here came from my cupboards.

Here's another view.

Suzanne had posted her 3 tiered stand and cookie jar on face book and I totally copied. Who knew it would take so long to place each cookie in this jar. It won't take nearly as long for them to come out. 

All together.

I even tried to make the back of the stand look good.

See the scrabble X O. They were given to my by a good friend Ruth.

A little dark, but this decoration sits on top of the stand and was made at friend Sandi's house last year. She is sitting on a favorite thing of mine, a wooden spool.

I wanted to add pictures of a Valentine's pillow I did, but I'm having technical issues with this dinosaur of a laptop accepting pictures off my new phone.  I get a new phone so I can take pictures again and now can't get them on an old computer.  

On to happy days. We celebrated Mr.SS's birthday with all but one of the grands on Super Bowl Sunday, as we always do. The one missing is our college boy, Kyle who now lives in Oregon. The young man with the dog is our Drew's new friend, Evan and our new friend too. My son's old 1958 red pickup was not only seats on the tailgate for football watching but my favorite photo prop.

Hoping to post next about our weeks of camping. Mr. SS has been on a job in Ventura since before Christmas and we have endured many rainy days in a campground, but you know how I love my little blue trailer.

                                               

White on White

Right after Easter, I put all my Easter decorations away that I had in my hutch and the few things left were white. It was too early to start my Red White and Blue decorating that I do before Memorial Day and leave until after Labor Day. I kept looking at the white and it hit me...White on White. I have a board on Pinterest with that title so I searched it and got some ideas. 

I was headed out the door to shop, Home Goods and Hobby Lobby when I thought, silly girl, I bet you could shop your own house, cupboards and storage and come up with enough to decorate that small hutch.

So that's what I did.

Here's what I came up with without buying a single thing.

I have to confess, I have a massive collection of vintage linens too and I searched through a tub in the garage and found so many white ones I had forgotten I still had.

 It really helped that Mr. SS changed the back of the hutch to white bead board before I decorated for Easter, so the stage was set.

 I still have some of my Milk Glass collection, so of course I pulled it all together from other places in the house

 It isn't all white. I used some glass too. There are vintage white hankies tucked under the lid of a Crystal jar. A small glass cloche has a dollar store white candle in it.
The plate and creamer and sugar are Sweetheart Milk Glass. They are the only pieces I have of that.

 More of my Milk Glass pieces including a short cake plate that is usually on the center of my table.
The small vintage pitcher is Royal Crown Ironstone with Wheat on it. It has a million hairline cracks in the surface, but I love it.

The Milk Glass Rooster is from Martha Stewart a long time ago. A Crystal vase and another Dollar Tree candle and glass holder. There are about 12 large napkins in the basket that were Martha Stewart from Kmart almost 20 yrs. ago. They are pique and really stained, but perfect folded for display. I love the little Milk Glass Bowl with the lace design around the edge.

 More lacy napkins folded and hanging over the edge of a crystal bowl.
The Milk Glass candle is new and given to me by some special friends on an antiquing trip. There is a tiny milk glass chicken on a bowl in front of the platter. I bought that in the 70's at a World Softball Tournament in Wisconsin. I didn't even collect chickens or milk glass then, but we were so poor, it was probably the only souvenir I could afford.

 This is probably one of my favorites. An ironed and folded stack of different size white hankies just tied with a ribbon.

All in white, it gives my hutch a bright cheery spring look until it gets ready for the longest decorating season of the year.  (Red, White and Blue)

Oh, almost for got to say, I had all the white put together and it just seemed blah. It needed some greenery to add to that springy feel.

Keeping in my spirit of not buying anything new for this display, I pulled out a bag of the little clover like small pieces of greenery and placed it around everything.

To add a little color here, I thought I would show you my first edible strawberry out of my little strawberry patch. I've had some other tiny ones that ripened but got mushy before I got to them. These went on top of my yogurt this morning. Yummy!

Another spot of color on the center of the table. Probably my last full bouquet of Sweetpeas. First the wind blew them down from the lattice and the the two hard rains we had beat them up pretty bad. They had a good run though. Can't wait for next year.

In the 70's and 80's I loved anything tea stained or off white, but starting in the 90's I have loved everything white. And that love hasn't ended or ever will. Although I am a lover of color,
White on White
is just me.

                                             

A Couple of "Honey Do's"

Mr. SS doesn't like lists, but if I gently suggest something I need done, he'll usually surprise me and start it when I'm not here.

That's what happened Sunday afternoon. I had emptied my hutch getting ready to put up Easter decorations and left to check out Home Goods. When I came home, he was painting beadboard in the garage.

Last year, I showed the backing for the hutch I had done on poster board with a Pam Kitty fabric. You can see that here . I still love that and can still put that up when I want to, but I think the white bead board will really show off  Easter and Spring decorations better.

We're going to be gone for a couple of days, so I won't get to decorate the hutch until I get back, but I'll be showing it off as soon as I do

Here's the other little "Honey Do" I had for Mr. SS. I got this lamp at Hobby Lobby with a coupon. It's really cute and just the right size for where I wanted to put it, but black with a tan shade and a brown cord just doesn't fit in my kitchen.

So, I asked Mr. SS if he could change the cord to a white one and I would paint the lamp base. Well, he changed the cord and painted it for me.

All I had to do was add a shade I already had. It's one of the chandelier shades from our big house. I covered 9 of these and have a couple in the little blue trailer. Sure glad I saved this one.

Here it is in the little corner of my kitchen.

See, the black and tan just wouldn't have the same effect.

It's just enough light at night so we don't have to turn the ceiling light on if we go in the kitchen.

Yes, I still have pink cabinets and pink grout. For now, I just decorate around them and someday, when I gently suggest it, Mr. SS might surprise me and start our kitchen remodel.

We are off tomorrow on a little road trip with our friends Dave and Gail to Temecula. Gail and I will get some antiquing in and Dave and Mr. SS will be golfing. Fun times with friends.

                                              

Happy Valentine's Day

We are in the middle of a three day baseball tournament for grandson Cade in Fontana, but it's still Valentine's Day and I couldn't resist just a quick post.

Before I left home, I snapped a few pictures of the little bit of Valentine decorating I did.

I love red and white, can you tell?

A couple of treasures. The framed picture, my friend Sandi made. Hope you can read it. The heart in the background I got last year from Suzanne at Strawberry Patches at Bernina club.

I made one pillow for my white wicker chair out of some of my favorite Pam Kitty stash of fabric.

Three pillows I made for my friend Sandi a few weeks ago. She still had some Pam Kitty fabric from pillowcases I made a couple of years ago for her., They are so happy!

Wishing you a sweet day, friends and as always:

                                               

A Little Valentine's Sewing and Decorating

Last year, my friend Sandi bought a panel and the fabrics to make a quilt she wanted to throw over the back of her couch for Valentine's Day. Actually she got enough for 2 of them(one for me too), but I only got hers done for now.

She and some other friends came over and we had a sewing day. I sew, they cut, press, pin and we all laugh a lot and eat a lot.

This was one of the projects we worked on.

The panel is from the Pam Kitty Love collection last year. If you have followed me at all, you know how I love those Pam Kitty fabrics.

The blocks all look like vintage valentines. The back is very romantic, don't you think?

I love sewing the binding on the back by machine and it looks like top stitching on the front. So quick.

I machine quilted around the borders and sewed buttons down the center to tie it off.

My machine quilting skills are limited, but using my walking foot it came out pretty good.

The Pam Kitty border is actually the selvage. But it is so cute we left it on. The other side says Kitty Love, I think.

When I took my Christmas decorations down, I knew I wanted to do something different to my hutch.

There is a story to this hutch.  In our previous house, we had a large white hutch that my son and husband had built and I had a table that sat 10. When we moved into our RV small cottage, we gave them to our son who has a family of 8.

When we recently bought our old  new little cottage, we had no furniture at all. This hutch was our wedding present to our son and his wife. It was just sitting in their garage so they offered it to us. It fits just perfectly in our little dining area as does their first table and chairs. ( I will show you those later, I have big plans that includes a can of paint)

There was a solid door off to the right that Mr. SS removed and we have now removed the glass doors, replaced the wood shelf with glass and added a light.

I thought the back of the hutch was too dark, so I was going to paint it white. Then Mr.SS suggested bead board, but that still wasn't what I  pictured. Then, I decided I wanted to put fabric on it and it took me a while to decide which one. This Pam Kitty (I know, what else) fabric with recipes on it seemed just perfect. It lightens things up and adds some interest. I cut pieces of  heavy poster board to fit and covered it with the fabric. It is just sitting up there, so I can change it any time I want.

I don't have a lot of stuff, but I  found enough red, white and  glass things along with a few Valentine things to fill it up.

Here's a close up of the fabric.

And here it is all finished. Those two top drawers are going to be replaced with wire baskets soon.

I like it so much, I think the red and white will stay even after Valentine's Day. 

Happy Valentine's Day!