Sunday Eve ~ birds of the air

 

Cooler days,

colder nights,

amber leaves are scarce,

branches will soon be bare.

The birds of the air instinctively know this, but they don’t hurry or stress.  Why?

“Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?” ~Matthew 6:26

That’s why. 

Oh, what lessons we could learn from the birds of the air.

Sharing with Spiritual Sunday.

Star-Struck Tutorial

About that star-struck lamp in my last post, here’s how it came to be.  You can see its home here.

 I wanted a lamp to compliment my theme, but didn't want to buy one and, truthfully, it would have been hard to find the perfect lamp anyway. 

So for starters, I bought an inexpensive lamp base from Target.

 

 

 

 

I had a used discarded lampshade in the attic.  I’m a packrat when it comes to things that might have another life.  I just can’t bring myself to throw them away and in this case I was glad.

Next I rolled my shade around the fabric I chose to use as my lamp-cover. 

I then marked the fabric, laid it flat and cut it out. 

I did cut the fabric about 1/4 inch wider than my shade.  Better to be too large than too small.  You can always trim the fabric after it’s attached to the shade.

The next step was to spray the shade with adhesive glue.  Carefully wrap the fabric around the shade, smoothing out the wrinkles.

I wanted a ruffle on my shade so I cut a strip of denim about 4 1/2 inches wide and double the length around the shade.  I folded the strip lengthwise and I ran a gathering stitch through the top long length of the strip.  (To run a gathering stitch, widen your sewing machine stitch to the widest setting.)

Gently pull your gathering stitch to the desired length and glue on to the bottom of your shade with a glue gun.

I also used a glue gun to add trim to the top of my shade and at the top of the ruffle.

 

 

Lastly, I cut a star out of denim with pinking shears and glued to the face of the shade.

Why stop now, I thought.  So I made a pillow to match the lampshade. 

I laid stencils on my pillow-top and taped them in place to stencil my desired letters.

And here’s the result.

I’m sharing my humble post today with lots of talented DIYers at DIY Day at  Kimba’s A Soft Place to Land.

guest room to baby’s room on a budget

This was one of my guest room’s before my daughter temporarily moved in with our two grandsons during her hubby’s stay in Iraq.

An old iron bed which I had sandblasted and painted white with a black and white toile spread,

an old hand-me-down side table painted black with a lamp of wine bottles and a wine crate my second daughter made for one of her projects in design school.

and black and white sentimental photos and sketches on the walls adorned one side of the room.

On the other side, an antique oak dresser that I picked up at a junk shop years ago held photos of my family.

At the foot of the bed, an antique chair reupholstered with an old table inherited from my mom and a collection of hat boxes held old letters and sentimental cards from over the years.

As I’m explaining the details of my room, I realize how sentimental I really am!

Notice the walls are red. If you’ve ever painted walls red, you know how difficult it is and how many coats it takes. I wasn’t tired of the red so I wasn’t ready to paint over the red for our temporary change to a nursery for our youngest grandbaby.

So our challenge was to come up with a plan for a baby boy’s nursery on a budget with red walls.

With that in mind, I came across the red, blue and taupe quilt on the wall at a friend’s garage sale. It had never been used and still had the $75 price tag attached. I bought it for $20 with plans to use as a bedspread.

See the stars on the wall quilt? I took note of that and decided to use stars as a theme for the room. Of course, as my luck runs, it was too short for the bed. Oh no! What to do?

You’re not going to believe this. I couldn’t myself when I found a blue, red and cream quilt my grandmother had made for me years ago with what else, but STARS on it!!!

Well, this was one time when my luck turned out to be good instead of bad. I happily laid my grandmother’s handmade quilt on the bed

and hung the garage sale quilt on the wall by gathering it with twine and a star borrowed from my Christmas ornaments. I made the pillow with red pillow-ticking fabric and stenciled Lil Star on the front.

Come back later and I’ll tell you all about how I made the pillow above and the lampshade below to compliment the new room decor and stay in a shoestring budget.

To play on the “star” theme, I stenciled stars randomly all round the room. I used a combination of taupe shades of paint with Valspar Metal & Patina gold glaze over the top of each star.

Ending with the little fellow’s name at the antique oak dresser turned changing table. We just took the mirror off and added a changing pad.

I’m not sure what I’ll do with the walls when this season of my daughter’s stay is over. I may paint over the stars and leave the room red or I may leave this room just the way it is to host my grandbabies when they come to visit in the future. Of course, I’ll have to paint over his name.

Maybe I’ll just re-stencil the current grandbaby’s name in place of the last one.

WOW! I’m writing like I’m going to have loads of them or something! Gee, I don’t have that many children to have grandchildren!

Okay, now that you’ve seen my starry redo, meet the real STAR of the room!

I’m sharing this post with some fantastic redos at the versatile Susan’s Met. Monday, DIY Show off, and Transformation Thursday

when an empty nester starts a nursery

{Sigh.....} There is nothing that says "tired, but satisfied" like a freshly cleared, cleaned and painted room. I'll bet you know exactly what I mean.

This soft yellow is Sherwin Williams' Full Moon and it's ready for little pretty boy. Now, we just have to fill it. Can't wait to show you the results!

I'm sharing this along with others at Kelli's Show and Tell and Melissa's A Beautiful Life and Julia's Hooked on Houses!