Divinely Crafty

Friday I started to write a big post about how the weather was going to be fabulous “Warmer than Spain” the headlines shouted. Warmer, perhaps.  Dryer, maybe not.  Spring in England is a cruel tease.  The post listed all the many splendoured things that we were going to do in the allotment over the long Bank Holiday weekend.  As it turns out, the only bit that got done was the part I did on Saturday afternoon before it started to rain for several days.

We stayed plenty busy despite our allotment plans being foiled.  Maybe even because the plans were foiled. Somewhere along the line I decided that I am going to make this kirtle for my youngest to wear at a dance performance next weekend. They need to dress up in the period of the dance, Tudor, for the villager fun day the first weekend in June. Last year they wore shorts and t-shirts but this year, with the retiring of the old teacher that organized the performance, they have apparently brought on a more ambitious organizer.  Which somehow translates into Katie needs to make a fancy dress costume.  I am sure that other parents are no where near as insane as me, but a switch gets flipped in my brain that compells me to make instead of buy.  No rational thought employed, just irrepressible urge to do it myself.

The sun is back out and we need to get outside and finish up the allotment planting. The rains will have made the soil, which is a very clay soil, much softer and easier to work. Heavier, but softer nonetheless. It will be June next week and things should be well planted by then.  Onward ho!

Tags: costume, garden, handmade, kirtle, make it, sewing, tudor

Last month we went for a couple weeks holiday in France.  The first week was in Paris, where we surprised my youngest daughter with a few days at Disneyland.  She had a blast of course, but for my husband and myself the real fun started when we were able to do some sight seeing around Paris.   We only had a couple days to hit the highlights, and a return trip is definitely in the works.  Of course it was a top priority for me to make it to the Fabric District.  Now that is what I call Disney!

Marche’ Saint Pierre – 6 floors packed with fabric.  Need I say more?

My daughter displaying my rapidly growing stack of payment tags for my purchases – as I am intently wheeling myself and amassing my booty.  Good thing I left room in my suitcase to bring it all home in!

He loves me, but fabric shopping is not his idea of fun.

I on the other hand was in heaven!  (Yep – that is my new avatar.)  Paris fabric shopping induced bliss!

I will be blogging over at Beneath Our Feet with more pictures of our travels in France, so be sure to stop by there and check for updates.  After we left Paris we went to the Rhone Alps region where we are hoping to launch our dream venture from.  More on what that dream is later…

Tags: bliss on a bolt, fabric, fabric district, heaven, Paris, shopping, the real disney

I am slowly but surely amassing red accessories and accent pieces for my kitchen.  The piece that I have coveted for a long time is a red rubbish bin. But the price!  Ack!  My budget is not in that range and even if it was I have a hard time swallowing paying over £100 for something to throw my trash in.  Ebay and me are not friends when it comes to winning auctions (despite my use of snipe sites) and all my attempts at a good deal were thwarted in the last seconds of the auctions.  It seemed that I might never get my red bin.  Then one day whilst browsing at the local iron monger’s (where they had a lovely red bin on display for a mere £100 – taunting me as I shopped.) I came across the spray paint ailse.  My initial urge to come back at night and pronounce rubbish bin robbery on the shop windows was quickly replaced by the idea that I could make better use of my being over 18 (and therefore allowed to purchase said paint) by transforming my ugly duckling bin into the bin of my dreams!

I was on a mission.  Of course I had a flare of my fibromyalgia for a few days after I bought the paint so it sat quietly on a shelf waiting for me to get to it.  When I felt better there were other more pressing needs in the potting shed and in our allotment. (Which I really should blog about – allotment politics and gossip are the best!  Gardening in it is fun too.)  At last the day arrived when my body and my schedule were in sync so I set about my task.  It happened to be the day before a big BBQ party at our house. As I worked I imagined myself proudly presenting my new red bin to my guests amid oooohs and aaaahs of my crafty frugality.

Documenting the bin au-naturale.  It served us well when our kitchen was black and silver industrial when it was first purchased. After we moved out of that flat the poor thing has been somewhat of a eyesore and been mistreated.  I scrubbed it up nicely and readied it for it’s makeover.

Next I set up a paint booth by stringing up a couple paint drop sheets all over the patio. The wind was blowing towards the big bush so I tied it up and around it to spare it from getting sprayed. An up-ended recycle bin served as a base to prop the bin on and lucky thing – it was red so the paint didn’t muck it up. (Can’t have my recycling bins looking shabby now can I?) Thanks to the swine flu craze all the masks at the paint store were sold out so I donned a high tech breathing filter courtesy of my farmer husband (which I did not document in photos, but if you do work with spray paint use some sort of a mask. That stuff is awful. Were it not for the greater good of my kitchen decor I would not have used such a vile medium.)

Several hours and 4 coats of spray paint later …. My beautiful red rubbish bin!!! (Fully deserving of all 3 exclamation points.)

Ain’t she a beauty? And for a mere fraction of the cost of the extortionately priced ones. The bin cost us £14 when we bought it 4 years ago and the spray paint was £7. I used 1 whole large can of paint. The gray metal showed through for the first 2 coats and the 4th,final coat gave it a nice even shine. I had no idea going into the project that it would take so much paint and originally contemplated buying a mini can. Thankfully I went for the big can or I would have had to buy 3+ of the small cans at a much higher end cost. (full disclosure: actually I used a whole large can and 5 squirts of another can but that was because some fluff flew onto the final layer of painting the lid. I had to buff it out with some steel wool and give it an extra coat. Were it not for the wayward fluff it would have been a one can project. )

Oh – and at the party I did indeed smile with pride as my guests commented on my lovely bin and were duly impressed with my ikea hack skills.

Back to the same bad habits it seems.  If not posting to my blog is counted as a bad habit!

I know there are a few of you who stop by in hopes of finding something new, only to leave shaking your head in dissappointment.  I appreciate your loyalty and want you to know that I hear your knocking and I am not ignoring you.  It is just that I get distracted on the way to answer the door.  Countless times a day I think to myself “I should blog about this.”  only to be squashed by the giant killjoy in my head that says “Not now, do it later. And only if you can make it really interesting.  Which it won’t be.  So don’t bother.”  Either that or the trickster will fool me into thinking I am too busy to stop and write.  Because refreshing facebook again to see what my friends’ Top 5 Favorite Pickle Flavors are is top priority, you know.

I don’t really have anything in particular to write about today, but since I have been trying to get my twitter list going and realized that I had linked this site from my twitter that I should either get things going again or consider abandoning it all together.  Not being able to stomach the thought of abandoning it all together I am here now – babbling about nothing.  Hoping that this little babble will turn into more babble and that more babble will be able to silence (or at least babble louder than) the ‘voices’ (don’t worry, they aren’t real.  Not all of them anyway. ;)  )  and maybe even I might start writing for real again.

What I do know is that I will never post a “I’m back” post again because doing so is a guaranteed assurance that I will not actually resume posting.  So let this be my first official “I’m not back” post.  If I prove myself wrong by actually writing then hooray for me and reverse psychology.  If I don’t, well then – I told you so.  I’m not back.

Tags: blogging, facebook, twitter, writing