Valentine's day gifts

Do U give your Bff's a small something for Valentines Day? When I was working the entire office would go out to lunch to celebrate the day, lots of ladies took there mother's to lunch also. It was a very good day. Some of the girls got flowers so the office looked real good and smelled nice also.

What do you do? I have thought about this one for my daughter, I found some marigold seeds (they also had zinnia's). What about a small gift bag, (those clear bags with hearts on them) include the seeds, heats candy (maybe those candy hearts) and a gift card from Starbucks (they have some real cute heat shaped cards) for $5.00? The total cost of this idea would be right around $7.00. If you add some of Costco wired ribbon, you could drive up the cost to maybe $7.50.

Did I say those Marigold seeds were in a box and they stated on the box holds about 300 seeds. I plan to put some dirt into a small pot of course with the seeds. I think they will look very nice on my front porch. Marigolds or Zinnia's last all summer around here.

What do you think?


Post Script 1/26/2014.............
Just returned from $tree Store, they have a wonderful collection of Valentine items. If you are going to do the card, box of flower seeds and some candy. They have all of these items (not Starbucks card) small balloons on a stick or mylard balloons. Need to go nd check it out.


I have enclosed 2 pictures of hearts, a shirt I made out of a long sleeved shirt, it had some errors on the shirt, and covered up the problems with heart shaped iron on fabric, and of course gold fabric paint. I love it, so try making one for yourself. What about some hearts on a summer tee, to show off your love of hearts. The second pic is a curly ribbon hair clip that I put on a Christmas bag, think of what you could do with a birthday bag or something for the 4th of July? I would make a double gift, a new hair clip and the gift bag full of 4th of July surprises, (you got from the $tree store or the 99cents store, what about some chocolates). Go and make some up and give them to someone special...just because.

Decor 4 UR windows & finishing the entire room

I am just finishing up my window covering, they are turning out really nice. It is easy to remake your room. When you buy UR window fabric, start thinking about a matching fabric. You ask Why? I am going to start next month with covered waste basket, that is made out of decorator fabric, this would be a bit heavier fabric. Since the decorator trend is not to have everything matching in the room. The rule of thumb if you have a print in the room, then a stripe will work well with the heavy print or you could go with a plain color with a print imbedded in the fabric. The main thought is check out the left overs in the decorator fabric section, see what will work for you? You will need about 1 1/2yds if you are using the old waste basket, that is already in the room. What I am saying is I use all small sized waste baskets, since they fit into those small places.

You will need the following:

1. A waster basket that fits the size of the room. I like the small rubbermaid, type found in cheaper stores or the one you have in the room at this time.

2. 1 1/2 yds of decorator fabric

3. 3 yards of matching 2inch ribbon for a bow

4. Iron on clear plastic coating. It can be brought at Walmart or craft store.

Are U ready to add NEW Shades to UR room

When talking about window shades, you may want to match you decor, in a window that has a roller shade already installed within the window. (I have a 8 panel door, hence the roller shade hangs on the door with brackets that are supporting the shade, and casement windows the shade fits inside the window and side of the window. Please keep in mind the shade needs to roll up within itself. I have found the thickness of the fabric is something to keep in mind. I now know sheer fabric doesn't work well, over time. If you are a person that will be changing these shades and colors in your room then go for it.



I found some knit fabric, that is similar to old fashion curtains. This fabric is some what stretchy and very thin so it will be easy to roll up and down within the window. So a heavy type fabric would not do in this case, however, I have used in the past a light weight canvas fabric, it was striped and similar to very light decorator weight fabric. When choosing your fabric please keep this in mind, how is this fabric going to roll up into the roller and fit into the space it sits in the window (will it be free of the window casing)?

I have cutout my new fabric for my Family room window shades, I will take pic's of the old shades; however, they are in bad shape. I guess you over look the ugly and never want to look at it, when you look at it everyday. I have pieces of sheer window material that has started to string in places, I had seen that starting last year and I would take some white glue and brush it on to the backing to smooth the strings into place. You can't do this to the entire shade, hence the shade is a mess.

I learned a valuable lesson learned is don't buy sheer curtain fabric, since it doesn't wear well for this application.
unless as previous discussed you are the type that changes and updates your room often.


Ok I have ironed the knit fabric with the iron onto pellon backing material(I used pellon craft 809 Decor Bond). please note this fabric is stretchy material so take care when cutting this stuff to your size window measurements and when ironing it onto the pellon, to fit to size. Will post pic's of this process. If the fabric you have chosen is full of wonderful color, match with a good thread color. Mine is off white and white thread will do. I can hear you saying what are you talking about????

Step two is to get out your small sewing machine since I don't want to use my surge(r) since this will make the pellon to type of a stitch for the fabric to roll up on the shade roller. So I use a zig-zag on a 2 length and width of #3. This is what I call a running zig-zag. This will hold the fabric and pellon together, with the movement of being pulled up and down in daily use.

Ok, this is a new day.....I have zig-zag the entire door shade and one of the larger window shade, the fun has began, I am now ready to add trim to the shades. I have a tassle to add to the door shade plus several types of trim. I have learned the hard way that you can not pin the trim to the shade and have it turn out straight, so I found some iron on tape called "Iron on hem tape" it fits the size of the trim without cutting or measuring the size of the trim. Regular iron "Heat'n Bond Ultra Hold Iron-On Adhesive-17''x12''". You iron on to the trim, then take the paper backing off so you can iron the trim on to the shade. It will hold the trim into place so you can sew the trim on without it moving or shifting. As an extra bonus you can see if you like what your placement is what you want.


Here is a hint .....this iron on stuff will stick to your iron, so when your in Walmart in the sewing section grab some
Dritz iron cleaners (it is hanging very close to the iron tape). It works the best of all the iron cleaners I have found.

Well, this is the next day, DUH......I hung the shade on the roller to see if the trim, look straight on the door as well as, looking balanced with the door. I have a red face the width of the shade is about an 1/8 of inch to width. The shade does fit the roller but it hangs to close to the mechanics of the roller. This will make the shade rap around the roller shade to close when the hanger that supports the whole shade. I had to take the darn thing out to the garage and cut the side down a hair. I get a great big duh or maybe 2 big dubs

This is in retrospect after the shades are hung, I have found that the knit fabric stretches .....here is what happened to my shades

The long hanging door: it doesn't hang well, I believe I stretched the fabric to fit the pellon, the shade doesn't fit the sides of the door. I had to put hook & loop on the sides of the shade (the hook portion is stuck to the door, so when the darn thing is pulled down, you can't see inside my living room from the side.
The larger window shade has the knit pattern, the weave of the fabric is running a bit cadawompous or not running straight across the window the design is running a bit down hill. Needless to say, these shades are leaving this house as soon as Jo Ann's has a 50% off designer fabric remnants. I am not a type of person, that will not look at my errors, and get mad all over again. Good Bye errors, and will learn from my mistakes, don't make iron on shades with knit decorator fabric.

Patina Copper figure of UR young child clothes

Check out this pic

Christmas arrangement final adjustments

I added small white mums to my Christmas arrangement, just couldn't let it sit there without something to add to it.
see the pic's.









I added some heavy red christmas paper, around the glass vase, so the water could be added without the paper getting wet.





It seems like I love to improve on the very best ideas. I was at Vons grocery store buying some Christmas gift cards and Christmas dinner foods. I saw a lady pushing her cart filled with Flowers, white mums, green button flowers along with those fabulous Christmas green. Wow, I was like a cartoon character that was flying thru the air being summoned by the draw of Christmas wonderfulness. I had the double eyeball look of going bug-eyed running around the entire floral department looking for white mums. I even talked my head off to another customer about the importance of having fresh Christmas greens in the house. What a high I was on, this lady thought she was in the presents of a crazy person.
I advised the lady of the need to buy baby breath also. I was a loon, so I grabbed my mums and ran home.

Got New Gifts 4 U? remember to pre treatment to last

Well, ladies, did you get some new clothes?

Remember if you get dark colored jeans or soft corduroy jeans, you will need to soak them in hot salt water for a period of 10 minutes or so. This will prevent them from fading on all you good stuff when you wash them. As an added benefit, the color lasts longer that means you look better for a longer time, thus saving money.

I can hear you saying soooooooo what! I know you can redeye them next year, but what about all that bleeding of the colors on your other clothes? I wash all my good stuff in woolite and on gentle, but I sometimes have them bleed on to my white tee shirts. What a mess, it is to rewash them. I also use those toss in the washer sheets that pick up the stray color that is in the wash water, I will always have a problem with dark colors.

What about those cute silk blouses you got for Christmas, I am one big dribble, when it comes to stuff that stains it just says come to Mamma, there it is right on the front of my shirt. So I spray scotch guard on the front, by the way scotch guard works good on shoes.

So lets get going on fixing up those good gifts or if you are like me, good buys you get at this time of the year.

Home Deco items 4 U

Is your house in need of some up dating? My house is really needing a up date. ??????


I wanted you to know what items I will be covering in the next few weeks or months....Since my house needs window covering I will share my idea on Window shades with trim.

Covered waste can to match your bathroom or bedroom? What about the small powder room off the kitchen

?

Do you have small children or grandchildren, will show how to make a copper aged (the green copper aged look) of your child's coveralls with their shoes. This will preserve something of your's for a life time. I have had mine for over 12 years. Will post a pic.



I have roll-up window shades, in my TV room, and I made them out of sheer fabric. They are very raggy, becuase of the delicate fabric type. I have 2 rather large windows and a 8 panel door, I call it a garden door. So I will need about 3.5 yards of decorator fabric.

All this means Keep checking my blog for great ideas 4 UR house.


12/17/2013
Ok, I have gone to Jo Ann's to see what I could get with my 50% off coupons. I will need about 3.5 yds of decorator fabric, since I have one window 45" wide, another 24.5" wide, plus my garden door is 64" long and 24" wide. I found some wonderful sheer fabric with over stitched circle designs on it, I believe this will give this type of fabric more body. I wanted sheer fabric so the light will come thru the shade, I think in terms of a light color and light weight so the fabric will roll up very tightly.

I got matching trim (this was on the sale table at $3.00 a yd) also used a 50% coupons on pellon craft iron-on interfacing backing. I was shocked at the final total, it was $58.00.

The fabric I found was remnant fabric and the stupid stuff was rolled on the roll in several pieces. But the stuff was marked down 50% and Jo Ann's was running a 50% off the marked price, making this fabric a really good buy, well worth the extra trouble to refigure my measurements. The wonderful cutter table lady named Suzie, had to get out the calculator so we could refigure my measurements to make sure each piece would fit my windows. So always take your measurements with you, diagram your window measurement. Do what the woodworkers do is measure twice cut once. Needless to say I was a dummy without a calculator don't hesitate to ask for help with your sales person.

I had the roller shades already, but this total is in my opinion, is a bit high. I haven't lived in the real world for quite some time. I guess if I had someone do this as a decorator, it would be several times higher.
My husband still thinks bacon, should be $1.87 a package. I just laugh, and tell him he should go grocery shopping, guessing someone out there in cyber land would tell me to do my homework and I would find out doing it UR self always pays off. Guess I should check on the internet for prices of matching roller shades to go with your decor. I bet I'll be surprised at the cost.

I'll get a grip on this project.

Post script 1/3/2014........Ok I get the big dummy award, not only did I buy two pieces of remmant decorator fabric, I didn't measure right for the 8 panel single door window shade, I thought I would sew it into several shorter pieces with added trim. I was holding up the fabric to the window, the valance didn't go with the sheer fabric. Duh, that means more money!!!!

I found some fabric that was just right, at a new JoAnn's store, in Fontana. It is like the old fashion crochet type, sheer, remember you need to use thin fabric for this project. (the shade needs to be able to roll up and fit on the roller. I have returned my modern style fabric to the orginal JoAnn's, (this new fabric will work with my old valance.)

Please learn from my mistakes. I will measure twice and cut once. Along with keeping with the same style of valance I already have in place. will post pic's soon.

Quick Christmas necklaces or pins 4 someone special

Have come up with an idea for making cute quick necklaces or pins for someone special in UR life.

this cute Santa made a perfect gift for my BFF, she just loves Santa's. This cute Santa I got from Jo Ann's a few weeks ago, was a Christmas ornaments, just hanging on the hook. I simply put another longer ribbon on it. I signed the back with "Merry Christmas 2013". Another thought is to cut the ribbon and cemented a pin back (a flat sided pin) to the back side. VIOLÁ...this looks so good. Check what you can find at the usually craft stores.

Hav e fun

Christmas arrangements pictures are here

Just in case you didn't notice, I have finished my fabulous Christmas arrangement. It is sitting in my foyer, and looks really good.

Check out my blog directly before this one. It was easy and I got a lot of free branches from Home Depot, especially since their tree's were flying out the door. There was 2 guys sawing the ends off of the trees. One of the wonderful persons reached right into the bucket and gave me the entire bunch. I have tried getting these free branches in past years and never had this much good lucky in getting any green tree parts. So I would say you should check for freebie only when the trees are being sold, flying out the door so to speak.

The above picture is the stack of greens I got from Home Depot. Thank you helpful Home depot person. You are simply perfect in making my project a success.

Christmas pine arrangement gathering items Got pic's Check it out

I was at my local Vons buying a Starbucks coffee and started towards the floral department. I talked with Angelina the department to ask her about buying some green filler, also known as pine tree branches. Angelina was truly an Angel and suggested that she had some wonderful silver tip branches. I have brought 4 branches plus a $3.99 selection of odds and ends of Christmas green items.

Hence you could ask your local grocery store floral department, about what they could do for you. There is so much out there for you to choose from, garlands/wreaths, so for it.


I went to the Home Depot for a poinsettia plant to show you how good it would like in the tall vase. I went by the Christmas tree section, and the Christmas trees where flying out the door. The bin with the cut branches was full. The wonderful tree cutter man asked if he could help me. I asked for some of the branches in the bin. Wow. I got a big bundle. See my pic's. Anyway, back to the poinsettia and the tall vase,I brought in November (remember I spray painted the inside of it to water proof it, and it stinks). The smell has gone away, and I put it in the garage, and cleared out my fall bushes, I threw it in the vase and wow, see my pictures. A good idea for next fall.

I was at Walmart, I spied a small basket arrangement, it was very small, it was priced at $10.99. Besides it being small it appeared to be out of water. My experience is once something is out of water, even for a day, it's life cycle has been cut down, your enjoyment time can is on a short timetable. We need to watch out for these types of situations. If you buy a pre-made arrangement give it a long look, then ask when the next shipment will be in.




Ok, start with your vase or container and cut pieces of the floral foam, pack them tight into the vase. You will need to put water in the vase till it is right up to the top of the foam. Per the instruction on the foam package you need to soak the foam over night to get all the benefits of the wet foam. We want the Christmas greens to stay hydrated during the net fe weeks. I like to keep this arrangement going till the first of January.


Ok, ready to go with the stuff?



See the vase and the green wet foam, it is perfect to stick all the green filler, be sure to cut the branches to size, meaning don't make them to tall as to make the vase tip over or over tower the idea of the arrangement.

Ok you have entire top surface covered, now you can add all those cute items from Von's and the $3.99 bunch of green. Remember to cut to size.


You can add the fun stuff, all those Christmas 90% items you have brought up. I like to add some holly and the red berries to the mix. I took some pict of a long stem of holly that I could add to cover the vase & it's green foam.



thinking of adding gift wrap to cover the vase and put a flat bow on the side of the whole thing. I have put it in my foyer, away from the heater vent, it is sitting on the tile flooring. Will post a pic tomorrow.

I brought a small bottle of Christmas tree saver when I was asking the Home Depot guy for Christmas branch(the stuff that you add the the bottle of the tree to make it last longer) I put it in a spray bottle, mixed as the directions say, to spray on the arrangement. Don't know if the works any better than just making sure there is water in the vase, but it makes me feel better.

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