Category: Thrifted

Let’s Play some more

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I finally finished… is anything ever really done? the playroom!

I am methodically working my way through repainting and fixing rooms up in a way that only makes sense to me. I told my husband that things are ranked in my head from most offensive to least offensive and that’s how I am fixing things up. Aside from the offensive things that would cost to much money the house is coming along nicely. And so it came time for the Playroom to get a little spruce.

These are the best I could find with minimal effort of the before, shortly after we moved in. I am a horrible before picture taker. :)

With a 6 month younger not as much crazy haired Norah front and center.

Not much big stuff needed to be done. The trim was oak before so I painted that White, and then the walls got a nice fresh coat of Benjamin Moore’s Owl Gray it was a buttery beige before as seen in the above pictures. We used the owl gray in the family room and since this room feeds directly into that room it made sense to paint it the same. I then embarked on planking the back wall and painted that white. It makes it feel so much bigger with the horizontal Planks and bright white.  I achieved the planking by cutting 4′ x 8′ luan also called underlayment plywood into strips, this wall is 8″ tall planks. I then just used my nail gun to attach them on the wall, cutting to size as I went. Then I hand brush painted the whole wall with primer and several coats of white until it was fully covered. You could definitely roll the paint but I like the texture of hand brushing on a plank wall.

The Playroom sits at the top of the back staircase which is located in our family room. In the above picture I am standing at the top of the stairs. The door to the right is my sewing room, and the door to the left goes into a small hallway that leads to my closet and two steps up to our master bedroom. You can go through the Master into the rest of the upstairs. The beauty of having two staircases makes the house a loop and we kind of really love that. It makes games of hide and seek rather fun!

The above picture looks over toward the reading area at the top of the stairs, and you can see it has a loft like feel over there being open to the family room.

I was able to get rid of two big boxes of toys without the kids noticing to much. They have asked for two of the things I donated so that’s a win! The shelf below is from Home Decorator’s Collection and  holds two big canvas bins, from homegoods, of dress up stuff, above those are Luke’s biggest trucks, above those are a couple Vintage Fischer Price Play things, and then the top as some random fun stuff. Chalk, bird houses the kids painted, wool felt balls in a jar, a jar of chalk, some vintage toys, a globe I paint with chalkboard paint awhile ago, and a green box with some craft project supplies. You also get a glance into my sewing space which is right off the playroom.

Here’s a better peek at the reading area loft and into the Family room. That’s the brick of our family room fireplace. The reading area up until the redo was just a landing spot for junk that needed to go elsewhere. There was a little armoire, a small table, and a bunch of random home decor sitting here for far to long without a proper home. Now it has a much better function as my children LOVE to read, especially Norah.

 

The Bookcase is the Bitrade from IKEA and was purchased because it was the perfect size and cheap. I am not sure this will last but for now it’s perfect. I used left over planking from the wall and stained it dark, then I nailed it to the back as this shelf has no back. I used a couple more of these green boxes, also from IKEA, to house puzzles and more craft supplies.  Our Play Room Quilt sits perfectly on one of the shelves for easy access.

 

I hung a bunch of random Chalkboards up here. Oddly enough my kids don’t use them to much. I think I like to doodle more than they do. The Bean bags are from an awesome Project Nursery tutorial I came across on Pinterest.  I stitched the zippers closed so we haven’t had a problem with leaking beans. The beans themselves are from clearanced out regular style bean bags from Target. They were the cheapest option I could find for buying beans. The Stripe fabric is from IKEA, and the green on the bottom is a linen I found several yards of while thrifting years ago. This style of bean bag is so much more comfortable and cute than the average ball shape in my opinion, I can sit in them comfortably and play for awhile too!

 

At the top of the stairs we have two wrapped canvases, one of each of the children of their 1 year photo session. Photos are by my awesome brother who along with his wife had a professional Photography business. They are transitioning to new careers now, not for lack of talent. :) The Canvases are from Canvas Bundle and Easy Canvas Prints, they are both 16″ x 20″ and are both super great quality.

 

Playroom art is so fun don’t you think? I love picking art for kids spaces it’s so much more whimsical, bright, and quirky. The La La Love you print I have had  for so long as is from SparklePower on etsy, the Hip Hip HooRay banner I made myself, the Plus Symbol hoop I also made, and the bird I made from perler birds off a picture I saw on pinterest. The chalkboard which you can see in some of the other pictures is one my mom bought me while we were shopping at the Main Street Market in Rockford, IL. Definitely a must go if your in the area.

The Fox Mini Quilt I whipped up last week using Elizabeth Hartman’s fancy fox pattern, the clock is from Homegoods, the Print is from Pen and Paint, and the Bear Head is from Joann’s.

Over by the Teepee (the teepee was my husbands as a child) I hung the Busy Board I made for Luke several years ago, our old rotary dial phone, a small smile embroidery hoop I made, and an embroidered snippet of a bible verse. “you shine like stars”

I painted the shelves for toys white, they were thrifted 5 or so years ago and have been a redish maple color up until now. I  put a new top on this cool old table I found several years ago. It used to have a laminate top with a metal rim. Not quite the style I was going with. The little chairs are a few of the ones I have thrifted. I am a sucker for child size chairs.

I finally figured out how to hang up the kids artwork!!! Like seriously I thought about this sooooo much! I used Tim Holtz clipboard clips I found at Joann’s a hung them directly to the wall. Inexpensive and they work super great!

 

One of the fun things I enjoyed was making yards of garland and stringing it and white globe lights up on the ceiling. I love this aspect of the room and it is so fun to play up here at night with it on.

Lastly I finished the quilt I had been planning for the play room. It is simple half square triangles. It’s a copy of Denyse Schmidt’s quilt she made in her Hadley fabric and Kona Snow as the white. The back is pieced and it is bound in a neon pink solid I have had in my stash for years. This quilt is so gorgeous in person, the colors are super lovely, and I straight line quilted it at 3/8″ apart which takes forever but gives the most amazing texture.

 

Thanks so much for taking  tour or our playroom with me! I love to share the spaces I pour my heart and hard work into with you all!

 

 

 

 

Work it

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This summer Luke and I revamped a toolbench for him. I forgot to take a before picture and have searched my phone archives for one to no avail., it was this bench but in blue.  I purchased the bench from a resale for $15 and it sat in my garage unplayed with until Luke was about 18 months old. He played with it that summer periodically when we were outside but not that much. Once he turned two he started playing with it a ton when we where outside as his love of tools and construction have grown exponentially since he was 18 months old.

 

Before Norah was born we started working on it together. It had gotten beaten up in the garage and pulling it out in the sun to play with so we sanded it down and removed the drawer. I then sprayed painted all the parts separately before putting it back together, including the new peg board I cut to attach to the back.  I found some fun peg board accessories including the baskets at Home Depot.  We also added buckets, although we have orange ones now, to the bottom shelf for more storage so his plethora of tools would have a good landing spot.

One of the best parts about the bench is the holes. They were already in it when first purchased so I can’t take credit. ;) But they are the perfect size for play screws and give a real sense of building something.

To say he was thrilled may be a bit of an understatement! From his love of building to the torturous months it took us to finish. I cannot tell you how many times he would ask me if we could work on his tool bench. He was so excited to have it done and inside.  It now resides in our basement play area, which I have a tour of coming up shortly as we have had some changes since the last tour.

Have you built a tool bench for your littles? I would love to check it out. This was such a fun project and simple enough that Luke was able to help at almost all stages.

 

Thanks so much for stopping by!

Vintage Trunk Spring 2013

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My Mom and I had a booth at The Pec Thing a couple weekends ago. You may remember we did it for the first time last fall. We set up a touch differently this time. I do believe we had more stuff too! How is that possible?

Our booth set up was nicer this year in that we utilized the back wall by hanging thing directly on it and we set up a long table with tall shelves at one end which gave us a nice separation from the next booth.

I also made that Super long (27’+) garland from fun vintage and new fabrics and doilies. It helped define our space and looked cute, if I do say so myself. I think I am going to try and find a space for it in my sewing space, or part of it. Otherwise it may be put up for sale on etsy soon. But I love it so much! :)

Our Goal was to get rid of the bigger stuff! :) I should have taken a picture at the end. It did look a lot different. But we still have plenty left. Surprisingly enough suitcases where not as big as they were last year. Who would have guessed? Globes are still hot though and we sold all of ours as proof.

 

We are not sure if we will be doing The Pec Thing in September. Well I know I won’t be selling, I may help my mom a little bit if she does. I am guessing having a 2-3 month old may make it a challenge.  But we hope to do it again maybe next year in one of the buildings where everything isn’t covered in dust at the end of the weekend. The only downside to the show is really the dustiness, well and how HOT it was this year. Yuck! Don’t do a Flea Market when your 9 months pregnant, it’s a little brutal! :)

 

The fun news is we are going to try really hard to get into Kane County Flea Market next spring/summer. We attended this past Saturday and feel like we would be a better fit there, along with have better traffic and more appropriate clientele. It will be a fun and exciting new venture to try another venue.

 

I hope you enjoyed the little booth tour and if your on Instagram look for a flash sale sometime later this summer. I am not sure that I will get around to it in the next three weeks before Norah is due. But you never now! :)

 

Thanks for stopping by!

I’m calling it…

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The living room is done… for now. ;) It is finally to a point where I am 99% happy with it and can sit back and enjoy it instead of constantly seeing little and big things that I want to change.

As you can see I went with the stripe Olin Rug from Crate and Barrel. I loved several of the rugs from this post that I asked you all what you would do, but after my hubby nixed a couple and I factored in cost I went with this striped one to hold me over until I find something that is absolutely perfect. I do like it a lot and it may stick around. It’s currently sitting on top of the old rug for padding since it’s just a flat weave. I do have my heart set on finding a thicker plusher rug someday. But I also realize we may have a bigger living room if/when we move someday so we would need something bigger. Oh the rug drama continues… :) seriously though why are rugs sooo hard for me to find.. at least within my budget constraints. ;)

I still have to fill that last frame above the seatee. Baby Norah is soon to be born, 3 weeks and counting, so I will put her picture in there. One of my ongoing projects is slowly collecting vintage letters to hang above those three frames. I also am still absolutely loving my new chair! I can’t believe I waited so long to get it covered.  The fabric is by premier prints and I got it last fall from Fabric.com.

Luke’s little table area. I have another matching chair in the basement for Norah. But I also have been crushing on these chairs from The Land of Nod. So you never now what could happen If I spot a couple at our local outlet. (yes we are that lucky to have a crate and barrel and land of nod outlet nearby)

Luke’s radio flyer bike I thrifted so long ago fits perfectly under the table…. which is good since he has way to many ride on toys that don’t have a good place to be stored. :)

My globe collection… I still want to find a black globe. I think they are called galaxy globes. The land of Nod bins are still wonderful and holding up great.

The finished sofa! Yay! It’s a little slouchy, which I can tweak with making some of the seams smaller. no biggie, just a time issue. It is so much better looking than the beige ill fitting slipcover it had before. I do dream of a white sofa someday though. So maybe when our kids are bigger and we wouldn’t have to wash it every week….

So that’s that! I am happy it’s at a great point before Norah gets here as I hate having the itch to do things and no time or energy to do them. Which I know I won’t have much of either for awhile. :)

So now onto getting that back yard finished…..

Oh and I may have my new sewing space storage wall to share next week. It’s awesome! I just need to take pictures.

 

Thanks so much for stopping by!

 

 

Rug Dilemma!

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So the Living Room is coming along. It’s a slow process as all you who decorate know. :) I’ve definitely made a couple mistakes, but am learning that I need to go with my gut, and not with what everybody else is doing even when it looks fab in there own homes.

 

Soo the last I shared my living room looked like this. I had just gone from gray/beige to white. You can view the full room tour here.

It was slowly coming to my vision.

I have made a few changes that you may have seen if you follow me on Instagram.

 

I started by recovering our sofa. It just had a slipcover on it, so I took that off and started a Charcoal colored one. I really want white, but after living with the white cushions on the basement sofa that we use a couple times a month at best I knew I would be laundering a white slipcover in the living room every single week, so charcoal it is.  I am almost done. Just the two back cushions left and a few tweaks to make things fit perfectly.

We upgraded our toy storage from all the jumbled baskets and the small cream cabinet in the top picture next to the red sofa. These bins won as the perfect solution because they where the exact, I mean EXACT, dimensions I need to maximize storage on the shelf. They are awesome and from the land of nod if your interested. They sell out fast though.  I also brought up Luke’s little table from the basement to replace the cream cabinet I was able to do away with.  Oh and that kiddo chair is for sure getting reupholstered or slip-covered.

The map below is one of my favorites. I bought it for $6 at the Kane County Flea Market and really wish I had the forsight to buy the other 3 or 4 maps the guy had to. :) It’s been in the stairwell for a long time and it actually works perfectly there, but in my “I need something above the red sofa phase” I brought it down and lived with it above the sofa for awhile. Yeah, it just didn’t work. I love maps above other peoples sofas, but I think it is to big for this sofa/wall and to much color. So I admitted defeat and popped up some simple gallery frames and you know what, it’s perfect. I am hoping to thrift vintage letters to spell out a word above the frames. But that will take time and for now it’s just nice to have the openess.

Okay, you may also notice we got a new rug… and in this photo of our living I snapped tonight around 9pm (read:dark & blurry) you will notice I finally got my chair reupholstered! Love it so much! Clearly this picture shows the horibble clashing of the rug now that the chairs is back….. It HAS to go. Don’t get me wrong I like the rug. It was a great match for the room until the chair came in, and since I LOVE the chair and am only in like with the rug it will be relocated or sold.

So this brings me to you all to ask for a little input . :) Have you heard of Olioboard? I signed up for it last year when I was trying to figure out living room fabrics, and it is fun. You can make an idea board with pictures of your furniture, or anything on their site. I am sure you can make a board with Oliobaord better than mine if you want to take more time than I did. Or maybe if you are a wiz at Photoshop you can pop a rug into your own room picture. I can’t. :)

I went back tonight and popped in some different rug options. So let me know what you think. I cropped in pictures of my red sofa, my new chair, a stock photo of a similar sofa and shelf, I cropped in my sofa wall awhile back so it’s changed a bit but the colors are basically the same. And then I popped in some pillows that are similar colors to what we have. So it’s not exactly like our living room but it gives the feel.

Option 1: An over dyed traditional rug in peacock.

 

Option 2: A fun yellow and white abstract rug.

 

Option 3: A lovely Moroccan style navy rug.

 

Option 4: A black and white diamondy rug.

 

Option 5: A black and white striped rug.

 

So what do you guys think? I am not sure. As long as I have been decorating my own home the only rug I haven’t had regrets about is the original (and our first rug) in the living room shown in the very first picture in this post. But it leans towards beige undertones which won’t work in here. My husband just rolls his eyes at me and reminds me that I already bought a rug for in here recently so he will not be footing the bill. :) Luckily I have my own personal money that I will be able to do some damage with. ;)

I thought I would share to a: get some help in the way of opinions and b: to share that if your not happy with it than change it. I find my own home to be so much harder to make exactly as I like than it is to decorate others homes.  Also sometimes it’s just better wait for what you know will be perfect in the long run than to rush into something just to fill space.

 

p.s. I will have much better pictures than these I snapped with the old phone once I get that rug, the sofa cushions down, and the little wing back covered. :)

 

Thanks for stopping by!

InstaSale

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If you have Instagram and like Vintage textiles follow my Instagram shop @woollypetalsvintage. I am having my first sale Friday Night, April 19th at 7:30pm.

 

Oh and don’t forget to check out my Dinosaur Tutorial and leave a comment for the giveaway! I will be announcing a winner this weekend.

 

Thanks for stopping by!

Single Girl Quilt

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It’s done! :) As you may have noticed from some of my recap posts or Instagram if you follow me there. (woollypetals on instagram)

I couldn’t be happier aside from how long it took me to finish it. I purchased the pattern from Denyse Schmidt’s site last may in anticipation of it being my first project I would use my new Machine for.

I used Kona in Aqua I believe  for the base and pulled lots of random prints from my stash for the rings. The fabrics where purchased in many a online store and some local stores as well. If you see any prints you would like to know the info on I can try and figure that out for you. :)

The rings are all the same configuration of fabrics, I just rotated the rings as I sewed them together so it wouldn’t look exact. Overall I am please with how simple this project was. It’s the first project I had official sewn curves on and wasn’t as scary as I was initially thinking.  The most tedious part was cutting out all the tiny pieces. I think that if I was to make this again I would try making templates to cut from.

I tried to quilt it like the pattern called for and Denyse Schimdt’s version is with rings offset from the rings on the quilt. But I couldn’t get the quilted rings to be as nice as I wanted and I didn’t care to turn the quilt continuously to get the nicely spaced rings. Sooo I went with varying spaced straight line quilting.  I LOVE straight line quilting on other quilt but have never tried it in a more dense look like this. It take Forever, but is worth it. I really love the look, and the crinkle.

The backing was a vintage sheet I found some time ago, it’s a simple white with coral polkdots and is the perfect compliment to the front. I bound it in this white and gray houndstooth that I have yards of in my stash from Joann’s. It’s a perfect neutral fabric.

So yep… I am super happy I made it and finished it. And I would love to make another. I have seem some that the background is low volume prints and I think that would be rad.

 

As I mentioned earlier this was the first project I started on my new Janome Machine.  I received the Janome Horizon 7700QCP for my birthday and well it was supposed to be part Christmas Gift too but my hubby out did himself. Now lets just say this did not come as just an easy gift. While I would have gone out and bought it in a heartbeat. ;) My husband doesn’t have that same viewpoint, so a deal was struck with my husband so I could get it.

This sewing machine has been a dream to sew on. I love the extra arm space for bigger projects. The automatic sewing is really nice if you need it. I love all the different feet that it comes with and use the 1/4″ foot, the walking foot, and the free motion quilting foot the most aside from the normal foot.  It has so much going for it that I haven’t even tapped into. But I know that I sew faster and more acurately with it and wouldn’t trade it for the world.

If this machine is a possibility for you I say GO BUY IT NOW!  I have had my last Janome, just a simple model a step or two up from the most basic. And it has been a lovely machine for the past 8 years, but I do different sewing now than I used to and I doa lot more sewing now too, almost everyday my machine gets used.  I also have a Janome serger that I love. I have had both my old machines serviced periodically for simple things and tune ups but they have been great machine overall.  I do believe though that most sewers find that machine that works for them and they stick with that brand.

So hows that for an impromptu non paid review?

 

Thanks so much for stopping by!

Plus Quilt

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Vintage fabric and sheets make such lovely quilts don’t you think?

I just can’t seem to stay away from vintage sheets when I am thrifting. So I have quite a stash. I use the fabric fro various projects but My bins keep reaching capacity so I made another quilt to giveaway. It was for The 3rd anniversary of my Facebook gifting and encouraging page From:Me To:You. It is currently in the mail to it’s recipient. I hope she likes it.

This is such a simple quilt to make, a great one for beginners. It has a lovely impact with simple construction. I basically pulled all the vintage fabrics I had out and cut 5 6″ squares of a bunch of different fabrics. I layed them out and once I had the general size I cut the squares for the partial pluses around the border.  You just sew the squares in strips keeping track of the order of your strips and then sew the strips together. So Easy. Do it! ;) This one’s a throw size! Although I didn’t’ measure.

I quilted my favorite loopy design with a full vintage sheet on the back, and then bound it with another vintage sheet. :) I am still a hand stitch binder. I can not do the machine stitching even though the hand stitching ruins my fingers for a day and takes forever. It just looks sooo much better in my opinion to take the time to hand stitch. Plus, hehe, I get to sit and be still while I hand stitch which is a treat with an active toddler I chase around constantly.

Please come by my facebook page From:Me To:You and nominate someone to receive a handmade gift from me for free! No Strings Attached!

 

Thanks so much for stopping by! Don’t forget to be encouraging today. :)

 

Roadway Quilt

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Most of the quilts I make end up being gifts. But I have made several that hang around our house. A couple in the living room, one of the foot of our bed for our feet, and one for Luke’s crib. Which I realize after typing that is only 4 actual quilts in our house that I have made. I have gifted over twice as many as I have kept. Hmm.. I guess that’s good. ;)

But anyway…. when we are in the living room cuddling, or “pretend” napping Luke gives us each our own quilt. Since there are three of us it doesn’t always work out. ;) So I made Luke a patchwork quilt for the living room.

 

I used mainly Lotta Jansdotter’s Bella Line. Not all the prints, but most. I added in a couple Kona solids.  Don’t hold me too these colors, but I think they are Kona, Buttercup, Carribean, and Coal, and bound in Ash. I can’t remember specifically if these are the colors, but I think so. ;)

I cut 6.5″ squares and used 1/4″ seams as usual for a final measurement of 4′ x 5′.

 

For the back I used a polka dot sheet I used and added some roads onto the back for Luke to play on. Isn’t that such a great idea? Lindsey from That’s what Lindsey said did this on the back of one of her quilts for her son and should it to me via Instagram. So awesome! :)

I quilted it with zig zags using the points of the squares as my guide. Super fast and simple especially on a smaller quilt.

He like’s it! :)

 

This is the first quilt I have made that is purely squares in a random layout. It was super fast and I finished this in two short night sessions and one naptime. I need to make more simple quilts. :)

 

Thanks so much for stopping by!

Circles, and babies, and quilts, oh my!

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My best friend had her third baby on Monday. A girl. She has two boys already so she was super excited to be having a girl.

I made her a circle quilt! My first quilt with circles, and you know what not as hard or as scary as it appears. :) I found this drunkards path quilt along from Needles and Spatula. She has a great template that I used that is free to download. If you have been wanting to try curves or circles do it. You will be glad you did.

I made each circle a patchwork with 4 different patterns in each. 16 circles in all. The Background is Kona color: aqua. It’s such a lovely blue. I super Love working with Kona, it’s the only solid I use if I can help it.

I used a coral, orange, and white striped vintage sheet backing that didn’t photograph well, due to using my iphone at night. My regular camera was out of service at the time.

I have it on good authority that baby Ava liked it. :)

 

Thanks so much for stopping by!