Sewing Room Tour?

Hello my sweeties!!

As I had a tidy up in there today I thought maybe you would like an official tour of my sewing room?:

For ages the spare room was a junk room - a dumping ground for all things we couldn't find a home for and the ironing mountain pile. The room would more often than not would look like we had been burgled!!

The boys shared the bigger room and quite adamantly didn't want their own rooms (up until H being about 11 they even shared the double bed of a triple sleeper, bless).

So, I took over the room to be my girl cave. It's only small, approx 8' square but I have crammed a lot into it:

Unfortunately, the tumble dryer has to live in here as Mr G has banned it from his garage so I've put a cloth on it and hidden it behind the ironing board.

The table was my Dad's and is a good size as I have one of the "leafs" up so I have room next to the machine and also plenty of space around the corner.

The chair was a cheapy from eBay which I re-covered and the wheels make it easy to whizz about my little room without even have to get off my bum!!

FIL made the thread holder for me but annoyingly the cats keep putting their feet on it when they go out of the window (to sit on the garage roof) so keep breaking pegs off.

I have some Ikea pots hanging off a rail that have scissors, pliers, spare feet and other odds and sods in.

On the windowsill is my cute vintage Jones sewing machine, I need to get it looked at as it refuses to sew properly:

Hung above the table you can see Mr G's family christening gown, H and W both wore it as did Mr G and other members of the famly. Next to that his my Dad's clock - I need to paint the inside of it.

The glass dresser was another eBay bargain and houses all my fabric and books. The top of it is a bit of a mess but I have nowhere else to put that stuff so it'll have to do.


Here you can see Dolly my duct tape dressform (yep, I really am that size/shape!!) Above is a shelf with little scrapbooks, the boys Thomas set (kept by me for sentimental reasons!!) and their handprints.

The other side of the room there is my inspiration board and above that a recycled DVD rack that makes a fab shelf to hold my jars of ribbons and buttons. 

At the top left of this pic you can see my wedding shoes!!

The cupboard below houses misc craft items and was a fiver (again eBay!!):

On top are more jars of bits and bobs and my little collection of vintage thread:

So, that's my little room!! 

Typically, since I've taken it over the boys have now decided that they would like their own rooms, so I have been feeling a bit bad about having this room to myself - for years it was free and H & W were happy sharing and then six months after I claim they decide a room each would be better!!

Mr G tells me not to be daft, as its not even as though the boys spend lots of time in their room - they literally just sleep in there as the PC & xBox are both downstairs as we don't want the boys shut away - it's bad enough the amount of time they spend on their without them being shut upstairs too. So I guess they have missed the window of opportunity!!

We've had a quiet weekend, mostly spent indoors due to the yucky weather - we're very glad we have a proper holiday booked this year!!

hugs,

S x

More Fugly-To-Fabulous, Cath Kidston Goodies & Other Wafflings....

Hello my gorgeous ladies - are you having a nice bank holiday weekend? As usual the weather is vile but what else is new?

On Friday I finished a pair of bar stools that my Stepdad had given me:

They were plain white and I gave them a coat of Annie Sloan Duck Egg and then had an attempt at hand-painting some cabbage roses on the back before sanding them quite heavily. I need to practice those roses!!

Grandma and Granddad took the boys out on Saturday afternoon and they said they were happy to stay when they returned so Mr G and I could go out on a "date". 

We are so rock and roll though that we decided to go out in the afternoon too - we knew come 7.00pm we would just want our PJ's and the telly!!

So we went to Gun Wharf Quays to see "The Cabin In The Woods" - it was the best time to go as the cinema was virtually empty. The movie was excellent, if you like scary films I highly recommend it to you.

Of course, no trip to Gun Wharf would be complete without a trip to the Cath Kidston outlet - it gets all the end of line/sale stock and there is at least 30% of everything. I got a few goodies:

The cute UJ windmills were from The Works two for £1.00 (but they only had three left!!) I also got some CK lace stripe oilcloth; a photo frame; hankie and a pen tin.

On the way home Mr G bought me tulips (from Lidl!!):

Yesterday we had housework to do (boo hiss) and I took the opportunity to sort out my sewing room which was a tip.

Before:

(Instagram pic!!)

After:

I swapped my old cheapy polka dot vinyl cloth (which I melted with the iron!!) for my fancy Cath Kidston Oilcloth - I've ordered a transparent cutting mat as the green one is all stained and yucky (plus green looks rubbish!!)

In other news, you may have noticed that last week I privately accepted my first ad (for Hunters At Home) in my side bar. Since then my blog has been accepted into the BlogHer Publishing Network which place (pre-approved by me) ads and you get paid a few pence per page view - I wondered what your thoughts on ads on blogs are?

Personally, as long as the blog posts for the most part remain personal and real then I don't mind ads on blogs I visit - what I dislike are blogs which have posts which  are entirely about this product or that service and nothing about the person who writes the blog. 

I love blogs like mine I guess, where you are invited into the authors life to share what *they* have been doing - ads in sidebars don't bother me as long as I love the blog content.

I'd love to know your thoughts, while getting a few bob to buy myself a coffee now and again would be nice, I wouldn't want to alienate my lovely readers....

Hugs,

S x

I Couldn't Leave It Alone....

....my wardrobe that is!! In my last post I showed you my newly painted wardrobe and lots of you said I should leave it just painted (I wasn't feeling it) but my friend L gave me a bit of Cath Kidston Rose Sprig wallpaper (which is just want I fancied for it) so I had to fiddle some more:

I'm much happier with it now, it just needs a pair of pink crystal knobs and it'll be perfect!!

I also took the paint to the cupboards in my sewing room:

Complete with Thomas and carriages - we recently sold the boys Brio but as we had two sets of trains I had to keep one for old times sake....

This was really orange pine (but only cost a fiver so was a bargain) and I've given it a coat of Annie Sloan (what else?!!) in Duck Egg and waxed it - no distressing this time as I want it to look clean and simple. I also painted the other cupboard, but that's not waxed yet so will show you another day.

While I was in the sewing room with the camera I took a pic to show you how we upcycled one of the boys DVD rack thingies that was no longer needed after the Big Sort Out:

There it is above my "inspiration board"....

I took the shelves out of it, gave it a coat of paint and then Mr G turned it on it's side and screwed it to the wall to make a fab cubby/shelf affair.

Another thing I have been working on is the skirts for my vintage dressing table (again) - I've never shown it to you as I wasn't happy with the fabric so hopefully when it is done this time (2nd lot of upholstery/3rd lot of fabric!!) I can do a Ta Dah!!

Anyway, not much else to report so will love you and leave you - don't forget to enter my giveaway, it's drawn on Friday....

hugs,

S x