Remember when I posted this massive queen sized quilt that I've been working on for the past 6 months or so? I worked on it for 2 or 3 hours once a week since late January/early February with my other 2 quilting buddies. 6 months later, countless hours and I finally started putting finishing touches on it earlier this week. I spent almost all day Monday at Sparrow Studioz, learning how to use the long arm quilting machine and another half day on Tuesday to finish off the quilting. I was originally going to pay someone to quilt this massive beast of a quilt for me so I opted for a minky backing. The owner, Bradie, convinced me that I could easily quilt it myself and get the satisfaction of saying, "Yah, I made this entire quilt myself." I was sold. I'll never quilt on my little home machine again. For $30/hr, it's a steal of deal to rent studio time. I squared off my quilt after the quilting was done, came home and spent the last two evenings binding the quilt. I'm so happy with the finished product. Not only because I feel like it's such a huge accomplishment, but because I opted to go for the queen size that fits onto my bed. It's going to be something that I treasure and hopefully pass onto my children. When I was making this massive quilt, I messed up a couple times which left me with a large number of blocks so it's just meant to be that my soon-to-arrive baby will get a matching lap quilt. Like momma, like baby. :)
Leanne from Apple Box Boutique has totally got me hooked on painting furniture to give it a second life and now I see old wood furniture in a whole new light. I took a class from her earlier this year and was able to transform Jamie's old night stand into something that I absolutely love.
The picture really doesn't do it justice because the gold gilding wax is amazing in person. We have a matching dresser for this night stand that's in line waiting to be transformed into a baby dresser/change station. Hopefully that'll get done before baby's arrival!
Leanne had a massive furniture garage sale a couple months ago and I managed to pick up this beautiful, made in Canada dresser. It fits perfectly in our foyer and I knew I wanted wanted to test out the oh so loved Emperor's Silk paint color. It took 2 coats of paint, 2 coats of clear wax and some spray paint for the hardware to almost complete the look. I picked up some dark wax to give it more character but haven't gotten around to truly finishing this dresser yet. In the meantime though, it stands loud and proud in our foyer, strutting its new sharp look.
I found a recipe for homemade eczema cream on Pinterest a while back and decided to give it a go since I have miserable eczema on both my shins. I read a lot of the comments and was skeptical about the ground up oats in the recipe, but there were enough positive comments that I went with it anyways. I'm never one to follow instructions exactly so I ended up using:
- organic coconut oil (4-5 large tablespoon scoops)
- olive oil (a quick swig in the pan)
- shea butter (a tablespoon?)
- ground oats (1/4 cup unground)
I melted everything down in pan and poured the mixture into various jars I had laying around. As others had mentioned, the oats all settled to the bottom so I gave the containers a good shake every so often as it was setting. This worked like a charm to keep the oats suspended in the mixture. Unfortunately as I was using this mixture, I soon discovered that I absolutely hated the ground bits of oat. It felt like I had sand all over and since I used it right before bed, I constantly had to de-sand myself before climbing in. After a few days, I gave up and put the jars over my heating vents and the oats all settled to the bottom as the mixtures melted. I have since used up everything I made and I made a second batch. This time I altered it a bit just to see what else would work well with my skin.
- 4 parts coconut oil
- 1 part petroleum jelly
- 1 part shea butter
- a swig or two of olive oil
The petroleum jelly gave the mixture a very soft clear consistency, almost like a very warm jelly. What's been amazing about it so far is that once you apply it, the greasiness literally disappears! It's fascinating! Even Jamie commented that it wasn't oily feeling like the first batch. I gave some of this new mixture to my brother and dad, both who have eczema on their shins (inherited much eh?). My eczema has been improving but is nowhere close to being cleared. If something miraculously clears up my legs, I'm patenting it!
