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Winter Warmer

There are not many things that will stop us making stuff together but this latest spell of cold weather very nearly did!
Anyone who has paid a visit to Halfpenny Home during the winter months (which last year seemed to run from October 2009 to May 2010!) will vouch for the fact that it can get pretty chilly there at times. In the past we have persevered, gritted our teeth and just got on with it but this year we have teamed up with Jane the landlady of the Rampant Horse Inn.

I first approached Jane with the proposal that the group of us who knit together on a Wednesday morning come to the pub for coffee and cake and she agreed to take us in! Platters of cakes and fresh coffee was laid on and everyone seemed to enjoy it, the regulars found it amusing when they popped in for their lunchtime pints!

Jane has also let us take over the restaurant on Monday evenings so the Sew and Crow ladies also get to craft in comfort and it's so close to HH headquarters (you can just about see our sign on the wall from the pub) which makes it the perfect alternative venue as we can just nip back to the shop for supplies!

From Blonde to Brunette Basket

Happy Monday!

How was your long Thanksgiving weekend?! I hope you all enjoyed yourselves with FOOD, Family, Worship and maybe even some shopping and football squeezed in!

This weekend was also a special time for me. As some of you may or may not know...my mom and I have been making/selling crafts for the past 6 years. After thinking long and hard about it, I decided it was time to quit. :( I work the night shift on weekends which is also my craft time. Lately, I just didn't have enough energy to keep up with craft fairs anymore. My family would of been put on the back burner and I didn't want my sons to remember me being some tired and crabby crafter. LOL

So Saturday was our last craft fair. We had an excellent day of sales and we were nearly sold out at the end of the day. It was nice not to bring much back home! LOL

The time with my mom sitting endless hours in our craft booths is priceless. Thanks mom for coming along with me on this journey. I did have fun while it lasted!

My mom has already taken up her free time in the last couple years with motorcycle riding with my dad. So she will also enjoy her time off riding in the wind. If you see a motorcycle in Nebraska and Kansas zooming by, it just might be my parents. :) They like to go on long rides and hit up junk and antique stores.

I did a quick makeover to share with you today!

I bought this nice big basket at a garage sale this summer for $1. I loved the style but not the color.

I love blonde but not in baskets and furniture. LOL

I debated back and forth on to paint it a color or not. I have a lot of painted furniture so after thinking long and hard on what to do with it, I decided to leave it a dark "stained" color. (I tend to do that with a lot of my projects...a color choice is always harder than the actual project!)

It was real simple.

I took some dark umber craft paint and watered it down and just started brushing it all over the basket. The paint brush was nice so I can get the bristles into all the nooks and crannies.

Not completely satisfied with the color, I watered down some black paint and slapped that on as well. I just really played around with the water and paint until I got the color I wanted. It took about an hour to dry and it was ready to go!

And here it is today!

The paint added just the right touch, don't you think?

I started on Christmas decorating yesterday. I filled the basket with some fresh greenery from my MIL's pasture. My hubby cut down some mini-cedar trees for me.

I hit up a junk store on Saturday, on the way home from the craft fair. I scored a nice big bag of silver and blue ornaments for 75 cents.

I just love the color of them. They are a nice muted color.

I think I'm going very simple this year for Christmas. We'll see when I pull out the totes later today. LOL

Do you have your Christmas Decor done?

Weekend Project

So… we got back from our week-long excursion at 11:30 p.m. Friday night.  As my husband and I were sitting with our morning coffee at 8:00 the next morning, we talked of the various house projects in the line-up.  30 minutes later, he had the air compressor and nail gun going.  I think it’s an addiction, this hobby of ours. 

The old kitchen (above) had a cupboard built into the backsplash to the left of the sink.  See?  It was extremely impractical.  Being 5‘3”, my little arms can only stretch so far.  We always thought a shelf under our lower cabinets could come in handy, but the cupboard and it’s doors prohibited us from building one. 
 

So this weekend, we covered up the glorified hole, and built the shelf we always wanted.  Using leftover wood, the project was free!

My husband built the brackets, so they are one of a kind.  Like him.  ;)

 
The antique salt and pepper shakers belonged to my grandma.  I adore them. 

They were passed down to my mom, and then on to me.  I don’t think I’ll ever let them go - until death do us part.  Sorry girls.

I wanted the shelf to be utilitarian, stacked with things we use multiple times a day.

Practical…

but pretty too.

ONE DOWN. HERE COMES THE BIGGIE...

Here's hoping that your Thanksgiving was a time of gratitude and family togetherness. The leftover's are dwindling here and we have begun with the adornment of white lights (natch) and grapevine deer grazing in our front garden.

I had intended to have the trees up today, but a weird injury has sidelined me... Don't ask me how, but on Friday I was lying on my stomach on the floor with my granddaughter while coloring and I twisted to the left to reach for something when I felt and heard a "pop" along my left rib cage. I'm positive it's soft tissue and a sprain but all the same it hurts like hell and has gotten worse over the last two days. So hauling trees around and getting tubs of ornaments down is on hold.

In the meantime, I want to share a redo of the guest room with you that was inspired by a cute little dresser that was given to me by my mom. It belonged to my great~grandma and has been living in Indiana with a family friend who bought it at the sale they had years back. Mom decided she wanted me to have it and bought it back from her friend and they were nice enough to bring it to me on their last visit. It was stained brown so of course it needed a facelift, but the glass knobs are original.

The room is in reverse of it's previous arrangement and this set up makes it look much larger and works so much better. Isn't it funny how you just know when you finally get it right?

The first pic is of course the dresser. Please enjoy the tour and I'll be back soon with Christmas decor pics...

Swedish Market

The day of the Swedish Market dawned, and with it a beautiful dusting of snow with further flurries during the morning - thank goodness we didn't have to travel far! We set up in the barn along with the other stallholders - helped along with mugs of tea and Swedish Christmas carols playing in the background.

The market opened at a very civilised 11am but we feared the weather may put people off! In fact, it seemed to do the opposite and people were queueing to get in! Just after we opened, Ulfie appeared with trays of 'fresh from the oven' cinnamon buns. The aroma was sooooo enticing.....we couldn't resist.

An added aroma, and very welcome winter warmer was the vodka infused gluh wein, also prepared by the Swedish chefs. It really hit the spot and I have to say, it was the best I have ever tasted. Guaranteed to get you into the festive spirit!

We thought the red gingham tablecloth would add an extra cheery touch to our display.

Alex, of The Natural Selection had a grand display of working timber kit machines which are really different - as well as a host of other lovely stocking fillers. You can check out her website at http://www.natural-selection.co.uk/.

The wooden painted reindeer and Christmas Trees proved popular - we just love the gorgeous green velvet ribbon adorning the reindeer along with their tinkly bells.

There were vintage items for sale too!

And Pat made this absolutely stunning scandanavian inspired bird and leaf garland - taking the idea from "Scandinavian Needlecraft" by Claire Youngs (CICO books). There are 10 birds, each hand embroidered in the centre with a different design. Just beautiful.

We had a lovely, busy day and after packing up our wares, managed to get home just before the sun was setting.

Hope you've had an enjoyable, if wintry, weekend.

Jacquix

Craft Show Goodies – Fun with Kids

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving and I  hope you all did too.
Two of the boys/family went to the in-laws so we had a small gathering but still wonderful…as usual there was enough food for an army but oh it tasted so good. We had leftovers last night but that’s the last I want to see of it. Love it but enough is enough.
Now I’m ready for something else.

We had two of our grandchildren here Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday and had lots of fun planned.

Emily made place cards for our Christmas dinner while Joe played with his Lego’s (his favorite things to do in his spare time)
I had printed out an old time Santa head on aged paper and Emily glued them onto aged tags and then wrote names on – we’ll tie them onto the napkins…all her idea!

 

They also made ‘snow’ – we bought the pack at a prim shop and thought they would enjoy it and they did…we also bought some Winter figurines to use with it. I think you can buy that snow most anyplace, especially at places like Walgreens, CVS and the like…it’s called ‘REAL SNOW’

This is Emily’s – two boys throwing snowballs
 

And Joe’s is the snowman and deer

We also made Marshmallows! What fun that was…messy but fun!
 

Emily had a Mickey Mouse sweatshirt that had shrunk up quite badly so she asked if I could make a pillow out of it so we did that too. I think it turned out adorable and she was a happy camper to be able to still have it in some form.

From sweatshirt…
 

To pillow
 

Now onto my weekend…well, it just started but it started out great.

A friend and fellow blogger ANN from A Hole In The Basket Primitives, from Ohio, is in Wisconsin visiting family for the holiday and she and her husband Kevin came here for the morning.

 
We first exchanged gifts (her husband had made an extra blanket crane and I wanted one and she chose some of my items plus I threw in a little surprise too) then went out for breakfast and then on to a craft show…it wasn’t very good…lots of fleece, painted items and jewelry – hard to find anything fun or Prim…but I did get a PEWTER CREAMER & SUGAR SET…loved the patina on it and it was only $12.00 for the set.
 
but…this was on the other side…now I just think it was horrible to destroy an antique like this! I’ll display it turned around – I wouldn’t use it as a creamer and sugar anyway because of the lead content.  But isn’t the design pretty?
 

We left the craft show and went to the one and only Prim shop near me – Finders Keepers – and I bought a MERCURY GLASS SANTA that stands about 9 inches.

Here it is next to the pewter for size
  Also bought one of these trees (not sure what kind it’s called though – do you know???)  I have a 3 ft. but wanted a taller one too so this is a 4 ft.

On Thanksgiving we gave Jamie a gift for always taking care of the kitties when we go away…my niece makes rag quilts and Jamie loves ours so it was the perfect gift.
 

My goodness – we NEVER go shopping on Black Friday. Never had the desire but Friday we went to Janesville to meet my brother/wife and niece and I wanted Tina to help me pick out fabric for quilts for our two granddaughters…well let me tell you it was a zoo. CROWDED to say the least…LINES OF PEOPLE waiting to pay and even bigger lines of people waiting to have fabric cut.

We finally got to get a number to wait in line…I had F08…they were on E24 and it went to 100 and then started on the next letter.
We had a loooong wait ahead and they weren’t calling off numbers very fast. People had carts heaping (I mean HEAPING) with fleece fabric – they had a HUGE SALE and people were taking advantage of it.

It would have been at least an hour and a half before we would have gotten taken care of – people said they had been in line for over an hour (they had numbers in the E) so we put my fabric back, bought what we had of other things and away we went to lunch to Applebee’s (good choice!).
So my Niece will go back this week and get what I had picked out.

So that’s my long weekend – now I’m ready to finish orders and get the fall decorations put away and start on my Christmas decorating which will be on-going for a week or so…it’s not getting done in one day cuz I just don’t have it in me anymore.

Now getting ready to watch the Wisconsin game…wish us well so we can go to the Rose Bowl !!!

Have a great weekend
Karen