Striped Tote Bag

I love tote bags; I think it's because I like things to be organized.  I have lots of tote bags but not too many that are cute so I decided that I need another one that's fashionable. 

I took a piece of drop cloth fabric that I had left over that had been washed and bleached a few times and I made it into a tote bag using another one as an example.

Now comes the fun part.  I wanted blue stripes on the bag so I pulled out a new bottle of acrylic paint and my painter's tape.  I taped off stripes and began my work.

Until I had this:

Then I followed these tutorials here, here and here and made three flowers to embellish my bag and this is what I have!

You can buy premade bags at most craft stores and do the same if you don't want to make your own.  I just didn't want to spend any money and wanted to use up some of my crafting stuff.

I suggest if you make one of these that you don't reuse the tape for the second side.  I did and since it didn't stick real well, I had some blotches to repair.  I just used some acrylic paint that matched the drop cloth to fix the mistakes and put the flowers on the good side.

If you make one of these, please let me know and link to your blog with pictures.

Happy crafting!

Cindy

I'm linking up to the following:

My Uncommon Slice of Suburbia's Tuesday's Treasures

Embellished Denim Jacket

Hi all!  Glad to be back.  I've been under the weather in the sense of not feeling like doing anything creative since Spring Break and then I got a shot of creativity and have been working on some really neat stuff.

Today I'm going to feature my embellished denim jacket.  I've owned the plain denim jacket for a few years but didn't wear it often because it was so plain.  I really wanted to add some bright, saturated colors by adding flowers using calico and felt.

I believe there are 16 pieces that I made and then hand-sewed to the jacket.

All pieces are made using calico and felt stacked up with iron-on interfacing and then machine or hand sewn.  Each piece is mounted on a piece of felt and some include hand embroidery.

I love the colors!  What do you think?

Cindy

I'm linking to the following:

My Uncommon Slice of Suburbia's Tuesday's Treasures

Between Naps on the Porch Metamorphosis Monday

The Lettered Cottage's How To's Day

Wicker Chairs

I've been working on a fun project with my white wicker chairs.  I blogged about my back porch here back in February.

The wicker chairs are 10 year old Martha Stewart chairs from K-Mart.  I love my wicker chairs but didn't like them white so I decided to paint them. 

I chose Rustoleum's Leafy Green spray paint because I love the color and because I already had the paint.

Here is a chair after spraying it with Leafy Green:

I love the color but it was Too. Much. Green!

So I used some Minwax English Chestnut stain.  I brushed it on, left it for a very short time and wiped it off.  That way the stain stays in the crevices and gives the chair some interest and depth and tones the green down some.

This is the chair with the stain:

And here they are together:

The stained chair is on the left.  I love the way the stain upped the texture and gave the chair a victorian look.

Here are some close-ups.

Before:

And After:

The stain gives a nice depth and victorian look; perfect for a porch.  What do you think?

I'll post some pix when they're both done and back on my porch.

Cindy

Round Top 2011

My husband and I went to Round Top as part of our anniversary celebration.  We like the Old Depot show in Round Top but also head on up 237 to some other shows that don't charge admission. 

Here are photos of some really neat stuff we saw:

Being as it's spring in Texas, our state flower the Texas Bluebonnets are beginning to bloom, so I'll leave you with this scene we passed on the way home:

I love it here in Texas!

Cindy

Update

I have been MIA from blogland recently due to a much needed rest after hosting 17 young people over spring break.  We all had a good time and lots of catching up was done by friends who are scattered all over the country in college. 

This is the bathroom that was shared by all 17 of them:

We only have one 40 gallon hot water heater.  They were great working through timing their showers.

They helped remove 600 square feet of sod and spread 6 yards of mulch across the back fence so I can plant a garden:



Which allowed my husband and I to make a trip to the Antique Rose Emporium in Independence, Texas for my belated Christmas gift of 7 rose bushes.

More on that in a later post.

After they all left, I washed all the sheets, blankets, towels and pillows.

These are just some of the pillows and blankets.

It wore out the poor dog.



I'll be back soon with pictures of the Antique Rose Emporium and our yard with all the great stuff planted so far.  I'll also include some pictures I took at Round Top where we stopped on the way back to do some antiquing.

Bye y'all!

Cindy