NO, I HAVEN'T BEEN SITTING IDLE

Oh the crafty bits I have accomplished, over the past couple of weeks.  And oh the visits to the Osteopath to repair the damage.  I have painted, I have glued, I have shopped like you wouldn't believe.   Varnish is my friend, and even the sewing machine got a bit of a work out.   So now I present to you, "Stuff I Have Completed".  

The cushions from the last post, in position.   We will ignore the wrinkles in the fabric and we will all agree that white is a stupid colour when you have a large hairy dog who sheds like nothing I have seen before, and a teenager who thought he was going to get away with eating spaghetti bolognese on his lap after a hard day of putting a truck load of Ikea furniture together.   But, there is always a but.....they can be washed and I did buy a second set (the white ones where the cheapest of the sets) and the master plan is to one day pull one of the sets apart and make my own covers (or Ikea will decide that Teal would be a perfect colour to add to their range).     Anyway, the cushions look good.

The Elf dressed the foot stool and I only noticed that the trim isn't straight, but you should have seen what we accomplished in a couple of days.   I will go back and fix it up asap.

 Whilst rounding up our collection of furniture bits and pieces for the holiday house, we found a pine coffee table that I had planned to mosaic during "the mosaic" phase.   A good sand and a couple of coats of teal paint and the husband thought it would be a simple teal coloured table - oh how wrong can you be husband.  Never one for leaving a perfectly good paint finish alone, I decided that a table for playing checkers would be a nifty idea.   So I taped, and gridded and then free handed the paint job and did the grid for checkers or chess.    Then I found some scrap booking pages I had been using as a "beachy" colour reference.   Like someone with a mad compulsion to over-do it, I had photocopies made of the papers and then spent a night cutting out bits and pieces for the decoupage.    In comparison with the fish tank I did , here, this is tame!

The idea was to make it look like every other level surface in our home:  like stuff had been dumped on it and then pushed to the outside edges to clear the way for a game.

I added some bun feet to give a bit of extra height - this gave me more spaces to decoupage.   Originally the feet had been painted.   Whilst I had them outside to sand, O'Reilly decided a good game would be to pinch one of the painted feet and run wildly through the garden.   After the three of us gave chase  we finally retrieved said bun foot.  Alas it had marks and scratches and I was a little over painting by then, so decoupage was a way of hiding the damage from large dog teeth!   I also distressed the paintwork on the edges of the table and the legs.  I found some resin seashells in Spotlight last week - they will be glued to some timber discs and painted in two colours to use as checker pieces.   A storage box will also be made to match.  

When the folks downsized, I took their old dining table and chairs.   The chairs had never been comfortable and it would have taken so much time to paint and re-upholster them.   I sent them off to the Opportunity Shop (thrift store), and bought these white ones from Ikea.    The table was originally dark brown.   I gave it a few coats of undercoat to "kill" the brown and then painted it a very striking shade of blue.  Comments were past that it was a bit bright, but again I suggested that "they" wait and see the final colour.  So once the blue dried I got too work with the sander to distress the table, and then gave it a couple of coats of whitewash.  The table top has about 6 coats of satin varnish.   Now I just need some cushions for the chairs. 

Artwork for the walls is non existent.  This piece of fishy art was created using a pre-primed canvas, paper clay for the heavy outlines and texture past to add texture for the water and to blend the paper clay with the canvas - sort of like using no more gaps.    I had planned to try using one of those two part epoxy resins for added gloss, but decided it all looked too hard with limited time so used a "Jo Sonja" gloss finish.   It gave a lovely surface.  I will have a play with the resin stuff when I have a bit more time.

When we first got O'Reilly, we had this cane furniture that was in serious need of paint or a refreshing coat of varnish.   My next door neighbour made all of this  cane furniture.   After sitting in his car port for a couple of years, he put it out for the hard rubbish collection and I dragged it back in to my place.   This particular style of chair has a mechanism that lets you rock and swivel - perfect for a window with a view  or to sit and read a book.    I have two of these chairs and another one that is a standard cane chair made in the same style.   O'Reilly has systematically eaten all of the cushions bar one - this was the one I had to pull apart to make a pattern for the chair cushion; for  the footstool I just had to wing it as I went along.   The cane was repaired using "Google" and as I am not in possession of a spray gun or booth, I had to hand paint the cane - what a pain in the back, neck and shoulders that is - it took hours, but the end result was well worth it. 
(My husband liked the zebra blanket so much, he thought "his" chair could be done in the same fabric - so for once I obliged!). 

 We had booked a truck to carry our treasures to their new home.   We were to leave on Friday afternoon.  Early in the week, much of  Gippsland took a hammering with rain which resulted in flood waters, trees down and a few instances of land slip on the main highway used to get to Merimbula.  Up until Friday morning the highway was closed and so the 8 hour trip was looking like becoming a 13 hour plus extravaganza.  Could I take 13 hours of the elf and the dog fighting for space in the back seat for 13 hours - I don't think it would have been pretty.    As luck would have it, all the stars aligned and we were able to follow our usual route.  It was dark when we were travelling through some of the affected areas, so I could only get photo's on the way home.   This area is often green, but last week much of it was underwater.    I took these photo's through the car window  so they aren't as crisp as I would like but they didn't turn out too bad.

O'Reilly is really happy being right in the middle of the family in the car.   The kid is usually whinging that the dog is on his side, or the dog is breathing on him or one of a hundred other complaints, but really for a large pooch, he does his best and is happiest with his head on the middle console.   He travels with a harness on, so he doesn't become a missile.   Here he looks like a trussed turkey - I was in the back with him and forgot to take off the halti.

And whilst I remember, a couple of weeks ago, Helen from WA dropped me a line enquiring about a babushka applique I had digitized.     So after a couple of emails, she sent pictures of her efforts for three little girls.

It is always nice to get some feedback and see people using your designs.   Thank you Helen for sending me the pictures of your creations.

Well that's about it from me at the moment -  my local quilting group has finished its "face challenge" and now the mini quilts are on display at our local cafe.   I must now remember to take a photo of the finished "Queen of Over Embellishment".

Bye for now.  Sue xxx