Recently....

Hi everyone! We are having a pretty mild Fall this year here in North Indiana. The trees are slowly getting Autumn colors. This is the view from the Cathedral window in my living room. Love the colorful leaves shining in the sunshine.

It has been many many things going on around myself. I'll just show and tell you some of things I am having here.

My new work room move is still in progress and it is taking shape little by little. I know! It is taking too long. I just don't want to make myself stressed out since this is the busiest time of the year. I have a so very long "TO DO" list and it seems that I will never be able to finish. Just thinking of that even make me feel stressed! ( I know many of you have the same feeling right now! ) But there are definitely some progresses I can see!

I got quite a large "new" dresser and now use the top of that as a cutting table. And I made a Mood board on the wall above that. I am going to share the detail and a short tutorial for making it later. This project is super easy, you can make your mood board instantly using papers and some Washi tapes. (This is not a board for pinning stuff. Only for Washi taping.)

In the room, there are several projects going on. Editing a new sewing pattern is one of them.

Crocheting with twines. I am preparing to share a tutorial for making really pretty things with this utility yarn.

 I found this beautiful dress at my local thrift store.

 Look at this pretty detail of the cotton lace on the bottom! This material is perfect for making things for Christmas! Can't wait to start!

 I finished the legwarmers I was working on. Now Nina can wear them for warming up at her ballet lessons. I want to make another pair of "Ballet Pink" ones next time. (Did you know there is a color called "Ballet Pink"? That is a common word among Moms whose kids do ballet.)

Nina asked me to embellish her dress for the school picture day. The dress was given by her Dad last Christmas. It has small stars in a dark navy back ground which looks like a little polka dots from far. She thought that is a bit too plain for the photo shooting so she suggested to add some lace tapes on it. I sewed narrow lace tapes I had in my stash on the front body of the dress.

I purchased some vintage goodies from my favorite boutique in the town JUNK EVOLUTION. A fun blue trivet which shaped like silverware. A primitive geometric pattern silk scarf. And a thing looks like a wire basket I actually don't know what it is. But I just needed to get that. Because.......because I am pretty much obsessed with collecting baskets. It is hard for me to resist getting them when I found pretty or unusual baskets. Is this a basket for collecting eggs? Or a strainer? If you know what this thing is for, please let me know. I will appreciate it! (^o<)

There is one more thing to tell you. I might have written this before. My husband runs a small real estate business. We buy abandoned houses and remodel them. Then rent them out. This is the picture of the house he newly purchased....... I made the image relatively small. Because it is not a pretty picture. I did not want to disgust you with it. I am guessing that the previous owner might have been a hoarder. This mess will be taken care of by the seller before all the procedure completes. The structure and design of this house don't look bad. This will be a pretty nice house after all next Spring (I hope!).

Thank you for reading. I hope you all have a nice week! See you soon!

Things happning on my work table (and around the house)

 Wow, it's October? No kidding. Wow. I say this approximately twelve times a year. "Where did my last month fly away?"

Collecting myself, I have been too busy with working on my original pattern making and other chores to write for the blog so long. I am almost there to finish moving my studio from the basement to upstairs. It was very hard to start any new projects when I was in the middle of moving. But the furniture setting is finally decided and many of my stuff which need to be stored in this room got their new home. So at last I can start my work in this incomplete studio. (But now, I have the feeling of success about this move pretty much!) Today I want to share what's going on my work table recently with some pictures you might want to take a look.

I fell in love with this fabric collection "Spring house" by Stephanie Ryan when it was released right away. I didn't have any plan yet but anyway I needed to get some or all of the patterns of this collection! It is rare that I really love whole prints in one collection. This was one very rare thing which happened to me this spring. I wish I could buy all in yardage. But you know, I couldn't. So I got a set of layer cake and conserved (^.^) until a perfect idea flushes on me. I am making a patchwork window treatment for my new studio with these! It is going to be a fabulous, beautiful curtain! I will report you the progress. Please be patient and look forward to it!

Every year, the first day when I feel Fall in the air, I want to start knitting like as many of you do. And also I swore myself to use up my yarn stash or clear them out. So I picked some of my old balls of yarn and just started knitting. This is going to be a long scarf. I will just keep going until I use up the balls. I want to make it look a bit fancy (not only something for spending my stash quickly). I consider this project as a relaxation. So the pattern has to be a fun and also simple enough to meditate! This lacy Rickrack kind of pattern is perfect.

This one below is nothing special. It's practical. I am knitting a pair of leg warmers for Nina. Her ballet school locates in an old building. Sometimes her classroom gets cold in the Winter. She takes two lessons and two rehearsals for Nutcracker a week in the building. Keeping muscles warm until their bodies get ready to move is very important for dancers (and other athletes). I am hoping that these will keep Nina away from injury when she has fun dancing.

Do you remember these old school chairs? We got these from a big school auction. Tim refinished them really beautifully and they are ready to go. We are planning list them in Craig's list soon. Hopefully we will find nice happy homes for them. (To be honest, I really don't want to part with them. Because they are so adorable!!!) Well done Mr.W!

I walk for half an hour in the Wooded Estate every weekday morning. Seeing the nature changes seasons is my favorite. I see some Autumn colored leaves. The most beautiful time in South Bend is just beginning.

Thank you for reading. I hope you enjoyed this. Have a great week.

Echino pencil case and old cabinet

A day before school resumed I whipped up a new pencil case for my daughter with laminated Echino fabric. The reason I picked this fabric is that peacocks are Nina's favorite bird. Like I predicted, She liked her new pencil case. I am glad that she is still young enough to appreciate her Mom's handmade.

This fabric is thick enough to hold pencils and other items without lining. So the structure of this pencil case is just so simple. It could be finished in half an hour.

Lovely colors.

Changing the subject, I am in the middle of my big assignment. I am moving my workroom from the basement to the second floor. My basement workroom was fairly big. It was actually huge. I have tons of materials, five sewing machines (!) and a serger in the basement. How could that fit in my new small (but very bright) room?! Well, I certainly have to leave some of them in the basement.

Anyways, I got a few "new" furniture in my new room. This is one of them. Our friend moved out to Florida and he gave me this fabulous old cabinet which he could not take to his destination. When I first saw this cabinet I immediately thought it would be perfect for storing my products. It will protect the items from dust and also I (and visitors) can see the things inside. I decided to paint the exterior with my recent favorite color, very light turquoise.

I like the wall paper pattern on the back.

And.....This is it! It looks more whitish in the picture but it really is a very pretty turquoise. I picked this color from the Martha Stewart paint pallet. The cabinet is set in the corner of my new room.

It is surrounded by a mess yet. The first thing I finished was storing my stuff nicely in the cabinet. (Because it is a fun part!) I started moving about a week ago, and I am almost there ( I hope!). I will share the "AFTER" view when it is ready to show off!

I baked some more pies recently. Baking pie became my recent favorite pastime. I cannot wait to go apple picking and bake some good apple pies!

Thank you for stopping by and I hope you all are having a fantastic labor day weekend!

My thrifty home decor #2

Hello everyone! We came back home from Washington DC Thursday morning. It was very very short trip to walk through DC but we surely had a great time. Unfortunately the weather was way too cold for cherry trees to start blooming. There were few trees had flowers on them but mostly the buds were just getting pink on tips.
I will write about our adventure on the trip some other time. Today I need to finish sharing some more photos of my thrifty home decor.

These are more Origami unit wall hangings in our dining room. If you want to try making these, there is my tutorial here. It will take some time to make numbers of the units, but the process is pretty simple. I hope you'll enjoy making them.

More wall decors. I save Nina's good drawings and paintings in the folder. I have a bunch, or boxes of her art. It is nice that you always have a variety of art works when you want something fresh on your wall. It is like you have your own artist in your house who works only for you! So I can refresh my wall with different art works occasionally.

Home made wall quilts and a bunting from Nina's lemonade stand at our yard sale last spring (we might be going to use this bunting again this spring?).

I like to use fabrics of big scale prints as a wall decor. These were my favorite textiles a couple years ago from IKEA. Since my husband runs house related business I put up this house print on his office wall.

In the bath room.

In our master bed room I have this re-purposed shelf. I glued some Japanese Kimono fabric in the back of the shelf. It is hard to tell from this picture, but I use old harvest basket as my jewelry storage. (Hanging necklaces from the basket handle. Rings, pins and earrings in tiny bawls on the basket tray.)

 

From here these pictures are all taken in Nina's room.

Cut out colorful tissue papers make a pretty pattern on a plain lamp shade.

There is another tissue paper craft. Children's books are very nice items for decorating in fun colors. You see many children's books in my house.

A glittery wire garland from a party store is good to embellish a girl's room. Nina learned to make Origami cranes and she hung them from her ceiling. (We just use colorful masking tapes to hang things from ceilings.)

And some more junks and treasures on the shelf and the wall.

What home decor idea do you have? I would love to hear about it from you! Thank you for reading. Happy Spring!

My thrifty home decor #1

I think I shop at thrift shops once or twice a week when I want to change or improve my house interior. Especially this time of the year, Spring is right around the corner, I start cleaning house and thinking to add some fresh colors and interesting elements to the house. I walked through all the rooms in my house, then I found my home decor is pretty much crafty and also very THRIFTY. I wish I could spend hundreds dollars to decorate my big white living room wall. But, you know, I can't. Our budget for home improvement is usually (always! Honey!!) very low. But it is not the end of the world! If you had no money, you just use your crafty brain and imagination. I thought it would be fun to share my  thrifty home decor ideas here with you.

Collecting paint chips is a kind of my hobby. And also a part of my job. We run a small business of property investment. We renovate houses and rent or sell them out. When I am not making things and taking care of my family (that occupies 99% of my time ^o^ ) , I work as an "interior designer". I do picking paint colors, buying light fixtures, finding furniture, and some more things like those. I took out a bunch of pretty color chips from my collection box and made some easy art frames.

I got these black frames from Goodwill. I inserted three paint chips in each frame. Black paint was coming off and there were scratches as well. So I painted the frames with bright yellow acrylic paint.

I love the paint chip color combinations and my choice of the color (yellow) for the frames.

One day I found a set of five modern art frames at St.Vincent de paul. I couldn't believe my eyes one moment when I saw the prices on these. They were only 98c per each!

 

Now my boring stairway changed to a little gallery!

This is the breakfast table area in my kitchen.

I have a lot of Origami decor in my home. They are perfect for adding interesting elements to the spaces in you home.

I used recycling papers from my recycle bin for this beautiful mobile. You don't need to buy nice origami papers from stores. You can use pages from old books or magazines. 

I am going to post "My thrifty home decor #2" soon. I already prepared more pictures of my "sustainable" crafty home decor for the next post. 

By the way, tomorrow is  Good Friday and the Spring break is starting. We are planning to go to Washington DC from this weekend to see the cherry blossoms! We take the Amtrak Capitol Limited!! This is going to be an exciting trip for us. I miss seeing cherry blossoms in Japan every Spring. And I have been wishing to go to DC in the Spring to see the Cherry trees came over seas from Japan 101 years ago.

None of us has ridden a sleeping car. So that is going to be exciting for all of us! The train trip is going to take sixteen hours to DC from South Bend. I will take a book and some lace crocheting projects with me. Nina and I are making a list of things we should pack in our suits case. Fun, fun, fun! If you have any suggestions for us about places we should visit or good restaurants in DC, please let me know! I am hoping we won't miss the peak of the cherry blossoms (Actually I love to see the wind blows flower petals like snow falling, too!).

Thank you for reading! I hope you all have a Happy Easter!