What I do While Watching TV...

I love to find little projects that I can do while watching TV, although I don't watch much, I can't miss The Voice on Mondays and Tuesdays.  So last night while I was tuning in, I started filling one of my vintage photo albums with my favorite black and white vintage photos.  I bought a sharpie paint pen to draw some simple decoration around each photo but let me tell you, this pen is TERRIBLE.  It just soaks into the paper...I had to go over it about 10 times to get it to look like this...not what I had in mind.  Luckily the pages can be removed but in the meantime, I need to find a good pen and start over...If anyone knows of a white pen that will look brilliant on black paper, please let me know!

I picked up this cute little pile of fabrics at a quilt shop in White Bear Lake...I think they will become fabric journals...eventually.

Another thing that's great to do in front of the TV is quilt.  I finished this circle quilt a few weeks ago...thought I'd give it to my oldest son as his childhood quilt is literally threadbare...but he wasn't too keen on the vintage floral sheet I used as the backing.  Alas, I have to keep it for myself.

I've never used colored quilting thread before but I really like how this blue turned out. 

And finally, this is the scrap quilt I'm currently working on...it's just a huge pile of my fabric scraps all sewn together.  It's a little wonky in some places but I love that.  A few more weeks and this one should be done as well...maybe by that time our snowy weather will have finally turned to spring-like weather...then no more TV!

A Birthday Tribute...

This was my father when he was either 8 or 9 years old...my nephew Chase looks exactly like him.

My Grandmother Elsie had twelve children, my father was #5 and the second of only 4 boys...can you imagine living in a house with 8 girls?

I'm not sure how old he was when this beauty was taken, I'm guessing maybe 10th grade...isn't it marvelous? It's my all-time-favorite!
And this is a picture of him in his Navy uniform...wish I knew what happened to all his Navy gear...sure would love to hoard...I mean have some of it.

And here's what he looks like now, surrounded by all but his two youngest grandchildren.

Happy 68th Birthday dad...you're still one handsome dude! XOXO

Trash to Treasure Tuesday #2

I found this old baby carriage wheel on a Saturday antique excursion with my sister back in December. I'm not sure why I felt compelled to buy it, I had no idea what I would do with it, all I know is that I found it to be very interesting with all it's rust and I knew I just had to have it (although my sister probably thought I had finally lost my mind!). It's been sitting in my "studio" just waiting to be transformed and today was it's lucky day!

After pondering the odd little wheel day after day I finally came up with an idea of what I would do with it so I gathered some of my favorite vintage goodies and started playing around.
Here's the final product...hopefully you can get an idea of how cute it turned out despite my horrible photography!

I haven't found the perfect place to hang it but I'm working on that too. I've been looking for an old coat rack/hat rack that hangs on the wall...I've been lucky enough to find them every now and then but they're SO expensive that I've passed them by and the ones that are in my price range aren't truly antique (I can tell by the metal hooks!) I'm sure one of these days I'll get lucky...I just have to keep looking!