Vintage pyrex

I still can't make anything. I have no usable craft room right now, and everything is a mess. But I'm working on other non-crafty things. This week I used contact paper on the inside of this shelf unit, which my husband and I varnished a few weeks ago. I originally wanted to paint it but that's a big commitment on a solid oak cabinet, and I could tell hubby did not like the idea. So I covered the entire inside of it, including the shelves, with white contact paper. Not bad, eh?



I love vintage pyrex and jadeite. I can't afford a lot of jadeite-it's pretty expensive-so I have mostly pyrex and a little bit of other vintage stuff in here. I love the way the white sets off the colors of the dishes.





My mom gave me the egg cups on the top shelf. They were packed away for years before I found them and discovered how cute they are and how perfect they go with the rest of the dishes. I don't know how old they are, but I think they're pretty old. We had them when we were kids and I'm pretty old.


On the bottom shelf are some glasbake promo mugs I found at a shop. I think they were a pretty good find-I paid $6 for the three mugs and I've seen single ones go for over $10 on ebay and etsy. When I bought them I only knew that I liked them. I didn't have any idea what they were so I looked them up when I got home. I'd love to have the complete collection but I'm not paying ten bucks a mug.


Now I need to find room for all of my blue ball jars.

If you have or know about any blogs or blog posts that feature vintage glass, please share them in the comments. I'd love to take a look.

***linking to:
The 36th Avenue

retro kitchen stool makeover

I bought this old stool at an antique shop and my husband and I fixed it up. This model was not originally made with padding on the seat or seat back. The last owners apparently decided to put some on it, so they made wooden forms to staple the fabric to. When we took the fabric and padding off, it wasn't in terrible shape but since the wood was firmly attached I decided to recover it rather than trying to take all of the wood off. I sanded it down (when I bought it, it was painted with brush-on paint of some kind and it was very drippy) and then my husband spray painted it. Then I used some vinyl covered fabric to recover it. I'm really happy with how it turned out and it's the perfect height for our new kitchen island.

before:








and after:











****linking to: The 36th Avenue

My blog may go missing for a bit

I've had it with google hosting my domain name (variety of reasons) and have transferred it to another registrar. This means a lot of redirecting and repointing of addresses and general chaos. My blog may or may not still be available at http://stampsandstitches.blogspot.com during this time but my regular domains (www.stampsandstitches.com and www.stamps-and-stitches.com) will definitely not work for a few days. I've only done one so far (I think the one with the hyphens) but the other will be done soon as well.

In the meantime I am packing up my crafty stuff to move into a new room so for now, I can't even make anything. The whole room is a mess.

DIY wooden planter

My first 'real' wood project! I found plans on ana-white.com for this planter and thought it would look nice on our new front porch. Mine is a little different, because when I printed out the materials list I didn't have the part that said to cut the legs longer if you use 1 x 6 wood. I used 1 x 6 wood so my legs were a bit short. I still like it though. I used my Silhouette SD to cut out the W from some vinyl. After I finished building the planter, I stuck the vinyl letter on and painted the blue over it. After I finished the last coat of blue, I removed the letter. I let it dry and then stained over the whole thing. I'm not 100% happy with how the stain looks over the paint, so if I do a project like this again, I will stain first, then put on the stencil, then paint over it. That way there's no staining on the painted surface. Even so, I think it turned out nice and am hoping to fill it with some kind of plants soon. It's not on the porch here because our new porch hasn't been built yet. That will be next month (if you want to check out our modular house journey click here). Daisy was kind of enough to pretty up this picture for me since I had no plants or flowers in the planter. She had trouble sitting still long enough for me to take the picture though!



ingredients:
pine wood
finials from Lowe's
paint: glidden
stain: minwax
clear finish: rustoleum water based spar varnish in satin
font: Samantha upright
vinyl: oracal 631
dog: Daisy

Manatee Love

I made this card for a friend that likes fish and manatees.



ingredients
digital stamp: mermaid with manatee by Paper Nest
white card stock: Paper Trey Ink
blue card stock: Stampin' Up
patterned paper: Stampin' Up
pearls: recollections (??) from Michaels
copic markers: E00, E11, E13, E21, E25, E27, E29,  G14, Y26, Y08, YG01, R30, BG45, BG49, BG45, BG000, V000, V15, V17, W000, W1, W3, W5, W7
punch: ek success
nestabilities

This is Pete

I know this isn't a crafty post but I wanted to share our story about Pete. Pete's mom is a Hereford cow that belongs to my father-in-law. A couple of months ago she had twins and decided that was just way too much work. She took care of the little heifer (girl) calf but pushed the little bull (boy) calf away. Poor thing. :( So since my husband also raises cattle, he brought him home so we could feed him with a bottle, and then a bucket. Hence the term "bucket calf". Pete took to the bottle well, despite some mess:


The bucket, not so much. At any rate we did manage to get some food into him and he grew. Now he is an old pro and even eats a little grain and grass. He's about 2.5 months old now. Here is a picture of him with my daughter, who is in charge of afternoon watering:



In the pasture, looking cute (this is his one and only talent):



And being a typical cow-nosy!

Baby Gear - Animal Style

A family member told us last year that she was expecting, so of course, a baby quilt and some baby gear were put on my project list. I found out through her pinterest page that she liked zebra stripes and black and pink, and eventually, it was revealed that they were expecting a little girl. So I made her a few zebra themed things. A quilt, a bib, some burp cloths, some tiny shoes, and of course, a card (not zebra themed). I've had these things done for a couple of weeks now but was waiting for the baby to arrive to post them. She had her Friday night! A perfect and beautiful little girl.

the quilt:


the back-very wild!


My usual curved corners-here's a close-up. I did my binding a little differently this time. Normally I sew it to the back, fold it to the front, and zig zag the edge-not really caring how it looks on the back. This time I accepted a challenge from my sister and sewed it to the front, folded it to the back, and sewed in the ditch on the front, catching the back. It was a little slower but I like how it turned out!


a close-up of the label, which I made on my new embroidery machine using EQ Stitch to trace my signature. You can also see the serpentine stitch I used for the quilting. I love this stitch and learned how to program it into my Janome 6600 on the Janome 6500/6600 yahoo group.


The shoes, made from a pattern by Lena's Patterns on Etsy


The bib, made from this tutorial


from the back-it has little armholes and gives pretty good coverage


Half a dozen burp cloths made from cloth diapers-using this tutorial (with a few changes):


And the card-another clothespin card.

ingredients:
kraft and pink card stock, patterned paper, clothespins, and cloud embossing folder: Stampin' Up
white card stock: Georgia Pacific
dies: nestabilities
twine: Divine twine
onesie shape: Lettering Delights Baby Simple Shapes set
font: Hipster Script