Let me show you what I made today! My inspiration was a large lampshade I bought at a discount store that looks like this: (left) And in place it in my studio it looks like this: (right) Now, darn it, I didn't notice until I got home that there is slight flaw in the store bought shade. The wording is ALL upside down! You can't tell from a distance. And hubby couldn't even guess with 5 guesses! The factory error made me happy for two reasons. 1) It reinforces that no one is perfect. 2) It means I now had a good reason that I didn't have to go back to the store to buy the two matching little ones for my two button jar lamps! But I still liked the fonts on linen look and I still needed to spice up some shades for these two button jar lamps! I determined the only thing really wrong with the old shades were their age and they were dull looking. The shades have a linen fabric-like surface on the outside. DING DING DING! IDEA! But we have a solution for tha...

  Let's make something!  Not a week can go by without some kind of creativity, right? Here we go again! I have a wonderful dear friend Vanessa who is going to be a GRANDMA soon and I wanted to make something for her Army Ranger son and his lovely wife. Vanessa doesn't know it but this quilt is for her grand baby girl. Shhh don't tell. Maybe she doesn't read my blog! As you may figure, I quilt and I garden the same way I scrapbook. My motto is: USE WHAT YOU HAVE ON HAND FIRST. Taking my own advice I dug out my existing stash of quilting fat quarters and scraps. Bummer. Only two of them really had pink in them. Well maybe three if you count the lavender-pink. Hmmm. Ok take those three fabrics for sure and let's use some of the other colors in those prints. Purples, greens and yellows. Now we are getting someplace. I have several other fresh greens yellows, golds and purples that will fit the bill--and USE my stash. Design pattern? I wanted a p...

It's summer time!  Use what you have to make something beautiful! My mom Mary is a wonderful active 73 years young. She and I share a love of the garden which she gained from her father and grandmother and which we seem to have passed down another generation to my daughter. Love that. While Mom was here in Minnesota visiting the last two weeks, we decided to make a fairy garden with my mother in law Joyce's red-roofed birdhouse.  The story of the birdhouse is bittersweet. My mother in law Joyce was clearing out her home of 52 years in preparation to move into a smaller apartment this summer. Joyce knew that I love birdhouses and have them in my 3 season porch and in the yard. She gifted me three of them that day--- but sadly, later in that very same day, she unexpectedly died of heart failure. Sad yes. But Joyce would love that we used one of her birdhouses in such a cute way here. And she would have loved that this will be a home for one of her granddaughte...

  I am in the Garden... A day in the garden is bliss but two or three in a row in a beautiful Minnesota springtime is  heavenly. Let me sit in the shade at my tile table tops  and I will plant plants into pots all day long. Peppers, tomatoes, turnips and poppies and coleus and zinnias...I think I have planted from seed about 40-50 varieties of flowers and vegetables and yard plants this spring and I am not done yet. I garden just about like I scrapbook. I make a goal, I find my best choices for re-purposing the resources needed, and then I coordinate my use of these items to benefit my family and my friends and local charities. I have gotten a lot of gardening done this spring. You can blame it on the limitless source of  $5 for 450 pounds of black compost soil available locally at the city grass composting facility. Or blame it on the three people on Freecycle who gave me FREE containers and pots--literally hundreds of them. Or blame it on ...

Get ready for May 4th and 5th! National Scrapbook Weekend is coming! You could win a Vagabond!!! See how to do just that from our friends at National Scrapbook Day! http://nationalscrapbookingday.com/national-scrapbooking-day-super-contest/