What Have I Been Working On

Okay. . . Do you think you could get any comfier than this?!

This is my 1 year old cat, Charlie, taking a little “cat nap” in between getting into mischief!  He’s constantly on the go!!

Before I share some projects that I have completed, I want to show you what I got in the mail yesterday!!   The “A Primitive Place” forum was celebrating their 1 year anniversary by having a Celebration Sale.  I was lucky enough to buy this wool felt Acorn picture donated by Linda/Behind My Red Door!!  It is absolutely gorgeous!!  Linda, you do fabulous work!!  I am so thrilled to have this handmade treasure in my home made by a sweet prim friend!!

I also bought a fabric pumpkin w/ black cat that was donated anonymously, but I haven’t gotten that yet.  I’ll post a pic of it when I do!

Do you remember the Jenny Hoffman cross stitch sampler I was working on?  Well, it’s finished!! 

I love working on osnaburg fabric and never realized that the grain of the fabric can change the finished size of a project!  I’ve never experienced this before (all of my pictures have been the correct finished size) but this one turned out differently!!  The picture isn’t suppose to fit horizontally in the 10x13 frame, it’s suppose to fit vertically, which was what I was counting on!!  Oh well, I still love how it turned out even though I have to change my plans of how I was going to display it. 

I’ve started a new cross stitch sampler from Stacy Nash Primitives (actually, it’s a pillow, but I’m framing it instead!).  It’ll be hung next to the Jenny Hoffman one.

For those of you that like to stitch on osnaburg fabric but think it’s a little monotonous because of the small weave, I highly recommend buying a magnifying glass!!  What a difference!!  I have one that hangs around my neck and rests on my chest and another one that clips onto the edge of my hoop and can be adjusted as you work.  I bought them both from Joann Fabric.  The first one is great for stitching for short periods of time.  After a lengthy period of stitching, it seemed to make my neck feel heavy.  The clip-on one is great for longer periods of stitching.

A while back, I bought a couple of firkins from an antique mall in Amish country.  Do you remember these?

Well, I refinished them a while ago, but forgot to show you pictures of them!!  I removed the legs and eagle emblem from the bottom firkin and painted it Antique Maroon by Americana.  I like to try to restore the firkins with the wood bands because they are older than the ones with metal bands, so for the top one, I just wiped English Chestnut stain made by Minwax all over.  It really helped to restore the color and filled in any scratches and scuff marks.

And, finally, this last project is nowhere near complete!!  There is a lot of work yet to be done, but it’ll be several months before it’s finished!

This is my Rec room.  It had hideous looking paneling on it, that drove me nuts!!  So I finally decided to paint over it!!  Hubby wasn’t too sure, at first, but now that it’s done, he likes it.

This is where I do most of my crafting.  The cabinets are going to be replaced this winter with the ones from my kitchen, which we are going to build new ones!!  (So that will be another project that I’ll get to keep you updated on!)  

That whole back wall hasn’t been refinished yet.  I’m waiting until the cabinets are installed first.  When we first bought the house, this whole area was an enclosed bar made from cedar, which would have been gorgeous had the previous owners not stained the whole thing a real dark brown!   We had some septic problems and had to tear out the bar to get to the drain pipe. My brother was into renovating turn-key houses at one time and tore out these cabinets  from one of the homes so we took them and decided to turn this into a little kitchen area.  There’s a refrigerator in a wall cubby to the left of this picture, that, for some reason, I didn’t get a picture of.

This is Kory’s treadmill that she walks on everyday (except on Sundays, which she’ll let everyone know, is her day off!) And  I won’t show you my hubby’s desk because it is very messy!!

The room straight back is my oldest daughter, Brittney’s, room and to the right of that is a bathroom.

And there’s my new elliptical that I got for my birthday that’s only been used a dozen times and is broke already!!  There’s something in the electrical that’s messed up so you can’t program it.  The manufacturer is sending replacement parts to us and then a technician is suppose to contact us to make arrangements to come out and fix it! 

To the extreme left is a doorway going into the family room, which one day I’ll post pictures of. 

I still have curtains to make for the patio doors and decor to set out and hang on the walls yet, but I’ll get to that later.

Well, that’s all that I’ve been up to for now!!  I hope you’ll check back on Friday for another delicious recipe – Taco Casserole.  Yummm!!

Until Next Time. . . .Kris