A Time To Organize

It is once again that time of year when we look around our homes and think to ourselves… it is time to reorganize all those pesky areas and rooms that never got done or spaces that just didn’t function well for us all year long. After all it is a new year which can mean new beginnings and why not start with the old flawed and problem areas plaguing us; create a new, clean and organized home we can enjoy everyday without all the frustrations of not being able to find the things we need and want.

I have such a space, actually a whole room and a huge closet in my design studio.  For those of you who have been a reader since the very beginning you might remember I did a full studio clean up and organization in January of 2012.  It was a big improvement to what I started with after moving into our new home and just shoving all my creative supplies and fabrics into the room to make it all fit.  After living and working in our home for over three years I finally know what is working and what is not.  Little by little each room and space is being reworked to create better flow and storage.

Pretty to look at but facing the wall!

Final Office Layout 

The re-org of 2012 worked well for about a year then suddenly I found myself not working in my studio but not understanding why.  After looking through several of my Pinterest boards it became obvious why I was working everywhere but in my studio, it had become overrun with projects and keepsakes creating a claustrophobic environment…. Yikes!!! When had that happened?!?  The other conclusion I came to happened while setting up a full office to write and work in, I do not like facing a wall while I work, sew or create a project….yuck!  Guess what my sewing and craft counters face… you got it right if you guessed the walls!  I never realized how much I hated that until I had to move my office around three times finally putting my desk smack in front of the window in order to want to be productive.  Now I really love my new office and it is a pleasure to work in there for hours at a time.

I have three big beautiful windows on the second floor facing out to the backyard and they are being partially blocked by my storage units. What a waste of light and a great potential space for my sewing and craft counters, fourteen feet of light filled creative space blocked by storage cubes.  I usually think out of the box but for some reason I just never thought to put my counters there, what a ding dong I am!

The other nemesis in the room is my large closet which does not function due to giant closet doors that you can only open a third of at a time blocking the other two thirds with the other two doors.  Oh… and did I mention the closet is very shallow and dark with two of the doors always closed; it is hard to see what is in there and actually get it out around all those doors.  Needless to say the organization in there is not what it should be and needs a complete revamp once the studio is moved around and I see what additional storage I might need. 

We are talking a very big move around and reorganization of a lot of furniture, storage units and supplies but…. I am going to do it and I am going to be blogging about it all the way.  I hope you will join me as I move along through the process of thinking out this HUGE project and putting it into action.  I can’t wait to get started!!!

See you very soon.

Laurette

2014 Color Forecast

Hello everyone, Happy New Year!  I am happy to be back on my original blog site doing what I set out to do when I first started my blog in 2011.  My original intent was to share my creative life with other like minded people who love to read about living a similar lifestyle to their own and getting inspired to try new things via my projects and experiences. Last year I got a wild hair and thought I needed to split up my blog posts so that only sewing projects would be featured on this blog page and all the rest of my projects should be on a different blog page.  Not the best idea I ever had, it was just way too difficult to split them up and find time to write for two separate blogs, total failure! Oh well, live and learn!  Time to move on and go back to doing what I love best which is being my all around creative self and writing about it as I go along on one blog page.  I may still post one of my painting projects on the other blog page from time to time but I will let you know when that happens, the rest of the time everything else will be right here where it belongs.

Buttons, Bows & Bling is back and hopefully much improved, with that being said I want to share the new Pantone Color Forecast for 2014.  Pantone is the industry leader in color forecasting for all avenues of design and fashion, setting the stage for color ways through every industry. And now…

Here it is…. Pantone’s Color of the Year 2014 is…… (Drum roll please!)… Radiant Orchid; which is an enchanting harmony of fuchsia, purple and pink undertones blooming with confidence and magical warmth that intrigues the eye and sparks the imagination. Radiant Orchid is an expressive and embracing purple, one that draws you in with its beguiling charm and captivating harmony which emanates great joy, love and health. 

Radiant Orchid is already sweeping straight across all industries with the production and release of products to professionals and retail consumers. Here are just a few examples of how Radiant Orchid is already being shown.

A wide variety of textile prints, fabrics and threads.

Fashions and accessories

Cosmetics

Paper textiles

Paints for every surface

Furniture, upholstery and accessories

Last but not least, interior design.

As you can see for yourself Radiant Orchid has touched just about every industry and is very widespread with possibly the exception of the auto industry, but don’t quote me on that, you just never know what they are going to do next. 

For myself, I love every shade of lavender and purple and Radiant Orchid is no exception, I am sure I will be found wearing the darker purples during the rest of the winter months and the lighter shades right into spring and summer.  However, I do not think it will become part of my home décor or painting projects unless I am creating something for one of my granddaughters, time will tell and I will share it with you if I do use it in a project.  For those of you who sew, paint or design for a living this is a good heads up as to how color is trending throughout 2014.

Although Radiant Orchid is the color of the year it is not the only color trending for this coming spring; soft pastels paired with vivid brights will create new looks and color combinations that refresh and revive everyday fashions.  I will share those with you in a future post so you can be right on top of the current trends and maybe even ahead of the game.

Thanks for letting me share the color of the year; it was great fun putting it together for you. Come along with me as I share all my creative adventures and inspire you to step out of your comfort zones and try some new things this year.  I wish all of you a very Happy, Productive and Creative New Year!!!

See you soon.

Laurette

Storage For Your Bling

I have a quick sparkly little post for you involving bling! Today’s post is not about sewing but it is about organization for your daily bling which is part of the title of this blog so it is going on this page; here we go.

Like most of you I have all kinds of jewelry I forget about because it is out of sight so therefore it is also out of mind.  More then once while riding in the car I would think to myself, why am I not wearing some fabulous necklace or bracelet with my outfit???  Probably because it was tucked into some drawer, jewelry box or other closed storage item never to be seen again. I have tons of jewelry, from my days as a color/image consultant, sitting in boxes waiting for chunky jewelry to be worn again, the time has finally arrived. I have been scoping out all kinds of stores looking for the right storage solutions to appear but only found a few nice looking options and only bought one of them.

The only piece I purchased was this elegant black velvet three tier bracelet holder from Michael’s for 50% off, such a deal, but still pricey since it is meant for semi professional use in a booth or retail store.  I absolutely love the way my jewelry sparkles when placed side by side on the velvet bars. While writing this post I kept running back and forth to my room and adding more and more pieces and rearranging all the jewelry I wanted out. (This post took forever to write because I kept remembering great pieces I wanted on display and it snowballed out of control…giggles!)

While organizing I found two other items I decided to re-purpose into necklace storage.  The hangers originally hung behind the front door to hold our guests umbrellas and scarves during the winter time and became decorative pieces during the summer months.  The only problem with the pretty holders was they would occasionally fall off the wall if a scarf or umbrella became tangled on the hook then down everything came, total disaster.  We recently put up a new more stable coat rack with lots of hooks and no danger of an accident, leaving the decorative holders without a home.

Into my bedroom they went right next to my pretty dressing table close to my velvet bars; this way the jewelry I wanted to wear most often was on display and ready to use.  I have to say that ever since I put up the velvet bars I have been consistently wearing the jewelry I had stored on it.  Now with the other pieces I just added to it and the holders with the necklaces on the wall I will wear even more pieces this winter and into the spring.  I am very happy with all that bling on my dressing table and wall adding a bit of sparkle to my bedroom, what more could a girl ask for!

Thanks for letting me share my bit of bling decorating with you, I hope it inspires you to dig out some of that seldom worn jewelry, find attractive storage solutions for and put it on display someplace you will see and wear it.  There are a lot more projects finished and ready to share on both my blogs as soon as I can sit down long enough to write them.

See you very soon.

Laurette

Watch for a new furniture painting project, using some exciting new products, which I am in the process of creating over on my other blog. It should be on the blog in the next day or so, keep checking daily to see what I am working on now.

Hooded Sweater To Cardigan - Tutorial

I have a really great post for you today, a very easy sweater upcycle project I stitched up in just a little over an hour; you have to try this! In the last couple of years I have fallen in love with cardigan sweaters, they are great over blouses, tank tops, dresses, other sweaters and misc. tops.  Lately I have been seeing a number of open knit orange sweaters and thought, wow, I need one of those. Two weeks ago while doing a closet re-org project I came across an orange open knit sweater just like the ones I saw on Pinterest except mine was a pullover with a hood and not a cardigan.  It was a sweater I rarely wore because it just never fit right and drove me nuts because the hood was heavy which pulled the top backwards, it was fairly expensive so I never got rid of it thinking someday I would do something with it.  Off the shelf and out of the closet it came and into the dryer, set on air, to knock out the dust, no need to wash it since I knew it was already clean just dusty.  Once it was dust free it was time to thread my sewing machine and get to work, here is what I did.

This is my pretty orange sweater, an open weave semi cable knit, as you can see it is open enough that I always had to wear something under it or show off all my goodies.  If I made it into a cardigan I would not have to worry about that since it would always have some kind of top or dress under it, problem number one solved.

The first thing I did was run pins down the front of the sweater to indicate where I wanted to stitch and ultimately cut open the top, the pins would be my guide line. I chose the center cable as my cutting and stitching point.

The first thing you should know about working with any kind of open cotton knit is they quickly ravel if you cut them or if you get a hole in them due to their chain stitches.  To prevent that from happening on my sweater I knew I had to stitch down a line of thread on each side of where I wanted to make my center cut.  I could have chosen to just use a straight stitch but I knew a tight zig zag stitch would give extra stability and keep the knit intact when I cut it.  The only drawback is that it does cause the edges to ripple a bit and pucker up; you could try larger straight stitches and see what that does, I may do that next time.

Time to cut hoping I did the right thing, if not I just trashed an expensive sweater.  I chose to put the sweater back on my dress form to keep from accidentally cutting anything other then the front of the top. Once I cut the top it released the tension of the stitches and I got a slight ruffle down each side of the new cardigan. 

I could either leave the slight ruffle down the front or turn it under about half an inch on each side to give it some weight and lessen the wave.  I chose to pin it back and stitch it down for a bit more substance in case I wanted to add buttons.  I was very happy I chose to turn it under and give it a more polished finish, I love how it looks.

Almost all of my cardigans have buttons so I pulled out my rather large button collection to see if I had enough of any one kind of button to use all the way down the front.  Not just any button would do, I did not want brown or tan or white or black, I wanted orange to match the sweater, that way I could wear it with anything and not have them clash with my outfit.  I only found two orange ones so I decided I would put one on each side so I could use a fabric loop to close it if I wanted to.  All done and ready to wear, how cute is that!  I know the sweater will now get lots of use all winter long.  I have one just like it in black I have not been wearing; I think it will get a makeover too, only the black one will have a bit of a romantic twist. I guess you will just have to keep checking in to see what I am going to do to make a hooded sweater more feminine and romantic.

Thanks for letting me share my newest tutorial with you, what a great way to re-purpose an unused item of clothing and stretch a dollar, no shopping needed here for a new cardigan sweater or two.

See you soon.

Laurette

Patio Cushions - Mini Tutorial

Hello everyone, you have probably been wondering where I went and why there have been no new posts on this blog, the answer to that is I have been doing all kinds of projects mostly for my other blog.  I really have not been doing much in the way of sewing since this summer has been all about painting and making over the interior of two of our bathrooms, which I decided last year all belong on another kind of blog not my sewing blog.  I did work on one project late in the summer which required some sewing; the makeover of our back patio, it came out really pretty with the addition of the change of colors through the recovering of our patio furniture cushions.  I actually needed to use my sewing machine for all of those, here is what I made without using any patterns.

First up were the two ottoman cushions for our chairs, they take a pretty good beating so I made sure to use a really sturdy outdoor fabric to prevent easy damage.  I measured each cushion and the openings then cut them to fit; I also measured how long I wanted the ties to be so the pads would not fall off the ottomans when we put up our feet to relax. I did not want a seam in the front of the cushion so I cut one long rectangle and stitched up the sides and a couple of inches across the top where I inserted the ties between the layers to secure them in place, then stopped and back stitched to create my opening.  Before turning I tucked the old cushion inside the cover to make sure it would fit and squared off the two front ends with pins, pulled out the cushion and stitched up the corners then turned it. I inserted the old cushion and stitched up the opening and I was all done!

Tip of the day:  Some outdoor fabrics tend to unravel where they are cut, try using pinking shears on all the raw edges to prevent that when you are sewing and when you turn the piece, works like a charm.

Next up was the really long bench cushion which was a bit more tricky; it was four feet long and a real challenge to get under the foot of my little machine and through the small opening, not to mention where to put the four feet of length as I sewed closed the opening.  I made the new cover for the pad the same way I made the ottoman covers only with no ties since the cushion seems to stay put without them.

Three cushions down and four more large ones to go!  I wanted to re-use the old cushions but I just could not figure out how to do it and get them through my machine to close them up, it was just too much work for my little sewing machine so I cheated and bought some new plain pale blue cushions on clearance at Target.  My big dilemma was what to do with the main fabric I purchased which tied all the other fabrics and accessories together?  I was also worried the pale blue chair cushions would get dirty really fast and look awful in a hurry, what to do?  Inspiration hit and I came up with an easy slipcover which would slide onto the cushion kind of like a cigar band, covering up the front and back of the cushion leaving the sides open and showing some of the pretty pale blue color which was also in the coordinating fabrics.  Now everything was pulled together and I got a really pretty looking patio and cushion covers I could take off easily and clean.

To make the slipcovers I simply measured all the way around the cushion then figured out how wide to make it once I turned under all the raw edges. Next I cut a long rectangle, hemmed the edges and joined the two ends making a long loop, stitched it and slipped it on the cushion placing the seam in the back at the cushion bend. Just that simple and a quick solution to a very vexing problem.

Thanks for letting me share my latest sewing project with you, I think everything came out lovely and the patio became a really bright and beautiful place to relax all summer. I plan to share more sewing projects with you especially since the holidays are on the way and I tend to do a lot more sewing this time of year.

See you soon.

Laurette

You can see the full patio makeover on my other blog: Create, Upcycle, Decorate, Organize, just click on the link box on the right side of this blog page and it will take you over there, enjoy!!!

Quilted Mug Rug

From the Writers Wall Quilt I had a lot of leftover fabrics due to my little “design opportunity”, I pondered long and hard what I should make to use up some of my scraps.  I looked at a ton of ideas I pinned onto my Pinterest boards and came up with the idea of making a quilted mug rug.  What is a mug rug you ask?  Well… it is larger then a drink coaster and smaller then a placemat and usually heat proof, primarily used for a drink and a small snack plate or anything else which fits on the small surface.  I looked for tutorials or patterns but really did not find one which gave me dimensions or instructions, as usual I made up my own pattern and inserted Insul-Bright to protect surfaces from hot and cold drinks and foods.

I still had more leftover fabrics so I made a couple of coffee cup cozy’s which came out pretty cute.  I lined those with Insul-Bright as well to keep in the hot and cold.  I did not take a photo of one wrapped around a coffee cup but you get the idea.

Here is the photo of my quilt hanging in my sister’s office and the coffee cozy and mug rug on her desk.  I was really thrilled to see them all in her office, I was absolutely honored she did that.

Thanks for letting me share some of my scrap projects with you today; I hope you got inspired to use up some of your leftover scraps to make some fun gifts.  There are several more sewing projects on the books to share with you so keep an eye out for them.

See you soon.

Laurette