Tropical Delight Flower & Decor

First a Tropical Delight flower.

This was a challenge.

I had trouble on round 7 (dark sage leaves) and 8 (autumn red buds) but after frogging many times I figured out I crocheted the leaves wrong.  Once I got them right round 8 fell into place.

I have round 9 still to do (in dark sage).

This flower is just so beautiful.

And once you understand it it isn't difficult to crochet.

Of course I'm crocheting it in Christmas colors.

I also love it with blue yarn too.

This out of print pattern can be found (here) along with fantastic photo tutorial by Laurel Craft (here). 

My Ravelry project page with my details is (here).

Now onto the our decor. 

I'm having fun working our designer, Susan, on our window treatments.

She was assigned to us by our builder while we were having our home built.

She's been wonderful to work with and has become a dear friend.

Susan helped me with selecting our custom drapes and fabric shades for our bedroom windows.

This fabric shade is in our lower level bedroom.

This is an egress window that allows firefighters to get in and home owners out in case of a fire.

I had all the window treatments lined with black out fabric.

This is the fabric I chose for our Master Bedroom triple window.

And here is how it looks with the sheers.

A nice dark room in the morning.

I selected two sheer panels for our Great Room triple window.

I love the vine design on it.

And here is how the sheer panels look in the Great Room.  

We had motorized cellular shades installed on most of the windows in our home.

Boy are they nice.

We also put drapes and sheers in another bedroom.

Photos for that room will come later.

Now I have to think how I want the remaining windows done.

I'm thinking of maybe white fabric with a touch of red panels in the dinette/hearth room and white fabric with a touch of blue panels in the dining room.

Not sure what to put in Hubby's Den. 

My Hubby's brother, his wife and their son emptied out our last storage unit and moved all our boxes and stuff into our home last night. 

It was such a big help to us.

So, we still have some boxes to unpack…more knick knacks, vases and my collections.

But I can take my time.

There is no hurry. 

Thanks for visiting.

I will be taking a little break from blogging but I will be back.  

  

Happy 4th of July 2015

We 're having my brother and his wife over for supper today.   

I hurt my right hand (thumb) vacuuming - it's been a mess ever since I took a two day (five hours each) motorcycle course on my Vespa scooter way back in 2010.   

My Vespa had very thick handlebars.  

My hands just couldn't take the stretch that long.

  Now I'm trying to do stuff one handed.  

Luckily dinner's (country ribs) in the crock pot, table was set yesterday along with cutting up the watermelon and strawberries.    

So glad I planned ahead and kept it simple. 

I love that crocheted mail box.  

And, no, it's not ours.  

Neither is this lovely home. 

All photos above are from Pinterest.  

This is our front door.

Sorry for the crooked picture.

It was taken one handed.  

At least we got our Red, White and Blue banner hung.

                                    Wishing you all a safe and happy Independence Day.

Two Crocheted Stool Covers

Another cute crocheted stool cover.

I actually crocheted this one first in yellow, red and country blue yarns.

The pattern, Crocheted Flower Medallion, is free and can be found (here).

Don't they look cute together?

So true…ah…retirement…finally time to do what I want.

Details on these stool covers can be found under my Ravelry projects (here).

Maybe you would like to try one?

Poppies in the Field

This is a close up of the canvas art work I purchased at Target recently.

You can kind of see how it is textured with oil paints on the canvas.

Well, yesterday I got out the leveler and Command Strips and hung the two pieces over our new fabric headboard in our Master Bedroom.

I centered the two pieces right above the middle section of our headboard and marked the center lines and level lines with chalk.

I used two Command Strips…one on each upper corner.

These canvases are not heavy.

I let the Command Strips set for over an hour and then popped the pieces in place.

We still need to purchase new bedside tables for our Master Bedroom since we took apart our old 1980s Oak bed frame unit with the two towers, light bridge and low headboard with mirrors.

I would love to find some Danish ones and I know where there is a Danish store in PA but not here in Ohio.  

I love the pop of red with the touches of yellow.

We love our new fabric King size headboard and frame and Beauty Rest mattress that we purchased from Macy's.

It's so comfortable and when we need to sit up more in bed this headboard really gives us nice support.

Although we love the king size mattress…my goodness it is heavy!

On the plus side it is so heavy it doesn't move around at all but on the negative side I can't even lift it up to put the sheets and blanket on.  Luckily I can slide the sheets and blanket on or we would be in trouble.  

I'm so happy I saw these at Target!

I have custom drapes and fabric shades ordered for our Master Bedroom and Bath, one of our Jack & Jill Bedrooms and fabric shades for our lower level bedroom too.

This is only the second time we have had custom drapes.

If you remember, we had the blue toile drapes, valances (here) and curtains (here) in our Master Bedroom and Bath in our previous PA home.

I'm going with different fabrics in our OH home.

This time we decided to line all window treatments with dark out fabric so we will always have a nice dark room to sleep in regardless of the time of day.  

It's a beautiful day here (finally after a strange day yesterday with dark clouds and rain off and on all day) and I'm sitting out on our screened in porch.

It's so nice sitting here listening to the birds and drinking my morning coffee before I start the day's activities and errands.  

I haven't seen any deer this morning but we have a doe with her two little ones that come through our wooded area behind our home quite often. 

Have a wonderful day and thanks for visiting me! 

Red & White Doily Stool Cover

Is anyone else as tired of this weather as I am?

Dark gray fall/winter clouds with heavy rain, then the sun comes out and then heavy rain again…

That's what we have been having the last week or so.

Until today that is...which was lovely but I doubt it will last.

I found two delightful doily stool cover patterns the other day.

Right after I purchased two wooden counter height stools at Target for $15.89 apiece! 

Here's the link to the free pattern:

http://www.creativejewishmom.com/2013/11/crocheted-doily-stool-cover-pattern.html/

Speaking of RED which you know I love.

The colors in our new home are mainly blue and grayish blue with pops of red and some yellow.

I fell in love with this pair of canvas paintings (another Target purchase).

Stay tune to see where I hang them.

Now back to crocheting.

This doily stool cover was fun to crochet.

Here's the finished project.

I don't know how practicable this crocheted cover is…even the designer of the item said it will move around when sat on.

But it sure is pretty! 

Memorial Day 2015

Hanging Stuff and My Coffee Station

I'm back.  

Sorry it's been so long.  

Still unpacking and settling into our OH home.   

The good news is we closed on our PA home last Thursday.

A nice, young couple with two sons bought our PA home.   

It seems so strange not to own it anymore but wonderful to only have one house to deal with going forward. 

 I hung my black and white bird plates in our hearth room. 

I had to hang something.

Most of our wall stuff is still in our storage unit here in Ohio.

We just haven't got around to moving it all over here yet.

I've been crocheting a border on my blue, green, yellow and white little throw. 

Just winging it as usual.

I think I will finish it off in blue. 

I just noticed I haven't posted this project on my Ravelry page yet. 

I'll try to post the details there soon.   

  

Last week my sweet brother-in-law and his wife moved our outdoor furniture to our porch for us.   

The builder finally sent a worker over to pressure wash it - it was filthy.    

The wood bead board ceiling still has to be sealed.

This porch has "EZ Breeze" clear vinyl panels that we can raise or lower.

It's nice to be able to "close it" when it rains.

The porch is staying cleaner with the panels down too. 

If you look closely, you can see the panels are open in the corner two windows above.      

I love my coffee station.  

I had them installed the granite countertops on the back splash in this section. 

  

My coffee station is situated on the wall between the refrigerator and microwave oven. 

I filled one cabinet drawer below it with all my K-cups and instant coffee.  

I think it is time for another cup of coffee.  

Ha!

Isn't that the truth!

Settling In...Sort Of!

How about a cool strawberry milk and a hot roast beef sandwich for lunch on this beautiful Saturday!

I've been bad this morning.  

After vacuuming several rooms I took a break and went down to our lower level and watched two movies in our media room.  

That's where we installed a 75 inch flat screen TV with 7.1 surround sound.  

Oh, my gosh... what an experience!  

It's like being at the movie theater. 

We've done a lot of unpacking since moving in about a month ago.   

I worked on the kitchen first, then the pantry. 

We used California Closets to do all of our closets including our pantry.

I designed the layout on all of them.

I couldn't be happier!

They did a terrific installation job!

Not a cheap option but thank goodness no more "wire" shelves!

This is the wrap around walk in pantry.  

After working on the pantry it was time to dig into box after box to unpack my China cabinet and Christmas cabinets.  

We managed to empty one small storage unit.

  

But haven't touched the other larger one yet - except to bring home the three book cases.  

I work a little here and then a little there.  

We bought a new washer and dryer. 

We needed one that vented the dryer out on the left side.  

I didn't want a front loader washer.  

Since the laundry room cabinets were already installed we had to measure carefully to make sure the appliances fit the opening.  

The lid of the washer couldn't be too high either or it would hit the cupboard.  

We settled on a GE set that just fit in the space. 

We also bought a new king size bed for the master bedroom.  

It had been decades since we bought a mattress so I did some research on the Internet.  

Our last two mattresses were bought at Sears but the Sears today isn't the same store that we all grew up with in the 50s and 60s so we decided to go elsewhere.  

I didn't trust the stand-alone mattress stores that are located all over the place in the little strip malls.  

We finally settled on a Beauty Rest Firm mattress at Macy's.  

We also purchased a gray fabric quilted bed frame.  

We love the bed.  

It is so comfortable. 

I've been working on the hobby room mostly my sewing/craft side.

However, I have no time for sewing until it is set up.

We moved four book cases into the hobby room to use for my sewing/crochet books, my yarn and my Teddy Bear Collection.

Hopefully tomorrow I can start to fill them up.

I love all the room I have around my cutting table.

Finally today the builder's crew came to work on our porch and deck.  

They didn't finish but they worked all day on it.  

I'm anxious to get it done so we can use the porch before the hot, humid weather arrives.  

Plus we want to remove the outside furniture out of the garage to make room for our car.

Well, I hope you are having a wonderful weekend!