Another Year Flys By......

Guess it is really nearing the end of 2017 and I feel myself being very reflective, this was especially evident yesterday as Kristin was writing our newsletter and asked me about what we should say about our plans for 2018.   Usually by this time we have done some "brainstorming" regarding the coming year, guess we had done some of that on our drive home from International Quilt Festival/Houston in November, but I was drawing a blank.  I was busy ironing so orders could ship, sometimes when ironing  my "mind" is a total blank , so she caught me off guard...I had no answers for her.  Guess I should have claimed I was just tired; but I think I may have said something like I am getting old and just didn't remember squat  (dumb move on my part).

Upon returning home after "Festival" we had one guild lecture and we have only dyed when absolutely necessary to fill orders.  Now don't get the idea we have been on vacation, far from it.  Between holiday meals, decorating the house for the holidays, buying gifts, writing to friends and family.....you know all that usual family stuff we all do, we decided to tackle a few projects we kept saying we would get to. 

First we tackled the family room, cause while in Houston for Festival hubby had patched earlier water leak "holes in walls, skylights created to find said leaks".  Don't think the grandson figured that the beginning of his Thanksgiving vacation would be spent emptying the room and helping to paint.  Thank goodness he was a good sport and assisted us.  Once the paint had dried we got down to the fun part,  redecorating.  Prior purchases came out or hiding, you know sometimes you see something you just have to have...not sure how you will work it in...if you love it, you will find the perfect spot for it.

As we were finishing, the forecast said we were going to get a dusting of snow, now this doesn't happen often in our neck of the woods. Seems that dusting was a bit more than they thought and it slowed us down just a tad...pretty but a bit early for a white Christmas.

After finishing a slight problem reared it's ugly head, you could see the entry from the family room couch and it looked awful...so I'm sure you can guess what happened next????  You guessed it, we painted it, also put all new doorknobs on all 4 doors....we call it the back entry, cause the entry to our house has a two story entry, then has this other part from the garage.

Okay don't start laughing but once we were done with that area, I sort of asked for another room to be done....the powder room...one of those 4 doors.  So we rented a steamer and stripped 30 year old wallpaper off un-primed Sheetrock, thank goodness for Kristin.

 

Things sort of "snowballed" from there...freshly painted ceiling, walls, trim and vanity, also a new vanity top/sink, new mirror, new light fixture, towel bar and toilet paper holder.  It look fabulous...just needs new flooring....okay I give us a break for now!

Then came a touch of "whimsy", shelves that look like old suitcases...they are metal.  A "Home Sweet Home" vintage stitchery, vintage perfume bottles and atomizers. One is mine, a gift from my grandmother, and one is my grandmothers', love the smile they bring me each time I enter.

Also took the time to finish with my holiday decorating of the house...

 The above photos show how great they looked after painting and redecorating,,,then adding holiday decorations.

Love this Santa and my new "travel trailer bird house" with all it's holiday finery....note the wall color in the background of these...this is the entry that still needs to be done...however; not by us...two stories is more than we want to tackle.  Time to find a pro!

Time to buckle down and get back to work....spent the last couple of days dyeing, processing orders and doing inventory.  I "hate" counting!  Don't know about you, but when I am in a creative slump going into my studio and handling "stuff" triggers ideas, and creative juices begin to flow.....so think about inventory a minute...for me it is the handling of things I love, things that give me ideas, things that spur on my desire to create.  Sooooo....today I wound up with these (solid hand-dyed cotton organdy) on my account...

and we have barely begun to inventory everything, at this rate I will be broke by the beginning of 2018!

At least I am not dwelling on 2017 anymore, what I did or DIDN'T get accomplished....because now my mind is in overdrive as to what I can do in 2018....whoohoo!

Stay tuned to see what happens with my purchases as the year goes on!