Now what are you going to do with all that Lavender!!!

Now...I have not posted in my blog for a while...But that is another story. People these days seem to favor destruction in order to find out what really makes them tick...but seriously how many more Walmart stores can your future offspring endure!!! After all, almost everything has been done these days including chasing Pokémon on ones' electronic gadget at the Louvre on an expensive trip to Paris. Now,  that is a true discovery!

So, I thought about going back to roots...

Yeah let us talk about plants. Lavender to be more specific. .

As I told/shown you on one of my previous posts you can make plants out of plants. The question is what you are going to do with all those blossoms after you picked them time and time again? If you are an "annual" enthusiast, you do "nada" because you won't have any lavender to deal with anyway. So you can indulge in gossip or watch the local news or even watch a sports game or two in the man cave you believe to have control over. If that does not apply to you, you do have a couple of options.

You might need to get your creativity going. As such you might want to go to church or just burn a bit of "Palo Santo" for inspiration in the privacy of your own home.

1. You can look at your lavender plant time and time again, while being eaten by mosquitos and sip cranberry juice or wine. That is if you live in the burbs of the tri state area. If that does not apply to you than only you know the insects in your area as I don't live there. 

2. You could harvest your lavender, let it dry and put the blossoms in colourful sachets...

Which you could place on top of a nice vintage piece and sniff when it tickles your fancy for months to come.....

You could just boil up the buds and make the house smell good on smelly stuffy cold Winter days...

You might just want to burn those buds on your "manual" incense burner...

You might however want to have a go at the creation of lavender oils, which you might want to rub yourself with, after a senseless day at work.

For that you will need jojoba, sesame or almond oil, a mortar and pestle, a clean small cotton cloth and some lavender buds of course. 

No, I am not making a caipirinha.  I just did not have a mortar and pestle. You can wash your caipirinha etui after you finish, if you don't possess a round the mil mortar and pestle...but then again no one ever got sick from too much lavender in the caipirinha. Yep, a bit of lavender is even good in tea some claim...

 So there you go. You squish as much of the bud/oil  combo as you can with your pestle. You pour as much of it as you can onto that clean cotton cloth and squeeze the scented mixture into a small container...You repeat the process adding fresh buds to the old mixture as you go along. In other works squish, squeeze add..squish, squeeze add...Finally, you should end up with a very scented oily mixture which you should pour into a dark glass bottle.

You must store it in a cool dark place and retrieve it to rub selective body parts whenever/wherever it tickles your fancy. Mind you it can relieve stress and ease tired muscles. It works well as a nice rub after a warm bath in Winter. 

What you are still not happy? So take one of those sachets and put it in your knicker drawer. There is no reason to walk around with smelly knickers when there is a surplus of lavender...

BTW for all my American friends knickers mean "undies"

Another chair....

So here is another chair I purchased at Tiffany in the height of winter and isn't she grand? I am sure we all agree. The question is where to go from here. I decided to give the chair away for after all how many chairs can a girl need!!!!

So a chenille fabric is on the agenda that is for sure. This one from Turkey is quite exquisite.  Some people favour an animal print too...

One thing is for sure. One yard of material should not cost more than 12 X the price of the chair...and my all time favorite does....

Nevertheless, with the snow melting and Spring knocking on the door I decided to swing over to Joann and see what would tickle my fancy. Thus I made a backwards flip and opted for something more "lively" and less conventional. After all it is all lifeandsoup. The receiver of the chair will love it. So I purchased the fabric and moved on.  

So first I stripped the whole thing down that is removed be old fabrics and foam. Not too hard I must admit. 

Next things got harder as I had to remove the old staples without causing damage to the wood from nicks and crannies. I came to the realization that the best refab projects are the ones that are not only in great shape but are also easy to refurbish...

Upon reflection I decided to get another solid blue or green tone upholstery fabric for the base to break out the flower power reflected in the material I purchased. But that is later....

Nevertheless, things didn't look too shabby today and after a bit of elbow grease with sandpaper and steel wool I decided  to take a break and apply some stain tomorrow to even out the wood tone and head to the store to get "Restor a Finish." After all the idea is to maintain the character of the chair... and this product claims to do just that.

Well, plans are subject to change so I decided to sand a bit more with steel wool, apply wood conditioner and finally stain. No "Restor a Finish."

I must say I like the results. All I need to do now is wait 5 hours before applying the quick drying poly finish..

So it is snowing outside...

It is snowing outside...

Nevertheless, that has not stopped the existence of beauty. Not now nor in the sixties....

Na you won't find any pics of regular women walking around in the snow then...Narcissism was an unknown trait featured solemnly in the modeling profession due to lack of technology........ But as we see women kept warm with beautiful garments...

With the lack of all that "stuff" that fills the coats that keep us warm today I would think the streets looked far more interesting and attractive on snowy days....

Thus, it is time to take a beautiful warm coat from the 60's and recreate it to meet the requirements of today's cold eastern Winters.  So this story starts with a 60's coat from Bond's 5th avenue made to endure the cold winter months and left to its own demise in a second hand shop. Here she is in all her beauty, but would she not look prettier shorter? Well I thought so.  

 As you see this girl was made to endure extreme cold winter months...with extra woolly lining and interesting collar detail. The large plastic bottoms were one of a kind... 

 So first I headed to the local store and bought a good old bottle of Woolite and gave her a much needed bath after all she is almost 60...Yep. She was filthy.

 Next she was hang on the line to dry and spot cleaned. 

Shrinkage was minimal...Thank God otherwise it would have all been for nada. 

Next came sewing and more sewing....I started with the woolly part and after cutting the bottom followed the steps of that tailor 50 years ago in the hemming process. No the sewing machine didn't work. Too thick. 

 But finally things had started to take shape. Only that double lining left....yuck.......

Tja after 3+ days of work she was finished....Shorter but not too short. Thank God those buttons did not go all way to the bottom!!!

 And voila...Here she is in her new home ready for the 21st century. 

When Accent Pillows take over....

Ages ago I had bought this pillow and another complementing partner (he is striped) at TJ Maxx.  Now, I didn't quite like them.  Found them too loud and did not match anything in the house.  Nevertheless, they were on sale and I thought that eventually they would go somewhere. Now, as the years passed they seemed to match at times depending where I placed them, but let's face it they were not breath taking. I even washed the covers at one point...

Since I have had a pillow on my mind in recent days, I decided that these particular pillows would cease to look at me in all their ugliness refusing to adapt time and time again...

The perfect moment arose on one of my visits to Tiffany's.  Here I discovered  this nice scarf like cotton thing in the scarf bin....Well, the material can't be a scarf I thought but it was only a buck and 

lined in dark brown cotton which would without a doubt cover the bright fuchsia orange loudmouth I was trying to cover.... besides t had quite an array of beautiful colours that would go with the bedroom... the light blue and dark purple gave it that extra punch and even a hint of turquoise could be detected...That brown would make it a good compliment for the chair or any wood piece for that matter...Before paying for it I placed it over a pillow at the store and voila....It was the perfect size!!! All I had to do is flip it inside out and sew it on 2 sides (no cutting involved here) and then blind stitch it on one side.  Not much room for error and so it had my name written all over it....

Happy as a "conquilha" I put that odd scarf like thing to the side at home and waited till I could sew it into a pillow...Nevertheless, I am not very keen on sewing as explained so I procrastinated by investigating what the darn thing was supposed to be.  Looking at the tag I googled Essie Designs and found out what that scarf like sling was....

To my surprise that "thing" was no less than a baby carrier that went for 25 bucks, which thanks to the expertise of the "Tiffany" people I found for a buck in the scarf bin. 

As I explained I don't particularly like to sew so I enlisted husband for that easy sewing project. 

  

And so here is the new pillow but should I leave it here? 

Or put it here?

Or here?

Last but not least, what should I do with the ugly duckling's brother? Should I take left over bird fabric and turn him into a throw pillow to match the headboard? 

Hmmm should I maybe use the left over birds for a pillow sham? 

I think I will just wait for some raw silk aquamarine fabric to come around....Who knows maybe in the scarf bin....