This post is so overdue! Back in March I went to New York because I had bedding premier with Nostalgia Home Fashions. They did a beautiful job on the bedding collections, and to make the designs pop even more, they asked me to paint the walls behind each bed. Edit: I've just heard my bedding will be shipping to a major retailer this Fall. I'm so excited, stay tuned!

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At the end of April I flew to St. Louis with my daughter, Lisa, to attend the Mary Engelbreit Workshops! I had been invited as a guest speaker, which also meant that I was able to take workshops, listen to the seminars, and explore St. Louis. It was a lot of fun! I felt honored to be chosen by Mary Engelbreit to be on the panel of speakers along with Amy Butler, Marcia Ceppos, and Margo Tantau as the moderator. The talk was really great; we were relaxed up on stage talking with each other about what we create and answering questions from the audience. I thought I would be so nervous but it was like sitting down with friends.   

Here are some photos of the crafts my daughter and I made at our workshops!

Mary Engelbreit did a great job or recapping the fantastic weekend in St. Louis on her blog:  http://www.maryengelbreit.com/blogs/

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As part of my spring-cleaning this rainy month, I reupholstered 2 outdoor chairs and a bench with some fabulous bright outdoor fabric I got on super sale. The fabric is water and light resistant, a big change from the previous fabric I’ve had on this furniture for many years, which was very faded. Here are a few before and after photos. I just made really simple slipcovers for the cushions and pillows: no zippers, buttons, or ties.

Before:

After:

Here's a detail of the pretty woven upholstery fabric:

I love the way the bright damask completely changes the feel of it all.

I also used a complementary green fabric on the base of the chairs. What do you think?

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Here’s a very simple sewing project that transforms a room - table linens!

I used two prints from my Leanika collection to sew a bunch of square napkins and a large tablecloth. The 45” fabric wasn’t wide enough, so I used the coordinating napkin pattern to add 12” on every side as a border to the tablecloth.  This is an easy one-day project, made even faster if your sewing machine has a rolled hem presser foot. If your machine doesn’t come with one, I definitely suggest looking into it! It really speeds up simple hemming and looks clean and professional.  

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For the past many months, we’ve been building a garage on our property. This may not sound so exciting, until you hear that the top floor is now an extension of my studio! It’s still in progress, but the built-in shelves were completed, so I moved my fabric in first thing. Once it’s all finished I’ll have plenty of photos of the new space.

If you would like to see the photo below full size, look at it on my flickr site here.

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The other day I received a small package from my friend. It wasn’t my birthday, and there were no holidays coming up, so I wasn’t expecting anything.  She sent me such a carefully thought out, beautifully put together package just to say hello! The theme was dogs, so every little charm and printed paper was about my favorite animal. This is just one more reason I love living the embellished life: a simple greeting is transformed into a thoughtful event.

 In case you’re wondering how the fringes on the tissue paper were created, it’s done using my new favorite craft tool found at Bell’occhio in San Francisco. Don’t worry if you don’t live there!

These amazing scissors are sold on their website here.

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A couple of weeks ago I had a business meeting in New York, and I wanted to make it really special by making take-away lavender sachets to leave with the attendees – 60 of them!

To make one, I fussy cut the diamond design from my Leanika fabric collection (Free Spirit Fabric) using pinking shears, so the edges don’t fray. For the back, I used a coordinating pink and gray design also from that collection. Then, wrong sides together, I sewed the front and back together ¼” away from the cut edge, leaving 1½” open to fill with lavender I bought online. Once filled up, I sewed the seam shut and voila! To give each sachet a special touch, I got a tiny gold safety pin, pink and brown thread, a variety of millinery flowers, and a little tag I printed and attached it to the top. This would make a great party favor for weddings, baby showers, or a girl’s night in.

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