Craft Night ..Fabric for the pumpkins

We have craft night coming up on Friday September 23rd.  Come anytime after 6:00p.  Some people like to come early and some a little later, does not matter, we will be here crafting the night away!

Just wanted to post the fabric I got for those of you wanting to make the fabric pumpkins.  Bring any embellishments you may want, buttons, dollies, raffia??? 
If you have your own fabric, just drop it off to me ahead of time, so I can cut and sew it to get you started. 

Orange Crinkle and Fall Leaves

This is dark brown (not black)

Orange Pinstripe

Each of you will get to make 3 pumpkins, but if there is extra (probably will be) then you can make more for $3 each.  Let me know if you have any questions.

Thanksgiving ideas and Super Saturday...

Next month we have something call Super Saturday in our Church.  It is a day that the women of our church get together and craft!!!  I think it is one of my favorite days during the year.  It is Saturday, October 15th from 9am to 1pm.  Lunch is included.  The crafts that we are doing will be posted here soon. If you are interested in coming, please let me know soon.  I think the deadline is October 1st.

So I am in search of some super cute Thanksgiving and Christmas crafts.  I am thinking our craft night next month will be around October 21st if that works for everyone.
This is a project I just found (from Maria over at You Craft Me Up) and am absolutely in love with it.  But maybe it is just me?

Porch Pumpkins $TBD

Is it too Halloweeny? 

I also found this Garland, it could be done as a wreath as well. 

Thanksgiving Garland $TBD

I love this Burlap Banner.  This one is suppose to say Happy Halloween.  But we could do a Give Thanks or Happy Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving Banner $TBD

And I just found these super cute kits from the Wood Connection.

Turkey Door Hanger (or can put on a block) $TBD

Pilgrims $TBD

Cast your votes now...or send me some ideas!

Bye for now,

Christie

September Crafts...Sept 23rd

Hi Ladies!

Welcome to my new blog, Portobello Road! 
http://portobelloroadnw.blogspot.com/

I thought it might be a little easier to organize things on here. You can see who is coming, what crafts were doing and the costs.  You can also easily forward the link to your friends, and then they can comment just like everyone else. 

In the future, I will have you comment here on if you want to attend and what craft you would like to do.  If I don't already have your information for September, please comment now.  The deadline is September 16th.

This month we will be crafting the following...

Boo Blocks $12.00
(includes: cut wood, paper, wooden letters, ribbon, paint & all supplies)

Fabric Pumpkins $12.00 for 3 or $4.00 per pumpkin
(includes: prepared autumn fabric, yarn, stuffing & all supplies) 

Orange Wood Pumpkins $12.00
(will be same cuts as boo blocks, includes all supplies)

I also still have supplies for our cute yarn wreaths...

Yarn Wreaths $10.00 (includes wreath, yarn, felt, ribbon & all supplies)

Here is the list of who I have coming:

Kim-Boo
Sarah-Boo
Cheryl (Sarah's friend)-Boo
Cheryl L.-Boo
Stephanie-Boo
Jessica-Boo

Karie-Wreath
Kaitlyn-Wreath

Amy-Fabric Pumpkins
Michah-Fabric Pumpkins
Claudia-Fabric Pumpkins
Adrianne-Fabric Pumpkins
Ellen-Fabric Pumpkins

I know I am missing someone?

Coming soon...Thanksgiving and Christmas crafts!  Let me know if you have any ideas!

Happily ever after... (Death by dresser, part 2)

So here it is, the happily ever after... If you have not read Death by Dresser part 1, read here.
The first part of this post is not happy yet, actually quite sad for me.  Remember the sunny morning that ended in disaster.  Here it is, they last thing you want to happen to your wet paint...RAIN!!!!  Living in Portland, Oregon this does happen.



 It ended okay though, I just had to sand everything down and basically start over.  I put waaaaaaaaaay too much time into this piece.  But it was for a good friend so it was worth it.  So the next problemo was this bump...do you see it, a really big bubble right on the top of this beautiful dresser.  I think I was thinking it was go away.  But nope it was just as big as when I started.  I also think, I did not know how to deal with it.

Here is how I dealt with it...I got my exacto knife and just carved that bubble right out.  It was veneer on top so it came out pretty easy.  Just sanded it all down to be flat and then painted for the what...the 5th time.  Boo!

I am not even going to tell you what happened next, because you know what this post is, a new chapter in the series of the unfortunate events.  It always gets worse before it gets better.  Let's turn this around and talk about my favorite step when refinishing furniture...the tape.

 Let me elaborate on that a little.  I love when it is time to peel off the blue tape when painting.  I am not sure why.  Maybe that clean fresh line or the fact that it means you are almost done.  Probably a little of both.  I then needed some lining for my drawers.  I was going to use felt because I can't stand contact paper.  But when I got to the fabric store, I spotted this oh so cute more appropriate for a kitchen, but will work great reusable grocery bag fabric.  I love the way it turned out!

Here it is, I love the glass knobs my friend chose.

And after a 3 hour trip from Portland to Seattle, here she is living happily ever after in her home.

Being Featured at:

Death by Dresser... (Part 1)

This dresser is killing me!
I do love this beautiful curvy lined mahogany dresser, but I am afraid the combination of my inexperience and the horrible shape it was in has caused many hours of frustration and also in a wierd way, enjoyment. I have learned alot and I am here to share.

Let's start at the very beginning...it's a very good place to start.

Isn't it pretty!  I bought this dresser/changing table from the cutest couple up in north Portland.  They had the coolest house with a little garden in the front.  I brought it home and my sister suggested I take the top piece off and just sell it as a dresser.  Which I did not even think of because I honestly thought the top was part of it, when she said that I realized it was added later.  I debated about this for a while, because I thought it was soooo cute as a changing table.  So cute, I wanted to keep it for myself and our next child (still TBD).  But then I showed some pics to an interested friend up in Seattle.  She also fell in love and said she must have it!  Decided--we go topless!

So the top actually came off suprisingly easy.  I think it has been the easiest part so far.  After I took off the top with my hammer and screwdriver, I cleaned-up the little dust bunnies and spider webs.  I did not think my friend Tev would want new pets in her house.   I filled the holes with my trusty Elmers wood filler and then sanded. Did not need to do much sanding since there was really no sealant left, just stained wood.  There were so many dings and holes though, I just kept filling and filling.  I probably should have just left some for the distressing look.  But I like to be in control of that part.  I like to start from scratch.  Maybe that is bad..I don't know, but it is my preference.

Then I primed with my tinted (I learned my lesson with the red chair) Zinsser 123 primer.  I had it tinted by Lowes in a brownish beige color.  Easy peasy.

Here it comes...I went for my normal morning walk, it was a beautiful sunshiney morning, came home made some lunch, put my little boy for a nap, went to the garage, layed out my paint cloth's, got my paint sprayer ready...painted.  Looked great, went inside to clean everything out, came back out..........(insert scream here) It had started to sprinkle all over my freshly painted drawer fronts.

To be continued...

Cute little green desk

Silly me!  I started this post last week and then got side tracked (it happens to us Gemini's).  So here is a story of a cute little green desk...



Original glory...not so glorious in my opinion.




A 180-grit sanding block got to dig in on this primed and painted piece.  The primer- water based Zinsser 123.  The paint-Olympic "oops paint" $1.25 from Lowe's in a sagey green grey color




I wanted a more grey than brown glaze on this piece because I kinda had that all going on.  A lot of grey in the paint as well as the dark pewter colored knobs.  So I chose to mix a little Varathane Espresso with my new love (sorry hubby) Valspar Clear Mixing Glaze.  The glaze makes it so you have a little more time to work with your stain.  But not too long, I left my top coat on a little too long and had to work some magic with a little sprayed water.  It was almost disastrous.  I would only do for example two drawer fronts at a time.  Brush your glaze mix on to the front heavy like.  Then about 2 minutes later wipe off with a dry rag first if you want more off, dampen your rag.  If you want more on, apply another coat or you can add more stain to your mix.  I start with eyeing about a tsp of stain to 1/2 cup glaze.  You can always add more from there of either product.




See the sort of a grayish tone. Sorry for the little blur in all of my pictures, that would be my husband ruining our camera about 6 months ago.




Almost done, don't you love these art deco type half cup pulls!  I heart them!




I even took it a step further and took off the small pulls and spray painted them a darker silver.  In my opinion it did not quite match close enough.  Simple desk waiting for the perfect space.



Quicky Makeover

Over here at Portobello Road, we are not just about painting and crafting, we are about beautifying per our clients desire.  In this case my client is my favorite (only) sister.  She spotted this dresser, but had something against the pulls.  She said something about her childhood and how every dresser she ever had, had these Queen Anne style pulls. "Clink, clink", she shivered and said, "they have to go!" I warned her of the existing imprints and expense, this sucker has 12, count them 12 pulls!  So off I went to Lowes, which by the way I find has a much better selection of knobs/pulls...$50 dollars later, a little hole drilling and wha-la!  Very old dresser, very new look...

Something Old...

Something new :)

PS. Sister, please come get this out of my garage.  I need the space for my other fun projects!