Feather Your Nest With Embroidery

I thought I'd share one of the pieces from my other hobby with you today as I am still limited in what I can do as far as painting furniture.


I have enjoyed doing counted cross stitch for years and had the pleasure of sharing this hobby with my mother while she lived. She requested that I teach her and she ended up teaching me more than I could have ever taught her.  Mother's work was perfection ever stitch had the exact same tension like they had been done by a machine.  I still strive to come even close in matching the beauty of her work.


The piece I am sharing with you I recently finished and for the lack of anywhere else to put it I hung it over my bed.  Now I just recently decorated my bedroom in yellows and blues and as you will see this picture is in rich reds, purples, and golds so it doesn't match really well but I just enjoy looking at it and decided it was my bedroom if I wanted it in there I'd put it in there! lol

I love cross stitching people! Especially Victorian images but this lovely Roman styled beauty really caught my eye. She took me several months in my spare time to finish. I have done others as large but given them away as gifts this one I decided to keep for awhile.

Look at that expression very haughty. Notice the gold edging that goes around entire image.  There was a lot of gold thread in this one and it is sort of difficult to work with as it wanted to shred if you have to take any back out and believe me sometimes I felt like I took out more than I put in. :-)

Doing needlework is a great way to add quality inexpensive art to your home and they make great heirloom pieces to hand down through your family.

It's also fun! Because I spent so much time on my haughty Roman I decided not to frame her myself so I carried  her to Hobby Lobby while they were having a half price sale.  I chose a hammered, old gold finished frame with a two layered matting in various creams and a maroon velvet.  

The last couple of years counted cross stitch has been out paced by scrap booking as a favorite hobby but I hope it comes back in popularity soon as it is such a calming and rewarding hobby.


It is also a great way to decorate your home on a budget by making pictures, pillows, bedspreads, tablecloths, etc... If you have never tried counted cross stitch give it a try it is easy to learn and very rewarding.

I'm sharing with the following linky parties.

I Don't Decorate For Halloween But If I Did...

Well I'm still down with my foot surgery but don't worry as usual I'm cheating.  I've been painting dining chairs in my den. I paint a little then prop my foot up a little. LOL


I've been reading a lot of blogs while I've been down and everyone is decorating for fall mostly with Halloween decorations. Me? I don't decorate for Halloween.  It's a holiday I don't like much and as we live in a rural area I have no trick or treaters as any children that live nearby go into town except my husband that is. So ever since my children moved out I just decorate for fall and then Thanksgiving.


But as I was cruising the web I thought what if I did decorate? How would I decorate as I don't like orange and black? Well, I found a few ideas and I thought I would share them with you.

Starting outside I love these white lighted pumpkins and white lights on the tree I think this would be really pretty leading up to my front door. I found this picture on Pinterest and you can follow my Pinterest here.


This would lead to my front door which would look something like the following:

http://www.newhouseofart.com/

Of course it would look like this if I had an entrance with wide steps and columns. :-)


Once you were inside no scary witches, cobwebs and spiders, or carved pumpkins for me you might see some of these instead.

Gorgeous hand decorated white pumpkins by Horchow! Oops, wait Horchow? Hmm, well maybe I would make some like these. Yeah, totally doable.

http://apocketfullofroses-mari.blogspot.com/

The only skull you would see would be glittery pink with a pretty pink rosebud hair uh, skull piece. ;-)

http://apocketfullofroses-mari.blogspot.com/

She would be sitting by this pretty pink and lace hand-painted pumpkin a midst pink roses and ribbon on my mantel. Umm, if I had one that is.

I'd have lots of unusual pumpkins sitting around.

Like these that are decoupaged with scrapbook paper and stenciled from Country Living.

thenester.com

On my table I would have an antique wood bowl with some plush velvet pumpkins.

I'd of course have to have a little bling here and there so I would silver and gold leaf a few pumpkins and sit them on display on small gold leafed flower pots. And to top it off and keep the bling going some glittery gold pumpkin candles!

http://www.itsquintessential.com/

In betwixt all of this would be silver and gold sprayed chrysanthemums, artificial of course, a few pink roses, and a lot of greenery. 

What do you think? Do you do something different than the norm for Halloween? Please share.

Photoshop Learning Series

Hello Everyone,


I had foot surgery so no painting for me for a few days. Geez, I'm so frustrated looking out at my carport covered in furniture some half painted and I can't get out there and work! Sigh.


Anyway I wanted to share with you a link that Suzie just put up over at The Accent Piece. It is a 31 day tutorial on how to use Photoshop!


Now if you're like me and have Photoshop you only know how to do the basics like re-size and print lol so this will be a great help and its free! Here's the link to the series:




She is focusing on helping bloggers and I really can use the help as most of my photos stink because I have no photography skills and just a simple digital camera that I sort of borrowed (kept) from my daughter. Don't worry she got a new Nikon lucky girl. Even though she's focusing on bloggers the lessons should help anyone that has Photoshop.
Anyway I thought I would share this with my followers, who I appreciate very much, and I hope you may benefit from the lessons. Ya'll don't worry I'll be up painting by Monday and will be posting new items soon. Take care and have a great weekend.