Other crafty things

I'm not sure I had posted some of my non-quilty initiatives here or if anyone even has interest.  But here are a few of the things I did when I wasn't working on something quilty.

When we had our family wedding celebration a few weeks ago we held it at my dad's house so that my Honey's family could see his boat, a 43' Shannon yacht, similar to Morgan Freeman's Afrodesia:

image courtesy of the National Sailing Hall of Fame

We had the ceremony and dinner for the thirteen of us at a little local marina restaurant and while it was only our immediate families and I didn't want to go all out with stuff like centerpieces, I did want to give each person a little placecard souvenir holder. So I bought a bunch of these glass sailboat votive holders for a great price online and then made little burgee flags with each person's name, laminated (to protect against the flame) and attached with a toothpick.

Do you recognize the Moda Hoopla fabric?

They looked really pretty on the table at the restaurant.

The other thing I was bent on creating was a bed for our new cat, Jack.  We adopted him early in January and he had just been prowling around the house making it his home.  I learned pretty quickly what kinds of things he liked to claim for his sleeping quarters:

My UFO basket was NOT going to be a long term option for him.  So I covered that up with a piece of fleece (which he doesn't seem to like laying on - static electricity issue?).  He HAS seemed to gravitate towards the cushion on my bathroom vanity seat since I laid a towel over it, so once I figured out that terrycloth was a fabric that appealed to him, I developed his own bed.  I bought a wicker basket at Jo-Ann's, spray painted it to match our bedroom, and then took an old towel and sewed like a simple envelope to cover a pillow form I had laying around.  I stuffed that in the basket and placed it in our room (raised off the floor to appeal, of course). 

Now that doesn't look very comfortable to me, but considering it's where he is most mornings (even though he does like to climb up into the windowsills behind him), he seems to like it.  The cover will easily come off the basket for cleaning when it gets too full of hair.

I am starting to read more furniture and home decor blogs and plan to experiment with some Annie Sloan Chalk Paint this summer, as well as a back porch redesign which has been on my plate for a year or so.  I will be home with the kids for the summer beginning in July, so hopefully I will make some progress.  If you're interested in the occasional post expanding the blog to other crafty endeavors beyond the quilt studio, let me know and I'll post once in a while.