Professional Shopper

I'm always dreaming about "fun" jobs that would have me jumping out of bed in the morning, excited to go to work.  What would you consider to be a fun job?  Last year, with my Five Little Monkeys post I tried my hand at creating a virtual book for children.  Not only was it not profitable, it actually cost me money, since I made the post into a book through Shutterfly and bought 8 books, myself,  for friends and family!  I now get an email every day from Shutterfly.  It seems I'm their all-time best customer.  :@

I've got a new plan in mind.  Professional Shopper!  I think I would be excellent at this profession.  I love to shop.  Okay, we all do, but that's beside the point.   If somebody is having trouble finding a particular item, I can usually come up with several shops that carry said item.  If it's a vintage item in question, I'm your man woman.  Case in point, we have a daughter looking for a vintage dining table on the cheap.  What she really wants is a farmhouse table, but I've been looking for one for our other daughter for several years with no luck whatsoever.

But, look what I found...

Look at those legs!

Looks like a farmhouse table to me.  Slightly worn, mellow finish.

Center legs to hold the weight of Thanksgiving dinner. 

It comes with 4 chairs.  Nothing special, but old and sturdy.  A little paint, new muslin skirted cushions....

It may be missing casters, but those are easily replaced.

As you can see, the center leg is a little wonky, but I don't think it's anything serious.  Once it's straightened out the table won't sag in the middle.  I've got just the expert to check it out for me.  AND, the table comes with 6 leaves to expand from 42 to 102 inches long!  The leaves don't have an apron piece, but that is the way these tables are made.  The chairs will be in front of  that area anyway.  It is very similar to my dining table pictured to the right on my sidebar.

This is a trial run at my new fun career.  What do you think, was I successful in finding a cheap vintage farmhouse table?  But more importantly, will my daughter new client go for it?  If you look closely, you can see the price on top of the table, which includes 6 leaves, and 4 chairs.  $350.  It's on hold until Monday.

So, that is my 2012 fun career idea. 

Wait a minute!  Deja vu.   Once again I'm not going to make any money shopping for our daughters.  What was I thinking?!   I better keep my day job.  And keep contributing to my retirement fund by pitching in with coworkers for our weekly lottery tickets.  I'll be sure to write a post about.....

duh,    WINNING!$!

Linked to :
LaurieAnna's Farmhouse Friday
Common Ground Vintage Inspiration Friday

Twinkle Toes

I'm sure everybody is so DONE with Christmas by now!  Everybody but me, that is.  It's still another 19 days until we gather our family together for a belated celebration!  While the rest of you are buying up all of the storage bins on sale everywhere and decluttering your homes, I'm just now buying gift wrap (at least it's on clearance now) and starting to wrap the gifts I've purchased so far.

Since I've had a little extra time on my hands, I made a tree ornament for each of our grandbabies.

For Mack.

I made a number of full-size felt baby booties before Finley was born, but the ones pictured on this post are quite a bit smaller at only two inches long. They are the perfect size for tree ornaments.

The pattern for the booties above came from a free downloadable pattern from Martha Stewart.  I made a few changes along the way, but basically resized the pattern to half the original size.  I didn't do any machine stitching as it hardly seemed worthwhile hauling out my machine when they could easily be sewn together in a few minutes with 6 strands of embroidery floss and a simple blanket stitch.  I used fusible webbing to attach the ivory and green side pieces together, but they could also be hand stitched.  I tacked on a little jingle bell for the finishing touch. 

I stitched the green toe on with contrasting ivory thread and didn't try to be too exact, obviously.  I think the slightly crooked stitching adds to the homespun look.  That's my story and I'm sticking to it.  I do not need reading glasses......yet.

For Finley.

The pattern I used for Finley's ornament is the same Simplicity pattern I used in my Bootielicious post back in September of 2010.  Once again, I resized the pattern to about half the original size.

I'm sure most of you have made the simple felt roses that I've used to embellish this bootie.  I added a few stitches as I rolled it up and then stitched the flower to the top of the bootie.  In retrospect, it would have been much easier to stitch it on before I sewed the top and bottom together.  I then tacked on two simple green leaves to finish it off.

For the ties, I made two small holes, looped one piece of red satin ribbon through and tied in a bow.

This year's Christmas ornament from Grandma.

If you are into pink and blue for baby, the colors can easily be changed.  Wouldn't they be cute tied to a baby gift with curling ribbon?  Or sitting on a shelf in baby's room?  Click here to see a variety of colors I used and styles I created for the full-size booties.

To hang the booties, I threaded a large needle with satin ribbon and pulled it through the back of each bootie and knotted the ends.

Merry belated Christmas!

Linked to:

The Farmhouse Porch Christmas in July