Made By Me May - Day 31

It's the last day of Made by Me May,  I'm quite impressed I managed to last, with a few small hiccups, but still I made it.  I have shown you almost everything I have photographed of my mades but barely tackled me. Luckily it doesn't have to end here,  I look forward to many more posts and themed months.  I thought I would finish the month with a photo of me, thus far I haven't felt brave enough,  I don't particularly like having my photo taken and putting it up for the world to see is a bit scary, but if I want you to know who I am, you need a picture to put with the words.

This Is Me

I'm wearing an old hat of my Gran's that hangs on the lounge wall of our house next to the Mr's Granfather's old hat.


Check out this cute ladies top,  I liked the material and thought a small change would turn it into a little girls dress.

 The straps were shortened and I cut off some of the length, then I made a cute ruffle for along the bottom and all done.  Quick and easy.

Now check this out, quite possibly the ugliest, most astounding thing I have found, but the material interested me, and it was free, my favourite price. Keep an eye out for the transformation coming soon.

Jen

Made by Me May - Day 30

I just noticed all my posts were scheduled to be posted next month, so I have changed that now and hopefully gotten it right this time.

I'm not the most computer savvy person in the world,  I took typing all the way through high school but in the last year computer studies became compulsory.  I lost six months work and even the teacher couldn't figure what I had done.  I didn't touch a Computer again for years until a flatmate bought one and he showed me how much easier they had gotten.  Initially I got quite addicted to chatting and had friends all over the world.  When I say 'quite addicted' I mean full on kick me off the computer and I will stab you crazy.  I had to go cold turkey and didn't touch a computer for a few years.  I'm definitely not addicted now, I'm not going to start cyber stalking you or anything.  But I may ask you to be my friend on Frontierville.


Now, the Mr. has insisted that I add this, as it is his favourite of my sewing projects.

It's not really a refashion or recycle as it is made from felt, but I did buy that felt at a second hand shop. It was made with a lot of love for the Mr's little brother for Christmas (It's his favourite saying).  The Mr and I designed it together and I made it.  It sat on our television for quite awhile before it made it to it's new owner, and it was proudly show to all that came to the house.  By the Mr. not me, you'd think he had sewn it himself.

Jen

Made by Me May - Day 29

 

You got a brief look at my jewellery boxes in yesterday's post, but this one is my favourite.  Made for me by my Dad it also has a matching smaller box that I use for rings.

I love the inside of the lid when it's open.  He now sells these along with many other items here at oz timber treasures.

And here is a quick refashion

 Aren't these just the cutest, I saw a version online somewhere and had to make some,  I used the tank top below to make the shorts and ribbon and lace from my collection.  I've nearly finished another pair and am sure I will be making many more.

Jen

Made By Me May - Day 28

Moving Day - Well moving back into the bedroom anyway.

Our Bed - New duvet and my great aunts green velvet bedspread, which I think is approx 70 years old.

My new reading corner.  I bought two of the footstools for $10 on TradeMe with the view to recover, but I actually like the colour.  Maybe because it's green.

My Bedside - The birdcage stand was in the garage when we moved it, not sure where I'm going with that yet

My Duchess -  That lamp needs some serious help,  but in the meantime I love how the frames on the wall turned out, may add some material to the inside of the white frames.

Corner Cupboard -  Where we keep all of our linen and my shoes.  I have my jewellery stands up here and three of my jewellery boxs (I have alot of jewellery) the other is on my duchess

Mantle -  I love the red on the fireplace tiles and had to add some red around the room to match.  I think the splashes of red really make the room, I need to add a few more.

Bench painted red below the freshly painted windows and new curtains.  I'm on the lookout for some more material, possibly in red to lengthen the curtains.  I still have a bit of dressing to do,  will be playing around with things for the next few weeks until I'm happy with the placement of things.

And this is Theodore Edward Bear or Ted. E Bear, he was a gift from a very close friend of mine when I was 21 and always has pride of place on the bed.  I've even taken him on travels with me, he's been all over New Zealand and once to Sydney, Australia for a bit of sun. 

Jen

Made Me May - Day 26

Wow, almost finished the month already. 

The one thing that drives me mad is text language.  I love the written word and have a huge respect for the English language.  So, when I get a text or a message on facebook that looks like a random selection of letters and numbers, it truly breaks my heart.  And it's not that I don't understand them or even use a few of them myself when necessary.  I like everyone else love a good LOL. I don't know, maybe it's a sign of getting older, complaining about what the younger generation are doing, I will just never be able to accept it.  All the young ones out there will just have to accept that I respect correct spelling much like I got used to my gran's insistance in using cursive writing (or joined up writing). She used to make me practice for hours, and along with ironing her hankies and polishing her spoons, is something I will never have fond memories of and was quite happy to drop from my daily life.  Not that I want everyone to get the silver polish out again, but maybe somethings shouldn't be kept.

Here is a granny style nightgown I got in a bag of throw aways.  It's hard to tell but it is a lovely pale purple colour.  The only reason I could see for it being thrown out was the ripped lace across the front.

Before - Nightgown

I used the pants pattern to cut these little girls size 2 Pajama's with a simple gathered top, I recycled the binding for the top.

After - Little girls Pj's

Jen

Made By Me May - Day 27

We spent the night at a friends place last weekend.  They have three gorgeous girls Miss H(15) Little Miss H (4) and Miss B (15months).  Such a great way to spent the night and day today, they are so amazingly entertaining.  I've know Miss H(15) since she was 5 and I love the awesome young woman she has turned into.  Her Mum DS was showing us the Wii and the Just Dance game when Miss H came into the lounge and turned it off half way through a dance claiming "Mum, stop that now!, you are embarrasing yourself, You have guests!"  I laughed so hard I nearly peed myself.  I took the girls some things I had gotten from the shop for them including a little bridesmaid dress in size 12 months I thought Miss B might like to dress up in as Little Miss H has alot of dress up clothes but when I got up the next morning Little Miss H had decided she was going to wear it, and with some persistance she managed it.  It skirt only came to her knees but she loved it.  I had actually taken her an infinity scarf I had knitted for her, she is always stealing mine whenever I visit.

I had been given this scarf by a friend, and although there is nothing really wrong with it, I decided to unravel it and start over.

I wound it all around a picture frame and was left with a tail, it was the perfect length for a bracelet, so I wore it.  No waste, tick.

Close Up of Tail

I ended up making an infinity scarf for myself as well as a matching one for Little Miss H.  Perfect for the cold as we start into Winter.

Jen

Made by Me May - Day 25

"So how is the bedroom going?" I hear you say.  Well since you asked.  I have now finished painting the furniture and am pretty happy with the result.

My Drawers before paint

After one coat

The Mr's Drawers Before

I've had my draws since I moved out of home, they were my mothers before that.  I remember when she bought them, I think I was 8 or 9.  So, they are approx 30 years old.  Two bedsides and one duchess are all that remains of a large bedroom suite.  I hated the look of them and have been wanting to paint them for an extremely long time.  For the time being they do not have the new handles they deserve, but hopefully they won't be too far off

Mr's Drawers After

Where did everything in the draws go to?  Well that would be here

Plus some bags of clothes in the spare room.  That chair in the corner with everything piled on will make it's way in to the bedroom as well.

Here's a quick wee look at my new bedside light.

A really really large jar I got from the shop one month filled with two strings of christmas lights.  I can turn on one string or two depending on how much light I want and can even get them to blink if I want, although I'm not sure why I would want.

Jen

Made By Me May - Day 24

 

Just a quick one today.

My favourite colour is Green, you may have noticed that already as nearly every room in my house has been painted green including the lovely green you can see in the photo below, that is on one of my workroom walls. I think it runs in the family my Gran's favourite colour was green as well.

I used this frame to display one of my favourite items out of my Gran's sewing box.

Close Up

It still has some of the original needles in it as well.


Jen

Made by Me May - Day 23

You may have noticed in the hallway earthquake pics all the books, well that photo was taken 15 months ago, here is the Hallway now.

That's right I'm a reader.  I'll read almost anything and find it impossible to walk pass a book display without having a look.  I once read 31 books in one month, it must of been a really slow month, I generally get through about 4-10 a month.  All the books here are secondhand and mainly unread and these aren't all of them.

More books

Books I haven't even unpacked yet

 
I generally only keep a book until I have read it, then it makes it's way onto it's new owner either via the charity shop or bookcrossing, I've even given books to random people I've seen reading on the bus.  I try to always have a book on me, you never know when you'll get a few minutes or a hour if you're waiting for a doctors appointment. 

One of my favourite authors is Catherine Cookson, and I still have a few of hers that I have read before, one of the only authors I have kept, others being Jodi Picoult, John Grisham and Robert Goddard.  I made a special bookcase to display my Cookson collection, a set of 5 kitchen drawers I got for $1 on Trademe.  The woman selling them wasn't sure that anyone would want them and was fascinated when I told her what I had planned, I send her an email with photos when it was first done.

That photo was lost, and this one is from after the quakes.  The top draw fell off and the bottom is a bit off kilter.

Close Up - Bottom Two Draws

Close Up - Top Two Draws

I lined the draws with pages from an old book that was falling apart (I couldn't of sacrificed it otherwise, plus I read it first) but other than that the draws didn't need much added to them.  I couldn't let the 5th draw go to waste, so now its a cat bed for next to where I sit at the computer, although they don't seem to appreciate the effort.

Jen

Made By Me May - Day 22

 

My mother picked me up from the Airport and she drove me home.  It was midnight Fri 25th Feb and I had no idea what I was coming home to.  The power was still out and once I had coaxed Mr Wobbly out from under the house all I could do was go to bed.  The next morning I was shocked to see how little our home had been affected, we live on the edge of the city central, the footage of which I had been watching for days.

Fallen items in the kitchen

Buttons everywhere in my workroom

More Buttons

Hallway

Close Up of  DVD's

Top of Hallway (more buttons)

After only 1 hour of tidying up, the house looked like nothing had happened. Non essential travel was not recommended, I was now stuck in our home.  Looking in our kitchen cupboards I found all our wine glasses had fallen over but remained intact, for the first time in my life I was furious, I wanted to smash everything, it all seemed so unfair, instead I sat down and cried and cried.
Luckily our power was restored that evening, I don't know how I would have managed on my own in the dark.  The Mr came home a few days after me and we set about seeing how we could help.  But didn't know what we could do, and that's when I went onto TradeMe and ended up with these guys

Here are five of the six kittens we took in, in early March.  Then while our heatpump was being installed, the kittens were overheard and the installer mentioned the earthquake had left him with a new cat who had given birth under his house.  The shelters were all full and he didn't know what to do with them.   Now guess what I said?

That's right meet the new four. Luckily the others had found homes by the time these guys showed up. Except for Jack that is.

We consider ourselves to be very lucky, everyone we love is safe, our home is ok and where we live life is reatively uninterrupted.  I'm proud of the way we came together, everyone reaching out to the neighbours they had probably never met.  I love Christchurch even more now than ever and I have no plans of leaving.  I'm in this relationship for the long haul.

In the top earthquake photo you can see that we had a huge lack of storage in the kitchen, we used this bookcase until I could get my new shelves built.  I bartered for these shelves with a builder friend by babysitting his son's.

As you can see, I painted this wall a deep green, I so love this colour.  He built the shelves from odd pieces he had stored in his garage.  The original idea was to paint them white, but I liked the rustic feel of them.

I filled the shelves with all the eclectic pieces I had collected.  The scales my Gran used to bake with (far right), the mismatched glasses, decorative plates as well as practical items.  The basket on the bottom shelf holds our cutlery, we don't have any draws, that's weird right?

Jen

Made by Me May - Day 21

I think the whole city was in shock after the September quake but we picked ourselves up and dusted ourselves off and moved on in the best way we could.
In December we moved into the house we are in now and out of my Mum's.  For us it was a pretty uneventful few months then in early Feb my Gandfather passed away as well as a close friend.  We were in Hamilton for our friends funeral when the February 22nd came around.  I was on the plane on my way home, the Mr was staying on in Hamilton to visit with his brother, and 10 minutes from landing we were told that the plane was turning around and going back to Auckland, Christchurch had had another Earthquake and the airport was shut.  That's all I knew until we landed.  So armed with my meal voucher and no where to go, I sat outside the airport and rang everyone I could think of.  My Mum was ok, My Dad was ok (he was still in ChCh after my grandad's funeral) my friends were ok, but I couldn't reach my brother.  All around me people were talking "the Cathedal has collapsed" "there are dead people in the streets" "no flights for the rest of the day" I wished I had been there, I could do nothing to help from here, I was trapped in Auckland.  I went inside the airport to the bar and joined the crowds around the TV as they showed the latest footage.  I've never seen a bar so quiet before, apart from crying.  I had tears streamimg down my face when my phone rang, it was my brother, he was safe and well and he had sent his wife and kids to her family in Oamaru.  I've never felt so relieved.
I spent the next three days, until I could get another flight, in Hamilton glued to the TV and feeling more useless than I have in my entire life.  There were people without homes staying in tents just down the road from where we live, an empty 3 bedroom house going to waste.  I finally got home midnight friday, I'll share more tomorrow.

You can read more about the February Quake here or watch this youtube video.  At approx 4.00 you can see what used to be the Iconic Bar (Our Favourite Bar) the woman screaming for her brother was inside the Iconic with her brother.  They had to drag her out as she didn't want to leave him.  He didn't survive. This video only covers one block of the inner city


It feels kinda inappropriate to add a refashion to this post, but as that is what Made by Me May is about I'll just add these pics

Cute shoes that I added some fabric flowers to.

 

Shoes - Close Up on Flowers

Jen