The Nightstand Project

Nightstand - Before

Drawers primed. 

Diamonds measured & drawn as perfectly as I could make them.

Taped off and spray painted Cream

Pulling the tape off the diamonds...

Re-taping the outline so I can hand paint the detail...

All done... Well... Almost!

Antique Gold vs. Gold

 Time to re-tape for more detailing...

And you actually thought I was going to let you see the after already!?
 I have to keep some surprises for the final Bedroom reveal!

-- A Victorian Cowgirl

The Pages of Inspiration...

Here's a sneak peak of my nightstand inspiration. 

 

(Have to find the magazine...)

I am searching my thumb drive for the rest of this project's photos

and will post as soon as I find them all!!

 (House of Turquoise)

 Dresser inspiration, furniture and art layout inspiration...

Thank you again Jennifer for my beautiful blue dresser.

It's all I could have ever asked for and more!!

(Photo from Pinterest)

  (Have to find the magazine... AGAIN...)

Color Scheme: Cream, Irish Coffee, with Turquoise & Purple/Magenta accents

-- A Victorian Cowgirl

Up-cycled Napkins

In June I did a tutorial on up-cycling a vintage/antique linen into the pincushion on a Mason Jar sewing kit... but I never said what I did with the beautiful lace cornered scraps from the linen.

 

Well, I turned them into pretty little napkins! When I made the sewing kit, all I did was cut the "P" out of an antique monogrammed linen. When I was finished, I had a near-perfect condition linen - with a 4x4 square cut out of its center - left over... and beautiful lace trim on it's corners!

To make the napkins, all I had to do now was to cut off the excess center strip (an act I didn't feel bad about because it was slightly damaged with moth holes anyways), roll and pin the hem...

... and stitch them on just ONE side. It only took me about 30 minutes to trim, pin, and hem both scraps.

It was SOOOOOOOOOOOO simple, and I got beautiful napkins without wasting a thing!

What have you up-cycled lately?

-- A Victorian Cowgirl <3

"P" is for...

Last summer while looking through a stack of antique linens that had been given to us by a friend, I found a particularly sweet (albeit well loved, and slightly imperfect) table runner, which I immediately fell head-over-heels in love with.

Later, as I was giving the runner a once over I realized it was monogrammed. What was the letter? you might ask... It was a "P".

I have been thinking of the things that "P" could stand for since it isn't part of my initials, and the runner is so lovely that I can't bear to part with it. After weeks filled to the brim with long hours of thought, it (FINALLY) came to me:

"P" is for Pincushion.

But how shall I do it?!?!?!?!

Here, my dears, is the answer to that dreaded question...

The magazine article that I used for inspiration is found in last years May/June edition of Victoria Bliss Magazine.... but I tweeked it a little as I went along and found what worked for me :) 

My crafting supplies (minus the fabric...since I still have to search the external hard-drive for those pics) include: a mason jar and lid, cardboard (from a ramen box works), Gorilla Glue (you're supposed to use fabric glue but this is all I had), pillow fluff (not shown), and some mini-sewing kit supplies to go in the finished jar... consisting of a pack of machine needles, a pack of mixed hand sewing needles, assorted small white buttons, safety pins (the ultimate seamstress's life-saver -- aside from duct-tape which fixes EVERYONE'S problems), a thimble, some embroidery floss, some floral lace trim, and a pretty dark grey pearlized Butterfly button :)

My fabric cut out already... I have more pics of the full runner, but that is for a later craft-project post :)

Tracing out the lid onto cardboard... you are supposed to use two circles of cardboard like I have shown here, but I found it easier to use one. And, it's best if it is slightly smaller than the lid :) 

Fabric, pillow fluff, lid and cardboard... time to center the "P" in the middle of the lid, and insert pillow fluff. Then comes the cardboard to hold it, and you glue the fabric to the cardboard to lock it all in place. Don't forget to trim the fabric after the glue is dry. Should look something like this...

And here is my finished pin-cushion...

Then you just fill the mason jar with a mini-sewing kit. Like this:

-- A Victorian Cowgirl

(I think I will redo this post with better instructions later... lol)

For my first set of stays; My true love gave to me...

2 yards of muslin, and a new, working sewing machine ;)

When I was in Colorado visiting my fathers parents, my parents went to visit my mothers father for Thanksgiving and he sent two of my granny's sewing machines and a Serger home to me! Thank you Papaw!!!

 I really want to try and make a Georgian dress but need stays for that, even more than I do for my Regency dresses. I looked through my stash of patterns and found this one from McCall's. I am making it out of a plain white muslin, and eyelet's instead of grommets for lacing (since I am HORRIBLE at putting in grommets). I am almost done (but for attaching lining to corset once the boning is in). While waiting on the chance to get my boning, I  have decided that I will add a little decorative touch to one or two of the front panels. I started earlier today on the embroidery and will post a pic as soon as I have one. Though I fear my stitches are always very poor I think it will be all the more lovely knowing that I did it with my own hand, and hopefully one of my children can enjoy my toils many years from now when it gets passed down from myself to some dear little girl... 

If you have any tips for corsetry (yes, it's a "new" word :P), please share them if you can spare a moment here. I am very new to this, and though I am using a modern pattern for my stays this time, I hope to learn from it and make a set of 18th Century stays somewhere in the near future. (Hopefully with the help of your tips, and also a little guidance from the quick hands of my dear friend Laura at Tryon Palace...)

-- A Victorian Cowgirl

Thank you .. Graphics Fairy?!?!

LOL... but seriously... Thank you Karen!! :D I found this silhouette on your blog and saved, shrunk, and played with it via picnik. I had a lot of fun, even if I didn't do much to change it.

Sweet Little Dress Photo's

Here is the process of making my little dress. The lighting wasn't super fantastic because I took them in the morning, and it has been raining all week:

The pattern drawn out on the shirt. Now, I don't have a daughter to borrow a dress from for a pattern, but I do have dresses of mine that my momma saved.

So, I used one of my pink easter dresses.

Detached Pocket



Goodbye sleeve...



And, there went the other one.

Close-up of the back, right before I cut the neckline for the dress.

From this photo you can't really tell but, I cut the neckline directly under the two buttons shown in the photo before this.

Side seam sewing :)

Belt loops, which I made from bits of the sleeve.

Attaching the belt loops

As you can see, I kept the pocket. I had plans for it!! I took more fabric from one of the sleeves, folded it in 1/2 and gathered it up, then attached it in a sprial to the pocket.

Ta-da!! It's a flower :D

It's almost finished.

I re-attached the pocket to the front of the dress where I felt a little girl could easily use it for hiding all her dainty little things, like a flower for mommy, or a card for dad.

Then I hand-stiched a button from my sewing box to the center of the flower, making sure not to catch the dress. Turns out, the button I chose was a larger version of the buttons already attached to the shirt.

Close-up of the flower on the pocket.

C'est Fini!!

(This photo was taken by momma later in the evening, hence the color difference.)

-- A Victorian Cowgirl

Put a little Ooh la la..

In YOUR life...

This is for Mimi :D

(since none of your blog buttons seem to work on my blog)

LOL

- A Victorian Cowgirl

Shared Tutorial in Practice...

So, I worked on it a little while and made 3 flowers. I made more through out the day, but only wore just the first 3 in my hair :)

...The flowers, & twist...

I have one little one off to the left side of my twist...

and to the right...

I have one larger one, coupled with a smaller one.

All of my flowers have 3-5 Swarovski Crystal beads at the centers.

I hope you enjoy making yours as much as I have enjoyed making mine, and sharing the photo's!!

-- A Victorian Cowgirl

Sharing a Link for a Tutorial

I read an article this morning about the common misconception that girls who stay at home either just sit around twiddling our thumbs while we "wait for our prince charming" or that we only know how to cook and clean. Those are good things to know, by the way, but if I only did that I'd be bored stiff. Anyway, that isn't the purpose of this post so I'll move on.

The author of that post is Emily Rose Brookshire of Simply Vintagegirl. I love all things vintage and beautiful so I just HAD to go visit her site when I saw the name of her blog :)

I found this lovely tutorial for fabric flowers and wanted to share. The post is at http://www.simplyvintagegirl.com/blog/index.php/2010/05/29/tutorial-how-to-make-lovely-fabric-flowers/

I have known how to make different sorts of fabric and ribbon flowers for a while but I never thought of using a tealight to crinkle the flower edges. They remind me of old english roses or peonies (which I love!!). I am making some of these today... how about you?!

-- A Victorian Cowgirl

Cards :-)

OK, :-) Good morning all! I hope you are having a WONDERFUL day. I am trying to make sure that I post at least once a day.... something of a change for me since I normally only post every few months or so.

I am a crafty person in general, I suppose. A few evenings ago, sitting in my room, I decided I was bored and would find something productive to do... I love to scrap-book, and I have three or four of them. :-) So, as I went through and organized my desk, I found a set of blank thank you/ event card-stock cards. Naturally, with the way my brain works, I grabbed my scrap boxes out of my closet and set to work!

I spent the evening planning, cutting, pasting, cleaning my work area, picking paper and trimmings, etc. and came up with this Set of 12 cards. I haven't decided what to call the set yet though, so if you have any ideas, feel free to leave a comment!!

Thank you SOOOOOOOOOOO much for stopping by dears.

--A Victorian Cowgirl