Help Me, Please?

Remember, you can click on any of the photos to enlarge them.

About 30 years ago my mother made these wonderful pillows for my bed. (Of course, that was about 10 years before I was born. At least, that's my story.)



I've pulled the pillows out of my hope chest and decided to display them on the guest bed. Which just happened to be my bed growing up. I thought it was rather fitting that the pillows return to their original place of display.




They all show some signs of their age, particularly around the middle. And they each could use a bit of a makeover. (gee, are we still talking about pillows here?)



I actually don't mind the general discoloration of the Aida cloth. I figure it just goes with the general older than dirt vintage thing.

But the "K" has a stain that is quite pronounced. It doesn't say "vintage", it says "splat". And I really need to figure out a way to clean it.



So I'm asking for advice. If these were your sentimental childhood pillows, how would you clean them? Or would you?

No, I don't have any clue what the 30 year old stain is.

No, these are not slipcovers over pillows. These are actually sewn on, so any cleaning has to be able to involve the whole pillow getting wet.

They are in excellent physical condition. Really, as good as the day they were made. No wear on the fabric or ribbons or lace at all. Just the discoloration of the Aida cloth. That's it.

Is there a way to clean the spot, but without it looking too clean, if you know what I mean?

Do you think they'd hold up to going through the wash?

Is bleach too harsh on something so old?

What about OxyClean?

Any ideas?

Please?

Any help would be most appreciated.

Thank you!

What Recession?

As you probably know, I am the Wilton method cake decorating instructor at my local Hobby Lobby. Last week I started up the February round of classes. This month I have more students enrolled than I've ever had before.

After class, I always walk over to the Wilton aisle of the store to assist the students with any purchases they may need to make. Many times in previous months I have had no students at all go to the Wilton aisle to make purchases. They've just left the store immediately after class, often opting instead to go to other stores where they know they can purchase the products cheaper. I always feel badly when they do that, but I there's nothing I can do about it. I can't force them to buy Wilton products or to do it at Hobby Lobby.

Anyway, back to this month's class. Last week after class I walked with the students as usual over to the Wilton aisle. I was surprised to find that ALL of my students shopped for Wilton products that evening. And I was even more shocked at the amount of products they purchased. I did some quick mental math while helping one lady, and I figured she was purchasing about $200 worth of Wilton products. Other students were filling up their carts as well. I was really pleasantly surprised. And thought to myself "What recession?"

The other day I went back to the store to turn in my February paperwork to the store manager. (Mucho importante, as this is how I get paid.) I mentioned to him about how much the students purchased. He told me they are finding that sales are actually increasing now as the economy is taking a downturn. He told me people are making more things themselves instead of purchasing ready-made products. And he said they are finding a trend among women to do more "nesting", which is resulting in Hobby Lobby seeing an increase in sales.

I thought that was interesting. And encouraging. After all, we've lost Linens N Things and Goody's here in our town just in the last couple of months. Two perfectly good stores, gone forever. I sure don't want to lose Hobby Lobby. With all the doom and gloom we are bombarded with these days, it is nice to hear that somebody is doing ok.

We don't have a Micheal's here in my town. I would imagine the same would be true for them too, since they're so similar to Hobby Lobby. I sure hope so. I hope both craft stores are able to weather this storm...for the sake of all us nesting women folk. :-)

Cheater, Cheater, Pumpkin Eater

Yep, that's me. I'm cheating today on my own newly self-imposed one-blog-post-with-atleast-one-picture-a-day goal.

I have a post in mind for today. But we've got a storm rolling in. Big time. Tornadoes and all. The lights are flickering; we've already lost satellite.

When these things happen, I shut down my computers and unplug them. Yes, I've got surge protectors, but I don't trust them completely. I can't afford to replace my computers, much less what's on them. So when Mother Nature gets jiggy, my babies get unplugged.

So this is my post for today. To tell you there is no post today. LOL

How's THAT for cheating?! ;-)

See ya' when the sun comes back out!

Preparing for the Worst

In anticipation of everything falling plumb apart when I go to switch my blog template, I've been spending some extra time making sure I've got everything I want to save saved into a separate document. Like the links of everyone I visit. You know, all those Linky Loves I've got in the sidebar.

From what I hear, those probably won't be transferred over automatically. So I'm going through and copying & pasting everyone's URL into a Word document. Figuring I can copy & paste everything back here into Blogger once I've made the change. Ugh. What a time burner!

On the upside, it's good because it's forcing me to update the links. On the downside, it's a real pain.

Am I making this harder than it has to be? Am I being overly cautious? I don't know. I've never re-done my blog like this before. All I know is I've heard horror stories about it from others.


In the meantime, I did manage to get another coupon organizer posted to ebay HERE.



Pretty doggone cute, if you ask me.



This came out a lot cuter than I thought it would. I'm actually liking the whole daisy & tea party theme that's going on with it. And the blue/yellow combination is nice & cheery.


Hope everyone has a Marvelous Monday!

Under Construction

I have been wanting to make some changes to my blog for quite some time now. I've been wishing I would have set it up as 3 column in the first place. And I haven't been thrilled with my graphics. I want to have the same graphics for my ebay and website and this blog. I finally broke down and purchased the graphics from InMyCedarChest that she'd used to make my ebay template a long time ago.

So I've decided I'm ready to take the plunge. I am going to attempt to re-do my blog. *Attempt* being the operative word, naturally.

I'm not exactly sure when I'll get around to it. Hopefully within the next week or so.

Fair warning. If you come by and see things all a-jumble, you'll know why. It's just Kim, doing her tinkering around thing again.

Oh, and here's a little preview...

Pink Saturday - Roses and Bows

It's Pink Saturday again! Woo Hoo! Thank you so much, Beverly, for hosting Pink Saturday for us again.

I love LOVE LOVE Pink Saturdays. Even when I don't have a post up, I still enjoy going around and visiting everyone else, seeing all your lovely pinkies.


Today I thought I'd share my latest creations.



This is a Coupon Organizer. I purchased the graphics, then put them together into my own design.



I had purchased this ribbon a while back. It is what I used to trim out the Christmas stocking for Chrissy. I had some left and just knew I had to add it to this box.



This is the matching Recipe Box that I made.



I've been pleasantly surprised at the response I've gotten so far to the boxes I've made. I've already received requests for custom orders.



I'm ooh'ing and ahh'ing over these. And, as much as I need them to sell, I'm really kinda hoping they don't. LOL



But seriously, I'm hoping and praying the demand keeps up. Not just because of the income factor..but because I really have a LOT of fun making these.

My shameless plug for the day: You can find these & the other tin boxes I've got for sale HERE.


Now let's head on over to Beverly's to see who else is participating today.

And have a WONDERFUL Pink Saturday!

All "Boxed" Up

I haven't taken the time to post in a few weeks. And I really should have. I've been a busy little beaver. I should have been sharing with you all along. It is one of the things I have decided to work harder on: keeping my blog updated. It's just too easy to get behind and let life get in the way and...well, no more excuses. Right?

It all started a few weeks ago when I came across a template for a coupon organizer. I absolutely fell in love with it and really wanted an excuse to make one. So I whipped one up for my stepmother's birthday and shipped it off to her.

(Click on photos to enlarge)

I put a note inside, asking her to give me feedback on how it worked out for her. Because I wanted to make one for myself too. She did give me feedback. She LOVED it.


Then I got the idea to make one and try my hand at selling it on eBay. I tweaked the design a bit and added a bit more embellishment. To give you an idea, here's the one I made for my stepmother:


And here's the first one that went on eBay:


I didn't have the right size box, though. So I had to do some changing of the graphics to make a template that would fit the larger sized box I was able to find. That was a challenge. Still, I think it came out nicely.



Then I made a Recipe Box and listed it on ebay.


Again, larger sized box. Had to alter the graphics. My first tiny taste of "graphic design".


Then I got brave. Or stupid. Not real sure which yet. LOL

I decided to make up my own graphic design into my own template.

And I came up with this:



I purchased the graphics themselves from Daisie Company, then put them together to make the templates for everything here.



It was very time-consuming, especially since I have no idea how to do graphic designs. But well worth it. She went for a pretty penny on eBay.



I did have a hard time shipping her off, though. A part of me really wanted to keep her here in my kitchen, in all her glorious shabby rosey-ness.

Pink Saturday - Planning Ahead

Thanks to Beverly at How Sweet The Sound, Pink Saturday is upon us again!


Puleeze tell me I'm not the only one who does this...

I refrain rather religiously from buying Christmas decorations in the months leading up to the holiday...knowing I can get the same things for a song if I hold out until December 26.



Anyone else do that?

I even begin to purchase next year's Christmas presents at the after-Christmas sales. (The problem with this money-saving strategy is that I sometimes forget I've purchased something for someone and end up buying them another gift at some point during the year.)



Tell me I'm not alone! Tell me you too start preparing for Christmas a year in advance!


I've noticed the past few years that our living room Victorian tree has been looking more and more bare. This year it was really quite embarrassing, looking rather pathetic. Too many empty green branches. Over the years most of our ornaments have broken at one point or another. When I was packing away the decorations this year, I noticed we were down to just 8 glass Victorian-style ornaments of the original 40 given to me by my mother-in-law.



Which brings me to the after-Christmas sales this year and my quest to liven up my tree next year.




I admit it. I have purchased more ornaments the past few weeks than I ever have in the past. More than I care to ever let my husband know about.

Glass ones. Plastic ones. Styrofoam ones. Of all different sizes and colors. Most of them I have plans to perk up and transform into perfect pinkiness.



On the upside, I've made all these purchases at deep discounts. Some 60% off, more at 75% off



and my personal fave: All the pink goodies you've seen here were 80% off + my 15% employee discount at Hobby Lobby.



So when hubby finds my new Christmas stash, I'll just bat my eyelashes and give him my usual line:

"But honey! See how much money I saved you?"




Now tell me, what kind of after-Christmas goodies have you found? And what projects do you have dancing around in your head for Christmas 2009?

Christmas On A Budget - Part 2

WHOOPS! While doing my Pink Saturday post, I found this post from last month that was never published. It was sitting there as a Draft. Ugh.

So here it is...almost a month late:


The biggest, most overwhelming part of our handcrafted Christmas are the Rice Bags.


I started out with 19 on my List for all the ladies in the family.


But my List has quickly expanded and now we're up to 29.


I'm making each of these with 4 separate compartments in each bag. That helps keep the rice from sliding to one spot in the bag.


Each compartment has 1 cup of rice in it.


I started out using herbal teas to add fragrance to the rice.


Apple cinnamon, lemon, chamomile, orange teas.


But I soon found the teas did not provide enough fragrance, as the bags just smelled like cooked rice when they came out of the microwave. Not good.


So then I switched to fragrance oils which worked much better. "Warm Sugar Cookies" -- ooooh so yummy smelling!





Afterthought: Now that the Holiday is over and all the rice bags have been given away, I cannot tell you how popular these gifts were. I continue to receive Thank You's over and over again for them. People tell me how soothing the bags are on their aches and pains. And with it being winter, several people tell me they heat their bags up and sleep with them or lay them over their feet in bed.

These ended up being very good gifts to give-- for their practicality and for being budget-friendly.