THREE IN A ROW

Good afternoon everyone!  Don't pass out but, I did it!  Woo hoo!!  It's about time.  And I am having a blast. 

For starters, yesterday I went to a fabric shop in Litchfield, Maine (The Busy Thimble).  It's an awesome fabric shop.  She has a wide variety of fabrics.  She also quilts alot!!!  She offers precut quilt tops that are just ready to go home and put together.  She had some needlepunch kits as well.  Lots of fat quarters.  Tons of great goodies and she was very helpful and knowledgeable too.  I will definitely go back soon!!!!!!  These are a few pics of the two pieces of fabrics I bought to make two sets of bonnets and aprons.  I got the pattern for them here: http://gettysburghomestead.blogspot.com/   I am hoping to attempt making them next week.  Anyway here's the pics:

This picture is pretty bad but, I was trying to show you a close-up of the prints.  They really are beautiful.  So, now that I have them I need to use my walnut ink on them to stain them, right?!  Of course.  The trouble is, I paid more for this fabric than I have ever paid for fabric.  Don't get me wrong, it is well worth it.  But, the overwhelming fear of ruining it took over.  When I mixed up my walnut ink it looked very dark and scared me so I went extremely light as you can see:

If you look closely you can see a difference.  It just is not the difference that I am used to creating in my projects.  I tend to do everything on  the darker side.  Before it is said and done these fabrics will end up darker. LOL!   Just need to do it in baby steps this time, I guess.

This next photo is of my needlepunch that I picked up at her shop:

Yes, I know......wrong holiday.  But, if I start on it now I will have it done in time for the correct holiday.  LOL!!!!!   I just couldn't leave her shop without him and I so much enjoy doing the needlepunch.

Now, for today I did a craft from one of my most favorite bloggers Pamela at:   http://ourpioneerhomestead.blogspot.com/  I did one of her quick crafts of the day.  She just posted this I believe last week.  It really caught my eye because it's hard to think of handy little prim crafts to have in the bathroom and this one had EASY written all over it.  And with that I knew that it was one I couldn't wait to do.  On her supplies list, I couldn't find my paint rags at Wal mart as she did but, I went into Home Depot and foundn some that were perfect for the job.  They were a pack of 6 for I believe $2.98.  AWESOME!   Very inexpensive craft to do.  The rags that I got were in the paint section and they came in a package that looked like this

So, I took these rags and dyed them in the walnut ink and they came out a variety of shades of brown and tan.  I love them.  The different shades give them so much character. Now once these are dyed and dry you fold them in a little staack and wrap your rusty hemp cord (which I did find at Wal mart), around your bundle and add a little stained tag with 1804 Farmhouse written on it.  Mine looks like this so far:

In this picture you can see the different shades of tan and even brown.  Love, love, love them!

Here they are folded up and bundled with the hemp twine and tagged.  Now all they need is the little bar of soap on top.  I tried to find the soap that Pamela had mentioned in her blog but, I had no luck at all with that.  But, I knew that I wanted to keep this craft cheap so I found a bar of softsoap for a buck and it was a coconut scrub.  I thought that would be great with the little scrub bits in it.  It was way to white and bright to go up against these cloths as you can see here:

When I opened the box I was quite disappointed because the bar was white but also because it had "softsoap" engraved in it and it had a modern shape to it with the curved sides and rounded edges.  So, what's a girl to do.............

.......that's right.  She gets out her paring knife and does a little damage to her bar of soap.  I got rid of the name on it and I square it up more and left a lot of rougher edges and indents around it.  My next problem was how to darken it.  Simple right?  Spray it down with my walnut ink.  So, I did;

But, I wanted browner soap not dirty looking soap.  Primitive....not dirty!  Yuck!  What now?  Paint!

This is kind of what I did:  first I took that tealish looking green and mixed it in with the tan paint and painted the soap bars (I made up two sets--one for each of my baths).  It came out okay but looked to neat or monotone maybe.  I didn't like it.  Then I thought.....it needs some texture to it duh!  While the paint was still drying I added some cloves on the soap bars.  I let that dry and then painted over it.  Now they not only look good but smell amazing too!  I think they came out perfect but you be the judge

I wanted my soap to stand out a little from the cloths that is why I used some green in my paint.  You could use any color you wanted and as much or as little.  The good news with this is;  you can keep repainting until you find what you like.  I wasn't 100% about the green in it until I placed it on the cloths and then I knew it was exactly right for me!

Okay so after I posted this I went to put my stacks away and I pulled off the little twine that was attached to my shipping labels.  I didn't need them because I had threaded the hemp through them already.  I didn't want to throw them away and I was thinking I'll just wrap it around the bar of soap.  I did and it looked pretty neat but, then I thought "oh my gosh, I'll put a little sweet annie in it"!  So, I did and ........tada!  I think that it looks even better now.  It makes it look a little more feminine I think.  Hope you like it  too!!!!!!!!!

Thanks for checking in with me today.  I hope that you all give this one here a shot and if you do and have some photos I sure would like to see what you did. 

I hope to be crafting alot next week but, it seems that when I make a commitment something always comes up and throws a kink into my plans so, no promises. 

See you next time.  Have a wonderful afternoon and evening!!!

Warm primitive blessings to you all.

prim_bug