Arizona Quilters Guild Show!

I'll be back in Arizona this weekend living it up at the Arizona Quilt Guild Quilt Show with my mom hosted at the Mesa Convention Center Friday, March 9th and Saturday, March 10th. Like usual we'll have lots of cute fabric, patterns and a few fun quilted pieces of furniture! Speaking of furniture, my mom was on Sonoran Living Live this morning previewing some of the quilts that will be on display (check out that peacock!) and one of my chairs happily stood by the display table. Follow the link below for a glimpse at the chair and some great quilts!

Annual quilt show in Mesa

"Frenchy" Buffet Makeover

I've slowly been piecing my house together since the move last September and constantly ask myself WHY?! WHY can't I just go to a big box store, order furnishings in the latest fashion, throw them against the wall and be done with it all. I have friends with nice homes that move and within a week their new house is as put together as their last so CLEARLY it's possible to not have "set up" take 6 months! I have this constant need to "collect". Collect from flea markets, antique malls, etc. making a room never truly complete but I rationalize it all by saying, "oh, it's coming together organically.". Yea, okay, whatever.

In the spirit of bringing a room together "organically" I want to share a cute little french provincial buffet I found in a California antique mall last summer. I received a call a couple of days before we left for the California coast saying I was going to get to rent my current house and I was SUPER excited. Mostly, I was SUPER excited by the prospect of having a SUPER large dining room that could house a dinging set I had snagged for $50 four months prior that was currently collecting dust in my garage waiting to be redone. While we were antiquing in California I was telling my mom all about how I was going to use ASCP for the first time to redo this dining set and that I was excited to try and give the dining room more of a rustic ranch feel. She attempted to act interested in what I was saying and not annoyed that I was distracting her from finding her own great treasures when she spotted a small french provincial buffet and said, "How great is this?!". "Eh, yea I guess it's nice. I like the chicken wire on the bottom." I replied. To be honest I did think it was a pretty great little piece that could be nicely added in to my dining set with some paint but I also noticed the $150 price tag and I choose not to get excited if I have to let go of that kind of cash on myself. Well, ultimately she sold me on it BUT she did have to promise to throw in an awesome old set of silverware she had bought at a flea market to fill its top drawer. Speaking of which...Mom, I'm still waiting for that set.

The piece was in amazing condition so I'm sorry if anyone is offended by the addition of some stain and paint but I just had to do it! I bought my first ever quart of Annie Sloan Chalk Paint and painted it in old white but stained the top a dark walnut to match the dining room table and I really love how it turned out. Also, I now understand why there is so much love for the ASCP now- stuff's GREAT!

Before

After

Still, my favorite part is that chicken wire!

-Andrea

Showing off at Show it Off Mondays and Meg & Mum's

Lark Living

It's no secret that my mom can't get enough of Amy Butler's fabric. Honestly, the woman can do no wrong design in my mom's eyes! It's also no secret that my mom is constantly creating for anyone but herself and yes I am a HUGE contributor toward that. A few months ago I challenged my mom to get rid of her gigantic la-z-boy sectional recliner sofa and create a living room she's actually excited about. The challenge was gladly accepted and within weeks she had found an antique set to tear apart. Not so surprisingly, once it was torn apart, new foam and webbing done she upholstered the pieces in her favorite fabric gals' new line Lark. Take a look (and please excuse the focus on some of the photos - apparently it was an off day)!

Ok, so the last chair isn't from the Lark collection but if it ever feels outnumbered I'll gladly let it take residence at my home!

-Andrea

See you at the Fiesta!

My stressful week is finally over and from now through Sunday it will be nothing but fun at Tucson Quilt Fiesta! If you live in southern Arizona come check out the fantastic quilt show and amazing (especially booth #1) vendor booths at the Tucson Convention Center Friday, January 20th - Sunday, January 22nd. You can find me in the booth with the pink walls, Mad Hatter tea party (complete with custom quilted chair of course!) and fabric galore. Oh, I'll also be sporting a fashionable but rather small hat inside the booth and in case you're worried you still might not find me I've included some reference photos found below. Happy un-weekend to all!

-Andrea

Merchant Square Booth

A few months ago we rented a booth at Merchant Square Antiques in sunny Chandler, Arizona and my mom has been busy keeping it stocked. She snapped a few pictures of it after restocking last weekend so we could share them here with you. Just a side note, the white tufted couch you'll see is 10 feet long and our biggest project to date. Looking at it for too long causes a feeling of remorse for renting such a small bungalow that could, unfortunately, never support such a large beautiful piece.

Our furniture can be found in booth B-119 and at the moment (unless a very large piece sells) we add new items every two weeks so hopefully you'll see something fresh if you stop by more than once!

-Andrea

House Tour - Sewing Room

About a week before Swiss Days I moved. Again. I move a lot. Like a lot a lot. In less than a month I will have officially lived in Utah for 3 years. During those 3 years I've lived in 5 houses - ACK!


My best friend and her husband moved into the Highland Park neighborhood in Sugarhouse a few years ago and last July I followed suit and rented the top part of a small house in the same neighborhood. There were a lot of things I really liked about the house and a few things that were less than ideal. My main issue was that it was only a two bedroom house and in Andrea's world that translates to a master bedroom and a sewing room but with my mom and little sister visiting so often and staying long periods of time during holidays I quickly realized it would be nice to offer them something better than an aero bed surrounded by fabric scraps.



In August I found a solution by way of this cute little house:


Only five streets down and in the same neighborhood it's an arts & crafts style home built in 1939. The house technically only has 2 bedrooms with a bath up and a bath down. However, there is a 7'x11' sun room and an extra bonus/rec room in the basement. I knew the sun room would have to become the sewing room if I wanted to have a comfortable place for visitors to stay and surprisingly its small size didn't derail my plans even though my prior sewing room was considerably larger. Honestly, I think I like this space better! I will admit that a large part of the success of this room is having a bonus space downstairs where I keep my cut table/ironing station and stores of fabric.



I have no plans or desire to leave this house anytime soon and would really like to have most or all of the rooms put together before Thanksgiving. I realize that might seem like a ton of time to get things done but between traveling for work each week, custom client projects and a general desire to keep as much handmade as possible Thanksgiving will really be pushing it for me and even then I am only hoping to have the bigger projects completed.



So, in an effort to keep me honest and keep me going I'm going to share the rooms one by one as they are completed (and by completed I mean there is always room for improvement - I'll never be one of those people who has a "finished" room let alone house). The sewing room is always the first space I set up in a new home and probably always will be. Take a look.

The before.

Thanks to the narrow size and wall of windows photo taking isn't the easiest in this room but that wall color was actually a very dark mud brown.

View as you enter the space

I got this "Bronco Babe" tool caddy half off at a store in Kanab, UT as they had it in a window display resulting in visible fading. It is 100% my style.

The curtains were made from one of my favorite gals (Anna Maria Horner!) fabric while the space under the windows features different shelving units that were either take offs from previous furniture projects I did or found at flea markets.

The color inspiration for the room-

yellow, pink, turquoise

I bought this wall planter for $2 at a DI store a couple of years ago and after a quick paint job it's been catching my scraps ever since.

The window shelves are lined with little trinkets. This antique sewing drawer (found at Farm Chicks) is holding a flour sack (found in Idaho) with a date of 1923 and 'Salt Lake City' printed on it along with some spools of thread and one of my Aunt Patti's old business cards. She was an incredible artist who lived in a small, beautiful historic home in Pasadena, CA where she attempted to teach me how to play the harp when I was 9 years old.

Ha! I find these cupcakes stored in boxes all over my house. 4 or 5 years ago I read an article in some magazine about making felted cupcakes out of thrift store sweaters. I had to make them! I had to make them again and again apparently b/c I'm still finding them. *note wool sweaters are no where to be found in Arizona thrift stores hence the reason this is clearly not felted.

Mason jars & found objects

Mr. Mousey Mouse Mouse.


Oh, yea. Did I mention the view of the backyard from the sewing room?

If my sewing room had a motto this would be it.


The closet is getting there. For the time being I switched out the clothes rod with a smaller rod so ribbon can be held out of the way and started organizing the shelves.

-Andrea

And the winner is...

Sorry that this announcement is coming so late in the day but I spent my morning at the airport and my evening so far staring at a room service menu trying to answer the age old question of, 'what's for dinner?'. But you don't really care about any of that do you? You're just here to find out if you'll be swingin' a new tote around this fall.

After hours and hours of debate I'm happy to announce we have a winner. Ok, so there was no debate. We let random.org make the decision nice, simple and fair for all involved. And "true randomness" chose Heather Dallmann. Yay! Congrats Heather! Of course every plus has it's minus and in this case you'll finally have to decide between the mod gray or cozy navy. Good luck!

Thank you to all who entered.

-Andrea