Thank you so much for all your kind words about my new cabinet (and my hubby) that I received on Valentine’s Day. (If you missed that post, you can see it HERE.) I think my hubby outdid himself this time. I was not expecting this cabinet… (maybe secretly hoping, but not expecting it.) I think he traded some of his electrical work for part of the cost of it… :o) I enjoy looking at it, and may or may not paint it…but I do love painted furniture…so for now, I’m content to live with it just the way it is.
I had an extremely busy week and weekend and didn’t get as much accomplished as I would like to have, but Rebecca, my jewelry making daughter, was extremely busy herself…making things for your dolls. I got about a dozen new doll necklaces listed in our Etsy shop, but still have several to go. She makes ’em and I list ’em! :o) If you’d like to see what’s in our shop right now, click HERE. Or you can click on the Etsy Icon at the right side bar.
Here’s a few that I liked very much…
…and here are the ones I didn’t manage to get in our shop yet… Guess I know what I’ll be doing on President’s Day!
She’s also made quite a few for women and they are equally as pretty….she’s got two other ones that she is figuring the price on, so they aren’t in the pictures, but they are on the turquoise side… and very pretty…
Rebecca puts me to shame, but then again she didn’t have to balance the checkbook, cut my hubby’s hair, bake cookies for a bake sale, spend all day with my mom one day…and then there was all that wondering what was behind the door… :o)
Okay, so I’ll show you what “I” got done… I finished the smocking part on the doll dress for the Little Darlings. I now have to “embellish it.” That will be the fun part…
Here’s just the smocking…
…and here’s the silk ribbons I’m considering for my flowers…
Well, I think I’m going to bed…
I hope you had a really nice Valentine’s Day today…
See you tomorrow,
Blessings, Jeanne
Hi Jeanne!! Yes, Rebecca sure has been busy! So many pretties to choose from!
As to the silk ribbons, I vote for the brightest/deepest pink one. The lightest pink would blend in with the smocking too much, I think.
The green is pretty, but I’m wishing you had a little brighter green, something that’s a little closer to the green in the print. I guess that’s just me–I tend to like bright colors!
Charlotte
HI Charlotte,
Thanks for the compliments on Rebecca’s necklaces….she’s been a “beading machine” the last week or so… :o)
I wish we had a store around here that sold the silk ribbons… Joann’s used to, but they don’t now… the closest place to me is an hour away. I’ll look through my greens again and if I don’t see anything darker, I’ll have to substitute floss in some areas to pick up the darker green.
Thanks so much,
Blessings, Jeanne
I think you accomplished a lot. First necklace is my favorite. Glad you are rethinking painting the china cabinet although I know your sister does a wonderful job. Painting vintage furniture takes me back to the 60,s when it became popular to antique old furniture. Since then when I see painted furniture I think recycled pieces that were not good enough to use as they were.
HI Jan,
Thanks for your comments. I just got off the phone with my sister and guess what we were talking about… painted furniture… I still am undecided though…
I just think some old pieces need a facelift and paint can help make them stand out a bit…
I am too busy right now to decide anyway…
Thanks so much,
Blessings, Jeanne
Do I remember you saying you had the last of some rose print material much like the smocked dress is made with? Shabby Fabric has some new rose print fabric that may be the right size but maybe not the same texture. I have never seen fabric like this in stores here in California.
I went to a Revolutionary War Reenactment of the Battle of Lexington on Saturday at Huntington Beach City Park. A lot of the participating women were dressed in appropriate costumes just like the Felicity doll, complete with the undergarments, which they said were pretty uncomfortable but showed off the dresses beautifully. Some had made their own and some were made by their mothers and pretty much all had cameos as jewelry. They all knew a lot about the history of their costumes. An interesting afternoon. Thomas Jefferson, George Washington and Ben Franklin were there also!
HI Susette,
I don’t remember what I said about the fabric… I have 2 coordinating fabrics that I might use with this smocked dress somehow.. still not 100% sure of how I’m making it.
I love white or cream fabrics with pretty pink flowers on them…
Your day at the park sounds like so much fun. I’d probably have had a sketch pad out and copying down ideas to use in my doll dresses….or I guess maybe a camera would have worked too.
Did you say hello to George? :o)
Thanks Susette,
Blessings, Jeanne
Congratulations on your new china cabinet. I guess I would vote to not paint it unless the finish is just distroyed which it doesn’t look like. at all.. I tend to not want to ruin the original way something was. You know- PC dolls, furniture… 🙂 I have an antique Victorian cherry one that is still in pristine condition. I just love the look of rich wood. The top has the old wavy glass and I have my grandmother good china and aother family didh item- cocoa set, tea set displayed inside and the doors at the bottom are for linens.
All of the necklaces are lovely. Rebecca has certainly been busy. My favorite is the third one with the purple flower.
Lian’s dress will be very pretty, so nice for Easter. I am so looking forward to spring. We have had frigid temperatures of single digits. I am browsing the seed catalogs and we’re planning what to raise this year besides the usuals. I also am looking at my back issues of Victoria (my favorite magazine) to get a dose of pretty spring flowers when there aren’t any yet.
HI Laura,
Thanks for the congrats on the cabinet… there are certain pieces of furniture that I would never paint too, but some I just see it in my house with my things and think they look better painted. Sometimes the older pieces, just left the way they are, look too “grandma-ish” to me and when painted it revives them…and gives them new life. I’m still undecided on my cabinet but one thing I know for sure, it won’t be getting anything done to it for a while, as I’m way too busy right now…
I’m anxious to get this dress finished… it’s taking too long to get it going… too many interruptions in my life right now…
I’m looking forward to Spring too and saw a Robin out in the snow today…woohoo!
Thanks Laura,
Blessings, Jeanne
Really admiring Rebecca’s necklaces. Love her color combinations. The smocking looks so pretty. Can’t wait to see how it looks finished. Do you leave in the pleating threads from the machine when finished? From what I’ve read, some do some remove.
HI Joy,
I think Rebecca has a real gift for making her necklaces. I wish I had kept track of how many she’s sold… but it’s a LOT! I guess I could go back to our Etsy shop and count them, but then I’d have to look through all my doll dresses and see which ones had necklaces… it would take too long to do that…
Yes, I’ll take out the pleating threads when I am done with my design… it makes the dress a little bit “stretchy” and fits much nicer. I also like the way it looks just under the smocking…sort of ironed in pleats…
Thanks Joy,
Blessings, Jeanne
Oh I love the smocking on the LD dress…so pretty! I like all of the ribbons you have chosen. Rebecca’s necklaces are very pretty. Your china cabinet is very nice…lucky you! : )
Thank you Regina,
It will be much prettier when I get some flowers added to the front. I hope I can make it look as pretty as some of the ones I’ve seen lately on Ebay…
Rebecca sold 3 of the necklaces this morning… so it’s good I have more to list…
Thanks for liking the cabinet…I’m pretty partial to it too!!
Blessings to you Regina,
~ Jeanne
Oh, how the sweet pink and green flowers look so much like spring! So pretty and fresh looking, just what we need around here. Did you get snow yesterday too, Jeanne? Boy, did it ever come down fast here! We went to church at 8:00, nothing going on, when we came out at 9, everything was covered with 2 to 3 inches of snow and it was still coming down in buckets!
I love that smocking, wish I knew what it is that you do to smock! The pleating part you explained, but the rest? I’m very anxious to see what you decide to do with the ribbons.
Oh, that beautiful piece of furniture, I don’t want to tell you what to do with it, since you are the one living with it, but it depends on what other woods you have in that same room. It would be a great accent piece, so for that it would look better painted. It also depends on the style of the room. Formal, casual, country, contemporary, etc. make a difference. What room is it actually in, since I see parts of your living room and the kitchen wall. Is that the dining room?
Oh, those beautiful necklaces that Rebecca makes! I see one I would really like for Felicity, so we will see how that goes.
HI Linda,
Yes, we got the same snow as you did… it came down so fast… we got 2-3 inches in about 2-3 hours… It was pretty but it was really slick around here. It’s melting fast today, though. The main roads are all cleared off.
To smock on the pleats is all done by hand with embroidery floss. Maybe I’ll show a picture from a book I have so you can see the process…You work from left to right and catch your needle in the pleats and snug them up tight and when you do it holds your stitches in place.
My kitchen, dining room and living room are all one big room…sort of in a L shape. There is one wall that goes from the edge of the kitchen wall, into the dining room but extends into the living room. I don’t really have any nice woods in my house… all the things we own are old and have been painted… the big blue cabinet is in the living room. My coffee table and end table are painted with wood tops… I have a buffet in my dining room that was in crummy shape, so it’s been painted green with the top left the wood color, but I’m going to paint it a color called Smokehouse Gray, and then I have my dining room table, which is wood, and the chairs. If I had my choice, I’d get a different table and chairs set, but it was given to us and it works for now. My house is a cottage style house and the things I like are mostly painted, so painting the cabinet is more my style, but I can’t do it now anyway, so I’ll just put it on the back burner and dream about what I want.
If I had some Victorian house, it might make a difference…
I’ll see if I can’t find a picture of the whole room and you can see the wall it’s on…
Thanks for the compliments on Rebecca’s necklaces. She really does enjoy making jewelry… She always gets excited to show me what she’s made each time she brings something into my sewing room… :o)
Thanks Linda,
Blessings, Jeanne