Embroidered Napkins

My latest project is not ready for viewing yet so I thought I'd put up a project I made for my friend's wedding shower a while back. I embroidered cloth napkins!! First, I drew figures on paper until I had the designs I wanted. Then, I transferred them to the napkins and went to work embroidering them!

Aren't they gorgeous? The two in the middle are my Favorites :) Perfect for girl's night!

Movie Monday!! Mildred Pierce

I've had such an active social life this past week that I almost didn't watch any movies! But fortunately, I did get one in, Mildred Pierce. Yet another in my Joan Crawford phase (can you tell I've been reading her bio?) this one won her an academy award! This was the first movie she made for her new studio (Warner) after MGM let her go (ironic?). Take that MGM! Ha!

It begins with a murder in classic film noir style and then the process of figuring out who dunnit. At the police station, Mildred must tell the story of her life.

She begins married with two young girls. Her husband loses his job and begins a love affair with another woman so Mildred throws him out and gets a divorce. With two children and bills to pay, she takes a job waiting tables but tries to keep it secret because her oldest daughter, Veda, is a spoiled snob who looks down on that profession (among many others).

Eventually, Mildred decides to open her own restaurant because she wants thankless Veda to have everything she didn't have and Veda has expensive taste..

She buys the building from a formerly wealthy man, Monte, who she falls in love with. Now, she must pay for both Veda's and Monte's expensive whims. Luckily for her, the restaurant is a success and she opens several more but eventually, their spend thrift ways wear down her wealth and she is likely to lose the business. 

She goes looking for Monte when she discovers that he has double crossed her and is trying to sell part of the restaurant. When she finds him, well, you'll have to watch it to find out the real twist at the end!

Great film! It is definitely worth watching even if stuck up Veda gets on your last nerve (she needed some good old fashioned discipline in the form of a sturdy belt). Thumbs up!

My latest project: Super cute Sprocket pillows!

 I saw a tutorial for these on cluckclucksew.com and had to make one.  I must warn you, they are addicting and I am already contemplating the fabrics I would use to make another..

I thought I would add some embroidery on a few of the pieces on the front to give it that little extra flair!

Love them!!

And here is Gaston's little costume I made..

My sweet little frenchman!

Movie Monday!! The Dancing Lady

Sorry Movie Monday!! is a day late this week but better late than not at all, right?


The Dancing Lady stars Joan Crawford and Clark Gable in a much better pairing than the last one I reviewed. This movie has an interesting cast including Fred Astaire in his debut movie appearance as her dance partner in the end of the movie {squeal!}. Also in this, is Franchot Tone, Joan's future husband, alongside her lover (Clark Gable ). Those Hollywood people are so interesting who needs soap operas?


This is the story of a burlesque dancer, Janie Barlow (Crawford), determined to be a Broadway star. She meets a handsome, rich, well connected playboy, Tod (Tone), who wants to "further her career" and be her leading man. When she fails to get in on her own, she allows him to pull some strings and is put in the star role of the next show directed by Patch Gallagher(Gable).

In the meantime, Tod decides he wants to marry Janie but she is focused on her career and turns him down. He suggests a compromise such that if the show fails, she will marry him and if not, then she can continue her dancing career. Of course, she doesn't realize that he is the main financier behind the show and naturally, he pulls out so the show must be cancelled and he can have his girl.


 Patch refuses to go down so easy and decides to put in his own money and that of some friends to put the show on anyway with another girl in the main role. He bumps into them in a bar and gives away Tod's dirty secret causing Janie to rethink her engagement and begs to be reinstated in the show.


Patch's risk pays off and the show is a big hit! Now Janie is the star she had worked so hard to become.
I thought this movie was very entertaining (there was even some comic relief from the 3 stooges) and well done. This was Crawford and Gable's fourth of eight movie pairings.

 Go find it. Thumbs up!

Dress alterations before and after!

So I was going out and I wanted something new to wear..


I had been given a bag of medium sized dresses a while back and I am a small so I had a little work to do before parading them out for all to see. They were all such pretty dresses that I couldn't get rid of them- not when there was a chance I could make them fit!


Here's what one of them looked like before I messed around with it.  Can you say SAGGY?

So for the first time ever, I put darts in the sides and...

Voila! success! It looks great and I danced the night away in it with no wardrobe malfunctions :)
Plus, I acquired a darling little kitten and named him Gaston after Louis Jordan's character in Gigi (my favorite movie ever). He is only 8 weeks old and precious as can be..


This is my little Gaston on the ride home

Now he just has to get used to my 2 yr old lab who apparently is afraid of him..HA!

Movie Monday!! Dance Fools Dance

This weekend there was a USO style dance that me and my fellow Lindy hoppers attended (in costume, naturally). A great time was had by all! The Solomon Douglas Swingtet played some excellent big band music for us to swivel and rockstep to! Here we are (we look pretty good in black and white, don't you think?)

So this week's movie Monday in honor of my  weekend is Dance Fools Dance starring Joan Crawford and Clark Gable, long before Mildred Pierce and Gone With the Wind.

 It's about a wealthy, young society girl (Joan Crawford, before her trademark heavy brows)whose father dies broke when the stock market takes a dive. She realizes that most of her "friends" actually disliked her and feel free to treat her badly now that she has no money.

She decides to take a job with the newspaper to support herself and her brother, Rod, who begins a new venture of his own-- selling alcohol during Prohibition. What seems like easy work for him, gets messy when someone gets killed and he accidentally leaks information to a reporter. The big boss played by a very young Clark Gable (before the mustache <gasp>) demands that Rod must knock off the nosy reporter who happpens to be a friend of his sister at the paper.

Joan must get to the bottom of the story and attempts to get information out of Gable by taking a job at his nightclub and getting herself invited up to his apartment (scandalous  pre-code stuff!). She figures it all out, of course, and there is a bit of a shoot out at the end.

It was very neat to see these two big stars in their earlier roles (this movie was from 1931). In fact, it was the first movie J.C. and C.G. did together and they went on to do seven more. The movie was only an hour and a half long  and it was disappointing that it didn't pursue more of an involvement between The Gang leader and The Reporter. I thought the plot was lacking. Thumbs down :(

So for the birthday boy last weekend,

 we had a Skittlelicious chocolate cake!

(He got a HUGE bag of skittles as one of his presents and sacrificed some of them for this delicious cake)

We didn't have any birthday candles so Amy found the best substitute-- a sparkler!

After our friends had let us stay with them all weekend and were such amazing hosts, a great big Thank You note was in order. So I cooked this up with some cardstock, construction paper, lots of glue and plenty of sentiment!

I got crafty and made this key holder as an extra special birthday present.  My inspiration came from a book of Papercrafts where they had a similar design made with patterned papers.  But mine is done by freehand painting with acrylic paints on the wooden sign.

I actually had a lot of fun making it!

So tell me, what have you been up to?

Fun in the Thousand Islands

So I haven't posted in a little bit because I was sick last week and away for the long fourth of July weekend but I will make it up to you with these awesome pics I took while I was there!

This was the view from the back porch! Yup, that is Canada over there.

Our hosts took us out in their boat for some exploring of the nearby islands.

These are pictures of the beautiful Boldt Castle, situated on Heart Island! George Boldt, the proprietor of NYC's Waldorf-Astoria hotel, had the castle built as a symbol of his love for his wife. When she died 4 years after the start of this huge undertaking, he ordered all work on the castle to stop and never returned to the island.

 ...and then there was this house that appears to just be floating nearby. They must just pray every night that the water won't rise anymore..

Next stop on our boat tour was Singer Castle, also on its own island. This one was owned by Frederick Bourne, the president of the Singer Sewing Machine Co. in the late 1800s. It stayed in his family until the 1960s!

 Amazing views from inside the castle!

 And multiple suits of armour!
The castle was fashioned after a castle in Woodstock, Scotland that was portrayed in a novel by Sir Walter Scott.

This gorgeous clock tower chimes every 15 minutes.

Pink is definitely my favorite color so I was a big fan of this sunset ;)

We were all tuckered out by the time the moon made an appearance...

..But not too tired for fireworks! All in all, a fabulous weekend with fantastic people and incredible views!