Welcome to Far Far Away

A little bit of Shrek for my friends. 

We live a couple miles from our local small town and about 40 miles north of Minneapolis, MN.  Our local family and friends think we live far out of town, and our Twin Cities family and friends think they are going to another planet when they come to visit!

Our driveway circles around a small forest of trees, so as they pull into the driveway visitors come to a Y intersection and right at the entrance is a perfect tree to post a welcome sign.

The paper pattern for the sign's outline shape was the fairy tale tag from the Silhouette shape store.  I broke out the MDF and jig saw to cut the shape to the pattern.  The sign is painted with the $2.95 Home Depot sample size of "Wild Raisin".

I painstakingly and patiently cleaned up a trace from a picture of the welcome sign from Sherk's visit to Lord Farquaard's castle. The stencil for the words were cut on Oracle 810 masking vinyl.

A little gold paint for the words.

Two coats of Spar spray varnish.

And, it's done!

Vintage Linen Coin Purse

I have a real passion for vintage linens. 

I rescue them all the time from estate sales and thrift stores.  I try give the ones that have stains, rips, or tears  a renewed lease on life.  Out of my stash I found one long dresser scarf that allowed me to create four of these sweet purses.

I found a number of websites that showed tutorials on how to use these snap type clasps and wanted to learn how they work.  U Handbags tutorial is my favorite. 

The clasps come in either sewing on or glued in. I think the glued ones have a much more professionally finished look.  I ordered a few from Bagsupplier on Etsy.  At first I was a bit worried that they were coming from Hong Kong all the way to my home in Minnesota, but after they arrived I had no worries. They came timely and in great shape. I used normal E6000 glue, a toothpick and patience. I glued in one side and waited a bit for it to dry before doing the other side and I think it worked out just fine.

U Handbag's tutorial did a nice job explaining how to create the custom pattern to work with the size clasp you have. It took 2 or 3 purses to really get all the techniques right and the remaining purses turned out great.