I sure feel great when I come here and read all the sweet things. It definitely makes the work worth it to share with y'all. My two sons, and DH, could care less. Tho my DD and DDIL came over and said it looked really nice. (My Dad loves Christmas decor and especially the Village.) I had to laugh, yesterday a couple of friends stopped by. One absolutely hates Christmas, she doesn't decorate at all.. or even enjoy giving gifts (its a chore to her). The other one is Jewish, LOL. So not exactly an appreciative audience. Thank goodness for you guys. Yacht, the poinsettia is lit up in my fireplace, looks wonderful, and I love it. You find me the neatest things! That fireplace is open to both living-room and family-room, so I can enjoy it twice as much! Nhardy, the one thing I totally do NOT have is energy! Its taken me weeks, starting a few days before Thanksgiving, and I didn't actually finish some of the things I wanted to do. Garlands mostly. I decorate without energy by using a lot of determination! Fibromyalgia causes not-stop pain and over-whelming exhaustion every day. As several of our gang here knows all too well. We just have to force ourselves to do things at times. I love Christmas too much to let Fibro win out over the decorating. Fighting with garland is bad enough, strings of lights are absolutely the pits! A few years ago, I began leaving the lights on my trees and wreaths when I packed them away. So I don't have to do all that work each year. And slowly I am replacing them with pre-lit things. I'm glad you like the Nutcracker collection. Until a few years ago, I never liked Nutcrackers at all. I sure converted in a big way. LOL. But neither my DD or DDIL like them, so I told them they better 'learn to' or they'll be having the biggest Nutcracker Yard Sale in Az. LOL. hugs, Karen

I took a sewing cabinet and put a marble top on it. It still had the drawers too. Used for one of our night tables for years. Sold it in a yard sale before moving here. I have seen them in a bathroom too. Probably in a magazine. They had removed all wooden parts and only used the metal base. Granite or marble top. Undermount sink. Faucet on wall. Exposed pipe underneath.

Thanks folks... greenthumbfish, I think you hit the nail on the head with this, "In every inspiration image, there is a comfy cozy quality..." That's exactly what she's articulated that she wants. Something more cozy and casual, AND that doesn't rely on bare dresser tops and open space to work. Her room now (and I will add that SHE picked out all the details. I was pretty skeptical of the wall art and bedspread when she chose them, though they worked in the end) anyway, her room now is never as neat as in that photo, and the piles and collections just look plain old messy in that room. I'm hoping (!) that in a more casual, cozy room, it won't be as bad. anele, our living room and dining room furniture is high-end designer teak from Denmark in the 40's/50's (Hans Wegner, etc) and I love that look, personally. The really good stuff has curves and a handmade quality that actually IS rather friendly and cozy... and "natural" in a way that Ikea (or even the later 70's teak) isn't. But- I understand my daughter's feelings. I grew up in a house with a fair amount of "modern" (my dad is an architect who went to college in the mid 60's) and at 13 I, too, wanted a more feminine and cozy room. I have a feeling it is partly to do with, at this age, starting to define yourself as a woman, and wanting things more feminine, and also wanting to define yourself as different from your parents. I stayed interested in vintage-y antique-y furniture till I was in my mid-late 20's and then found myself drawn back to the style I'd grown up with. Funny...

So this is a good thread to introduce myself! I am a 1947 baby, I like the sound of that! Everything I ever wanted or needed to know about sewing I learned from my grandmother, or teachers who obviously knew her! (not) I remember as a little girl, either 8 or 10, when I spent the summer in Nebraska with my granparents, my grandmother sat me down at her Necchi-Elna zig-zag machine, and had me try it out, petrified me because I just knew I would break it. Guess that got me started sewing though, I started handsewing doll clothes, and by the 5th grade was designing dresses and patterns for my Revlon doll (no Barbie for me, too expensive, my mother's words). Still have those clothes too. Seventh grade I took art, and have never regretted it, taught me about colors. Eighth grade I started home ec, sewing and cooking, just loved both, but the sewing was better because I couldn't do it at home. First learned in school on a Singer treadle, best thing that ever happened to me in my opinion. My grandmother would send me dresses or such she had made for me, and somewhere around junior high time, I would take the article of clothing and turn it inside out to see how she finished things, or did certain things, I learned so much this way, but I did start noticing I learned different and sometimes better ways of doing things, so then when my grandparents moved to Boise I taught her, or maybe she just let me think that! For $19.95 my mom got a converted Singer treadle, boy could that thing ever stitch well! At 16 I received a Singer slant needle, treasured that for 20 years. I started in home ec with a gathered skirt, supposed to take most of the semester, I was hemming by open house and mine was the one the teacher used to show how "it should be done", boy was I ever proud! By the time I finished 5 years of home ec I had learned pattern design, reconstruction of old clothes, tailoring, and had all freshman classes in home ec waived at the University of Idaho. Unfortunately for them I had no money to go to school so I got married and put my husband through at the U of I. I no longer make my own clothes, although I am considering that again. For 17 years I was a crafter, designing, selling, etc. I just this year dissolved my little business. When I started crafting I had to teach myself not to be a good sewer. Now I have found quilting, and re-learned how to be a careful and precise sewer! Feels like I came home. I crochet, never could get both my hands working at the same time to knit, blame that on carpal tunnel. Or my brain. I learned to embroider as a little girl, have my first embroidery hanging in my bathroom, I made it in 4-H in the second grade. By fourth grade I was lots better! I love making little stitcheries, words and phrases with small embroidery with them. It is not the best thing for my hands however. So here I am, officially I call myself a quilter, even though I can never attempt hand-quilting. So I find other ways to finish and embellish things. Thanks for this thread, it is so interesting reading about all of my new-found "friends"! Lynne