Inspirations.......

To me the greatest part of being creative is being inspired......that wonderful feeling you get when you have that aha! moment and think "I want to make a ------" (you fill in the blank). Sometimes inspiration comes from looking through a favorite magazine. Another time it may come from taking a walk outdoors when the weather is perfect and you feel in tune with nature. Many times family and friends unknowingly inspire something creative in you. For me, inspiration sometimes comes when I pick up pieces of this and that at Patchouli Rose Designs and they all seem to work together to create something lovely or fun that I hadn't even thought of in advance. That is my favorite kind of creativity.....the kind that is inspired from within, drawing from your subconscious the beauty you didn't even know you had within you. If that sounds strange to you let me try to explain.

Right now I am working on a series of altered art pieces called the "Harold" series. Harold, so named by me, is a crow......his inspiration comes from an old, old storybook. I walked into my workroom one afternoon and the storybook was lying out on the table. I flipped through it casually, enjoying the children's story, and an idea just took hold. Before long, I had a plastered a small canvas with putty and colored it with an ink pad, and I began selecting pictures for the first of the Harold series. I won't give away my Harold theme here, but I will say that it inspired four pieces that I will offer as a set at the Spring art market.

What inspires you to be creative? Please leave a comment and share your creative inspiration with our readers here.

I wish for you.....days filled with inspiration!

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Our new look......

Hi everyone.....if you are a previous visitor to the Patchouli Rose blog then you were probably surpried to see that it has changed. I decided to .use Patchouli Rose to talk about the handcrafted items I create in the Cozy Cottage studio. I do a lot of repurposing which I really like because that means I am thinking "green". I love working with paper and paint, and also enjoy sewing and other types of crafting so you may see me post about all sorts of projects here. In the meantime, if you want to see what I've been up to just go to my Cozy Cottage Gifts and Decor website and click on the Patchouli Rose Designs category.

I hope you will be back here to visit again soon!

Debbie

HAPPY ST. PATRICK'S DAY!

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY

An easy slipcovering lesson.........

One of my recent projects (just this week) was to make a slipcover for my daughter's ottoman. The process had been in my mind for quite a while but I hadn't had the time to do the creating. Since she and her roommate were planning a little pre-Valentine's/housewarming event this weekend in their new home I put other things aside and got started on the project.

Here is a picture of the ottoman......I think you can see why she wanted a slipcover!






I am trying to do better about reduce/reuse/recycle, so I wanted to use repurposed items rather than new. I went through my "stash" and found a satin pillow sham in earthy colors and a pale gold velvet bedskirt that coordinated perfectly. The sham was cut to fit the top of the ottoman and the ruffle from the bedskirt was measured and cut to fit around all four sides of the ottoman.''










Once the length of bedskirt was pinned to the cut-to-fit pillow sham, it was just a matter of stitching them together, turning them right-side out and voila! the ottoman had a whole new boho-style look. There was even enough of the pillow sham left to make a matching pillow for my daughter's sofa!


This project was simple enough that anyone with basic skills on the sewing machine could do it.

The ongoing saga of the fainting sofa......

Hello friends......The Saga of the Fainting Sofa continues. Have you ever had a Magnificent Plan...one that you visualized completely in your mind and knew it just had to happen? Well, such was The Saga of the Fainting Sofa.

As you may recall from previous posts I was busy clothing the fainting sofa in all kinds of velvet, lace and brocades. This was all in preparation for its debut in The Parlor I planned to create in my cottage shop. Well, so clear was my vision of The Parlor, with the fainting sofa and Victorian mantel and fireplace as the main characters, that I cleared the room of everything and began the transformation. The fireplace and mantel went right in.....along came a shabby writing desk and pretty Eastlake style armchair. An old Victrola that I snatched from my mom's garage over Christmas came along too, soon to be painted and shabbied up. And now it was finally time for the Grand Entrance of the Fainting Sofa! TA-DA!!! Did I mention it had been waiting right inside the front door in the living room all this time? And did I mention that it would have to make a 45 degree turn through a 3x4 foot hallway to enter The Parlor? And did I also fail to mention that all of the interior doorways in the 1920s cottage measure 30 inches wide and the fainting sofa which measured 29 inches on one end measured 37 inches on the other end? Well......you guessed it, there was no way on earth that fainting sofa was going through the doorway or turning in that hallway. I was crushed.....as crushed as My Big Plan which just wasn't going to happen, at least not with the fainting sofa. So the moral to this story is this.....next time you have a Big Plan, take a tape measure along with you!

Stay tuned for upcoming pictures of Plan B.......executing My Big Plan without the fainting sofa.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

May the New Year bring you good health, good friends and much happiness!

Debbie @ Patchouli Rose

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Wishing you a Merry Christmas and all the best in the New Year!

Debbie

Show and Tell Monday......Lovin' my fainting sofa.......

I was shopping the thrift stores a couple of days ago and found this fabulous fainting sofa.....I tried to be strong and resist its call but the next morning I was there when the shop opened and bought it for a whopping $29. I already had several ideas for what I want to do with it....first of all, slipcover it in an elegant bohemian manner and then put it in one of the bedrooms at my local shop, Cozy Cottage Gifts and Decor.

So Saturday while I had the shop open and no one was shopping because it is cold and dreary and they were all in one of the big towns an hour away buying Christmas gifts, I got to play with the fainting sofa. I'm trying all sorts of fabric combinations until I get just the right look.......then out come the scissors and sewing machine and I'll make a fabulous elegant bohemian slipcover. Here's a photo of what I ended up with today but I'm not happy with the brown lace on the sitting area so it will go and I think I'll try some velvet next....what do you think?

The Epitome of Bohemian Elegance

If you haven't heard of Magnolia Pearl you are in for a real treat! Robin "Pearl" Brown has brought bohemian style to the heights of elegance. This video tells about the beginnings of her wonderful Magnolia Pearl style.