Decorative china coffee or tea set made in Japan drips with gold and pink design

I've put this little tea or coffee pot set up on Ebay again to see if I can sell it.  It's a very decorative piece but basically it's a vintage reproduction Made in Japan as a copy of other vintage or antique tea or coffee services.  This has the little classic French medallion of rustic courtesans playing outside and the whole thing is painted in very bright rosy magenta tone and gold splashes of paint making it light up a lot in a cabinet case.

It has six cups and saucers, each cup about 3 inches high and saucer almost 4 inches across.  The tea pot or coffee server stands about 7 inches high and the creamer and sugar bowl are equally well proportioned and equally well gilded and painted. There's nothing wrong with this set except it says "For Decorative Use Only" stamped on the bottom in gold print, leading me to think that the paints have metallic or other elements in them that might leach into real coffee and tea.  So the set is for decoration only!

It's a shame really as it would be rather nice to have one's coffee served in this over-the-top antique copy coffee service!

At any rate I have partitioned it into two lots and put them up on Ebay for sale. One listing is for the six teacups with saucers and the other is the pot with creamer and sugar bowl.   I've written about them in social media before saying these may be useful for crafts purposes or for decorative uses.  I'm thinking of the people who make bird feeders out of coffee cups by glueing them to wooden posts or who make artful arrangements of coffee pots into water fountains and things.  I suppose I might do something like that myself if I don't sell them first!
Follow up Note:  No one wanted this after two years up on Ebay, so I donated it to a thrift shop, hoping someone would find it. 

Pretty glass acrylic drawer knobs make great decoration

Recently I took nine drawer handles off a bureau that had got damaged.  The bureau was pretty new and so the drawer knobs were in very good condition so I put them up on Ebay to be sold.  Unfortunately, one of the knobs was missing so of the five drawers I only had nine drawer knobs.  Nevertheless, they are for sale as I think they are very nice looking, about 1-2 inches in depth, and would look good on another bureau that might need refreshing.

I also think they could be used for crafts or decorative elements such as putting all the knobs on a piece of wood and using it as a beads and bracelet hanger. Or to arrange in a shape on a larger piece of wood, maybe that is painted, and have it be a sign of some sort. 

I've almost convinced myself to keep them and make something of them but since I really am into deacquiring things, they remain up on Ebay.
Follow-up Note: And they got sold about three months later! Hooray!  A crafter bought them, so I was very happy.

Blue Jean Leftover Fabric Becomes Boys' Room Banners

It was fun using up the leftover blue jean fabric scraps to make banners for two boys' bedrooms. For each letter, I created a simple triangle-shaped pattern and stitched down the sides and created a casing at the top.  I then cut out the letters in a contrasting fabric, tracing them first on the fabric, and overstitched them with zigzagging onto the triangle-shaped pieces.  The "cord" holding the banner pieces together is made from the thick leg seams and threaded through the casing with a large safety pin.  I then just thumb tacked these to the walls!  Depending on the number of letters in the name, you can run these up in less than two hours.

Pillowcases become Little Girl Dresses

Well, these are the last two little girl dresses I made out of pillowcases and by now I had got the drill down fast. First I dyed the pillowcases and after drying cut the fabric. Cutting is simple as I'm just snipping off the top about 6 inches so I can make the ribbon that goes through the neckline casing. Then I cut out the armholes and use those pieces to make the top stitched pockets on the front of each dress. Since these were one seam pillowcases, I put that seam down the back and angle seamed the sides so the dress would flare a bit at the bottom. Then I stitched on embellishments -- in this case some silver ribbon made from a hem I'd hacked off another dress. The yellow lace was left over from a table cloth I'd cut up another time (as it was all torn up except for the lace bits). Then I do the neck casing, about an inch and a half and then, after making the ribbon for the casing, I thread it through and make a bow for the shoulder.
I think I've now got the drill down to about 45 minutes per dress (not including the time to dye and wash and dry). There's tons of tutorials on Pinterest and in various blogs if you need a pattern for making these, just search away!
While I'm sewing these, I stay praying for the girls that will hopefully receive these. I think about how the dress will go with their personality and fit them properly (so I put a size label on them--you can see the white tag hanging off the pocket).
So these were given to Church of the Redeemer in Bowie, MD This church has a ministry where they deliver these to a non-profit that then packs off the dresses and other items to orphanages in various parts of the world.   So once again, I was happy to re-use and recycle some pillow slips and put them to a good use.  

Ever Changing Wreath on Front Door

I'm really into re-use, reduce and recycle so for my front door wreath I used an old twisted twig wreath form that I got years ago in a Michaels Arts and Crafts store and that I update seasonally.  This summer I used red and yellow fake flowers that I found thrown out in someone's trash in the alley (thank you very much!). First I cleaned them up a bit, cut off the extra plastic twiggy bits and then stuck them into the wreath.  The plaid green and blue ribbon I also found in the trash, someone had tossed the unfinished roll out, and you can be sure I spied it and commandeered it for re-use. The ivy leafy vine wrapped around the wreath I got years ago also, probably at The Dollar Store,  great source of cheap arty crafty bits and bobs. I'm quite glad how this colorful wreath brightens up my front door for these late summer days.  Soon, of course, I'll be changing out the flowers for the autumn, that is, once I gather some orangey yellow bits and pieces together.....