Okay, this dresser isn’t snappy, but hopefully the story will be. When we moved in I realized we have this little nook in our bedroom that is perfect for a dresser, but was just a bit too narrow to fit either of the two dressers we already owned. Since we could use another dresser for our family of four anyway, the search was on for one that would fit. I found this one at a thrift store and I loved it. I loved imagining what this old antique dresser would look like in our old antique house.

But, even though it passed the sniff test in the shop and passed the sniff test on the way home in the car, and passed the sniff test once it was in the house, for some reason when you put something into the dresser it would absorb odors that were not detectable, but obviously hiding somewhere. So good smelling clothing would come out of the dresser smelling like they had just smoked a pack of cigarettes while your back was turned. So I scrubbed it top to bottom, inside and out, in every nook and cranny that I could get to. I aired it, sunned it, smothered it in baking soda, let it sit with odor absorbing charcoal, and ended up coming to the conclusion that the one thing missing was time. It was just going to need to sit and I didn’t know how long. Bummer. So the man and I had to creatively arrange our clothes in a tiny kid size dresser and wait. After three months I put something in the dresser and it came out smelling like it had smoked a few cigarettes instead of the whole pack. But after five months, I put a clean towel in and it came out smelling like a clean towel. Yippee. Now that the dresser was no longer converting all of our clothing into smokers, we could use it in our bedroom, in the little nook where it belongs. It looks so happy there. And our closet is happy that it is no longer having to house t-shirts, sweaters, and pajamas on hangers!

The man was photographing ice crystals on the windows early this morning when he trained his camera on my newest Handmade Rescue.

I stopped into the local Goodwill to try to find some cheap food bowls for the rabbits. When I spied this I had to get a closer look. I was so fascinated by the design. I haven’t seen anything like it before. It seems to be re-purposed wool. Each rectangle is stitched on all four sides and then the pieces are stitched together. Add that fancy crocheted edge and… Viola!

As if I need more ideas for projects. But I am not sure I can resist trying my hand at this.

So what I was going to say was that this is the second Handmade Rescue that I can think of and it just gives me a thrill to rescue something that someone put so much effort into. The other one was a gorgeous hooked rug, that I will have to post about sometime. I thought it would be fun to spread the fun around. Please share your Handmade Rescues if you have any! You can link from the comments sections so we can all see. And maybe I will have to figure out how to set up a flickr group. Anyone interested?

Hey, I actually figured out how to set up a flickr group. Here it is if you care to join or just browse!

Breakfast for one… can take forever. Here is why:

Let’s just call it “school.” We’ll do math later.

Getting your internet fixed. That takes forever. Especially if you call them during the holidays.

Getting settled into a house… five months and counting, but making progress. I’ll even post some pictures soon.

Getting back into blogging. Keep your fingers crossed!

Getting my groove back. Hopefully this will help:

Finally spent the weekend setting up a workspace. Hopefully one that will be enjoyable to work in, instead of the cramped corner I had my stuff crammed into last month. This is actually in my daughters very large bedroom. It’s large in floorspace, but as you can see, not so large when it comes to head space. Her craft area is the desk on the far right of the picture and I am looking forward to working on stuff together!

Like most projects, setting up this space was actually the culmination of multiple projects including building a bookshelf divider, setting up the kids reading space (we call it “the library”), and moving my son’s bedroom. I wanted to get pictures, but their idea of clean, is not a picture I want to catch on film (or digitally, as the case may be.) One of these days, I’ll get pictures. But don’t hold your breath.