Crafty Times

A couple weeks ago I went to a community ed class and made myself a beautiful fall wreath. We started with a grapevine wreath and we added some foam. Our teacher called the foam our "machinery." We had to cover our "machinery" with spanish moss. She made lots of jokes about keeping our machinery covered. The class was all women so it was all in good fun. We added fall leaves and fall flowers and I added some pheasant feathers. It's hanging on my garage door and I think it looks rather nice. Last Friday I decided to repair a lampshade. I bought a pair of glass lamps after a family trip to Florida about 15 or 16 years ago. I thought the kids could display their sea shells from Sanibel Island in the glass lamps - which they did for a long time. The pleated part of the lampshade had become brittle and pieces broke off. I broke all the pleated parts off and ended up with a lampshade liner with lots of glue marks on it. I took some jean fabric and covered the lampshade. I added some beaded trim to the bottom. Here is a picture. I think it turned out pretty cute. Only problem is the jean material is so dark it doesn't let a lot of light through.
Last night I took another class. This one was at Mickman Bros. Nursery. We had a flower pot and added spruce, cedar, and pines along with eucalyptus, flowering kale, an orange pansy, wheat sheaves, some holly, some berries, some pine cones, a male cardinal and a female cardinal. By the way, why are pansies called pansies? They can withstand a light frost and can grow into December. They should be called toughies.