Wine Bottle Torches

It rained all day last Sunday. It was a perfect day for working on torches on the patio. I robbed the bottle tree for a few choice wine bottles. We bought the supplies at Lowe's.(The ceiling flange, split ring hanger, cap, reducing coupler, and teflon tape were all in the plumbing department.) Not shown is the torch fuel and spray paint we used to paint the ceiling flange and the threaded rod. We also needed a hacksaw, screwdriver, and pliers. You can find a full tutorial here. It would have been nice to have a bench vise to hold the rods while cutting them with the hacksaw. (That was definitely my husband's job.) He did most of this project. I wrapped the reducing couplers with the teflon tape for a snug fit in the wine bottle and filled them with torch fuel.

So far, we have two on the patio and one on the front porch.
Y'all come back,
Lorilee

 We had a low-key Independence Day celebration with our immediate family and a few of the boys' friends. Of course, hot dogs were the main menu item along with potato salad, coleslaw, chips, beans and cake. Lucky for us, our town's fireworks display has been moved closer to our house, behind our mall. All we have to do is sit in our front yard and look down the street for a spectacular view! I love it! No traffic to contend with and a bathroom nice and handy.

After seeing Anne Marie's old party barn banners made from bandanas, I decided that my patio needed some in red, white and blue for the 4th of July!

To make my banners, I cut each bandana into 4ths to give me 4 triangles. I straight-stitched along the raw edges so that they could unravel just a bit. Then I folded the top edge over my string and straight-stitched again. I did stitch up over the string on each end of each triangle to keep it from slipping along the string.

I hope everyone had a blessed Independence Day. I will end with a few borrowed words.

"Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases. If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it, and if it stops moving, subsidize it"-Ronald Reagan 1986

"The inherent vice of capitalism is an unequal sharing of the blessings. The inherent blessing of socialism is an equal sharing of the misery."-Winston Churchill

Y'all come back,

Lorilee

P.S.

I changed my post editor to the "Updated Edition"  under settings. This seems to have solved the issues I was having with links, text color and size. Yippee!

Martha's Shamrocks!

As usual, I am running behind! I wanted to make something for the cloggers to wear since we were performing at Twin Pines on St. Patrick's Day. I found the idea on Martha Stewart's website. I read a comment with the idea of using a button instead of printing the "medallion" for the center. I folded the last "puff" of the chenille stem back which doubled the shamrock stem. Then I used embroidery floss (2 strands) to stitch a large safety pin on (going around the back "layer" of the stem. I also sewed on the button being sure to go around the bends in the chenille stem to help keep it secure. The photo is my first try. I used 4-hole buttons on the rest of them which gave me a better opportunity to sew around the chenille stem. I made 8 of them in a couple of hours.

Y'all come back!

Lorilee