I'm NOT Martha Stewart!

Despite Kairle's kind comments about my decorating abilities, I have to post a disclaimer here. I'm not Martha Stewart! Nope, I've never even really liked watching her much. It's not that I don't think she has some great ideas--she does! Good taste too. It's just that she seems so rigid and "proper." Oh, and probably the WORST transgression in my book--very little sense of humor! Nope, I'm not Martha Stewart. Not tonight, anyway. I'm trying to be, but I'm not sure it's working.

If you've read my blog lately, I've had a couple posts about spring decorating and I'm really ready for it, but I can't seem to find decorative "stuff" I like this year. I have a cupboard in a spare bedroom where I keep seasonal and holiday decorations, and while I can't even come close to saying that the cupboard is bare, it certainly doesn't seem to hold anything remotely "springy." It's a long story, but I've been kind of anti-pastel for awhile, which would explain the lack of spring decor, but surely I've done SOMETHING to decorate the house the last few years, haven't I? Hummm. So, off I went to Michael's, searching for "good" spring or Easter decorations. Nope. Not much other than plastic Easter eggs, poorly painted ceramic figurines, and silk flowers, which are okay but not what I had in mind. Maybe eBay? Well, yeah, there are some things I like there--okay, more than "some"--but I don't want to spend a whole lot of money and have to wait a couple weeks before anything arrives. (I had a good chance on a Buy it Now auction for a couple Lu Ray serving pieces but I wanted to think about it a little. Oops! Gone! Yep, I thought it was a good buy! LOL!)

So I put the question to my online quilt group: Do you know of any cute spring decoration/craft ideas? Well, they certainly did! Several had read this month's issue of Martha Stewart Living and were kind enough to steer me in that direction.

Okay, have you ever dyed pipe cleaners? That's what I'm doing now. Why can't you just BUY them in the right colors? Having spent what seemed like hours at the craft store, I came home laden with two bags of styrofoam eggs, pipe cleaners, fabric dye, pom poms, tiny ribbon flowers, and various different strings, yarns, and threads for wrapping and decorating eggs. Seems like it's going to take awhile, particularly if having to hand dye pipe cleaners is any indication. And what I thought were reasonably sized bunnies and chicks turn out to be pretty tiny. A couple inches. I'll need a whole herd of each, I think. So that's what I'll be doing this weekend. Hopefully I'll have something to share with you in the next few days. At least I should have some nice hand dyed pipe cleaners, if nothing else. Unless the dye doesn't take. After all, I did tell you, didn't I, that I'm NOT Martha Stewart?!