We had a bunch of good ideas from you in the Shoebox today, starting with one from Ginger Bush of Franklin, N.C. Ginger had seen the show that we did sometime ago with a guest who took old baby beds and transformed them into children's benches. Ginger took the idea and used two twin headboards that she had purchased at a yard sale for $2 and made a bench from them (
figure A). She then drilled three holes in the seat just the size to hold three flower pots and then put the potted flowers into what she now calls her "flower bed" (
figure B). We loved the idea, the execution, and the bad pun.
Interestingly enough we also received a letter from Laura Murphy of Kingwood, Tex., about the same segment, but in this case Laura, after making the bench from the baby bed as demonstrated on the show, could not bring herself to throw away the sides of the crib. So she made a hanging quilt rack which can also be used to hang linens, towels, etc. (figure C). Laura first removed every other upright post from one of the sides and cut 5-inch legs from the removed posts. Four of the legs were attached to the crib side with screws. Attached to the top two legs is the adjustable portion of curtain rod hardware. The 5-inch legs and hardware allow room in the back of the hanger to allow for the quilts to hang behind the rack (figure D). Laura is enjoying having a place to display the quilts that are also a part of family history (figure E).
Quite a far cry from the crib side benches and quilt hangers was the contribution from Bernadette Christensen of Fort Fairfield, Maine. Bernadette bought a little cotton flat-faced doll at the dollar store, dressed complete to a matching bonnet. She then took a photo of her granddaughter to the copy shop, had them print it on transfer paper and glued the transfer over the place where the doll's face would be if the doll had had a face (figure F). It was the cutest, funniest little doll we'd seen. Putting photo faces on dolls is not a new idea, but most of the ones I’ve seen have been pretty awful, often because the proportions are so out of kilter. On this doll they seemed exactly right, and it was really rather cute (figure G). I’ll bet her granddaughter loved it.
Quite different were the dolls made by Linda Rollins of St. Petersburg, Fla. Linda first sent several large photographs of the fabric dolls that she makes along with the information that she creates her own pattern for each doll and then follows her intuition. The faces she paints on, and each one has a heart-shaped mouth that indicates love. The clothes are also handmade. Linda stated that the photographs did not do justice to the dolls, each of which is about 14 inches tall, so we asked if she might send us one. One? Linda sent a dozen...each one different, each one interesting (figures H, I & J).
And finally there was a letter from Joanna Lemieus of Attleboro, Mass., who shared with us her idea for a paint bottle holder. Because Joanna had many, many of those small craft-store-sized bottles of paint and no place to store them, she had her husband cut some plywood to fit the side of the cabinet that holds her material. She covered the board with denim, stapled on wide elastic to fit the paint bottles, and her husband screwed the whole thing to the side of the cabinet (figure K). It holds 62 two-ounce bottles of the paint with some larger ones on the bottom. A very, very clever and certainly very practical idea.
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