Christmas & Creating

Okay, so I'm the world's worst blogger...I get too busy reading all the other amazing ones with amazing ideas and then my little brain is gushing with ideas which keep me so busy, I never keep up with my own blog...sheesh

I've seen all the cute cookie sheet Christmas advents/countdowns and I love them, so I decided I would make one of my own. I love the way it turned out and I think I'll make one that can be interchangable for the rest of the year to hang in the kitchen.

*please pardon my terrible pictures and the lovely date on them*

I'm working on a "Family Rules" canvas too and will try to get pictures up when I finish...if I'm not busy with some new project!


Getting ready for Christmas means...

getting out THESE beauties (yes, I stored them in ziploc bags!)

I just love the aged patina on some of them. I've been scouring garage sales for them before the became such a hot item. I could get a whole box of Shiny Brites for .25 cents! Now, they're a bit harder to come by. I can't have enough of them. Some of them hung on my grandparents' tree...

I love the little pinecone one...

I'm off to get more ideas!

A little project....

I had modge-podged these paper mache' letters a couple years ago in leopard and red toile tissue paper but got tired of looking at them and stuck them away. I had a little inspiration when I bought this awesome paper, so I spray painted (which I am all about) right over the shellack and modge-podged the fronts. They'll look too cute taking up space standing on a bookshelf.

Ugly lamp shades...Before

These are the lampshades I bought on Friday waiting for

their beauty treatment for Allie's room!

Miss Allie's Room

We have been working on Allie's (my 11.5-year-old) room, scraping that lovely popcorn (with glitter, I might add!) ceiling off. Her Daddy's been working hard re-texturing it and the walls. Allie and I've been having fun thinking of and making fun accessories for it, deciding on the colors and fabrics for her new duvet, window treatment, walls. We have some super-fun ideas for wall art that I'm going to paint. We have several pictures of inspiration and yesterday I went to a garage sale and found some goodies to use for this picture...

photo: PBTeen

busy summer and my first re-do job!

I have been SO busy this summer! But now that we'll get school
in full swing, hopefully we'll have some version of a "normal" routine...

I FINALLY finished a table and chairs for a friend of mine to go in

her little girl's room. It took me a while with all of our business but

I think the end result was SO cute. The sanding took forever, I wanted

to get it totally smooth and free of brush marks, since I'm a perfectionist
like that! I was going for a simple, antiqued, pottery barn-esqe look...

Here's the before...

and here's the after....

Ahhh...summer-time fun!

Here's what I've been up to with the family...

And watching lots of these....

We had the BEST family vacation ever, driving from Oklahoma down to the Sunshine State, along the beautiful gulf coast. We saw everything from the mighty Mississippi in New Orleans, where we walked down Bourbon Street (with blindfolds on the girls, of course), to Fort Pickens in Pensacola, which was used in the Civil War and once held Geronimo!

We snorkeled with manatees and went scuba diving in the Rainbow River.

We saw the foothills of the Appalachians and had some awesome bar-b-que in where else but Memphis, Tennessee!

So, I've been resting and recovering from our vacation adventure. I'm back to normal now so of course, I'm going thrifting and will post pics of my finds later!

What's blooming in my beds??

Clematis

Snapdragon

and since it's been so rainy, these are the blooms I have to

enjoy inside. This is the metal cone basket that I bought while thrifting

and put in a post a while back. I painted it off-white and antiqued it.

The raised pattern really made the glaze stand out nicely.

It's so fun to make something pretty out of something so cheap!

I had a pretty awesome day thrifting yesterday. I just love half price day! I'll

post my finds and things to redo soon!

ahh...spring!

this is what I've been up to...flowers! I got this white metal thing at
the "big garage sale". I think it might have been a table base or plant stand
maybe you would put round glass on it...anyway, I loved it and I'm a sucker for

anything that's metal with chippy white paint and a little rust, so I paid

$1 for it. Then I had the genious idea to put my galvanized bucket that I

plant flowers in every year, in/on the white thing and I LOVE it!

Also, in an effort to be "cool" and follow the trend of "being green", I did this

cute little project. It was a pickle jar and I took off the label,

spray-painted the lid, printed out the cute vintage looking label and

used rubber stamps to stamp the words. Then I used this stuff from

HL that can make any paper a sticker and stuck it on. I think it looks so cute

and vintage-y!

my "Big Garage Sale" finds

I got a whole roll of pretty pink floral wallpaper for 25 cents

that I can use to line shelves.

The bird, I'm going to attempt

to make one of those pretty big tassles

and put him on the top.

The mossy heart wreath is just like something I was going

to attempt to make but for 50 cents, why bother making it myself??

I just thought the bunny was cute.

I LOVE this frame! I love the flower detail and how it's

partly chipping off...ahh beautiful.

The fancy gold frame is just the right juxtaposition with

the chippy, old one.. my favorite combination.

This is a great black frame, both were 25 cents each

or something ridiculous.

I LOVE old platters like this, it makes me wonder

if this was once some young brides wedding gift.

It has the perfect aged beauty to it...

I also found a white chippy metal plant stand, table base, thing. Right now it's on my porch with an old galvanized bucket that I had which fit right in. I was thinking of planting some flowers that would spill over the edge in it.

I got some neat vintage jewelry pieces to remake into necklaces and some vintage seam binding. I bought Millie a half set of little Beatrix Potter, Peter Rabbit series books and some old books that had pretty colors to use for decorating. I didn't get much but what I did get, I really love!

This is what....a french grain sack table runner

I wanted it to look like it was made with an old french grain sack

for the floral fabric, I sewed it so the wrong side was on top

because the right side looked too new I let the raw edges show in the center on purpose to look old and I didn't hem the side edges

These are the materials that I used. The ruler for the edges of the stripes and the make-up sponge I used to dab the ink on the fabric.

I made this to participate in Lindsay's $5 challenge at http://www.livingwithlindsay.com/. Take a look at the other awesome posts. This was so fun and I can't wait to do others like it!

What can I do with these???

I found these at the Dollar Tree for yes, $1.00 each. I'm going to whip something up to participate in Living with Lindsay's

Half-off Day Thrifting

This really great thrift store has half-off day on Mondays with certain color tags. Yesterday the colors were blue and white. My girls and I scored some awesome stuff! I didn't pay over $2.00 for anything! I loved this little pitcher and I plan on painting the metal cone and putting dried flowers in it. The black metal thing, I have NO idea(anyone know?) what it is but I thought it was neat...

as you can see, Millie thought it made a fabulous hat! Not sure what I'll do with it, but I'm sure I'll think of something~

Allie found some really cute, spring skirts yea!

I found Millie some adorable dresses, mostly Old Navy and Gymboree

some cute pants for Millie from Gap~note the price tag and half off of that!

and for moi, a cute Express skirt and Gap button up, both half off

ahh...I get such a thrill out of the hunt!

(click on pictures to see them bigger)