Friday, March 28, 2014

What I’ve been up to…

If you are looking for perennials, garden décor, furniture, hand painted signs, or a little of everything, mark your calendar for May 1st! We (my mom, sis & I) are having our annual plant/garage sale May 1st, 2nd & possibly 3rd. I purposely haven’t scheduled any tea parties until then so I have plenty of time to prepare for this event!

I have a decent accumulation of crafts, furniture, etc. waiting for me in the shop where I store any bargains I find throughout the year and have been working on giving some of these items makeovers.

Here are a few of them in “before” and “after” pics…

 

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I didn’t get a “before” picture of this but here’s the after..

 

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I spotted this hutch at a local thrift store and saw some character with the beaded back and minus the railing…

 

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I painted a French sign for my sister’s kitchen.. It says something like “toasted butter custard”. I thought it sounded yummy!

 

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My niece had a birthday just recently so I painted this bench, which was black, and added the French wording…

 

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I am very excited to have tried a new technique to transfer this writing onto the bench using wax paper.  I saw this on a blog post by Lena Schlabach at Relaxnchic. She also redid a little bench using this method. Here is the link to it. For me this is quite a break through since I’ve always used the carbon paper, hand painting method. You can read about that here. I’m sure I’ll still use that technique at times but I really like how this turned out!

It was really quite simple. I got the wording from the graphics fairy. (It needed to be backwards for this technique.) I cut wax paper the size of copy paper (8.5”x11”) and ran that through the printer, printing off the backward lettering. I then quickly taped it onto the bench, inky side down and used the cap end of a marker to rub it off. It did smudge a little but I thought that just added to the effect. One thing I did notice was after I sanded the bench, I wanted to wipe it with a damp cloth and the ink did want to come off. I gave it a good coat of clear spray paint. I would have used polycrylic but didn’t have any on hand. Any clear coat would probably work. That will protect it from coming off.

Whew! I didn’t want to make that so long but I can’t help myself; when I discover something new like this, I need to share with you all!

 

Spring weather has still not hit Ohio, unfortunately, but we are trying to stay patient and still getting a breath of fresh air (although cold) every now and then by going on walks, etc.

 

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I was surprised at the willingness to pose nicely for a shot.. but then things quickly went back to normal…

 

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Smile Thanks for taking the time to visit my blog! I appreciate all of you!

-Mary

Thursday, March 20, 2014

Springtime Center Piece

 

I had to share my simple kitchen table centerpiece with you all since it’s the first day of spring today. (even though it feels far from spring here in Ohio Sad smile) I felt an urgent need to remove the snow globes that resided on the table all winter…

 

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Spending only $4.88 on the flowers in Walmart I replaced the globes with this…

 

 

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It makes you smile just to look at these cheerful flowers, doesn’t it?

After the winter we’ve had this is truly a blessing to look at! I couldn’t stop taking pictures, trying to capture every colorful angle…

 

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I took Ball quart jars and painted them white with a semi gloss spray paint. After they were dry, I used a black paint marker to distress them…

 

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The wood box I basically just slapped together a few pieces of wood.. nothing fancy!

 

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I hope you enjoyed this simply put together display and are possibly motivated to make one of your own! I do warn you.. it brings on the spring fever more than ever!

Good night, everyone!

 

-Mary

Wednesday, March 19, 2014

Bathroom Touches

Our master bathroom is the one and only room in our whole house that has kept it’s wall color for over five years! I believe it has been “shiloh blue” for almost eight years! I just haven’t grown tired of the bluish, grayish, oceany color…

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I have dreams of someday giving this bathroom a major makeover, complete with a claw foot tub, bead board and hardwood flooring, but for now I need to stick with just adding a few touches here and there. This winter I made a divider between the tub and toilet and put shelves in. I also hung some jar lanterns above the bath tub. Here is a “before” picture…

 

Before…

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After…

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Here’s a step by step on the lanterns…

 

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First I poked a hole in the center of a jar lid.

 

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Next I straightened a paper clip, folded it in half and stuck it through the hole.

 

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Then I bent the ends apart. I also cut a few holes in the lid for ventilation.  After painting the lids and rings they were ready to hang!

 

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A view of the other end of the bathroom…

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I also needed to do something with the window so I added shutters and a curtain. Here’s the “before”…

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The window frame was the last orange thing in this house to be painted. I think we are officially orange oak free!

I picked up a dozen or so shutters at a garage sale a few years ago and decided to try them for the bathroom…

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I applied a coat of gray paint first and topped with white so when I distressed them they looked weathered…

 

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I also made some homemade bath salts and beads that are on the shelf…

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Some more touches…

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Thanks for visiting!

 

-Mary