Christmas Project 1 – Snow Globes

 

Yep, it’s that time of year again… time to remove the fall decorations (decorations that are changing from orange & yellow to brown… and losing shape)

 

A quick gardening tip: (which you may already know) I like to store my mums indoors somewhere in a cool dry place over winter. Come spring, they will sometimes grow out and can be planted in your flower bed. They will have a better root system for the next winter, thus giving them a better chance at surviving cold Ohio winters.

Anyway, putting away fall décor means digging out the Christmas decorations. I always like to make some of my own holiday decorations. It’s thrifty and fun! Today I got the urge to create some snow globes using various sized jars I had around here…

Fake snow…

Little trees from Walmart… I think these could be made using brushes (I think I’ve seen it on Pinterest) I didn’t pay a lot for them $0.75 – $2.00…

My trusty glue gun and also the lids for the jars. I did end up painting some of the lids white…

First I glues the trees to the lids. I tried to use the larger trees for the larger jars…

After putting some “snow” in the jars, they were ready for the trees..

 

I made sure to coat the sides with snow to make it look nice and glittery..

 

Seeing these makes me want to ( as the boys would say) shrink, and walk into the jars. I can almost hear boots crunching in the snow and feel snowflakes blowing against my face.

 

I think these will be part of the mantle display this winter. Now for a nice natural, evergreen garland to go with them…a Monday project, maybe?

Check back for more Christmas crafting in the next week or so!

-Mary

DIY Chevron Lamp Shade

 

It’s been awhile since I last posted and I apologize for it. I will blame it on a few things: 1. being busy with garden parties, ( as I still call them, though they are indoors now ) 2. Another little business venture that  my mom and I started. And most of all, 3. being cameraless. Let’s just say someone picked up a good camera, case, and sd card loaded with beautiful shots of the mountains and valleys of Pennsylvania for nothing! ( I hope they also picked up a bad case of sleepless nights, fidgety feet and maybe even a nervous eye tic )

Thankfully, I have this awesome sis who said I can borrow her camera (which is identical to the one I had) anytime I want, so the other day I took a few before shots of a lamp and shade I picked up at a thrift store for a few dollars…

I had already started to spray paint it white before I remembered to take a picture. It was an ugly crème color when I bought it and I used a white satin spray paint to paint it. First I sanded it to get rid of some of the roughness of the fabric.

The lamp base looked like this..

 

After painting the shade, I cut out some zigzags of stretchy black fabric…

I used my trusty glue gun to fasten the zigzags onto the shade. I didn’t have to glue a lot since the fabric I used kind of clung to the shade.

Another method I’ve used to redo shades is with iron on fabric. A tutorial on how to do this can be found here: http://porchswingsnhoneysuckle.blogspot.com/2012/09/simple-quilt-set-tutorial.html

After some gluing and cutting more zigzags, here’s how it turned out…

 

While I was working on the lamp, I thought it might look good in our living room, but I soon saw that it wouldn’t go well with some of the tan and white stripes in there. So,for now, it resides in the studio where it goes pretty good with the white in there.

For the base, I used a paint marker to distress. This is one of my favorite methods to use and I will share a tutorial soon on an old record player cabinet that I redid using this technique.

Another little project that I did this week…

 

I’ve always wanted a chalk board wall and was never sure where to put it. Ever since I redid the kitchen here recently I have been puzzled with what to do with that wall. I bought the chalkboard paint at Walmart for a little over ten dollars a quart.

One little boy was quite impressed. Here’s the first message I found. I enjoyed the moment because it was soon replaced by a pumpkin headed man with a zombie like look in his eyes, oblivious to the fact that there was a dagger sailing through the air, aimed at his head. I said let’s keep the images cheerful so we don’t need to feel uneasy in the kitchen.

Happy Friday, everyone! Thanks for visiting!

Mary

 

 

My White & Aqua Kitchen

 

Finally, I’m getting around to posting my kitchen makeover! A few weeks ago I spent nearly a week redoing my kitchen and I’ve been so busy with other things lately that I haven’t gotten around to sharing this makeover with you. I better get this posted before I redo it again!  Just kidding!

So far I really, really like my kitchen. I have a wall that needs a little work sometime in the future, but otherwise it’s pretty well complete.

Here’s how it looked before along with what I wanted to do in the makeover…

 

The after…

 

 

About the only thing I didn’t paint was the cabinets. I still like the tan color and thought it goes well enough with white and aqua.

 

 

 

Years ago I picked up yards of this fabric at a discounted price and I was really tickled when I saw how well it goes with my kitchen.

 

 

 

I picked up a roll of automotive carpeting for $4.25 at a local fabric outlet store and painted this design on it.

 

 

I printed off a design I liked from online and cut my own stencil. I used cardstock to make the stencil. I went through three of them since the paper would start to tear when it was soaked in paint.

I added a fabric medium to white paint to apply.

 

 

Love the freshness of white!

 

 

I really thought of taking some white and aqua paint to the table & chairs… who knows, maybe one of these days…

Thanks for visiting!

-Mary

A Little Chair Makeover

 

I thought about calling this post “Hurricane Irene chairs” but figured it wouldn’t really make sense to anyone but my oldest son and myself.

The chairs were spotted in the middle of hurricane Irene in New Jersey a few years ago. Hubby, the boys and me had traveled out there to pick up a lift and ended up driving through some of Irene. Upon stopping at a gas station my son and I ran through torrents of rain to use the restroom and through squinted eyes I spotted these two little chairs in a dumpster as we splashed by…

Once in the gas station I informed my son he would pause with me by the dumpster as we ran out and possibly help me carry something wooden I had spotted. (running past, I hadn’t made out the chairs for sure…just spotted a possible treasure)

As he began telling me how embarrassing this would be and in the middle of a hurricane at that, I pretended not to hear and grabbed his hand as we darted outside.

Needless to say, these cute little chairs ended up on my “someday treasures” pile in our shop. Now, a few years later here they are…

Presently, they reside in my “shed” where I sell some of the things I make…

So if you would like to own the “hurricane Irene” chairs, why not schedule a garden party. (read about that here: http://porchswingsnhoneysuckle.blogspot.com/2013/08/garden-parties.html)

Who knows, maybe they will still be here waiting for you!

Have a good one!

- Mary

Sixty Minute Arbor

 

 

I’m really not kidding… this arbor took a mere hour to make! It is nothing fancy as you can see but hopefully it will serve it’s purpose and provide a place for my favorite vine (honeysuckle) to climb to it’s heart’s content!

 

This summer during a storm, my twig arbor blew over. This had happened once before and I was able to fix it, but this time it broke into pieces and wasn’t salvageable. I’ve come to see that although there is a beauty to using natural wood out of the forest to build things, it has a life span of about four years or so.

 

 

For a few months there was no arbor here and it bugged me every time I walked past. I mulled over it a while on what I could use to build another arbor.

Right now my supply of wood isn’t so great and I didn’t want to use branches again. I remembered seeing some old screen doors in the shop attic.

For me, there’s something about seeing a garden through a screen door…

 

I climbed the ladder and pulled myself into the sultry, hot attic. As I swung up it crossed my mind what would happen should the ladder fall? Would anyone ever find me? Would it have been worth it.. climbing up there for a couple of old, torn screen doors? As I balanced myself on trusses and shimmied along, being careful not to step on the plywood ceiling, I forgot about the ladder falling and thought the heat might get me first. I still seriously wonder what the temperature was. Anyway, needless to say, after much sweating and pulling and carefully lowering myself down into what felt like Antarctica again, I had my doors.

 

 

I sorted through some of my oldest looking boards and used those for the top.

 

 

After about thirty screws later and a few braces… there it was…

 

Speaking of screws, lately every time I wanted to build something, I found myself rummaging about for the right sized screw, which is a pain if your in a hurry. I remember mentioning this to hubby, that one of these days when I’m in the hardware I want to get some screws. I didn’t give it another thought. The other day he was to a local lumberyard to get a few pieces of lumber and came home with thirty pounds of screws, three different sizes!! A memorable day for me, to say the least!

 

I stapled a few of the vines to help them climb.

 

 

I did hammer two stakes into the ground and fastened the door to them to keep the arbor from tipping over.

So before tossing out a worn out old screen door, think of what it could add to your garden!

Thanks for visiting!

-Mary