creative little daisy

So thankful...

Yesterday North Carolina saw widespread devastation as tornadoes barrelled across the state. We heeded warnings and huddled in the safest place in the house. The wind blew and rain fell hard, and when it was over we were able to go outside and splash in the puddles.  Not so for many others. Areas to the north, east, south and west of us saw heartbreaking damage from the storms.  My heart breaks for my fellow North Carolinians this morning. Life was lost and homes destroyed.

For the safety of my family and the roof over my head, I am immensely grateful this morning.

 

Inspired by Pinterest

The plate wall in the kitchen... well it just never grew on me. Too messy, too haphazard. So I pulled them down, patched about 47 holes and went about coming up with something else to fill the empty space.

I fell in love with this when I saw it on Pinterest. Everything about it. The colors, the words, the clean simple design.  Love. I sang you are my sunshine to my children and to Bayleigh when I rocked them to sleep.  I knew I wanted to make my own version and this wall would be the perfect spot for it.

A while back I picked up a few cabinet doors at the habitat re-store for 1.99. They were new doors, with no hardware holes to patch. Perfect for making signs.

I primed and painted the door white, then painted on a rectangle of yellow where I knew Happy was going to go. At the bottom I let Bayleigh paint an aqua square.

Then I cut out the words and heart using my silhouette.

Next  I sprayed the whole thing with gloss gray spray paint. It looked pretty good, but I thought it needed a little roughening up. I gave it some age with sand paper, a little dry brushing,  and dark tinted finishing wax.

I hung it on the wall and meh... was underwhelmed. Does anyone else do that? This is just a small little section of wall in my kitchen, but it's highly visible, so I want to hang something special there. Something with a bit of wow factor. Not to say I don't love the sign, I do. I just don't think it works here.

Take 2. Another take on one of my favorite pins. (yes I'm a pinterest addict) A little side tangent here, OK when a photo has been pinned from Tumblr, does anyone know how to then find the original site? I would like to give proper credit, but clicking on the photo only takes you to Tumblr's home page. Side tangent over.

Take 2s inspiration was also pinned from Tumblr, but this time I was able to find its origin.

I LOVE take 2. Love. It.

It is made from old fence pickets. We replaced the fence in our backyard with low maintenance vinyl and now I have lots of old pickets to work with. I didn't take any photos of the process but it was super easy. Mitch cut the pickets down,  I sanded most of the white paint off and stained three of the pickets with dark walnut stain. After it dried I sanded and stained them again. I used the silhouette to make vinyl stencils and just brused on some bluish gray craft paint. Once it was dry I scuffed the letters with sandpaper.

For the HAPPY section, I mod-podged a sweet, old fashioned looking gray floral fabric onto a board and then stenciled the letters on. This time I started with white craft paint, followed by several coats of yellow to completely cover the print on the fabric. 

The pickets are held together in back with 1/4 inch boards glued and screwed in place.

The skies are gray here today, but looking at this sweet sign makes me very happy.

 

 You can find me hanging out at some of these great parties. Join me!!

A little spring on the table

Creating lovely centerpieces is not part of my skill set. I'm just not good at it. I try, really I do, but usually my table is quite boring. 

Last week I saw this lovely table. She got her inspiration from  Pottery Barn and created it for much, much less. 

My initial plan was to pretty much shamelessly copy her. I already had some white bunnies and a white pitcher, all I needed were the flowers and paper mache eggs. I found the flowers at Hobby Lobby, no luck with the eggs. Dang it!  I remembered a blog post about painting plastic eggs, so I picked up a pack and painted my own.

I sprayed primer on first.

Then a couple coats of craft paint. I used an off white for the base coat adding a little blue and green to some for some variation.

Then I speckled them using watered down paint on a tooth brush.

They looked pretty good, but the seam where the egg comes apart was more noticeable than I wanted. I decided not to hang them, instead I placed them in a little moss nest.

Instead of the white pitcher, I used my granny's old watering can.

I guess it's a knock off of a knock off.

Thanks for the inspiration Roeshel and Pottery Barn.

 

This Boy

  


This blue eyed boy.

He was home for the weekend. After he left I noticed that he left his wet towels and dirty clothes on the bathroom floor. I'll be honest, I was annoyed. For about one second.

One second was all it took for me to thank God for those towels on the floor. Those towels and the two hospital gowns.

This handsome blued eyed boy came home wearing a couple of snazzy hospital gowns Saturday night, because they cut his clothes off in the emergency room.

 

He takes after his mom and doesn't like getting his picture taken.

He does like riding his dirt bike. That's what he was doing Saturday afternoon. He doesn't remember how he ended up off his dirtbike and on the ground.

Thank God our neighbors saw it happen and called 911 before calling us to let us know our son was lying in a field. They stayed with him and kept him still until we arrived. 

Let me tell you, watching your son be put on a backboard and placed in an ambulance is not something you ever want to experience.

After being thoroughly scanned and x-rayed, they determined he had a concussion and a bruised kidney.

It could have been so much worse. I can't even let my mind go there. I just sit here tonight and thank God for those wet clothes on the floor and for that boy who left them there.

 

She's crazy, part 2

 

OK my bored friends, I'm back for more mindless table talk.

The crazy references are tongue in cheek. Sort of. I don't make light of mental illness, but in editing all the photos I snapped of the steps taken in refinishing this table, and trying to find the words to explain my thought process, it occurred to me how for lack of a better word, crazy I get about decorating.

It is an obsession. An addiction. It consumes much thought, much energy, much time.

Like someone addicted to drugs awakens thinking of their next fix. I wake thinking of what I can work on today. What can I paint. What can I rearrange. What can I tweak....

Recently I read a post at The Shabby Nest that really spoke volumes to me. It gave me a little validation about my constant decorating and redecorating.  Go read it. I'll wait.

........

Back already. What did you think?

Here's what I  took away, and for me it was HUGE.

I can not sing. I am not a dancer. I am not athletic. I can not draw.

I can paint. I can sew. I can fluff and make my home pretty. It is my talent. It is what I do well and why would I do it once and be done?

Does a singer sing one song? Does an artist paint one painting? Would an athlete be fulfilled if they only threw one ball or ran one race? No.

They study, they train, they practice to improve their craft.

Making pretty is my craft. It is my talent and my light.

I don't mean that in a vain way. I'm saying, I get a sense of fulfilment and accomplishment when I start with and idea or a vision and with my hands (and sometimes with Mitch's hands) I can see it to completion.

It's how I let my little light shine.

Sometimes it takes a while to feel like my light is really shining, and not flickering.

The table, well let's just say my light has had a short in the wires.

For the legs, I decided on a distressed look. That's the shortened abridged version- let's just leave it at that.

Once inside, my craziness continued. It never ends. Never even sleeps. It's exhausting...

Table with bench and turquoise chairs.

Oh, the bench was a little side job while I worked on the table. It was built by my uncle Keith when Mitch and I were first married.

Over the years it has been black and white. I didn't remember it being white, but as I stripped it I found a layer of white. A happy finding. I left a bit of the white.

 
The seat of the bench needs to be darker.

  Didn't really like that look. Move the chairs.

And add some fake apples.

Still don't like it.

How about the black chairs, from the dining room? Hmmm... better. Still not there.

How about another bench. Another uncle Keith made bench.

Getting there. I think I like it.

It will do for now.

Until I can wax the table legs and darken the seat of the bench.

And I should probably get the old table out of the kitchen.