creative little daisy

Ever feel like a dog chasing its tail?

That's how I'm feeling lately. Like I'm going round and round in circles and getting nowhere. My mind is spinning with things I want to be doing but for one reason or another things just aren't happening. I never used to be one to have lots of half-done projects floating around. Just the opposite. I was very one track minded, focusing on one thing and only that thing until it was done. Right now I have more projects started than I can count. Maybe if I try counting a few it will shame me into gear.

• I've got a half naked chair on my back porch I'm in the process of reupholstering.

• I drug and old ottoman out of the attic I want to make a slipcover for and use in the living room. It's sitting in the living room in all its ugly dirty green gingham glory in my gray living room. Not very cute. 
• The dressers in my bedroom have been in the early stages of a redo for about a month now. I spackled the ugly 80s carved  flowers in preparation for  painting them and that's as far as I got. White spackle on black dressers,  really not cute. You know how when you are happy with a room, the way it looks, you tend to keep it cleaner. Keep the bed made, keep clothes from piling up. Yea, lets just say, it's quite apparent I have fallen out of love with my bedroom. I have plans, but you know where they are, right? Yea, spinning around between my ears.
• I did get one project completed that delights me to no end. I organized my spices. I even took before and after photos and everything, but guess what? I can't find the camera I took them with. (long story) I've looked all morning. I finally gave up on the before photos and decided just to take more afters with my big camera. Battery's dead. I have one interesting thing I could blog about, but can't find or take photos. Is this a conspiracy?
• I'm sitting in my sewing room that looks like a small bomb exploded and dropped things everywhere including new fabric for making pillows for the living room. Before any sewing can happen some cleaning has to occur. Chasing my tail! All I can do is chase my tail.
• I did manage to clean the shower in my bathroom last night. Scrubbed and scrubbed till it shines, and it still smells like mildew. What the? Chasing my tail. 
• My laundry room... I can't even talk about the state of my laundry room.

OK, enough public humiliation. There is still time in the day to get something accomplished and Alyssa has taken Bayleigh to the movies. I declare I'm stepping away from the computer and getting at least one project finished. I'll be back with something to report tomorrow. Promise. If you don't see me here, please send me stern emails with words like young lady and what do you have to say for yourself?

 

**One more thing before you go. We are having outdoor movie night on Sunday. Like we did for Bayleigh's birthday. The last time it all centered around the movie Tangled. It was beautiful and magical and all had a wonderful time. All but Bayleigh. She fell asleep before the movie started and woke up midway through to throw up. Turns out she had strep. So to make it up to her we're doing the movie part again. We haven't decided upon a movie yet. Any suggestions for a good family friendly movie that adults and kids would enjoy?

Closer

I'm sure I'll never be done with my kitchen, but I do believe I've moved into a more classic direction that I will not tire of as soon. It's beginning to feel settled and comfortable. Just like it is supposed to be this way, not like it's decorated. Does that make sense? It's like me in jeans and a tee as opposed to a dress and heels. I can put on a dress and heels and look nice, but it feels temporary, like I can't wait to get home and be me. The real me in jeans and a tee. I feel like my kitchen has finally found a comfy pair of jeans and a clean tee. Jeans that fit and make her butt look good.

I finished painting the front side of the bar.

I love the added details.

For my birthday, I got two school house style light fixtures.

 
Notice anything else new in this picture??

Bar stools!! I love these bar stools!! I've been dreaming of stools like these, coveting stools like these. Pinning every similar stool I saw. Wishing for these stools. But the thing is, they were way out of my budget. I could in no way justify or afford spending over three hundred dollars for something I didn't need. Yes, I wanted them bunches, but didn't need them one bit. So I decided if I could sell something I no longer needed, something that was just taking up space, I could get the stools. Long story short, I sold a commercial sewing machine I had in the garage and had not used in more than a year for almost exactly what the stools cost. Win, win! More space in the garage, and NEW STOOLS!! I also sold the old stools on craigslist. Triple win.

Did I mention I love these stools?

They are heavy and sturdy and lovely and I.... well  you know.

While I was busy tweaking, I roped Mitch in, as I always do, and we installed some under-cabinet lighting. We purchased it at least 5 years ago, probably more like 10 and just never put it up.

Now if I could find something in the garage to sell that would bring a couple grand I'd get new appliances. Yea, I don't think that's too likely.

I guess she's wearing her comfy jeans with a clean tee and old worn in shoes.

{Dough bowl made my Mitch's grandfather}

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.

 

The post where I let you into my crazy little world.

You've been warned.

This post will be long and rambling and will in no way contribute to making the world a better place or make you any smarter. If you have a few minutes of your life you don't mind wasting, stick around. If not, I certainly understand.

Where to begin... Remember last year, not even last year actually, it was several months ago. I found a table and chairs on Craigslist for fifty bucks. Remember how I droned on about it for several posts? Here,  here, here and here. How I sanded and stained and painted and stripped and on and on, bladi bla bla bla.....Remember? Yea, well I bought another table a couple of weeks ago and guess what? I fell into the rabbit hole again. The amateur who thinks she knows a little something but really knows very little about furniture restoration rabbit hole.

I happened upon a table for $48.00 at my favorite thrift store. I wasn't in the market for a table, per say. I was just never completely satisfied with the last table. I was going for farm house and ended up with beach cottage. If I had a beach cottage, I'd put this table in it.

Anyway, this is already way, way too wordy. How about some pictures?

So I bought this table. I loved the legs and the top had promise. The previous owners had started working on her. The top was partially stripped and had been sanded with an orbital sander. She had swirly marks all over her.  To get rid of the swirls, I had to sand. And sand. Then I had to sand some more.

Once I had her smooth as a baby's behind, I applied a stain made by soaking steel wool in vinegar. It's more of a science experiment than a stain actually.

I was singing and dancing and loving it. All was good.

 

I was writing blog posts in my head about how fabulously beautiful my new old table was.

I wiped on some Howard's feed n wax and danced a little more. I was pretty sure I heard angels singing. I was in love.

But I'm a fickle girl. What can I say. What feels like love one day, the next... not so much. It was just a crush. In the light of day, I saw splotchiness that as much as I tried to call patina, I just couldn't get past. It looked like a half a**ed job and after spending so many hours sanding, I couldn't settle for what looked hastily done.

I think the problem was wood filler. See those lighter areas in the photo above? Well they were all over the table. What the heck? My next door neighbor/cousin came over to ridicule jokingly ask hadn't I distressed that table enough. His somewhat expert opinion was that a wood filler had been used in the manufacturing process to smooth the grain of the table. A made in China sticker on the underside led me to believe that perhaps my lovely table was not a hand made antique.  The vinegar stain works by reacting with the tannins in the wood, it didn't affect the wood filler, and left me with a splotchy mess. I wanted age and patina, but this wasn't what I had in mind.

At that point I fell to the ground and cried Why? Why can't I love you table? I've invested so much time in our relationship. I've sanded my fingers down to nubs. I want so much to love you, I do. It's not you, it's me.

So, I sanded her down. Again.

Opps, there I go getting all wordy. 

I sanded, stained, applied 2 coats of satin finish poly and a coat of minwax furniture paste wax.

And I decided to proceded with caution. I thought I could love her, but know my track record too well.

The top looked good. Really good. But then I had to do something about those legs. Those beautiful legs.

Oh my goodness, I'm over six hundred words into this post and I still have to talk about the legs.

It's late, I don't have it in me. I'm not being cruel and dragging it out just to get you to come back. Really it is late. I'll leave you with a photo of the table in the house, but just know, there are more chapters to be written before I can call this a love story.

A plethora of plates. And doors.

 On a whim, I covered this little wall in my kitchen with plates.

Just a random pattern. I got my hammer and nails and just started hanging. No pre-planning, just haphazardly slapping some plates on the wall.

For this wall, in the dining room, I laid out and measured and got things just so.

In the kitchen, it was a spur of the moment decision followed by willy-nilly craziness.

 
That ugly ceiling fixture's days are numbered. It's outta here, as soon as I can paint the replacement.

The door with the ugly brass knob is to the master bedroom.

The doorway (I removed the door) to the left of that is to the laundry room. The door in the foreground is the pantry. Lots of doors huh?

Well that aint all folks.

Lets back up a bit, look from a different angle.

 
Count em. That's five doors. Well, four doors and one door way.

Now that you've seen my plethora of doors, give me your opinion.

Before I painted, (you know I means Mitch) the exterior leading doors had dark bamboo roman shades.  I haven't put them back up because I don't like the look of them against the black door. Any suggestions for what to replace them with?

Remember I have these curtains on the bay windows.

They are from IKEA. I guess I could get another panel and make roman shades, but I worry that it would be a bit too much.

Thoughts?? I'd love to see some examples of treatments on black doors. I've searched around the net, but not really found anything.

I wanted to share how I was able to hang all those plates without going out and buying plate hangers. I first saw this at the Nesting place.

Glue a ribbon hanger right on the back. First put two globs of glue on the plate. Place the ends of the ribbon in the glue, then put another glob on top of the ribbon. Let it cool completely before hanging. 

I've done this all over my house and never had one fall, but please don't do this with your grandmother's wedding china or on a plate you plan to hang over your bed.

 

E A T

Have you seen the EAT sign in Courteney Cox's kitchen on Cougar Town?

 
 I've seen many great versions and wanted to try my own. At first my plan was a mod podge treatment, with either fabric or pretty paper. Here's a great tutorial I found using mod-podge and paper.

After I saw this, I knew I wanted a metal look instead.

Flea Market Trixie

Click that link to see how she made that great light. That table? A lamp and an old coffee table. Genius!

Then I saw this amazing kitchen,

Me Oh My

That's the name of the blog and what I said when I saw her kitchen!

Subway tile to the ceiling folks! Love. It. I think her letters are the real thing. Mine are paper mache, so I had to go about making them look like zinc.

Here's a great tutorial on recreating Anthroploogie's (very pricey)  Zinc letters.

That is pretty much exactly what I did and came up with this 
 
 

 

Anthropologie's comparable sized letters are $18.00 a piece. Mine were $2.47 a piece at Hobby Lobby + a little paint I already had.

They make it look so easy!

I've been pinning photos of lovely kitchens with open shelving. Ones like this beauty

Jones Design company

Artfully arranged dishes. Simple stacks of plates and bowls arranged in a way that pleases the eye and complements the surrounding decor. Nothing about it contrived or complicated. Like it just happened.

Well, for me it didn't just happen.

I spent two hours Friday night, (yea, I need to get a life) arranging these two shelves.

I climbed up and down from a stool so much my legs were sore the next day. (I need to get a life that involves more exercise apparently)

I'd move a piece,  get down, step back and look.

It was too busy, too stark, too blue, too, too, too...

It finally came around, or else I just got tired of fooling with it, once I took all the blue dishes out. Either they looked to arranged or too haphazard. If I tried balancing equal amounts of blue on top and bottom, left and right it looked like I was trying to hard, if I didn't balance them it looked, well, unbalanced.

I really wish I had photographed each step along the way so I can share how exciting my Friday nights are. Kid you not, two hours arranging dishes, so that they wouldn't look arranged.

I didn't want the shelf to be full of stuff that isn't used to just collect dust and in the end, there are lots of things there as fillers.  Now that I really look, it's mostly fillers. I do use those coffee cups and the white dish on the bottom shelf is new but I will use it.

I need to quit looking at these pictures, it only makes me want to go change things.

The stuff in the cabinet, we do use that. No fillers here.

For a little Valentine love, the pretty felted heart from my sweet {former blogger} friend LLA. Former blogger, not former friend.

And a bird. Oh my! Have you seen this?

 

I got a new sink, but that's a story all its own.

Oh what the heck, as long as I brought it up.

When we built the house, we had a white cast iron sink. I don't remember why, but at some point I decided I wanted to change it. I think it was losing some of it's shine and was hard to clean. Anyway, I got a composite sink that closely matched the lovely dark gray formica counter tops. Blackish gray composite sink with darkish gray formica, not bad. Darkish gray with butcher block, not so good.

I told my loving husband that I wanted the white sink back. It was still here, behind his barn. Yea, it looks like hoarders back there. Not really. Maybe a little.  We live in the country.

I'm rambling. It used to look sort of like hoarders. Before Mitch, the loving husband took a huge truck load of junk to the metal salvage yard (he collects cars and car parts like I collect furniture and lamps) and since the sink was cast iron, it went too.  That was after I told him I wanted it back in the house. After he told me there was no way he was putting that thing back in. It nearly broke his back taking it out. He said I'll buy you a new one, an acrylic one. He said that to put me off, hoping I'd just get over it. I didn't.

Long story short I have a new sink and it's big enough to bathe in. I don't know how, it is in the same hole, but this baby is HUGE.  I love it.

So there you go, I walk on the wild side arranging shelves and putting birds on them and my husband buys me gifts in the plumbing section of the hardware store. Don't you wish you lived such a glamorous life?

So, what's new with you?

I'm still wreaking havoc in the kitchen. I got all the walls and trim painted white. I took the doors off one of the upper cabinets and started putting vinyl in the back. Then I ran out of vinyl. Drats. Here's what I've got so far.

I also managed to sweet talk Mitch into painting the doors in the kitchen black.

Why did I photograph the door from this angle?

I was trying to photograph this guy.

Meet Willie, my new grand-pup. Alyssa got a new baby, the four legged variety. Isn't he a sweetie? 

OK, did you enjoy that bit of sweetness? Back to the kitchen insanity. Why not do some closet demo while were at it?

I have a pantry that I really hadn't been using as a pantry for some time. It had really become the closet equivalent of a junk drawer.

So, I pulled everything out, and piled it on every flat surface in my kitchen. Nice.

That blue box up there has the topper from my wedding cake. I've been married 23 years. Do I really need to keep the topper from my cake?

Pretty, huh? Just wait till you see the inside of the closet.

Those big holes are from removing the wire shelving. It's outta here. The dirt, well I have no explanation for that, other than the fact with all that junk, who could see the dirty wall?

I'm happy to say it has been cleaned and painted and will be getting newly painted wood shelving.

Soon, I hope.

I'll be back later this week with a few more projects I've been working on.

I'm very excited to be contributing to pillow month at Sew Mama Sew.

 

 

Oh Crap!

And other philosophical thoughts had while painting my kitchen. White. I painted it white.

I went in thinking it would be a quick paint job. I only had to paint the upper portion of the wall, the lower part already had white bead board wallpaper.

I gathered my stuff, took off some switch plates and got to work. Painted a small section and stepped back to take it in. That was the oh crap moment. White. That white is a tricky little color. I only thought the beadboard was white. In reality, next to the newly painted swiss coffee white wall, my beadboard was gray. And not trendy, cool gray. It was dirty, dingy grey. Yuk.

Not a great picture, but trust me, it looked very dreary and very sad.

I had to remind myself, never make a decision about paint with that first swipe of paint. It almost never looks good until you get the second coat on the wall. I kept reminding myself of that as I trudged on singing oh no, what have I done, what have I done...

So I made my way around the room. One coat, two coats. It was a learning process.  I learned I really need and ipod, more on that later.  I also learned that your trim may be white, you may be sure your trim is white. If it has been a few years since it was painted white, it probably isn't really white anymore. Want to find out how white your trim really is, or isn't in my case, paint the wall next to it white.  That brings me to my final lesson learned. Never assume a paint job is going to be quick and easy.

Know where this is going? Yep, Almost every inch of my kitchen is getting painted. Including the upper cabinets.

The house was quiet as I painted, no one home but me and Toby. In the quiet, various songs played in my head. The first had been playing for a while before I consciously realized I was singing onward christian soldiers, marching as to war...

Why? Why is this song playing continuously in my head as I paint. No idea. Seamlessly the soundtrack changed and then Bad, ba-a-ad, blood, blo-o-od, is takin' you for a ride. The only good thing about bad blood... again, WHY??? Have I heard these songs recently? I have no idea. I don't even like Neil Sedaka and though I love old hymns, Onward Christian Soldiers is not a favorite.

If this painting continues much longer, I have got to get an ipod!