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.

 

 

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.

I have two new hobbies

Taking pictures of small dogs and cute granddaughters and Picnik. 

Luckily I have agreeable subjects. 

 

OK, so she's not always agreeable. 

The four-legged guys, they're easy.  

I just lay on the grass with my camera and snap away. 

Good grief, is he funny or what?

After, I don't know, like 784 shots, give or take a few, I spend hours playing around with them in Picnik.

HI-LAR-IOUS!

What he lacks in legs, he more than makes up for in ears, tongue and personality.

That girl loves her silly little dog and he loves her too. 

Almost as much as he loves running.

Have you tried Picnik? I don't know didly about photo editing, but I sure do have fun playing around and Picnik makes it easy. 

Hi there

Had to get glasses. They aren't bifocals, apparently they don't call them that anymore, they are progressive lenses.  Whatever. 

Hello sweet friends,

My sweet Bayleigh asked her Nana to make her a Darfee (Dorothy) dress. You know I couldn't tell her no.

I used this tutorial for the skirt and just added a little bib and ribbon straps.

 It passes the twirl test.

She pays me in smiles and kisses. 

My heart overflows.

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.