Monogramed and Vinyl Lettered Ironstone

I have been collecting white ironstone for quite some time with the intention to add vinyl lettering, monograms and images to them. Well after much encouragement from my wonderful friend Lucille I finally became friends with my Quickutz Silhouette machine and now I am in love with it!!  I am cutting out and adding vinyl to everything I can find around the house. I really have to get more serious about Etsy or Ebay because I literally am running out of space to put things and (shhhh the kids are going to have a fit when they come home they think I need to go on the Hoarder show!) we can barely get a vehicle in our huge garage! Enjoy.

A little kitchen redo

I have been wanting to have that old feel to our kitchen forever because our house is over 160 years old. Back in the day we redid the house to make it look more modern and now I regret it. I wish we would have put in replacement windows and kept the look of our tall old windows but they will have to stay as is. Hubbie would not be happy if I even suggested redoing them after putting in new ones and then siding the house. So instead I have been trying to restore the inside to look like it may have originally. I wanted wainscoting but when you have a house as old and unlevel  as ours it would have been too much of a chore. Instead I used beadboard paintable wallpaper and love it. I got smart after putting the paper on 2 walls and painted the paper before putting it up because it was a pain in the you know what to paint around the kitchen cabinets. I ended up using a small craft brush on the first 2 walls and it took forever! I just used a sponge paint roller dipped in water to activate the paste then I only had to do a few touchups - so much easier than painting with a tiny brush. I did add some white glue to the seams because they kept wanting to roll back and when that dried I went back and  filled in all the seams with quick drying plaster because I wanted the seems to disappeared. Just sand it down after it dries and go back and retouch the paint. This was an easy project and so worth it!

A few new projects

I don't seem to get much accomplished these days other than making a mess and leaving tons of unfinished projects all over the place. I did however get a few things completed and I'm sure it was because they were fast and easy. I fell in love with the books on Pottery Barn but not the price. How simple and only cost me $1 total for the books and ribbon. Easy peasy -  go to your local thrift store and buy old books then just take an exacto knife and cut off the covers, tie the ribbon around them and whala! The Lincoln bottle was pretty much free too-just the cost of printing out the label on my laser printer. I found the liquor bottle in the recyclables at our dump so free-love that! Then I dipped the bottle in leftover blackened wax and had all the other supplies left over too. Love cheap projects but from now on I may have spend $'s and find someone to give the liquor too out of a bottle because they no longer recycle glass here. :-(  Finally the remote holder was an old recipe holder I found for .25 at a thrift store and just sprayed painted it black and added the label leftover from a bunch I bought on ebay last year. Enjoy!

What a long winter!

Seems like winter has gone on forever here in Iowa. My husband suggested I take pictures because he can't remember when we've had so much snow. Well I have a better memory and I do. It was back in the late 80's when our children were in high school and ended up stuck in the house for 2 days and they drove us crazy! No computers or game councils in those days - just a good old antenna on the house and you got what you got on TV. LOL They finally decided to shovel a path wide enough so that we could get a vehicle out of the driveway and the snow was as high as our Isuzu Trooper. It took them forever but they were determined to get to town and we all got a breather from each other. Thank goodness we live in a time where they have superb equipment and we never get snowed in anymore. In the first few pictures our grandson and his friend are trying to make a snow fort and you can see our phone box and 911 address pole but two weeks later they are gone under tons of snow along with our shed. Gosh I can't wait until spring!

One of my trees

I usually put up 3 trees like this one but this year I only put up two and 6 little trees. The older I get the less work I like and it took me over a week to get out what I did so I gave up after that! Used to be able to get inside and outside done in a week now I can only get 3 rooms done. Then again my dear hubby sits in the chair and watches me so I did pretty good doing it all alone this year. Miss having our daughter to help. :-( I have tried everything under the sun to get a good picture of all the trees lit up and just can't seem to get them to turn out. If anyone has any advice I would love to hear it. I only had one turn out somewhat ok so I will share my biggest snowman tree. (I have 4 smaller ones - did I mention I love snomen?) You don't even want to know how many I have. I love Cody Fosters snowmen and I'm pretty sure I have them all!!

More furniture repurposed for our bedroom project

I am so unorganized lately and I forgot to take pics of the before on most of these pieces. The desk and night stand had a maple stain and the dresser was a really neat beat up glazed yellow but it didn't fit the decor so I'm redoing it. You will be able to see the old color because I haven't completely finished it yet. I hope I don't regret that decision down the road because it was really neat just the way it was. I primed then painted all the pieces in an creamy white and then glazed them with a chocolate Valspar glaze which I love. I've been using it on everything lately. Then I just put on 3 coats of minwax fast drying varnish. This is just for a spare bedroom so I'm not too concerned about much wear. I also tore up all of the ugly deep pink carpet (from when our daughter was young and I was dumb enough to let her pick out the color) and laid a laminate floor. I haven't found the right bedding yet or curtain so just have a cheap comforter from Walmart and it's a lighter shade of brown than the walls but looks deep purple in every picture? I bought the pillows and pictures at Kohls then I repainted the walls in a chocolate and steel blue. I also painted the lamp shades the same blue on the wall but I keep forgetting to buy ribbon to add to the top so I will try to post when I get them totally finished. I just  LOVE IT!!! Now I want to redo every room upstairs but will have to wait until my body can handle any more work and I find some more money! LOL Enjoy

Some new furniture redos

Here's a peak at what has kept me so busy. The top of the coffee table actually looks like the bottom and excuse the un-centered mat. I forgot to take a picture of the final redo before I took them out to our son and had to have our daughter-in-law send me a picture. With two busy boys she doesn't have the time to be as anal as I am! LMBO I purchased all 3 pieces for under $25 and what a steal! I love the way they turned out and they have a neat rustic look to them that is perfect for his hunting den.
                             

Where has the time gone?

Wow I just realized how long it has been since I last posted. Where has the time gone? I guess fall is always a busy time for me. It's my favorite time of year to craft and take on house projects and this year it got away from me and I have redone tons of furniture and completely re-did a bedroom. At my age it takes me longer and longer to get things done and here it is Christmas Eve! I hope everyone is celebrating Christ's Birth with your loved ones. This is hard year for us because none of our children or grandchildren were able to be with us this but we did get to celebrate with most of them in November and we had a blast!

TATE - CHASE - TEAGAN

Halloween wax projects

Oh I can't say it enough I am in love with wax!! Here are a few projects I'm working on for Fall.