sweet little chair

I had an itch yesterday to do a quick project.  One that doesn't take weeks and weeks like our bathroom remodel.  I've been wanting to do something with the little chair in my bedroom for a long time.  Mom gave it to me and I think it used to be Grandma Hancock's.  Like a dummy I didn't take a picture of it in it's before state, but it was kind of orangy wood color.  The seat had a pink and green plaid fabric I put on it years ago. Not a pretty look.  So I just dove in, and this is what I came up with:

I've really been liking the chairs I see in blogland covered in drop cloth.  So I first painted it creamy white and distressed it.  Then I covered the seat with drop cloth and made a ruffle flounce in the same drop cloth.  I did it all with my glue gun.  Yep, glue gun.

I really like it.  And with the cute french pillow mom gave me for Christmas, it's a perfect pairing.  I'll show you what else I did with the same $10 drop cloth soon in the bathroom reveal.  I'm very excited for it to be done soon.

Once there was a snowman

Our ward youth put on a variety show and dessert auction to raise money for girls camp.  This is what Emily and her partner Isabelle performed.  For those of you who were at Thanksgiving, this is the same act, only a little better.

They make a great team and have alot of fun doing it.

A Big Oops

So you only thought my kitchen table was done!  I was so close.  All I had to do was put some coats of poly on it.  I even bought the poly and was about to put it on the table.  And then I saw just a few spots of stain that had come off from people eating at the table before I had the chance to put the poly on!!  But I had run out of the stain I used.  So I found some stain the previous owners had left for us.  It was the same dark color, but not the same brand.  I thought it wouldn't hurt to just touch up a few spots, and then I just kept going because it looked so good.  So I put it on the entire table.  What I failed to notice was the word oil on the bottle.  Meanwhile, sixteen hours later when it was just as wet and sticky as the moment I put it on, I knew I had a problem.  A big one.
So what started out as a simple little two hour project turned into something much bigger and more time consuming.  A trip to Home Depot later for some furniture stripper and a husband who felt sorry for my mishap and this is what it looked like:

A goopy, sticky, gunky, gummy, globby hot mess is what it was.  We did this for awhile, and then hit it with the belt sander.  It's finally back to about where I began.  But I'm not giving up.  I WILL finish this table.  Dadgummit!

And this is AFTER he worked on the bathroom remodel all day.  What a guy.  Sometimes it's like he lives with I Love Lucy.  Almost.

A little bit of table love

I've had my kitchen table set for almost seven years.  I LOVED it when I bought it and have loved it ever since.   I didn't want to get a new table.  I'm still in love with this one. It's rock solid and in excellent shape.  I love the creamy white distressed finish on the table base and chairs.  I love that it has two leaves that fold into the table, so maybe when we get some sons or daughter in law, we can fit everyone.  But sometimes, things have to change.  I found myself not loving the pine finish on the table top so much anymore.  And I knew what to do about it.

I sanded it down.  Yes, by hand.  Our hand held sander has disappeared.  It didn't take that long, but I was covered in fine powder.  And like a dummy, I had just swept and mopped the floor earlier before I got my wild hair to do this project.

I then started applying the stain in sections, wiping off as I went.  I did this a few times and then brushed the last coat on as if it were paint.  The lighter grain still shows through a little which I like.  I also took a hammer to my beloved table to ding it up and give it some character.

I hope it can forgive me. 

And this is what it looks like now:

I still need to put a couple coats of poly on to protect it.  And then tackle the chair seats because they are still light pine.  Should I paint them the chair color, or stain them to match the table top?  Any ideas?

Got Birds? And a Foot Massage

I love birds, as I'm sure everyone does.  So I decided to show you some of my little birdies around my house.  This little bird Mom gave me and sits on my spring mantle.

The two lovebirds Bev gave me and they sit under a cloche protecting their eggs.

this is kind of hard to tell it's a bird, but I like it for some reason.

another little birdie with spring eggs.

a real little bird's nest with one real half egg, the rest are fake.

A cute bird basket found at Hobby Lobby on clearance with some soap eggs from Mom

a bird hanging picture also from Hobby Lobby in front of my bathroom window to catch the light

this is my mother in law's bird in her pot of flowers I'm tending for her.

And the best of all, real birds in my outside bird feeder.  I love watching them flitter around.

And this is the best thing ever!  Isabelle loves to give foot masages.  She asks me all the time if she can do my feet!

 She gets a bowl of nice warm/hot water, some foot scrub, foot lotion, a buffer thingy, a towel, and works her magic on my feet!  She even did Emily's, Amanda's and Phillip's feet during Conference.   What a girl!

I'm raising her allowance.

Little Thespian

At the beginning of the school year, Isabelle could choose between before school choir or after school drama.  She chose drama.  We're good at drama around here.  Her little theater group performed their one and only play on Friday night.  a 1920's murder mystery.  They got to invent their character.  She came up with Olivia Rubick with a british accent.

 Her character turned out to be a little girl, which she was dissapointed in because that's not much of a stretch for her.

 But her character was a little brat, which is totally out of character for her.

 They were a cute group of kids from 4th-6th grade.  They did a great job!

 She loved every minute of it and is a natural performer.  Where do my girls get it from??

 Here she is with her drama teacher who wrote, directed and acted in the play.

She had a great time and I'm sure we'll have many more performances in our future.

Sisters are like that

Sisters are great for borrowing clothes, learning new hairstyles, boyfriend advice.  But......they're also great for copying their awesome decorating ideas!  And thank the stars above, my sister is a FABULOUS decorator!  She came to my house in August after I had only lived here a month and had all kinds of ideas of what to do.  She had this vision for my laundry room, and I couldn't see it until I saw it in her laundry room.  She actually built shelves herself!   Her laundry room takes the cake and mine is only a nod to hers, but it's sooooo much better than it was.
She was my inspiration.

The Before:

 Dull.  Boring.  Drab.

 It's not very big but it sure was dreary.  Stark white walls, dark dreary oak everywhere.  So many detergent bottles!

 There's no sink in the tiny bathroom off the laundry room, so this is where people wash their hands and apparantly smoosh the towels around the towel bar as tight as they will go.

The freezer.  It's really just a place to put laundry baskets.  And then the baskets go on the floor when we need to get in the freezer.  Makes sense, right?

The After:

 white painted cabinets.  YES!! 
 Stole the detergents in bottles idea from Bev too.

 Cute little crate from Marshalls.  Bev gave me the Nellie's laundry soap and antique bread pan for softener sheets.

 Aaaah.  No more smooshed towels.

 Also stole this idea from the Master decorator to redo my cart and put it in the laundry room. 
 She gave me her wall paint swatch and I marched to Lowes and got some mixed up pronto.  best paint color ever!

So much lighter and brighter.  I LOVE my laundry room now.  I go in there and just stand and look and smile.  My family thinks I've gone nuts.  I can't wait to keep going on the rest of the house.  Oak beware!

Another post about Emily

Isabelle is getting a little upset because there have been so many Emily posts lately.
Well, here's another one.

LDS Prom was Saturday night.  We spent a little time making this dress modest and it turned out pretty well.
Emily and her date made a deal that he would get the corsages and she would get his tie.  So here he is putting it on after he arrived to pick her up.

They had a great time and made such an elegant couple!

Last of spirit week

Okay, I have totally slacked off on the spirit week updates.  Day three was pajama day (can't they be more creative than that?  And I heard some girls were wearing nighties to school.  I mean, c'mon!)  Anyway, Emily told me she wasn't really going to do much.  So I slept in.

Day four was sports day and she just wore one of her tennis skirts and a top.  Not that exciting.

Today was blue out day.  Wear blue. All over.  So here she is.  She's been really busy with tennis matches, choir concerts, and working lots to try and pay for her choir trip to California next month.  Oh the life of a high school girl.

And just so you don't think I only post about Emily, here's a picture of a bowl of grapefruit.

And my dog Zero

Spirit Week: Groovy, man!

Here we are at day #2.  Can you guess?
Hippie Day in all it's peace and love!

I thought she should have gone with a tie dye t-shirt.  If only she had a VW bus to drive to school.

And now a before and after project I've been working on.  Amanda gave me a Pottery Barn gift card for my birthday.  I've been wanting some keys for awhile now, and PB has this collection of keys plus shipping to equal the amount of the giftcard.

I've had this old rustic frame for a long time.

Hmmm..... what if I could somehow marry the two together.  And this is what I came up with.

I wanted it to look a little worn and aged and luckily the frame didn't take to the spray paint all that well.  So you can kind of still see some of the wood.  It's kind of wierd, but there's probably not another one just like it anywhere.  I kind of like it.