Stylish Blogger Award

Can you believe it? Val...over at http://untiltomorrowval.blogspot.com gave me an award! Thank you so much VAL! You just made my day!

                                             



the rules of this award are to list 7 facts about yourself:






1. My Honey is the best thing that has ever happened to me, over the years I am STILL absolutely and utterly in love with him!





2.  I love playing jokes on people or startling them...





3. I love my new blogging friends and their support!





4. I am a clean freak...(go figure I pick THE dirtiest house in America to buy)





5. I love to write and am anal about spelling and verbage, I try out new words and try to use them instead of the common words people use to describe things.





6. I love God





7. I am scared of alligators (Prehistoric lizards bigger than my car...running around in the open...is...just somehow...WRONG!)



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i would like to pass this award on to a few of my fav  bloggers:






I am passing this award on to: LISA! She is just a doll and I am envious of her stairs! and her wonderful relationship with her husband, she has it going on!

http://chicmagnifique.blogspot.com/

Daisy  http://mymaplehillfarm.blogspot.com/ she just brings me back down to reality that decorating is not the sole reason for my existence in this house, she shares my homesteading dreams!

http://flowoflove.blogspot.com/ she is teaching me about growing and harvesting plants to use in my own natural medicine arsenal since I have a hard time putting synthetic things in my mouth! Her free spirit and her use of Mother Earth to heal and teach is very inspirational!


if you have just a few minutes please visit these guys to say hello and check out what they've been up to!





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have you been awarded? what do you do now?





1. acknowledge the person who awarded you by linking them back in your post.

2. share 7 random facts about yourself.

3. pass the award on to other new found bloggers.

4. contact each blogger to let them know they’ve received the award; and let the ‘giver’ know you accepted the award.

cottage kitchen ideas...

HI!

I am in a dilemma...I have to repaint my kitchen because I really mucked up the walls hanging those cabinets...

The kitchen walls have 1/8th inch dry wall on the walls right now...but underneath?....

are walls like these....

I am in a quandary...not because I do not love the cottage wood wall planks...but because...underneath that drywall? BLUE PAPER!

Soooo...I thought I would let you all decide...keep the drywall, which is damaged in a couple places...or take it down and have wood plank walls...that would add cottagey texture...and character....and I have to repaint anyways BUT...that darn BLUE PAPER!

What do you think?

Happy Valentine's Day!

I thought about Valentine's Day...I have always been so unromantic...I mean, give me flowers? as soon as you turn around, they are ripped out of the vase and hung upside down to dry...so I looked around my hut to find a spot where maybe I have included some romance in my decorating endeavors...There is one! ONE....but it is a start at least! Hee Hee

I have been coveting this little stool...it was in this house. The fabric on it is really neat but it is very threadbare and chewed up...I have been seeing the "grain sack" covers, pillows, wall hangings...everywhere! They are all the rage...

Well, I jumped on the bandwagon for the moment...Marian, over at Miss Mustard Seed is an artist and she paints beautifully...she had made a slip cover for an ottoman and hand painted the grain sack stripes on hers with acrylic paints...I didn't have acrylic paints...so this is what I used...

Yep..model paint...I couldn't lose...I mean, after all, I wasn't out anything, it was a scrap of drop cloth left over from Miss 1982! and I didn't have to buy anything...

I got out another scrap and practiced...

I have never painted anything and I am not an adept artist but I had so much fun doing this I definitely want to do it again! and with practice? who knows what could happen!

I taped off an area on my scrap to make grain sack lines...I know Frog tape is all the rage...but all I had was this old, hairy, linty masking tape....

I got out the little paint brush and painted my model paint into the lines between my hairy tape...I wasn't careful...it was an experiment, right? Well, the model paint did well! it didn't bleed thru the fabric and it went on easily...

It even looked faded and old...just like a grain sack!

And then the fun part...the letters...My L and My Honey's R...

They are very remedial...but it was so much fun!

This cover from practice to cover took about 25 minutes...you could whip up a pillow for Valentine's Day for your Honey and yourself in nothing flat today...and it was nice to know I had ONE romantic bone in my body....

Snow Snow Go Away...come back...

in ooooh....say...three years? Can you tell I am sick of winter? I am tired of seeing this...

And this...



I want some more of this...

It's time to dig out the seeds!

Lingerie for your chair...

Hi all, I just had to share this unique and incredible idea...I found this blog on Miss Mustard Seed's "Copy Me Challenge" Link party...I have never seen anything like it but I just fell in love with the idea and the end result!

She is Diane and her blog is Home Sweet Homemade @ http://poindextr.wordpress.com/

Here is her rendition of a slip cover inspired by Lingerie!

http://poindextr.wordpress.com/2010/10/07/lingerie-inspired-slipcover/

How is that for some "Boudoir" in your Boudoir? She uses no machine...a needle and thread...AMAZING!

Hee Hee! Cottage Drapery...

HEE HEE! That is what I think every time I walk into my living room.....

Well...I was supposed to get a package deliverd UPS last week...and it didn't come...so I got on the net and tracked it...Monday...by the end of the business day...I had Monday off..and I know the UPS man...he is really nice...pleasant...so...I thought he would cut me some slack and come early....Nope...5:01p.m...he shows up..stops...I rush to the front door...and he zooms away...Hmmmm...that dirty, wrotten..I just shoveled the front walk for him!

I run to the back door... to chase him down...throw my boots on...throw the door open...and promptly trip over the box he had put there...and landed in the snow...wow...everyone knows...I don't use the front door to the house...I guess he did too...don'tcha think he would know how BADLY I wanted that package early? Oh well..I will wait til Wednesday...my next day off...

Today...I got up, didn't even bother to put clothes on...I stayed in my jammies all day!   In that package was 8 yards of material for my living room drapes...it took me FOREVER to find the fabric....I sent for swatch after swatch...everything was either too dark or had the wrong background color...in the end? it wasn't me that picked it out...it was my Honey...he made an "executive decision" according to him...the only request I had was that it was toile or something akin to toile...oh...and the price..it had to be under $5.00 a yard.  I ordered it from Fabric.com...$3.98 a yard! and anything over $35.00 is free shipping! I ordered some large crochet hooks from them too but my draperies cost me a whole $32.00 bucks! They are great! and I will definitely order from them again, they have awesome deals!

This is the fabric he picked out..




http://www.fabric.com/ProductDetail.aspx?ProductID=06538a88-b43b-412e-b3bd-cd4be0c22026

  I think his executive decision was based on the scene of the little boy playing fetch with his dog...



These are the hardest curtains I have ever done...we all know what Lisa's measuring skills are like...and these are lined...I spent 8 hours measuring and measuring again before I could bring myself to cut one inch of this fabric! I think Miss 1982 scared the heck outta me...

I, again, turned to Miss Mustard Seed for guidance...she has a drapery tutorial and how to line them with sheets...                               



http://missmustardseed.blogspot.com/2010/07/do-you-really-think-im-mean.html



and..well, my neighbor just dropped off an entire garbage bag full of sheets and pillow cases! I had a hard time using them for lining...they are the old ones...the thick, nice, lot's of thread count kind...

I used every inch of that material...there is not one tiny scrap of it left...and I used all but a small portion of my matching thread...

but my cottage drapes? They make me smile...

Toile  Drapes

The floor is crooked, not my drapes....;)

Found and Recycled items

Cottage Living room Art...

I was perusing prints off the net today for my white picture frames...

I thought I wanted roses...maybe some kind of flower bouquet...but... the prints were pretty low quality once I printed them out on my low quality printer...hee hee!

Well...I decided, instead, to play with my Photoscape Photo Editor and see what I could come up with...

(http://www.cnet.com/1770-5_1-0.html?query=photoscape&tag=srch)

I just picked a random picture... which was this one...and started playing with it...

And ended up with these...

I think they are really fun!

I am going to continue playing with them and see what I can come up with.....and maybe this one cuz my Louis is a lil odd....

I would recommend this program to anyone that likes to make inexpensive cottage art! You could possibly print them out on canvas and it would look like an oil painting...so many possibilities...Hope everyone is having a wonderful evening!

Doo Dads...

I finished up a lot of detail stuff for my living room, I would like to have all of that stuff done so I can paint the floors...I have been using my living room as a paint room, warehouse and general "I need space to work" room...when I finished the cover for Miss 1982 , I tried different arrangements with all the stuff...and I also finished a few details in the kitchen...

I found these at St. Vincents thrift store for 25 cents! Remember when I was dreaming about the corner shelves?  They are not as big as I wanted them to be but being a beggar... and not a chooser, I took 'em! they were painted  oil based dark blue and were attached to metal shelving brackets...they were 25 cents cuz they were that ugly! What would I do without spray paint and sandpaper?

My friend also gave me this burlap sack...I stuck it in a frame and didn't bother to put the glass in it or line it up...it is an experiment...but it sure fills up that big blank space in back of the stove for now!

Last September...in my travels I spied a curb pile...I picked up an old treadle sewing machine cabinet...the drawers were gone and it was in pretty rough shape but the base was beautiful...I carried it around in the car for two weeks and one day...I stopped by a flea market downtown and went in to peruse....I got to talking to a guy at one of the booths and asked him about the machine...he was really interested...he went to see it and when he came back in he asked what I wanted for it...well..."I will trade you for that little cabinet over there" I said...and he said "SOLD"!

I happily walked out of that market! a couple of days ago...looking through Miss Mustard Seed's blog and drooling all over myself...I decided to try her painting techniques with my new Wythe blue paint...but first...as always?

What is it with me having to take all the finish off of everything first?

I wish my camera were nice enough to capture the detail on this cabinet and what the paint technique has done for it..but alas...again...I am a beggar...not a chooser...it is really, really pretty in person...it has little metal feet...I painted them red...hee hee!

Meanwhile...I already had the heat gun out...and there was the oval mirror found in the alley in all it's mildewed glory...

I promptly took it apart...

It had stuffing in it...too protect the mirror, I suppose! but the only damage to the mirror? is where the stuffing rubbed holes in it...go figure...

I was over at another blog I frequent called Vintage Revivals...fantastic lady! She had done some acid wash mirrors for her Daughters room and they are just incredible...she got the idea from Anthropologie's acid wash mirrors for sale...at $690 something dollars...and decided to try her hand at making her own for much less...

 These are the Anthropologie mirrors...

http://www.anthropologie.com/anthro/catalog/productdetail.jsp?id=960036&catId=HOME-WALL-MIRRORS&pushId=HOME-WALL-MIRRORS&popId=HOME-WALL&navAction=push&navCount=12&color=095&isProduct=true&fromCategoryPage=true&templateType=D

These are Vintage Revivals mirrors...I think they are just amazing and this summer I am going to treat my oval mirror to this process...she put fabric on the back so it shows thru the mirror!

http://vintagerevivals.blogspot.com/2010/11/anthropologie-acid-mirror.html

And here is my oval alley mirror...

I painted it with the Wythe Blue and then washed it with really thin black paint...it is not as cool as Vintage Revivals...she glazed hers...I can't afford glaze...but it really brought out the details in the mirror and added an antique "old" paint finish look to it...I just love it...I finished it up with a chain I ripped off a plastic sign when I was cleaning out the house...this blue just looks awesome with my white walls and with red accents...

Remember the "weed" boxes in the living room post? well...I had to do something with them...they had such neat detail but were orange and brown...

I have tried several paint techniques lately...my favorite? white primer...yes..white primer..any kind...with two coats of brown paste wax on it...it gives the most soft, creamy aged look to things......and it's inexpensive...AND it's easy to get off if you don't like it! Hot Ammonia water takes it right off of anything! Yes...my other best friend...Ammonia...

This window was destined for the dump...it was in an old screen door that was in terrible shape...but the window itself? awesome...

It is destined to become my new door on my bookshelves slash china cabinet...

Well, there you have it...projects lined up ready to be done! and that is what I was doing before Miss 1982 corrupted my whole existence....