Vintage t2t

This little picture frame, about 5x7 around the outside, was this weeks craft project. I've had it in mind for quite some time. Last weekend I went thru some boxes and culled some ugly, old or broken jewelry for this.

Originally I had intended to totally cover the picture frame, but I ran out of gold stuff to cover it with. Anything I would have added next to those big brooches on the two corners would have detracted from them. And I really like the goldish wood showing thru.

Kibble..... and uhm, Christmas decorations

So, I get home from work last night and decide, I'm gonig to do it. I'm going to quit procrastinating, climb the ladder and get the rest of my Christmas decorations out of the attic. So, I climbed the weebly wobbly ladder and pulled the boxes down out of the attic. I was impressed with myself. I didn't drop anything on my head.

There are all the boxes, spread around the kitchen floor. Did I mention the attic door is over top of my kitchen table? What were they thinking???? I opened the box that has assorted Christmas do-dads and nic nacs in it and start dispersing those around the house when I came across this white poinsettia topiary.

This little thing has seen its better days. I threw it together a few years ago with odds and ends left from a different project. The whole top-heavy thing sits in a clay pot filled with rocks because that's all I had the night I made it.

At least I thought it was a pot full of rocks. The thing fell apart when I took it out of the box. Sure, there were rocks in the bottom of the pot, but on top of the rocks was..........dog food??????? What the??????????

I have no idea how it got there. Was I desperate for more ballast in the pot at one point? Did one of the kids slip it in there for a joke a year or two ago? I'm completely baffled. And to add to the mystery, it's not even a type of dog food we buy. It had to have been at least three years ago or more that we had a sack of that type of dog food.

I'm getting ready to set up the tree this afternoon. I'm wondering what other odd surprises I have in store.

Tagged and Another Tree

I've been tagged by Needless to Say over at http://justbecauseyoudontneedit.blogspot.com/
The whole idea I guess is to share 7 random or wierd facts about me and tag 7 other people.

1.) I'm left-handed. I don't think that's weird, but about 90% of other folks do.

2.)All things mechanical fascinate me. I love finding out how things work. I'm the only woman I know who knows, cares and understands how an internal combustion engine works.

3.) I do all my own home repairs. I own power tools (lots of them) and know how to use them. I don't think this is weird, but my neighbor ladies do.

4.) I collect vintage jewelry.

5.) I'd collect cars if I could afford to.

6.) I have three daughters and they've all totalled a vehicle. I find that disturbingly odd.

7.) I hate curtains, drapes and blinds. If it were up to me, my windows would all be naked. I want to let all the light in and I want to be able to see out! I lived in a basement apartment once and it nearly drove me bananas because I couldn't see out.

Now I know I'm supposed to tag 7 other folks, but I don't know 7 other folks much less 7 who haven't done this recently, so I'll just tag one.

Debi (What's Cook'n in Junk)



And now for the promised tree photo. I got my second Christmas tree up today. It looks a little sad and dilapidated in the picture, but it was sure pretty when I came home after dark this evening. It's in the front porch where everything looks sad and dilapidated, so it fits. Usually I have a coffee can or vase full of drying flowers sitting in that spot.

Hmmm. Guess I'm not adding any pictures to this tonight. Not sure what's going on, but the pics won't load, so maybe tomorrow.

Deck the Halls

I was off to a good start with decking the halls, but after getting a tree outdoors lit and a little tree up in the kitchen, I've realized that any other Christmas decorating requires some housecleaning first. And I'd rather do anything than clean house! I hate shopping during December, but I even went and stayed with my daughter this weekend and went shopping rather than clean house. I had this morning off from work and it's been much more fun to sit here and catch up on my e-mail and everyone's blog than it would have been to clean house.

So, here's a couple pictures of my kitchen tree, or the jewelry tree as I'm calling it. I didn't have near enough aqua colored ornaments for it, so I just started adding rhinestone jewelry to it. I really like the way it turned out. After it was all done I found some satin ribbon that would have worked better than the ric rack, but I'm not redoing it.

Another project

I can't imagine what would happen if I only had one project going at a time. I worry that I'd go into a tailspin of boredom, or that I would actually have time to keep the house tidy. Since my bathroom project has wound down to a near finish, I decided to tackle another project that has been bugging me for years. The Hallway.

Too big to be a hallway, too small to be a room. Dark and dingy and too ugly to be a part of my house.

A couple years ago I peeled the wallpaper off the bottom half of the wall and painted it the same color as the kitchen backsplash. The color coordinated pretty well with the wallpaper above, but I still didn't like the look.

And the wallpaper above was so old and dirty and dingy. One day I decided to paint a few different colors on the wall to see what I'd like in there. The Man suggested forest green after he came home and saw all the splotches of color on the wall. Well, forest green just doesn't go with the rest of my house. I settled on a teal, but was waiting to get more of the bathroom done before I bought paint.

On those home shows they talk about paint being the cheapest improvement you can make in your home, but paint isn't exactly cheap. Then I decided the ceilings better be painted first so I did the bathroom ceiling in white, and the hallway ceiling in a color called "Sand dunes" that I've got elsewhere in the house. The horrible grate in the ceiling was rusted and brown, so I painted right over that. It's not quite the eye sore it was before.

Under the wallpaper I found one wall painted with flat green paint and another wall painted with gloss white. Weird. But that's the way this whole house has been.

Scraping, sanding, staining and varnishing the woodwork is going to be an all winter project since I'm dealing with at least eight layers of paint.

More pictures to come when I get the halls decked for Christmas.

More Bathroom Photos

The essentials are done! Things are done enough to put the toilet paper holder back up.

And the mirror is back up. That's not necessarily a good thing, now I have no excuse for not doing my hair!

And the shelves have been moved back in after 6 months of sitting in the hallway. Nothing as inconvienient as having your eyeliner in the hallway, your mirror in the living room, and ponytail holders, in the kitchen.

The baseboard has been put on. I see from the picture that I do need to sweep the floor though!

With luck, this afternoon I'll get the ceiling painted and the rest of the window trim put on. I still need to hang the towel racks too.

Bathroom Project Update

I know I posted earlier this year about my bathroom remodel project, so I thought I shoudl update and give you some pictures to look at. It's coming along slowly but surely. As big a pain in the butt as it's been, some good things have happened. 1) our bathroom is now much, much warmer in cold weather 2) I got the table saw running again 3) hubby found the missing piece of the router and fixed it last night so I can use it again. Hooray!!!!

I tore all the old stuff off the walls, pulled out the old insulation (I was quite surprised to find any in the wall), reinsulated with modern insulation. Tore out a big heavy cupboard that was hung using three big finishing nails. Very interesting. There were several layers and colors of wallpaper. Most of the bathroom was originally built using used lumber. I used more used lumber to fill in missing studs. In one corner of the bathroom, the wallboard was nailed to NOTHING in the corner. The only thing keeping the corner together was paint.

Putting up the new boards meant draining and moving that water heater- twice. I worked all of one day and didn't get near finished, so I had to reconnect the water heater and start all over the next time I had a day free to work. The boards are pine carsiding, stained with "pickled oak" stain. Basicly just white stain. I want to keep the whitish look of the new pine, I don't want it darkening to that dull gold that pine gets after a few years, so I'm hoping this white stain will do the trick. After the stain is on, then I'm topcoating with varnish

I have more pictures on the camera. They will have to wait for another day to be downloaded and posted.