Wednesday, May 12, 2010

I just looked at the date and realized I've not posted much recently... In fact this seems to be my story for life of this blog!  And will probably continue to be the case for the unforeseeeable future.  No, no the living room is not done.  But its getting closer.  Now we are waiting for the storage cube ottomans to arrive.  You see when I went into Bed, Bath, and Beyond with my coupon/returns/store credit in hand to pick them up I discovered one was missing and the other had a handi-dandi little tear in it.  The sales associate was so helpful and apologetic (they were supposed to be on hold).  So now they have been ordered and will be shipped directly to moi!  All for the low, low price of... no cash out of hand!  Free shipping plus discounts equals no money spent and a little left over for another day!!


 The cloches have been made.  As much as I love them I feel kinda bad as I discovered Evan has been having fun moving the little owls around and now they are permenantly affixed. 
(no the glass does not look wavy in person but it always photographs that way)

                                              
I thought about aging one of the owls but couldn't bring myself to do it.  You see, the shiny owl belonged to my Grandma who collected owls because it was their brand.  Grandma worked hard to keep all her pretties shiny and bright. The darkened owl belonged to Chris' grandma.  It's patina comes from having survived a house fire.. So you can see both owls are equally special to me.  And in the event you can't tell... they are are the same exact owl, made by the same manufacturer and everything.  Pretty cool, huh!?!  The next question, what do I display in them?  I'm thinking my gardening girl from Denmark in one.  Or maybe a pretty tea cup in both?

I found these lovely little baskets for cents at the local Goodwill!  One will become the loose change bowl and the other... maybe stamps.


And last but not least these beauties!  Stained glass window paint.. to make your own window clings.  We used them years ago for a "stained glass" window in our first house a 1904 1 1/2 story charmer.  And get this they were to be had at Joann Fabrics on clearance for.... 25 cents a bottle!  Plus I had a coupon for 25% off the whole order.  I am not sure if they were supposed to allow me to use the coupon but no one said anything.  Since we can't come up with a viable option for curtains in the dining/kitchen I'm doing a stained glass motif to match a stained glass panel we already own. 

And no... I am not going to make a promises on when things will be accomplished because we are quickly approaching the end of the school year and the activities are coming in fast and furious!

A very Happy Mother's Day

Not much got done last weekend!  We were supposed to have a track meet but upon waking Saturday morning Sean's face was swollen, splotchy red, and itchy.  Ah, poison ivy or oak or sumac but poison something anyway!  He had gone on a class picnic on Wednesday in a wonderful park (please do not ask me the name... but he can tell you.)  There were trees to climb, fields to frolic in, and streams to fish.  And all manner of goodies to investigate.  Enter Thursday evening... slightly red, looks like wind/sun burn and they was plenty of both the previous day.  Friday was met with itching and then there was Saturday morning...  So off to the doctor we went as none of the remedies we had tried the day before had any effect!  As in zero, zilch, zip!!  I took Sean to the doctor and Chris took Ian to driver's ed!  A short time later we were on our way with a prescription and it was an afternoon filled with shopping.  Yes, you read correctly, shopping!  With two teenage boys and their younger brother!  They were so funny!  They did good... a couple of hours later we walked out of the mall w/ bags laden w/ new T-shirts, gorgeous khakis, new jeans, a couple of gift cards, and wallets only slightly lighter (think B I G sales, i.e. BOGO, 25% off in addition to lowest clearance price, etc!)  Saturday evening was spent ferrying to and from birthday parties in the country, eating pizza, and playing games!

Enter Sunday:  Church as a family, Driver's ed for Ian again, and then it was off to the movies.  Yes we went to a movie theatre... I know, unheard of but we did it.  We watched Iron Man 2, ate theatre popcorn, and then there was a drive in the country plus a leisurely walk through the park near our house afterwards.  Sunday's meal was leftover pizza, french sparkling lemon ade, and fresh strawberries followed by a rousing game of Skip-Bo.


All in all it was a fine Mother's Day weekend!! (Sunday turned out to be gorgeous after Saturday's blustery day!)

Wednesday, May 05, 2010

A day of Befores....

Okay, I know I haven't been keeping up on posting but I really need to show you what I've been doing.  So today is going to be a day devoted to "Befores"...

A WORD OF CAUTION:  The following pictures are not for the faint of heart!  Please understand that this is a fair and honest representation of the "BEFORE".  Yes, this is what our rooms look like after a move... They are in no way indicative of how I keep my house on a regular basis.  For the record, our bedroom door and closet door are kept closed to "visitors".  Now remember I told you these are bad.... but wait until you see the after pictures later on this week!

The walk-in closet (aka unsuspecting dumping grounds):

The master bedroom:
view 1


View 2:


View 3:


I warned you it wasn't pretty!  But I've been diligently working for the past few weeks and what a difference!  No, there will be no reveal today as we are still working on the living room and so my new mirror has not been hung (that and the fact that the wire broke...)

So now I am off to work again!  OH, I do need to say a special thank to "Megan" at Beauty in the Attempt and Gail at My Repurposed Life.  So many of my projects have inspired by their posts... like the cloches, numbered pillows, cool bird baths, etc.

I should have the "AFTER" published by the end of this week as long as there are no unforeseen complications!  Ha ha! 

Hope you have a great week!!