A chocolate bunny...

Last year I wanted to have a "chocolate" bunny for my front porch basket, but couldn't find anything that could stand up to the weather of a Michigan spring. Thankfully this year I found a great tutorial at Krafty Kat on making "chocolate" bunnies out of canvas, thread and paint --- all items I had. I tweaked it a little and supersized it. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.

On to other news, we've welcomed a 6-month-old St. Bernard Mix named Boogie into our family, temporarily. We are fostering him for 4 Paws Animal Rescue. You can find out all about Boogie at Petfinder.com. I know it doesn't work for everyone, but please consider adoption when looking for a new pet, if Boogie is any indication of the caliber of dog you can find in shelters across America, you won't be disappointed.

This is our first time fostering and we couldn't have asked for a sweeter dog. He's big, but he's gentle, sweet and well mannered. He already knows sit, lay down, and shake. I'm hoping to find him his forever home very soon because I don't want to get too attached to this giant sweetheart (more than I already am.)

I haven't upholstered anything lately because Boogie is such a gentle spirit, I don't want to frighten him with the staple gun...but I don't think I can hold out much longer.

I'm linking this to Freckled Laundry's link party.

An American Picker

In a moment of transparency, I admitted to my husband that I have a slight crush of Frank Fritz of American Pickers. Since then he's teased me mercilessly, pointing out every bearded man he can think of and asking if I have an affinity for them as well. It's really just Frank. 

While I don't quite "pick" in the same way as Frank and Mike, I do like to peruse the thrift stores and have, on occasion, been known to look at people's trash. The latter has been very limited, however, because in the community where I live, people don't put things out at the corner...

 

All that to say, look what I found, when I was back visiting my old stomping grounds, (where trash is put at the end of the drive for the garbage man). Here they are farm fresh, as Mike Wolfe would say. When I spotted them, these stack able bookshelves were sitting in a pile of disarray and garbage in front a church (where you'd think they could have gotten some love, tsk, tsk.)

I didn't recognize them as bookshelves at first, because they were in such disarray, but was initially drawn to the wood and the possibility of making something else out of it. (I try to find cheap wood because when it comes to woodworking, I have know clue what I'm doing.)

 

 Look how well they cleaned up! Granted they are missing their glass doors, but seriously, I don't care... that would just be another place to wipe off finger prints. I used a product called "Restore-A-Finish" to freshen them up and had to glue a broken spot on the bottom, but other than that these babies were beautiful.

 

They also gave me a better spot to display one of my favorite St. VDP "picks" --- a beautiful, original painting depicting a moonlight water scene, which was relegated to the stairway, but is now in the living room where I can really enjoy it. I tell you, it's the little things in life that make me happy.

Presto Chango

 Every Christmas at my Grandma Rose's house we do a gift exchange. Everyone brings a $5 wrapped gift that is then numbered and we each randomly draw a number. My Grandma was beside herself hoping I would get one particular gift.

"Walker has the gift I was so hoping you would get," she said. I watched with curiosity as Walker, my nephew, opened the gift to reveal this:

Bless her heart, my grandma saw this little troll and thought of me. I don't want this get back to my grandma, but this little troll became the inside joke of the gift exchange. Of course my 4-year-old nephew wasn't interested in it, so much to my sister's amusement, it came home with me.

I decided to make a little lemonade in honor of St. Patrick's Day.

I used a little green, and reddish paint to update his look, making him an adorable little leprechaun for the basket on my front porch. I usually just let the winter decorations stay in the basket until Easter, but I decided I'd try to spread a little Irish luck this year.

So I have my little leprechaun and his pot of gold. If I get a chance I may paint a sign that says "Happy St. Patrick's Day." My pot of gold isn't quite what I had in mind, but it was the best I could do on my budget, which was slim to none.

Getting wild

 

I wasn't quit sure what I was going to do with this chair. It took up residence in my grandparents garage for many years and I was beginning to think it would experience the same fate in my basement, but I've been on a chair kick lately. My preschool-age son helped me pick out the fabric (another item that's been in my stash forever.)

Quite a transformation, huh? I'm quite excited with how it turned out. It was my first upholstery project using my staple gun and my sewing machine. Now that I'm learning my way around my sewing machine more, I'm looking forward to tackling some more projects.