Ready to travel

I have a hard time passing up a suitcase, but you can only use so many...especially when you rarely go any place.

I decided to take this suitcase and

combine it with this ...



The combination equaled a cute little side table.

I don't know if it was the recent royal wedding ... or maybe my extreme adoration of Miss Mustard Seed ... but I can't get enough of the Union Jack right now. This looks much cuter in person... the background is actually a light blue, but in the photo it almost looks white.

I have a paint brush and I will use it....

So I repainted this cabinet a while back. (It had some veneer problems) When I did that I decided to remove the decorative element from the doors because I wanted an unobstructed view of what was inside the cabinet.

I hung on to them for awhile until I decided to use them as "paneling" in the little area outside our kitchen area. They fit perfectly. I painted them and the wall so they look like solid wood. I recently repainted the wall a green color to make them and my artwork pop more too.

Around that same time I made a "child/dog gate" out of an old frame and some chicken wire. It keeps the dogs out of the basement while allowing access for the cat (he goes right over the top.) It's also held up better than the child gate we use to use, which broke pretty quickly.

It's puppet time

I wish I would have done a tutorial for this, but I was really winging it and was in a time crunch (hence the slightly eschew window.)

A while back, I picked up a canvas show curtain thinking I could use it for something. I did use it to recover a chair, but had enough left to make a puppet theater. I just had to add some coordinating fabric to the bottom to make it long enough.

I discovered after I made my hole, and finished off with seam binding, that I needed to add some fusible interfacing to the backside, to keep the window from falling forward. (It actually would have benefitted from a stiffer interfacing, but I was using what I had on hand.)

Ages ago I picked up some old felt board letters and have been able to use them for several projects. I was really glad to have them on hand for this project.

My darling neices were happy with their theater, although everyone also wanted to see out of the window too... so funny.

I'm linking to The Freckled Laundry's Air Your Laundry Party.

T-shirt redo

 

So when I was getting ready for a garage sale, I came across some clothes that I couldn't sell because of of stains. I decided to salvage some of those shirts and turn the designs into appliques to redo, plain shirts. I simply used Pellon (follow the directions on the product), to turn them into iron-ons and then ironed them to the plain shirts. I also did a zig-zag stitch around the edge of the applique.

Getting a picture of my little guy in this handy work is easier said then done.

Whew, he finally stood still. Here's his "new" shirt.

 I used the technique on a couple of shirts for him and a few shirts for me ...yeah, I was able to salvage my own Donald Duck and Pippi Longstocking T-shirts.

Whew, that took some doing...

So, I got this chair for free and it needed a lot of work as you can see.... but I thought it had beautiful lines, so it was worth the effort.

I'm not entirely happy with how it turned out. It will probably be redone again in the future, but it is definitely an improvement from where it came from... maybe when my sewing skills get a little better I'll redo it again.

I also decided to shop my basement for a "new" coffee table. I, of course, forgot to take a before picture, but just imagine a  plain black trunk. (which I was just using for storage.)

I decided to give it some flair by adding the Union Jack and added some travel inspired stickers to it. I also added casters, so it's easy to move ...and the greatest part is that it now holds Jack's hot wheel collection.

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.