What's Life Without Whimsy

Pressed Flowers... a month in the making!

2010-08-02T08:17:00.003-06:00

Here is a picture of a piece of my garden, Its actually my first pressed flower since i was about oh... twelve!

Not much too it really cut a pretty flower and some leaves, stick it in a phone book, put heavy stuff on top of that and wait for WEEKS while it dries!

Then I GENTLY peeled them up off the phone book, and placed and arranged them on a piece of paper cut to size for my frame.

THE FRAME! OMG! I Love this frame, its the perfect size for a pressed flower! Plus I got it at the salvation army thrift store on saturday, an saturday EVERYTHING was half off at the salvation army! Pickings were slim, because we got there in the afternoon, but i got a bunch of clothes and a few little frames like this one for 50 cents each! I also got a little silver pedistal thingy for 75 cents as well.

ANYWAY back to the frame, the frame had its original tag on it.... 17.99!

Sorry.....

2010-07-30T08:38:00.003-06:00

I haven't been around at all lately, I have been really really crazy busy with appointments and such. and I just haven't had the time or energy to get on here. I apologize. I really hope to be back in blogland here soon but until then please remember that I am trying. See you soon!
Until Then here is a dose of CUTE! baby Mountain goats that reside at the Cheyenne Mtn Zoo... adorable huh?

Garden Sunday #3

2010-07-25T06:30:00.002-06:00

Just a few pictures this week!

This is my NEW garden, after one of the maybe FIVE good rains we've had ALL year! I've only been working on it for about a year so things haven't "grown in" yet and some of the plants I got as little baby seedlings, they were so small they came in a tiny styrofoam cup! we'll see how it looks next year

This is my red day lily. I got it the first springs we lived here as a rhizome in a bag, and it surprises me how well it has grown. It was one of the first plants i got after the lilac too! BTW i LOVE this picture, not bad for a phone huh?

Funny Furbaby Saturday #2

2010-07-24T06:45:00.000-06:00

So this week's feature is BEAU!

Beau is my bloodhound, he is just, well weird.

A few weeks ago we were transplanting a tree from our back yard to our front yard and all day long Beau would come up and help us dig, a little here a little there, he is such a silly boy. Whenever we would look at him he would BOLT off and hide behind the shed. We got him at 6 months of age and I'm guessing he got in trouble for digging at his first home, we really just don't care, its a natural activity for dogs and it keeps their nails worn down so I don't have to trim them as often. He just doesn't seem to believe us that we don't care that he digs.

The best part of him digging is that his big ol' bloodhound ears get in the way and he falls on them!

Not Feeling Well

2010-07-22T12:43:00.002-06:00

So guys I haven't been around, and I can't really apologize for that because it was best for me to not be attempting to write anything coherent and it would have just been bad. I've been down and out with my knee, my dog Max sent me tumbling down the stairs and i ended up with a swollen knee, a broken toe and skinned to high heaven elbows on top of being knocked out with allergies this week, I am glad i don't need to water anymore because we are getting rain but now everything that i am allergic to is growing.

I've just been laying low this week trying to heal up a bit more, so I guess I kindof took a vacation from crafting so as to remain safe :-) Hopefully next week I will be back and at it!

See you Next Week~

Black and White Wednesday 2

2010-07-21T06:45:00.001-06:00

This weeks Black and White Wednesday inspired by Natural Suburbia is a picture of a horse that lives down the road, a while back husband brought home the "nice camera" from work for the weekend to appease me for losing my camera and we drove around town taking pictures of silly things. I always love seeing this horse as a former horse farmer far from my roots it just makes me happy. He always has a few birds following him around and I love how you can still see the fence it adds a little bit of interest and texture.

Garden Sunday #2

2010-07-18T06:45:00.005-06:00

Meet the Illusive garden moose! This is my little bit of silly in my front garden! He hides under the daylily plant and protects the mint from my husband who would likely eat all of it! Isn't he cute? He makes me smile every time I go out my front door!

This is my salvia plant that is beside our little patio, it attracts sooo many honey bees! I love the honey bees, they just do their thing and don't bother anyone!

this is my diantus "heart attack" its a really interesting flower shape and i LOVE the color!

Delphinum: I love this one for its multi colors and layers, its so beautiful! the picture just doesn't do it justice!

Can you believe THIS is a columbine? its called Black Barlow, I saw it at a farmer's market and I HAD to have it! I LOVE the shape but i adore the color. I am known as the lady with the weird plants and i think this one takes the cake on the weird level, who has BLACK flowers? This girl!

And THIS is one of my favorite botanical discoveries ever, It might just look like another yellow daisy, but just another daisy it is not. It is planted by my front window, for good reason, i put all the best smelling things there. It is called chocolate flower, it smells like a good cup of hot chocolate, especially in the mornings, and that lovely smell wafts through my window to make my living room smell like I've been baking, which it is too hot to do. I highly recommend this plant, just give it space cause it gets big but its almost maintenance free all you have to do is pop off the dead flowers so they bloom longer!!!!

Funny Furbaby Saturday

2010-07-17T06:45:00.003-06:00

Saturdays I will try to feature a funny story and picture of my pets, this week I'll just introduce you to them! They are my kids, and always will be! I can't have children, maybe someday we will adopt but not until my husband is out of the military, with his job he is gone at least (and i mean LEAST) six months a year, so until then I have pets!

This is Phantom, she is our first kid. She is supposedly an Egyptian Mau mix, she is SMALL for a cat, she weighs in at 8 pounds! She's 5 years old, we adopted her in March 2005 when she was a little over a year old. She had a litter of kitties before we adopted her. She is a good cat, when she wants love she WILL get it, when she doesn't and you try you might get hurt!

This is Max, our second kid! He is about ten years old give or take, we adopted him in March of 2008 and the rescue said he was between 6-9 years old. He is a Golden Retriever mix, He is a goofy creature, he LOVES tennis balls and his daddy, he likes me. He does silly tricks when it serves his purposes. He is getting arthritic and doesn't get around as well any more, and he is allergic to the Remadyl, (doggy
NSAIDS) so it can be difficult!

This is Snowberry, our third kid! She is a pinto african pygmy hedgehog. We named her Snowberry because she has a white spot on her bum! We brought her home last September, and she's been making us laugh ever since! She's a nocturnal creature and we can hear her running on her wheel all night! Yes she is prickly but once she knows you she will "cuddle" up with you! She likes to ride around in hoodie/scrub pockets in the winter to keep warm. Just be careful if she licks you she thinks you have a flavor and might try to take a bite!

Last but not least this is Beauford Beauregard aka Beau, He is a ten month old registered bloodhound. We got him from a breeder in March, he was returned by his first family, I don't know why! He is HUGE first off and he LOVES me, he likes husband but I am his chosen one, which is handy because we are training him to track, because dogs need jobs! He can find me ANYWHERE! He isn't too big on toys but he loves to "find it" yes when he is looking for me the cue is "find it" because you never know what we'll be looking for and its a cue that doesn't sound like any of the other commands!

New Friends Friday!

2010-07-16T09:29:00.003-06:00

Thanks for visiting me! I always enjoy meeting new people! Please take a look around and make yourself at home!

This was a rough week but I think we're getting on track now, I'll not be around much this weekend, we're having a massive yard sale to help start the saving to fix our bathroom since the through the wall incident

Have a happy weekend everyone!

Family stories inspire me, but where do i go from here?

2010-07-15T11:20:00.004-06:00

My great grandmother passed away two years ago at the (AMAZING) age of 105, and today I found the little "book of stories" that my family collected and wrote down of all the things she had told us. She had seen so much and I always loved her stories. She traveled all over the country and world, but one of my favorite stories was about her parents. When my GREAT GREAT grandparents went on their honeymoon, they went to Alaska to pan for gold. They didn't strike it rich, but they did come home with some really cool things, a necklace made from the only nugget they found, which I believe my sister now has, and a vast collection of pressed flowers that my great great grandmother had collected and pressed on her journey. I don't know where they are now and that makes me sad BUT i can see them in all their glory almost perfectly in my head. They were in brass frames on little pillows of red velvet.

I loved them. I wish I could have them, I wish I knew where they were, but it isn't in the cards, nobody knows where they are. Instead I am going to make my own, with flowers from my own garden.

I love my garden I have so much fun working on it and I have invested a lot of time (and money) on it. Working in my own soil is almost a spiritual experience for me. I am an Army wife, I know someday we will have to move and while I love my house, it will break my heart to have to leave my garden, its not something you can just pack up and take with you sadly.

Two weeks ago as i went out on my weekly photo documentation of the progression of blooms in my garden I snipped a few blooms to give it a test run, they still aren't quite ready, but they look so pretty! So today i went out and got more blooms from different plants and filled another phone book.

Now i have a Question for my lovely readers, how should i display these? each separately in its own little frame? or in one or two bigger frames as a sort of collage like they would be found in my garden? Please let me know what you think! It would be much appreciated!

Favorite Giveaways of the week!

2010-07-15T08:30:00.000-06:00

The way I see it, EVERYONE loves to win things occasionally, so I'm going to post a few giveaways every week, and I'll keep it to one post a week so as to not annoy anyone with it but its only polite to share right?

First of the week is at

And it is for some AWESOME scrabble tile bracelets! I love the look of them and I like the little messages that were made with the scrabble tiles that are on the inside!

Check it out HERE

There is an awesome drawing here
for a mermaid treasure that is so cool and so different, you should go check it out! HERE

There is a scentsy giveaway HERE I've always wanted to check out scentsy products!

I LOVE the store chantelle Nicole Designs HERE I am in love with the bird on a branch necklace under Simply Unique. Its sooooo beautiful and yes simple.
Somewhat simple is having a giveaway for a $40.00 certificate to the store and I had to share because its one i would LOVE winning and I am not selfish so I'd like to give everyone a chance too! Check it out here!

Black And White Wednesday!

2010-07-14T10:16:00.004-06:00

I thought I would Join up with Natural Suburbia for black and white Wednesday you can visit the blog HERE

I love to take pictures, right now my husband has "misplaced" my camera at work so I'm relying on my handy dandy Iphone. It takes pretty rocking pictures for being a phone, most all of the pictures on this blog have been taken with it.

Today I am posting an older picture. It is a picture of the Cathedral Spires at Garden of the God's park here in Colorado Springs, this picture looked okay in color but in black and white it looks amazing!

Bad Bad day...

2010-07-14T06:45:00.003-06:00

It didn't rain yesterday but that is so how I feel.

I didn't do anything crafty or at all productive yesterday, I had a really bad day yesterday, on Monday night my husband was helping me shower (don't get all twisted) because I can't stand and remain stable on dry land let alone on the wet shower floor, and mid-shower as i was leaning on him for support we went THROUGH the shower wall, because our house it appears wasn't built anywhere NEAR properly. They built our shower WITH DRYWALL! DRYWALL.. NOT CEMENT BOARD! So Twenty six years later the drywall has basically MELTED, so now I don't have a shower in my bedroom, and have to run around the house to get cleaned up hopefully THOSE walls don't disintegrate any time soon, because we pretty much don't have the money right now to fix OUR bathroom let alone all the other bathrooms in this house.

The thing is is that with the shower wall (its a half wall) dissolving its also the wall to the bathtub so we have to replace that too, and since ONE wall is drywall I'm just going to guess the OTHER two walls are also drywall so we're going to have to pretty much GUT half of our bathroom to fix this problem, we'll need to get cement board, vapor barriers, wood, tile, thin set, grout new shower pan, new bath tub, we'll more than likely have to rip up the sub floor if the water got down there too, so sub floor and new tile, hopefully we can get some that SORT OF matches the rest of the house.

We don't have that kind of money right now, that's the honest truth and I am medically NOT allowed to work right now because of a terrible knee injury. Our only hope at the moment is that my husband gets the promotion he is supposed to be getting, and qualifies for a reenlistment bonus. I can't wait to be healed so i can work and save up to get this done because its looking like maybe next year before we can get this fixed.

So Tuesday i spent most of the day in a deep dark funk. I mostly felt like crying all day. I did a lot of research online on bathroom remodels, got frustrated, felt even MORE like crying. All that i can hear is the sound of the tiles falling, and the sound of a cash register. I did find out there is a habitat for humanity Restore in town so that might help a little.

I hope that today is better, and that I can start moving in the right direction, maybe even make up some REAL plans and budgets yesterday I was just too much of a mess yesterday.

Any thoughts and prayers you could send my way would be much appreciated, even if its just for my sanity. I am just trying to remind myself that God won't give me more than I can handle, I just wish He didn't think so highly of me at the moment. He's given me a lot to try to deal with right now.

No Sew Calla Lily vase

2010-07-13T06:45:00.021-06:00

I was inspired by Amy's Cala Lilies at Positively Splendid Check out her blog HERE, they are AWESOME!
Cala Lilies are my favorite flowers they are so beautiful in their form and simplicity, BUT i am terrified of the sewing machine, and I don't have any needles for it either! Plus my Scrappy vase needed a friend, I like pairs and threes for some reason!
So being inspired I looked down at the jean shorts I had used for the band on the Scrappy Vase. There was a lot of fabric left. So I cut up what was left of the band which wasn't much, but enough to make two flowers.

Here's what i did
I took a piece of the leg of the jeans and a piece of the band.

I put a stripe of hot glue across the small piece of denim and rolled it into a cylinder.

Then i put hot glue on the back corner of the large band piece and twisted it into the shape of a lily.

Then i put a dot of glue at the end of the cylinder and pushed it into the lily all the way to the bottom edge and i squeezed it shut

Then i wanted to add some more of the jeans to the vase so i took the bottom hem of the shorts and cut it down and glued it around the lip of the vase

Then I did the same to the bottom

Then I thought "these flowers need stems!" So i took a strip of the denim and I put a small strip of hot glue down it and twisted it into a stem!

Then i added leaves

And Here is the finish Product side by side with my scrappy vase!

Cost Breakdown
Jean shorts 10 cents
Hot glue already had
Vase gift (free)my momma sent me flowers for Valentines day!
Cost 10 cents!

LINKING UP

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My Scrappy Vase!

2010-07-12T07:48:00.017-06:00

I got this at a yard sale for a quarter, i tried to use it in its original state but the shiny copper bronze color just doesn't go with my style at all. So i decided to give it a make over, when its done it will go WAY up on the "plant shelf" in my bedroom. I figured if it is going WAY up there it wouldn't have any REAL flowers in it so why not just decoupage some old scrapbook paper on it? So I did.

I had the scrap paper for years, i used to put little messages on them and hide them in my husband's stuff when he was packing to deploy, but since he leaves a lot i was out of the cute little messages. I'll be getting more paper when he leaves again, but its nice to use it for something since i really do like it and i think the husband was getting sick of the same thing over and over again! So i tore the patterned pieces into strips and the solid pieces into squares.

I didn't have any modge podge but i always have Elmer's glue laying around, so I just added water and used an old paint brush to apply the paper to the vase. Just a random question here.. did they add a fragrance to Elmer's? It used to smell like... glue... now it has a sickening floral smell to it, it gave me a headache!

It took me a few hours because I lost my attention span a few times, and my cat decided she wanted to "play" and I ended up having to clean and bandage my foot pretty good after she shredded me.

Here are the current results,

UPDATE!

I thought it needed something special added to it, i loved the kindof scrappy denim look so i added a flower!

I learned to make the petals from cute Like Fox HERE

Mine doesn't look nearly as good but it was my first attempt and I am proud to announce I ONLY stabbed my finger ONCE!

I used this pair of shorts I got at a yard sale for 10 cents, only to come home and find that they were too small ( why can't woman's jeans be in inches like guys???)

So I used a bottle of Aloe to trace a circle on the pants

Then I folded them in Half once, then folded it into quarters like this

Then I sewed the bottoms like this (its not very even but i haven't sewn anything since high school! I did all of the petals on one continuous loop then sewed the ends together, it got a little crooked but I LOVE it!

Then i cut a skinny strip of jeans and twisted it around and around, then i hot glued it to the hole in the center to cover up the (horrible) stitching

I cut the waistband off the pants and cut it to the right size to go around the vase. Then I hot glued the flower to around the button to the jeans,

Then i sized it once more, and put hot glued the two ends of the waist band of the jeans and wrapped them around the vase

AND THE FINISHED PRODUCT! Soon it will be gracing the plant shelf in my bedroom, once i can convince the husband to get the ladder upstairs and I can hand him all the things that need to go up there... ladders scare the living daylights out of me!

COST BREAKDOWN

Vase 25 cents
Elmer's Glue 1.00 for a bottle
scrap paper- already had
jeans 10 cents
hot glue sticks already had
thread- already had

COST $1.35 AWESOME!

LINKING UP HERE

Garden SUNDAY!

2010-07-11T08:32:00.004-06:00

I have decided that i need at least one day where i don't need to worry about tracking down any craft projects I've done, or working on them so its GARDEN SUNDAY! In the winter it will be look at the snow Sunday or why hasn't it snowed sunday, But i digress. I hope you enjoy the pictures and thanks for reading!

Here are some pictures of my flowers and plants over the course of the year! All of these pictures were taken in what passes as "spring" in Colorado... May!

This is my mint plants, spearmint and chocolate mint, they are planted in my garden in a bucket, i recommend this method, plants in the mint family can and will go all invasive and crowd out your other plants, get in your yard and just be really irritating to control. PLANT IN A BUCKET!

this is my tulip! I got a bunch of forced tulips at the blue store for $1.50 a pot, only a few bloomed but i was okay with that they'll come back next year!

Lilacs! Lilacs! My husband loves lilacs, this was the first bit of vegetation we bought in 2008 when we bought our house, and this was the first year it bloomed, its real close to the front (giant) window so the smell came in the living room and it was great!

One of the MANY irises that i have, I got them for free from a neighbor, I got i think 3 plants now they are everywhere and I have shared them with my friends! They are beautiful, but in my postage stamp yard you CAN have too many!

A VERY special post

2010-07-09T11:48:00.000-06:00

I am not a highly emotional person most of the time, I don't like to show people whats going on inside a lot, so it takes a lot to admit this post made me tear up because it has a special meaning to me personally.
One of the things that has shaped me into the person that I am is when my father passed away when i was thirteen. I grew up pretty fast after that, being very young and dealing with very adult emotions. I still have a few of my father's belongings that mean a lot to me. He was a teacher, actually MY teacher when i was in 5th grade so i have his briefcase, and his favorite shirt that he wore to school almost weekly, i also have his cologne and wallet. They are very special to me, and keep me close to my daddy. So this post and giveaway at Jeremiah 29:11 had a lot of meaning to me and I just wanted to share with my readers and followers and also i wanted to post on here to thank her for sharing it, it really did mean a lot to me.

Please check out the Post HERE it is very special

My FIRST mosaic project EVER

2010-07-09T10:43:00.007-06:00

I said I would get a picture of my first mosaic up last night but after my little dog rescuing adventure in the rain i didn't get the picture taken until just before bed and I was in SO much pain from over doing it on my poor injured knee that i wasn't going back down stairs to get the picture off my phone! So here is a few pictures of it. It is BY FAR one of my favorite projects this summer! As i said in the last post we got about 600 pounds of broken tiles from the BLUE big box hardware store for $10, I had the pot already, so we bought a tiny thing of liquid nail and a smallish bucket of white grout.

I just sat on an old beach towel on my living room floor and went to town, it took me about three hours to glue everything, mostly because it was trial and error and i was learning by doing! I let it dry over night and grouted in the morning!

Inside the pot is Oranges i dried myself at christmas, they don't really have that yummy smell anymore but they were still beautiful so i kept them! which by the way is a really easy and cheap thing to do!

I don't have a plant in it because i love it so much and i want it in my bedroom and my cat eats houseplants! So i have it on my dresser with the potpourri turtle that my husband got at a yard sale, it doesn't smell either but its adorable, he sits on top of an old storage box that i have had since college, a jar full of the dried flowers of my mother's wedding bouquet, and a little vase of fake cherry blossoms that i got a goodwill for a buck! (it still had a tag on it from pier 1, 19.95!!!) The picture in the background came from target and it had a chip in one of the upper corners so it was on clearance I fixed it with wood putty and paint!

Thanks for reading!

Sharing here

Mosaic-ing Is that a word?

2010-07-08T13:59:00.005-06:00

That is a pictire of my FIRST mosaic ever before grout, I will get a finished picture and put it up ASAP its upstairs and stairs are evil.

I have mosaic-ed a few things, a flowerpot and the top of a wooden box from Michale's back before i decided to blog, so until i get a new one finished i thought i would give some pointers for basic mosaic-ing that i have learned as I go.

1.) you can get buckets and buckets of broken tile from the BLUE big box hardware store, i think we got like 600 POUNDS of broken tile for $10 at our local one. It may be mostly beige, but its CHEAP and I actually like the look of one of my projects where i used a mix of little white and beige tiles.

2.) the "mosaic glue" that you can get at craft stores is not so fantastic. I do not like it, hence why i am on a hiatus from mosaic-ing. I use liquid nail, to much better results, that other glue doesn't hold up to some materials, like thicker broken dishes or stone tiles. Liquid nails on the other hand... awesome.

3.) I haven't done any patterns but one little flower that fell off because of crappy glue (see above) but I like the random look of the lack of pattern, i think that is the best way to start.

4.) Mosaic-ing as therapy: there is something very therapeutic about breaking dishes. Its awesome. I get stacks of dishes at yard sales or The Goodwill, and i have a blast the next couple days breaking them.

5.) Dishes/broken tiles to use- ceramic, stoneware stone Dishes/tiles not to use- Porcelain, Porcelain breaks weird, and sometimes the pattern really just peels off and it isn't pretty

6.) Safety while breaking- wrap what you are breaking in some form of cloth i used an old scrub top, wear safety glasses, Use tile nippers to clean up edges you don't like.

7.) Get Messy with the grout, wear gloves though and i do it oustide on a tarp cause i am messy!

8.) AND MOST IMPORTANT! HAVE FUN! Its fun to get messy, its fun to create something from basically TRASH. If you like it who cares what anyone else thinks?

on another note... we just had one heckofa storm here and i am an idiot or insane or just a pushover cause i spent 15 min in the rain trying to catch a lost scared dog that was out in the torrential downpour, i succeeded he is in my garage and dryish.
poor baby

I am participating in New Friend Friday! Check it out!

please tell me how i can make my blog better if you have the time

Check this out!

2010-07-08T10:57:00.004-06:00

So I somehow broke my glue gun I couldn't finish my project last night but the husband is bringing one home for me tonight to finish up so i have nothing to do today cause i REALLY REALLY want to finish this up first cause its turning out insanely cute.

ON ANOTHER NOTE
as i was going through my dashboard I found this amazing giveaway at Bird Crafts for flirty aprons HERE, you should go check it out! I would LOVE to have on of the Woman's original Scarlet blossoms aprons they are sooo soo cute and all my favorite colors!

Check out the giveaway at Bird Crafts

I can't CONCENTRATE!

2010-07-07T15:47:00.002-06:00

So I am working on redoing a vase thingy i got at a yard sale today, but i have been so distracted all day by REALLY irritating phone calls from "cardholder services" and I have gotten to a human twice and when they answer and I ask them to remove me from the list I get hung up on, PLUS they shouldn't be calling at all since i don't know who they are, have never worked with them and I have been on the do not call list since I think 2005. So I had to navigate the "menu" at the Do Not Call Registry to report the number, again. Lets see how long the peace lasts. A week maybe.

When the husband comes home tonight i am planning on working on sanding the couch some more too, It's just easier if husband is home in case i get on the floor to sand and my knee locks up and I can't get back up. I learned that lesson last week when i ended up stranded on my garage floor for 45 minutes until the knee decided to work again. I couldn't even keep sanding cause the piece of sandpaper i was using was SPENT, and i was about a foot too far away from the pack of new sandpaper, it was really boring just being stuck there. Garage floors are none too exciting really.

Tomorrow i should have the vase finished up thus far i am quite pleased with how it is turning out so we shall see tomorrow how the end results look!

Nothing too exciting going on today

2010-07-05T17:40:00.007-06:00

So I took yesterday off from my projects after an allergic incident involving watermelon (REALLY? why watermelon? Who has THAT allergy?) i was feeling pretty nasty all day so i just hung out on the couch. I'm feeling much better today so i figured i would get around to posting the picture frame that i refurbished.

I got the frame and the print from a guy on craigslist, the print is kind of kincade-esc with that shiny color shift thing and it is of an English Cottage with basically my DREAM garden on it. The problem being the frame was stained a dark walnut like color and instead of seeing the beautiful cottage you saw the frame, but the frame was in really good shape except for a few little scratches.

So i decided that since the sander was ALREADY out and i had already removed the glass and the print, I snuck the sander from the ugly couch area while husband was shoring up the bracing and sanded down the frame and out came a surprisingly lovely wood grain not a PERFECT grain, but it had beautiful movement and a big interesting knot. I hadn't decided up until then if i would stain it or paint it, we had already bought stain for the couch so I just used a little bit of that.

It came out BEAUTIFUL. The stain has a orangy-red tinge to it but not overpowering and it looks good on pine! After letting it dry for a day or two and while I reassembled the glass, print and matting, and cut my finger putting the glass back in, so i made my husband finish with that part. I absolutely LOVE how it turned out and I LOVE how i see the print first now! I can't wait until I can get it hung up in my master bathroom, but with the knee I won't be balancing on anything to get it up unsupervised.

*note in the picture you'll see the husbands arms because he didn't want to take pictures.. ugh.

Here is the Before picture.

Here's the sanding

Heres the bare wood

Here's the stain

and HERE is the finished product I LOVE it!

Thanks for reading!

COST BREAK DOWN
FRAME AND PRINT $5
Stain- Already had
Sandpaper-Already had
bandaid- 5 cents
Cost $5.05

Tea Cup Bird Bath or Bird Feeder

2010-07-04T14:09:00.036-06:00

I love my garden. LOVE LOVE LOVE my garden. I love working in the dirt and I love making my yard special, and not look like every other house on the block.
SO.. I have a little project to spruce up the garden, a little silly and whimsical, but hey that makes sense for my blog because really what is life with out whimsy?
I made a bird bath out of a teacup.. of course it can also be used as a bird feeder, whatever floats your boat! other than the waiting for things to set, this project took about 20 minutes, and even if you have to buy everything it shouldn't cost over $20.00.

What I have for this project:
A teacup and saucer from the goodwill, I picked a largeish one with a painting of lavender on it, lavender is my favorite plant and i would have more of it if it weren't for the winter kill!
A 2 foot piece of 3/4" copper tube )
A 3/4" copper cap.
Epoxy Glue (I have NO idea how much this costs, I always have it around.)

*just a note... the husband won't let me use the epoxy for some reason.. maybe its the accident prone thing that *I* have going on.. but i really think he doesn't want me to go through anything like he did with his bad experiences with mistakes with epoxy. It was not fun for either of us.. chemical burns and all.

What you need to do
1.) Wash up your teacup/ saucer to make sure it is clean for the epoxy. Debris+epoxy= bad or so the husband says.. again he won't let me use it!

2.) SCARY PART ALERT! You need to "rough up" the pretty glaze on the tea cup base and saucer. I used a little square of 80 grit sandpaper and some cheap steel wool soap pads You need to rough it up to expose the porous part so the epoxy adheres better.

3.) Use a liberal amount of epoxy on the base of the teacup and the center of the saucer then put the teacup on the saucer, clean up any that has seeped out.

4.) take the copper pipe and rough it up as well on the top, and rough up the outside of the pipe. I used sand paper, and it works fantastic.

5.) Epoxy the the pipe to the cap, again clean up any that has seeped out.

6.) Allow the Epoxy to dry and set following the directions on your epoxy.
7.)Epoxy (again!) the pipe and cap to the tea cup... Husband helped me with this and we set up an apparatus to hold everything level and used a Square to make sure it was at the correct angles.

8.) Take your new birdbath out to your garden and poke it into the ground and fill with water or bird seed and enjoy!

*NOTE* to avoid harboring mosquito larvae, bacteria and other unsavory microbes, be sure to clean out the bird bath at least weekly!

COST BREAKDOWN:
Teacup and Saucer from The Goodwill $1.25
Copper pipe (3/4") Free but i saw the same (ish) length for $10.
Copper cap (3/4") 1.01 (I looked at the recipt twice!)
Sandpaper scraps- Leftovers (free)
Epoxy- already had.
Total Cost 12.26

If you like my tutorial please leave me a message!

Progress report... SLOW

2010-07-03T07:44:00.003-06:00

Sanding is going really really slow. I can do about a half hour at a time and only one or two times a day because of the knee, the crouching is a bit much for my disintegrated knee still, but i have one arm and part of the front done. Husband and i ran errands most of yesterday so I'm feeling really behind. Hopefully we can do some of it today, maybe at least get the rough sanding done, the wood is in good shape but the sanding is slow going because of all the build up of nasty.

On another note, while out on errands we went to one of the plant nurseries and i totally scored a free pallet, its in pretty good shape too! So I got some free wood, and I got an idea from Ana at Knock off Wood (HERE)for storage shelves made from pallets, so we have shelves made, cleaned off and sitting in my yard waiting for a little bath in baking soda and water to "age it" instantly! whooo hooo!

NEW project!

2010-07-01T09:05:00.003-06:00

This Couch is UGLY!

The wood is absolutely maimed, DEEEEEEP scratches, Gouges, etc. and not in a pretty rustic way, more like in a small child took a machete to it whilst on coffee. there is also a lot of ground in nasty grease, dirt and its stained a not so fantastic color for where we need to use it.. in a basement where its already darkish, because oh yeah its a basement!

The fabric is GROSS, its nubby, scratchy and well, the color of poo. Not so pretty that... needs changed NOW.. ok maybe not NOW but soon.

I can't complain too much though we needed a nice sturdy couch for our basement and it was only $30. the wood alone would have cost more let alone the FOAM for the cushions.

The plan is to sand it down... already started YAY! but it will take forever cause this is Colorado and it gets INSANELY hot in the afternoon and i am not working in the sunlight to play a game of watch the redhead burn. (YES THE INSIDE OF MY GARAGE GETS MASSIVE AMOUNTS of sunlight in the afternoon) so i only work on in the AM or in the LATE LATE evening.

After staining I'll add a few " rustic details" AKA i will again beat it up a little bit, again not making it look like i described above more sporadic, more controlled.

Picked up stain last night, its called Golden Pecan by Minwax. MUCH lighter than the current color and it reminds me of the stains that my grandpa always used when i was little, I love that color, it makes me happy.

I am excited to get started on it, it'll be a lot of work, but i am totally okay with that.. I'm still crippled so its something I CAN DO!

Total Cost so Far $37.78 $30 for the couch, $7.78 for stain. I already have the sand paper....

Finished projects!

2010-07-01T08:55:00.003-06:00

I got this a few weeks ago at a yard sale for FREE! the husband and i sanded it down, then i took out all sorts of pent up aggression on it with a hatchet, a hammer, a box cutter and various other blunt and sharp objects to make it look older and weathered. I mean it had been outside for lord knows how long, but it needed more a more convincing finish. Then we painted it a nice yellow (from paint left over from painting a bedroom color was from Valspar, called pirate treasure) and then we went over it with red left over from painting our living room ( valspar again but no color name because we color matched it from a tapestry my mom gave me) and wiped off some areas. We also had to switch out some hinges because the hinges were rusted beyond sanity. now it is living in my kitchen by my back door full of dog stuff, leashes harnesses treats toys etc. that were formerly taking over the kitchen table. total SPENT on this project $4.75 for sandpaper and hinges, everything else we already had! AWESOME! it really makes a huge difference in our admittedly blah kitchen.

NOW onto the window box, it was yellow, and not the yellow of my house, so we painted it up... bought some cheap metal L brackets, and a few big ol' bags of dirt, and REALLY cheap (except one) annual plants from the "rescue" rack at lowes, (if you are wondering the rescue rack is where they put the plants that are looking pretty crappy that sell for at least 50% off.) I think we spent a total of $40 for dirt brackets and plants, the paint was free because its the trim color of our house and we Already had it! a little expensive but totally worth it I think im the only house on the block with a window box, and i have a mild obsession with my garden.

always have a few projects going at once.. sigh!

2010-06-08T08:44:00.003-06:00

So we didn't make it to the hardware store for sandpaper, BUT we did go to the goodwill and salvation army stores last night on the way home from my eye doctors appointment which is ALWAYS fun! especially if you have a new found love for mosaic. So... im going to be mosaicing a flower pot. I already have done one flower pot and its REALLY easy and fun to do. About a month ago Husband and I got some HUGE totes and buckets full of broken tiles from Lowes, for $10 and I've been hooked ever since! Ive done a flower pot already and I did a little jewelery box with sea glass for a wedding gift for my sister. BUT today, I will be doing a new project. I bought TONS of plates at the thrift stores, spent about $20 and Im going to be using those to mosaic the new flower pot. Most of the tile we got was white or beige (ugh.. i am NOT a beige person!) but most of the plates we got have COLOR! some are old fine china which is mostly white but have nice flowers. I also got a new flowerpot to do (79 cents!!!!!) I already painted the pot to seal it, using old paint testers we got a few years ago when we couldn't pick a color for our living room! Im going to get started breaking some dishes here in a few (OPA!) I also have some brand new tile nippers to clean up any messed up parts.

ANOTHER project purchased yesterday- a teacup and saucer, which will become a tiny birdbath for my garden ( i LOVE my garden) All i need is a copper tube and a flange , because i already have epoxy. Im going to epoxy the cup to the saucer, saucer to the flange, screw on the flange and stick it in the ground! Pretty pretty!

A little about me and what this blog is about.

2010-06-07T08:24:00.006-06:00

Hi to the folks on the interwebs, My names Becky. I'm just a fairly normal 25 year old, well other than my general weirdness that is. I've been married for 5 years to my best friend, he's in the army, I just treat the military aspect of my life as something that is just there, sometimes it gets REALLY HARD yes, but it is what it is and everyone has stuff that is REALLY HARD.

I grew up in rural Ohio, REALLY rural Ohio, where traffic jams are caused by tourists who don't know how to pass an Amish buggy. I now live in Colorado, I absolutely adore it here. I am very grateful that the army brought us here and not someplace horrid. Growing up i spent a lot of time with my grandpa in his wood shop learning how things are built, mostly i wasn't allowed to play with the tools, but i was allowed to hand sand paint and stain things! whoooo hooo!

Things to know about me:

1.) I am on a withdraw from veterinary technician school due to a particularly horrible degenerative knee injury, so i have too much time on my hands.

2.) I am mildly obsessed with the Ohio State Buckeyes.

3.) I LOVE color. I lived in a bunch of faceless rentals before we got our house so now my house is painted all sorts of colors that make me happy

4.) If i don't have my coffee in the morning, it is really not pretty.

5.)I am a bit scatterbrained, I always have lots of projects going at once and I do that for a reason, if I have many things to do at once they will all get done eventually but if i just have ONE i lose interest and it never gets done. Pathetic really....

6.) I am a total nerd, I read too much, i watch too much scifi and I love just love learning new things, even if it is pointless...

7.) I have 4 pets, Black cat named phantom on her good days and Satan on the bad days, she has given me stitches more than once... but i still love her. A bloodhound named Beauford Ulysses Beauregard, hes still a pup only 9 months old, very silly. My husband is training him to track... I will never be able to hid again, that dog can find me ANYWHERE, ANYTIME! Max the golden retriever, hes our "old man" hes about 11 years old ( don't really know exactly how old he came from a rescue and all it said was 6-9 years old...) and we have SNOWBERRY the hedgehog, shes a sometimes cranky sometimes cuddly (yes cuddly, even covered with little quills)

8.) I love that I grew up on a farm, I have a good understanding of how things work, how to fix and build them, I like that i know how to work and I am in no way afraid to get dirty!

9.) I love good food. My definition of "good" is probably very different from other people's. But I have a very adventurous attitude when it comes to flavors, but I am allergic to avocados, which is a recent development and i HATE it because i LOVE them.

10.) When i grow up (ie when the husband retires from the army... in 13 years) I want to buy some acreage in the mountains and have horses, veggie gardens, livestock and a pack of dogs. I want to live in a way where the land can give me most of the things i need (i say most because i am not insane or Amish.)

That's a little about me And I hope to get some readers here soon.... hmmm....

I have a love for old and handmade things. Looking at them you can see that love and real effort went into them, and I love to rescue old things that would be headed to the trash, and bringing them a new life. I am a beginner upcycler. Summer is a great time to get unwanted things, and whether they are old, or have just been beat up they have hidden potential. Its there if you have the desire to make some thing out of it. This past weekend Husband and i visited a few neighborhood garage sales, and while we did get a few things that don't need any help from me that we just liked we also picked up a few things that were headed for the landfill... a window box in great shape that was just unwanted, all it needed was a coat of paint, nothing too exciting there, that took about an hour to paint and after we build some simple brackets it will be under my front window with herbs and a whatever cheap annuals that i find.
we also picked up an incredibly beat up garden bench that needs help to make it special, and er.. useful. We'll see how it goes.