St. Valentines Day Project

I finally got to take some photos of my St Valentine's Day crafty that I made.

I've had these paper heart shaped doilies for years. I cut out some of the centers and I cut some hearts out of the sheet music I got from my dad's house last week.

I remember when I was a kid, my mom had some large round paper doilies. I loved to take skinny markers and color each circular level a different color. :)

Anyhoo, I attached these hearts to a skinny red ribbon.

Just for kicks, I took two sheet music hearts and stapled them together. Then I separated the hearts and made it 3-D.  I attached them to the doily hearts with some monofilament.

This week was crazy, and I was having some eye problems. But all is well again. One thing that was on the to do list this week:

Rory went to the groomer.

 She ran around like a mad dog when she got home and then went to lay under the dining room table. Then she looked like she wasn't happy about it.

Ooh, is she ever soft after her bath. My sweet little puppy. :) I took the bow and such out of her fur. Then she went and rubbed her head along the side of the couch and she rolled around on the carpet.

Hope you enjoy your Sunday!

Friday Treasures, Saturday's Words

Once again this week I went out estate sale-ing and thrifting.

At the estate sale I found these...

...two folding rules, two foot long.

They unfold in two directions, if you can see here.

Next I went to a thrift store in the city. I love this store because its huge and they have more furniture and dinnerware than some of the ones nearer to my house.

I found...

...a big Buffalo China platter.

If you remember my recent post with the painted china platters, I said if I found a bigger platter I would want to keep it and not paint it. Well, I found one and now I'm not sure what to do with it. lol

I also picked up this really cute chair for $6.

Little V needs a chair for her desk, and since her room is ultra tiny, it has to be a folding one so it can be stowed away. (The desk hangs on the wall. My dad made it. Maybe someday, if she cleans it off, I can show it to you).

Anyhoo, I'm not a big fan of the green, and her room is pink for the time being, so I will probably paint it white. I've been looking for a homemade chalk paint project anyhow so, for a few dollars, this can be it.

I have joined the Sister Bloggers at SaMiE Designs . Check out this program if you get the chance. They pair seasoned bloggers with newer bloggers to help each other along. I am excited to get started with this. Please check out my new sister Danni at Silo Hill Farm .

Tomorrow is the Super Bowl. Hope you enjoy the commercials and drive safely!

Have a great weekend!!!

Thank you for dropping in to see what I'm up to. It really means a lot to me. :)

Foggy Weather and A Project At Dad's

Today the weather started out warm, but got colder as the morning went on.

A light fog came in.

I went out to my dad's house to work on a project. He said he would help me. :) As I was driving down his street, I stopped to grab a few shots of the foggy morning.

The farmer's field.

So, I hate to have to admit this, but I am a procrastinator. I'm sure anyone who has been following me for a while will attest to that. I have not started to work on my bentwood chairs that I posted about a long time ago. I really don't have a good workspace and definitely don't have the tools. So my daddy said he would help me and I should come for lunch too.

Here are the chairs before we started.

The caning is all broken, and my dad already cut me some plywood circles for new seats. I originally wanted to paint the chairs black, and I even bought the paint. But for some reason, I changed my mind and now I want them stained.

My dad cut away the top of the seat, but the caning goes in and out of those little holes four or five times each. We used a nail set/punch to push it through.

Here is one without the caning.

It took us about and hour and a half to get it all done.   We put a coat of paint stripper on the one chair to see if it would work. My dad had this stripper for a while and we didn't know if it was any good. Turns out it wasn't so we have to get some new stuff and try again. We watched The Price is Right and had lunch.

Right now, my dad's own project is a rocking horse for my niece's son.

It's nearly done, just has to be varnished and put together. Oh, plus it needs a tail and a mane.

While I was there, I looked through my mom's recipe box and found a bunch to copy. I also went through some old sheet music and grabbed a bit of that for a craft project.

Stay tuned for more on the bentwoods. Now that my dad is involved, they will actually get done!

Thanks for stopping in!

Snowy Sunday Night

This was a relatively quiet day on the weather front. But all of a sudden, it began to snow. My cherry tree looked so pretty, I couldn't resist a snapshot.

I hope you enjoy it.

Thanks for stopping in!

Quick and Easy Project

January is boring to me.

I don't ski or ice skate. Besides, this winter has not really afforded the weather to do those things anyway. At least when there is snow, the landscape is white and pretty and you can get some nice pictures if you go out for a walk. But now, everything is grey, it's like the longest spring ever. Not that I'm complaining, I'm just bored.

So, I have nothing to do but go out and shop and go to estate sales.

In my travels last Friday, I spotted some small platters but they were very beat up so I passed them up. Friday night I was looking through an old Pottery Barn catalog and spotted some platters that were painted like chalk boards. So, Saturday, I went back and bought the platters and began this project.

I bought four of them, but I only painted three.

I taped off the whole area, then cut away everything that didn't look like a chalkboard. :)

I put an enamel undercoater on them to help the paint adhere to the china.

Then I put on three coats of chalkboard paint.

The end result!

I think they came out cute, but I think if they were bigger they would be better. Only problem is, if I find a big platter like these, I probably will want to use it for it's intended purpose. Hopefully I will get these into my etsy shop, but I'm having some confidence/knowledge issues with the shop right now. Hopefully I will overcome the problems soon.

Hope you have a nice day.

Thanks for stopping by! 

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Baking State of Mind

So this week we had weird weather. Last Friday we had snow and wicked high winds.

Since then it all melted, we had some warmer weather, some heavy rains, it turned cold again, in the 20's, and now it's snowing again. This is the weather we expect here.

Weather like this makes me want to stay in the kitchen with the oven on.

So, I've been baking.

 

I made focaccia.

 I never made it before, but it was easy. I just mixed the dough together, then kneaded in sun dried tomatoes and basil.

Then I put chopped prosciutto and Parmesan cheese on top.

This recipe called for making eight individual breads. I think next time I will either make a huge one on my jelly roll pan, or make two big rounds. One time we bought some fresh focaccia at the farmer's market downtown and they were thick rounds, almost like a cake. Perhaps I could put it in a spring form pan. Any ideas from anyone on that?

 

I took some time out to go to a great basketball game...

...made a banana bread...

...and made a chicken pot pie.

Now, I will admit, this pie is the lazy cook's chicken pot pie, but still delicious. It always seems to hit the spot.

When Big V was the only V and was brand spankin' new, my sister-in-law Donna brought over this pie for us to put in the freezer for a day when I was too harried to cook. (I have to say, V was born in February, and I was harried until July.) She also included the recipe in the package and I've been making it ever since.

Veg-All Chicken Pot Pie

1 can (10 3/4 oz) cream of celery or cream of potato soup

1 16oz can Veg-All, drained

2 cups cooked diced chicken, or one large can canned chicken or two small

1/2 cup milk

shake of thyme

1/2 tsp pepper

1 egg, beaten

2   9in pie crusts

Combined soup, veggies, chicken, milk, thyme and pepper in a medium sized bowl. Place one pie crust into the bottom of an 8 in pie pan. Spoon filling into the crust. Cover with second crust, crimp edges to seal. Slit top of crust and brush with egg, if desired.

Bake at 375 degrees for 40 min.

Let cool 10 minutes before cutting.

Note: In my area it has been hard to find Veg-All lately, so I just buy a can of mixed vegetables and it does the trick.

Try it! It's really easy to make.

Have a good day! :)

Jewelry Trellis

Here it is! I finished my jewelry trellis.

Remember, this is where I started.

I cut off the broken parts and shortened up the other end too.

I turned it sideways since there were four strips of wood to work with instead of the three I would have had if I hung it rightwards.

I got these great s-hooks from Ikea years ago. Wish I had bought more because my local hardware store didn't have these.

So I bought some white cup hooks instead.

I connected some of the clasps right around the wood and put my cuffs around it too.

Now my dresser is clear except for some broken pieces and earrings that I don't know how to hang. Maybe I'll take it back down and staple a piece of screen to it to hold the earrings.

Thanks for stopping by!

Enjoy your day!!!

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Winter's Return and a New Project

So winter has come back and we finally got some snow worth talking about. I would have ventured out to take a better picture than this, but it's really cold. I guess I'm a baby.

It's nice to let the dog out and she doesn't come in covered in mud.

Now it's a different process of clean up, but its a clean clean up, not a dirty one. It just involves getting all the snowballs off her paws and face, at the same time as she is trying to eat them.

Anyhow, I have been looking around here for a project to do (that I like) and I think I found one.

This is my dresser that my daddy built me.

The most pronounced thing on my dresser is this pile of beads, necklaces, bracelets and earrings.  I'm terrible about taking things off and just throwing them on the dresser.

Ever since I started making jewelry and buying more, I've run out of room to put it all.

A solution is coming...

...in the form of an old trellis that my dad made for my mom's rose bushes a long, long, time ago. It was behind the shed and got a little beat up. I once had it next to the screened porch for a clematis I was killing growing.

Curious about what I'm doing with it?? I will have to show you tomorrow because I have one more thing to go get and also, it got too dark to take good pictures. So come by tomorrow and see the result!!