Tuesday, September 25, 2012

What I’ve been up to this week…

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I am so hooked on Instagram!  Love this beautiful sunrise picture…I actually stopped on my way to work to get this shot!
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New project with an old lamp!
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Made these really cool sea shell cards this weekend…so easy and so cute!  You can read about them here!
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I hung a few more Es on the wall behind my chest of drawers…
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And I cleaned out one drawer and one cabinet.  I have been trying to clean/organize my home one tiny step at a time.  I get sooo overwhelmed with how much I need to do, so I decided each week or weekend I would start by doing one or two small cleaning/organizing job.
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I had so many pics on my iPhone that I had to clear out most of them in order to do 15 updates! I don’t understand why I had so many, but thought this might explain it!  Baby Brady is so cute!
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My great niece is going to be Batman for Halloween and her mom asked me to make a tutu for her to match the Batman top! 
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Of course I had to make a matching headband too!
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Another beautiful phone pic from today…love it!
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Sunday, September 23, 2012

Dictionary Page Note Cards with Seashells

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I like plain blank cards that can be used for any occasion.

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I love the sea life motifs that I found here on etsy!

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I had the blank cards on hand, had been wanting to put them to good use!

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Now I can just add my message to the inside and have a personalized card to let people know that I am thinking of them.

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Love the coral!

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This shop has so many sweet designs, it was hard to choose just a few!  And the prices are really reasonable too!

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All I used was a $1 dictionary (mine happened to be from Target and half off) and some plain note cards (I had a pack of 50 from Hobby Lobby for $9.99 before I used my 50% off coupon) and these cute little sea life crocheted pieces from GoldenLucyCrafts

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Hope you are having a good week!

I am linking to these great parties!

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Monday, September 17, 2012

What I’ve been up to this week!

I did some thrifting…found this wine crate for $3 at the Salvation Army…it will be used to organize in my craft/sewing room. I am just going to use some lemon oil treatment on it and I think it will perk up just fine!

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I bought this full of thread spools at an auction…I wanted the spools, but am thinking the jar is pretty great too.  I think it might be a 2 gallon size, not sure, but I plan on making a terrarium out of it.

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It was half full of spools…love it!  Lots of old ones, all wooden!

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I have washed all the spools and will probably rub them down with pledge to make them pretty again.

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The best thing I found was this pretty yellow all wool blanket!  I was so excited…it is a square about as wide as a twin blanket but not as long!  I have already felted (or fulled) it in the washer and it felted beautifully!

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I have been motorcycle riding lately with a friend…four times over the past month, the first time for half the day!  I love riding and I needed a jacket that won’t be too hot but will keep the wind off me. 

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I have even gotten brave enough to let go and take a pic or two…here I am in the reflection of Larry’s helmet!

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I wanted a plain denim jacket and looked at several stores and catalogs, finally settled on one and it was $50, I hadn’t ordered it yet, but was going to…  Imagine my surprise when I walked into the Salvation Army and found this perfect denim jacket, it’s a little long but that will be perfect…Just my size and only $5!!   So glad I didn’t order the expensive one yet!

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A week ago Friday we had a bad hail storm with probably a tornado too…there was a funnel cloud sighted within a few miles of home, but it’s not official I guess.   I didn’t lose any trees but there are a lot of trees twisted off at the ground.  The hail on the glove was pulled out of my friend’s gutters the next afternoon!

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I was upset that the umbrella cover I made had several holes in it from the hail.  Bummed!

100_5732 But I am thankful that my car and my son’s car were not at home or they would have been totaled! 

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And the hail was sooo big, in my area, people reported up to baseball sized hail.  When I got home 4 hours after the storm had hit, the hail I found in the yard was still up to 2 inches in diameter. 

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Almost every plant on my deck was demolished!  All summer it’s been so hot and I have watered them 3-4 times a day, but now they are all broken off. 

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The ground was covered with leaves and sticks, the trees looked so bare! 

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Insurance adjuster was out yesterday and now I am just waiting for the roof and gutter and chimney replacement estimates. 

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Sunday, September 16, 2012

Itty-Bitty Cloche

I found this hideous weensie pheasant under glass at Salvation Army ($1) Saturday.  I was looking for a sweet little tea cup and saucer for a gift basket, but didn’t find that of course.

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Instead, this ugly little bird with fake grass but it was in a glass cloche with a wood base.  Isn’t it just wonderful?!

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The glass wouldn’t let go of the base, so I soaked the whole mess in a cup of warm soapy water…it just popped right off then. I cleaned the glue off the base and sanded it really well.

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I used a turquoise enamel I had leftover from another project…perfect color, distressed it real good after that and I was good to go!

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It’s only about 4” tall and makes a great way to display a special seashell or crystal.  Oh, and can I interest anyone in a lovely pheasant?

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That’s all I have for now…Hope you are having a good week!

I am linking to these great parties…

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Tuesday, September 11, 2012

Marble Gazing Ball

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Been wanting to make one of these for a while…

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I found this styrofoam ball at the ReStore thrift store in Fort Collins.  Crazy to bring a styrofoam ball back from Colorado, but I did.  This 8 inch ball is from $12.97 to 14.99 at various stores (Wal-Mart, Hobby Lobby, and Michaels) here in town. 

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One buckaroo!  I have been wanting to make a gazing ball using flat marbles.  The marbles I had were partly clear so the color of the ball would show through.

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I painted it with some left over spray paint and then sponged on various assorted colors, mostly silver metallic, blues, turquoise and green.

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At first I just set it down on the table and started gluing the marbles on.  Pretty soon I was chasing that thing all around the living room, so I decided to put it in a bowl to keep it from rolling off the table. 

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It was soooo much easier after that!  I glued like marbles in rows, throwing in an occasional 1 inch round marble with a tiny square mirror underneath it. I wanted something that the sun could reflect from…

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I just kept adding rows.

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I just used hot glue to stick the marbles on.  Lots of strings!

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It went pretty fast after I got started.

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Frosty is not sure, he would have made it a different color!

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Now just waiting for some clear grout!  I didn’t even know there was such a thing, but Lowe’s had it in stock so I picked some up.

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I added some millefiori glass pieces left over from another project, just to fill in the spaces between some of the marbles.

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I wanted some type of clear grout/filler.  I searched the web and found a product that Lowes carried.  Well, when I got to Lowes the worker in the tile department highly discouraged me from buying that product! 

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So he talked me into buying a clear adhesive grout product…CLEAR…did you catch that?  Well, apparently I don’t understand what clear is because this sure looks white to me!  So, it is still wet at this point;  I hope it dries clear!  The white isn’t terrible, but I wanted the colors underneath to show through!  I was hopeful that it would dry clear!

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Ok, so you can see that it doesn’t look quite as white, but it is not clear either!  So….not exactly like I had envisioned but it’s still good!

100_5850It has a pearly finish…not bad! 

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I am linking to these great parties…

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