My new obsession

I saw these at a Junk Market the other day and I have been making them ever since.  My only problem is, what am I going to do with all of them...  I know I can give a few away, but really someone should really stop me...

Here is the one I put in my front yard.

Here is the group I put out for the yard sale.

Now on to the tutorial :-)

First gather all your supplies (as Martha would say)

Real intense so far, huh...

Glue around rim of base.

Center on plate and let dry.  Are you exhausted yet, because we are almost done...  let dry for 24 hours and tah-dah, you are DONE!

Here is my collection of bird feeders and cake plates.

Here are some more that I saw at the Junk Market.

They are so fun!

As Always, Karie

2 outa 3 aint bad...???...

So have you ever had one of those days that you just tried to do too much and at least one thing didn't turn out as you had planned?  Well Friday was one of those days.  I decided on Wednesday to have a garage sale as you can see in this post.  It was not a total failure of a garage sale I did make $100.00 that I didn't have before.  In between customers I decided that, since I was stuck in my garage, I would start working on some of the projects that have piled up out there.

Here is a cute little chair that I picked up at a garage sale for $3.00.

I had some cute fabric in the fabric box that I thought would work on it.  My daughter was in need of a chair for her new "art studio" in my nice clean basement. So we were set to redo this chair.

All finished and ready to go downstairs.

Final home.  Again ignore the background decor since that will be getting a redo sooner or later.  Project complete and turned out pretty good.

Next I moved on to another chair I had to work on.  This one was easy.  Just a simple spray and on to the front porch it went.

Again, pretty happy with this one.

Now on to the biggest failure of my painting life...

First I will show you the cute picture of the good part of the piece, which turned out exactly how I had envisioned it in my mind.

not too bad from here

Again, liking it...

Pretty cute and just what I had in mind...

But wait...

WTH...  I was obviously getting really tired at this point and didn't get the inside of the table right...  back to the drawing board and it will be a while before I try crackle again....

As Always, Karie

ps. I did have a lot of big toys left and I put over 7 items on craigslist, so I hope they sell there.  I want all this stuff out of my house...  After watching an episode of Hoarders last night, I am very determine to lighten the load around here :-)

Linking to Domestically Speaking

Basement phase I and II

Phase I

Last Winter I decided to tackle the basement...  I had not been down there in a while and, to be quite honest, I was scared to even look...  Right after Christmas I thought I had better bite the bullet and do a little organizing.  Now the pictures I am about to show you should not be held against me.  It was out of my control, really it was...

I had sent the kids down there to play on occasion but had no idea it looked like this.

Notice the empty shelves in the closet, THAT'S BECAUSE EVERYTHING IS ON THE FLOOR!!!

After a stern lecture about the value of the stuff we own, we (I) set out to organize.

3 bags of garbage, I thought it would be more.  I also put a few things on Craigslist and they went fast.

The kids are enjoying the clean floor.  It has not been seen in a while.  I took the clean up this far since it was winter and in my mind had great plans for a garage sale.  Well fast forward 6 months and I decided it was time to enter...

PHASE II

I decided this week to have a yard sale.  I don't like having them but with this much stuff, I am hoping to get rid of a few things before hauling it off to Unique (our version of Goodwill).  I should get my sister up here from KC.  She is the QUEEN of garage sales.  I need some of her luck to rub off on me.

So here is the garage sale pile.  See it is already in the garage.  Good start, I thought.  Now I have to tag everything.  I also need to tackle my daughter's room yet tonight, but that is a whole different story and probably a whole other garage sale.  The girl likes her stuff, don't know where she gets it from.

here's the loot, ready for the garage door to open.

Now on to the basement...

The shelves actually have toys on them and they look pretty organized.

Stay tune for Phase III where I will actually put paint on the walls and make it look cute.

As Always, Karie

Jam - Part Deux

Well from a few post ago, you can see that I attempted to make strawberry jam.  Since I don't follow directions well I got about 7 jars of strawberry syrup.  Let me tell you that I am not easily defeated so I thought I would try just one more time to see if I can really make freezer jam.

Here are my 2 cherry trees.  Since the branches are bending from the weight of the cherries, I thought what the heck I will only be out the cost of the bag of sugar and 2 boxes of pectin.

I pitted (really need to invest in a cherry pitter, if there really is such a thing any more), mashed stirred, and boiled just like the directions told me (this time)  I followed those things to the T.

See my son in the background with a worried look on his face.

I gotta say, I am impressed with myself!  It turned out GREAT!  It went so well I made two batches.  That is 5 pounds of cherries before pitted and 2 pounds of sugar.  We will have jam till next year when the cherries are ready again!

As Always, Karie

Laundry room

So I am not a fan of laundry.  I don't see the point.  Don't get me wrong, I love having clean clothes but really.  Everyday... wash, dry, fold and put away, get them back out, wear them and repeat and repeat and repeat. 

YUK! 

This being said, I love my laundry room.  I have painted it a green color.  I was shooting for Apple green but the paint name is actually Green Banana from Dutch Boy.

My cat thinks she needs to be in the same room with me at all times and is showing us how well she eats.  I will have to post a picture of her slim physique.

This time of year you can actually see the coat rack!

I'm still in search of a chandelier...

As Always, Karie

Giveaways

Once again no giveaways from me, will have to work on that though...
The Thrify Gypsy has a great giveaway celebrating her 100th blog so click here to check it out!

Green Night stand

I finished the nightstand tonight.  I really like how it turned out!  Too bad I have no room for it or else i may be tempted to keep it...

I sold my other piece of furniture today, so the kids and i took the proceeds and hit the garage sales.  I tried to stay away from the ones that had toys :-)  Speaking of which, we will be having a toy garage sale in the near future.  I visited our basement the other day and got really scared...  who knew toys multiplied when not supervised...  Well there will be a lot of tears, I am sure, but they need to go.  Who knows, maybe that can be my new studio when the snows starts to fly.  Wow did I just get off track, I was talking about furniture at garage sales and it turned into a rant on toys. 

We did find some furniture to paint so stay tune.

As Always, Karie

Latest project...

So here is my latest project that I have taken on.  I picked it up free on Craig's list.

The drawers needed repair and it was dirty.  Did I also mention that it didn't smell great either.  What do your really expect for free???

It even had its own residents (at this point my sister would have thrown it away)

I got out my helpers and glued the drawers back together and scrubbed everything down.   I was not worried about damaging anything.

It was just a bit nasty...

Well now that it has been scrubbed, glued and primed, we will have to wait to see what I decide to paint it...

Sold!

I sold my first piece of furniture yesterday and I am OVER THE MOON!  I put it on craig's list and within and hour I had an email saying she would pay me double if I met her half way to deliver it.  Well, Yeah!  Not a problem with that!  So I packed up the kids with snacks, video games and ipods and away we went.

even made a cute little tag so she can tell her friends how awesome of a job I did :-)

Bye little blue table.  Now on to the next project which I will post sometime tomorrow...

As always, Karie

Strawberry Freezer jam

Yesterday I was on a mission...  I wanted to make Strawberry freezer Jam much like Kimba did over at

A Soft Place to Land.  Due to my lack of patients and inability to follow directions (that's why I make a better cook than a baker) I set out to make my jam.

My kids and I trekked to the Farmers Market and bought 4 pints of strawberries. 

We came home, washed and mashed them just like the directions said but here is where I went wrong.  I bought Sure Jell and their recipe calls for 4 cups of sugar to 2 cups of strawberries...  Well I know somewhere I read that you could do 1 1/2 cups of sugar to 4 cups of strawberries ~ after some research it was a different pectin product that has this recipe.  Well being the sceptic that I am I figure the pectin that I had would work just as well with the ingredients I had in mind.  Well wrong-o-reindeer... 

I now have 7 jars of strawberry syrup of sorts.  It still taste great.  I know because I was bound and determine to have some on my toast this morning.  With the  lack of sleep

I had last night I came up with a few other uses for my strawberry syrup...  Warm some up to pour on pancakes, ice cream topping and add to home made ice cream.  I was tired so that was all I could come up with...

As always, Karie

Good Ol Summertime

Summer has officially begun at our house. 

The last day of school was Thursday and if Friday was any indication of what the summer will be like, we are in TROUBLE! 

By Friday at 1:00 we were having no play date meltdown.  We called everyone we knew to come play an nothing.  Well, I guess I will have to be more proactive the rest of the summer.  Mama got stuff to do like read, paint, dream, nap.  I can't be having all this drama on my hands, too :-)

Wish me luck as this summer continues...

The kids best behave if they don't want me turning in to her...

As Always, Karie

So this week didn't go as planned...  I wanted to get at least 3 pieces of furniture done but that didn't happen.  I was all full of energy on Monday when I started my mission.  Things happen though.  My daughter had her last day of 2nd grade this week, I had to work my real job and I had to take care of the family, too.  For some reason they think they need 3 meals a day, so over rated ;-) not to mention the mounds of laundry I seem to do but never get put away.

I did manage to go to my favorite store, Unique.  It is a thrift store located in Burnsville and they have an additional discount on Tuesdays.  LOVE IT!  They have everything there.  I get my son's pants there since he goes through pants so fast that it doesn't make sense to pay full price for his clothes.  This last Tuesday I purchased a night stand, a vase and bowl (more on those later), 2 pairs of shorts for my son and a pair of Capri's for my daughter and the grand total of my purchase was $16.00.  Great deals, people! 

Here is the night stand I purchased.  I think this was $4.95 with 25% off.  You have to do the math since that is not my strong point.

Here is what it looks like now!  Thought it turned out pretty cute, if I say so myself.  I will see how it does on craigslist.  I have also thought of keeping all this furniture for my staging business.  We will see, so many options, so little time :-)

Free Giveaway For Pottery Barn

No I'm not that fancy of a blogger yet to be able to give away free loot but check out this blog and see what she has to offer.

Here is the good news. Over at Urban Farmgirl there is a giveaway offering up a $50 Pottery Barn gift card! How sweet is that?

Karie

p.s.  I just learned how to do links on my blog, I'm in heaven!!!  Oh what fun I am having.  Now I just need to learn how to do a fancy signature and I will be in business!

Thrifty Treasures for the week | Southern Hospitality

Thrifty Treasures for the week Southern Hospitality: "Thrifty Treasures for the week"

My first attempt at Glaze

Before

Here is a table I found at a garage sale.  I wasn't even planning on stopping but when I saw this, how could I not. I offered $3 and it was a sale! It was already painted an awesome color, I just needed to jazz it up a little.  I took a detour to Sherwin Williams to buy some glaze and away we went...

After

I love it!  I love how the detail of the piece is brought out with the glaze.  I am so happy with it.  Now to put it on Craigslist and see if anyone else will like it.

Karie

linking to http://southernhospitalityblog.com/thrifty-treasures-for-the-week/-

Morgan's room

My daughter's room as I had imagined it...  before she got hold of a Teen Beat magazine and now her walls are covered with Taylor Swift and a bunch of other people.  I still love the pink walls (what I can see of them)  I did learn though to not send my husband to Home Depot to buy the paint.  He came home with Flat paint and it doesn't hold up well at all!  I will eventually need to repaint it with a satin or eggshell.

So it's done... The animals were VERY curious as to what mama has been doing... now on to the cedar chest that I have been wanting to paint for 5 years...

Almost finished

Here is my grandma's table, almost finished.  I crackled the top and antiqued the sides.  Can't wait to be done with it and put it in the house.  Oh so many projects, so little time.

The Remake of an old table

Here is a table that my Grandmother tried to give me for years.  Each time I would politely refuse.  After she passed away, I decided to haul it home and see what I could do with it.  My original thought was just to stain it, then I was inspired by this website http://www.themagicbrushinc.blogspot.com/ and decided to give my creativity a whirl.  Stay tuned for the finished product...