Father's Day gift: plants + old junk

I always struggle with coming up with a good idea for a Father's Day gift. My dad isn't into the typical "Father's Day" stuff that retail stores push right now: he doesn't drink beer, golf, fish, root for a particular sports team, fix things with duct tape or wear a tie on a daily basis. (The Mister doesn't fit any of those categories either, making things doubly difficult!) Two things my dad does like are 1) plants and 2) old stuff, so I decided to combine the two.

Last weekend I found these tins at a garage sale. I also found this old wooden cheese box:

I combined the old junk with plants, and here's what I came up with:

The old cigar tin is now home to a lemon thyme and the cheese box houses three tiny ivy plants. The previous owner had used these containers for plants as well, and there were even holes punched in the bottom of the tin for drainage. However, to protect the tin's bottom from being rusted out and the cheese box from being warped, I lined the insides with a piece of black plastic trash bag before I put in the pots.

My dad was also in southern Colorado last weekend for my grandmother's estate auction, so I was able to give him his gift in person. This was vital because he lives 10 hours' drive away from me so mailing this gift was not an option!

For The Mister's gift, I used some of the AMAZING Star Wars printables from Sandy Toes and Popsicles. They turned out really, really cute! I'm so thankful that my friend Amy told me about them last week--she saved my bacon! If you have a Star Wars-lover in your life, go check out the printables--they are not Father's Day specific and could be used for a birthday party or any other occasion. They are clever and adorable and extremely easy to make.

What did you give to the Dads in your life this year? I need ideas for next year!

Click here to see what I made for Mother's Day gifts this year.

The Scooby Gang in felt--now available on Etsy!

Remember the darling felt Scooby-Doo puppets that my friend Rachel made for Maren's birthday gift?

Now you can get a set of your own, because she's added them to her Etsy shop, SprinkHaus! The detail on these puppets is really incredible. She can even customize the Mystery Machine with a name of your choice. Rachel is also makes Yo Gabba Gabba puppets in a boombox case, and Star Wars puppets in a Millenium Falcon case. You had better believe I'll be ordering a set of Star Wars puppets for Porter's birthday!

Ships Ahoy!

I'm back from Southern Colorado and my grandmother's estate auction--whew. I'll post all about that later when I've organized my thoughts.

Did you watch the Tony Awards on Sunday night? I missed part of it because we went out to dinner, but I was thrilled that I didn't miss the one part I was most anxious to see:

The tap dance number from "Anything Goes" with Sutton Foster! Girlfriend brought it, as usual. She is simply incredible! We were lucky enough to see her perform in The Drowsy Chaperone on Broadway a few years ago, and she was amazing in that as well (she was Tony-nominated for that role too). Several years ago, she appeared on an episode of one of those makeover shows on TLC. She was very charming, down-to-earth and even a bit mousy--not at all what you would suspect an accomplished Broadway leading lady to be, and it only made me like her more!

Unfortunately, there's about a 0% possibility of me getting to NYC this year to see Sutton in "Anything Goes" so I'm going to have to do my best to create that feeling here, which means two things: tap dance lessons, and nautical fashions.

I've already gotten a start on the nautical fashions part, with this cute rope stripe tee I picked up at Target last week. You could also go with this anchor version:

Both are only $14.99, a fraction of what a ticket for "Anything Goes" will cost you right now! I simply adore nautical-inspired fashion--red and white stripes, boatneck shirts, rope espadrilles--and I'm thrilled every spring when those styles inevitably resurface and I can get my sailor on again, even though I live in land-locked Colorado.

As for the tap dancing, I've taken lessons at various places over the years and I've always loved it, even if I won't be joining the chorus of "Anything Goes" anytime soon. Most recently I took lessons at the local rec center but quit because my knees were bothering me and my tap shoes didn't fit anymore after having a baby. I think it's time to get a new pair of shoes and start practicing my time steps--do you think the teacher would be put off if I wore my new Target tee and a sailor hat to class?

Weekend junk finds

I managed a quick bit of junking this weekend. I only had Friday to go out because I was expecting company on Saturday morning. Many of the subdivisions around us are having their neighborhood sales every weekend this month, so I didn't have to drive far to find anything!

I found this great wrought iron plant stand for $2.50. We're in the middle (the very messy middle) of refinishing our deck and making it a place we actually want to be, and part of that plan is adding plants! I picked up two tropical palms on sale at the grocery store the day before and was thrilled to find that one fit perfectly in the plant stand! It may get a coat of spray paint somewhere along the way.

 This cool mirror is huge--around 5' long. It's tricky to photograph a great big mirror, so it looks a bit weird in my photo. It was $5 and the seller said she'd always hoped to do something neat with it. It is older, but I'm not sure how old. I think the frame needs a coat of paint and then I might try to do some distressing on the mirror glass itself with muriatic acid and then back it with fabric, a technique from Mandi at Vintage Revivals that I've been dying to try! If it works, I may hang this above the large open entry way you can see in the photo of the plant stand above. I need something interesting to fill up that space and a great big mirror might just be it!

A few more smalls for planting flowers: two old tins (or I could do this with them) and an old crock, of which I already have a slightly larger version.

Two more planting possibilities: an old cheese box and a sewing machine drawer. The drawer has had it's knob removed and the previous owner installed a couple of sawtooth hangers so it can be hung on the wall.

Peek-a-boo! Did you find any good junk this weekend? I'm in Southern Colorado right now; in just a few hours is my grandmother's estate auction. I'll have more to say about that when I get back home!

October Afternoon 5 & Dime collection

I used to be a scrapbooker. My crafting interests have changed and expanded so I don't really scrapbook anymore, but I will always love paper and glue so I try to keep abreast of new products in the scrapbooking and paper-crafting world. One of my very favorite companies is October Afternoon because their designs are all very vintage-inspired. I posted last fall about my faux flashcard book from their Thrift Shop collection, and I still love it:

One of their newest collections is called 5 & Dime and it's right up my alley as well! The colors are bright and cheery and the images are really fun. Here are some of my favorite items in the collection:

Chip  n' Stick (adhesive-backed chipboard shapes)

Miscellany (a big packet of die cut shapes, buttons, seam binding and other goodies)

Shape stickers

Tin pins (adhesive-backed metal badges about the size of a quarter)

I also purchased the Collection Kit, which has two sheets of each double-sided patterned paper design. I love that the patterned papers are named after penny candy.

Root Beer Barrels

Circus Peanuts

and Bubble Gum, among others.

You can't purchase directly from the October Afternoon website, and it seems tricky to find any online scrapbook shops that sell the entire line. I purchased my items from this ebay seller and was very happy with her communication, shipping prices (she combined so the cost was very reasonable) and shipping speed. I'd definitely order from her again. Now I just have to decide what to make with all of my new goodies!

DIY FAIL

Remember the red chair I've been working on? I'm sorry to say that it has a new home...in our local landfill. As much as it kills me to throw away perfectly functional furniture, this poor thing was beyond saving. In fact, I put it out for the garbage pickup last night and while I was working in the open garage, noticed more than one car of pickers sloooow down to have a look at it..and then hit the gas when they saw its sorry state!

My last report was that I had decided to strip the chair of the red paint, but the stripping hadn't gone quite as smoothly as I'd hoped. I thought for certain that we could use our new pressure washer to easily remove the rest of the gunky paint, but that paint was stubborn. To even hope to remove it, The Mister had to use a high setting on the pressure washer, which terribly splintered the wood. It's possible that some major heavy-duty sanding might have helped that issue, but even still there was red paint gunk that refused to be removed. I finally just gave up.

I like the little chair and I'm really bummed that I had to toss it. :( If I had just been smart and used spray paint in the first place, I'd be sitting on my cute bright red vintage chair right this very minute. Instead, I'm on the hunt for a new desk chair that I can paint. Ah well--I guess in DIY, you win some and you lose some. It's obvious which one this is.

Weekend junk finds

The neighbor girls that are Maren's best friends have a mom who loves yard sales and thrift stores just as much as I do. She brought them home some Build-a-Bear clothes last weekend, and oh, was Maren envious! She asked me if we could go yard-saleing to look for clothes for her bears too--Uh, no need to ask me twice! Unfortunately we had to take Little Brother with us so our saleing time was limited, and even more unfortunately for Maren, we never did find any Build-a-Bear clothes (apparently those are a hot commodity at yard sales!), though we did pick up a darling handmade red hooded cape for her Felicity doll. Even though Maren didn't find what she was looking for, I scored big at two sales!

The first sale was a normal garage sale not far from my house, held by an older lady who is a committed crafter. From the looks of her sale, there's not a craft out there that she hasn't tried at one time or another over the past 50 years.

From her I bought all of these fun vintage cake decorations, including the uniformed bride and groom in the middle.

She had everything--boxes and boxes of fabric, ribbon, trim, vintage Christmas doo-dads, millinery flowers. I bought a ton at her sale and now I wish I had bought more!

The other sale was an estate sale I'd been trying to get to for two days but was thwarted by a sleeping child and a set of bad directions. I finally rolled in at noon on Saturday, half-price day, and knew immediately that this was the type of sale I wish I'd been to on opening day.

The prices were yard-sale-cheap, even before the 50% discount. My shopping abilities were seriously hampered because I had to keep track of a very cranky toddler, but I grabbed and stuffed where I could.

$1 Jadeite? It has a flaw but since it's for my own collection and not to be sold, I don't mind one bit. I found a pint Hazel Atlas canning jar that may end up turned into one of these.

There was also a big box of vintage wrapping paper with some really great Christmas, wedding and baby shower prints that will be fun to go through in more depth. (My vintage Christmas wrapping paper collection is getting totally out of hand; that might be a good project for this summer.)

A nice little haul for only two sales! Now that the big kids are finally out of school, I'm planning to hire a babysitter each Friday morning so that I can go estate and yard-saleing without the kids. Maren and I may still head out on Saturday mornings in search of Build-a-Bear clothes, which sounds like fun to me!

Locks of Love

Maren desperately needed a summer haircut this year. Her hair had grown so long that it was hard to manage and got tangled so easily.

I told her that she needed a haircut for the summer, then mentioned that there is an organization that makes wigs for kids who are sick and lose their hair.

It took her a little while to think about it, but she decided that she wanted to help out another little and wanted to donate her hair to Locks of Love.

We went to Great Clips, where they will generously give you a free haircut if you choose to donate. They measured her hair to make sure it would meet the requirement of at least 10". Maren decided she was okay with the amount that would be cut, so the stylist snipped and OFF came that ponytail!

The stylist then evened up the ends and Maren has a fresh new haircut for the summer!

It took her (and us!) a few days to get used to the new short length--I was unprepared for how much older my sweet 6-year-old would look with short hair. We've already had one trip to the swimming pool and the new shorter hair is much better--it doesn't get in her eyes and it takes much less time to comb out in the mornings.

I'm proud of my girl for making a choice to help another child! And I think she's pretty no matter the length of her hair, because she's beautiful on the inside too!

Commenting problem

Apparently, Blogger is having some sort of a glitch right now regarding leaving comments and staying signed in. They say they're working on a fix, but the issue has been known for more than a week now so who knows how much longer it will take. I did change one of my comment settings so now the comment box is a pop-up, and they also suggest unclicking the "remember me" box on the comment form. I personally haven't been affected, so I'm not sure if this will work or not but it's worth a try!

Family Room re-do: decoupaged light switch cover

Things seem to have taken a turn for the worse in the painting department. Oy. After I wrote yesterday's post, I went out to have a look at how the paint had dried on my chair--not good. Brush marks and drips all over the place! In what was probably a rash decision, I decided to strip it and start all over using spray paint, but all that did was make a bigger mess. The flat surfaces aren't so bad but the grooved legs and round stretcher bars are giving me fits and now the chair is covered in sticky paint goo. I think I could remedy most of that with a good power washing, and as luck would have it we just purchased a brand-new power washer on Monday night. Problem is, it's still in the (big, heavy) box in our neighbor's garage two houses away, so before I can use it we have to get it over here, assembled and gassed up. I still love my little chair and I still believe it will be cute when this is all done, but I'm seriously ready for this DIY nightmare to be over!

So, after that ongoing DIY FAIL, let's have a little pick-me-up DIY success story. You remember the decoupaged letters I showed the other day?

On that same wall, there is a three-bay light switch cover that annoys me. I'm not even sure why there are three switches--I don't even know what one of them controls. One of them goes to the overhead light that we almost never use, and the other controls an outlet that is behind the couch and thereby wholly unsuited for a lamp. I've tried to hide the switch by propping a mirror on the table, but I want to do something different atop the table so the light switch is there, sticking out like a sore thumb on my aqua wall.

Once I saw Kimba's solution for a poorly-placed light switch, I knew what to do! I used some of the pale aqua houndstooth paper from the letter decoupage project and simply decoupaged it onto the light switch cover.

Now it blends right into the aqua wall! I can still see it, but it bugs me a whole lot less than if it were bright white. I do love that cute houndstooth paper--wish I remembered where I bought it so I could go pick up more!

If I knew this was a switch that was going to get a lot of daily use, I might have protected it further with a coat or two of spray sealant, but I don't have to worry about this one. And if I decide later I hate it, it's a quick trip to the hardware store and a few pennies to pick up a new, plain one.

Today while I wait for the power washer situation to improve, I think I'm ready to get started on painting the dresser. Wish me luck!

Painted furniture progress

Hello, friends! I hope you had a lovely weekend. The weather was finally dry here so we spent much of it outdoors. Yesterday afternoon we enjoyed the company of some good friends at a BBQ, and when I got home I took a quick trip to my favorite thrift store for their 50% off sale. As I pulled into the parking lot, I spotted a new cupcake truck, which is exciting enough--but then when I got to the door of the thrift, a girl from the truck was there giving out FREE cupcakes! I'm not kidding you, I thought I might actually be dreaming. I think I've just found out what Heaven will be like for me. :)

On Saturday, I spent quite literally FIVE hours sanding a chair. A chair, not a set of chairs--one small, wooden desk chair. Oh, and I used an electric sander. It was way past ridiculous and well into ludicrous territory. I'm still not totally sure why it took such a darn long time, but I know that was about five times longer than it should have taken. I wanted to paint my little chair on Saturday, but the old paint was chipped so I thought maybe I'd just give it a quick sand to smooth things out. I soon found that there were five, possibly six coats of paint on that little chair, and they were apparently some kind of iron-impregnated paint that is impossible to get off of wood.

Now, around about Hour 3, a smart person would have gone all Cee-Lo Green and said "Forget YOU!" and headed to Home Depot for a quart of paint stripper. My friends, I am not a smart person.

Anyway, after I wasted all Saturday on that silly project, I decided to start painting yesterday morning. In a total impulse buy, I purchased a quart of regular latex paint for this project instead of my normal spray paint. I primed the chair with some red-tinted primer leftover from when we painted our front room red several years ago, and then yesterday afternoon I got the first coat of red paint on and was reminded how much I detest painting furniture with a brush and regular paint. I'm having terrible trouble with drips, try as I might to be careful. It's difficult to get good coverage on the chair's s round stretcher bars so they look terrible. And now I have to let the paint cure for days so that it won't nick and scratch every time I sit in it. I really wish I'd gone with spray paint for this project.

Yesterday while I was waiting for red primer & paint to dry, I quickly sanded and spray-primed my yard sale dresser.

That sanding was much quicker, because the finish was in good shape and all I needed to do was rough it up a bit so the primer would stick. I had intended to use some latex paint in Behr River's Edge

that I have leftover from a cabinet I painted, but now I'm seriously thinking about going the spray paint route for that as well, although I did purchase small foam rollers to make all those wide flat surfaces easier to paint.

If I go with Krylon spray paint, my color options are pretty limited. I can go with Satin Catalina Mist

which I'm not sure I can find easily, or Blue Ocean Breeze

which I've used before and really is a much brighter turquoise than I'm looking for.

Any advice from those of you who have painted furniture before? I'd really like to take advantage of this good weather and my painting mojo and get started on the dresser ASAP so I can reclaim some space in my garage and get the project done. And those pillows I was hoping to sew this weekend? Yeah, that didn't happen.

The Family Room re-do: Decoupaged large chipboard letters

Even though the new aqua paint in my family room has been dry for a few weeks, I'm still working on putting the finishing touches on the room. This week I got things back up on the walls, and one of the projects I did was something I intended to do a long time ago, but now I'm glad I waited.

I purchased these large chipboard letters at Hobby Lobby over a year ago, and always intended to paint them or cover them with maps or old book pages or sheet music or some other type of ephemera. I never could decide exactly what I wanted, however, so I've left them raw all this time.

Inspiration finally struck in the form of a thrifted piece of fabric that I had purchased a long time ago and tucked away in a drawer. I rediscovered it last week and realized that it is perfect for my new family room! I had originally planned to use it in my front room but now that I have aqua walls instead of navy, I can use it in my family room. It's perfect for bringing in the brown and blue colors of my new rug, and brings in the red so I won't have to change my red window valances.

I picked four coordinating sheets of paper from my scrapbook stash and decoupaged the paper onto the chipboard letters--easy as pie! I used a sanding block on the edges to remove the excess paper and to give a nice little distressed edge. If I did letters like this again I'd do that part before putting on the top coat of decoupage medium--it would have required a lot less sanding!

I even had enough scraps left over that to make a little matching pennant banner to hang on the vintage chalkboard that hangs on another wall of the room. I simply cut out triangles and glued them to a piece of red and white baker's twine.

I'm happy with the way the letters look and for another way to bring the red & green into the rest of the room. I'm hoping to get started on sewing some new pillows this weekend. I think I have enough of that fabric to make two pillows if I use a coordinating color for the backs. I'm so close to being done--hopefully I can show you all a Before & After post next week!

Do you have any DIY plans for the long weekend?

Pretty toes in Iceberg Lotus

Someday, it will actually be sandal-wearing season around here--I'm sure of it! And when it is, I can go get a pedicure without bemoaning the fact that wearing closed-toe shoes just rubs off the pretty nail polish I'm paying to have put on my toes. Normally I go for bright red or sparkly pink on my piggies, but I've found a new color for this summer:

It's called Iceberg Lotus from Nicole by OPI I purchased mine at Target with a coupon. I first saw this color on Jen way back in March--her version was called Mermaid Green and I think it is Wet n' Wild brand. The Iceberg Lotus is a beautiful blue-green with iridescent sparkles. It goes on a bit thinner than I prefer, so you definitely need two coats. I think it will be a fun color for summer.

Even though the colors is pretty, I'll grant you that the name is kind of stupid--Iceberg Lotus? Those are two words that have absolutely nothing to do with one another. My high school best friend Emily and I used to say that when we grew up, we wanted to be the ones who got to choose the names for cosmetics so that we could spend our time making up ridiculous combinations of words. Looks like someone at Nicole by OPI got my dream job!

Mother's Day at the Horseshoe Market

My gift for Mother's Day was exactly what I wanted--I got to spend the whole day prior doing whatever my little heart desired while The Mister took care of the kids! Of course, my heart's desires usually include junking. I'd heard of a new craft/vintage market where one of my favorite antique sellers would be a vendor, so I decided to check it out. It was a bit of a drive and took me to a neighborhood of Denver I've never before visited, but the weather was gorgeous and I'm so glad I made the effort because it was such fun!

The market was just the right size, with around 100 vendors, all who sold either vintage/antique goods or handmade items. There was a really good variety of items--kind of like searching Etsy, only in person! Everyone had decorated their booths and created cute banners and things and it was so fun to soak up all of the creativity, eye candy and sheer prettiness all around me.

I picked up this darling pair of cherry earrings not long after I got to the fair. I've already gotten several compliments on them and they're fun to wear!

The seller has an Etsy shop called Sweet & Precious. She makes really pretty beaded necklaces and earrings using bright colored glass beads in a vintage fruit salad-style.

At one booth, I spied a pair of sweet vintage dresses that looked to be close to my size. Because we were outside in a parking lot there was no fitting room, so the booth owner suggested that I could try to slip them on over my clothes. Both dresses had side zippers which are always trickier to get on anyway, let alone over shorts and a t-shirt and I was nervous about straining the old fabric and stitches too much. One dress (actually my favorite of the two) was immediately a no-go, but the second actually went on and fit nicely, though it was a little snug in the bodice because of my shirt underneath. The booth owners were delighted, and even took a picture of me wearing it and joked that I should just wear it out!

I just about ended up having to do exactly that, because when I tried to get it off, the darn old metal zipper got stuck! I and two very nervous booth owners struggled for a good 10 minutes trying to get it to budge, before one of the girls finally produced a pair of scissors and was able to free the zipper with one well-placed snip. They say sometimes the dress chooses you, and I guess this must have been one of those occasions!

The dress is really fun--I'd guess it is 1940s vintage, but I could be wrong. It's ankle-length, which seems really long to me for that era for a dress that isn't a formal gown. In fact, I'm tempted to take it to the tailor and have it hemmed to just below my knee. With all that fabric in the skirt, it's really kind of hot for summer wear and I think a shorter hemline would make it a little less costume-y. I do love the skirt--it has a light blue panel in the front and then alternating triangles of light blue and royal blue all around the back.

The skirt is seriously voluminous--it feels like about six yards of fabric in that thing! I wore it with bright red shoes:

my new vintage petticoat:

and one of my favorite vintage brooches on the collar:

Fun outfit, and the best Mother's Day gift!