A Give Away!

Oh my gosh, I just found that Johanna Parker is having a give away!!! She is such a talented artist. We have carried some of her designs (via Primitives by Kathy and Bethany Lowe) in the shop where I work. Anyway, click on the picture below to visit her blog and get the details of the give away!

Been Away...

My friends, I haven't had much energy to post lately. I am sorry. My step mother and step sister are coming for a visit today. They haven't been to my house since before my dad died. It has probably been over 2 years. So I am going to enjoy my visit. Hopefully, things will get back to somewhat normal soon. Have a good weekend.

Been Thinking...

Recently we have been gutting the bathroom just off of our oldest daughter's bedroom. She moved out about 18 months ago and since then it had been used for the cats. Well, our oldest cat was almost 18 years old. Recently I made the decision to have him put to sleep. He was using this bathroom floor as his personal litterbox. I had tried everything and that was my last resort. He did have a long life, but boy were my girls mad at me. After finding he had also been going to the bathroom in the register vent, then it had soaked through the ceramic tile. Yes the ceramic tile. I don't know that I will have ceramic tile ever again. I thought it would be waterproof. This has turned into a disaster. We have since had to rip up the entire subfloor and cut part of the heat duct out. I wish I had noticed this earlier. What a mess.

So, my new project, is this bathroom. I have the opportunity to buy a clawfoot bathtub for $30.00. Since the blue shower is gone, I have the perfect place for it. I also have an old washstand that I want to turn into a sink. Now the only thing that's left is the blue toilet. When I say blue, I mean turquoise blue. It is sooooo ugly. But I am trying to look up.

This bedroom has been basically empty since my daughter Jennifer moved out. It was going to be my dad's room when he visited, but since he has passed away, it just sits empty. Sooooo, this is what I am contemplating. Moving my sewing room upstairs. It is currently located in the basement. Mind you, this is a totally finished basement, but it has no windows. Then my thinking, I could turn the current sewing room into a room for my dogs. No unsightly kennels to look at. They could all be in that room. The walls need to be repainted, perhaps a stencil along the dog theme, humh, lots to think about. Oh well, that wore me out! Let me know what you think! Of course, other than the obvious. That I am crazy!

Thrift Store Find

Here is one my favorite thrift store finds. My daughter spied this colander at the thrift store and said "is this what you are looking for mom?" Oh yeah, that's my girl! The star design was
unique. This one was going home with me.

The sedum that I planted in it is called Coral Carpet. At $3.99, the sedum cost way more than the colander. I snatched it up for fifty cents. This sedum, "sedum album" is hardy to -10 degrees. If I don't kill it this summer, it should be around for a long time.

My Newest Addiction!

Currently I have a project that I am working on that involves making pennies. I had made them from felt and wasn't happy with them. I ripped them all off of the runner and decided I might like wool better. Of course, wool is out of season at our fabric store and expensive to boot. I looked at the Goodwill stores and didn't have much luck. I went to the thrift store that is sponsored by the local rescue mission. JACKPOT! All their clothing pieces were $1.00 each. I got one skirt and three pair of pants for $4.00. What a bargain. Now I am going to wash them in hot water and dry them and add them to my stash.

Above is my wool cut apart and washed and pressed. I still need several colors to complete the project. Soooooo, I went back again on Friday. I got a really nice red wool blazer, which happens to be my size, for $2.50. Except, I don't think I can bring myself to cut it up! I did buy the cream and red skirts at Goodwill. Wound up costing me a bit more, but the skirt is a bigger size, so I thought it was still a bargain.

That dark color is a reddish brown. Goodwill had a gorgeous orange wool blazer, but darn it, $4.50. Just couldn't do it. I am now always looking and feeling the clothes in the thrift store. Why didn't I think of this earlier?

First Bloom of the year!

The water lily has shown it's first bloom of the season. This picture was taken earlier this morning before the sun had been shining for very long.

Now here is it in all of its beauty. I have no idea what type it is, but it has already taken off this season. I am looking for a miniature version to put in a whiskey barrel. Any suggestions?

Sedums

While shopping for my flowering plants for the deck this year, I seem to be finding all these really cool sedums.

I think these will be perfect for planting on the deck. It is south facing and has no shade at all. I have pretty good luck with my flowering plants until about the first week in August, then things start looking pretty shabby.

Last summer, at a mountain craft show, I found an old granite mug planted with a couple of sedums in it. They even wintered well. So I am on the search for sedums.
I am also on the lookout for unique containers to plant them in! Looks another good reason to visit the thrift stores.

Iron Gates

I don't know about you, but I love iron gates. It is so fascinating to think that some of these gates have been around for over a hundred years! Yesterday, I went driving around my town, on the lookout for some gates. Here is what I found.

I Hit Pay Dirt!!!

I have been on the hunt for a dress form. Some of my blogging friends have vintage ones, and I am jealous. I guess you could say I have dress form envy. I keep finding ones that are out of my price range. Recently, Friday has been my thrifting day. My baby girl doesn't have class on Friday, and she likes to thrift too. The thrift store in our town, Mother Teresa's Treasures, outgrew their old store and built a new one. So that was our first stop. Ah hah! There in the back were 3 of these babies. I know it isn't an old one, but for $5.00, it will work until I can find a bargain on an old one.

Thursday while on the way home from the needlework shop, I wanted to go look for some stones to finish up around the pond. My friend Lori said I know the perfect place! She took me back behind Victoria National golf course. There are some great stripper pits back there and surely there would be stones that no one was needing anymore.

So picture this, 2 old ladies cruising along in a white Honda mini van, enjoying the scenery. I was just driving along lazily and as we pass the maintenance building, Lori says "you might want to step on it". So, we're off. We pass this gate, drive down this bumpy gravel road, back to these stripper pits on our search for stones.

We are thinking of a plan. What do we say if someone stops us? Lori says, just tell them we are bird watching! Okay, I even have my camera. So that is a plan. A few minutes later, this golf cart comes out of no where. Mind you we are in the middle of no where, so where did they come from? Damn, they are slowing down. So I get my trusty camera out, they say "good afternoon, how is it going?". Oh it's going allright. I say "we are just out enjoying nature". Sounds lame, huh? Oh well, they had been enjoying their alcoholic beverages, they really didn't care anyway.

Of course, we didn't see the "no trespassing" sign until we turned around to come back to leave!!!