Paging Donna shillelagh??

We love to take long walks around the village with the dog. And when we do, I usually pick up a branch to be my 'walking stick' (sorta like Barbara Parkins at the end of "Valley of the Dolls"). So one day I thought I'd take one of these comfortable sticks and "tshudge it up" a bit, i.e. sand it, stain it, and polyurethane it so it would look a whole lot better. I'd be making my own shillelagh and I'm not even Irish! LOL So far I have two nice ones, and I'm sure they won't be the last. I've always got my eye out for the next perfect stick to transform.

Feeling my oats

I've taken up quilting (more on that in a future post), and it's caused me to accumulate a ton of fabric scraps. They were too small to use for quilting but too nice to simply throw out, what a waste that would be. So I decided to use them in a craft project. 

We eat a lot of oatmeal in our house and the big oatmeal box seemed like the prefect container to cover with the fabric scraps. I could use it for storage...or something, right?

I broke out my bottle of Mod Podge decoupage glue and covered it from top to bottom overlapping the squares and rectangles in a 'Modrian'-ish pattern. 

I like the way it came out, I'm using it for now as a vase for some dried hydrangea blooms in the kitchen. 

We've already eaten enough oatmeal to furnish another box...I think I'll use that one to store future piles of scraps! 

A whale of a project

I ran across a cute picture on Pinterest of a stuffed whale doll that someone made and I thought to myself, "I could make that". I've stated my fascination of all things whale in past posts. It has something to do with living in a historic whaling village I guess. 

In any event, I found a pdf of the pattern online and with an old pair of jeans to provide the fabric I got to sewing. It came out pretty cute. I especially love the button eye and the belly detail (made from overstitching the reverse side of the jeans). 

It now sits on a shelf in the bedroom. 

On the radio

 I saw a cute radio/CD player on Nextdoor.com the other week, only 20 bucks. I wanted a CD player for the craft room to play music while I'm sewing & crafting. 

I loved the retro look of it (even tho it's not vintage by a long shot)...but the bright blue color ended up being too much for me. I decided to try painting it. I taped off all the chrome parts with blue painter's tape and got out the black spray paint.

Two coats later it was sleek and black. Much better. It now happily sits on a side table in the craft room and works like a charm.

 

 

Al fresco dining

So I painted the black end table that used to be in my bedroom, the one I replaced with the round white one. It's the same blue paint color as the cane seat chairs I found on the street earlier this summer. Now we can dine 'al fresco' when it's not too hot (I think I dated an Al Fresco once...hmmm)

I shortened an old table runner I had for the dining room table and it looks great on the 'bistro table' as I'm calling it. 

This table is the END

 So trawling, once again, my favorite website Nextdoor.com I found a great looking round table AND IT WAS FREE. A guy who lives in Settlers Landing very near my ex-friend Dean was giving it away. We drove over and picked it up, it was in great condition. He had obviously tried to spray paint it white but had done a lazy job of it, there were some drip marks here and there. So I gave it a good sanding and was happy with the result, it had that worn 'shabby chic' distressed look. 

I was going to leave it like that but Scott said "I think you should distress it some more." I plugged in the palm sander and let him have a go at it. Much to my horror, when I returned he had ruined my subtle finish! It looked like a Dalmation! Who did he think I was, Cruella Deville??

Here is his 'handiwork', YIKES.

So I decided to start from scratch and just paint the thing solid white. I primed it (two coats) and covered it 3 more times with a nice white satin indoor paint. It came out great. 

Now remember, this table replaces the black IKEA number I was using as an end table. I liked that one but I always felt it was a temporary piece I'd use until I found something more substantial and stylish...cut to THIRTEEN YEARS later, I finally found what I was looking for! Here's the black table, I have plans for it, stay tuned for that...