Another One to Love

Remember a little frame I redid and gave away? Well, I miss that little frame and its cheery colors. So what's a junker to do? Get herself another one, of course!

Found this in a garage at an estate sale and love the shape of it, but not the color and certainly not the padded fabric picture! Yes, It's a piece of fabric and has foam underneath to make it puffy. Um, no thanks.

Better already

I loved the orange and aqua combo of my inspiration piece:

But wanted to change it up just a little bit. No sense doing the same thing twice, right?

A little spray paint, some antique sheet music, another fleur-de-lis stencil and...

The paint's a little flat and the paper isn't. Not a good look.

...hmmm...not exactly right just yet. Back to the shop for this one.

A little glazing to bring out some of the detail, a little de-padding to make the sheet music lay flat, and now it's blog-worthy.

Just a tiny bit of glaze brings out details in a painted piece. Now I'm on the hunt for more of these ornate frames - what's on your 'must buy' list these days?

Linking to:

The Bonnie Burrow - $20 Thrift Challenge

Little Changes

I've been looking for a tiered server or plates to make one for a while now and something always keeps me from remembering when I'm in the store...even though my phone list is updated. Must be my distractive personality - yes, I'm creating that term especially for me and I bet it applies to a lot of folks out there (you know who you are).

Look at what I found at my almost-local (45 miles away) Re-Store:

Love the autumn leaves, but not loving the brass handle/stem, plus the finish was worn. Thankfully, it all came apart!

I think this was Oneida Premier

Since this was metal, I figured automotive primer would work well:

It looks better already

But I thought this might look even better:

Yep - Oil Rubbed Bronze with those little metallic flecks. Love!

One more pic:

Can't have any of those cookies - I ate them all. No, not in one day! Jeez - it took three days - I'm watching my waistline expand.

This was something that someone drilled and put together - anyone know if they still sell those handle/stem thingees still? I still want to make my own...


Here's a sneak peek into some projects I'm working on:

More on these coming soon...until then Happy Monday!

Spice it Up

If I was a hoarder (I'm not...I'm almost 99% sure I'm not), one of my particular obsessions would be containers. No matter how cluttered, how scattered, how much stuff is in the house, there's never too much of anything if I have enough containers. Something about putting stuff in a basket or bowl or jar makes me feel more organized.

This ugly little spice rack was at an estate sale for $5. I passed it up at that price...until these magic words were uttered within my range of hearing...'Everything's half off'. I snatched that little baby up without a second thought!

It has 6 jars of spices, but I couldn't wait to take off the greasy labels. YUK!

Double yuk!

It was all greasy, spotted and YELLOW. I have nothing against yellow, but c'mon.

The labels came off, as did the grease on the jars in the dishwasher. After spray painting the rack heirloom white, I didn't mind the little bit of yellow that was left on the jars. I even sanded the rack back a bit to let a little yellow show through.

After a little waxing, my little spice rack still has that primitive look, but in a much cleaner, shinier, and less yellow, way.

Next come labels, and we all love labels, don't we? Since this wasn't destined to be a spice rack anymore, my labels would help me declutter my junk stash.

This is now the perfect place to organize all my little pieces of junk that aren't part of a project...yet.

Sharing at these parties:


Knick of Time Tuesday Party
Boogie Board Cottage Masterpiece Monday
The Idea Room
A Picture is Worth 1,000 Words 2nd Time Around

Before and After Projects!

As promised a week ago, here are a whole bunch of fun little before and afters that I've been working on. I'm not even going to bore you much with a bunch of jibber-jabber and just show you the pics...hey now, don't be so happy about it, that's just rude ;)

And there you have it; some things that I've collected and upcycled into cute pieces.

What are you painting these days? As a sneek peek, this might be something being painted right now...

And if anyone loves good odds, NO ONE has entered to win My Memories Digital Scrapbooking giveaway :( It's going on right now and the software is the #1 rated software of its kind; anyway, I like all the possibilities it gives me and maybe you will too.

Linking to