A Thank you and a Sneak Peak

About a week ago I told you all about the surprise in my inbox. Obviously I was a bit excited about winning a giveaway from my idol Miss Mustard Seed. Any piece of furniture she's ever done is an inspiration to me and on top of that she is a wonderful Christian woman. 

Last night at dinner I excitedly told my family about how I had started on a secretary that I would finish with my new Milk Paint but I was still waiting for the UPS man to show up with it!! Sure enough after dinner as I went out to the car I saw a big box next to our side door that we never use!! Yay!! 

I took a picture of the box 'cuz I'm a dork and Marian (aka miss mustard seed) had written on it so beautifully but I couldn't figure out how to blur my address so you don't get to see it, sorry! ;) 

I did take pictures of everything inside it this morning when I had some light though! I'm telling you it was like Christmas morning searching through that box finding little packages like this!

And this is also dorky...but just knowing that my absolute hero had sent it to me herself was enough to make me giddy :) And the fact that she had sent way more things than I expected was just too much to take!

 Drawer Pulls from Vintage Skye

Clay Tags from Freckled Laundry

German Glass Glitter

And of course...

Her Book!!

Signed to me!!

Her new line of Milk Paint!!

And I forgot about the letters of my name already all sparkly with german glass glitter and magnets on back! I may have gotten teary eyed by the end, and Scott may have rolled his eyes...

But anyways!! Here's a sneak peak of the piece I've gotten started on! The outside of it will be painted with some of my new Milk Paint!!

I just want to say thank you so much to Marian for her kindness and generosity :)

Sometimes You Feel Like a Nut...

I love fall. I love the changing of the seasons, I love that back to school feeling, but mostly I love all of the holidays. In my opinion it just gets better and better with each one, Halloween, then Thanksgiving, then the mother of all holidays, Christmas!! I'm already looking forward to it, shhh don't tell anyone.

But of course, first comes Halloween!! I was invited to a costume party this year and after some convincing got Scott to agree to go ;) We've never been to a Halloween party together!!! And if you know Scott you know he's not a dressing up/costume kinda guy... 

So going to the party like this was a pretty big deal!!

He graciously agreed to wear this costume when I showed him how funny it would be :)

We just had to escape the house without our reading aged son seeing our backs ;)

My good friends who invited us went as the characters from CLUE. Love them!!

Everyone there had awesome costumes, I'm already brainstorming for next year....ahem, I mean if I'm invited again that is ;)

I didn't have time to take pictures while making our costumes because I was in a bit of a hurry. But I'm proud to say I made them in ONE DAY! 

I started with a trip to the fabric store. The blue and red fabric I used is 100% polyester and has a little stretch to it. The white stripe is just a regular cotton blend and the black letters are felt. Oh and the white letters are iron ons....I'll get to that later.

I got 1 1/2 yards of the blue and red and that was plenty. I started with the blue fabric folded over hotdog style and measured around Scott's hips to see how wide I should make it. Once I decided on that I cut off some extra fabric along the long open end and then pinned and sewed along that long edge. That left me with a long tube of fabric. 

I then sewed along the top open end about 6 inches on one side and then 6 inches on the other side leaving me with a hole big enough for Scott's head to come through.

To make the arm holes I started on the side that didn't have a sewn edge and just cut down about 8 inches. I had him try it on with just one arm and decided he needed a few more inches for his big muscles ;) I think he ended up needing about 11 inches for his arm openings. On the other side I measured down 11 inches and sewed up and down at that point to secure the stitches. Then I just cut off the fabric and stitches above that to the neck, making the other arm hole.

Next I had Scott try it on and decided where to hem it. I went with a length right below the knees. It was at this point that our friends came over and walked in on me on my knees with pins in my mouth hemming my husband's dress....awkward ;)

To make the white stripe down the middle I took the white fabric and folded it over hotdog style and sewed up the side again making another tube of fabric. This one much skinnier obviously. I then turned it right side out and ironed it very flat. I attached it to the blue "dress" with pins and sewed it on. I then took a stripe of red fabric 2 inches wide, pinned it over one of the edges of the white fabric and sewed it on.

To make the Peter Paul piece I cut out a piece of red fabric (the one below is blue because it was one my costume) and positioned some iron on letters from the fabric store. Then I pinned it on and sewed it.

Next I ironed on the funny saying onto the back...

Okay, obviously Scott's was the funny part.

To make the words ALMOND JOY and MOUNDS I googled the candy bar and then while looking at the picture free hand drew out the letters on paper. I cut them out and pinned them to my black felt and then cut those out. On my costume I sewed them on with a zig zag stitch down the center of each letter, but this was time consuming and annoying so for Scott's I just hot glue gunned them on!! Worked like a charm.

I wasn't loving how the shoulders looked on me and wanted to make it "prettier" so I just took some scraps from Scott's blue fabric, gathered the shoulders of my costume and tied bows around them.

They aren't perfect, the red fabric was pretty stretchy and so while sewing it onto Scott's costume it would stretch and then not lay flat, very annoying. And my free hand drawing capabilities are very limited, so while those letters are each a little miracle for me if Scott had done them they would have been perfect. Saylavee!! :)

Sometimes you feel like a nut..

Sometimes you don't!!

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Two Yellow Birds Decor

Antique Herringbone Wood Table

I'm so excited to show this project to you!!

This table was my grandma's, she kept pictures of all her grandkids on it right at the top of the stairs as you entered her living room. I like to imagine how she would react if I was able to show it to her.

I think she'd like it :) 

It was a bit dark and drab when I got it.

But I saw just how beautiful it could be. I started by stripping the top with some gel stripper and sanding it by hand. Then I dry brushed some pure white chalk paint on by lightly dipping my paint brush in the paint and dabbing on a paper towel before brushing it onto the table. I did two coats this way before deciding it was done and putting a coat of clear wax on. For the wood top all I did was wax it! No stain or anything, it was so stinking gorgeous the way it was I wanted to keep it looking exactly as it was!

Seriously. Look at that wood. Laid in a herringbone pattern with an inlay! It's as smooth as a baby's bottom too. Love it. 

Another of my favorite parts is the flower detail on the apron.

So cute.

I struggled with the decision to keep the table or not. If I hadn't taken it it probably would have just been donated, so hopefully no family member would take offense to me selling it. I love it and how it turned out but I don't really have the right place for it in my home....something you should know about me is that I'm a purger not a hoarder. If there's ever any question of wether I should keep something or not I always go with NOT. So I am putting it up for sale on my Shop! page and will enjoy it in my living room until it sells :)

(I know it doesn't look bad in there, it's just not what I have in mind....)

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Pure White Vanity

Hey guys! My client work has kept me very busy this past month. While I was mostly working on contemporary, glossy black furniture I had an antique vanity to do in white as well. It was a nice change of pace while spraying furniture all day to come inside and use my paint brush with some chalk paint.

I couldn't have been happier with how this piece turned out.

I've seen these vanities around blogland before and never paid them much notice, but when I put the mirror in place and stepped back I was amazed by how beautiful it was. This piece belonged to my client's grandma and after going to college with her it came home and sat in the garage. She had done a nice job of whitewashing it with pickling stain back in the day so the before isn't very bad!! 

The mirror was all wrapped up nicely so I didn't feel like taking it out for the before pic. :) Anyways, while the vanity looked pretty good the way it was the years had definitely taken their toll and there were lots of stains and blemishes, so a new paint job was definitely in order!

I started by sanding any stains or uneven spots and then used some wood filler to patch up some spots on the drawers. Then since I was using Annie Sloan Chalk Paint I just got right started with the painting. I had forgotten that I vowed to always prime before using chalk paint in white, it all came back to me during the 3rd coat ;) I ended up needing 4 coats in some areas which was a pain but now maybe next time I'll remember to prime! (not usually needed for chalk paint, but white doesn't seem to cover as well as the other colors)

After taping the mirror with a million tiny pieces of painters tape and painting it I waxed everything with clear wax. I picked up the pink knobs at Hobby Lobby where knobs are now always 50% off their regular price. Yay :)

Peek a boo!

The vanity is going in a little girl's room so when my Lainey got home from school and exclaimed, "Mommy!! This is UH-mazing!!!" I knew I had done good :)

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A Surprise in my Inbox

A few weeks ago Marian, from Miss Mustard Seed, wrote a post about her new book that just came out this fall. At the end she mentioned that she would give away a book and maybe some extra goodies to someone who commented.

I was having a stressful day. I was sitting waiting for some water to boil while making dinner and feeling torn in a million different directions. I wanted to get outside and paint, I wanted to stay inside and clean, I wanted to sit down and play with my kids.....so I wrote a sad, venting comment about how overwhelmed I was. At the end I wrote, 

I’m comment number 900 something so I’m hoping no one even reads this but at least I’ve vented just a little bit….I think maybe I should start writing in a journal 

I thought to myself, man I hope I don't actually win this because Miss Mustard Seed will see how pathetic I am!!!

Well what do you know, I got an email from Miss Mustard Seed herself this morning, Marian :) 

Now you could think that this means the whole thing is rigged and she just looked for someone who pulled at her heart strings to choose to win. But she's honest and doesn't have time to read over 12 hundred comments, so she uses random.org or some site like that to choose a winner.

Instead you could think this was just a crazy coincidence...

Or you could choose to think like Marian and I do, that God has a pretty hilarious sense of humor and it was no accident that I won that giveaway!! Getting an email from Marian was the most exciting thing to happen to me this week (okay month), and along with a signed copy of her book, Inspired You, and a Miss Mustard Seed T-Shirt she's sending me 2 boxes of her new line of Milk Paint in whatever colors I would like! 

Click on this link to see all of the colors and retailers!

Click on this link if you really want to look inside ;)

I just had to share this with everyone, it was too funny and exciting not to!! 

Decorating with Antique Crocks

I went to my aunt and uncle's house yesterday for some cake and coffee after their first grandbaby was baptized at church. My uncle has told me before that he's been collecting antique crocks during his travels for work and I was excited to get to see them all finally! 

I wish I could tag along on his next work trip, apparently he finds some great garage sales out in Iowa! Living so close to a big city here you don't find antiques very often, and when you do they're expensive.

So I was thrilled when my Uncle Pete offered to give me one of his crocks!! He has some really nice ones, his favorite is a GINORMOUS one that he found in Michigan. I've never seen a crock that big before. My favorite was the one his daughter, my cousin, Becky, found recently. It's really little and used to have butter in it and has the cutest picture of a farm boy on it :) 

Here's mine...

Of course all I could think about the rest of the day was where I would put it and what I would put in it! For the fall I thought some sticks would look nice. I always see people on blogland saying how they just went out to their yard and found some perfect sticks to decorate with. I don't now what kind of trees they have in their yard but the sticks at my house are pretty much good for roasting a marshmallow and that's it. I guess I'll have to go buy some cute sticks. The thought of buying sticks really bothers me, though!

I looked on google images for some other cute crocks that have been used to decorate and here's what I found:

The Lettered Cottage

The Lettered Cottage, wasn't surprised by that one!! It's one of the first blogs I ever discovered and I adore it!

The Lettered Cottage

Lots of cute little crocks!

And Here We Are....

Exactly what I was thinking! :) She better not have found those perfect sticks in her yard...

Yup. She did.

Painting Furniture with a Paint Sprayer

So I've been painting some furniture with a paint sprayer this week and thought I'd fill you in on how it's going!!

I first bought a HomeRight Pro 5.0 Sprayer from Ace Hardware. It was $70.00 and I thought I had read great reviews about it, but after getting it home I realized the awesome review I had read was about a different model. I gave it a try anyways and had bad results. The paint splattered and was running down the spraying tip. Thankfully Ace was great about returning it, they're a great store :)

I decided to pay a bit more and get a Wagner from Home Depot instead. It's called a Wagner Power Painter Plus 6.6 with EZ Tilt.

They had a $70 model but the $100 model had a knob to turn to go from thinner liquids to thicker ones and that appealed to me.

I was able to spray primer without watering down or thinning it at all. It worked for some Behr latex paint as well. The results are a super quick and smooth paint job. There's some extra prep involved like tarping the area and taping paper down inside the dresser where you don't want paint to end up, but you only need to do that once and then you're set for the rest of the process!

This is after one thin coat of primer. Doing the whole dresser took about 3 minutes.

Cleaning up takes a little time but it's simple and straight forward. Everything unscrews, you rinse with warm water and the brush included and then lubricate just a couple of pieces while putting back together. After doing it twice I could do it without looking at the directions again.

While priming some drawers yesterday it stopped spraying paint even though the cup was full. I remembered then that the primer I was using had some globs of old paint in it and worried that I had just broke the thing!! I just took it inside and gave the whole thing a cleaning and then tried using it again later in the day when I had time and sure enough, good as new!! :)

Now I usually paint furniture with Annie Sloan Chalk Paint but I don't think I will use the sprayer with this paint because it goes on SOO well with a brush. But I still have clients who occasionally want Latex paint, so I think this will be a good tool for me to own.