mailbox

This is my painted mailbox. Each side is different. It has been many themes over the years. I've painted ivy vines and sunflowers and pine trees and Tulips and stars and stripes and holly leaves.

I think we have the biggest and oldest metal mailbox on the street. I had to wire brush it this last summer as there were just too many layers accumulating. It still has the layered look that is so fashionable among painted mailboxes- well at least that's the fashion that my mailbox prefers. My mail lady even tells me when it is time to paint something new. She tells me when she begins to grow bored of one design. I am not offended just inspired at that!

How to dress a thrifty chair

( My chair waiting to be dressed.)

The chair pictured above is my chair. I have 6 of them. They have been living with me for a few years. They were adopted from the curb of a rich neighborhood in my town. They looked so sad sitting there on the curb. I could see they had potential. They were so glad to come live with me. They have been dressed in many varying fabrics for their cushions.

By the way, the chairs have always been painted in a creamy white and they are kind of chippy which comes naturally at my house with anything painted around 3 kids. I was shabby chic before it was chic.

(My chair dressed in blue.)

I recently dressed them in some beautiful light blue faintly striped damask fabric. Lovely, but I am just not loving it right now in my home. Luckily the huge roll of beautiful light blue fabric was a $2 find at a garage sale so no kidneys were sold for the benefit of dressing the chairs.

Back to trying to decide what to dress them in... I am thinking of maybe some neutral fabric or pillow ticking possibly. I am yearning for a calmer neutral color scheme. I don't think I will do the light blue table theme this year and besides, the tablecloth might be handed off to live with someone else. Hey!, Maybe someone else will cut up the table cloth and make seat covers out of it?!
The best thing about fabric and seat covers is they are NEVER permanent. You could change them with the seasons or the days of the week.

If you have the time!

 I have been painting thrifty find furniture for years now and have been wanting to paint more of the pieces living with me. They have been begging, I mean patiently waiting, for a coat of artsy paint. But that all takes time. Time, my eternal theme in life.

Paint magic

I thought you might like to see another one of the paintings that caught my eye at the museum during my visit. I don't know about you, but I sure enjoy seeing the paintings that make you swear they must be real to the touch (but DON'T touch! What ever you do DON'T touch!!). I refer to the fabric and feathers and pearls and everything....so real. How do they do that??? I am fascinated to no end.

I admire painters of many types, but to be able to make me think of the textures and 3 dimensionalism of these images is in my opinion, MAGIC! The stitches, the gathered fabric, her hair...

What is your favorite thing about this painting?

Click to enlarge for more detail.

new painted bathroom floor

I love to paint floors. I once painted, sponged and stenciled my whole entire kitchen floor when I was 9 months pregnant and only days away from meeting baby N.--who is now 9!

It was cobble stones with moss and fern fronds scattered among the path. I began with a solid coat of white, water based primer. The stone shapes were made by randomly cutting large sponges to represent different shapes and sizes. Using plain old acrylic craft paint, I squeezed several colors (to give the cobble stones a more natural effect) in swirls on a newspaper so I could dab the sponge on the painted newspaper like a palette, being careful not to get the sponge to soupy. Then I "laid the path" or "patio" as it seemed to resemble. The ferns were added here and there with a stencil and moss was a fill in, as needed, using the blunt stencil brush, pouncing by hand .

We walked on that for many years. The greatest (or maybe NOT so great) part was that it really camouflaged the dirt!! That is gone now --the floor is stripped back to the original confetti 1950's tiles--and some day I may do another painted kitchen floor. The kids say they really miss the cobble stones!!

I'll find a picture of that some day and then show you.

I almost forgot to take the BEFORE photos when I recently began to give

my bathroom floor a makeover. You can see at the far left, in the first 2 photos below, that I had already begun the solid white primer coat when I suddenly remembered to grab the camera!

Please excuse the ugly spot where the heating vent cover was temporarily removed for the painting task.

Several years ago I had originally painted the bathroom floor a faux brick design in brown and rust shades (which you see above) using the same idea basically as with the cobble stones.

After some plumbing repairs were needed, we had to replace some tiles around the toilet so I patched it in with more peel and stick vinyl tiles. Those are the pink and white ones you see to the right of the photo. That made the decision to repaint the floor an (easy, haha) necessary one. I could have tried to match the colors of the faux bricks and finish it off, but I figured that would be pretty gosh darn hard to accomplish, especially since I didn't remember the names of all the colors I had purchased way back when I first did the bricks.

You can see the first coat of white water based primer over the bricks, below. Wouldn't that be a quite blinding site first thing in the morning when the light was switched on? ...way too much white!!


Much better!! I was going to do large black squares parallel to the the cabinet. I decided 2 inch diagonal squares would be more fun.


N. says it is very "1950's 'swell' !!" I had to laugh at that, cuz it turns out he does listen to his crazy mom use old fashioned slang terms after all. I used a plain old household sponge cut 2x2 inch square and acrylic craft paint. I always put lots of layers of clear water based acrylic sealer over the painted floor when it is good and dry. I have made the mistake in the past of doing it before it was thoroughly dry--BIG mistake to get impatient!


Now I will show you around the decor that I have had in the bathroom for the end of Summer. It is time to redo the theme for Fall and so I took photos to remember this Vintage Beach Theme, and to show it to you.

I love the early 20th century photos of the beach wear and the fun they had at the seashore!!

Lots of these are from France. People I do not know but have adopted.

I use old metal flower frogs to stand the photos. They have nice patina but don't poke yourself on them. Oouch!!

At least these swimsuits are not like the earlier ones that women had to endure-- the heavy wool long dresses complete with hats and stockings!!!! Had I lived back then I would get so hot and discouraged getting ready for a dip in the cooling water I would have probably said , "why bother?"

This book is a reproduction and has really unique and fun page pop-ups and mechanical moving page elements. The kids love "moving" books.

Don't you love to imagine what their lives were all about when you look at old photos of mystery people? I love to make up names for them.

This is a shadow box I created with beach glass, shells, a dragonfly and butterfly all found at my dad's Lake Erie house. I scattered snippets of vintage yellowed definitions cut from a dictionary. They all have beach or insect themes. The background paper has metallic outlines of dragonflies.

The swimming days are gone for 2009 in my neck of the woods of Northern-most Ohio. The neighbors have all closed up their pools until next May. The kids' swim suits have all been packed away along with their shorts and sleeveless shirts.

One day left

E. only has one more day (one more exam- American History)to go for her junior year of high school to be history. Where does the time go? Today I picked her up in the late morning from school after she finished her Math and Environmental Sciences exams. We decided to do a girls' day while her two siblings were still in school for the full day.

We ended up going to a tiny little place with wonderful food and baked goods tucked inside a historical building which used to be next to the downtown hardware about 100 years ago. I love the old exposed imperfect brick walls and the painted tables. I love to paint things like they paint things, lots of bold colors and graphics!!
That's E., getting ready to taste her scrumptious cinnamon cake. That's a mango smoothie you see. The verdict.....Deeeelicious!!

Oh my golly was this ever yummy, a cobb chicken salad sandwich wrap and chicken soup!!

Look at that peanut butter cookie! It was huge! We split it.

This was the view out the front window where E. chose for us to sit. There was a custom designed painted park bench out front-- toile fabric on the back of the bench peeking through the window at us! Below is a closer look at one end of the park bench. I LOVE it. I like putting finials on things too! And the painting is right up my alley!

There were puddles as it had rained all night and early morning but cleared up by the time we were out snooping around finding places to go.

We ended up going to a newly opened thrifty store too while driving around. E. found some brand new boots with the original tags still on them to wear at the horse rescue where she volunteers. Her old barn boots had become too small. Silly growing kids!! We were glad to find those as it was the last thing we expected to find. The boots were a good reasonable price, but I was pretty shocked when I saw some of the "priced too darn high" prices of some of the other things. I struck up a conversation with another customer and we laughed about the fact that you could get a lot of these things brand new at Target on sale for the same price they were asking!! I was disgusted that they were trying to sell glass and ceramic ware with huge obvious chips and cracks and just plain old broken for $5.99 and as high as $7.99. What the heck were they thinking????

A fun day together and good memories made.

fire and ice

Here are some pictures of the icy, snowy world at my red house.
You may remember this post? I live in those red and white images!

We have had lots of snow and lots of cold!! Somewhere under the drifts of knee deep snow is the ice rink with the torn plastic!!! *frown*

The kids have been working on their annual igloo.

This is actually a 4 rail high stacked pioneer fence. You can see in the photo above that in different places you can see 3 rails, 2 rails, or in some spots only the top rail, depending on how the winds made it all settle to then be frozen.

Step inside for a warm night by the hearth! Our fireplace has been burning 24/7 since late October. We do also use the furnace but the fireplace keeps the house pretty cozy. We spend all our time in this part of the house in the winter. When in bed, we are under plenty of warm quilts.

The quest all spring, summer and fall is to seek out, gather, split and stack firewood!! We burn a LOT of wood.

The fireplace is rather unusual because it is open on two sides like an L shape, front (living room) and side (dining room). The fireplace and brick wall is central in the house with an open planning type room arrangement. The main hearth is raised to just above knee height and the fireplace is even higher yet (about 28 inches from the floor). The kitchen is on the back side of the fireplace. The brick wall in the kitchen has nothing against it and it stays very hot and the bricks radiate the heat. My cat sleeps near the brick wall in the kitchen in a brass doll bed with comfy little mattress. She is so spoiled!

The fire plays neat tricks with reflections at night and fools you into thinking there are fires in a couple of different places to keep you warm. This is the reflection in the mirror on my wallpapered wall. I painted the mirror to mimic the wallpaper.

This is how the fire looks as reflected in the big windowed wall across from the fireplace.
The kids often will sit with a cuddly quilt and just watch the flames reflect in the glass at night. It is a mesmerizing setting. The crackling noises of the burning logs are very soothing, too.
I love Winter!
Some memorable ice day time and fire night time photos.

cozy in a storm of snow...

 I couldn't let this holiday season past pass by without showing what our house looked like inside. So here we go....

Yep! I did cut all those paper snowflakes! I have been cutting them and saving them for 16 years. This is not all of them. They are all over the house! On every window and lots of other places. The paper snowflakes will stay up until Valentine's day, like they do each winter.

Last year was the first year that I started hanging from the beams the other snowflakes- plastic, glass, wood, resin- that are collected each year during the after Christmas sales when you can get a really fancy flake 90% clearance!! I never spend more than $1 each. They are suspended from fish line. It is so fun at night when we have candles burning and the fireplace is roaring and there are no lights turned on. It is like a blizzard in the house and the flakes glimmer in the candle/fire light!

I took these photos at night so the flakes would show up nicer against the night darkness outside the windows.

The tarnished silver glittered star and filigree metal snowflake hang from the chains for the light/fan over the table.

When the girls were little we would make felt mittens on yarn each year as an arts and crafts project. They now hang in the archway with lots of icicles and their actual mittens they wore as babies.

My hutch is currently filled with milk glass, mostly inherited or cheaply thrifted.. Milk glass is so versatile, great year 'round and for any holiday too. I even used it in my Halloween decorating.

The milk glass lamp was a curb side find. I had the electrical stuff checked out so it would be safe, then added a vintage shade and it was all okey dokey!!
The 2 story doll house up on top was bought for a few bucks. It is really big. A super find. The people selling it thought it was "dumb". I haven't decided how I want to paint it so it is plain wood still.

This is one of my pieces that was found in someone's trash!! Can you believe it? This pretty lace edge rectangular piece. No!, I did not dig through spoiled food or scooped cat litter. It was in a open box at the curb with some other glassware type things, almost like the thrower-outer was feeling a pang of guilt and hoped someone would come and adopt some of it.  I can accept the rocking bottom flaw. Unconditional milk glass love!! I once brought home a freebie that was badly broken on one side. I put it up on a shelf with the good side facing out. I have gotten more compliments on THAT piece and it is only about 2/3 whole!!!

I put a lot of my favorite flakes on the cupboard each year.


Vintage games and other vintage found items are on my corner cupboard...the display changes.... it is crowded with the remembrances of Christmases gone by.... Santa gifts from before the days of video games .... you know, when games used imagination and manual power instead of computers/tv's and electricity to have fun.

I love the little knee hugger elves. My Grandma had them and it makes me think of her. That's her recipe box there in the picture!!

I love these old blocks I found when N. was born. The red book with the hockey player on the cover is one that belonged to my Grandpa and I was given from my Uncle J's house last summer. Thanks Uncle J!
Old books can be VERY fun just for their covers.
I made the little altered art card.

More thrifted milk glass.

And the doll house I painted many years ago that was bought for CHEAP! The kids have so much fun with it!! They decorated it themselves this year.

what's in a color name when it comes to paint?

 I mentioned in this post about A's stuff being moved out into other parts of the house. She is on the ending edge of 12 and it was time to pack away some of the beloved little girl items from her room for a more grown up look. But alas, there is plenty still left to still be part of her teen room, and most of it is not in HER room at this time!! (deep breath. patience... patience.)
Her paint colors are Constellation =(blue) and Echo =(green). I think it would be fun to assign creative names to paint and crayon colors! I don't think I would have trouble making a career out of that.... bet it doesn't pay well though.

I made a pennant flag banner to span the high window.  A large square window on another wall that I haven't done anything for as yet. Maybe a gathered valance and cafe type curtain in one of the two color themes. We also bought her a new blind; her roll down shade had decided to quit rolling back up!!

The fabric is a polished cotton and has white polkadots. I stiffened the flags with interfacing and added several dangly faceted glass beads to each point to send rainbows throughout her room in the afternoons.

Her previous color scheme was pink for the main color with accents of purple. We repainted the detail grooves on her dresser drawers to cover the purple paint--now it is Echo!

A. hand-painted her switch plate. In this photo it looks yellow and blue but trust me... it is Echo and Constellation!

We are reusing her lamp with a makeover on the shade which did have kittens on a white background. Now it is all dotty with fun dangles.

Maybe the room will be finished by her birthday coming soon???????