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Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Stool Makeover: The Next Generation!


Join us at Coloradolady's blog for Vintage Thingie Thursday!!

I'd like to introduce you to a dear family heirloom: this is The Stool.



In the early 1950s, in Burns, Oregon, my grandpa George Bradley made this stool for his new bride, Betty Kiggins Bradley. The top was plain wood colored and the legs were painted a bright red and then a rust red color. When my mom left home (Gresham, Oregon---I think) in the early 1970s, Grandma Betty gave her this stool as she had no furniture!


Mom kept this with her when she married my dad. She painted it chocolate brown and did a little repair work:


It has served all kinds of purposes since! I can remember it as a plant stand in the living room and a night table in pretty much every family member's bedroom! When my husband and I were married in Baker City, Oregon in 1998, guess what I inherited!!


The stool! Don't get me wrong, this really is one of the most special things I own. How awesome to have such a portable little heirloom! Throughout the years that I've owned it, I've had plans on fixing it up, repainting it, just adding my own flavor to it.


The past couple of years, I've really been wanting to "get crafty" so I've bought up lots and lots of supplies. But...haven't taken the time to use any of them! Lately, I've had the time to do the crafty stuff so I've been trying to come up with projects to do that don't require me to go buy anything else! So...last night, I decided to grab The Stool out of the shed and see what I could do to get it looking presentable.

I brought it in and set it on the kitchen floor, telling Selah that I was planning to fix it up cute. She put her baby blanket on it and said she thought that was pretty cute.


It was...but not quite what I had in mind! I wanted to try and take the paint off but, since I was only using the things I had around the house, I had to improvise. I used my Pampered Chef spatula to begin scraping off the top.



That lasted about 5 minutes and I was sick of it so I decided just to paint over the 3 other layers of paint and hope that it would crackle neat!



It did!! By the way, I tried and tried to pry that nail out of there but it wouldn't budge. I kinda like leaving it there though as my mom put it there and it's kind of been a little joke over the years! I needed to find some way to cover it though!

After a couple coats of paint, I decided to stop for the night and consider options for the next step.

This morning, I remembered that I had several yards of some pretty fabric that my friend JoAnn gave me at church last month. I decided to make a cute cushion for the top. Using my 8-year-old Michael's school ruler, I measured out a circle that I hoped would fit!


I've never made a cushion before so I wasn't really sure what to do---when suddenly, I remembered a Christmas craft project that we did in the 5th grade! Mrs. Neyman taught us how to make mini-pillows and string them together for wreath ornaments.


I stitched all the way around the circle...Avalon helped, of course!

Then I filled it loosely with pillow filling.


Once I set the cushion on the stool, I realized that The Nail was still very obvious. So, I hot glued eyelet trim all around the top and then glued the pillow on.


Not bad for a 21st century makeover! So, Mom, you want it back now??

Linking up today with:


Monday, November 1, 2010

Blessed With Friends!


Friday, our family was blessed to have Lydia over for our first "Washington play date"! We met Lydia's family through our local homeschool co-op and are really enjoying getting to know her parents and other siblings.

Lynzie and Lydia are just a little over a year apart and are already showing signs of a close friendship! They like to write letters back and forth during the week, hang out at gymnastics on Thursdays, and even try to get in a quick chat while passing in the halls during Friday School!

The girls had a great time dressing up in the Revolutionary War era dresses that I made Lynzie. (We're going to have to make Lydia a special one just for her though as she was swimming in this one! So cute though!)



After capturing their sweet faces on film, I sent them off back to 1776. While I was puttering around the house cleaning, I could hear them playing in the room. First, Lynzie taught Lydia the Minuet. Then Lydia taught Lynzie to waltz. Then Lydia says, "I can breakdance!" Ha!! (Just a quick time-travel...then right back to the 18th century!)

The girls soon were out playing the piano in the living room. Lynzie played Christmas music...


While Lydia played a couple beautiful songs that her dad taught her "when she was little"...



They both played a couple hymns as well and then they were back to the bedroom to dance at the ball. After a few minutes, I heard them out in the hall---they had gotten Lynzie's brothers and sisters to come play too:

(A knock on the door...) "Oh please may we come in?! We're fleeing from the Black Plague and we are..." (Lydia whispers to Lynzie: "who are we again??") "...We are George Washington's daughters!" (Door opens...) "Oh thank you! Bless you!"

What a blessed day!

See more Gratituesday at Heavenly Homemakers!

Sunday, October 31, 2010

Free As A Bird--Part Two!!: Blue Monday


Thanks for stopping by for Blue Monday! Please visit Smiling Sally for more great blue-themed posts!


Some of you may remember a post I did in August about the Blue Jay that kept eluding me! I was trying to take pictures of him for my Blue Monday post and he would NOT be still! You can find that post here.


Well, imagine my surprise one day as my son Cainan and I came up to the front steps after a shopping trip. It was a rainy, cold day and we found, all huddled up on the porch and only INCHES away from our cat's food dish...


The Bird!!! Can you believe that! It sat there for a really long time. So long, in fact, that I was worried it was hurt and couldn't fly off. I contemplated taking it's picture. What if the cat gets it? I would feel so bad knowing that the poor bird was in pain all that time and all I was concerned with was getting a great Blue Monday shot!

My husband said to go ahead and take the picture because if he ended up being fine then I'd really regret it. Turns out, he was just resting awhile! So...here he is! I suppose he's just trying to make up for leading me on for so long this summer!

Hope everyone has a great Blue Monday!

Friday, October 15, 2010

A Vintage Gift: Vintage Thingie Thursday


It's time for Vintage Thingie Thursday again...Yippee!!! Please visit Coloradolady for more Vintage Wonderfulness!

I've written a couple times about gifts I've received from BookCrossing friends (see label list on sidebar for "BookCrossing"). Today I want to show off what a special BookCrosser named Southernfryed sent to me a few weeks ago!
Southernfryed sent me this beautiful handkerchief that belonged to her grandmother. She enclosed a note telling that when her grandmother passed away, she found this handkerchief in a box all ready for her grandmother to gift out to someone. Her grandmother put the pretty lace edging on it in green and white.

You may remember that my very first Vintage Thingie Thursday post was about my Great-Grandmother's dishes. Southernfryed's gift was the perfect addition to my display of her dishes in my hutch! I'm assuming that they are both from approximately the same generation (my Grammy Annabelle was born in 1915), as Southernfryed is about the same age as my mom.

What a special gift this is! I was excited just to get something vintage and neat but then to read her card and realize the special significance of the gift---wow, I'm just honored!

Have a wonderful Vintage Thingie Thursday!

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

My First Limoges!! Vintage Thingie Thursday

Dear Thursday,

I love you. Thank you for existing. It is because of you that I can experience Vintage Thingie Thursday---my most favority of all favorite things to do in BlogLand.

Your Friend,
Sarah

So...guess what!!??!! I found a Limoges today. I really have no idea what that means, as you will soon see, but I'm excited anyway!!!
So I totally feel like I've arrived with all of my Shabby Chic blogging friends now that I've got this gorgeous plate! I've been reading about and viewing all these beautiful pictures of porcelain "stuff" from Limoges, France on everyone's blogs, and have really not known what that even means or why it's significant.

Today my daughter and I were out hunting and gathering (for antiques, that is) and we came across this gorgeous plate with a tag that said "Limoges". That's significant, I said to myself! So I bought it. It was $7.95.

When I got home, I looked it up online and learned that Limoges is a city in west central France that is known for it's porcelain, as well as for other really great stuff like oak barrels. When a piece is marked Limoges, that means it was made there but could have been made by any one of numerous manufacturers in the area.

Turns out my piece was made by Tressemanes & Vogt sometime between 1907-1919. This happens to be my favorite time period at the moment, The Edwardian Era. Woot! Lucky Me!
My piece is hand-painted and signed by the artist. I've seen ones like it online tonight selling for anywhere between $40-$175. Mine is, of course, in the higher appraisal bracket so shall we start the bidding at, say, priceless?

Happy Vintage Thingie Thursday everyone! Hugs and Kisses to anyone who can help me pronounce Limoges. Right now, it sounds kinda like "La Mot Cheese".

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

What's Your Answer Wednesday

I was out doing errands later than expected tonight and haven't got my post up yet. Here is the linky for you all and I'll post later on! :)

Sunday, September 12, 2010

A New Experience! Blue Monday


It's BLUE MONDAY time! Please visit Smiling Sally for more blue blogging!

In January, our family moved from a rural Eastern Oregon town of about 16,000 to a much larger community an hour north of Seattle and an hour south of Vancouver, BC. Since then, we've had many new opportunities and experiences.

Yesterday, we attended a medieval war tournament hosted by a member group of our regional reenactment group. Here is the dress I made for it:


I am now also known as Lady Gairwyn of the Freehold of Arandor! This next picture shows some blues on a warrior's uniform (please disregard the modern vehicles in the background! Ha!):

A little more blue during Ogre Wars:


Here is my husband and his friend doing a demonstration of medieval Italian-style sword fighting. My husband is on the right. I also made his surcoat:



Meet Sir Corbinian of the Freehold of Arandor!

Lots of fun! Happy bLuE mOnDaY!

Wednesday, September 8, 2010

Vintage Sealing Wax: Vintage Thingie Thursday


I've missed participating in Vintage Thingie Thursday the past couple of weeks so I'm excited to be back today! Visit Coloradolady for more Vintage goodies!

A couple days ago, Lynzie (10) and I were discussing her upcoming birthday party. (It's actually not until the end of January...!!!) Each year, she's pretty creative about picking a theme to bless her friends. One year she did a fairy garden tea party with grape Kool-Aid in the teapot. Another year, she had a costume party and everyone came dressed up. (She was Batman).

This year, she's decided on a full-blown Revolutionary War era tea party. I won't go into too much detail as it will make for some really great blogging later on, but one of the things she mentioned was that she wanted to seal her invitations with a wax seal. She started describing the process to me and I began to grin as I remembered something.

I went to one of my art cabinets and grabbed this sealing wax set that I'd picked up at a yard sale when I wasn't much older than she is now. I was so excited to sit down with her and show her how it worked and let her play around with it too.

Long story short, my sealing wax set is rather VINTAGE (for a nice way to say it... :) Some of the sticks wouldn't even melt and the ones that did caught on fire and dropped flaming drops of wax onto the paper. Before we could get the seal stamped, the wax would turn brittle and crumble. More often than not, it would harden as we put the stamp down and then I'd have to heat it up to dig the wax out of the pretty rose and fleur de lis designs!

I did a little searching online to see if I could figure out approximately how old this set is and where it came from. The box indicates it was "imported exclusively by Marcel Schurman Co., Inc., San Francisco" and that it was made in England.

Turns out, Marcel Schurman is the original founder (and father of the current owner) of Papyrus stationery stores. From what I can see, it looks like the set is from the early 1950s.

We've resolved to buying us a newer set of wax before time to send those invites out!

Tuesday, September 7, 2010

What's Your Answer Wednesday


Due to a yucky flu outbreak in our house, I will not be putting up a post today! (Haven't had the time!!) However, I look forward to reading everyone else's so go ahead and add your link below!

Have a wonderful week!

~Sarah


Tuesday, August 31, 2010

What's Your Answer Wednesday: My Home

Welcome to "What's Your Answer Wednesday". Would you like to receive weekly emails so you know the topic a few days early? Let me know in the comments below or through private message---be sure to leave your email address!



No matter what stage in life we are in or what activities and responsib
ilities make up our days, all of us have some place that serves as our living space---it is to that I am referring when I use the term, "home". This week the meme question will be: "What is (or are) some thing(s) that you love about your current home?"

(Please click the pictures to enlarge!) The thing I love most about my home is that there is a place for ever
ything! This is the first time in a REALLY long time that I've had a place for everything and everything in it's place! My house is organized and free of clutter so I am able to spend time decorating, rearranging, and being creative in blessing others in and through my home! This has been a huge step for me as I spent way too many years with a cluttery, disorganized mess!

The number one
thing that has contributed to my clean home is my dishwasher. With a family of 9, it is almost impossible to keep up on dish washing without a dishwasher!! I know because I've done it for the majority of 12 years of marriage! When we moved into this house in January and I began using the dishwasher, I was amazed at how much time it left me to do all the other chores!

Another thing I love in my house are fresh flowers. Since about April, I've tried to always have some fresh flowers around. I am very frugal with them: picking out the dead ones, replacing the water, making new (and progressively smaller) arrangements until they're all dead! I like to see how long I can get them to last!

Thirdly, I love my collections. I collect all kinds of things! Old books, crocheted pot holders, tea stuff, Amish things, vintage cutting boards...all kinds of things! I love to decorate with my collections!

Happy Wednesday everyone!

Sunday, August 29, 2010

Free As A Bird: Blue Monday


Happy Blue Monday!

If you've got some time, visit Smiling Sally for more Blue Monday participants!

Last Day!!!: I'm hosting a giveaway in honor of my new linking party! Read through for details!


No kidding: I have spent this entire week trying to get a shot at this crazy blue bird that has been squawking outside my window for...ever. (Please click on the pictures to enlarge them).
I've been hearing him all day long, every day...but thought it was just a noisy ol' crow or something. Then my kids came in early last week and said they saw this blue bird in the tree outside my bedroom and could I hear it?

BLUE!!! I immediately thought of all my Blue Monday friends and knew I should try and get some pics. I grabbed my husbands good camera, opened up the door and got the shot above. Then the chase began! He immediately dove into a tree:Can you see his outline there? After that, I decided to shoot him (uh...photograph him---though, after the week I've had with him, I'm ready to shoot him now!!!) from my bedroom window--less noisy that way.
I've spent this whole week listening for his awful squawk and running to try and get a good shot.

I've wanted you all to get to see his pretty blue feathers. He's got black, spiky hair and slick black and blue feathers. When he's standing up and far away, he looks black but when he gets up close, he's obviously blue:
The kids are saying he's a blue jay but I don't think so.
This is definitely one bird who thinks it's better to be heard and not seen! Alright, Mr. Bird, it's Blue Monday and I've done the best I could. Go back to your life of freedom and freely taking off with my Rhododendron buds. I'll leave you alone now!
GIVEAWAY: I'm hosting a giveaway in honor of my new Wednesday linking party. Click HERE for up to 5 chances to win!
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