Whenever I see a photo of Princess Diana, it reminds me of my mom. Those who know her will probably be surprised to hear that. After all, my mom is a dark-haired, brown-eyed Potawatomi American Indian. Princess Di was a blonde-haired, blue-eyed British Royal.


It's not the photo itself that reminds me of mom---instead, it's the memory it conjures up. I can remember several times throughout my childhood that my mom would talk about watching Princess Di's wedding to Prince Charles on tv. She would say it was so beautiful and she really had looked up to her and thought she was a neat lady.


I've never been all that into her, really, but the thoughts of my mom make thoughts of the Princess more meaningful, I guess.


Today I was in Target and spotted the commemorative edition of USA Today that features Prince William's and Catherine Middleton's wedding plans. I almost didn't give it a second thought but then something inside told me to skim through it.

As I looked over photos of the couple and their relatives (including several of Princess Diana), I was reminded again how much my mom liked her and probably would have loved to have some sort of commemorative publication featuring their wedding. So...I stuck it in my cart and went on to the next aisle.

Then I went back and grabbed another for mom.

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:

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!