A Living Encore - Plant Style

This is going to be a very different encore. It doesn't involve any glue, paint, wood or fabric. This is a green encore. If you read any of the popular home decor magazines you have probably noticed the lush green plants that are in every photo. You seldom see a room that doesn't have plants. Well, I only have 1 real plant in my whole house, and it's struggling. I'm  really hoping it hangs on until spring so I can put it outside and hope mother nature can lend a helping hand. Just about everyone I know has pretty good luck growing plants. I wrote a blog post some time ago about my friend Donna's garden, Third Day. Well, she also has always had beautiful plants inside her home. And I even had a friend who had over 50 houseplants in his apartment. Well, this is what I'm going to give an encore.

 At work today I encountered the lady whose company takes care of all the plants in our building. She was cutting back these plants. I always talk to strangers so I asked her what would happen to these cuttings. She said unfortunately they would be thrown away. They were lovely, healthy plants that were just growing too tall. She asked if I wanted them. Strong, healthy, and free, who could say no. Not me!!

                                            They sat in cups of water until I got them home.
I knew I had just the vases for them. I had a lovely vintage silver plated vase that I found while thrifting with my friends Shelly and Brandi.

Because the vase was so tall , I dropped two spray paint tops in and added a plastic vase from the Dollar Store to hold the water that the cuttings would be in until they grew roots.

     Just what this room needs, a beautiful plant, that was free! OK, don't think that because I don't have a monetary investment in these plants that I won't try my best with them

                                                          A silver ice bucket holds this plant.

Stay tuned and I promise to update you on the green encore. What about you, wouldn't you have saved these plants that were headed to the trash and given them a home? Let's face it, this is way better than bringing home a stray kitten.

Decorating On the Road

Hey all,

I had a great weekend. Loaded up my truck with child, dog and extras from my basement, garage and shed and took off over the mountain to Nashville. Armed with a new microwave as a house warming gift I made good on my promise to help my son Brandon decorate his new apartment. But before I left Atlanta I took a detour to visit Fabric World in Stone Mountain, Ga. My friends told me they thought it was a store I should check out and they were right!! I was not disappointed at all.

 

Lots of really inexpensive trim. Some great options.

                  

 

                                                         Lot and lots of fabric to choose from!

While I didn’t have lots of time to shop (Cass and Trey were waiting in the car) I did find a few pieces that I couldn’t leave without. Yea me!

 

                                        Could you have passed these up? I didn't think so.

 

On to Nashville we went. Brandon’s apartment was a study in beige on beige. Luckily, he wanted some color so there was hope!! I did have to rein myself in a couple of times but overall we agreed to work with earth tones. Saturday morning, we headed out in search of a few things. First we headed to the Nashville Farmers Market, then Old Time Pottery, and some thrift stores.

                                  These bar stools were perfect . We found them at  Music City Thrift Store

   We scored some great finds and after a full day of shopping, we headed home. This is what we found upon our return to the apartment.

Note to self – When your dog acts like he doesn’t like a place, pay attention. He’s probably not playing. When we left, Trey was in the window barking and whining.  I thought he'd give up , chew on his toys, take a nap, etc.When we returned, Trey was in the window barking and whining, only the window was missing 1 mini blind and 2 were shredded! One unhappy, stressed out 17 lb. Bichon is stronger than we thought.

    Dog vs. Mini Blind! I guess we know who won that fight.

 

 

Don't let all that cuteness fool you!!

                                         

In his defense, (I know, you’re thinking this dog could obviously defend himself) he heard each car that parked outside the apartment and was disappointed and mad when it wasn’t us returning. So, added to the list of hanging art work, curtain rods, unrolling rugs, etc we added a trip to get 3 new blinds.

Luckily, these were the cheapest blinds sold in the US.  So, when we left to go buy food and blinds, guess who happily rode along.

There was a table of great fabric right in the front of the store at Old Time Pottery and I scored some great pieces at an awesome price. I would have bought more but you have to buy the whole piece. So, I limited myself, but you’ll see the fabric in upcoming projects. Well shoot, here's a little sneak peek.

                                                       Wait til you see this again.

 I found a great piece of fabric that went well with the rug and wanted to make Brandon a few pillows.

 I was kicking myself for not bringing a sewing machine; I actually thought about it but decided “Nah, what for?”  So while waiting for takeout Chinese I ran into Family Dollar and bought a bed pillow to use as stuffing and a $1 sewing kit.

                                                      A movie later, I had hand sewn 3 pillows.

We hung the wall art and clocks. Arranged the bar stools, rugs and …  It’s looking a lot more like a home.

 

I plan to make a couple of custom pieces for his Gallery Wall.

Well, I'm on to the next project. Let me know what you think!! I love to read your comments.

A Sweet Little Ottoman Encore

It's been  too long since I've written a post. Sometimes life throws you a curve and you're knocked off course. Well, I've been working hard to get back on course. I've spent the past 3 weeks working on lots of stuff, that always helps me ,that and prayer! So, after I got  up off my knees, I  got busy. 

What's Got Me Thinking...

When should I restore instead of refinish? A couple of weeks ago I bought a sweet little ottoman at Scott’s Antique Market. It had been a number of months since I’d gone to Scott’s so I was excited to see what I’d find there. I went with my favorite Scott’s Shopping buddy, Shelly. For some great tips on getting the most out of shopping at Scott’s check out her blog post over at ConfettiStyle.

Well, this little girl (why do we assign genders to objects, I don’t know, but I do. Stop laughing, so do you) was a steal and in fantastic shape. She really only needed a cleaning but I decided I wanted to dress her up a little bit.   

 

 

My first step was to remove the brass leg cups and rings. Here’s what got me thinking. Should I spend the time it would take to clean and shine the brass or save valuable time and spray paint them?

After reading a post on Miss Mustard Seed’s blog, I tested my pieces to see if they were real brass or brass plated. They were solid brass! That got me thinking that I should spend the time to restore them to their original beauty. I felt that in 20 years if someone else wanted to give her another encore, they could clean the brass, but not if I painted them.  So, off I went to buy a bottle of Brasso. Armed with the Brasso and an old towel and rubber gloves, I got to work. The smell wasn’t so great so if you can use this product in the garage or outside, do it. I mean I didn’t mind too much, but others in your house might object to the smell. Here are before and after pics of the brass pieces.

 

 

Since the great Ice Storm of 2014 had passed and the sun was out, I then headed out to spray paint my ottoman. I used Rustoleum Painters Touch 2X in Satin Canyon Black . It was a windy day which really helped make those coats of paint very light. It went on so smooth that I didn’t even sand between coats.  Next, I used a really cool piece of vinyl that I picked up in California this past summer. Of course, the fact that I couldn’t just run back for another piece if I made a mistake has kept me from using this material. But, you can’t let fear make a prisoner of you so, I got to work cutting this for the two projects I had in mind.

 

Because the original top lifted off and there was a small amount of storage space underneath, I also painted the inside black. After adding a 2” piece of foam to the original backing board, I wrapped batting to it and put the new vinyl on. She is Smokin’. 

 So, what do you think. Would you spend the time ( about 1hour) cleaning the brass or would you have spray painted it?

                                     

Here's What's Got Me Thinking...

I've decided to try something new for 2014, a series called,  What's got me thinking...
This will be an eclectic collection of posts about things that "have got me thinking." As the focus of this blog is "All things creative", you can bet the posts will still be about all things creative that have got me thinking, so...

For the past 2 weeks I have been looking at recipes and lists of ingredients. Now, if you know me really well you're scratching your head and wondering what alien has taken over my body. That's because you know I don't like to cook Well, calm down, I still don't like to cook but what's got me looking at recipes and lists is the wonderful world of handmade soap and more!! The idea of making my own soaps, bath bombs and body butter has got me thinking.

Now, my daughter Cassie was the real instigator of this idea. She has very dry skin and has been very unhappy with the lotions and creams that we have tried. She is  also a die hard Lush fan. If you have shopped at Lush you know they have wonderful products, a little pricey but great stuff. So, I got to thinking maybe we can make our own body products. So, off to the Internet we went, and talk about coming to the party late!There are so many recipes and DIYs out there it's almost too much. So, I decided that the recipes most attractive to me would  have the least number of ingredients, and the ingredients could all be found in my local grocery or craft store. 

After our first attempt ( a success by the way) at a moisturizing body butter, I got really excited about the creative possibilities. Here's our first ever body butter. It has Shea butter, Cocoa Butter, Coconut Oil, Extra V. Olive Oil, and Tea Tree and Lavender oil. Here it is:

It goes on oily (of course it does, duh!) But your body absorbs the oil so fast it's amazing. No worries about getting oil stains on your clothes if you give it about 5-10 minutes before dressing. Putting it on right out of the shower works great. The only change I would make is using less or no Cocoa butter as it's scent overpowers the Lavender.

Moving on to making soap led me to so many sites  that I'll just share some pictures of a few of my favorites. Just search for handmade soap on Pinterest and , well you can guess the rest.

                                                            A clean and soothing look.

                                                 Love the mold that was used for this one!

 The different colored circles make this soap so fun and cute.

  Can't you just imagine soaking away the stress of the day with this.

                                           These bars look good enough to eat!!

                                                            source for all : Pinterest       


So, that's What's got me thinking this week! Don't be surprised if you see some homemade  DIY bath projects soon. What do you think, would you give it a try?               

DIY Christmas Gift Revealed - Iphone 5 cases

Happy New Year!!  My first post of the new year is about one of the last projects of 2013

At last I can reveal a great gift that I made for my daughter, Cassie. Like so many teen aged girls, she likes to change her iphone cases all the time. It's like an accessory and may change based on the outfit of the day. After showing me some really cute cases online I decided to:
1. save some money
2  give her more than one ( at $30-$35 each online she'd only get 1)
3. save some money
4. have some fun ( which of course also means, save some money)

I searched the internet and found way too many examples of really cute cases. Try googling "handmade iphone cases" and see what comes up! There are some really cool cases out there.. Here are a few that I found as inspiration for my cases.

                                                                     source

                                                                      via

After a trip to Five Below I got iphone 5 cases, and  made a stop at Hancock Fabrics and Hobby Lobby. Here are the cases I bought.

                                     And this is the trim that I bought at Hancock Fabrics.

Add my ever ready tube of E6000 and 8 mm rhinestones from Hobby Lobby and these are the cases I created:

                          Oops, I missed a tiny string of glue, not visible with my old eyes.

                                               Definitely inspired by one I saw online

                                          
                                                    Can't get too much Blingy than this baby!!

One look at that smile tells me I did alright with this gift. If you have a teenager, you know gifts can be a hit or miss thing.

 What do you think? I made all four cases for under $35.00. I know that some of the cases online have bumpers, etc so it's hard to compare just based on final cost, but I'm feeling real good about these. Remember my goal was to save some money, get her more than 1 case for $35, save some money, and have some fun. Mission accomplished!!
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