for the love of wood

I really love when i find a nice old piece that is in amazing shape. This piece was still in great shape and had such pretty details to her.I knew i wanted to leave the top alone but i added a little ascp in old white to the legs.

this is how i got her....i loved the wood!!

Yes I paint inside a lot. I live in Az and it is still in the hundreds here.

this pic is before the sanding and detailing. I did not go crazy but i sanded the edges and i like to use a scrapers on the details.

love letters

E and g...I love you ...I love you.....I love you.

I wish i could slow everything down and just live in these amazing moments, really live in these moments. I wish i did not have to worry about the bills, or laundry or work or anything but watching you guys grow before my very eyes. I don't know where the last 6 years have gone. I feel so lucky to have been able to be home as much as I am with you. I still feel like it is going by so fast. I cant remember those chunky little thighs or the way your bells stuck out after a warm bottle.

I had an amazing weekend with you and mama and papa in Prescott.  I love times like these when the world just seems to slow down for a moment and i get to really breath you in.

the Loooong and the short of it!!

I got this long black bench from my restore the other day. I had been trying to figure out how to make it stand out, when i found an old copy of Romeo and Juliet at the restore. Someone had already highlighted through it so she wasn't going to be a prized old book i would keep on my shelve. I love old books so believe me if it was in semi good shape I would never have used the book pages.

the long bench...before

I started to add the pages and the picture.

then I painted in ascp in old white...

then i added mini stain to the edges

 then i sanded her edges....and I feel she still needs something!!

 I have been working on her and she is still not finished....maybe u guys can help me figure out what im still needing?

tuesday is find day!

Today I will be on the hunt for some new furniture to redo.  Its amazing how you can go from over packed garage to nothing left to paint. I will be looking for some frames to finish a wall project I have been working on......wish me luck!
Here are some finds from last week.

sorry I got so excited i forgot the before shot....but she was a good find!

I love this old cook book called...the delectable past.  it has recipes from the 18th century...i loved the graphics!

this loong bench...will post pics of what i have done to her on wend..

happy hunting!!!!

TYPE 1

  I was going to post pics of the new coffee table .... but I just cant. I am all fired up about the ignorance around diabetes. 

I have been on pinterest and love looking at all the great pictures. Then I saw this....

and I just lost it.....

so today to put my heart to rest I am going to explain a few basic facts about diabetes.

type 1 (this is me)It is a condition resulting from the body’s inability to produce insulin. Insulin is a hormone that is needed to convert sugar (glucose), starches and other food into energy needed for daily life.

Only 5% of people with diabetes have this form of the disease.

 People with type 1 diabetes must treat their diabetes with insulin since their bodies do not naturally make any insulin.

so when people post thing like this

brownies...aka...diabetes in a bite.

Its soooo frustrating.  when people tell me .."dont worry hun, watch ur sugar intake and get a little more exercise and you will be fine."  I want to scream.!!@#$%

I dont eat white bread...i really dont eat bread. I never ever eat candy or anything sweet...but every morning i wake up and test and inject as needed. I do this because no amount of exercise or no Raw,vegan super food diet is going to make my pancreas work again.

I work very hard everyday to keep my sugars at "normal levels." 

so these comments...these comment are very offensive to us diabetics....to make such a complicated disease boil down to one bite of a brownie...is just ignorance!!!

sorry for the rant....promise i will get back to the LOVE..just had to get it off my chest..i am sure it wont be the last time...I plan on writting love letters to my grand babies...so I will keep on pricking and sticking,counting and FIGHTING!!

AMAZING BUT TRUE SATURDAY!!

I thought on Saturdays I would post amazing things i found on the web. It could be a project I am dying to try or a new product that works great or just some eye candy photos i find on pinterest.


The first one is something i just tried out this week and worked great on this gross pan i had used to slow cook some ribs....try it!

I simply stuck the pan in the oven with a dryer sheet and water...removed 30 mins later and used a spatula to scrap all the crusted stuff and it slid right off.....Amazing!!

I thought these dryer vent pumpkins are pretty clever too!!



clever little pumpkin using a dryer vent!!!

I am also thinking of tearing the carpet up in my kids room and having someone come in and high gloss the cement. I have replaced the carpet once already in 6 years....I hate carpet.

so i have been looking for ideas and this is what i have found.

so many options!!!

attention deficit decorator

I always wonder why I can never fully complete a project. I always have at least two projects going on at one time. If I am doing a simple update to a vintage piece then the other project has to be wild and fun, its like have split personality disorder.

For example, when I was working on the 80's dresser with mod podge drawers and heavy glazing, I was also working on this 1950's coffee table.

I love both pieces but they are so very different...stay tuned on Monday I will break down the coffee table...


I will leave u with some full shots of the dresser. Sorry she posed outside with sad overheated dessert plants as background...its back to 108 here in A z.....yuck!

before....she was a mess!!


but after a little love..

linked up at:

 

sunday gravy

One of the first words I learned in Italian was gravy, I know, I know its not a real Italian word. If you are from new york then you know this means sauce. Our sauce is usually cooked on a Sunday all day on the stove on low. we usually pour it over pasta and my husband eats it with "pot cheese", riccota cheese for you non Italian speakers out there. Honestly I think his family makes up these weird terms for their food.

As a diabetic I dont indulge in pasta like I use to but I believe we can all eat everything as long as its in moderation.

Here is a peak at what my kitchen and sauce looks like...I make the sauce with everything fresh.
I use roma tomato's fresh Italian parsley, fresh basil and garlic lots of garlic. I add one can of crushed tomatoes also. I make a ton a different sauces but this one is fresh and simple.

nothing is measured ...sorry..
extra virgin olive oil
parsley
basil
red pepper flakes
whole clove of garlic
salt pepper
oregano...a dash
tomatoes roma....and one can crushed

sauteing the garlic and olive oil and the parsley...yes thats all the garlic not onions...

 sometimes a dash or two of sugar if the can of tomatoes are a little sour. I put the garlic in olive oil first to saute then add the red pepper the tomatoes them parsley then crushed can then the basil....its sit on low and gets stirred every now and then most of the afternoon. I make half a pot of sauce and freeze half of it for hubby to use when I work late.

gia helping with the basil...love the pink polish!

The best part is letting the kids help so that these traditions get carried on and on. The men in my husbands family are amazing cooks and they all help in the process...I love that about Italian men!!

it's all about the details

Mini wax stain  on the edges

antiquing..or dirtying her up!!

 Their are so many ways to make a piece stand out.  Sometime a piece needs a little help like this 80's dresser/cabinet combo. She needed something to make her stand out in the crowd. I used a couple of different mediums on her. I painted it in Ivory then used mini wax stain to dirty her up around the corners.

adding material or paper to a piece..

I also used mog podge in luster to adhere this paper I found at my scrapbook store.  I thought the lady was going to become un-glued when I told her what I wanted the paper for.



I am hoping to drag her inside today for some full beauty shots and will post them on Friday along with some other projects I should be finishing up today.

tuesday is find day!

http://junkinthetrunktrio.blogspot.com

I went on a big treasure hunt on sat.  I attended the junk in the trunk vintage market. the girls at junk in the trunk put on an amazing flea market. I was in love with their tent the most. They had great industrial pieces mixed with some amazing vintage finds. They had great prices too!



AMAZING RIGHT!!!  I scored a little girls chair for g's room and a small drawer that used to be in an old ink cabinet.

thats the chair under all that stuff....she is broken..so i will fix her before i post pics!!

It was an amazing show girls.....and ur two cute with those tiny little preggo bellys...!!

chandelier dresser

 I have had this big bulky dresser in my garage for about 2 months. The heat here has finally died down a little. I started tackling the dresser and i was going to paint it in ascp but I have no vendor in az and with the break in the weather i was impatient to wait up to a week for it to come in. I follow a couple of gals who do alot of spray paint sooo I thought I would give it a try.

I used kilz primer which runs about 6 dollars a can and I used a can and a half.

this is the color before the glazing but with a little distressing

 After priming and very light sanding I used an Ivory color from krylon. The key is to go one direction in a smooth motion and letting go of the spray button at the end of the stroke. I ended up using 3 cans of the ivory and it took over two days of slowly building the color. I like the turn out of the paint.  If you take your time and slowly build color it comes out very smooth.  The only down side is even though i did it in my garage my whole house smelled of fumes for at least 2 days.

I will talk on wed about the use of stains as a antiquing agent and the ways i like to distress.

catch up!!

So this week I have let all things go and just enjoyed hanging out with my family and celebrating my daughters 5th birthday.  we went up to the Arizona best celebration in Prescott and the kids ate fried foods and got their face painted and had a blast in the 80 degrees weather. 


We found an amazing antique store that had every antique imaginable inside.

The kids love when papa and mama come for a visit!!!


I have a bunch of projects to post next week and I am starting the transformation of my daughters room and a display for my kitchen ( hopefully)....I thought i would post a bunch of photos of some of my stuff I have finished just to catch you up on my projects.

my very first...before the dark wax!!

first chalk paint piece...in graphite!!

tea cart!!!!

custom work in graphite..

weathered coffee table...in duck egg blue and old white...chippy...yummy!!

mod podge....fun!!    I think I will stop here.......but fun to get them all together and see all the different techniques i have played with.