Booth is up

Good Morning everyone,

It has been awhile since I've posted anything.  I have been trying to find myself, as a crafter; where did I want to go with my posts.  Decisions, Decisions....so many so, that I got stuck in my head, that I stopped posting.   There are so many talented people out there, kinda felt lost, and was what I doing anything special.

Well I'm going to go for it, if people follow they follow, if not, it's o.k. to.  I just want to share some of my stories, and how to's with anyone who wants to read them...if it's 1 or 100 or just me....I'm going to enjoy just putting myself out there!!

With that said, I finally was able to secure a spot at an Antique Mall in my area.  My "hubby" built the booth, with my direction ....I painted.  We are such a good team!!  Now we are filling her up, and praying that things begin to sell.  (at least enough to pay for my booth) :)

So here's to a new start ...and more posts!!

"Ms. Ombre" Dragonfly: Ceiling fan & bed posts

Good Morning everyone, I hope you all are having a nice 4th of July weekend.  Today I would love to show you how you can recycle "upscycle" those old ceiling fans into a piece of art for your outdoor garden, or patio.

One of my favorite Facebook page is Flea Market Gardening, love, love their page!  They put out this challenge back in January to get people to do a project they have been putting off.  I have wanted to do a ceiling fan, "dragonfly", for sometime, so I thought it would be a great time to stop procrastinating and do their winter challenge.  Below you will find how I made this one.......

I call this one Ms. Ombre; she took sometime and thought, but think she turned out o.k.  I have tweaked her a bit more this summer, her eyes were a bit blaa, so I added some sparkle to her eyes; she's much better now!

My supplies for this project.

 I painted the fan blades all white for the background color.  I didn't get any pictures putting the fan blades together.  Here is how I did it; I used screws, wood glue and a piece of board to secure them all together in the back.

 I Then dry brushed/stamped blue over the white...

I wanted an ombre look, so I started at the top with white and worked my way down to a darker blue.  This was my first attempt at this kind of look, I really need to practice this technique more, but for now, I'm going with it :).  I then attached the body to the wings.

 I Added the clear/blue glass stones with silicone glue all around the perimeter of the blades and then let set.

Then with the blue bottles, I broke them in pieces.  (Please take extra care when breaking the bottles!)  I then took the broken pieces and glued them like you would a mosaic piece.

I added some eyes, necklace and wire antenna.  

When I put her out this summer, I thought her eyes needed something, so I added a couple of jewels, wow what a difference, now they pop!!  Don't be afraid to change your original plan, you never know, it may end up being a so so project to one of your favorite pieces!

Would love for you to come on over to my Facebook Page and give me a "like" if you like what you are seeing here. Thank you!!  <3 you all!!

Garden Flower, recycled style!!

Plates, candle votive = Garden flower.  

  Follow me below on how I made a few from items from a thrift store.

Went through my stash of plates and glassware and picked out what I thought would look great together.  I like the look of purple and yellow together.

 I used a clear silicone adhesive (GE Silicone 3 rain-ready) to attach the pieces together.  (Make sure you do this in a well ventilated area)

All the pieces are glued together...I let this set all day, by the end of the day, I picked it up by the votive...held strong!!

It took me some searching trying to decide how I wanted to attach my "flower" to the pole.  There are lots of different ideas out there, but this is one I thought would be the most effective.  This is called a Bell Clamp, 3/4".  I put a strip of adhesive around the bottom of the bell and attached it to the middle of my plate.

I attached it to a piece of conduit.  This one pictured was cut at 3'  about 8" is hammered into the ground to secure it.  You can attach the bell hanger to the pole.  This will make it easy in the winter to take down to help preserve my creation longer, or if I decide to put it in another area of my garden.

A pop of color in the middle of all the green.

Hope you enjoyed this tutorial, don't be afraid to make one for your garden!!  

Junky Art Signs, old rusty tools and more

As I was roaming around images for junky garden art, I came across of few signs made from old rusty tools and such.  Well of course I just had to make a couple for myself!  :)  So into my garage and into my buckets of stuff...well junky stuff, things I have found in old tool boxes from the auctions we have gone to, and other miscellaneous things I have saved for those "just in case I need it".   And a newly acquired piece of barn wood.

The word " Welcome" is made from;  long rusty screws for the "W", door hinges (make great "E's"), Allen wrench (L), a lamp(thingamajig) for a "C", the "O" is some kind of weight, and the "M" are off some kind of clamp.  I drilled holes and attached wire to help keep each letter in place.

I wanted  to add a pop of color to this sign, so I decided to paint the vowels a different color; now it looks a little more colorful for the summer.  A couple of coats of Clear Enamel to help preserve it and you have a new "junky" art sign!

Here are two "love" sign I made also.

If you decide to make your own "junky" art sign, I would love for you to share so we can see what you came up with!!

Wood Signs, Farmers Market & Farmhouse

Here are a couple Wood signs I just completed.  These were made from 8" x 10' pine boards, cut to size.  I painted them white, distressed with some sandpaper, making sure I sanded off any paint that dripped on the sides.  I then wiped them down with a tack cloth, and used dark walnut stain on all sides.  Once they were dry, I used my Silhouette and found the perfect font and the cow and chicken.  Made my own stencil and painted them on the wood.

                                                        I love the "old" look on these.

  I got the idea for the Farmers Market sign over at  Funky Junk Interiors  I Love Donna's site and she gives all of us great ideas to use.

Garden sign with two little butterflies.

July 4th, Red, White and Blue Mason Jars

Here is another way to recycle some mason jars (not the older, antique blue kind) but the ones you get for canning.  I love to can.......actually I don't love it, Rick loves it, so I do it for him, because I love him!! Oh the things we do for the loved ones in our life......I digress...anyways, I have lots sitting around and their cheap..this is what I did with a few of mine...Pinterest if full of ideas, just like this one...Quick and easy and inexpensive to do to add some festive colors around your home.

American Flag, Pallet style

Hello Everyone, I'm sorry I haven't posted lately but I'm trying to get ready for a flee market and needed to get some of my projects done.  Today, I finally finished my American Flag made out of Pallet Wood.....

I finally found a perfect place for it, and just love it.  If you would like one for yourself...follow me below, I will show you step by step how we made ours.  

Find some pallets, I get mine, free, from a local farm and tractor store, they have given me permission to pick through all their broken pallets and take what I want....love them and support them!  

We used 7 long pieces and painted them with a white wash (white paint with a little water).  When they were dry I took some tape and placed it on half of it and then used a red wash (red paint with a little water) and painted the other half.  Be careful with this so it doesn't run.  There are 13 red and white stripes on the flag, so after they were all dry, Rick took one board and sawed one right down the middle...red stripe on top and bottom.  

Then you want to secure the whole piece, we used some scraps and screwed the pieces to the two boards, we then put in keyholes for hangers, you can use what ever you like.

Then I painted the top left corner blue and added the stars....do you see the mistake here??  I didn't until after I painted all 12 stars..yup...darn it...so back to my silhouette to find the correct one...with the correct number of 13.   This is where I want  you know, even if you make a mistake, don't fret about it, especially if it can be sanded and repainted or covered again...like I did..twice :)

Here is the correct number of stars for the Betty Ross Flag, 13 original colonies I was going for!

Awww, finished!!  If you have done a re-purposed flag, please share in the comments, I love seeing what everyone else is doing!

Upcycled birdbath

Good Morning everyone!  I'm sure a lot of you have seen all kinds of up-cycled bird baths from all kinds of different materials/supplies.  Here are two that I did this week!  The bases are from old lamps I got at a garage sale, one was free, because the lady said it didn't work.  Free??.... because it didn't work...she must not realize what you can do with such things :)

Here are the before pictures, I forgot to take pictures of my duck and chip and dip bowl, both from the thrift store. I was going to use the smaller colorful bowl, but it's made out of wood, had a lot of spaces in between the slits....the birds would get kinda upset if the bowl is always empty. :)  The larger is very colorful bowl/plate...not really sure what it was suppose to be used for, but I saw birdbath!!

Below you can see, all it takes is a little imagination and you can create something from nothing into something useful and kinda cute!!  This is the smaller of the lamp posts, with the chip and dip bowl, with the cutest duck that I put in place of the dip bowl.

And here is the other one...the tall lamp post with that beautiful colorful bowl.

Please share any of your up cycled bird baths...I love new ideas and see what others can create!!

Antique Single Tree, Yoke Harness

We love going to auctions...and to be completely honest...I'm "addicted" to them....I love the thrill of bidding, out bidding, and finding that diamond in the rough.  Below is one of those diamonds, well, to us anyway.   This single tree may not make us rich, but I just love the way it turned out...the richness of the wood with the coolness of the metal....it just rings...use me again!!   Disclaimer: (I had no idea what the name of this was, Rick did, and he knew we had to have it!)

 This is the before picture....old, dirty, rusty.  With a little bit of elbow grease, stain, and metal rust-oleum flat black paint, then finished off with some clear coat to help protect it and you get this........

Don't you just love her.....I'm going to keep this one, use the end rings to hold up either hanging plants or I've been wanting to make mason jar lights...this just may be the piece we use for that project.

Thank you for stopping by and checking out today's project.  I hope the next time you are antiquing you find your diamond in the rough!!

Address Sign

We live in the country, on a lane, off a dirt road.  We love it out here, the peace and quite, the stars at night, we fell in love with it as soon as we saw it.  Only downside, if you can call it that, is that the delivery people: UPS, FedEx, Pizza guys, all have a hard time finding it, we usually get a phone call asking for directions. GPS sometimes works for some, but for the most part they can't find us.  My family loves pizza and we order it on a regular basis, we needed something to help those poor guys!!

I saw a picture on Pinterest (love, love that site) it showed a welcome sign leading up a country road, and an idea was born...or stolen.....o.k., let's just say... borrowed.  So out I went, looking for the perfect piece and found this twin bed set for $20 at a garage sale late on a Saturday, as I was looking, the lady said, "I'll sell it to you for $10.00"...Sold!!   I only used the headboard for this project...the foot-board will be used in another project.

I forgot the before shot, but here it is all sanded down and ready to be painted.  My daughter helped with that detail as I got my Silhouette out to make the stencil for the wording.  Deciding on the font is my own worst enemy, so many to choose from and me who loves all of them.  Decisions, decisions...but two days later...shhh don't judge, I finally decided on the font.

Here is a before picture, the bushes died over the winter, so out they came.

Here is the finished look, well almost finished look.  I still want to add a few more plants and large boulder will be added to the right of it, but for now, I'm lovin it!!

Thank you for stopping by, come back again!!

Piano Bench

I love browsing the thrift shops, you never know when something will call to you and say "hey over here, please take me home".  I found this little bench back in the corner of a local thrift store with a price tag of $3.00.. Oh yes please!!  I was going to take her home and give it some of this girls tender loving care.

It had that 80's feel, shiny gloss stained legs and velvet teal color seat. Back in the day this would have been quite stylish, but not today.

Isn't she beautiful, creamy white chalk paint a little distressing, a new burlap garden theme seat cover.  Perfect place to sit and take off my garden shoes.  

Thanks for stopping by!