Cottage Table Makeover

I have been wanting to make this table over for a while.  It is a little tile top cottage style table bought in the early 90's.  Still stuck in the early 90's, it needed a makeover.  I had originally thought I would paint the legs but that just wasn't enough of a change.  

 I have always wanted a plank table.  I was in the shed the other day trying to imagine some leftover lumber turned into a plank table.  But, then I realized if I removed the top of the tile table I would have the base for my plank top table.  So we removed about a dozen screws and the tile top.  Then we placed two pine panels in their place and I had my plank table.  

 Here the top is stained. I used a walnut stain.

 I roughed up the legs even more than the kids have with the orbital sander.  

Wanting to make the wear more pronounced, I glazed the legs to age them with Valspar glaze in mocha.

Here is the finished table.  I will work on the chairs next.

Just look at the plank goodness!  

Please go over and join these sites:

Metamorphosis Monday at Between Naps on the Porch
Re-Party  at First a Dream

Before and After Party at The Thrifty Decor Chick
My Uncommon Slice of Suburbia 

Before and After Party at Savvy Southern Style

Toot Your Horn Tuesday at A Silly Little Sparrow
Transformation Thursday  at The Shabby Chic Cottage
Furniture Feature Friday at Miss Mustard Seed

Happy Halloween

Thank you for all of your encouragement!!  It has been a really fun October where the creativity flowed.  Have a fun weekend.

Sherry

It's on

Here's my ghettofabulous Buffy the Vampire Slayer costume:

{Yes, the "H" and the stripes are duct tape}

I had the boys home with me today and the stars aligned (i.e. they took their naps at the same time) and I got to work on sewing my costume.  The "pants"/ bodysuit is actually a shirt turned upside down...  The arms are now the legs and I sewed up the hole for your head.  The yellow "skirt" is also a $3 Michael's t-shirt and I stretched out the head hole for the waist and cut it off.  I use the leftovers to make another t-shirt long-sleeved.  It's ridiculous and the best part of the costume is the pair of scrunchy socks I'm wearing.   

{Argg just realized I need a scrunchy for my hair!}

happy Halloween!!!  And to learn the Thriller dance go here.

(SO worth it.)

"Spooky" evolution charts

I've been loving educational charts lately and have been running into a lot of German ones.  I thought this vintage evoluationary chart "Abstammungslehr II" was perfect for the season.  Christian calls skulls "spookies" and is pictured below eating his breakfast:

{I've collected more topiaries on the table this Fall...  Look how unsuspecting they are sitting there.. Waiting to slowly be killed...   Ok, I'm really going to try to keep them alive.  I tried out lemon cypress -which I've killed before- because I've heard they're not too difficult.}

This chart was definitely used in the classroom as you can see from the old red arrows the teacher must have drawn:

...And... look who's walking!!! 

Justin started a couple of weeks ago and is definitely not going back.  Time to finish babyproofing!!

Happy Halloweeeeeeeeeeeen!!!!

If you'd like help creating a home you absolutely love, contact me about our design services.

Halloween anyone???

Okay, I LOVE Halloween.  I always have.  When I was in preschool my grandmother made me a "Glinda" costume (from the Wizard of Oz)...  It was shiny pink with star sequins glued onto it.  I felt so pretty and special and wore it waaaaaay too often after that.  (Walk in the woods anyone?  Let's put on the Glinda costume!)

I've dressed up almost every year of my life (even in high school when it wasn't cool anymore...  knock Knock...  "Trick-or-treat!"   "Um, aren't you a little old??")  Yeah, so...  I get so excited planning costumes & parties and making sure everyone's got their costume covered.  (I've been known to make housecalls for those in desperate need of costume help.)  When I had Christian (at 25) it was a little harder to get into it but we stayed strong with a warrior party at our house...

{Just the girls}

And the following year we did superheroes...

Last year I was pregnant and we did a small "kids" party.  We didn't dress up ourselves, and it just wasn't as much fun.  It was definitely great to see the kids partying and Christian loved it, but I really missed dressing up.  (And to me, a night is only a perfect "10" if it ends in dancing.)

We usually start out at our house with a small pre-party & then get a limo into the city where we meet up with all of the other ridiculous people.

SO...  this brings to me to where we're at now.  We really debated and wishy-washed about doing something fun for Halloween this year.  It's so sad but we sort of didn't want to.  My best friends live far away and can't make it...  It's a lot of effort.  I barely got pumpkins outside this year.  It just feels like time is racing by and I'm seriously flying by the seat of my pants.  I read all of these beautiful blogs with creative ways to get your house ready for Halloween & table settings & on & on and I love them and plan on trying out the ideas myself but before I can get my act together, the event's upon me.  As we were driving to High Point & throwing the idea of a party around -pretty much thinking 'no'- we put on some music and before I knew it, my hands were in the air and I was dancing in my seat.  (Taio Cruz's Dynamite is really one of the best songs EVER and I fully blame it for the evite I subsequently sent out.)

I have no costumes... only a theme...  Cheesy Teen Horror/ Comedy Movies.  Dave's going as this guy:

{Best movie ever}

... and we're still loolking for a Keiffer.   And a nice curly brown mullet wig and some fangs...

I'm going as my childhood idol:

{hahahaha what does that say about me?}

Yeah, when I was 10 I taught myself the entire dance in the beginning of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and used to do cartwheels and sommersaults on the street while holding a stake.  (Issues much??)

So... we mustered it up for another year.  We were so close to not doing it but we just felt like that would be giving up and we're not ready for that.  I know it'll be fun, it's just the process of getting there that has me a bit exhausted.  It's also harder to convince friends and a few former troopers are done dressing it up now that they have kids which makes me so sad.   

Costumes for the whole family are on the agenda for tonight and we'll be breaking out the sewing machine.  I really am torn here.  It's hard to get into Halloween when you have kids.  Maybe we're not supposed to?? hahah  Is anyone else feeling this?  I envision getting crazier & crazier each year with a haunted house and over the top decor.. maybe murder mystery party...??  Is it too much.  What do you do?

And, if you want to get excited, go here and listen.  Anyone in the DC are going out Friday night?  We usually head out somewhere and are debating where.

If you'd like help creating a home you absolutely love, contact me about our design services.

Vintage Look Book Covers

Remember making book covers in school out of paper bags?  They are still very versatile.  

Here I have taken book covers and Mod Podged them to become accents in your decor or props for Halloween.  Idea was taken from the potions lab set decor in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.

Supplies:

Scissors

tape

brown craft paper or a paper bag

book for guide to cover

drawing paper

Mod Podge

rope 

glue

Mocha glaze

You first unroll your craft paper and cut to fit with 3-4 inches extra top and bottom.

Here you will fold the paper to exactly fit the vertical exterior cover of the book.

Fold in the cover to make the tabs.  You may or may not use tape, the fold in the tab would hold it in place.

Here is a finished book cover.

Now, I am taping a rope and cutting it the width of the book to give it a mock leather binding.

I just glued it right on the edge of the book cover with regular school glue.

 

Next, I took a sheet of paper from a drawing pad and crumpled it up.

 

 I covered the book cover with Mod Podge and I am applying the paper and I will then cover the paper with Mod Podge.

 

 

The rope has to be worked with when you apply the paper and Mod Podge.  The paper around the rope will tear and I applied a second layer of paper to get the coverage I wanted.   I let the Mod Podge dry on the book cover. 

And the final step was to lay out the book cover and apply a glaze that gave it the aged and worn appearance.  I used Valspar Mocha Glaze, any craft glaze will do.

 

The finished product is the look of an aged book for your shelf.  

I will link to these sites, please go over and see all of the great ideas in decorating there.

White Wednesday at Faded Charm

Whatever Goes Wednesday at Someday Crafts

Show and Tell Wednesday at Blue Cricket Design

Pumpkin Party

I am so happy to join Beth at her site Food As Art  for a Pumpkin Party.  Please click on the link and see all the other great pumpkins in blogland.

I went to a local pumpkin patch with my kindergartener.  I have never been to a pumpkin patch and always wanted to go.  I bet you didn't know that one of the top producing states of pumpkins is Illinois.  90-95% of all processed pumpkin is produced in Illinois. 

Here is a sampling of some of the pumpkins on our front porch this year.  After carving several pumpkins, I let my youngest get out a marker and he had fun decorating the last of the pumpkins.

The star of my Sleepy Hollow decorations was this guy.  I have carved this pumpkin for years.  I got the idea to do his eyes like this from the makeup Gene Simmons wears.  He was a bass player with the rock band KISS.

I have never experimented  with pumpkins in so many ways as I did this year.  I was trying to get more creative and do new things.  This is a sneak peak of this week's floating pumpkin.

I gilded my pumpkins to give them some glimmer and then put  some in a topiary. 

My standard pumpkin pie even got the Halloween treatment.

Some of my favorite new finds in blogland were a burlap pumpkin and a posh pumpkin.  I didn't have all the materials to make both, but combining what I had on hand, I created a posh burlap pumpkin. LOL

And, here it is almost Halloween and I have removed almost all of the Halloween decor.  We are getting into a thankful somber time for November.

In this centerpiece I have some baby boo and jack-be-little pumpkins that I have gilded and glittered for November to extend their life.

 Thanks for joining me as I re-caped my new adventures with pumpkins for 2010.  I never knew how much pumpkin love there was out there till I got to reading some of your blogs.  It was such a fun October. I have been filling my idea files up for next year!

Sherry

diaNoche

One of my best friends from high school has recently started a company with her husband called diaNoche , and a blog to go with it.  Her name is Veronica and the brand, diaNoche, is all about her versatile peices that you can wear both day & night. She's American {half-Italian (from her dad's side, like me!) and half Columbian from her mom's side} and since I can remember has dreamed of creating her own line of clothing that straddled all of her roots.  An artist, she graduated from FIT in New York and has gone after her dream. 

{Veronica El-Showk}

Here's a quick excerpt from a press release:

"diaNoche is a lifestyle brand that embodies the love of travel and art.  While living in New York, owners Veronica and Hedeer El-Showk traveled often for both business and pleasure to Morocco, Europe and Colombia. Inspired, Veronica started designing a collection of shirts with the vision of importing goods from overseas in the future. diaNoche's designs have a strong arabesque influence and are also inspired by the designer's Colombian heritage. The company's themes include everything from the ancient mosaics in Cyprus, to the salt mines in Bogotá and the intricate patterns of tribal North Africa."

{Veronica in a photo taken by her sweet husband, Hedeer}

Her passion for life & all things beautiful literally jumps off of the page at you from her new blog and I am so freaking excited for her & Hedeer!!!! DiaNoche's Fall & Winter line of designer t-shirts is debuting in a couple of weeks. 

{The beautiful logo she created}

Yesterday she came over to our place & I helped her out with a photo shoot.  Here's a picture I took of a little jewely tray we created for the background of one of the shots: 

{Those garden weeds come in handy!}

We shot all day to get her day/ night looks.  (Around 700 images...  and- you know how it goes- only a minute number of usables- especially with me as her model- but she got what she came for.)   She's an amazing photographer & we wanted some soft fresh day looks and some dark, edgy ones for night.  

{me, taking off the shoes...  oh how I love them, oh how I have no idea how she walks in them...}

 

We tried out some crazy stuff- including laying on my outdoor harvest table, (definitely not a use I'd ever envisioned for it) the concrete patio (brrrrr) and nighttime shots in my bedroom which definitely gave it a whole new look.  She 's now working on getting the images loaded & the website finished up and as soon as she does, she's promised me a giveaway for Pure Style Home.  I literally wanted EVERYTHING I wore yesterday.  The designs she's created are super-flattering and just honestly make you look good.  I was really skeptical when she asked me to be her model but truly, the clothes did all the work.    

{image by Veronica...  her friends' boots in Italy- how beautiful??}

At one point yesterday (well, at lots of points) we just started cracking up...  I think I was hanging out on a hide rug pouring tea from a beautiful tea pot with a pile of vintage quilts next to me...  really???  You definitely have to play a lot and take risks and feel stupid to get to where you're trying to go. 

But it was so much fun. 

At one point Christian came up to us, "What game are you playing?"

Veronica: "Photo shoot."

Christian:  "Can I play?

...So, although theres not yet a diaNoche kids' line, Veronica made sure to get a few good shots of Christian.  ...Who made sure to let me know that he loved my hair the way she'd done it (curls) but didn't like the "gray stuff" on my eyes and helped me wash off the eyeshadow when we were finished. {What a picky little man!}

So, as soon as she lets me and her site is set up for online purchases, I'll post some photos of Veonica's new line & we'll be doing a giveaway.  If you have some time, stop over to visit Veonica at diaNoche and say hi.  She's a brand new blogger & I know she'd love to hear from you. 

I'm so excited & happy for her and I know we're all going to be hearing a lot about her soon.

If you'd like help creating a home you absolutely love, contact me about our design services.