Get your numbers on...

Stopped by The Red Shed  for their Saturday Sale this weekend and picked up a few great things.  One of my favorite things was this metal box.  I think it just needed a little something to make it perfect.  I decided to put some numbers on the front.  Two things you should know here; one, I rarely put anything in my house that doesn't have some sort of personal meaning for our family and two, I rarely do things the way I probably should.  I've seen on other blogs various ways of making stencils and transfers or even handpainting things.  I either can't figure out how to do those things or don't have the talent or steady hand to do it.  So, here's my extremely simple way of putting numbers or letters on items around your house

Here's the box.  Pretty cool, huh?.

I chose the numbers "9116".  Those are our house numbers.  This is the house we chose to be our family home.  We moved in when our son was very young and we'll retire here.  Using the computer and our regular ol' printer, I chose the font and size I wanted and printed out the numbers on regular paper.

Using an exacto knife, I carefully cut along the lines.

Be careful to save the middle of the numbers like 9, 6, and 0.  Put those pieces back in place when you are ready to paint (use a piece of doublestick tape to hold it).  Using craft paint and a foam stencil brush, dab on the paint. 

There you have it.  That's all there is to it. I"m sure there are better ways to do this but this is cheap and easy.

Before.....

After!

Industrial pendant light you can make

As I continue to look at every single page of the new Flea Market Style Magazine, I'm finding some great ideas.  But when I saw their pages about using funnels, I fell over.  See the picture below?  The one of their funnel pendant light?  That's my light!  Well, not my actual light but one just like my light. I've been wanting a new pendant light in my dining room.  I wanted something industrial.  I was considering purchasing this one but just wasn't sure.  Then, my husband and I went to a great architectural salvage place here in Ft. Worth and found this industrial funnel they had already wired as a pendant light.  It wasn't expensive but you could make your own with a funnel and wiring kit.  I've rewired lamps and it's easy.  The directions are actually on the rewiring kit.  After hanging my new light, I added a thin, red stripe around it so that it fit in the room perfectly.  Some laughed at my new fixture, but I loved it.  Now, it's famous!

Here it is in the magazine.

Look closely.

Here's mine!  Exactly the same.

Here it is with the little red stripe!

flea market artwork you can do

If you found your copy of Flea Market Style Magazine, you'll see some lovely vintage paintings on page 93. (I found my copy of the wonderful magazine at Barnes and Noble in Texas).  I love these and although they are fairly easy to find and relatively inexpensive, I had difficulty finding just the right ones.  So, a couple of years ago, I made my own. I found the right posters I liked here. (I used posters and not the art prints because posters were cheap; $10.00 or less.)  I then got some thin plywood and cut it to the size of the poster.  Glue the poster onto the wood.  I used Mod Podge.  Then, using a small paint brush, I brushed the glue over the front of the poster and around the edges to seal it.  If you brush as if you were "painting" the picture, you will leave the slightest image of brush strokes to make it look like a painting.  After it dried, I took some cheap brown craft paint (about $1.00) and rubbed it on and wiped it off to "age" the painting.  There you go.  That's it.  I don't like to frame mine but you certainly could using a great old frame.

3 is the magic number

We are a family of three...Dad, Mom and our son.  We have a family number, 3.  We have a family code word, shhhhh, it's a secret.  We have a family song.  So, when it came to creating this blog, I had to use the number 3. We also use the number 3 when decorating our home. 

Here's an old window frame that I turned into a chalkboard.  I've written the lyrics of our family song and it hangs as permanent artwork in a hallway (complete with hooks and latches).

Even my wedding ring is designed in 3's.  It wasn't intentional.  It was made before we were married and before we knew how many children we would have.  It has three rows of three diamonds.  The two small rows on either side come from my mom's first ring from my dad. (I'll explain this at the end.)  Then there is one big center diamond.  That was part of the engagement ring.  The two medium sized diamonds were added when we got married.  I think it was forshadowing.  I like to think the medium diamonds represent us as parents and the large center one represents our son. 

My son is a young singer/songwriter.  He has been into music since pretty much day one.  When he was younger (around 8), he recorded his own version of our family song, Three Is A Magic Number (from SchoolHouse Rock).  It was slow and sweet.  Now, he has re-recorded it at age 13 and while still slow and sweet, he's added some color to it.

Three Is A Magic Number

(Click to hear)

The Alien Cowboy's Cherry Milkshake

(an added bonus, click to hear my favorite song he's done recently).

Note: So let me explain about "mom's first ring from my dad."  My dad was a jeweler, a manufacturing jeweler.  That means he made and repaired jewelry.  When my parents first married, he gave her a nice wedding ring set.  As he earned more money throughout the years, my mom upgraded her wedding ring.  Funny, but true.  My dad made my wedding ring too. It's the only one I'll ever have.  I do have my mom's rings as well since both of my parents have now passed away.

do it yourself grainsacks

These french linen-vintage grain sack-feedsack-vintage burlap bags or whatever you call them are the coolest things and I wanted some.  I wanted some pillows and I wanted some to recover a couple of chairs and possibly a couple of barstools.  I like the simple ones with one or two stripes.  However, they are way more expensive then I want to pay so I haven't bought any yet.  I just drool over the pictures of ones I want. 

So, my friend, Jennie, found this link and sent it to me.  Kathleen @ Musings From A French Cottage figured out how to make her own and shared the step by step instructions on her blog.  So, I gave it a try and here's how it turned out. Wait until you see the finished product!  By the way, total costs: less than $10.00 ( $6.00 for 2 yards of burlap although I only used less than a yard, $4.00 for a couple of bottles of paint althought I only used a little bit. )

Here's are my supplies: burlap, fabric paint, painter's tape, paintbrush, newspaper and a paper plate (not picture: scissors and a staplegun)

Here is the chair seat I want to recover.

First, I did a test stripe. Tape off where you want your stripe to be.

Paint!  I dry brushed the paint on lightly and repeated until I got the coverage and color I wanted. 

I wasn't sure if I wanted a red stripe or a brown stripe.  After testing both, I decided to do red. Pull the tape off and you have a stripe!

I then taped off two smaller stripes and painted those.

Here's what it looked like after the tape came off.

So, for the real thing, I decided I wanted two thin red stripes.  So, I cut a square of burlap a little bigger than my chair seats.  Taped off the stripes.

Painted the stripes red.  I found out that you can paint them as perfectly or imperfectly as you like.  The less perfect ones looked a bit more vintage and authentic.

Here's what it looked like after I pulled off the tape. At this point, I'm getting a little excited about this.

Here are my finished burlap fabrics for my two seats.  They needed to sit a while to dry completely.

Recovering the seats.

Put the seats back on the chairs.

Not bad, huh?  Ten bucks!

I put the chair back in it's place.  Sorry for the mess, we're getting ready for Valentine's Day.

I think they look really great, especially for ten bucks.  Thanks, Kathleen for the idea and tutorial. 

Freaky Fun Friday

I live in Ft. Worth, Texas.  Texas!  The South...known for it's heat.  Today, we are at home after getting over a foot of snow in one day.  That's record-breaking snow for here.  We don't get much snow 'round these parts and a couple of inches is huge for us.  This is just freaky...but beautiful.

the view from my front porch

my favorite picture: the little spot of red is actually a tail light on a car across the street.  I like it though against all that white. 

the truck of the bed is full

Ballou doesn't know what to do.  After a few minutes, both dogs played until they were "tuckered out."