Butcher Block Stand

We just got back home early Sunday evening from a weekend of camping in West Central Indiana for the Covered Bridge Festival there. It's a huge 10 day event that takes place every 2nd weekend all the way through the 3rd weekend in October. It technically just spans 2 counties, but a few other surrounding counties kinda take advantage of the all that traffic by having lots of yard sales and flea markets of their own to lure in these potential buyers - and it works! Some of those flea markets are pretty pricey too! I found some really neat stuff, but refused to pay even 50% of what they wanted & I won't even insult them with that kind of offer.

The weather wasn't the greatest, but tolerable. It was actually pretty warm, even though it was cloudy and a bit rainy from time to time on Saturday, but we went prepared with our ponchos. I was very lazy in taking pictures and only took one. 

I know, Bad Blogger, right? My husband spotted this Junk Dealer badge and thought of me. I didn't come home with it though. I was saving my money for better things. I spent all that I had and then some of his too, but he knew that would happen and came prepared. He's a smart good man. ;)

By early Sunday morning, the winds came in just a howling! Wow. Luckily, we got to the one festival in Mansfield early, but they were in discussions about closing the festival because of the 40+ mph winds, so we got we came for & split. 

We went off to find the flea markets and yard sales from there, but soon discovered that they had all closed early for the day, because the winds were just too hard to deal with. I guess it was for the best for us financially anyway, so we hooked up to our camper & headed for home. Things were going good, that is until we were only 30 minutes from home & a tire blew on the camper. It was a little scary, because the wind was a huge concern for my husband while having the 23 ft. long camper up on jacks, & it was even worse when a semi would come speeding by creating an even bigger gust of wind. Luckily, everything went OK and we were on our way. Now we just have to replace the ground wire on the camper because the shredded tire must have flew up and snapped it in two.

But having pictures for you is not a total loss, I have something else to share that I've made for my show.

This one is a little blurry.  It's a small butcher block that I added some finials as feet. Then I painted it white and added vintage looking red stripes to. Next, I created the stencil with my Cricut machine and some contact paper and distress sanded the whole thing and finally gave it a coat of clear wax.  In case you were wondering, Das Kuche is German for The Kitchen. I know, it's not French or Italian that's so hot right now. I chose German because my husband's family is German and there is a lot of that heritage in this area.

If I ever do this kind of design again, with the red stripes on white, I think I will get me a sample bottle of the red latex paint instead, because the acrylic paint smeared, so I had to make sure I followed the stripe to prevent that.

I should have stained the feet before painting them white so they would look more like the top, but I just carefully and lightly stained them in spots and it looks better in real life than in these pictures.

I did find a cute little end table for $3 and a chair for $5. Gosh, it would be great to have all that furniture painted & ready for my show, but I'm losing 10 more days for a trip to Disney World. Ugh! I also need more smaller items to fill up 2-8 ft. tables. I feel guilty about writing blog posts, but I already lost a month or more already from neglecting it. I know you can't go too long before you start losing readers and I don't have that many to begin with & I love all of you that read & comment on a regular basis!

XOXO!

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Sort of Pinterest Inspired....?

Have you seen this chair on Pinterest?

I think this is a really cool looking chair with the stencil pattern sort of done in reverse to let the wood grain show through.

I like the idea of letting the darker wood show through the pretty white paint.

That's where I kinda sorta maybe drew my inspiration from for this chair.

I know, the words are a little hard to see in this photo, but that's where the wood is peaking through.

Is that easier to see?

The thin letters are a bit harder to keep the paint from seeping under, but for the most part, it worked out pretty good!

And how about that boring rush seat? I didn't want it to feel left out, so I added a white star to it. 

I know, I've kinda been on a star kick lately, but I keep seeing it all over the internet and on Ebay. So, I'm hoping they're a hit at my craft show too!

Well I have many more things to get working on, so this is another short post.


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Recipe Card or Book Holder

I don't have anything to show you that fits into the WOW! category today, but I think it's pretty cute in all it's little simplicity.

I don't recall where I found this sweet looking stand, but you can bet it was either a garage sale or thrift store.  I just had to get it because I loved the shape of it!

I used my Cricut Expression to cut out the stencil from just cheap ol' contact paper that I get at Walmart. The frame design is from the Splish Splash cartridge and the font is from the Nursery Rhymes cartridge, and I used the Cricut Design Studio software to arrange the letters inside the framework.

It started out as just your basic honey colored wood that I went over with a base coat of black paint first and then went over that in white with a little distress sanding. I left the edge black because I think that really sets it off, although it's hard to tell in this photo (you can see it a little on the top left corner)

I like to try to make things that are functional look pretty, as well. I don't know about all of you, but I know I'm more likely to use something if it's sitting out and easily accessible, like saaaaay....sitting on the counter or a shelf. If it's going to sit out in plain site like that, why shouldn't it look pretty?! Exactly.

Now I'm almost talking myself into keeping it, but I have to remind myself that it's for my craft show & that's in just a few weeks! Ack!!

Wish me luck in getting puh-lenty of stuff done and doing great in sales. 

  
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Pretty Plate Decor

It's a beautiful & sunny, yet moderately cool, fall day here in northern Indiana today. As my deadline for my first craft show of the season quickly approaches, I'm in overload to get as many things done for this show as I possibly can, while also preparing to go camping at a festival in the southern part of the state, so I'm losing 3 days of creating time there. Only to be hitting the ground running when we get back from that to prepare for our trip to Disney World. Losing NINE days (minimum) there. That will leave me with one week to finish up any lose ends on the crafts, work on my inventory list and pack everything up for the show. Stress? No stress.....PANIC!!!

My house is a total wreck right now and could very well be a prime candidate for hoarding therapy. Seriously. I would simply die if anyone who knew me came to my door right now. 

Not only is my house a hoarding mess, we're in the process of installing new windows (finally!) that are leaving some areas of open stud walls, raw drywall, spray foam & incomplete electrical boxes, etc. Oh, and no curtains in the meantime on ANY of the windows in my house. Thanks goodness we live in the middle of the woods or all that wouldn't be happening - BUT deer season starts real soon. yikes!

Enough about all that.

I have had a Cricut Expression machine for a number of years now and for the most part, I really like the machine. I have to admit that it has increased my creativity 10x, in spite of it's short comings. I couldn't imagine creating without some type of cutting machine of it's kind anymore. I wish I had a Silhouette machine so that I actually could be even more creative, but that's a ways off. I wish they'd offer me one to try out and get my honest opinion of.

Over the past few years, I have picked up quite the collection of plates to decorate and sell as home decor. (notice, I didn't say hoard)  I have more plates to decorate than I actually have in my cabinet to use!

I picked up a very pretty plate rack before I even had a Cricut, because I just knew I could figure out a way to sell it someday. It's only taken me about 6 or 7 years to get that accomplished and I get to use up 3 of those plates! YAY!!!

I literally had no decent place to hang this in my home to take pictures, so I had to settle for laying it down on a shutter door that's on my family room floor & I'm also working on it too, so the plates look a little wonky. Ya know? I think it actually looks pretty good on that shutter door (section). I'm using the shutter door to hang things on at the craft show, so I will see if this will stay upright to display the plates like this. Sometimes I think if it weren't for serendipity, I'd be a terrible crafter. LOL! I like to think of it as God's hands guiding me in a direction I couldn't see on my own. 

 

 

 

Now I'm just keeping my fingers crossed that I won't be bringing this back home from the show. 

 
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