2012 - Looking Back on the Memories

TIME

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I can't believe it's already that TIME! 

TIME to look back at another year passing while looking forward to hopes and dreams of the new year approaching. 

Welcoming new ones into the world with a joyful heart while saying good-bye to those with a heavy one. 

I haven't had the joy of welcoming any precious new packages this past year (myself or anyone else's), but I've had to say good-bye to many - and each one was much too young: My cousin's 14 year old son, another cousin's 24 year old daughter (a mommy herself to 2 tiny ones), crafty friends and step-sisters that were strong & fierce fighters to the end. In 2012, they earned their wings. 

I Miss You.

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I can't look back on the year 2012 and over-look the one thing that makes me who I am.

Creative.

I could load down this post with ALL the things I've made this year, but let's face it, I'm not that great of a blogger to begin with, so that's just not going to happen before the end of this year.


I've been more motivated to be more creative than I've ever been this past year. That's the part I love.

I've also become more of a hoarder than I've ever been as well. That's the part I hate.

Now I need to be more motivated to make the hoarder work with the creative person to get this craziness back into a normal household.

Here are some of my favorite projects this past year. Most of them are craft related, but for sure they are all things I created, one way or another. ;)
 

First off is this barn door I picked up as a freebie that was thrown in when I was buying the front door and barn door to my garden shed. The owner told me I had to take this lonely bottom half if I was taking the others. It was his last day of business and didn't want anything left. If you want to read more about this, check out HERE.

This was a somewhat popular post and pinned quite a bit (by my standards anyway). I loved how this garage sale find basket turned out and even liked how the picture looked, even though "I" took it myself. hee hee You can find a little more about this project HERE.

I so wished I had a picture of this with a rusty drawer pull turned upside down as the chalk holder, but I can't seem to find it anywhere. It fit perfectly in center (under the word "Pile" in the watermark tag). This dry erase board made from a flea market found picture frame and left over bead board went from beautiful to a mess in about 2.2. If you want to learn more about that, go HERE.

I just want to say that I've done crackle painting before & for a number of years, but I just kind of set it aside while I explored new territories. Then one day I went snooping on Ebay, because I got wind that some crackled stuff was going for some rediculous dollars there. Whaaaat? After seeing all that inspiration, I came across some S&P shakers at a garage sale and snatched those suckers up right now, don't think I didn't. I had seen a pair done up on Ebay that looked darling. These were my version. If you want to read about that story and see what awesome blog these were featured at, check out HERE.

So there it was, literally in the middle of July, and I was painting up a snowman chair from a chair I found at a garage sale. I figured if Miss Mustard Seed can do Easter decor at Halloween and Thanksgiving for Easter, then I can do Christmas in July. It's not unheard of. The TV stations do it all the time. I've seen Christmas in July shows on the channel my daughter watches. See where I got the inspiration for this snowman chair from HERE.

The next project that I immediately dove right into was another garage sale find (do you see a pattern here?) I had my eye on making a clockface table top ever since I seen the one at Red Hen Home's blog. I was smitten to say the very least. To say that I was tickled at how it turned out, is only a slight understatement. It's a lucky thing I didn't have anywhere suitable to put this in my own home, or she would have stayed!  Check out her humble beginnings HERE.

Then came this pair of cuties. Totally copied off Pinterest/Etsy from thrift store and garage sale muffin pans. Nuff said. Look HERE. (oh . . . and I painted the bread box you almost see in the background too)

These were what I called the "re-invintaged" chairs that I had to try my hand at recovering, even if it was just the seat of a dining chair. I needed to start small and these were just perfect to learn with and found at a local thrift store. I felt compelled to do a two-tone paint scheme on them & LOVE them. Check out their story HERE.

I didn't do a story on this or any other part of our Disney World trip back in Oct. I was swamped preparing for that trip and immediately after our return, that very next weekend was my first (& supposedly) big craft show. So none of this happened on my blog. But it was a HUGE deal for us!

The arrow is pointing to a picture of our daughter, Brooke. She was specially chosen by Disney to have her photo placed on the actual wall of the Bippity Bop Boutique!! The whole thing even caused my husband to become a bit emotional over it. We were compensated with several photos, and if you know anything about Disney, those pictures aren't cheap! What a day THAT was!

This is a wooden floor lamp I got from my neighbor's garage sale that I remade. I absolutely loved that printed burlap fabric that I covered the shade with, and thought the black trim finished it all off nicely. 

This almost entirely hand made Christmas hanging was another Pinterest inspired creation.
 
And then there was this other decor piece I was inspired by something found on Ebay to create. You can find these projects posted HERE.

This is another project that I don't think I did a post on, but I loved just the same.The slat wood star was from a garage sale & so was the wreath. The bells were thrift store finds I repainted & I made the banner, plus rusted the bells & pins myself.

I don't think I made a post about it because the wreath was too low and I was too lazy to take it back outside and get another picture of it after I fixed it. Yeah, I'm lazy like that...

   And FINALLY, this is probably my most favorite piece of   
   anything I've made so far (well, besides my babies). 

    It has received the most pins of all my projects and still draws 
    in a bit more traffic to my blog because of Pinterest. If you want 
    to see where it began, check it out HERE.

   So, that's my recap of my personal favorite projects for the year 
   of 2012. 

   Thanks for taking a walk down Memory Lane with me as I looked back on those who will continue to be missed into the new year and the projects that have come and (mostly) gone.

God Bless to you and yours and Wishing you ALL the best of 2013!

 
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