Duck Tape Pumpkins & Planters

This is such an easy DIY Project! Go buy some of the fun printed duck tapes offered. You can find them almost everywhere: Target, Home Depot, Lowe's, the grocery store, etc. Why have just plain pumpkins when you can give them personality?

I bought the cheapest pumpkins I could find which was at Family Dollar. Then I proceeded to cut strips of the zebra tape and the houndstooth tape for my little planters. I was so excited that I didn't bother to try and line up the pieces and it still turned out really cute.

I had two small pots of flowers for each *planter* but I weighted them with half bricks, which is needed out here in West Texas. The winds break tree limbs here, on a normal day.

I put one pair inside and the other pair outside. I was so pleased with the outcome that I immediately went after a fake pumpkin from Michael's and covered it too. I was truly obsessed!

Honestly, this was THE EASIEST project I've ever undertaken and it was unbelievably cheap. Hope you feel inspired to try your own...

Have a fun and safe Halloween!

No Sewing Machines Were Harmed During This Project...

Since my entryway bench was such a huge success, I was ready to get started on the chair seats at the kitchen table (around the corner and down the hall from the newly recovered bench), as well as the window and door treatments, with the same fabric as the hall bench. I am totally enamored with the fabric and can't wait to get it done as we I move closer to getting our home ready for the real estate market sometime within the next few years.  Yes, please don't judge. I do what I can while married to a man who has never been a handy man, has no physical labor skills of any kind, and doesn't like to spend money. Ever. It's always been a challenge but since I really do like the guy (as well as love him), I have to do what I can on my own.

Yes, these chairs and the table are approximately 28 years old, but we haven't wanted to buy anything new until we move. At that point, we're going to sell more than half of the furniture we own and start over with the things we like now, as opposed to what we thought we liked more than 35 years ago. 

No, of course we aren't ready yet but it's getting a *smidge* closer to fruition. My hubby hired a man to do the outside painting but he fell off a house while helping a friend of his re-roof their house, hurting his back. That was two months ago. Uh-Huh. Why is it always like this with my hubby us?  This man has now been painting the exterior of our house for ONE ENTIRE YEAR. He started painting the exterior in July of 2011. Someone please shoot me before I end up in the looney bin!

The last time we had the outside of the house painted (15 years ago) the hubby hired a real mental midget to do the painting (he was cheap to hire, okay?). Furthermore, he spent most of his time ogling me through the windows as he painted. Thus, I gave him the name *Cassanova*. This old guy would do all of the painting with his shirt off, which completely grossed me out. Big Ewwww! He also left razor blades wherever he dropped them after using them during his prep work, making for quite the enormous cleanup job (which was my duty since I didn't want the kids stepping on them, right?). Not a good experience at all, but I was really the only one that had to endure his creepy presence.

  
I am so ready to get this show on the road. I need some peace in my life and I'm not going to get it until we move from this house that works us to the freaking bone. The hubby claims that he loves yard work, but frankly, I know better. I'm weary of him putting his back out and not being able to play golf (or do anything else, actually). I am so NOT ready to be an old fart, with an aching back, feet and who knows what else. I've got a lot of living to do and I don't want to do it in this house that's killing me to keep up with.

All this having been said, I thought I'd mention that there is absolutely NOTHING on the real estate market to interest me at the moment. I mean absolutely nothing I would even consider going to see, much less putting a bid on, so I guess things are going according to plan. HA! Honestly, I'd hate to come across *the perfect place* when we don't even have ours ready to sell yet, right? However, we are in a total seller's market right now due to the recent Oil Boom. We live in a city that survives on the oil business. Currently there is an available housing shortage due to this oil boom so even if we could sell our house, we'd have no place to move. No apartments, no rentals and very few houses.

At this point, people are living in what is being called a *Trailer City* of sorts. It's full of high end RV's with who knows how many people living in them. Apartments, condos, and houses are being built left & right, but it just hasn't been enough. Obviously, we need to get our house on the market. Pronto!

This household is definitely a work in progress at this point and I'm on a mission to move on with our lives as *empty nesters*. I want to move on to someplace else. Not here. Wish me luck....

 

Goodwill Table Turned Into Stunning Bedside Table For My Daughter

A few years ago I bought two really ugly side tables from Goodwill for $10.00, so when our daughter finally got a job as a lawyer, she got her first apartment living alone. She mentioned that she needed a bedside table for her tiny apartment and I knew exactly what I'd do. She picked out a gorgeous bluish turquoise and bright gold for the hardware and I got right to work. The table was truly UGLY before I started.

Anyway, I removed the hardware, sanded it, put a primer coat on it, and began the process of painting it. My daughter made the mistake of saying she wasn't in any hurry for it so I took my time, making sure I did it right.

I finally purchased a rolling plant stand that I put under the table so I wouldn't have to move to paint each area. I merely turned the table as I went along painting. So much easier on the body.

Six long months later, I finally finished the table, by which time my daughter was to the point of desperate and had been ready for the table since last month. I told her she shouldn't have told me she wasn't in any hurry. Ha!

Now the table has gone to Austin to live with our daughter, who loves her new bedside table.

A New Look For The Front Door...

No matter what I hung on the front door after Valentine's Day, I wasn't satisfied. I wanted something classic to pull everything together once the front door had been painted by Mr. Molasses (my nickname for the painter) and the front porch is totally dirty after high winds (with blowing dirt) that never seem to cease. Apparently, blowing dirt and a drought go hand in hand together, as I'm pulling my hair out trying to keep anything at all clean.

I also have new door hardware to add when the locksmith finally has time to come install it. Then, I'll unscrew the old brass mailbox, sand it a bit, then paint it black as well. 

However, I'm hopeful that the exterior of  the house will be finished by Thanksgiving. A year to paint the exterior of the house, you ask? Umm... Not my decision, okay? You'd think we lived in a mansion for it to take this long, right? Wrong. So wrong. We just have Mr. Molasses. The. Bane. Of. My. Existence.

 So anyway, I spent an insane amount of time making my new (brown) coffee filter wreath. This time, I avoided blisters on my fingers by buying a not-so-hot glue gun. It worked like magic. I'm a total fan. I went through two large packs of brown coffee filters before deciding it was more than enough and I frankly didn't care whether it was or not. I. Was. Done. 

I didn't take pictures of the process this time so I'll show a couple of pictures from the last one I made since it's exactly the same as the one I made last year. And yes, I'm lazy like that, just so you know.

I'm still working on another wreath for the new guest room because I wasn't satisfied with the outcome of the first one. Yes, I'm stupid picky like that. I also bought a huge amount of unbreakable Christmas ornaments after Christmas and made another ornament wreath, which I have no idea what I'm going to do with. Really. 

I can't wait to see what everyone else has done this week! Oh, and I'll be sure to show pictures again after I get the hardware done....

Some Of The Old Is New Again....

As soon as I finished recovering my bench with the first fabric I'd chosen, I realized with much distress, that I hated it. HATED. IT. Seriously. That has never happened before. Apparently, the aging brain likes to play tricks on us and they really aren't very funny. Furthermore, my aging brain (and eyes) didn't happen to notice that the first bunch of fabric I bought was for wallcoverings. No wonder it was so impossible to work with.

 
So, I ventured back to Hancock Fabrics for the umpteenth time to look for suitable upholstery fabric, with no luck. Next, I drove across town to Hobby Lobby and BINGO! There it was. The. Fabric. It was the fabric I really wanted. No, it wasn't on sale like the first crop of fabric. This fabric was like $30.00 per yard. Yikes! The *go with* fabric was slightly lower but there was only 1-1/2 yards. I bought it anyway. I'll figure out a way to use it with this material for the window treatments in the kitchen. The first batch of material is up for grabs. If you want it, you've got it. Just let me know. What a waste of time and money!

Anyhoo, after painfully removing all the staples from the first recover job, I started on my second recover job to the same bench. Will I ever learn? I'm not completely sure that I had a lesson to learn here other than *LOVE the fabric you go with*. If you're not that excited about the fabric then you're probably not going to be very thrilled about the final outcome. Seems simple enough, right? Apparently not.

At this point, my hands, arms, back, and elbows are in *deep ache mode* so I just downed a handful of Advil while saying a prayer and asking God to remove my pain. I'm not sure which one worked but I'm thankful anyway. However, I am absolutely thrilled with my bench now, in spite of said pain and whining. Even my hubby commented that it was far better than the try before. He actually told me to throw away the first bunch of fabric, which of course, I can't do.That would be wasteful, right?

Hubby offered to help but I'm all too familiar with his whole *it's just fine* method of imperfection. No thanks. I'm bad enough on my own. Really. And, since this Queen Anne bench is the first thing you see when walking through the front door, I needed it to be absolutely perfect... sans Moi, of course (which means there are a few hidden minor imperfections I can live with).

Still, I'm just loving my bench now, as well as my *new* recovered computer chair. Trouble cat likes them as well, damn it! There is not a single piece of furniture in this house that doesn't have her signature all over them (as in massive amounts of cat hair, dander, and dirt).

I also plan to use the rest of the new fabric to recover the kitchen table chair seats along with window treatments for the windows and the door, for the first time in 15 years. I'd say this project is looooong past due, wouldn't you? Have you done any refurbishing lately?

I'd actually like to use this gold pillow rather than the red but black and white cat hair definitely trumps that decision. Think I'll go with the dark red pillow. It is shedding season. Nope. Gotta go with the gold.


My next project will be recovering the breakfast table chairs and the window treatments in the kitchen. I can hardly wait! So, the places I party are on my side bar.