Let's Hear It For Family!

Now you see it...(dead tree)



Now you don't!! I accommodate easily to most everything. I really never paid attention to the dead try behind our yard. Now that it's gone, you can see how bad it really looked.



The "Before" --Messy and dying trees on the South side of our barn. What was worse than the way they looked was that they had gotten tall enough they were shading our garden.




My brother, sister-in-law, Mom, and nephew came and down the trees came.




I wish you could have heard when they fell. It was really awesome.



The "After". I'm usually sad when people take out trees. Not this time. This was a mess and will look so much better once we level it, etc. Not having the trees there to hide junk I don't know what to do with though could be a problem. We have no shortage of trees however. I'll try to not just move the junk further away (may be too late!)




AND--LOOK at this!! My son held this up to show me this neat stump from one of the cedar trees we cut out. It's a perfect bunny.




Here's the one still in the ground. Twin bunnies! At least this kind won't eat our garden or plants.

The Spray Painting Continues

I picked this set of lockers up at a garage sale for $3 a few weeks ago. (I thought about taking pictures of it after I had laid it down to power wash it and was too lazy to pick it up for the picture.) They had been painted off white with lots of wear and some drips-- so time to repaint.



I chose a hammered metal spray paint and I really like how they turned out! It took two cans of primer and two cans of the hammered metal paint to cover it and the inside is only lightly coated. Oh well, "good enough for who it's for..." ( a saying from my brother when we built our house!) These are in our basement now and I will probably move them to the storage room. When I can get in the storage room that is.




My recommendation if you are going to spray paint a lot--as in 4 cans of paint on one project--or if you have to go somewhere where it will look tacky for your index finger to be tipped in gray--is to get one of these spay can adapters. My husband thought I should try this, worth the $2.50 for it he thought. He was right. Wow, what a relief for your finger and hand! It just pops on the can and you are spraying with ease. It really looks like it should hold up for possibly years of use too.

Through My Window

This is what beckons and yet organizing, purging, laundry, life demands a lot these days. But the garden IS going in--will finish it tonight! I'm trying to stay realistic with it and with the potted plants. The gals are so much easier this year I know we can do more outside this year but it's the inside stuff--organizing, purging, laundry, cleaning......that I'm a bit behind in. oh well!

Garden Cart

This was one of the no bid items at the auction I talked about in this post when I started my new collection of zippers. I gave $.25 for this when I went through the no bid pile and I was quite excited about it.



Washed, primed, and painted----it now sits on our front porch. It still needs "dressing up" so to speak but this is all I had time for at the moment.




The "teapot and cups" are much cuter in person. I made these a few years back after my sister- in- law, Danita told me how she and her daughter, Jennifer had seen something like it in a store and they went home and made some themselves! She gave me the directions.



The "teapot" is an upside down terracotta flower pot. This is an 8" azalia pot I believe. I covered it with chicken wire and sphagnum moss. The handle and spout are just shaped out of the chicken wire and filled with the sphagnum. I sponged some green paint here and there around it. The cups are upright small terracotta pots covered in the same manner.



This is the underside of the teapot to give you a better idea of how it goes together. The great thing is- the chicken wire holds it all together even if one of the pots breaks! (One of my cups has been broken for sometime now, but it still holds it's shape.) Please let me know if you make yourself a set and send me a picture. I'd also like to hear any suggestions for improving or changing the set.

Day in A Jar

I'm obsessed with leaf skeletons. I'm also determined to figure out what the best time of year is to find them. Will and I were out in March on a mild day looking and spent about an hour sifting through leaf debris by one of the marshy areas on our place. It is so serene to sit in the trees and be on a mission that means nothing, but everything all at once.




I took a lot of pictures the night we found a box full of skeletons, but the pictures sit on the disc. Today I found the box on top of the freezer when I was cleaning. It occurred to me that it would be great to save these in---what else----but a jar. Kind of like a scrap book, a memento, whatever...it was a really good day with my son and now the day is in a jar in my laundry room. I filled a jar for him too for his room. I'm not sure what his reaction will be.




I used one of my old typewriters to label the jars with the date we gathered these. (Just happened to be my Mom's birthday!)

I can see my day collection growing. Maybe the items we gather on a walk or perhaps odd mementos from a vacation; napkins, ticket stubs, fast food sacks, anything.

Mmmmm........

.....pretty sure this is what Heaven smells like......

Artitudes Show

Remember all those zippers? I used some of them for these pins. They would look nice on a bag I think. (Yes, those are bobbins in the center, that don't fit my machine.)



Thanks to Cindy I found the idea of wrapping zippers around bottles at junksofisticate. The flowers I made with baling wire, tree wrap, and vintage buttons.




Another altered bottle. The text "Sweeter as the Years Roll By." came from a vintage hymn book.



Another zipper makes up the flower on this bottle and pounded wire with vintage text makes up the bird.



Here's my table at the ARTitudes show in Lincoln. The wall as a background doesn't help in the picture, but in person the wall is awesome.
The show is a fund raiser for the Arc of Lincoln. What a good cause.