Auction Buys Part 2

A few of the other buys from Sunday's auction:  *This great work table/bench.

 *Holy Family picture. (hard to pass on these!)

*Jesus, the Good Shepherd. :)

*Old school paper cutter.

I've wanted a paper cutter for a long time...but this one was finally the right size and price!

*From the "Ideal School Supply Co." 

*Fabulous stools! 

 Our barn will have no shortage of great seating.  The chalkboard easel will be for my girls to play with and to eventually use for signage if I start selling at shows again.

I like this picture taken in the late afternoon sun on Sunday...wonderful long shadows and the feeling of expectation.  The chairs are waiting for someone to come and sit and enjoy them. 

 Much better than how they are now...stacked waiting for someone to come and clean them up!

Time to Organize! Auction Buy Part 1

Goodness!  I had NO plans of organizing our garage anytime before Christmas or probably not even at all this winter and then yesterday came along.

And, yesterday brought these.  Well, actually we brought them home this morning, ha! But we bought them yesterday at an auction.

The bins were used to store bolts and parts in the old Pontiac Dealership here in our town.  The building most recently was home to an auction company and is where I would often get to go to auctions.  The auctioneer has retired and yesterday was his last auction.  I'm happy I could go, not only for the pieces I picked up, but to be there one last time. I had a lot of fun at auctions down there.

There a few other purchases which I'll share tomorrow.  Now I need to get these in the garage properly.  Easier said than done!!

Happy Monday to you!

Below you can see two posts from Instagram of my husband moving these old parts bins in to our garage. 

View original instagram or visit INK361

View original instagram or visit INK361

Some Projects Don't Work So Well....

Macrame Chair Trial from Jill Ruskamp on Vimeo.

My daughter made this macrame chair for 4h this year and I thought it would be so fun for her to hang out in!  We never had her actually sit in in before she entered it in the fair on the off chance it would break because she had put so much time into it.

Well, trying it out got put on the back burner. We finally took down our porch swing to give her chair a go yesterday.  If it was wonderful, we would look for a tree branch to hang it from. I decided to video tape it because she was so cautious to sit in it. I'm not sure why we were both so afraid of hitting our bottoms on the porch, but we were!

She found the instructions here.   We didn't use heavy enough cord for the rope holding it up nor did she tie the knots big enough. I think it could be quite a bit wider too...changes that could be made if someone were to try it again.  It's discouraging, but we did laugh a lot when we were trying to get it to hold!

(I've been wanting to learn how to edit videos and thus the video posted today. So much to learn!
I've uploaded this to vimeo now and it is of much better quality if watched from the vimeo site instead of here in blogger.)

DIY Cork and Fabric Mouse Pad

A while back I saw this tutorial on Going Home to Roost and knew that it would be a great use of some of my vintage fabric.  Plus my mouse pad was ready to be replaced.

Yesterday, I decided to make it happen.  And, basically 15 minutes later it was done.  It is that easy if you have the supplies on hand.

Isn't that fabulous fabric? I think it was a feed sack, but I'm not positive.

The thing I did differently from the tutorial, is that I used a spray adhesive on the chip board to adhere it to the fabric instead of an iron on fusible web on the fabric.  So, spray your chip board, mat board, or a couple pieces of a cereal box.  Adhere to your fabric.  Adhere the self adhesive cork board, then trim it to your desired size and shape.  I used my old rotary cutter to cut the sides and a scissors to trim the corners round like Bonnie did in her tutorial.

I haven't put the fray check on it as she suggested and probably won't.  I'll experiment with this one and see if it frays or not. 

Funny how something as simple as a mouse pad can make you happy!

Goats, Chickens, Pigs, and Goats!

While we were up visiting my Mom yesterday, she suggested we head to the farm so the girls could see the animals and look for eggs.  My brother and sister in law have some animals out there and it's always fun to see what they've added.  There was another goat and two new pigs this time. You'd have to look close but there are goats, pigs, chickens, and ducks all in the same space here.

Old school and it's great!

So we went looking for eggs and Mom said they are often up in the lay loft.  Yes, the girls were scared to get up there, but did make it to the top of the ladder. :)

My husband and I used our phones for flashlights to look for the eggs.  Old school meets new school.

This nest of three were all we found. (It was dark up there.)

No eggs in the nesting boxes.  Mostly you see these used as cubby storage in people's homes.  They are still used as intended some places!

This "new" barn was added since the last time we were there.  My brother, I assume, traded something for it.  And, I'm not gonna lie...I was jealous!  Of course it's missing most of the two walls on the other two sides, but it was still wonderful!!

The loft would sure make a great space for so many things!

This wasn't as high as the other loft so the girls were more brave.

This is the old house that my Dad used as a shop.  Before long it will be gone so I take pictures of it every time I'm there.

  

My Grandpa lived in it for awhile and I'm told it was run down even then so it's been around for a long time. I love it.  Love it.

So....wonderful.

Oh, I almost forgot this picture of two of the goats.  That one in back, sounds just like an old man in pain when he bleats, crazy weird sounding!

I hope your week is off to a great start!

And, after I posted on Saturday, my daughter just kept feeling better, so after my husband got home I was able to go join up for pizza with my old classmates.  Still trying to wrap my mind around the fact that we are all 51 now! 

Herb Bundles

Today, I had plans to meet up with high school friends, some of which I have not seen for maybe 25 years, give or take a decade... Well, my youngest got sick right after breakfast....So plans changed.

I had clipped some herbs yesterday to dry and they were laying on the counter on a cookie sheet yet, so I decided to bundle them up with string since I had the time.  There is something to aromatherapy as the scent of Rosemary certainly affects me emotionally. I think I'd call it consoling.  But, then again, maybe anything would have today as I was disappointed I couldn't go.

I have a few bundles now to dry and enjoy the scent and I have more rosemary to dry in sprigs and store in quart sized mason jars.  I even got to use my very old string on my antique string holder.  That's good consolation too!

My daughter is feeling much better and ate lunch so I'm very grateful for that.

Preserving Fall

Such fleeting beauty this time of year....

We've had some gorgeous days!

And, when I was reminded of the the old craft of dipping leaves in wax I thought it was time to try it and hopefully preserve a little of this glorious time for awhile!

The Instagram video I posted of dipping the leaves will be at the bottom of this post.

Well, I dipped quite a few.

And, the next day, my girls dipped quite a few.

So, now I have a bowl of leaves

and, not one,

but two wreaths!  The first used a grapevine wreath with the leaves hot glued on.

This second one has for it's base a cereal box cut into a circle.

Sooooooo pretty to have in your house!

We also have two jars of leaves. :) 

You may remember my "summer in a jar".  Now I have fall in a jar.  This is my kind of "scrapbooking"!

So then I wondered what would happen if you dipped a small branch with the leaves still hanging on...would that work?  It sure did!  I put some foam in a tin can and arranged the small branches and added some plain tiny branches too.

Preserved just like they were outside.  I don't have to worry about storing this as it cost only the little bit for the paraffin wax.  I can toss it when we decorate for Christmas.  

Truly, enjoyable to do! The leaves are velvety smooth to the touch.  I think that's what the little girls liked the most, feeling the waxed leaves.

Things to keep in mind:  keep your heat LOW, wax is flammable. When you use a hot glue gun to affix the leaves, it will melt the wax on the leaves too so you need to go a bit slow allowing the wax and the glue to set up before moving on.

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