Artful Thursday ~ Week 12

I had to do a quick project this week, but I am happy to announce that I did complete 2-two-dos items off my monumental PUC List (Projects Under Construction). And tomorrow, both of these items will be for sale at Grace Goods.

I have had both of these for years, and I mean y-e-a-r-s! Longer than I've been married, and that will be 8 years this June. :0) Both are vintage chalk ware items.
The first one is of the Madonna and Child. I had the camera on an inside setting, so forgive the picture. It was a gold color, but not appealing at all.

The second one is a chalk ware shelf, and again, a gold color that did nothing for the beautiful design of the shelf.

At least this one gives you a better idea of the color.

And again, I apologize for 1) lack of steps during this process and 2) the wrong setting on my camera. Just be glad I got something done, okay? LOL!!

I used a primer to cover the old gold color and then gave the whole piece a nice coat of white. I believe the color is "Fine White" by Martha Stewart from K-Mart. Again, something else I have had around for forever.

Once I got the base coat put on, I got to play! This was all the supplies I used: Two different bottles of craft paint: a white and a creamy beige color. A rag, two paint brushes and some leftover color glaze in Mocha. I just started dry brushing the two shades of white and then when almost dry applying the glazed. Then I would rub off any excess until I got a look I liked. It was simple but time consuming.

Finished results

I'm very happy with the results! So happy, that I'm tempted to maybe, just maybe, keep one...or both. But no, I've already had to take one item out of the shop this week due to buyers remorse. So, these two little beauties will be up for sale tomorrow. And this also completes my Artful Thursday project for the week.

Happy Thursday!

XoXo,
Kristal

Still Searching....

We are still on the search of a home to call ours in the new town. It can be SO Frustrating! But I keep telling myself that the right thing will come along...and trying to believe it!! I did find this one:

Property Description

LUSH ROLLING PASTURES. Master bedroom + 2 Bedrooms on main floor. Upstairs rec room with pool table & theater system to remain. Kitchen with granite countertops and stainless steel appliances. Large screened back porch with hot tub. Pond and 3 stall barn. Public water-integrated system and security system. Additional 11 acres available. $525,000.

Does anyone have 523K I can borrow? I think we can swing the other 2K!! I'll give you the email address to my Paypal account if anyone would like to make a donation...LOL!!! Could you IMAGINE?

Sorry, lost in a daydream there for a minute...

Thought I would share some of the things we did this past week during Spring Break. Next time, I will put my order in early for nice, warm weather during Spring Break instead of the wintry, cold, wet weather that we had.

A few years back I got on the Paint-By-Number kick and my Mamma bought a few new kits for me to do. Now that I am participating in the Artful Thursday Project, I thought I would pull some out and play with them. I had helpers.

I think he is trying to paint while eating a chocolate Poptart!


Needless to say, the enthusiasm lasted for a short while. This thing is HARD!!! The areas are so tiny ! I'm still working on it a little each day, but I think the next time I can get to the craft store, I'm gonna cheat and buy some nice, felt-tipped markers!!!

And while Big Brother and I played with paints, someone else was playing also.

See the cabinet...

Open the door...

And there is Gracyn!!!

She can definitely keep herself occupied with the darndest things.

I have some new items in the shop. Drop in and take a gander. I finally looks like we might have a nice day after all. I have a few more painting projects I need to get finished today. I think my time tomorrow will be spent house-searching, so as the old saying goes, Make hay while the sun shines!!!!

XoXo,
Kristal

Artful Thursday ~ Week 11

Before I begin today's project, I do have an little announcement to make. I know some of you are new to my blog, but a few of you have been know me since my old blog and have seen the following statement before:

We are moving...A-G-A-I-N!!! We are moving to Huntsville, Alabama. It's about 2 hours north of where we are now. I haven't said anything on here, but we have spent the last two weeks looking for a new home to live in. And like usual, there are always little small things that happen that just make me want to pull my hair out, but I am learning in my latter years, that no matter how upset I get or worried I become, it will not change what was meant to be. And as I am typing this, the one house we had our hopes on to rent fell through. So, looks like we'll be driving back again, looking for a place to live. But my sweet hubby is already working there, driving 4 hours each day, so it's imperative that we find a house quick. And that brings to the other part, the packing part. I hate packing!! LOL!!! I have So Much Stuff, a pack-rat extraordinaire. I've been trying to do a little each day. But today I knew I must finish my Artful Thursday project and with an early day with some important matters to take care of, I quickly started in on my project. I want to apologize in advance for the lack of pictures between Before and After. I was a little distracted day, having lots on my mind. But I'm happy with the results :0 )

I purchased this a few years ago at an After-Easter sale for just a few dollars.

It's obvious the purple foil wasn't a look I was going for...

I wanted to repaint the little bunny & had a number of ideas in mind to but chose these two items as my inspiration.

Again, sorry there were no in-process pictures but here are some peaks at the final project.

He little basket...

his little tail...

Ta Da!!!

Introducing __________.
(Sorry, a name escapes me at the moment)

Here he is presiding over his prized eggs.

All ready for some Easter Fun!!

And enjoying some nice Spring weather

I will really miss views like this **sigh**

Happy Thursday!!!!

XoXo,
Kristal

Gatlinburg

Okay, I'm posting pictures from our weekend in Gatlinburg.

It was a wet, snowy weekend, so we didn't do a lot outside. We did take the kids to Wonderworks. Wish I had gotten a picture of the giant piano. Gracyn loved running across the keys!

I was so proud of Dane for attempting this! He didn't make it to the top, but he got a good few feet off the ground.



Going into Gatlinburg

left to right: Julie, my sister-in-law, Me, Dane, Bill, my brother-in-law, and Gracyn.




Did I tell you it was C-O-L-D!!!




We drove up to Ober Gatlinburg. It was a very icy, curvy road.




We rode the Ober Gatlinburg Tram down the mountain. Hubby doesn't do well with heights, so this was the only picture he took. The rest of the time, I was holding the camera and the baby!

All of these were taken from the tram.

And this was my favorite picture of the whole weekend! We stayed at some cabins behind Dollywood. It was a small, single lane road winding through the woods to get there. And you passed old farmhouses, pastures and THIS!!

Hope everyone has a good weekend!

Artful Thursday ~ Week 10

Okay, I was having issues with this project. I started planning this one a week ago, but due to some other things couldn't really get started on it until Wednesday. And for a project to sound SO SIMPLE...it took me ALL DAY! Then last night I tried to quickly get a post in before having to start dinner. Of course I get a message like: "Exhausted Battery" from my camera so I couldn't get all the pictures uploaded, therefore I couldn't complete the post. But this morning I got a few extra pictures in and along with a good nights rest, I ready to complete this post and contemplate whether or not I'm happy with the results...still undecided. I'll get you be the judge.


For this weeks' project, I wanted to start making some decoupaged Easter Eggs.

I purchased a package of large eggs from the dollar store.

Then I pulled out a vintage school text book...1963.

Having three half-full bottles of glue, I proceeded to make my own decoupaged medium. I flipped through the book to find appropriate text. This actually was what took most of the morning, finding the right words. And then the tedious task of painting on the glue paste, and wrapping the egg. It took a lot longer than I thought!!!

I have been tea-dying some vintage lace and saved my "formula" in the frig. I wanted a grungier look to the eggs, so they got a dip into the "formula"!!

And this is where I'm not sure if I'm happy with the results. The tea-dye was uniform like I had pictured in my mind, seemed to become darker along the edges. Hummm....

This is the batch last night.

And here they are this morning. I think after letting them dry overnight, they are looking a little better. It has been storming here and very humid so they took awhile to dry.

Now here is a picture of one egg that hasn't been aged. Honest opinion here...

which do you like better?



This was still a fun project. One of the eggs I covered with text from "Beowulf". I layered the text with the words "Dane" on top, thinking my son would think it was interesting to have an egg with his name on it. When I showed it to him, his replay was "Cool" and keep building with his Lego's. Dang kids LOL!!! But he did say that he liked the "old-looking" eggs. He is my son, after all!!!!

I'm still toying with the idea of rubbing a little glitter on these to maybe soften the aged effect.

It looks like we are in for another stormy day, so my trip to the post office and grocery store might wait. I love driving the Camaro, but not when the roads are flooded. It's a Muscle Car and I would need a 4-wheel drive to get around in some of these parts! So the little one and I might be playing today. Plus I've started a really good book, and days like this are good for sitting in the bed reading!!

Thanks for joining me in the delayed edit of Artful Thursday! Now I'm off to see all the other wonderful participants!

XoXo,
Kristal

Artful Thursday ~ Week 9

I apologize for this being my first post since last week, but going out of town really threw me behind and it seems like I'm just now catching up!!! I have a few people who posted comments from last week that I will be visiting as soon as I get this project posted. And just so ya'll know, Gatlinburg was lots of fun. I think I gained 10 pounds while there, there were SO MANY good places to eat! I will be posting all about it tomorrow, promise :0)

Now, for this weeks Artful Thursday project. I did start playing around with this one last week because I wasn't sure how it was going to turn out and I didn't want to wait until the last minute to see if I needed to find another project. I'm a procrastinator but also a perfectionist, therefore it usually takes me a few days to see the completion of a project. I usually go back and tweak this and that. I'm still finessing Chole, but she was proudly worn all over Gatlinburg!!

This week is about birds...I got this kitschy pheasant from a yard sale awhile back. I just loved the weird colors in it. And as is my luck, I dropped it one day.

But never fear, the Queen of Glue is here and I glued that baby right back together~with a few larger-than-a-hair cracks filled in with glue.

I still loved the colors, but now felt like it need a face-lift, to help disguise the cracks. So, out came the glue again, but this time, a sprinkle of glitter was added to the top!

Now, my sweet little bird is all ready for Spring!!!

And since I had the glitter out and was already making a mess, I had this vintage flocked birds that my Mamma gave me a long time ago. Some of the flocking has rubbed off and the tail feathers were missing. I adore the orange glitter (I got it for Halloween, but it is a gorgeous color) but I'm still not happy with the tail feathers. Does anyone know if you can paint feathers?

I know this seems like a simple project, but with the trip and all going on, it still took me a whole week to get this simple task completed. But I had fun and can't wait to finish decorating the mantel for Spring!

Hope everyone enjoyed this weeks Artful Thursday...be sure to check out all the other wonderful projects going on!

XoXo,
Kristal