Thrifting fun for our furry friends!

The boy and I had a load (from the "new" "office") of things to donate to Goodwill.  We decided to donate, and then wander through and shop a bit.

A few years ago, I noticed a very fashionable woman (lady, girl?) at church that always had the cutest clothes.  I admired her style, and it seemed like she always had something new and cute on....and things I hadn't seen in this town.  I finally got to know her, and asked the question: Where do you shop.  I was shocked!  Her answer? Goodwill.  I had no idea!  I was raised with catalog ordering, homemade clothes and wearing my sister's hand-me-downs, so I am used to living frugally.  But thrift stores? That was not something I was used to.   I thought this friend was shopping in expensive, upscale boutiques, and she shocked me with her revelation. 

I had on occasion stopped by the Goodwill's in town, and it is a treasure hunt.  For my son, I think it's a good lesson in giving, recycling, repurposing, and shopping on a budget.

We hit the Goodwill stores, and then found a new favorite: the local SPCA thrift store that is also open now year round.  This is an added bonus: see some furry friends (they had two kitties there that day that were already adopted), and help our furry friends with our purchases.

Between the two stores, we made out pretty well:

 Our collection for the afternoon:

Two board games......

 .....a great collection of picture hanging hardware.....

.....a 25 pack of bubble mailers (I use these for my jewelry business) that was only missing one!....

....two badminton rackets.....

....two picture frames ready for some white spray paint.....

.....and a stuffed bear that didn't make it into the picture....it was already being well loved. 

Not bad for an afternoon of shopping, huh?  We had a great time, found some great treasures, spent some quality time together laughing without breaking the bank.  All for under $20....not bad for an afternoon outing.

So what is your favorite shopping haunt?  Do you have a goodwill/thrift treasure you are just so proud of? 

":New" "Office"

Yes, this post is about my new office, both in parentheses, and separately.  Why?

"New" because this is the space I've been working in for a while now.  We tend to move rooms around a bit (and I'm so glad my son likes to join me in this effort!), so this room has been his room, the guest room, and now the spare room in just the 8 years we have lived here.

"Office" because that just sounds so official. Office.  Office is what I had working full time as a Controller BC (before Carter) with a huge desk, filing cabinets, binders and other boring accounting stuff.

This space is mine: I want it to be useful yet fun.  A place to do accounting work at times and jewelry work at times; but stuffy and workish? No, none of the time.  I want it to be.....well, pretty.  And if I could squeeze in a comfy chair to curl up in a read a book, that would just be the cool-whip on top of the pudding. 

So here is the before and during.  Hopefully it won't be a year from now before I can post "after" photos.

The closet: Great space, but too much space and I tend to have to go through it quite often.  From here alone, I took out one bag of trash, one bag of books, and one bag of miscellaneous craft/office/computer items to Goodwill.  I also have a big bag of childrens' books I'm going to take to a local school.  And can you see waaaaayyyy down there in the lower right hand corner?  That's my sewing machine, and it's not real easy to use from that position.

So part of my goal for this room is to get that back out and have it ready to go.  So many projects are in my head (and so many fabrics on the shelves I had forgotten) that I need it to be more accessible. 

The room is not huge: maybe 10 x 12, which isn't small either, but I need for this space to work for accounting, jewelry making, sewing and organization of all the detritus that goes along with those projects and jobs (Oh and add one more after last night: Treasurer of the local little league!)

 (and don't you like the word detritus?)

And look! Here is my sewing table!  Years ago, this was my first try at painting furniture.  It was a no-fail didn't care if it failed kind of piece of furniture.  I sanded, primed and painted it white, and much to my surprise, it has held up pretty well! 

Oh yeah....I forget that I never did get back to the inside of the table.....oops. The machine really works well being down in a table (as opposed to being on top of a table: this way your sewing surface is completely flat...), but it was just too big.

This big. So I removed the leaf.  Much better. That will be part of my "new" "office" for sure!

And this beauty is going in there too.  This is a dresser that came from my husband's grandparents.  It's beautiful.  It also needs a little TLC, so I'm not sure what I'm going to do with that yet.  I need to research refinished the top without hurting it.  I think some fresh spraypaint on the hardware would help too. 

So in this room I have five pieces of furniture that I have to work in together:
1) The dresser above;

2) the sewing table, which has to live in front of this window with this view: I mean, who wouldn't want to sew looking here, right?

3) This bookshelf.  This came from an unfinished wood shop, and I stained it myself.  It's probably been in our house over 15 years!  Now I'm picturing it with white paint (I never thought I'd paint real wood!) with a nice pop of color on the back;

4) The ugly, but functional, computer table for when I have to be a serious accounting-person grownup.  It need help, and I'm still figuring out how; I do know the bulletin board behind it will be going away for something a lot cuter, possibly involved old shutters!

5) And this freebie I brought home that was being given away: a solid table that is strong enough to hold up under my hammer-pounding jewelry making:

  It has a "minor" warping issue with the top, but that will be fixed.  Even in it's warped state, it's a solid piece of furniture I'm excited to have.

The yellow walls will stay; add in some white accents, blue and yellow fabrics, a fun circular rug and a fun but functional chair, and I have a new office.

I'd better get to work! Happy weekend!

Speaking of organizing....

Organizing: One of my favorite past times.  But I'm not always on top of it as much as I would like to be.   Like with digital photos: I have folders. I have them labeled. But sometimes I want to upload a picture really quickly, and it's in with a bunch of other pictures that don't relate to it and I just plop it in a folder and never get back to separate them out.  Or it ends up with a title that is so useful like "blog stuff" which is where I found this one I was looking for last week:

On the left is the "before" of my foyer where the new end table went.  Before the color change, before the nice new "POP" of color from my re-done table from my Pop-pop.

I had forgotten how much I loved the change in paint color! 

So let's add to my to-do list of going through digital picture files and getting some organizing on.  First? Getting rid of names such as "odds and ends" and "blog stuff" which really could be a lot more useful.

No wonder I can't find anything.

Pretty pictures

Yep, that's it. Just pretty pictures. No life-changing house-changing world-changing stuff going on in this post.

I love to take landscape photos; close up and personal; texture and interest.  I have some framed in my house like in my gallery wall photos. 

Here are some of my new favorites from our recent trip to Costa Rica.   I can't wait to print and frame and hang them somewhere.

 This is the best type of artwork in my opinion: low cost, personal and memory-inducing. 

I like so much about this one!  The curve of the stones; the moss; the lines of the steps; the colors; even the little legs in the top!  I might crop them out for the framed version, but then again, I might not.

Same spot, looking straight down.  Again, I love all the same things.

This is the root system of what I was told was a "stilt tree"....makes sense, huh?

Up close and personal with the shells on the beach in Tamarindo with a rainy season storm brewing.

My current "office" space has been undergoing a huge cleaning out in anticipation of making it a more enjoyable space, one that I want to spend time in.  I envision white accents against yellow walls, and maybe the bright blues of the water and greens of outside. 

Perfect spot for some new artwork!

Furniture refinishing: Stain over Paint Technique

It's sticky and humid here, so painting and drying times are elongated these days; it just takes longer for every coat to dry, making projects a lot longer than anticipated.  But here, finally, is my end table do-over:

I originally painted it in a beautiful peacock blue (a tester color from Lowes), and while I liked the color, it was a little bright.

To tone it down, I took out the stain from my hutch project  I added a thin layer with a sponge brush, and immediated wiped it off.  I still had the color I loved, but toned down.  I'm not much for distressed or aged pieces, but I liked this effect.  This will give you a hint of the change, and it is subtle in the picture, but a bigger impact in real life:

I used some spraypaint I had on hand to change the hardware from brassy to silver, which pops against the peacock blue so well. 

I love the cheery color at the front door.  With this piece redone, I get to see a reminder of my Pop-pop every day, and that makes me happy!  The color also ties in perfectly with my mirror, so it's a welcoming-reminding-cheery win win all around!

Here is the before and after:

And the best part?  The total cost for this project was under three dollars thanks to the new Lowe's paint colors to go: under $3 for a small pot of paint. I already had the stain, and spray paint for the hardware. Find a small piece of furniture you love and try it! You really have very little to lose, and the whole project (less drying times!) didn't take very long.

  I did some light sanding before priming, and use a good quality base primer in a thin coast to start. I can't wait to try my next stain over paint project! Try it yourself, and send me a picture!

Little table re-do: Paint and stain and spray, oh my!

Finally I'm getting around to some long needed projects!  This one, I'm sad to say, has been in the works for over a year. 

This cute table has a lot of family meaning. It was made by my grandfather, and was in his house for as long as I can remember. When we cleaned out his house, it went to my mom's house. When she moved last August, it came home with me.

I love all the curves and detail: I usually like clean straight lines, but looking at this and touching each curve takes me right back to my grandfather's workshop and is a direct connection to him. 

I decided to move some things things around in the foyer to find a home for it.  As much as I love this beautiful table (which ends up being a nerf-gun holder!), I wanted something more substantial here.

We bought this mirror years ago at a craft show, and I fell in love with the little tile detail around the edge.

I've also been wanted to add a little touch of a different color in the house, and came home with these shades of blues and turquoise. 

So after a quick little makeover, I have what I think is a cute little addition to our foyer. 
Interested?  Check back, I'll have update photos soon!  One more coat to go....

And finally: the beach

After an active first half of the week, we ended our vacation with a relaxing 4 nights in Tamarindo on the Pacific Coast. 

We had our own bungalow right off of the pool area....

...and the beach was totally gorgeous.

On top of that, we had another huge surprise at the hotel.  Capitan Suizo is very animal friendly, and they take in orphan animals and raise them until they can go back into the wild, or just allow them to roam and enjoy the grounds:

 Our little friend "Tiger" that visited at night for cheese crackers.....

.  ....and one of many iguanas sunning by the pool: we named this one "Mohawk". 

But the very best part were the orphan babies:

They have taken in three howler monkeys that were orphaned in the wild for various reasons; they have full-time staff that raises them from bottle feeding to around 2 years old.  During those two years they visit with the wild families of howlers that live in the canopy and come through the hotel area on a regular basis; 1 hours visit become 2, then longer and longer until the monkey they raised stays with it's new family up in the canopy and doesn't come down again.  And yes, she said it was terribly hard to see one go!  The three howlers above were very young: the youngest Luka was three months, and he fell asleep in her arms while sucking his fingers.  Yes, we all melted.


This white face monkey was older at about 15 months, and he was a mess!  Meet JoJo: 

 JoJo would climb on your shoulder (and jump on unsuspecting people walking by, really funny!), steal your phone or anything else you left lying around, sneak off to the bar for a drink or a piece of fruit....

 ....and generally was happy to have an arm offered to climb on and hang out with you.  JoJo was a people monkey!

Every morning we'd wake and say "What should we do today?" and Carter would answer: "Let's go play with the monkeys."  Needless to say, it was an amazing treat! 

JoJo loved Coke....and I sacrificed this one for him to lick around the bottle. 

And then our week in paradise was over.

It was time to get these people home.