Valentine Hearts

I often arrive at the party late, or rather, I arrive at the home decor ideas "party" late. Case in point: I decided just this week that I would like to have a few mercury glass hearts to tuck into the faux snow inside a cloche. But I don't have any mercury glass hearts, so I had to go shopping. That's where my idea-lateness becomes a problem: there are no hearts out there in shoppingville, let alone mercury glass hearts.

I looked and looked in vain, and then I happened to glance in a bin of very out of season miscellaneous leftovers at Ikea. There I saw a box of six bronzy-goldy plastic hearts! I snatched them up even though they had nothing to do with mercury or with glass. At least they were heart shapes.

At home, I got out five cans of spray paint: bright shiny silver; duller silver; shiny gold; white; and black. First I sprayed several coats of the two silvers at once, with a can in each hand (try it, it takes some coordination to do it). Then I misted on the black by holding the can at shoulder height and spraying downward to the hearts laying on the floor. I followed that with a light dusting of white done the same way, and finally, a mist of gold. (Click on above photo to see detail.)

Now they are at home in the big cloche on my sideboard. I think I may add small bows to those loops at the top of each heart.

January Projects: Complete!

At the beginning of the month I posted a list of projects I hoped to accomplish in January. Here is how I finished the month:

1. Cut up thrifted garments into pennant shapes Done...
and make three strings of bunting Done

2. Plan office arrangement and buy and install two desktops. Planned, but didn't buy due to budget constraints

3. Try a cook-for-the-freezer day Hmmm, not sure this one will work for me. I still cook up big batches of ground beef and chicken and divide into smaller containers for the freezer, but making whole meals or casseroles in bulk just for the three (or two) of us isn't how we eat anymore.

4. Finish three spray painting projects Done, but I don't like the final result on two of them

5. Clean up garage Not even begun. I need The Professor's help and he hasn't had a free Saturday.

6. Gather bare branches and coat with Epsom salts for winter decor. Done: Made 50 branches with two helpers for ladies event

7. Clean out binders and make covers Done

8. Portrait session for David Done
9. Visit the Re-Store Done

10. Walk an hour a day, six days a week First two weeks it was so cold and rainy that I had difficulty finding a good time to get out there. After that, I consistently did M-F. Saturdays just don't work for me.

11. Try out all the processes in my Vitamix Done

I also accomplished some other projects that I didn't originally plan to do this month:

1. Cleaned out sewing supplies and got rid of tons of stuff
2. Moved sewing supplies to desk in guest room

3. Cleaned out binders of crafts ideas: reduced from 22 binders down to 9 binders

4. Hemmed four pairs of pants for a friend
5. Decorated for ladies event at church

6. Helped our church facilities manager build shelving in a new closet

7. Helped clean out the church pantry to make room for new serving pieces

Decorations for Ladies Event

Last night the ladies event at church went really well. We decorated the tables in the gym with centerpieces of the white branches we made two weeks ago. Most of the branch bundles were anchored into a white ceramic vase using scoops of yard gravel. (The florist marbles we were planning to use turned out to be too lightweight to hold the branches upright. So when we found a bag of gravel in a storage room, we were quite excited.)


When we ran out of white ceramic vases, we filled in with clear glass ones. They had the nicer looking clear marbles to support the branches.

We stood each vase on a thick cross section of a log, and sprinkled sparkly faux snow on the cut side of the log. We also scattered tealights in clear glass jars around the tables. Each glass jar was half-full of faux snow.
Each centerpiece had a different clear glass decoration hanging from the branches: crystals, beads, filigree hearts, blown hearts, stars, and snowflakes.

It turned out beautifully, and we got lots of compliments on the decorations. We are so pleased that it didn't cost much: we bought only the Epsom salts, white glue, and faux snow, which was a deal at 75% off after Christmas.

Our thanks to Mr. David for cutting up his tree into thick log slabs for us. Do you think you could cut one or two for me too?

A Give Away!

Wouldn't it be fun to win a gorgeous linen tablecloth and napkins? Go to Chic Provence where you'll find all the details of how to enter this giveaway valued at $250. You just might win (but I hope I do!)

Sweetest Day Bunting

Last week the thrift store had 75% off all their clothes. Since most clothes are priced at $1, that made them only 25c each. What a deal!

I can't seem to ever find clothes that I could wear at the thrift store, but I can find clothes that I could craft with. That day, I found 25 pieces of clothing in several color schemes, to cut up for strings of pennants (or bunting).

I planned out a patriotic theme with the red, white, and blue:

And a spring theme of greens and yellows:

Thirdly, I created a pink theme for Valentine's Day:The pink theme is the one I focused on finishing, since V-Day is just around the corner.

I was able to cut out all the pennant shapes from all the clothes. Most pieces of clothing gave me 8-10 pennant shapes. Some, being extra large, gave me up to 15 shapes!
I have more than enough for myself, and some to share too.

Frosted Trees

Along with Heather and friend Christa, I made frosted branches to decorate the tables for an upcoming ladies event at church.

We started with looong branches pruned from my dormant crape myrtle tree. We snipped off the brittle seed pods on the ends, and any tiny twigs near the bottom of each branch.

Then we swiped on plain old Elmer's white glue with a snippet of sponge (an old one from the kitchen). We did sections at a time since doing the whole branch at once would take too long. The glue at one end would dry before we got to the other end.Next we rolled/sprinkled/smothered the glued area in a tray of Epsom salts. Repeat and repeat and repeat until the branch is covered almost to the bottom. To dry, we stood each completed branch in a vase filled with rocks. Soon my dining room was filled with sparkling trees!

Vitamix

Just after Christmas we bought a new Vitamix blender.

I first saw the Vitamix while I was in high school many decades ago. We watched a demo at the county fair, and I was very impressed. What I remember most was that he threw in whole eggs, shell included. The Vitamix ground it up so finely that when he passed around samples of the smoothies, we couldn't detect even the tiniest bit of egg shell in there.

Ever since then, I have wanted my own machine, but the price always made it out of reach for us. I have been saving extra grocery money for a long time now, and when we saw them at Costco (the Costco discount makes it more affordable) just before Christmas, we knew the time had come.

I've been playing around with it for a week now and I love it!