My first ASCP experience

About two years ago, I came home with this piece of furniture.

I picked it up at a used furniture store in Ephrata, Pennsylvania.  (Sadly I just found out that "Garden Spot Furniture" is going out of business!)  The price was crazy inexpensive and I am guessing mostly because no one likes pickled fruitwood finished furniture.  It is very solid and made by Thomasville probably sometime in the 60s.

While my granddaughter was here for the summer, I purchased my first can of Annie Sloan Chalk Paint in Old White.  Em and I had a paint party.



The first coat totally freaked me out because the coverage was so poor but I followed the "rules", sanded and put on the second coat.  Thankfully, Emily enjoys doing projects with me and she was a huge help both painting and sanding.

I replaced the hardware with bargain pieces ($1.00 a piece!) from Heebie's.  We applied one coat of Minwax and followed with the ASCP dark wax and another coat of Minwax.  After distressing and buffing, here is the result.



Not bad for two days of effort!

Linking to

http://missmustardseed.com/2013/01/furniture-feature-friday-best-of-2012/

Day of Remembrance

Breaking out the painter's drop cloth

There is a "pass through" window between the kitchen and my dining room.  The base of window is a ledge that extends 12" into the dining room.  It is great for setting up like a buffet and it saves some time when I have dinner guests and want to get everything from dining room to the kitchen quickly.  It is supposed to actually serve as a bar with room for two bar stools.  I had planned to get a couple of Pottery Barn-ish stools with high backs and use them for quick breakfast and lunch when the grandchildren are here.  Realistically, the youngest grands come to my house so infrequently it just didn't make sense to spend that money.  Since the space under the ledge is basically useless, I thought of a way to make a little extra storage area.  Enter the painter's drop cloth.

The space under the ledge is deep enough a couple of sets of plastic storage drawer units with room on top to store platters and large serving pieces.

I love working with painter's drop cloth fabric.  I picked up this one at Lowe's.  I washed and then bleached it.  I used a big bottle of hydrogen peroxide in the rinse water to counter the bleach molecules.  Because I am not crazy about the fact that you can see into my kitchen as soon as you walk in the front door, I decided to make a short valance to hide the sink area from general view.  It is high enough to do the job and still allow for plenty of light.

Do I feel terribly clever?  Why, yes I do!

Feeling crafty!

I don't normally do "crafts".  It isn't that I can't or don't like them, it is simply because I would rather sew than do most anything else.  I saw this really cute idea on Virginia's blog, Artsy VaVa, and thought they would make great Christmas gifts for my nieces.  I don't spend a lot of money on their gifts and usually make something by hand like a scarf or purse organizer.  Years ago I made a lot of jewelry so I had most of the supplies I needed.

Virginia used stretchy cord so I picked up some of that.  Turns out I really didn't like working with it because the beads kept slipping over even my double knots.  I could have gone to the store and purchased thicker cords but I had some thin leather cord that used instead.  That knotted up perfectly.

I didn't have any super glue so I used E-6000 glue to help secure the screw eyes in the cork.  I am going to pick up some glue to secure the knots at the end of the bead runs. Mine are a little "dangly-er" because I just got so caught up in stringing on the pretty beads.

 (I am very easily entertained!)  I may cut back on the beads a bit.  I did 5 while I sat watching tv.  I now have to convince my mother to use the prong type of wine bottle opener when she is cracking open another bottle of wine.  I found a few corks that didn't have any significant writing on the sides so I will run those over a stamp just as Virginia did.

These are so much fun to make and with my cork supply, I can make a whole lot more!!

The tomato plant that ate my patio

The plant had to come out today.  It made me a little sad because there are so many green tomatoes on it and it is still going strong.  We won't be having any more warm nights and tomatoes ripen best when the nights are warm and the days are hot.  Now it is time for pots of mums in the garden box that sits at the end of the patio.

This was my last harvest of the season.

Most are fairly ripe but will turn a much nicer shade of red sitting on the window sill in the kitchen.  This truly was the most incredible tomato plant...ever!

Today is the perfect day to be in the yard.  Low 70's, a gentle breeze and sun is warm.  Time to drag out the weed whacker and take down the flowers in the perennial garden.  The birds ate the last of the sunflower seeds and the seed heads of the cone flowers are long gone.  The only thing that would make today better would be if I could build a big bonfire in the backyard tonight!

Oh.my.word!

I harvested last Friday morning.  I just pulled these off the vine about an hour ago.

I only planted one tomato plant.  I know!!  This is crazy.  Where they are planted I get full sun for most of the day.  There are roughly another 20 on the vine that are in some shade of red but not ready to be harvested.  About 35 or 40 green tomatoes are on the vine as well as more flowers.  Since the nights are starting to get cool I know the ones that are green now will probably not fully ripen.  At this point, I am totally ok with that.  I have been eating one or two a day.  I think I am just about "tomatoed out"!  I am going to wash this batch and then toss them into boiling water to skin.  I don't have time to can until the weekend so I will just bag them up and put them into the freezer until I have all my supplies and ingredients to make salsa.  Everyone in my family will be getting a large jar (or two) of salsa.  Family - prepare yourselves!

They really are beautiful.

Got 'maters?!

Ironstone love

During the lunch hour, I decided to drop into the Goodwill near my office.  I nearly always find a little treasure and for some reason it is the best place to find pieces of old ironstone.  Yesterday was no exception.  For just 97 cents this little beauty made it into my basket.

The gravy boat was made somewhere between 1867 and 1893 based on information I found on the internet.

In the interest of full disclosure it does have one little problem.

It doesn't make me think any less of the piece.  Many pieces of my stoneware is in "less than perfect" condition.  As a matter of fact, so am I!


Linking up to Southern Hospitality