Projects Presents and Portrait Madness

 Remember these roadside finds? They look pretty in this picture but this white color was actually a mold and they were a big mess. But hey they were free and in this case someones trash really is my treasure.

 Washed down and stained. AND my mama said to neva say neva because as soon as you do you'll be eatin them words. I used polyurethane. I used a lot of it!!!! Whahhhhaaaa it looks great.

 Like I said they turned out so pretty we decided to bring them inside.  I need to recover the cushions they are plastic coated.

 Looks nice huh?

 My hubbins bought birthday flowers. He is also sending me away to give him a break and get me out of his bald head  see my girlfriend. I also got a sweet card and it had spending money in it for my trip.

 Another project we had been tackling was to make the weed patch look like a flower garden again and it does.

 These are the other two chairs I picked up off of the curb. Can you believe how great they fit in?

 Here is some of my recent "art." I painted this table top with two colors of turquoise and then some stain to make this effect.

 Also painted a second table. I wanted them to be the same colors but look unique. I wasn't trying to make them match.

 A bit of rearranging pictures after the paint touch up. And I also painted the frame of this print.

 This is the top of the dresser that needed the veneer removed. I love how it looks. It's several types of wood and it's distressed because it was actually made out of scraps.

 Matched the stain and it blends well, didn't have to refinish the whole piece just the top. The hunny took off the veneer and then sanded it down with a belt sander and an orbit sander. I used steel wool between coats of stain and oil varnish. Hey that's my new camera in my hands in the reflection and Romans butt in the air, he's always gotta be in the action.

 My daughter bought me this lamp for my new room and a new willow figurine. They were birthday presents and she couldn't wait to give them to me on my birthday she gave them to me early.

 Then she went and bought me ANOTHER present! This one was ON my birthday.

 She told me she loved me.

 She had it gift wrapped and it was bee youuuu ti fullll.

 Boo is taking their pictures. From here things began to get vera verra silly.

 I never have on make up when the camera gets pointed my way.

 Opening this beautiful package is really fun, I can't lie. It might be more blessed to give than receive but I can tell you from experience this receiving deal is fun! Yep, I like it!!!

 And I love her. She is my beautiful beautiful girl.

 You made me laugh yes you did!!

 I can make a bigger chicken neck than you can..... no we di'int.....yes way we did.
That is some serious DNA there. Our wrinkles match.

 My brain just did a tilt.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot to show you what was in the box! A beautiful maxi dress. Perfect for summer.  It's purty.

Tommorrow I am going to sleep in. I hope I sleep until noon. I have nothing on my agenda, nothing ya hear me!!!! If I get an idea I'm going to call someone to come over and put me in my room and lock the door. No more ideas for awhile ok?
So ah what's cookin at your place?

We Visited Big REX

Now that Nannie has wheels I can actually take my grands out to have a wee bit of fun! We decided to visit our local natural science museum. It isn't the Monterey Bay Aquarium which is one of the coolest places in the world to visit; but it was really fun.

 The day we went the weather decided to have a severe fit of thunder and lightening. While we downstairs looking at MS sea life and SNAKES... the power went out and we were in the DARK.

 My brave grands soldiered on. Actually the power outage was brief. It's a good thing because a few people were pretty freaked out. I would have rather the power went out when I was in front of something dead not a live venomous cotton mouth snake!! YUK! SCCCCCCRRRRREEEEAMMMM.

 My grandson stood by this stuffed wild boar so you can see how big it is and how big he is. Ain't he cute? I love to tease and tickle him. I just can't help myself.

 Who would think that so many different critters inhabit our state? Really it's amazing. I prefer the nasty bugs and snakes to be dead and in the museum. I will never be anything but politically INCORRECT when it comes to snakes. If it is poisonous and aggressive it needs to be dead. I did show the kids how to tell the difference. Garden snakes are alright. We saw some of those. I forgot to get a picture of our live two headed snake. It happens just like conjoined twins. Our two headed snake is not poisonous so I wish it a long life behind it's very safe glass gage or whatever that stuff is.

 We decided that these robots might have been used in movies. We loved the scenes with the little ones hatching. They had sound effects and everything. This mother robotasuar looks smitten with her hatchlings doesn't she?

 Look pa baby reptilians, the litter is arriving.

 This is a dark picture but it is a flying teradactyl. Which prompted me to teach my grandchildren a poem. I do believe in educating our families ourselves. So I recited this poem for all to hear.

"Birdie birdie in the sky,

why you do that in my eye?

I'm so glad

that cows don't fly."

 

The poet would include teradactyls too. We decided that having animals of that size flying overhead would warrant always carrying an umbrella.

More reptilian babies....

We even saw robot blood.

A humongous skeleton. it was up in the air, we hoped that it was not something that was ever airborne.  Nurses are sort of obsessed with how, what, and where, things plop.

He would leave a considerable amount of compost too.

This is some kind of sloth! Check out the claws on this dude! Good thing sloths move SLOWLY.

We had a volunteer to pose with Rex and show off his dental health.

A blurry panorama view.

And to da...the robot inards. Very cool. The eyes move and can seriously give you the creeps. The eyes on these robots looked very real. The way they move it looks like they can see you, with mouths obviously big enough to eat you....

but they do not and so we lived to tell the tail.

Finishing and Finding More to do

My walls need to be touched up. We have rearranged until some places look like a pin cushion.

Have you ever wondered how to touch up your paint without re painting everything?

First you have to spackel the holes, let it dry, and then sand it with a fine grit sanding block.

Like I said there were a LOT of holes.

The secret is to roll in a W pattern. Any direction accept for straight rows.

Blend the paint out to the edges so that it's thinly applied where you want to stop painting.

If you look closely you can see the lighter areas where I painted.

I don't know what the pros do but I discovered this by trial and error.

These are the walls wet. I think you can see.

When it is dry it will blend right in and just look nice and clean.

I hit up all the worn areas and dirty spots and it will look like a new paint job without being a new paint job. How is that for a redundant sentence?

Like my grammer?

Yeah, I thought so.

 I bought this mirror, from our local "junk" shop for the upstairs bathroom but my hubbins hates it.
I think it is really cool myself and I actually like it better than the big gold one.

 My downstairs digs are coming along. I am amazed at how much work it is to change rooms.
I didn't move very much furniture. Moving just stuff and bathroom stuff is a big chore.
I'm ready to purge more junk. How do we collect so much crap in the first place?

 I think I wear a junk magnet.

 The dresser is coming along. The top isn't finished yet. I had to bring it inside to dry. The humidity would not let it dry out. The top is looking so cool, totally the distressed look. I like it that it was like that under the veneer. I was thinking today how weird it is that the scraps and "junk" of yesteryear is a lot better than what we use today. When is the last time you bought some solid birds eye maple to build with?

 Hung the print and the mirror today. I love this print. It's a watersolor I picked up at an art and wine festival in Santa Cruz CA.  I am not going to put too much else up. I like the walls plain with the nice warm cream paint. It's relaxing to have less visual stimulation.
I usually start with great intentions like this and that clutter it up again over time.
Resist resist.....

 This picture is a truer color of the dresser. I am using 4 OOOO steel wool between coats of finish.
I use an antique oil that dries hard and has a low luster. I love that stuff it makes furniture gorgeous.
It also lets it breathe. I HATE polyurethane. Whoever thought of coating wood in plastic is crazy. Granted they did get rich because it's easy to apply, but it isn't good for the wood.
This oil is easy to apply. You hand rub in the finish. The more coats you add, the deeper the shine. I do a minimum of 3 coats of the finish and 2 coats of stain. I usually use more than one color of stain to get a more multidimensional color. This piece is not quite this yellow.
This dresser is actually the first piece of furniture I ever refinished.
I didn't know what I was doing, and it still turned out.

 OK why am I showing you another shot of this?
Because I forgot how many other shots there are?
Because I wanted too?
Because I said so?
Nope.
So you can see my pile of new wash rags.
New paint touch up, and new wash rags, and rearranging stuff,
shoot fire, it's like a whole new house!
I am so easy to please.
Who gets excited over new wash rags?
I do. Now you know.

 Tomorrow I'll work on the bathroom. I'm a glutton for punishment.
My feet have given out. I still had mental energy but my body is sooooooo pooped.
I decided to write this post with my feet up.
They are on fire.
My hip is screaming at me.
I shouldn't be doing this.
But if I don't who will?
Are you coming over?
Well maybe next year.
But in the meantime, if I blog I can be OCD while sitting down.
See, how your helping me out?
Your saving me from myself.
Someones gotta do it.

Projects remaining in the carport. The two chairs are still in process. They look like different colors because they are. The chair closest to ummmm us, Has been sprayed twice with golden oak.
It's not the color I liked when I washed them and got them really wet. So I picked up a different color and will spray them down AGAIN. Then the boat varnish. Boat varnish is very cool stuff.
Think about it. It is made to be in salt water all the time.
That stuff PROTECTS!
We finished a pair of french doors in natural stain and boat varnish and they never did age.
They stayed looking brand new for years.

The table has MORE projects. That red basket has marked up nearly every door and wall in my house. I keep toys in it for little kids to play with when they come over.
The kids like to haul the basket around by themselves, and everywhere they bump into something a bit of red stays behind.
I am going to prime it and re paint it, so that I can quit with the red skid marks everywhere.
The other project I need to finish is to stain the doors for my desk.
I have had those for over a year.
It's ridiculous how I can procrastinate.
Except for right now.
I am doing pretty good!

I was doing well on the Leanness Lifestyle diet and then I blew it on Sunday. We went to a POTLUCK. My plate had small portions of a lot of different things and I was definitely too full.
It's weird, after getting too full I couldn't quit eating. Seriously I can control myself better if I don't over eat. Once I started I had signed up for a binge.
There is no way I was going to enter all that into the computer either.
I'm tired of this already.
I am not tired of cutting back and eating less.
I'm tired of the program. I suppose it keeps me accountable, making me enter every bite I eat.
What a pain.
Now that I have more of my meals in it though I can enter them with one click.
It's new items that take time, and a potluck? Well, that could have me entering data until next week so ---pass.

Whatcha all up too?