Last night I put the last coat of polyurethane on my dresser project. First time I’ve ever tackled a refinishing project like this, and I’m so impressed! Now to find the perfect handles!

I’m so excited to have this dresser done. Wish I had a before pic for you, just imagine it painted a black paint/stain with gaudy gold-plated handles. As I worked on this baby, I fell in love. Each scrape of the putty knife sliding old paint away revealing wavy grains–each rubbing with steel wool and fine sandpaper heightened my anticipation to get the job done! I mused about where I’d place this antique that my husband’s grandfather built in his young adulthood.

I love antique dressers more than anything else furniture-wise. Especially the ones up on pedestal legs. I can’t bear to waste them on clothing storage! This dresser’s former glory was as winter gear storage on our back porch, right next to the kitchen entryway. One drawer for gloves, another for hats, yet another for coveralls, etc. That was fine then, but…

It’s got too much of *me* in it now to subject it to my family’s daily abuses! (Sorry, fam!) When the light bulb moment came I about spilled my can of stain/varnish. MY KITCHEN! Perfect place to put the microwave–at head height, no more bending over punching in times and start buttons.

Other pluses–Plenty of huge drawers to hold my generic brand George Foreman grill, and my Pampered Chef mini-4-in-one-loaf pan–both items have been hogging space on an end counter b/c they’re too large for my other kitchen drawers (or maybe it’s because my other kitchen drawers are already fully occupied!). So now they’ll be out of sight! I plan on using one of the smaller top drawers for my great-aunt’s silver, tablecloths, placemats and cloth napkins. Which will in turn give me more space in the hallway linen closet for the girls’ puzzles! I have a zillion cookbooks, they’ll go spine-side up in one of the drawers so I can grab the ones I want easily and not forfeit any more counterspace to all my favorites!

So tell me, do you like my “kitchen dresser” or do you think I’m crazy for putting a microwave atop something so stately!?

What pieces of furniture are your favorite and why? Got any stray dressers you could put to practical use while showpiecing them, or maybe you do already?

It’s a leather wastebasket! He made it for a rancher who loves to hunt. Two sides are the deer hide diamonds (rancher’s brand has a diamond around it) and the other two sides my dh carved into the leather himself–copying from pictures of this rancher’s prized deer trophies. The customer didn’t want it dyed…so what you’re seeing is leather–pure and natural.

Ironically, the hand-lacing took as much time, possibly more, than the leather carving. He’s not sure he’ll ever take on a wastebasket project again, but we were happy with how it turned out!

Want a FUN project to do with the kiddos? You’ve come to the right place~

Thanks to Martha Stewart’s basic instructions, we tackled about 12 snow globes the Friday before Christmas…and learned a LOT in the process. Like there really is a reason to use epoxy glue…and oil-based enamel paint…hee. But overall, we’re extremely happy with how our domes of snow turned out!

Here’s what you’ll need:

• Jars and lids in varying sizes. You can use baby food jars but our faves were pimiento jars and diced garlic jars. They’re rounder as you can see in the picture at right. Martha Stewart also recommended those tall skinny olive jars, but we went with what we had on hand!
• Oil-based enamel paint (for the lids). We used sage green (it looks minty in the pictures, but it’s really sage. Really.).
• Sand paper–to roughen inside of lid before gluing ornaments
• Clear-drying epoxy glue (we cheated and used hot glue guns. By day 4 more than “flakes” were floating around in our globes!) Use epoxy glue!!!
• Plastic or ceramic figurines (not metal–too prone to rust). I raided the Christmas supplies in our attic, specifically a box of miniature resin Christmas ornaments! We also used a couple of synthetic evergreen tips for mini-Christmas trees, available at floral supply shops (or robbed from other Christmas decor around your house).
• Distilled water, glitter (again, we went with what we had on hand–red and silver), and liquid Glycerin (available at pharmacies/drug stores).

Sand the insides of your lids, paint the outsides, and while the paint is drying, gather all your ornaments. My girls also made a globe with a plastic toy horse as the showpiece. So think outside the box. I had a miniature collection of resin nativity ornaments, and we even used some small wooden ones (I sprayed them with acrylic sealant) that never make it on the tree.

My oldest came up with the idea of gluing a “platform” to the lids and then gluing the ornaments to the platform…so that the “pretty” is up past the neck of the jar, and more visible. For platforms we used dice, vitamin bottle lids, water bottle lids…etc. It worked great, and you can’t even see them as they are beneath the ornament.

Once you have everything glued and ready to go, fill the jar almost to the top with water, shake a few drops of Glycerin in and add glitter. The Glycerin, according to Ms. Stewart, keeps the glitter from falling too quickly. Don’t put too much, she warns, or the glitter will stick to the ornaments and the bottom of the jar. (Mm-hm. It will.) Then screw on your lid and shake ferociously. Ooh, it’s sooooo pretty!!!

Survived yesterday’s “blizzarding”…just barely! Final snow totals were around 12 inches, with the high winds leaving drifts that were “rib” high on us people and white stuff to the truck beds and fencetops! We were at my sister-in-law’s for Christmas celebrations when it hit, and had to blaze our own trail home on the buried country roads. Where’s a sleigh when ya need one?

This morning we girls played till our fingers and cheeks hurt…sadly, the snow isn’t wet enough yet to make snow balls-forts-people etc. But we still had a blast! So did the pups!

My parents stayed with us from Monday to Thursday, and got in on an all day Wednesday Christmas party here at our house with my friend Deborah and her children. Thankfully all our friends and family now have their power up and buzzing. We thank you for all your prayers!

Here are a few pictures for you of what we’ve been busily doing since Friday…

My lil helper, pounding away at graham cracker crumbs for cheesecake #5! We took several laundry breaks, during which I almost lost her in the dryer…

Then we made and decorated 7 dozen Christmas cookies to take to neighbors and family gatherings…more peanut brittle and 12 or so homemade snow globes!

Today, besides freezing our hinies off outside, we’ve played Clue five times (a Christmas gift oldest received yesterday at sister-in-law’s), made “snowstorm soup” and are about to head over to grandma’s to drop the chillens off so daddy and I can go finish up our Christmas shopping!

And to those of you who sent cards and packages…you filled my heart up to overflowing, honestly! To have friends like you, means so so much–thank you all!

What will you remember the most about this year’s Christmas doings?

(Soon I’ll post my “snowstorm soup” recipe and also a tutorial on home-made snow globes!)

I now have two 15 pound birds in the house, thanks to our local grocery store having a buy-one-get-one-free deal on turkeys!

So it’s beginning to feel a lot like Thanksgiving!

I’ve been wanting to do some fun things this year, maybe start some new traditions. Here are a few appealing ideas–some I came across on the net, and some from me:

• Making a Thanksgiving apron for the Grandmas in your life…this is cute…they took a variety of autumn fabrics and traced the grandkid’s hands, cut them out and put them on the apron, and then decorated them into “turkeys” with puff paints!
• Having a Kernel of Thanks sharing time at the Thanksgiving table. This would be a good time to share the amazing story of Squanto and God’s plan and preparing him for the pilgrims…
• Thanksgiving games
• Watch the Macy’s Parade (did this every year growing up!)
• Make tissue paper leaves. Cut brown, orange, red and yellow tissue paper into small squares. Spread a section of contact paper sticky-side-up on your table and cover it with the tissue squares. Top it with another side of contact paper and trace leaves (that you’ve picked and traced onto cardboard). Cut them out. My kids loved this craft…and if you end up with enough leaves you can make a flat wreath…
• Buy a special Thanksgiving book to be read every year at Thanksgiving.

“Thanksgiving Day comes, by statute, once a year; to the honest man it comes as frequently as the heart of gratitude will allow.”
- Edward Sandford Martin

How do you celebrate Thanksgiving? Tell me about it…your favorite foods, the places you visit, the traditions you return to time and again…

And I’ve got to recommend two books and some great craft party ideas!

First, now is the time to be thinking about hosting a Christmas cookie exchange. Whether for the adult cooks in your life, or your own children and their friends (why not both?), this is a great way to kick off the giving we’re so fond of during the month of December.

In the book Great Parties for Kids by Nancy Fyke, Lynn Nejam, and Vicki Overstreet, you’ll find a two page spread on how to host a “Favorite Cookie Swap” for the kids in your life. Basically, each guest brings three dozen cookies, and the hostess makes about six batches of different kinds of cookies for sampling and giving away. Everyone leaves with several platefuls of variety to share with others. I like to emphasize that this is the time to make those fancy holiday cookies you only make once a year. It kind of dampens the enthusiasm if everyone brings chocolate chip cookies, know what I mean?

Also in this book, is a cute gingerbread man template to use for party invitations.

The second book I’ve got to recommend is Martha Stewart Living’s Crafts and Keepsakes for the Holidays. I was so excited to find instructions in this for classic looking homemade snow globes–something my 7 year old has been wanting to make since last Christmas! I marked several great projects in this book, from jingle bell wreaths to real ribbon chains (remember the construction paper chains we all made as kids for the tree?), to awesome silver origami ornaments to hang in your windows…

Do you have any great Christmas projects in mind for this year’s celebrations?

Dreaming of Christmas reds and evergreens,

Mary

A good friend and her dear mom spent most of an afternoon showing my daughters the basics of using a serger sewing machine. They’re both amazing seamstresses, wedding dress caliber these gals!

Anyway, Andrea contacted me wanting to do what she called “a fun project” with my girls which would require only a half yard of heavy-duty fabric such as denim or canvas and a free afternoon. Well, on our end that’s all it required. On their end it required rather a lengthy road trip and the carting around of two sergers so each of my girls could whiz along on their bags simultaneously. Not to mention a whole afternoon teaching session.

And I got to love on Andrea’s newborn the whole time! All in all, a pretty great day!

Didn’t the bags turn out awesome??? Love those pleats!

When I was a kid, a room of my own with a bed sufficed. I began stamping my individuality upon my room in the fifth grade when I appropriated my big sister’s pastel, water-garden comforter (hey, she’d left for college) and asked my mom if we could get curtains to match. Somehow we ended up going with lace curtains. Hot pink ones. Mmm-hm.

Nowadays, even moms on a budget try to spin fantasy bedrooms from fairy-tale nurseries to princess-garden rooms with loft-bed-castles to camp-themed rooms with camouflage curtains and real tents to play in.

I enjoy the kid room makeover sections in the Family Fun magazines. Their website even has several great ideas. I thought I’d share a few here:

• use an overhead projector to assist you in painting a mural on one wall of your child’s room
• make a clothesline art display–I like their idea, but personally, I’m picturing wide grosgrain ribbons in contrasting patterns, back to back, swagged and attached to hooks, and then clothes-pinning the artwork directly to the ribbon.
• I loved the “dirt on display” idea, wish I’d thought to collect some South Dakota dirt to remember our recent camping trip there! (Though it probably would have been against the state park regulations!)
• What little girl doesn’t dream of fancy draperies framing her bedsides. Check out streamer bed curtains! Cheap and easy!
• Paint a chalkboard mural on the wall. This is amazing. Did you know chalkboard paint comes in many colors? Wow. My kids would love this.
• You know how popular “Wallies” are? Make your own using discarded wallpaper books and cutting out the images you so desire. Family Fun shows you how, using Fairy Wallpaper Cutouts.

My girls’ room is still looking good having just been painted a year ago. Sea Foam Green with cream-colored trim and matching Roman shades. I have yet to decide whether to go with a border, or cutouts, or what curtain style we’ll go with. It’s safe to say it won’t be hot pink lace.

Humor me and tell me about the rooms of your little ones. Take me on a tour.

I’m waiting.

You really should. It’s tons of fun!

My oldest wanted a dog themed birthday party one year…she’d just gotten her first border collie from Grand-dad, and was in doggie-love-land. So we made up some fun outdoor games to go with the theme, and then came inside for some Sculpey fun! The result? The dogs you see in the pic.

Hobby Lobby had all we needed…

• The Sculpey Way with Polymer Clay, a very cool how-to book with plenty of pics (oh, and dog-making instructions!)
• Fimo, the brand of clay we chose to use

The inside cover of the book has diagrams showing actual sizes of the step-by-step shapes you’ll form out of clay. I made copies of these shape guidelines for each child at the party. It was a handy reference for them, as they each chose different dogs to sculpt. You’ll need toothpicks, sharp knives, and aluminum foil.

Besides dogs, we’ve made Christmas tree ornaments (snowmen), a penguin necklace, polar bears…and have many more projects in the book earmarked for future fun!

This is a great craft for all ages. However, I’d stick your toddlers in their high chairs with play-dough so you can sit yourself down with the older kids and sculpt, worry free.

If you don’t want to invest in the book, try the library, or the web. Sculpey.com would be a great place to start!