Needle Felted Pumpkins and Acorns

I had my friends Kelly and Jennifer over the other night to do some needle felting.
If you'd like to try your hand at this fun craft, head on over to my friend Pat's website (designed by yours truly) and buy yourself a little starter kit! DecadentFibers.com

I made all of these little pumpkins/gourds and acorns. Aren't they cute?!

Now I just need a cute wooden bowl or something to display them in, instead of grouping them all on the piano.

The color is much more true on the picture above, than it is below.
I just love my little acorns, though!

If you want to see more fun fall craft projects from bloggers all over the net, head on over to Rhoda's at Southern Hospitality and join the party!

The kids didn't have school on Monday, so my sister asked me if I could watch Madeline for the day. Of course I said yes! We went to the apple farm, waited 45 minutes in line for some YUMMY cider donuts, and then drove up the mountain to Thacher Park, which is always a great place for a photo op. I think we were there barely 5 minutes before it started raining and we had to make our great escape.

I got some great pics before we left though! (You can click to enlarge.)

They look like sisters, don't they? :)

I'd like to go back in a couple of weeks when all those leaves are orange and gold, and get another shot just like this one.

Happy Fall!

Thrifty Treasures McCoy!

I decided to join Rhoda over at Southern Hospitality for one of her last Thrifty Treasures celebrations of the season. If you want to see over 100 bloggers and their thrift treasures, then head on over there. It's fun! Here is my find of the month:

It's McCoy, and it's McLovely! I love the tufted diamond pattern, and the laurel leaves down on the saucer...AND I found one in blue too! See it down there on the right?

...and the smaller yellow one with a different pattern on it? They're all the "real McCoy"...lol...and I think I paid $24 for all of them. I bought them a few weeks ago, and I honestly can't remember exactly how much I paid, but it wasn't much. And how do you like my bee-yoooteeeeful glass bird vase? Isn't he handsome? My father and his wife gifted me with him after I hosted the big family shindig in August. I've been keeping him freshly stocked with gorgeous dahlias, which I just can't get enough of. My friend Donna gave me the tubers in June for my birthday. I just plopped 'em in the ground some time in mid-July I think, and they are blooming like crazy.

LOVE.

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New Kitchen Shelves

OK, I'm going to just pretend that I didn't hear Diane's whining, because honestly, I think the only pics I've EVER seen of her house are of her bathroom shower curtain or something. So I don't feel the LEAST bit obligated to post pics on HER behalf. (Hear that, Diane? I think you should start your blog now--quid pro quo!)

Below please observe my fabulous new kitchen shelves, made by yours truly. I just bought the brackets at Lowes, and put 1 x 8 boards on them and painted 'em white. The little spice shelf underneath is just a 1 x 3 that I screwed in from the sides of the brackets. I LOVE having my spices out from behind closed doors under my built-in cabinet. Now I can reach them when I'm cooking! Can you see my fresh garlic from the farmers' market too? :) Please excuse my lack of staging. I'm seeing my mojito mix on the counter, and a bag of potatoes, along with my old green dish towels. Whatever. This isn't a magazine. It's my house, right?!

Oh, and P.S. those tomatoes on the windowsill came from my garden!

I built this bench over my radiator, because I couldn't stand looking at the radiator any more! It also reminds me of when I was a kid, and I used to hang out on top of our warm radiators and talk on the phone for HOURS.

I just used a leftover piece of plywood from a cornice project I had done, added the wood legs that my friend Kelly had picked up at a salvage sale, and mounted the back of the plywood board to a 1 x 2 at the back edge of the wall, so the board wouldn't be putting pressure on the radiator when you sit on it. Then of course I had to make a cushion for the whole thing.

And pillows, of course. Kathleen sits here pretty much every morning and eats her breakfast before school. I've strategically left the table out of the photo, because it has been recently requisitioned for my wireless printer, and is collecting paperwork like crazy. Again, this is real life, folks. I need an office. Bad. I'll put that on my list right next to "needs a second bathroom."

Mini Bathroom Reno

OK, so in July, right before my sister came up from Florida to see my house for the very first time, I did a little renovating. My bathroom is really a sad case. It needs to be gutted, and I need to start over, but until I hit the lottery, we're just going to have to make do with mini-renos. I had bought my new faucet before I even moved in here in April of '08. And it sat tucked in the bathroom next to the toilet for just over a year, before I finally handed the box to BF and batted my eyelashes and said "Pretty pleeeeease will you install this today while Kathleen and I go to the mall?" Snort. Seriously. That's how it went down. And then he said "I don't want to." And I said "I know," knowing full well that he would do it, despite his complaints.

So...here is my old faucet:

Um...yeah...I guess it was kinda tricky for him to get it off of there...

Yuck.

Oh, well, before you see the "afters" of the new faucet, you have to see my awesome wallpaper that I got for $1 at a garage sale. I glued it to the inside of that medicine cabinet with some Elmer's, because I couldn't put my hands on my spray adhesive at the time:

This floor was sheet vinyl. Last year, I painted over the sheet vinyl with cream paint, to cover all the original overall crappiness and paint splatters, and because I was having a little party and couldn't have people peeing in there with blue paint on the floor. So this next time around, I used my leftover peel-and-stick tiles from Lowes, and put them right over the sheet vinyl. This whole floor, including the subfloor, needs to come up at some point, because the toilet is tiny, and the floor is saggy and weird. All in time. But in the mean time, this doesn't look half bad, right?:

Et voila...my new faucet! Isn't it PURTY?!

I had painted the vanity white last year (it was originally scary old wood), and then I painted it brown and put new hardware on it a few months after that. I swear, it's like every time I'm having another party or gathering, I throw some spit polish on the bathroom. I had hung that little shelf between the mirror and the sink a while ago too. It holds guest towels, and a candle:

I had put up a really pretty green shower curtain a while back when the floor was cream, but when I laid the new tile, that shower curtain looked like crud. I bought this lovely banded, lined one at Target for $30. Nice.

This is what the bathroom looked like when I moved in. Eeeeew.

Hanging the big vintage mirror on that wall immediately made the room feel wider, which is good, 'cause it ain't wide. At all. As you can see. *sigh* I'd love to have two bathrooms some day too. I'll put that on my list.

Stay tuned...I've got my kitchen shelf pictures to show you too! I put them over the stove, to the left of my awesome vintage window cabinets. The kitchen feels MUCH more finished now.

It's Hammertime!

HammerTOWN, that is. I just couldn't stop singing that Hammer Time song in my head as I wandered through this great store on Sunday. I would like to thank my anonymous local blog lurker for the heads up about Hammertown Barn. What a great place! It's only an hour south of me in Pine Plains, NY. And five more minutes down the road was the town of Millerton, NY, which was chock full of great shops! We (me and my friends Kelly and Jennifer) had a really wonderful day, and it felt like we really uncovered a great secret! Usually we KNOW about these places, but this one took us by surprise. Enjoy the pictures, and if you get the chance, GO THERE!

Hammertown.com

Can you tell I loved all the upholstered furniture?! It's Mitchell Gold and Bob Williams and Lee Industries stuff. All great in natural linens. Yum!

I had to buy a couple of those candles. Now I just need to decide if I'm keeping them or giving them away as gifts. Hmmm....

This was a faux wood rug! Made of some foamy substance! It looks amazingly real, doesn't it? Too cool for school:

Can you believe those awesome botanicals?! I want them!! (Only $185 each!)

There were three or four of these benches upholstered in old rugs. LOVED it:

I keep promising more pics every time I post, and then I get sidetracked. (Darn that work anyway!) But I really do have some kitchen and bathroom project pics to post. I'll get to it. Some day! :)

On a personal note, I went to Kathleen's open house at school last night. They had us go through a mini-version of their day, so we spent 10 minutes in each class (Two hours of FUN!). She has an old high school friend of mine for Algebra this year. It cracks me up. It also makes me feel OLD! I used to sit in that classroom with that guy! *Sigh* I guess time just keeps on tickin' by, whether I'm ready for it or not. So far she seems to be enjoying high school. I thought there would be a more stressful transition, like there was in 6th grade, but it's been perfectly fine. I think she really matured a lot this summer. She's a good kid. And I'm a very lucky mom.

The Seraph

Here are some pics from my trip over to Sturbridge, MA on Saturday. I absolutely LOVE this store (The Seraph.com), and I truly wish there were something like it over here in my neck of the woods in NY. I also can't believe that Laura, the wonderful salesperson, remembered me from my blog post and visit last year! Too funny: "Aren't you the girl from the blog?" Hi Laura, if you're reading this! You were a great help, and you're a wonderful asset to that store.

Grain sacks are the latest rage these days, and here they had upholstered the backs of these dining chairs with them. Pretty cool.

I am in complete lust with this settee below. In fact, I'm tempted to use that shape to make a headboard for my headboard-less bed. I need to do SOMEthing, SOON, because I am getting really sick and tired of pulling my pillows back out of the crack at the head of the bed every morning. Argh.

I'm a sucker for any piece of furniture with a lot of drawers, too. Perhaps I was a pharmacist in a past life? ;)

LOVE this double desk, AND the awesome stenciled bamboo rug:

Cute!

More pics tomorrow!