Where Do I Blog?

Right here. On the other side of my bedroom that I never showed you.  Kate from Centsational Girl was posing this question today. I've told her that I always envision her with a cape on and a big CG on it. I think she needs one.  I'm still working on this space so I was a little reluctant to do so. I need something to bridge the gap between the desk and the shelves. But then I thought, why not, it does help me see things more clearly when I take pictures of spaces. It's been so cloudy and rainy that I couldn't get good pictures. What happened to this being the sunshine state? And why is my monitor white when so many of yours you can see so clearly?

I have some things around me that make me smile. Like my picture of my kids when they were little. I remember that day at the park clearly and I love seeing their smiling faces. My Dwight Schrute bobblehead. A lot of laughs from that show. The photograph on the shelf my son took when we were all in Italy together. It's of the narrow streets in my father's hometown of Lucca. That was such a great trip. I do have a bit of a confession to make. It didn't look quite this neat this morning. It looked more like.........

....this. Whoa, I know. I can't believe I am showing you this. Yes, I tend to work in chaos. Which might be why I forget a lot of things. I am happy to say I have a bag full of trash now and well, I'm still working on filing the rest away. It's all piled on the bed behind me. But thanks for giving me a shove to do it. I have to if I want to go to bed tonight. Now, let's all forget we ever saw this.

Bathroom Update

The wheel of progress move slowly. My bathroom is coming along but red tape and weather have been slowing things down. The inspector broke his ribs and so back up incurred in the inspection process apparently all around this small town of ours. Sadly my closet that looked like this.... 

....now only looks like this. Still much left to do. But I'm loving the pocket door. Tile has been picked out. I could not go with the same tile as the colors had changed slightly. But I think it will blend okay. I went with a slightly smaller 16x16 tile too instead of the 18x18 that's in the laundry. Otherwise there wouldn't be many whole tiles in that small space. I have a transition piece picked out to blend the two tiles.

Johnny is still outside gracing my yard. So my son helped me give him a little holiday flare. Who knows how long he'll be around so why not spruce him up with a little Fall decor? Hopefully he won't be around long enough to be strung up with Christmas lights.

Guacamole 101

I was making guacamole the other day. Oh gosh, I could just live on this stuff. When I remembered how my oldest sister did not know how to get the pit out of the avocado. Hmmm, I knew something that she didn't. So, I thought I would show you too. In case there were others who did not know how and didn't realize how easy it is to make. You will never eat ready made guacamole again. It will seem like green sour cream to you after having fresh.

By the way, I perfer the Haas type to the big green ones. I think they are creamier and have more flavor. You sliced that guy in half and take your knife firmly in one hand and grip half the avocado in the other and wack the pit with the knife. No butter knife here. Make sure it's a good hard wack so the knife sticks then just twist it a bit and it comes right out.

See, just like that.

Now, if you want to have chunks for a chunkier salsa or to put them in salads then you just score it gently in a grid pattern. Mine was a little overly ripe so they were pretty soft.

You then scoop it out with a small spoon. If you had scored it it will come out in nice little chunks. If not then it is getting mashed up anyway and just scoop it out in big chunks as shown below.

You need to salt it well.  That's me, you salt as much as you like. Sometimes I add garlic. I was hungry and did not want another step.

Just mash away with the back of a fork. If your avocados are ripe then this will be easy. I have put them in a food processor when they weren't fully ripen but I do not recommend this. Just let them get ripe. Not mushy, but they should give a bit when you squeeze them. You can buy them hard and let them sit on the counter to ripen. I have heard that apples let off a gas that help speed that along. Keep them in the refrigerator once they are ripe.

Add some lime juice. Yes, that is a lemon. I was out of limes so I made do. Sometimes one must improvise when one is hungry. But lime juice is better. So, let's pretend that is a green lime. Okay?

You can add fresh chopped tomatoes if you like but here is my short cut. I always have salsa. I nice chunky one that is pretty tasty is Newman's Own. I do like the salsa that Publix has in the produce section. That is some fresh tasting salsa. Yum. But this is what I had on hand. I just add a couple of scoops. That's it. See how creamy? No sour cream needed.

Stir it up and enjoy! My son turns his nose up at this stuff which is fine by me. All the more for me and the hubby.

Craftyland, New Blogger Sneak Peek

Hello everyone. I want to share with you a new blog I came across last week. I stumbled upon Kimberly's blog Craftyland when I was looking through the link ups at The CSI Project. She had submitted two chairs that she gave an amazing makeover to. So pretty. I loved the fabric. You can see her chair before here. She's a jack of all trades it seems. From sewing to cooking to DIYing. That's a word.

Then I did a little browsing around on her blog and came across something that really caught my eye. Painting trim. I showed you how I recently painted a lot of trim around my house. Yes, yes, I still have lots left to do. Including my handrail getting stained darker. Hey, I ran out of primer. You can see the results of my white trim painting madness here. But Kimberly's results are amazing. She took an ordinary pale oak railing and really made them rich and lovely by darkening the handrail and then made it all pop with the white spindles. Go on over there and see exactly how she did it all.

Here is her before

Here is her after

Amazing right? The railing now goes so well with her beautiful floors. The white wainscoting is just gorgeous and now the white spindles just ties it all together. Makes me want to open up that can of stain and finish what I started right now! Okay, maybe tomorrow.

Kimberly just started her blog this month. I can tell already that she is going to have some great projects in the future and I can't wait to see them. I hope that you will spread a little blogger love and visit Kimberly @ Craftyland. I know how encouraging you all can be. I'm sure you will want to stick around to see what she'll do next. Tell her I said hello!  

Let There Be Light

I finally was able to get over to Joann's for some trim for the lampshade. I just wish I had more options when it comes to fabric and trims. I'm a touchy feely kind of person when it comes to fabric and trims and so it's hard for me to order it online. I really want to see it.

You might remember the beginnings of this lamp. If you want to see more of my $4 dollar lamp and how it got it's makeover you can look here. This is a bit of what it used to look like. Sad shape indeed.

Here is the Pottery Barn version that it ended up resembling. I had already had an idea in my mind and started working on it when I came across this lamp in their catalog.

The shade was what was giving me fits. I did have to order one online. I had to let go of the touchy feely thing. The ones around town were just too small or way too expensive. I had loved the shade from Pottery Barn with the jute trim but when I went to order one it was sold out. So, I found this shade at Lampsplus.com. It came pretty fast, was the extra large size I  needed and I even got free shipping on this item. I spent more on the shade than I wanted to but sometime you just can't find what you need on the cheap and you just go for it. I'm still way ahead of the Pottery Barn lamp.

Then came the trim. The trim I wanted was on a roll but was only 4 feet long. Now, it may not look like it from the photos but that shade is over 4' around on the bottom. So, it's bigger then it looks. I chose to layer it with two different trims. They are both a jute trim which gives me the PB look but with a little dimension.

Theirs:

Mine:

To be honest with you, it's not even glued on yet. I just have it pinned together in the back. I figure I can switch it out down the road a lot easier. But I'm happy with it like this for now. And the one thing I forgot to get. A finial. I grabbed one from another lamp. I will have to figure something out for that. Any ideas for a substitute finial? I wonder if a cabinet knob would work?

Linking up to:

Thrifty Decor Chick's Before and After Party

Coastal Mirror

I picked up this little gem the other day at the thrift store. It was in the half price room which is the reason I decided to take a chance with it. I've always liked Trumeau mirrors and I was thinking I could try to make my own version of one.

The first thing was to get rid of the ducks. I removed the paper on the back to find that the ducks were painted on the back of the glass. Both the glass and mirror were hot glued in. I tried to get the glue off but it was on pretty good. So, I decided to leave it and just scrape off the paint.

With my trusty little razor blade and some nail polish remover I was able to get it all off. Someone went a little nuts with the hot glue. I cleaned the frame and gave it a coat of Martha Stewart's Sharky Gray. All seemed to go well until I tried to age it and then the paint started to peel. There was no fixing it. It all had to come off. I had just bought some stripper for the $3 chair, so I used that. Got it clean, sanded a bit and then used PRIMER. I should have known better because the old paint was shiny and slick.

Back to square one with more Sharky Gray and then some white glaze to give it a weathered look. It's hard to see, but if you look at it next to the white shell ball you can see that it's gray.

I printed out the picture of the sailboat from The Graphics Fairy. You can find it here. You could spend a lot of time on her wonderful site looking through all that she has. Trust me. I loved that it was already old looking. I had son #3 do a little photoshop magic for me. The picture was a little too small and resizing it was making it looked stretched out too much. So he made it wider by duplicating the end of it. Then he turned down the saturation levels to give it softer gray tones. Kids come in handy now and then. Especially when they are so smart.

Here is the original picture. Already really pretty.

And then after he tweaked it. With a bit of glare that I just noticed.

I liked the way it turned out. It may find a home in the new bathroom. Speaking of the bathroom, we have walls people. Sort of. We have to wait for the inspector, yet again, to inspect the insulation and then they can drywall the inside too. It's a waiting game. 

Next time you're at the thrift store, take a chance. See what you can do with something not so attractive. Let me know, have you rescued anything lately?

Linking up to:

Domestically Speaking Power of Paint Party
Debbiedoos Garage Salen Party 
My Romantic Home Show and Tell Friday

Funky Junk Saturday Nite Special
The Graphics Fairy Brag Monday

Pottery Barn Finial Knock Offs

I found this finial at a thrift shop awhile back. It was painted gold I believe and it had this wood texture to it though it's not wood. It reminded me of one I saw in a Pottery Barn catalog. Only a bit smaller. So I went after it with some paints and glaze to give it the worn look like the one in the catalog. I didn't distress it quite as much but I like how it turned out.

Pottery Barn Finials

My version

So, when I wanted another finial I decided to see what I could put together. I came up with this version via the Home Depot. It's just 3 pieces. The top part was found over by the legs. The middle part is a fence finial and then I mounted it on a rosette from the trim department to make it taller and give it a base. 

The rosette already had a nice edge on it and it was just glued on. The little top piece actually had a screw in it already so I had my hubby just drill a hole for me and it got screwed in. Or you can take the screw out and glue it on too. Paint, sand, glaze, repeat to your liking. They go nicely with my other white weathered pieces I already had.

The Beast, Henry, after his day at the salon. All squeaky clean. Unlike my floors, which are just going to be dirty until this bathroom is done. Dust and sand everywhere.

Oh yes, my new lamp shade came in today! I have to get some wider trim and then I will show it off. It has an uncanny resemblance to a floor lamp from a certain catalog.