Can anyone tell me....

... how to list the blogs I like on the border?

I just found a blog I really love, thanks to the author posting a comment here, and ya'll really need to check her blog out!  Great ideas, and thoughts.  I could really relate to what she was writing, while I wish I had her gardening skillz.  I went all the way back to Feb. reading her posts, then realized I could end up sitting on my arse all day if I was not careful!

Meadowsweet Cottage

I hope she doesn't mind I linked to her blog before I got her 'ok'.

Now I have some table leaves to sand, a china cabinet drawer to work on, another small table to paint, a dog bed to complete, and some plants to try to get into the ground... and I'm sure there's more that I am just blocking from my memory.

A plan comes unzipped

It is hot here today!  It was hot yesterday but since I had already started the garage before I realized how hot it would get, I kept on keepin' on.

Today?  Not on your life!

So I tackled another project I have had on the back burner for ever:  Recovering the cushions of the swing the boys gave me for Mothers Day years ago.

Here she is with the cover she came with:

That is not a pattern I would choose in a million- bajillion years.  But what are you gonna' do, it was what D could find.  So I've ignored it, until this year.  I just can not ignore it any longer.

I bought some fabric at Joannes when they had outdoor fabric on sale.  This is a Tommy Bahama fabric. For the parts that do not show I used the trusty drop cloth fabric.

That took all day.  Have I mentioned I am not a seamstress?  I can sew, but I usually make it up as I go along, which is generally problematic.  This was exceptionally so and ended up causing me to pull my hair out, say a few choice words, and redo things about 3 times.  And that was just the seat cushion cover.

I was trying to be a smarty pants and use the zipper that existed.  I was trying to take the whole bottom apart, except for the section with the zipper.  I was going to then use the sections I removed as a pattern to remake it, only with the right fabric.  Sure the part with the zipper would not have matched, but it is at the back of the cushion, no one would see it.  And it would have a ZIPPER!

It was all humming along nicely until I removed the zipper pull thingamabob.  Ooops.

I scrapped that whole idea after spending about 30 minutes trying to get the zipper pull thingamabob back onto the teeth.   I am wondering if that is even possible.

So, I just finished taking it all apart, and I hemmed where the zipper would have been and will add velcro when I can get to Joannes and get some.  Velcro I can do, zippers not so much.

Realizing that my ambition was/is greater than my skill, I started chanting 'Keep it simple.  Keep it simple' and made the cover for the back cushion as a large-ish pillowcase, open at both ends.  Basically a large sleeve.   Pillowcases, apparently are the limit of my sewing ability.  And now sleeves.  You would be amazed what you can make that is really and truly just a pillowcase.  Or a sleeve.  Or maybe you wouldn't.

SIGH

Anyway, the end result looks good, right?  It looks better than it did!  Right?

I'll take it.

This baby has a top as well, a large 'awning' that goes over the whole contraption.  My 'plan' was to remove the edge that is in the palm pattern and attach the Tommy Bahama fabric, thus reusing the main portion of the awning.  I'm not sure about that plan anymore, but I AM certain that the palm can not stay, so I will have to figure something out.

I also wanted to use the Tommy Bahama fabric on the chaise that we usually have on the deck as well.  That definitely CAN be made as a large pillowcase.  I know cause I did it a few years ago when we were at the house we rented that had a pool.  I'm not sure I have enough fabric to do the Chaise AND the awning though.  Regardless, I am tackling those projects another day.

And that brings me to what I found in the dresser I cleaned up yesterday.

The dresser has a sticky drawer, and once I wrangled it open, there was all kinds of junk in there- incl. the owner manual to the motorcycle my dad bought my sister when she was 12.

And these:

I know nothing about stamps, but I know old when I see it and these are.

So I guess I'm going to learn a little about stamps sooner or later.

If it was not so hot out I would now go relax on my swing.  Maybe later.

STUFF- aka Cleaning the Garage

I got the OK from my doc to go back to my usual activities yesterday, so I jumped into the job that I have wanted to do for MONTHS!

The garage is my workshop, and where we keep all our sporting equipment, gardening equipment, the stuff from my dads barn, and odds/ends that we just have not put away since our move [yes, 2 years ago]
Basically it's just a BIG mess.

In the back, my horses corner.  Those are some of his blankets hanging there, the garbage cans are some of his feed, and the tubs above on the shelf are supplements and other stuff.  Stuff, Stuff, Stuff... horses have lots of stuff.

In the foreground on the left boxes of stuff from my dads barn, my beagles crate [new beagle does not require crating like Joey did] my old bike.  On the right the shelves of boxes of china that was Grandmas, and then 2 HUGE boxes of recycleables.

2 HUGE boxes of garage sale stuff from my neighbor- THANKS Krystal- and the lawn tractor.

Stuff- this is mostly the stuff I am presently or plan on working on.

This is another item from my neighbor Krystal- a card table whose top has seen better days.

The plan is to take off that shredded whatsit and recover the table with a fabric that I will also use to recover the folding chairs I have [below].

I uncovered my Grandmothers dining chair in that mess of stuff.  I had been halfheartedly working to take  the cross stitch cover she made to match her china off.  I'll get it cleaned and framed.  I got that done and also removed the cover under that and the horsehair/straw stuffing.

This was her china pattern she matched, obviously not exactly, but still lovely.

Then I went after the dresser from my dads barn that was buried in there.

It needed a good scrub, I used some warm water with Murphys Oil Soap in it.

Besides the years and years of gunk on it and in it and several splats of bird shizzle I don't want to know what else was on it.

After it was clean and dry I applied some of that bees wax/honey wood restorer/protecter.

Hubby said exactly what I thought he would when he saw it 'Holy Shizzle!'

{apologies to his Irish Catholic mother, though she does not read my blog I am sure her ears were burning with his blasphemy}

The middle drawer sticks so I'll have to lube that up and maybe sand it a bit.  The inside of this dresser smells like cedar too.  Interesting.  Originally I was going to replace my childhood dresser in my sons room with this one, but now I see that it is way too nice to trust him with and too small for his stuff.

This is going in the living room where the Art Deco Buffet [for sale] is now.

OH!  I forgot the stuff I found IN the stuck drawer.  I'll post that tomorrow, it's time for dinner!

Finally, in between all this, I took breaks from the oppressive heat inside, and here's what I caught the Beagle doing:

Pretty girl

What is deserving of a compliment?

I dunno' sometimes I just can't take a compliment.

Here's some history... my son was born 5 weeks early and weighing 5#.  My education is in early childhood and Elementary Education, as well as Psych., African American Studies and Dance.  That last one?  Yeah I'm still kinda waiting for that to come in super handy, though I think that should it prove handy tomorrow I will prove too rusty.  [as always I digress]

Anyway.... so I took to being the mother to this lil' tiny dude with a shrug and... not confidence, cause I would have had to think it was exceptional or difficult to mother a small infant like that to be 'confident'.
I think you get the idea though.  It was just no biggie.  But people constantly commented on how easily I cared for that small, 'early' kidlet.
But I never really 'got it' or accepted the compliments cause to me it was easy, and easy is not compliment worthy.

Same thing with the furniture and the other stuff I make... I find this thing pretty easy.  Ok not the sanding and stripping but I look at the pieces and I get an idea or 2 or 3 and just do it.  Sometimes not as well as expected, sometimes better than expected.  But when people compliment me on an item, or say 'you're so creative' it's a little bit of a head scratcher to me, cause again something easy, to me, is not compliment worthy.

I guess that's me though... maybe regardless of how hard/easy the thing is for someone to do, if it exhibits a quality others do not necessarily have... it's compliment worthy?

This is why I do this

I started out doing this because I have no money and wanted a hutch in my new kitchen in my new house [the new kitchen in the new house being one of the main reasons for the no money thing].

Then another 'want' started needling away at my brain.  I used to work a pretty cool sales job that offered a great salary and awesome bonuses.   Alas to do that job now I would never see my kid so I can not go back to it if I want the balance of home/life I have come to enjoy so much.  But I really would love that salary so I could donate to the rescue I volunteer with.  This org., and in particular the Pres. who I am honored to call friend, does amazing things on... what's thinner than a shoe-string?  A Spider Web thread?  You get the idea.

So I started buying cheap furniture that spoke to me, pretty-ing it up and selling it and donating.  Some items I do and give ALL the profit when I sell, to the Rescue other items that cost a bit to buy and time to do I donate 10%.  Other times items get donated [ie for our garage sale] that if we do not sell I work on to try again later, obviously 100% of the sale of those is the Rescues as well.

Here are a few of the reasons I do this:

This guy was in a pen at a dealers potentially headed to be slaughtered for human consumption.

This sweet pony gently ferrying my son was a rescue situation.

These are the items I presently have for sale and the donation they will generate for this deserving cause:

$125 {100% to the rescue}

$100 {100% to rescue}

Dog bed, $80 {50% to the Rescue}

Dog Bed, $80 {100% to the Rescue}

Armoire, I have 3 of these, $200 each {10% to the Rescue}

Hutch, it has doors that presently have a caned looking metal in them, 

$400 {10% to the Rescue}

China Cabinet, $450 {10% to the Rescue}

Small Table, $75 {10% to the Rescue}

Dresser [in progress], $100 {10% to the Rescue}

All totaled that is nearly $500 to the rescue if everything sold.

I need to get these items sold.  Craigslist has slowed to the pace of frozen molasses in my area, nothing is selling there.  An ideas or advice on how to turn these items into donations is greatly appreciated.