assorted recent work and some later...

Again, my posts have been few and far betweenm but believe it or not - I have been very busy. I have been working on a variety of projects. Most are more for personal use and gifts and such. It feels nice to work on some things that I know will be used in my home.

Although these are not for the house, I have been working on some vases. Imagine these with some of those beautiful flowers from your summer garden. . .

This is an old wooden bowl that someone gave us years ago. I have been wanting to give it a makeover for a few years now. It has been sitting primed and ready to go. It finally is done. It was part of my new year goals of finishing all the projects sitting on my shelf waiting to be completed before I invest in something new. The colors on this were somewhat muted. I wanted to give it more of a "Tuscan-aged" looked, so I softened the colors with a layer of antiquing medium.

This is the underside. . .


















And the inside . . .

As some of you know, I am going to be a first-time grandma soon. I must admit, I am getting very excited. Our new little family member is due the end of March. I can hardly wait. His mother will need a rocking chair to hold and snuggle him in. I felt such happiness as I worked on this project. . .

Last summer, a friend of mine gave me a little cabinet that. It was originally all wood. What a lovely blank canvas it proved to be. I had a lot of fun with it. I experimented with the top. I blocked in some squares of color. I layered some textured shapes on top of that with some hand carved rubber stamps. Next was a layer of old dress patterns. I love using those for texture. The tissue has that wonderful golden color, they are thin, transparent and stand up to various mediums. It allowed the colors to peek through, but muted them nicely. Then I finished it off with a vine and quote.

The front and side panels are all different. The front door has some uplifting words and sentiments. one side panel features a woman with soft transparent wings. The verbage "I do believe in fairies" completes it. The other side features a sun and moon. A few details like a beaded tassel on the door handle completes the look. I can't wait to get the final coats of sealer put on it so it can find a permanent home in my house.

Add to this celebrating the birthday of my 18 year old daughter, enjoying our first days of sunshine, spending time with family, and working on the final details of getting an Etsy site up and running and that leaves me very little free time. The next project on the list is to customize our aging dining room table. Another project I have been wanting to accomplish for at least 5 years.