Painting in 90% weather! whew!

As some of you know I have been working on my stairwell but I had to put it on hold and get out there in that little garden of mine. Today I finally finished painting the old fence. My above ground pool used to sit in this area but hardly anyone swam in it the last two summers so out it went. This year I have put in a small veggie garden. I am getting ready to put in some flower beds so these are kinda the before pictures. When its finally done (hopefully not before I die from the heat) I will post some after pictures. Its been kinda fun!
PRIM BLESSINGS!

Happy Memorial Day to Mother Father & Brother

     Happy Memorial day to all my people who served our country, there are so many to thank. Let me start with my Father who served in WW2. This man came home married my mother who already had 3 children from another marriage and worked his butt off on a cotton farm in the delta region of TN. To my Mother who worked at an arsenal to help feed and clothe everybody and also her elderly parents. To my dear Brother who made his life's work out of serving his country, first in wartime and in peace. Once he retired he went back to school to head up an ROTC program... All gone now but never ever forgotten. SALUTE!  And I must not forget my nephew and cousins who have served in Irac and to all of the ones who served in peace time as well, SALUTE to them ALL as well.
Blessings to all!

Years Ago In A Country Living Magazine....

 Way long years ago in a Country Living magazine I was inspired by a flat iron collection display on a stairwell landing. I have a landing and I had 6 old rusty irons on the back porch. I am not much of a free hand painter but I gave it a shot. I guess I could have just painted them all black but the stairwell is having a theme of "domestics." There will be button collection displays, quilt rack display, old framed quilt blocks, needle collection and other sewing related items. Once its all done I will post some pictures.

Have a great day everyone and hope we all get some needed sunshine!

Blessings!

My Jack Russell Picked Me Some Flowers...really!

My little Jack Russell "Bitsi Boo" is such a little pixie.  My granddaughter and I were in the back yard looking at the Bridal Wreath Spirea and I picked a small branch to wrap in Riley's hair to show her how I did when I was a little girl. Well, Bitsi Boo thought "Mom needs flowers" and I heard this snap behind me and she had picked a big branch and was standing there with it in her mouth just as pretty as you please... It was the cutest thing ever.

Reading List Returns! OH JOY OF JOYS !!!

Well I am so excited! My reading list just returned and I have spent over a half hour looking at all my blogs I love to read! So now that I am in a better mood I will share my curtain pictures from my dinning room. The fabric is from Joann's, it's homespun and I had a 40% coupon so they were not expensive at all. I have painted the walls a sage green with a mocha glaze and then stenciled. My living room is a mocha glazed pumpkin spice and the dinning room was too and it was just too much orange if ya know what I mean, so I broke it up and its much more pleasing now. I brought that pumpkin color back into the room with the curtains and made sage green ones for the living room. Much better... so here they are.

I am crying in my beer... I want my reading list back...:-/

It has been looking stormy here for the last two days and I wanted to read my reading list on my dashboard for the last two days... But its gone gone gone. I have reported the issue but nobody cares because I don't see anything about anyone working on it. I know I have no right to complain since blogspot is free and its fun but gee whiz I miss reading about what's going on on the blogs I follow... so sad. I check 3 or 4 times a day and mine have not reappeared at all like some say theirs have. I just wish they would post a response about what is happening.

How to thread the shuttle on your treadle...sounds like I'm lisping dosen't it?

This is just a fantastic video on utube for threading the dreaded shuttle! ITS AWESOME!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFQ6fTVnkT0

I am deeply disturbed... WHERE'S MY READING LIST?

I am sure there are many of us who do not have our reading list available. Mine started missing yesterday afternoon! I did not realize how hooked I am on reading what's new on my favorite blogspots but I am going through withdrawel symptoms! Does anyone know what is going on or when and if its going to be fixed? I can't seem to find any answers! feel free to email me at leam359@hotmail.com

$1.50 a yard Prim Gal Curtains....

Ok...so I am cheap, why not be cheap when Walmart has $1.50 a yard sage green, prim checked fabric that you can throw in your cart while grabbing your groceries...?  If you can make a header you can make curtains.  All I did was measure my windows and cutting the fabric is a breeze when its checks, just follow the line. I hemmed the sides first and then the bottom hems and lastly made the headers. For those of you who don't know what a header is its the part that your rod goes in and that little part that sticks up above the rod and ruffles a little. It looks much better when you make a header that just having a plain rod pocket, it gives the curtain a little more something something.  I know a lot of people would say these belong in the kitchen but for those that love the Prim look they are just fine in the living room.  The topper is just a shorter version of the bottom curtain, its just tied up with some of the fabric I cut into strips, sew easy!   I chose sage green because it helped bring down the tone of my living room walls which is a mocha glazed pumpkin spice sorta deal.  So since you go into my dinning room straight through my living room I brought the sage color of these curtains onto the dinning room walls (which were previously pumpkin). It seemed to help my soul a lot when I changed that color in the dinning room. You can see the new color in my previous post.  I plan on making curtains for the dinning room as well and they will have the mocha glazed pumpkin spice color deal in them, also a cheap fabric from Joann's this time... That fabric is not a small check but a homespun fabric.  I used tension rods for the bottoms and they just snap in between your window woodwork, I love tension rods. You can get them really cheap at your Dollar General store, like I said I am cheap!  The toppers are on some fancy rods left over from my Victorian era... lol

Stay tuned because we are starting the stairwell where I plan to repaint my wood steps, use some stained glass window film instead of curtains and the walls are getting painted white. We are going for a stark gallery look because the Hubs wants somewhere to display his ever growing button collection. He plans on displaying some of them in old printer drawers, maybe I will display a few quilt blocks as well that I framed. Here are a couple more pictures.  Happy Prim!

From Eclectic Victorian To Primitive

Even though I had a weird virus this last week I managed to finally get the dinning room painted and stenciled. We transferred some stencil designs from a book called "Early American Wall Stencils In Color" and the Hubbs used his trusty stencil cutter and cut them out. Supposedly they came from a home from the American Revolutionary period. I really love the way they make me feel... Our faux fireplace which the Hubbs also built was a Victorian cream semi-gloss. I painted over that with a satin black only adding the one coat, I was careful to do the brush strokes all the same way to make them kinda resemble wood grain. Once that dried I brushed on a moccha glaze from Lowes.  That took a while to dry and it really looked cheesy but once I used a sanding block it really started to look old and weathered.  I tiled the inside with stick on floor tiles that looked like an earthtone block.  Stuck my little heater stove back in and it almost feels real! lol

I am a big fan of President James K. Polk and can trace him to be my 11th cousin (not sure how to say all that "removed" stuff.  The flags were grunged and smell good enough to eat. The old crockery was picked up at tag sales and the sheep I  bought on eBay from a very talented prim artist. The pin cushion I made on an embroidery machine we had in for a little while, just when I decided I would buy it myself it sold on eBay, I loved that machine... 

The walls were painted  sage green with the moccha glaze applied before I stenciled. I just used the acrilyc paint that comes in the little bottles for the stencils. I think it turned out pretty good myself but I guess you gotta love prim... and I do! Here are a few more pictures of the room.