"Hot enough for ya??"  

Here in Canada, we have about 9 months of winter, and then when summer finally arrives, it hits us with a vengeance (most years)!  Then we all walk around asking each other...'Hot enough for ya?'  Of course we stick in a few 'eh's here and there just to be true to our cultural roots...all this while carrying a cup of Tim Hortons coffee. 

My garage studio is either too cold to paint in, or sweltering!  Last week I think the heat got my brain but real good!  I forgot to take a before photo of my tall dresser before I painted it.  She was an okay looking piece from the get go.  Dark brown 'okay' wood.  Not mahogany or anything fancy, so I didn't hesitate to pull out the paint.  She went from 'okay' to spectacular!  She's really got nice feminine curves with a classic style, and the simple grey/white colour combo really brings her to life. 

Bad angles, bad lighting, poor iPhone camera...all I can do is apologize!  

I painted a gorgeous two tiered table in provence with gold wax detail, but didn't get a photo before I took it to the booth, and it was sold before I got there again...so no photo of that beauty.

My booth is filling up (slowly) and really sucking up a lot of time...but its so much fun!  

Hope you are all having a great summer, and oh yeah...'Hot enough for ya, eh?'

Take care
Arda  I mean Loretta!

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Frugal Fridays at Shabby Nest

So last week I rented a trailer thingy and my neighbour hitched it to her husbands SUV, we filled it with all the furniture I had ready, and off to the antique mall we went!

I have half the room.  Most of the window, and to the left is mine.  Its about 6' x 12' long, but big enough for lots of furniture!

Its still pretty sparse.  We unpacked the case goods, rearranged it all, and tried to stage it with whatever smalls I had brought with me that day.

We eventually screwed knobs on and took the paper off the mirror!

I love this blue table and chair set!  I painted it in the Louie Blue ascp and was going to outline the chair details with old white but when I distressed, the details were so pretty as is, that I just left it alone.  Wax was all it needed.

See what I mean, sparse!  I went back the next day with more smalls, but the room just sucked them up! It was as if my trunk load of smalls just disappeared in the room!

Fan is not an antique, and not for sale!

I love the Cath Kidston paper that I lined the cabinet with.  I bought a couple of rolls back from England with me a few years back and still use it (sparingly to make it last).

The best part of this antique mall? The very authentic English pub down the road.  My husband was beside himself with joy when he found out they have THREE different beers from Ireland!!

I'm much more a home made fish and chips girl myself!

I'll have to not make a habit of it though!

I'm so excited about getting this booth! I don't know why I didn't do something like this sooner!  I went back on Monday (as its an hour away from my home) to bring in chenille bed spreads, and my big dresser/mirror had sold!  Yippee!!  Now I'm looking for another couple of dressers to paint ... Oh joy!  I can feed my habit without guilt now!

Wow its been a while!

You know when sometimes you don't blog because you want to but...there's just nothing to blog about?  Well thats not the reason I haven't blogged in a bit.  Lots has been going on in my world.  Some good and some not so good.

There's been a couple of Feis' (plural for more than one Feis ... Irish Dance competition, silly!)and another one in early june.

My daughters 'hard shoes' waiting for the 'soft shoe' dancers to do their thing

Here she was 'trying on' a wig!  Just for fun!  She doesn't and will never (until her teacher makes her) wear a bubbly wig!  She's in advanced beginner, and her next level is when the wigs become more prominent.  Although she isn't supposed to wear wigs in this level, many of the girls are completely 'Toddlers and Tiara's' here!  Make up, fake tans, wigs and baliiiiing!

Z only wears her hair in a bun and clear lip gloss (her cheeks are pink from practicing her hard shoe dance).  Its fun ... once you get over the make up, fake tans, wigs and baliiiiing :)

With two (soon to be three) kids doing feis', we have a lot of shoes (2 pair hard, 2 pair soft, socks, duct tape, electrical tape (???I'm new to this world too!!!), snacks etc... to hump to these places, so I got this great Heys suitcase for their stuff!  I LOVE it!  I've been oggling it since The Bay (Hudsons Bay Company) started advertising them on the TTC (bus) shelters!  How completely totally amazingly Canadian!

Another new and exciting thing has been that I decided to investigate opening a booth at an Antique Mall.  I researched the ones in my area, and they are all at least an hour away!  I did some investigative research and visited all of them...and I paid the price!  Each one I went to, I ended up bringing something home!  

This is what followed me home from Orono:

Excuse the flash, as this photo wasn't taken for blogging, rather to text to my hubs...then I decided why bother?  Just buy it! Its a huge old pub mirror!  Gorgeous to die for!  I'm so into old advertising, but the prices are astronomical now.  When I saw this for what I think was pretty reasonable, and they gave me 20% off (after pleading), it came home!

The Mall I wanted was full and very expensive, but another Mall which I really liked had two booths available, so I thought I would grab it!  

This is my first Antique Mall experience, and although the owner was letting me put my things in there before June 1st (without rent), I realistically will just make it there by then!  

Remember all that stuff to be painted in my garage last September?  Its been a painting frenzy here this last week!  No photos of the goods yet tho!

I don't have a lot of rustic, rusty, crusty stuff so I bought two lots from a local auction!

Okay, I got a rustic wheel barrow with a metal wheel... which I'm keeping because it will be perfect at Halloween full of pumpkins.  

I also got a great vintage aluminum ornate fence gate,which had been painted a great blue colour years ago...which I'm keeping because I've always wanted one! 

There was a great 4 1/2' Huge iron wagon wheel...which I'm keeping, because a)I've always wanted one in my garden, and b)I'll never get one at this price again!

These were all in one lot, along with some vintage weather vanes, one of which is 9' long with a concrete base, some folk art garden stuff, and a great concrete pink flamingo!  

You won't believe how much ALL of that cost!  Can't tell you :)

The not so great thing going on in my life, is my Dad started suffering from Dementia just before Christmas, and its getting pretty bad. He's still himself, but sometimes doesn't recognize my mother.  He confuses the years, and has some hallucinations.  Its heart breaking.  He's still so lovely though. Its hard to watch, because he was so smart, always thinking, and on the ball.  He was the go to guy if you had any questions about how to do things...

My parents have a house which they used to rent out, but its about 28 years old and NOTHING has been done to it in all that time!  Original builders kitchen, tiles, CARPET (EEEK), washrooms.  Its pretty sad!  

They decided to sell it as it wasn't renting.  You could pay a mortgage for the rental fee, so who would rent an old (but huge) home?

It is a pretty house with great bones though.  My husband wanted us to buy and renovate it, but I won't leave my street (no way!).

Here are the befores (cover your eyes, its pretty scary!):

We paid big bucks extra for those backsplash tiles back in 1985!

Don't be fooled by the cabinets, the doors are the only solid thing about them!

1) new kitchen
2) new flooring

Chaching!

Family room and kitchen seating area (nice light huh?).  Anyone who wants to buy a great 'vintage' light for cheap, email me (hahahaha)!

Great Scarlett O'Hara staircase, but disgusting green walls (what were they thinking???).

Doesn't this tub just say ... "CALGON, TAKE ME AWAY!!!"

Ignore that chunky lady in the photos!  I think my camera is haunted!  Just look at the great vintage vanity!  With neon white lighting covered with a plastic grid cover!  Wow, this is just the SHABBIEST CHIC evah!

I know ladies, you all want to move in, but wait...

This house has a third floor...

and its purple!!

To be fair, its a 3,400 sq foot brick home, with 5 bedrooms, 3 floors, 3 1/2 baths and a great lay out...it just needs a mortgage so I can renovate it for my folks (you will GAG if you knew what the cheapest quote was (new kitchen, all new hardwood floors, new baths, etc...).  Its worth it because its in a high end suburb, and will recoup its costs and make them some retirement cash.  It just a major project and a half!  

The good news?  Think of all the great before and after photos!

Anyway, off to the basement to paint furniture and price stuff!!

Ciao and have a great day!

Updating My Tea Cup Shelf

A few months ago when I painted my tea trolley a light green colour 'in this post' I loved it.

Then it made my tea cup shelf look too dark.  So I thought I'd freshen it up.  The only photo I could find is the partial one above.

Anyway, out came the white and old white ASCP and the leftover green/white mix from the tea trolley.

Base coat of pure white, followed by crackle medium, old white, and then clear and dark wax mix.  

Its a light crackle, but it still adds a lot of texture and depth to the white finish.

The teacups look nicer with the green back ground too. 

So, now that its painted a lighter colour I'm happy. I can sleep at night again. At least until the wall colour bugs me enough to paint the room!

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What do you do when you're sick?

I was going to call this post: 'The Tutorial No One Needs Anymore' Or 'DAH! Who Doesn't Have One!' but as I WAS sick, I thought this was the least obvious!

I've been sick for a couple of days, but was really hit hard today.  Just the flu...shakes, chills, hot spells, you know the usual.  

Instead of sleeping I pulled out my glue gun!

I made a paper wreath (yeah, I know, I'm about 3 years to late for it to be a 'WOW')!  

I don't care if I'm late, I've always wanted one, and it was pretty fast and easy to make.

One paper punch:

Punched old book pages:

And a handy dandy glue gun (no photo required).

I remember seeing Miss Mustard Seeds tutorial, where she used a cardboard base for gluing, so I cut a cardboard round:

And...

Make sure you make lots (and lots and lots) of these ahead of time:

And tada!

This was a trial run anyway, I want to make one of these:

From ETSY

Its a bit fresher/newer, but as I'd never made a paper wreath before (except my wire/heart wreath)I wanted to play with a simpler sample.

Hope everyone is well (warm and dry!).  Have a great day!

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