Thrift chair redo

I've had this chair in my garage for many months, waiting for the ever rare "time" to work on it. I paid $5 at a local thrift store (shoulda got all 4 of them... doh!) and it is a good sturdy chair. I intended to refurbish and gift it to someone, but I decided I like it a lot and want it for myself. Yes, I am selfish that way sometimes.
Here's the before:

Not all that ugly, just didn't go with anything and had no pizazz. (love that word. you almost have to use jazz hands when you say it) The seat isn't broken, I had just unscrewed it from the bottom before I took the picture.

Got some black glossy spray paint (more about that later) and some material (more about that too) and presto change-o I got a pretty new chair for my craft room.

Here's the more-about-that part...

THINGS I LEARNED ABOUT MYSELF TODAY:
1. I get an idea and run like the wind to get it done without the proper pre-planning that it takes to get it done correctly. That's how I roll. I'm not crazy about that, but none the less, that's who I am. OK, I have put it in writing and now you know my dirty little secret.
2. I'm not all that crazy about coaching from the sidelines especially from a coach who doesn't do anything handy. No names necessary.
3. Lizards make me squeal like a 9 year old girl.
4. Tyra Banks likes to smile with her eyes. I like to say "KMA" with mine.

THINGS I LEARNED ABOUT SPRAY PAINTING:
1. Spring days in Florida are windy.
2. Wind + spray paint = paint all over you and not the project.
3. Wind + spray paint = twice as much paint as you thought you'd need.
4. Spray paint doesn't come off skin as easily as it goes on.
5. Lizards don't like spray paint.
6. After spray painting 3 cans of paint, that's pretty much all you can smell for a long time. Hmmmm, if they only made something that could prevent that. what? they do? a mask! why didn't I think of that.

THINGS I LEARNED ABOUT PRE-PLANNING A PROJECT:
1. If you need cloth for a project, you cannot guess how much that would be while you are at the cloth counter. You will guess wrong. There's no shame in measuring.
2. You will need twice as much paint as you thought you'd need.
3. Husbands sometimes like to snicker when you don't pre-plan. Hence, the KMA eyes.


Cute, cute, cute! and it only took 2 trips to Walmart for supplies. I have extra cloth now :) so maybe I can coordinate a bulletin board with it.

   

This has been posted at:

http://www.domestically-speaking.com/2011/04/67th-power-of-paint-party-painting-hall.html 

Gator Nation

I found this awesome bracelet at Charming Charlie's  (Avenues mall in Jax) OMG, what a cool store! I love the design of this bracelet and love the assortment of metals. It goes with everything I wear. It has black, pewter, and silver beads. The best part is it is on stretchy cord, so I just slip it on and off.

I stared and stared at the design (my MO) and decided that I wanted to make my own. I am donating a Gator bracelet to a fund raiser in May and thought the design was a good one for that. Of course, Gainesville IS Gator Nation, so a Gator bracelet is just the thing for an auction item.

She's a purty one. The photo does absolutely nothing for the sparkle power it has. I used Swarovski crytals and silver spacer beads. It really is impressive. I hope it brings good bids. C'mon Gators! Get up and go!

City Slicker

One of of my school board perks is attending the annual Youth Fair in our county fairgrounds. My first experience was 3 years ago, and I must admit, it was the very first time I was up close and personal with real live farm animals. I remember Shannon and I sitting in the audience watching cows being shown. The announcer talked about the cow like she was a beauty contestant. He said she had "youthful udders". I swear! He said that and we laughed out loud. I still giggle when I think about it.

I have discovered something about myself, and that is, big animals scare the crap out of me. They're not just big, but kind of dumb and therefore seem pretty unpredictable. We wandered in and out of pens of cows and pigs and goats and saw some cages with chickens and rabbits. I did a lot of jumping and letting out tiny "eek" noises.

We attend these fairs because some of our students are in FFA and show their animals. I admire people who are comfortable around farm animals, I could NEVER be a farmer. I would get so emotionally attached to an animal, it would definitely have a name, and could never be part of my dinner menu. My duty at the fair is to take pix of animals for our files. The above is a baby boer goat and was in a pen with her mama. She is only about 2 feet tall and what a cutie pie! I wanted to hold her.

This guy above stuck his head through the hole in his pen then could not pull it back out because of his horns. We brought it to someone's attention and were informed he'd been doing that all morning. Hence the "dumb" in dumb animal.

While we were in the pig area, I heard a horrendous noise and some very loud snorting. This pig was in a trailer by himself and obviously not happy about it. He was trying to lift the gate with his snout (loud noise) and when I got close to look at him, he tried to charge the gate. See why I'm scared?! I asked about why he was isolated (yeah, I was the city slicker with all the dumb questions) and a man told me he was in there for a bath. Turns out, he was getting ready to show and needed grooming.

Don't even get me started about the chickens. Well, the roosters really. They were in a separate building with the rabbits and were all side by side in their little cages. I have never heard so much cock a doodle doing. Seems, the roosters were in competition with each other and continuously crowed.It was hilarious!
On the last day of the show, the animals are "sold". In my sweet little rose colored glass world, I will take that to mean that someone bought them for a pet for their children and they are going to live happily ever after on some wonderful farm.    It could happen.

Lucky Me

Tonight I made a promise to myself to use what I already have to create a St. Patty's challenge. I love, love to make projects with words, so I started with some silver frames for scrapbooking. Which, by the way, I hate to do. I need an instant gratification that comes with any craft other than scrapbooking. I made albums for my children that took 6 months to finish and tons of hours. Were they beautiful? Yes, but I didn't think I would ever finish them. I digress...

Then I added some scraps of green background paper to the backs of them

...came up with some silly Irish phrases with my bead letters from the craft store. Oh my, I just noticed the front center phrase... LOL, that is supposed to say "sassy lass" not "a slssy ass". I guess my sleeve bumped the letters before I took the picture. Too funny, I make myself laugh!

used tacky glue to add the words to the background papers...

hot glued a piece of cardboard to the back for stability, along with a pinback. Embellished the front with some green bows and shamrock confetti (the only thing I didn't already own - 99¢ from Michael's)

tada! I will give these to my friends at work with a "lucky me to have a friend like you" tag.

Happy St. Patty's Day! Lucky me to have so much ap-cray in my craft room.