A Tray

My projects are slowly progressing, 

slowly because hubby downloaded 2 seasons of the Tudors for me and I have become slightly distracted watching them.

Remember my $4 tray I bought?

I thought about painting it white

but I found a home for it in the kitchen holding bits and pieces, you know, bills that need to be paid, letters that need to be mailed and change for milk and bread along with the control for the reverse cycle.

For now, I quite like it silver, 

so it will stay as it is. 

For now.

Thank you for the lovely comments on my ruffled bag, I am still loving it and have it hanging where I can admire it often!

xx

Hitting the Shops

Op shops that is! We have three decent op shops that I like to check out when I get a chance and in order to make my holiday projects I decided to see what I could find.

I had a great day and found some bargain items that I can use for some of my planned projects and some of the other things will get a quick makeover and a new home.

Queen size bedspread for $6. It does have some stains and if I can't get rid of them I will just use the material to make some cushions etc. 

120 x 120 table cloth in excellent condition for $2

I loved the shape, size and colour of this serving plate and for $1 it was a steal.

Footed silver tray for $3. I might paint it white or I may just leave it as it is.

Beautifully scented, unused candle for $2.

Set of six small placemats for $1. Smaller thanI was hoping for but all that I could find. Good practice set.

Bookends for $4, a little bit of work on these and they will be perfect.

Cute little bud vase for $3, a clean and a few coats of paint and it will have a new lease on life.

Lovely little white bowl with lid for $1, perfect for my version of a salt pig

$4 for this cheese dome with board



I don't plan on going to this many weddings in the near future but I do like to make my own cards and these will make a great base to work with.

So far my holidays have been pretty productive with my bargain buys, a visit to the accountant to complete our 2011 tax  - very early but given it was Nick's first full year with his own business and he hasn't paid any personal tax through the year I figured we should bite the bullet and just get it over and done with : )

I have made a start on the ruffled bag and I have a whole new appreciation for the amount of work that goes into ruffles and would never be able to make these to sell them unless someone was willing to pay me hundreds for each bag!

Fingers crossed that I can keep this up and hopefully I will have some finished projects to share with you soon.

xx

Creative Holiday

Here at the McCarthy house 2/3rds of us are on holidays for the next two weeks (someone has to work to pay the bills).

Nicholas has another two weeks of school holidays and I thought that I would take some time off as well so he can hang around at home and rest, play, ride, etc and not need to get up early every morning to either come in to work with me or get dropped off somewhere while we both work.

While I am at home I have plans to get busy and crafty and make some stuff! I may get to the end of the two weeks and find I have done nothing but if I do manage to stay motivated this is what I want to try and make....

here

Another Donkey Design - Etsy Store

here

here

here

I have a thing for chalkboard paint at the moment and I have managed to convince my Wonderful Husband to let me paint a wall in our house, he has agreed but I am not entirely sure he is happy with the idea. I will give him a bit more time and show him lots of beautiful images like this one to warm him to it more while I start hunting for gorgeous frames to use.

here

What do you think? Most of my projects seem easy enough, but we'll see. If you have any hints let me know as I am more than happy to learn from peoples experience rather than fumble my way through.

Enjoy your week my friends.

xx

I realised tonight that I (we) have completed a few projects that I forgot about and that I should share. The first that springs to mind was the little (relatively) one that I finished on the weekend, (Yes.... while Nick was out working up a sweat on the digger). Originally I wanted to create an Apothecary Jar like I found here http://http//shanty2chic.blogspot.com/2009/09/whitneys-diy-apothacary-jars-too-darn.html

This was what I started with........ The next step led me to here..... But then when I assembled it all..... it looked wrong. I didn't like it and I put it aside in the too hard basket. Until I received the latest issue of Better Homes and Gardens... Guess what, they used similar items to create the cutest candle sticks. So next time we were in Bunnings.... of course I convinced my Wonderful Husband that I had to buy more supplies to create a trio of cute candlestick.. just like I have always wanted. Lo and behold... my project....

...and while I was in Bunnings (did I mention that we almost... not quite...but almost live there) I bought glitter spray, both gold and silver (well Christmas is approaching).

I experimented with the gold glitter spray.

then... I played with the silver glitter spray.

...and I ended up with this. Cute new candle sticks and cute silver (as well as gold) pine cones.