Happy Halloween and Happy Birthday

Happy Halloween, Everyone! And happy birthday to me!

OK, so this is what I opened my eyes to this morning.........

as well as this....

....A wonderful breakfast in bed made by Wonderhusband and the kids.

This is what I found when I went down stairs to the kitchen a little later.....

O well, the breakfast was very special, at least....

                                                      Pumpkin carving.

  My own little green monster...

I bought the dress at GW a while back, and then saw that Wal mart had the tights and mask to go with it....

Now, we just have to wait for all the sugar to get out of everyone's systems, and it will be business as usual....at least untill Thanksgiving!

Hope you all had a wonderful Halloween weekend!!

                                                                      Love,                                                 

                                                                                                     

Halloween Birthday

Hi!
Hope everyone had a wonderful weekend! I certainly did. I did not do anything crafty or creative, but I did get to clean up the area where I usually "create", which is..uhm.. actually my whole house.
But mostly my dining room, which is one of the first things you see when you come into my house, so tis a good thing to have it clean again.

Something you don't know about me, is that my birthday is on Halloween. This meant nothing all the time growing up in South Africa (there's another little tid bit of info you did not know about me), because in South Africa nobody used to celebrate Halloween.
So,  after moving to USA about 7 years ago, I decided to have my first (and last) Halloween Birthday Party!
I decided to show you some pictures of this momentous occasion:


                We decorated the entrance like a bat cave. This was when we were still living in Olympia, WA

Black garbage bags were cut up and hung from the walls and ceiling.

Spiderwebs from DT with little black spiders in, carved pumpkins, witch's hats, and bats cut out of black poster board helped to make it look more spooky.

    The table: 

  Eye balls, pumpkins, old dry branches.

  The old records were used as place mats and to put the hot dishes on.                                     

I found a recipe in a Martha Stewart magazine for these human (bread) fingers.The nails are almonds.

 These spider bread rolls were my own creation.Not bad for a domestically challenged gal.

The front door.

Some scary guests!

Since then, I have spent my birthday every year either going trick or treating with my daughter, or taking her to some Harvest Festival in town. That is the joys of parenthood.

Wondering how ya'll spend your Halloween?

Love to hear from you!

Love,

                                                           Joining these fun parties:



Redemption of "Those Chairs"

Hello!

Just so you know...I am done eating worms for a while. My mood has lifted, the weather is wonderfully cool , ....and I finished  " The Chair Project " !
     I was so depressed about those stinkin' chairs earlier this week, that a few of you suggested I just forget about them and dump them . I have to admit , I was tempted. But then , I am too stubborn . I would rather live with an ugly thing (at least for a while) before admitting defeat.

So,  .......I finished the other chair yesterday ! Plus a little table that I had planned to go with this duo from the start . I am happy to report that I am quite pleased with the end result after all..


                                    Here is how the little trio turned out:

The little table was just a lbj (little brown job) , that I got for $6.00 at Goodwill.

I primed with Kilz spray primer, of course, and then sprayed with the same Kryola Satin Black.

Then I stencilled the design on with some left over white paint I had in the garage.

The distress effect was achieved by a little sanding, and a little dry brushing with white.

Don't ask me why.... I was just playing around with it.

Lets take another look:

BEFORE

                                                     AFTER

Not bad, after all the drama!

My only problem now is, I don't have room for it...

Do you have an awful project that turned out OK in the end?

Let me know!

As always..I value your comments!

                                                        I am linking to these parties:
                                                                Frugalicious Fridays 
                           
                             



I May have Lost my MoJo

Hi Everyone

In the interest of keeping it real, I just have to say that I am discouraged. Actually, that is putting it mildly, but lets just stick with that .
The reason? There are several...just stuff that's just not working out the way I had hoped. Feeling overwhelmed with homeschool and housework, irritated with my weight and with losing the same 40 lbs over and over again ....
And now I seem to have lost my mojo with the furniture painting.

Remember I mentioned the chairs from hell almost two weeks ago?
Well, they are the reason I have not posted in more than a week. I have been trying to get them done, but it was a huge waste of time and Effort, with a capital E.

OK, so let me show you again...

Got these for $6.00 a piece at Goodwill a while back.

 I honestly thought that it would be easy to make them pretty again....I had big dreams for them......

Untill I got here.....

Two million staples (honest, I counted), and two whole days later, the chairs were stripped, sanded and primed.

I then sprayed them with Krylon mat black.

Next followed a series of distress, don't like it, re-paint, sand,distress, try to wipe stain over, don't like it, spray paint black again, dry brush with white, re-spray again.

Its a good thing I don't really like the end result, because I would never be able to recreate the effect ever again.

Are you depressed yet? Don't worry, you will be after I tell you about my attempts to re-cover (I would not call in re-upholstering) the back and seat.

Actually, the seat went really well..

I just took the ugly green vinyl off and stapled the new fabric on at the back. 

The back of the chair was another story altogether. I will not bore you with how many times I had to cut, staple and tack fabric to it...

Lets just say it was a lot.

I have a new respect for people who upholster furniture now.

Here is the end result...

Don't look too closely....

Now I still have to do the other chair..

Wonder if I should bother?

Hope you all had a better week than I had!

Love,

         Suzanne

I am joining these parties: