Vintage hooked rugs

Just letting you know that I’m selling a few of my vintage hooked rugs on ebay and starting them at just $4.99.

I have this large one that has a great shabby chic vibe.

As well as a companion piece that is very similar in style.

I’m continuing to downsize my belongings to make more room for my life.

I will be putting more odds and ends on ebay as well, so check in often to see what I have.

Click on the ebay banner to the right of my blog to go to my auctions.

I’m happy to report that it has been getting cooler here in the evenings.  Okay, maybe not cool, but not so sultry and sticky.  Dog walking has gone from a “chore” to once again being a pleasure.

Garden Rug update

Even with all of the talking and the boat ride Friday  night at the lake, I did mange to complete the areas of my rug that I planned to work on while I was at the lake.  Of course, being the natural blonde that I am, I forgot to take my camera.  So of course we saw wild turkey, went on a sunset boat ride and everyone was working on new projects……sorry guys….I’ll try to do better next time around….in the meantime, you get to look at my stuff AGAIN.

I’m not super happy with the “bird of paradise” portion…..this may get tweaked later on, but for now it’s “holding it’s place”, it’s just too flat looking.

I think the morning glories will look a little more vivid once I get the leaf portion hooked around behind them.

However, this was my favorite part.

Trying out a new technique and it actually worked!

May sit down for a while this afternoon or this evening and work on this rug a bit more.

Back to the Garden Rugs

Taking the garden rugs to work on at the lake this evening…..here are some “inspiration” pictures that I’m using.

Bird of Paradise

for this part of the rug…

Here are the color’s I’ve pulled out of my stash….really trying to use “what I have on hand”.  Here is a great tip…..pin your colors together….that way they stay together for a certain area and you’re not always trying to track down that “other” piece of wool from the bottom of your basket or bag.

Morning Glory

for this part of the rug….

Here are the wools I pulled from my stash…

This area of the rug I’m going to try something different….

This is the color I’m thinking of….

….and this is what I’m thinking about for “technique”….I think this is called “couching”…..I’m going to secure this cording to the pattern using strips of wool, so it will be kind of 3D……

 

I doubt if I’ll get ALL of these things done tonight at hooking, but I’ll share what I do get completed.

Shine

The sun is shining, yet it’s not too hot just yet.  Posting a few random pictures this morning.

Cleopatra drinking out of her HUGE outdoor water bowl…the dogs have water inside as well, but Cleopatra always prefers to drink out of this HUGE bowl.

It’s been so hot for so long that there is not a whole lot going on in the garden, but we do have a few persistent bloomers….thank goodness for the tropical plants!

I don’t remember what this little spiky palm is called, but I love it’s shape….a big ball of palm atop a skinny spiky stem.

And yes, more updates on the floors….2 coats of finish on and 2 to go.

 

Headed to the lake for hooking tonight, so hope to have more “hooking related” posts when I return. Need to dig my way into the hooking room and find wools to take with me this evening…..with all of the stuff out of these two rooms, the rest of the house looks like Sanford and Son!

More of the Floor

Are you tired of pictures of my floor yet?

Sorry, it might be boring to you, but I’m SO excited about it!

In this picture you can really see the difference between what was and what will be.

 

The sanding machine is big and LOUD…..poor Lonnie (my dog) just gets right up next to me wherever I’m at and shakes like he does when it’s storming….he just doesn’t like LOUD.

Okay, that’s it for tonight….they are coming back in the morning to do more sanding and put on the first coat of sealer.

Before & After and another Before

Here are the before and after pictures of the door that leads from my kitchen to my utility room…..my first foray into using chalkboard paint. (I could seriously get turned on to this stuff…..love it!)

BEFORE

AFTER

BEFORE

AFTER

I have to say, the process was quite easy……2 coats of black chalkboard paint rolled on with a paint roller (make sure to get the SMOOTH roller….started out with a SEMI-SMOOTH roller and I could tell that was going to be oh so wrong, so I had to jet up the street to get the correct roller)……now the hard part (waiting!)….it has to “cure” for 3 days before you can start writing on it and even then you have to “prime” it by rubbing a piece of chalk all over it using the smooth side of the chalk and then erase it with an eraser duh.

Now that I have that little project under my belt, I’ve moved ALL of the furniture out of the living room, entry, and dining room and I’m ready for the floor refinishers to come today.

Here are my BEFORE pictures…..

Dining Room BEFORE (I took these EARLY this morning….flooring guys were supposed to be here at 8am….they called and had to reschedule for 1pm) Guess I should take the curtains down as well, now that I think about it.

Pet stains and water stains in dining room BEFORE

Entryway BEFORE

Living Room BEFORE

(this room has NO overhead lighting)

Living Room stains BEFORE

(this is what happens when a Christmas tree stand leaks and you’re unaware of it)

Several of you who read my blog have said that you think my floors look pretty good…..well, yes, they do look pretty good and I’m definitely not a perfectionist far from it. But, with the sofa, loveseat, chair and entertainment center gone, I thought if this was EVER going to get done….now was the time to do it.

Needless to say my house now echoes….if you rang my doorbell and heard the dogs bark, you’d be scared to death….they sound extra big and ferocious….yeah, they might lick you to death!

Can’t wait to show the in-progress pics when the action starts.

1:24

This video only takes 1 minute and 24 seconds to watch and I think it will give you a peaceful and beautiful start to your day.

Inspired, Desired and Not all that Tired

Yesterday was a full day……a GOOD full day….the kind where you can sit down at the end of it and just say “ahhhhhh”.

Met up with Sheri of Shabby Sheep and we headed out to look at tile for the fireplace surround and then on to Ozark to stop by Leola’s

 

and Spring Creek to do a little “antiquing” and have lunch at the Spring Creek tea room.  I was really “jonesin’” for some of their cold strawberry soup.

However, when we got to Spring Creek they were not serving lunch…..tea room is closed on Monday.  What a bummer!  Instead we just looked around to see what they had antique wise and salivated over the smells coming from the kitchen (they must have been baking cakes for tomorrow’s clientele…..it smelled sooooo good in there…..TORTURE, I say, TORTURE!)

Next we headed on over to Leola’s….going there is always a treat! Sheri recognized Jan from Summer Sundays and while we were talking I noticed that all of us had on “peace” jewelry….Sheri had on a peace ring, Jan had a peace symbol on her necklace and I had on my peace earrings….serendipitous? I think we are all searching and wishing for peace.

Here are a few of the great pieces that I noticed at Leola’s…..a beautiful hooked rug! and these huge wire baskets

….of course right now I’m “liquidating” not “accumulating” but I am definitely going to show the picture of the wire crates to Kenny when he gets back home….I think they would make awesome end tables!

Oh yeah, digressing now….before we went to Leola’s and Spring Creek we went to look at tile for around the fireplace.  I went the other day and picked up some neutral tile samples to show Kenny, but he thought they were too “blah”.

Now, rather than have “blah” tile around the fireplace (those are Kenny’s words), we talked about putting an apple green mosaic tile instead…..I guess your house should reflect who you are and he talked me into going for something that was more “me” that had some color and a touch of glimmer.

We stopped by Unique Tile in Nixa, MO and found the “perfect” shade of green with just a touch of glimmer to it…..I know that the lady there was like “what is this woman thinking ?!”…..most people in this area are pretty traditional and shy away from bold colors like what I was after, but she did finally find a tile that was to my liking.  It had some shimmer and it was the PERFECT color of green!  I gave her my measurements (for the fireplace surround) and she said I would need 15 square feet.  I asked her how long it would take it to come in and she said about 2 weeks….. (okay, I just wanted to load it up and take it home….I’m not good with waiting, but I figured that whatever I found was going to be “special order” because of the wild color)……then the kicker…..HOW MUCH?

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$637 + freight

(Sheri sees color drain from my face at this point)

How much is it per square foot , I ask? 

$42.50

YIKES!

“okay”, I say, “I will have to talk to my husband about this before I order it….thanks”

You can see the tile HERE and see the MUCH LOWER price that I found it at on-line…….I will have to pay for shipping (which I was going to have to do at the store as well, but I’ll save sales tax) so I’m going for it! I’ve already placed my order….no turning back now!

After lunch, at Subway, we headed back to town and I dropped Sheri off at her house and then proceeded to head out for more!

Went to FunTiques to check out a dining room table I was thinking about for the dining room.

Got there and it was sold….guess it just wasn’t meant to be….would have had to change the upholstery anyway.

They also had this chair with a matching ottoman, but it was $400 and then I would still have to have it reupholstered……oh well, at least I have it “out of my system”

Next I went and wandered around “Charlie’s Antiques”, but I noticed that the name had changed to “Urban Flea Market”…..don’t know what’s up with that, but didn’t find anything I couldn’t live without…..well, did find another chair like the one above for $124, but sat in it and it was not very comfortable, so decided to pass.

Stopped by our wonderful little library on the way home to return a few books and can’t resist going in to pick up a few more…..to see what’s on my reading/looking/skimming list check my side bar.

So now that I’ve got the “looki-loos” out of my system, I head home and throw a chicken in the oven, go outside to water the “out of control” coleus in front of our house.

After dinner, I sit down and finish the pillow for Aiden

while listening to

This is the first time I’ve really sat down and listened to a book on CD while I was working on something……I liked it and will most likely do it more! It’s like escaping to another world!

Now that I have the pillow finished I’m getting ready to start on my next project.  Here is the door that goes between my kitchen and my utility room…..I stripped it down to bare wood when we remodeled the kitchen and I haven’t done anything with it…..but now I’m ready to get creative and go for it…..

I’m going to paint it with black chalkboard paint…hope to have pictures of the AFTER in the morning. I love, Love, LOVE this door….it’s one of those Dutch doors that the top and bottom open separately.

 

Have a great day, talk to you soon,

Tammy