Footstools{re-do}

I found this in a thrift store for a buck seventy-five...yeppers, one dollar and seventy-five cents. The top was very grungy and the hearts are a thing of the past, so, so seventy-ish but the thing that grabbed my heart was the hand-grab on the top...just melted me. And it was wooden...that's a given for me.

I love me a footstool! They're cute and can be used as more than a place to rest your feet on. I've seen them on kitchen counters, different sizes stacked on top of  each other or just 'settin' around lookin' purty.' I tried one on my kitchen counter but that didn't quite fit the look.

I keep them (yes, them because I just found another cute one) nearby in the kitchen to reach the high places my short five foot-two inch height can't reach. There's two more in my storage/laundry/turned into a teen-tiny paint room (more on that later) that need to be refurbished.

Coming back to the cute footstools...

She was very grungy.

But she looks like this now...

With her sidekick...

who also got a make-over.

Did I say she melts me? Except for the hearts.

I know, I know...it's just a footstool.

But a cute one!

Do you notice the floor? It's called 'planking' and I love, love that, too! I'll talk about flooring in another post.

Stay toasty, people...it's cold, baby...COLD!

~ Esther

Wood Headboard {discarded}

I found this wood headboard on a free pile a week after the local fire company auction several years ago. I knew what I wanted to do with it 'sometime', because I saw some nifty trash-to-treasure changed headboards. When I knew I was moving, I painted it but didn't know what I wanted the finish to look like so it hung at Apartment 12 unadorned.

Several weeks ago I found a print in my files that was printed off The Fairy Graphics, an amazing blog to get any kind of free copies for whatever one imagines to transform. I love most anything French and chose this to finish the headboard. And no, I don't know what the words mean - perhaps an address to a Chateau.

It was the usual seventies brown stained/varnished finish. The first thing I did was cut the legs off, then sanded, primed and painted it once because I wanted to give it a very shabby look. Then sanded it again.

It hung like this since I moved in September where I hang my purse and jacket when it's not being posed for the public.

After centering it, I taped the pattern over a sheet of carbon paper and traced it very firmly with a pencil.

Traced over that with a fine-tipped Sharpie.

And gave it a light sanding with very fine sandpaper.

Doesn't this look summer-y? Keep the faith, people...it will come!

But the grand finale is my new over-the-shoulder personalized Thirty-One bag that carries a TON of stuff if you're traveling and is hands-free with the second strap as a cross-over. And no, I am not paid to advertise for Thirty-One; however, daughter J is a consultant.

This was one of many projects I kept for the winter months. For the first time since July there wasn't one.single.thing that needed to be done this week or an appointment I had to go to. Having said that, I felt very unmotivated and this is the extent of my many-projects-for-the-winter. Maybe it was the COLD week. Perhaps next week I can start sewing new chair covers or painting the dinning room legs.

~ Esther

Christmas 2013

We have our family Christmas the week end after the New Year so this past weekend we were together here at Apartment 12. We had seven inches of snow with winds (we live in a wind tunnel area) two days before and it looked very Christmas-y.

A few changes were made for this first Christmas without my honey. I got the grandchildren an assortment of gift cards, hung them on this delightful four-foot tinsel Christmas tree. Their names were pulled from a container and they could choose a card. Christmas shopping was very simple and easy!

Here we are! The dinning/kitchen area is long enough to spread out this way - bigger grands at folding tables, the rest around our stretched out table.

What is Christmas without candy canes and wrapped mints? Put together in a wire basket in wide-mouth quart jars and wrapped with burlap strands saved from another project. The numbers came from a church register find at a yard sale.

Gift exchange time with excited children! This time the guys and gals exchanged with guys and gals...so much fun and so much easier!

This year I decided to fancy my gift to give. The flower is cut free-handed in different sizes and rolled around a pencil to curl it. Do as many 'petals' as you want, glue them together and use a center of choice...ta-da! a lovely, simple and cheap gift flower!

I found this wrapping paper at T-J-Max and love it!

Cousins playing 'barn.' Notice the hat and purse on the chair? Even the boys enjoy dress-up stuff that's back in Grandma's dressing room. And speaking of the dressing room...

...yep.

This is exactly what it looks like!

She was to be taking a nap in Grandma's bed.

The cupcakes were hid in the dressing room from premature snacking.

Daddy did a check on her.

Too late...

...and too cute!

Even though there was snow laying and c-o-l-d!, there was a father/son football game going the rest of the afternoon. The rest of us read, rested and chatted - it was very restful before the clan came in to pizza and finger-food for supper.

I like to think my honey was watching us and approved of the changes that were put in place. And another first is behind us.

~ Esther

As We Were...

December 31, 2013

I was on the road early this morning when 'our song' came on the radio. How well I remember hearing it for the first time in the wee hours of the morning back in April of this year, then how God re-affirmed the song several hours later VIA Face Book...no coincidence at all. So when I heard the opening words of Robin Mark's words of 'All is Well,' I knew what was coming. It stirred up a huge well of emotion and memory.

The above incident happened

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I wrote this yesterday, thinking it was a good way to end my last post for 2013. It didn't happen. In fact, I have a hard time remembering what we did last year for Christmas and New Year. I do remember two years ago that Mr. D had shaved his beard just before Christmas and I didn't notice it for two days. We had a good laugh over that! I also remember thinking he seemed to be so well I could almost pretend nothing was wrong. But all the while the cancer was growing. Hated, despicable disease! I know...sounds morbid, but there it is.

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January 2014...

Truth be told, I'm not sure what to do with this new year. I can't see much beyond the next several months.

I am defining 2014 in one word - 'WAIT.' Waiting has always been difficult for me; I want things to move, preferably forward or to be done NOW. I have also moved too fast with not so good consequences. So to wait will be good and I know in the waiting God will hold me close.

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The lyrics of Robin Mark.

All is Well

He lowers us so we can sing HIS praises

Whatever is HIS way - all is well

He makes us rich and poor that we might trust HIM more

What ever is HIS way - all is well

He clothes us now then strips us

Yet with His word equips us

Whatever is HIS way - all is well

And though our seasons change, we still exalt HIS name

Whatever is HIS way - all is well.

Then there is the chorus - the chorus that so comforted both of us!

All my changes come from Him, He who NEVER changes.

I'm held firm in the grasp of the Rock of all the ages...

All is well with my soul - HE is God in control

I know not His plans but I know I'm in HIS hands!

(emphasis mine)

I want to do 2014 well. Not perfect...but WELL! To do the 'hard but necessary stuff of life.' Though 'As We Were' will never be again, the promise of our future never changed! At the end of the day, I still hear those words from my honey ringing in my ears, 'You'll be okay!'

~ Esther