It's Been a Wonderful Summer

thank you.

Summer Crafts { and not much baking :) }

Water 'Paint' Balloon Paintings
This is just what it sounds like - water balloons filled with paint thrown at a canvas!
This was a hoot...we began with tempera paint (too watery), moved to food coloring (much better) and added acrylic ink mixed with a bit of water (the best!)

 

 

Vintage Fork Hooks
Soph was keen to make some hooks for hanging clothes in her bedroom.  She noticed some in the garden shed I had made from vintage cutlery and wanted to give it a go.  She hammered and twisted the prongs and then bent each fork using the vise on our workbench and a hammer. Spray painted in turquoise, yellow and white to match her room and drilled by hubs for mounting on the wall, she is happy and so is her mom! 

Glow Bubbles
We did a Google search to investigate the best way to create glow bubbles.  Squeezing the ink from neon highlighters and mixing it with the bubbles was said to be very effective so we decided to give that a try as well as using regular glow sticks. The highlighter 'squeezing' was messy - wearing plastic gloves is highly recommended.  We used pink, yellow, orange and green and just poured the ink right into the bubbles.  For the glow sticks, we activated them, screened out the bits of glass and poured the color in the bubbles as well.
 (Even though it is non-toxic, we suggest this be done by an adult due to the bits of glass.)
Off to the lawn we went to create our garden of bubbles.  The inks seemed to make the surface tension of the bubbles stronger and they landed and lasted all for ages.  The amount of 'glow' was pretty but less than we hoped for... the next day, in the light, the colors were fantastic!! 

 

Symphony in the Garden Shed

 I spent an hour yesterday practicing and playing my ukulele in my newly renovated little garden retreat -  it was lovely! And, playing it has been so much fun this summer.  Other family members play guitar, Sophie and I on ukulele and lots of singers have lead to many 'jam' sessions in our dining room and on the deck...we may have to take this show on the road :)

xo!

Garden Shed 'Project Redecorate' ~ The Reveal!

...finally!

 

 It took much longer to complete than I originally planned

but I LOVE it!!!!

 Here is a link to the 'Befores'

http://wildwomanjewelry.blogspot.ca/2014/07/day-1-garden-shed-redecorating-project.html 

and here is

'The Reveal'!

 

Here it is! My own little garden retreat fresh again! On the exterior, hubs leveled the whole shed, replaced the screen in the door and added new wide cedar trim around the doorway.  I painted all the trim and the flower box, cleaned up the garden and stuff around the shed and got a colorful zigzag mat for the entrance.

 

The trim is called Coastal Beige and the orangey-yellow is Honey Locust.  All the paint is Behr. I also 'pruned' my collection of rusty garden antiques for a cozy but less cluttered, junky look :).
 

My wrought iron table and chairs got a coat of rust resistant black spray paint.

 

The entire interior of the shed was painted - Coastal Beige on the walls and ceiling, Soothing Spring on the window frames, floor 'tiles' and some of the furniture and Citronella on the rafters and door.  My little table is ready again for writing, journaling, garden planning and daydreaming! The ice cream parlor chairs came from Quebec and received a fresh coat of white spray paint - they are waiting for new wood seats (hubs promised!) and are a sweet perch for guests.

 

A comfy wicker rocker is a peaceful spot for reading, a cup of tea, ukulele playing and snugging with our kitty!

...just for me!

I corralled my collections of birdhouses, watering cans and assorted garden bits on a couple of new shelves in the rafters.  I can see and enjoy them all but they are no longer all over the floor - yay!

I printed and framed a couple of my own photographs with inspirational quotes and placed them on the old medicine chest which also got a coat of white spray paint. Fresh garden flowers finish the vignette.

 

Window Box close-up.





I loved this color so much I painted the window boxes on the garage too!

 I'm so excited! I'm going to play my ukulele here this afternoon!

xo

 

We had a Little Modelling Session Today!



New Earrings for Autumn in the Shop Today!

Sweet little textured blue and copper bellflowers on antiqued copper ear wires.



Verdigris Copper with Semi Precious Turquoise



Sunflowers Enameled on Copper



Autumn Orange Glass and Gunmetal Brass

It's Your Move....

 

...they are actually playmates.

This little chipmunk waits at our back door

for Ethel to come out - it's a hoot!