My Projects & Porch Revealed

I gave a snippet of pics last week concerning some projects I had been crazily working on and now they are all completed and in their proper places (at least for now)!

The silver bucket and painted twigs went from this:

To this:

A little burlap ribbon to complete the look.

The funny looking rooster started out a rust color and I painted him ivory and then sanded him to let a little of the rust through. I didn’t think to take a true before picture. But here he is before all his coats and distressing. He’s actually a watering can.

And after:

Here it is put together. I’m not sure I like the rooster under the table, and the table definitely needs something else, but it works for the moment. And yes, that photo was taken yesterday and it is sunny here in my part of Texas. But that doesn’t mean it’ll be that way tomorrow!

I also wanted to share my front porch with you and give a little narration on each picture. I’m going to change a few things out for Christmas, hopefully next week, but for now, welcome to my porch!

The chairs were purchased at a thrift store for a mere $5 each! The porch pillows I bought online from Olde Tyme Marketplace. She has the cutest things!

The Texas wall hanging came with the house. I love it~

The little table between the chairs is a rolling typewriter type table. I picked it up for $3 at a thrift shop, painted the legs white and covered the top with chalkboard paint. Here’s what currently resides on it.

A cloche I constructed out of a wire gutter drain cover and laced up with a piece of burlap. The bird and the little dish they sit on were from a thrift store. Very cheep-ha ha.

The mini chair planter I found at a thrift store and it was already white and chippy, so I crackle painted a pot and use it to store our chalk for the table.

The pot in the background holds some fake flowers. It came from the attic of a shop here in town and was rumored to be from the early 1900’s. The shop owner was selling them for a great price, and it fit perfectly in the spot. The nuts are Burr Oak Acorns that I picked up on a walk and painted. The tray everything is on is, of course, another thrift store goodie. It was brown. I painted it white and then an Amish grey and sanded it.

The ladder is my most recent favorite addition. I snapped it up at a yard sale for $5 and then had to figure out what to do with it.  The watering cans are thrift and yard sale finds. I think I paid $1 for each one.

In the other corner I have an old bucket that was found in a shed and I topped it with a piece of burlap (that my husband had) and some rope. The planter on it came from Homegoods and the pineapple thingie I found at our local Trade Days. Again, I think I only paid a dollar for it. If you’re ever in this area, make sure it’s on a Trade Days weekend.

And finally, just about the cutest thing on the porch-my wind chime. This came from a Burke’s Outlet store.

Isn’t it adorable?

All in all, my porch has cost me less than $100 and that includes the furniture! I really enjoy finding great deals on things I can use.

I’m hoping to let you tour more of the house as we’re able to go through and redo it.

Thanks for visiting!

Linking to:

From My Front Porch To Yours Porch Party

Austin City Wide Garage Sale

I took off to Austin this past Saturday mainly to accomplish my Christmas shopping; but partly to visit the City Wide Garage Sale! I had attended once before and really enjoyed perusing the booths in search of treasures.

I started my day off with my warm drink of choice, a White Chocolate Peppermint Mocha! See, it even says we’re best friends!

                    

I have a few pics to share that I snapped inside the Palmer Event Center where City Wide is held. I’ll apologize beforehand for the snapshots-a photographer, I am not.

Booths filled with every imaginable treasure as far as the eye can see!

Several vendors had their shimmery, silver trees up. Lots of vintage Christmas décor and ornaments were to be found.

I met Theresa from Garden Antqs Vintage. She is just as nice and sweet as everyone out here in blog world says she is! Her booth was filled with wonderful pieces in shades of cream, white and silver. How fun! This in particular caught my eye-She’s hung up some vintage gloves along with some ornaments. Very cute.

I spied a few things from Le French Laundry that were absolutely adorable. Aren’t her tags lovely?

Cute totes.

Love the crown. It came in three different sizes.

Those were all the photos I took at the sale. There’s always so much to see!

I ended up coming home with a small, cream colored quilt to use on our couch in the office and a couple of cloth napkins. One vendor sells her linens by the pound!

This is what I consider my find of the day-a chippy and rusty, white, iron gate piece. I’m pretty sure I’m going to sell it, although I’m tempted to hang it on my wall over my desk.

I’ve completed my little projects I gave you a sneak peek of last week, so I’ll be sharing the finished products with you soon!

Have a great evening!

What Was I Thinking?

I meant to post this last night, but I ran out of time and energy. I’m not sure why I decided all of the following needed to be done yesterday-the day before Thanksgiving-but I’m willing to share my insanity with y’all. (Please ignore the horrid, yellow Formica countertops in the background.)

Beans in the crockpot for our family and some friends for dinnertime.

Baking to be done. Some from scratch; some not. I eat gluten free and I’ve found the best results come from the baking mixes.

Mmmmm….chocolate.

Carrot cake recipe was my husband’s grandmother’s. The finished cake probably weighs at least ten pounds!

I forgot to take a photo of the lovely pan of cornbread we had with our beans.

In between mixing, baking, cooling, mixing frosting, and frosting, I worked on a couple of projects. I’ll share final results later when everything is in its proper place.

So, after a cake, cupcakes, cornbread, two (different) homemade frostings, cornbread, a batch of beans, some spray paint and four projects, I was ready to call it a night.

Right after I checked out the after Thanksgiving sales flyers!

Right now I’m off to make stuffing. That couldn’t be done a day ahead of time!

Blessings to everyone this Thanksgiving Day!

My Current Project (one of)

I found this a while back at a Homegoods store and just had to bring it home.

  

I thought it would make a great centerpiece for my dining room table. Which, in itself, is a whole ‘nother project.  Problem was, I couldn’t figure out what to put in it!

I came across this idea, of making rag balls using old shirts, in a copy of Flea Market Style magazine-which I just love! 

                                                                                        

       

                    

Instead of purchasing shirts, I bought fabric scraps from a local thrift store. These ranged in price from .10 cents to .50 cents per bundle. I think I bought five or six bundles of different cream and white textures.

I also picked up a few bags of styrofoam balls from our Dollar Tree. I wrapped the fabric around these to help with the shape. 

And here’s what I came up with. 

                           

          

          

          

And of course, a burlap one. Gotta love the burlap.

              

So now I just have to figure out what to throw in there with them. I was thinking maybe some old baseballs would make a good texture combination. Any ideas?

Mommy Duties

This last week I had to do perform a mommy duty. Well, I had to perform more than one, but this was one I always put off. 

Ironing.

Usually I wait until I have a pile of items and then turn on a show I enjoy and iron away.

But not last week. My children had a special ironing request that had to be done.

Immediately.

These are what were so important:

A horse….

                       

Red Skull from Captain America….

                                         

and Captain America himself.

                                         

Melty beads or fusion beads, as they could be known. My talented little boys like to create all kinds of creatures with these and then wait patiently for me to iron them. (Just a little sarcasm inserted there.)  But once they’re completed, they have oh-so-much-fun with them. And it was certainly worth pulling the iron out for.

Welcome

Welcome to my "under construction" blog. I just wanted to give an idea of what I'm all about.

In August I opened an Etsy shop, named Rusty and Redone. I've had a lot of fun hunting for goodies to sell on it, and wanted to expand a little on it. Here I will share my junking, thrifting, garage sale finds, crafting ideas, other blogs I love, decorating frugally (a.k.a. cheaply), and hopefully, some redos on my home. Along with any other ideas that might float through my brain! Every now and then I find an item I love that doesn't fit my Etsy guidelines, so I will have an online shop page to showcase those treasures. I also have a Facebook page and a twitter account that you can follow.

I also have a homeschooling blog that I try to update once a week. Please check it out if you’d like to learn more about me and my family.

I'm still working on adding a few doo-dads to it, such as a blog button, signature, blogs I follow, profile info, description, etc. So if you stop back by, there's bound to be something new here.

I have noticed that for some reason my followers are not consistently showing up on my sidebar. I think this is a blogger issue, so rest assured, if you have recently followed my blog, I have not deleted you!

I thank you for stopping by and I hope you'll enjoy reading what I have to share!

 

Is That a Bookworm?

Connor recently found this living in his Language Lessons workbook:

Yep, Connor opened the book up and this little guy was basically living inside it.  Now, I’m fairly certain that we read last year in his Nature Reader that bookworms don’t actually eat books. However, I’m not so sure that was accurate, as this guy was working his way through the current page, as evidenced in the following photo: 

                                         

And, yes, I do think that’s worm poop