Prim it Up!

Craft show!

2011-11-27T00:02:00.001-05:00

Hi all...

Just wanted to share with you that I registered my business name in the summer. I didn't blog about it because I was working on how I was going to handle things, what I was going to make and where I was going to sell. The name I chose is "Charmed, I'm Sure!". I found a rubber stamp with this saying on it and it spoke to me. No, I don't make charms, still making prim crafts but I've expanded to include French country, farmhouse and cottage chic. Prim isn't overly popular in my city and since I do love some aspects of other styles I decided to combine them, enabling me to be more creative and hopefully more profitable.

I signed up for a craft show which is this weekend; it's a 2-day show, today (Sat. Nov 26) and tomorrow (Sun. Nov 27) in the town of Tillsonburg, Ontario. I had to be approved to attend this show as it's juried, so I sent pics of the craft show I had done last year and was selected! I did pretty well today, sold a lot of small things and am hoping that tomorrow is a success as well. Here are a few pics:

I'll be updating my selling blog soon so stay tuned!

Ohio.. and an upcycled jewellery holder :)

2011-10-13T19:04:00.001-04:00

Happy Thursday!!

Hope everyone is doing well and had a great long weekend... Thanksgiving for my fellow Canadians and Columbus Day for my US friends :) My daughter and I went to Ohio on Friday and came home Sunday. We got to Columbus a bit later on Friday than planned so we found a hotel then went shopping. If you've never been, there is an amazing shopping mall called Morse Crossing (I think :) .. since I didn't expect to come across this mall I didn't have my camera with me! It was really cool, had a lot of high-end stores, some "regular" stores.. lol.. a theatre, a large fountain and some clever lighting. It looked like a village.... we loved it!!!

The next day we got going around noon and took our time driving to Berlin. I think we got there around 2 pm and went from store to store, taking in the beautiful displays and discovering some great craft ideas ;) .. There is a store called 1817 House (it's in the oldest house in Berlin!), and they're having a clearance sale with everything at 40% off.. here's what I got:

A cute little prim tree, a blown-glass owl ornament, 2 chocolate molds and 2 rolls of antique silver garland. I love it all, and can't believe that I didn't spend a lot more money. I decided to get what I wanted and not be too impulsive. It's so hard to do when shopping in the US, but I managed.. lol. It was a gorgeous weekend, we had great weather and had a really fun time together. The best part is that she drove a lot of the way, her first time driving in the US!

Now on to my upcycled project... I've been looking at the jewellery holders in the stores and of course being a prim lover and a crafter, just couldn't see paying for one of those mass-produced holders that most likely would fall apart in short order. So I was Googling and saw a great idea for an old rake head, and realized I had one! Out in the garden.... in the dirt. Yuck! Well out I went the other night in the pitch dark, fumbling for this rake head... you knew I was going to do that, didn't you? lol.. well, I found it, brought it in and cleaned it really well. The next day I sprayed it with clear Krylon, glued my plaster fleur-di-lis (which had been hanging on my bedroom wall) on the handle, and added a piece of brown grosgrain ribbon for it to hang from then added my necklaces and some bracelets... I LOVE how it turned out!

Here's a close-up of the rake head:

Hope this little project inspires you, enjoy your weekend :)

Stopping in...

2011-09-27T23:51:00.000-04:00

Hi all,

I know I said that I'd be posting more often but time has gotten away from me! I spent a couple of weeks this month rearranging my living room, my bedroom and my daughter's bedroom, adding more storage to closets and creating more space in general. I've sold a few things and bought a few things :) Gone from my living room is the old Singer sewing machine table that I was using for my tv (sold it); in it's place is my dry sink that I had crammed into my kitchen. Since my house is small and I have a lot of stuff I've decided that any piece of furniture coming into the house has to have storage. The dry sink is working out so well, holding all of our dvd movies and I love how it looks. I did have to figure out a way to actually set my tv on it so I took the tray that I refinished 2 years ago and set it in the sink part and put my tv on top. Works like a charm! Here's a pic.. I was concerned that the dry sink would look too big in this space but I think it's just perfect.

I've discovered Picker Sisters.. as seen on the tv screen.. lol.. awesome show!

In addition to trading one tv stand for another, I removed my "coffee table" from the living room, which was actually my daughter's trunk which never fit in her bedroom before I re-arranged it; it fits in there quite nicely now. I'm amazed at how much space she has now!

Once the trunk was moved, I got rid of my couch which was too big for the space, kept the love seat and purchased a gently used chaise lounge. I found a great piece at a yard sale a couple of weeks ago to use as a coffee table. I think it's a trunk, but with drawers instead of a lift-up top, it could also be considered a low dresser. What do you think?

After....

Love it!

Thanks for stopping by, I will definitely try to post more frequently :)

Roma 2011!

2011-06-05T11:50:00.001-04:00

Ciao!

As promised in a previous post, I wanted to share with you some pictures from my trip with my daughter to Rome in February. She’s in university and had decided to go visit her friend during Reading Week. Things changed so I decided to go with her. If you’ve never been there, it’s an amazing city!! The history is unbelievable, and the monuments and artifacts are stunning!!!

Let’s begin the tour!

The Coliseum.. breathtaking!

We did the inside tour..

Yes, that’s me, I wanted proof that I was actually there.. lol

A great night shot

We also toured the Roman Forum which is across the street from the Coliseum

Trevi Fountain!

Spanish Steps!

Love the fountain at the base of the steps..

View from the top of the steps..,. the street right in the middle is the most expensive shopping area.. Prada anyone??

We went out to Ostia one day, which is the Harbour City of Ancient Rome, on the Tyrrhenian Sea

Close-up of the sand.. yes, it’s black!

Villa D’Este, an estate in the mountain town of Tivoli, the grounds are amazing, with hundreds of fountains, evergreens etc; being February there wasn’t a lot in bloom

View from the Villa

Huge wall of fountains

Amazing statuary

Fabulous fountain, I love this shot with the sun shining and the water splashing down!

All the handrails had some kind of fountain carved into them, love this idea!

There were fountains in almost every available niche on the property, love this one!

The Pantheon, almost 1900 years old!

Domed ceiling inside

Amazing architecture..

Now some randoms…

Moving day! I saw this in Paris a couple of years ago, what an ingenious idea! Since most of these old buildings don’t have elevators, this is the most efficient way to move.

Vespa!! This city is filled with these as well as motorcycles and tiny cars “Bici & Baci” means “Bikes & Kisses” in Italian

Laundry!

“Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi” in Piazza Navona

The Vatican (St. Peter’s Basilica is in the middle), took a ton of pics here and in the Museum.. we were in the Sistine Chapel but no pics are allowed so you’ll have to take my word for it!

I took hundreds of pics, hope you enjoyed this little snapshot of one of the most amazing cities in the world, thanks for joining me!! Maybe I should have a travel blog.. lol

Christie Lake Antique Show

2011-05-30T21:16:00.001-04:00

WARNING – PICTURE-HEAVY POST!!

Happy Monday everyone and a Happy Memorial Day to all my American friends!! Hope everyone had a great weekend.

I wanted to share pics that I took at the Christie Lake Antique Show this weekend. This show happens twice a year, in May and September at the Christie Lake Conservation Area near Dundas, Ontario which is outside of Hamilton. There are approximately 300 vendors selling pretty much everything you can imagine. Enjoy the pics!

Entering the field.. lots of people! It had rained the night before and everything was muddy and the day was overcast, chilly and damp, then it warmed up and was humid.. lol..

I loved this booth but wasn’t sure about taking pics.. so I stayed back a bit. Her prices were very high… those apple ladders leaning against the tree were over $200.. each!! The items were nicely redone, looked like everything was Briwaxed . Loved everything!

Lots of treasures!

Too many people, couldn’t get a good pic

Tons of eye candy!

I loved this display of old doors and windows. The prices were excellent, in the $20-30 range!

I loved this booth, they had nice displays and the prices were pretty reasonable.. I asked if I could take pics… lol

Basket full of enamelware..

More enamelware stacked in a trunk.. I loved the white medicine cabinet sitting on the white table but didn’t want to pay $50.. I think the bedframe on the left was only $50, great buy for the right person!

Love the scooter, small table and child’s rocker

I loved this display of type trays, they were a great deal at only $20 each! Excellent price if you collect them but I don’t so I just took my pics and kept going..

I was really drawn to these displays of the same item.. the sap buckets were selling for $5 each

Beautiful booth reminiscent of French country style. The chairs were recovered in grain sacks; I love the effect of the rustic fabrics with the more ornate wood frames. Beautiful!

Who doesn’t love these old apothecary cabinets? There were a lot of these in various sizes and shapes, all very expensive!

Another lovely display, these water buckets were about $25 each.

There were so many beautiful and interesting things at this show but the items that I really wanted were more than I was willing to pay. I did get a few items:

Old cheese box almost identical to the one I already have.. but this one is shorter

I’ll be sanding the box smooth and Briwaxing it, or I might paint it then sand off most of the paint.. so many possibilities!

Someone told me that the beige enamelware was hard to find. This must be true as this coffee pot was one of the few beige pieces I came across. I love the green trim and the chip on the front. They were asking $18 for this and $20 for the cheese box but we settled on $32 for both pieces. I thought that was pretty reasonable.

Random hook I found at the booth with the windows and doors, he wouldn’t budge on the $5 price so I paid it, I love the shape and the chippy old paint. I did come across another booth with lots of these and they were also asking $5 so I knew I hadn’t overpaid.

Hope you enjoyed the pics, I had a great day out with my daughter… makes life worth living

Have a great week everyone!

Happy Mother’s Day!!

2011-05-08T20:16:00.000-04:00

Wow.. two posts in one day!

Just wanted to share pics of my Mother’s Day flowers that my lovely daughter (who turned 21 just one week ago!) gave to me today. She had to work today but since she’s working at a nursery for the summer and they carry fresh flowers, she had a bouquet made up for me! Her bff works there too and her mom is now enjoying the same bouquet.. LOL.

Gorgeous isn’t it?? Pink stargazer lily with 3 unopened buds, a lovely large pink rose, pink and yellow filler flowers and greens… LOVE !!

Another view showing the pink gerbera daisy.. these are my favourite flowers!!

I also took some close-up pics..

Aren't they gorgeous? I just love fresh flowers!! Hope all the moms enjoyed their day!

I’m still here!!

2011-05-08T00:01:00.001-04:00

Hi all!!

I haven’t done a post in months as you probably already know, but I will try to get back to a semi-regular routine. I had a difficult winter which I prefer not to discuss and had considered closing the blog down completely. I may still do that but in the meantime I’m going to do some posts until I decide one way or the other.

This post will be relatively short, a cheese box re-do that I actually finished up last summer but never got a chance to post. I just checked a previous post and realize that I did post a pic that had the box in it, but didn’t feature the box itself.

This was purchased for 50 cents at a rummage sale and had 2 layers of paint on it, a horrible peach on top of a seafoam green (oh, the 80s! lol). I think it sat in my shed for at least a year and perhaps two before I decided that I really wanted to get it stripped and stained.

Here’s a view of the top, I love the split in the wood!

It was a very tough job to get the paint off and I almost ruined it by using the wrong tool for the job. I did keep working on it to remove my mistake and it worked for the most part… but I’m not telling anyone what I did wrong, so let’s hope you don’t notice! I did have to leave bits of the green paint on the lid but I think it looks great and adds to the fact that it’s an old piece.

Here it is! I love the grain that I was able to uncover (no idea of the type of wood but it’s not overly thick). I finished the outside of the box with Briwax but I left the inside as it was, as I’m not using it for storage at the moment… and by the time I got to this point I had almost tossed it to the curb!!

Here’s the lid with the split and bits of green paint.. love it!

Thanks for checking in with me again, I do appreciate it. Future posts will feature my bathroom re-do, more refinishing projects and another travel post…

Wishing all moms a very Happy Mother’s Day!!

Happy New Year!

2011-01-01T11:10:00.002-05:00

Wishing everyone a healthy and happy 2011!!

I haven't posted in a while, been in a bit of a slump. December started off with a bang in London, Ontario, we got dumped on over a 3-4 day span, started on the 6th (Sunday) and finally let up on Wednesday. The city shut down on Tuesday afternoon, city buses were pulled off the streets and kept off on Wednesday as well. I actually got snow days from work, the perks of being non-essential.. lol.. not likely to happen again, as this was a very unusual situation but I did enjoy it at the time. We ended up with about 3' of snow, it seems like more but I'd say that was accurate. I had a huge pile on my roof, no way to get rid of it, also had a ton on icicles and now it appears that my eavestrough is bent. I'm worried about the damage this may have caused, just hoping for the best but I think the gutters definitely need to be replaced. The bane of being a single parent, all the expense falls on me and if I don't have the skills or connections to get things fixed I end up paying much more than other people; it's frustrating to be taken advantage of, even when I try to be careful. Let's hope for the best!

I'm hoping to get back into sewing; I did buy a new machine a few months ago but am having trouble finding space to set it up. I've been rearranging pieces of furniture but so far haven't come up with something that works for me.   I worked on packing away Christmas ornies and decorations last night and will once again try to rearrange things to see if I can find a workable solution and get sewing again.

Speaking of.. no pics of Christmas decorations.. ugh, I decorated late this year and then Christmas Day was here before I knew it. For the first time ever, I decided against trying to fit a 6-7' real Christmas tree in my house again this year and instead purchased an artificial 4' tree that I set on top of my refinished wood cheese box. This is a very cool tree, called a Bristlecone, nicer than the typical artificial ones. I added a set of 140 twinkle lights, just love them. They're very tiny lights that have about 8 different settings that change at intervals. Unfortunately I didn't find a way to keep them on one setting, maybe there are instructions to do that.. lol.   I do love the tree but found that it was somewhat hard to decorate because the bristles are long. I`ll have to figure out a better plan for next year. :)

Since this is a picture-less post, I'm just going to say that I wish you all the best in 2011 and I hope to post more frequently this year.  Take care!

Craft show

2010-11-14T18:52:00.000-05:00

I did a craft show yesterday, I was the only one not selling crocheted items, jewellery or food :( .. needless to say, I sold very little, just slightly more than enough to cover the cost of the table. It's very disappointing to me, so I'm going to work on stock for a much larger show that I'd like to go into next year. Here are a couple of pics of my table.

As you can see, they put me right beside an outside door. Although we've been having a relatively warm November, it still got chilly just sitting there!

Check out my selling blog, I've added a few things and marked some things down. Next on the list of things to do is clean up the spare bedroom where I keep my craft supplies and finished crafts (and my dog..lol) and put away the things from the show, was just too tired today.

Have a great week everyone!

A dry sink!!

2010-10-04T17:14:00.001-04:00

I am so excited!! After many years of desperately wanting a dry sink, I finally have one. My Facebook friend and fellow blogger Rochelle (see previous post) found it on Craigslist, contacted the vendor and negotiated a lower price, then went to pick it up for me. This transaction took place over the course of a couple of weeks…. I really admire and appreciate Rochelle’s dedication!

On Sat. she brought it to me in Ontario, Canada, from her home near Pt. Huron, Michigan, I think the drive is about 1.5 hours in total, one-way.. and of course having to deal with Customs both ways isn’t exactly a fun prospect! What a generous thing for her to do, I really appreciate her bringing this to me, but it makes me wish that I had a van! She had to be home by early afternoon so we went out quickly to pick up some Briwax then off for a nice lunch. I really had a blast chatting with her and I look forward to having a new friend to visit and go shopping with when I cross the border.

Now what would an awesome prim purchase be without pics?? Before pics:

There’s a lot of varnish on this and lots of dings and nicks.. nothing a ton of sanding can’t fix! :D

This is exactly what I’ve always wanted, the actual sink part plus a small counter with a drawer underneath. I also love the shelf on top.. any extra display space is always a good thing!

These pics were all taken by the vendor for his ad. He said he had purchased it in 1971 and it wasn’t new at the time, so the age is questionable but it’s at least 40 years old.

After pics:

Before tweaking.. nice shot of my butter churn!!

Moved a few things around, added a few things plus fall decor

Close-up of the top..

I put this one in to show the knob.. replaced the white porcelain with the glass one that matches the one on the shelf above. The dry sink is now in my kitchen, but originally I wanted to put it beside my front door. Despite measuring before I got it, the space by the front door is actually too small.. LOL.. so I moved a few things around and it’s in my kitchen. I love it!

Since Rochelle wouldn’t take money for gas or her time, I gave her this Valor kerosene heater as a thank-you. I have another one so I was happy to give my extra heater to someone who loves it as much as I do. Thanks Rochelle!!! <3

Meeting prim friends!

2010-10-03T00:15:00.000-04:00

I’m back, trying to catch up on some posts!

On Sept. 18 I went to Holly, MI to meet some prim friends from a forum I joined called A Primitive Journey Community. Since I live in Canada, about an hour from Port Huron, MI, I joined the Detroit and Lower Michigan chapter. They have chapters all over the US so check your area - A Primitive Journey Community.

Unfortunately I wasn’t snap-happy with my camera that day :( .. so I’ll just have to tell you that we shopped in all the cute little stores which included Holly Hills Primitives (if you remember from a previous post, I went there in July with my friend Janet), so I got to see Dawn again.. what a sweetheart she is! We also went into a few antique stores. In one, I found a potato masher for $5 so I thought I should grab it. I found a potato ricer for $4 in another but my find of the day is this crock butter churn which I got for $39!! I don’t think I’ve ever seen one for under $75 so I grabbed it really quickly! There is a chip out of the lid but it’s not a fresh one, and other than that it’s in perfect condition.

I had such a fun day meeting so many prim friends, there were 8 of us in total and the director of our chapter is Rochelle, who has a blog called Prairie House. Rochelle lives just outside Port Huron so it’s a double bonus for me, as I can go shopping with her when I get over to Michigan. Actually, I have to do a post but have a piece of furniture to refinish first.. and it involved Rochelle so I will do a post when I have it completed.

As I always do, I went shopping at one of my favourite stores before I went home, Christmas Tree Shops. I found a small bench with an ugly “prim” saying painted on top, stripped off the paint as best I could then painted it a nice mustard colour and topped with some Briwax. It’s small enough to sit on my countertop so that’s where it is! Here’s a pic… (sorry, no “before” but trust me, it was not pretty.. but it is wood!)

I put the potato masher on top and the ricer underneath… also propped an old muffin tin on top. The little quilted square was a find in a shop in Holly. I think it’s a Boyds Bears accessory which I got for $1.50.. it fits perfectly here!

A bit of fall decorating, I don’t really go over the top. I rearranged my countertops and moved this bin back over to the counter beside my sink, I like it better in this spot. See the fire extinguisher? Got it at an estate sale… which I thought I posted about, but haven’t! Ok, well I can add a few pics …

Got to go to the estate sale the night before and I was allowed to poke around in the basement.. which was going to be off-limits the day of the sale… and this is what I found! I’ve since sanded off the outside finish and used some Rustic Pine Briwax to give it a nice glow. I don’t have an “after” pic .. but it turned out nicely; since my house is small and this is a big piece, it’s currently sitting in the laundry room on top of an old drop-leave table.

More stuff.. an old galvanized washtub, a chenille blanket (in perfect condition so I don’t think I’m cutting this up), a flannel blanket (unopened), a watering can, gas can, the fire extinguisher and a bow saw.

Yet more stuff… the owner’s son found these old medicine bottles (two still have drugs in them!), an old coffee pot, jars and a coffee grinder.

Jars, a chicken candy dish, enamel pitcher & flour sifter.

Old coffee grinder.. it can be mounted but the bolts on the back make that difficult.

Can you guess what I paid for all this?? NO? $40!! Yes, that’s it for all the estate sale items. I was very happy with this!!

Ok, that’s it for a few days, I do have more things to post about but still working on them.. so till then.. :)

I’m still here!!

2010-10-02T22:16:00.001-04:00

Hello everyone!

I didn’t disappear off the face of the earth! Just had a lot going on. August and September flew by so fast, I can hardly believe it. In August my daughter and I went to Orlando. Initially I wanted to go to Pennsylvia, to the Lancaster area and maybe on into West Virginia but I never did get things organized. Maybe I just don’t consider it a “real” vacation unless there’s a full-body scan involved.. LOL. I would prefer Pa. to be a long weekend type of trip so I’ll save it for that.

Here are a few pics of our trip, although I’m sure most people reading this have been there!

Orlando Airport.. so pretty!!

The smartest thing I did was rent a car! This is a cool red HHR, what a fun car! I was so happy to have some freedom, we were able to take a couple of side trips while we were in Orlando.

View Full Album

This is our room (in the album), a 2-bed. unit with a full kitchen, 2 bathrooms (check out my Miami Vice-inspired tile.. LOL), washer & dryer, and a screened-in patio.

View Full Album

Having already been to WDW, we decided to go to Universal Studios.. we were there mainly for the new Harry Potter attraction.. what a cool place, but the lineups were crazy, even for getting into the stores!

We also used the car to go to West Palm Beach, but chose Sunday, not knowing the whole town shuts down..lol.. plus it ended up raining!

See the rain? LOL.. it was coming down in sheets!

What a cool tree, it was such a pretty place!

A few days later we went to Cocoa Beach, which was much better!

The sand was powdery closer to the water.. loved it!

Well that’s it for now, I spent a lot of time digging up my front yard so I could get a sidewalk poured. I have a bit more to do to clean it up then I’ll post pics.. thanks for coming back!

Another overdue re-do!

2010-08-01T19:04:00.001-04:00

I bought a ton of stuff last year at yard sales and rummage sales with good intentions of transforming them into something fabulous. Unfortunately it rained every weekend last summer so most of my finds just ended up sitting in the shed all winter. I envisioned this shelf holding bowls but it would have been too much work to create a 2nd shelf as it would have needed some support from underneath so I had to re-think it.

There is one shelf across the middle, hearts on the inside bottom section and holes on the bottom cross-piece where you’d put wooden pegs. There is also a dowel near the top that is in an odd place. I knew I wanted to put wooden bowls on this shelf but the dowel would have to be removed.

A closer look at the hearts.. the middle part creates an indent so most likely there was a dowel here at one time. Oh, the 90’s!! lol

Ok, so the first thing I did was remove the dowel at the top. It was just in such an awkward spot that I would only have been able to put a large shallow bowl on the shelf and I wanted to have more options. I moved the dowel down to rest on top of the shelf, to form a lip which would stop a bowl from slipping off. See the closeup in the next pic..

I also added pine beadboard to the back of the entire shelf, filled in the peg holes at the bottom and sanded the whole piece. I left the holes in the top, for screwing to the wall.

Here it is, basecoated barn red with black on top, sanded and Briwaxed. I’m going to be looking for some old hooks to attach to the bottom section to hold bonnets and will also be looking for a few bowls to add to the top. Thanks to the lip I created, I don’t think I need to add anything else to hold bowls in place. Now I have to decide where to put this in my house.. maybe that odd wall in the living room that I always seem to end up with!

An overdue re-do

2010-07-31T13:36:00.001-04:00

I bought this ugly shelf at a huge yard sale last year (remember this dresser? same sale) .. I really debated about taking it because it’s one of those more open-grain woods that I really don’t like. I got it with a ton of other stuff for $5.. so technically it cost around 50 cents or less… so I just threw it in the mix!

Last night I finally started making it over. After removing that ugly wooden knob and sanding off that varnish, I painted it barn red, and sanded it back a bit for wear. I then took some Tudor Brown Briwax to it. Oh.. I found Briwax in an unfinished furniture store in my city a week ago.. took me a bit to figure out how it works.. lol.. but I think I like it now! I’ve been searching everywhere online to find a retailer and didn’t have much luck. The only place in Canada where I could find it was Western Canada and I live in Southwestern Ontario. Imagine my shock when I went into that store to look around and found it, in every colour!! After using it on a piece and not liking it, I decided to read the instructions.. LOL.. and found out that it liquifies in warm weather so I had to bring it back to a solid. Once I did that I really enjoyed the finish.. I think Briwax will be my new bff now!

Back to the shelf :D ..

I put it on a section of kitchen wall that has an ugly phone jack on it.. since I don’t have a landline this is just an eyesore. The shelf is straighter on the wall than it looks.. lol. It might be hard to see but I added a little piece of wire at the bottom. I also replaced the wooden knob with a crystal-look one.

Here it is, all loaded up! I added my wooden potato mashers, wooden paddle and a hand chopper (I think that’s what it is!), got them all at a yard sale a few weeks ago (see this post). I also added a couple of painted wooden spoons sticking out of the drawer and my little Raggedy Ann doll that was a gift from my friend Lex of Northwindstar Primitives (check her Etsy shop for awesome handmade prims!). I hung a handmade Raggedy towel (purchased from a coworker) from the wire. I love how it turned out!

Meeting a fellow blogger!

2010-07-20T08:59:00.000-04:00

On Saturday I met a fellow blogger who lives just outside my city… she’s been following my blog and had made comments and I thought I had checked hers and was following.. didn’t realize until a couple of weeks ago that I hadn’t checked her blog very closely and wasn’t following and she lived so close to me!!! Boy, was I feeling bad about that, definitely wasn’t snubbing her but I’m sure it looked that way for a while. I have no defense.. lol.. but I think Janet has forgiven me!! It’s just a surprise to find a fellow Canadian prim blogger, let alone one in my own back yard! Check out her blog, Olde Crow Primitives, she’s got a gorgeous house in the country, a new summer kitchen and she makes fabulous quilts!! After profusely apologizing to her for my oversight, we spoke by phone and then decided to go shopping in Michigan.. and she told me about a place in Holly, called Holly Hills Primitives.. what else could we do? So off to Michigan we went.. lol.

Mapquest wanted to take us through Flint but I knew there was a shorter way, close to where my cousin lives in Utica. I drove and we went first to my usual Dollar Tree then couldn’t quite figure out from the map where to go next. I had an idea of where I should be but wasn’t totally sure, so we stopped and asked for directions; when we got off on M59 and up to Van Dyke I knew exactly where I was.. since my cousin is just down the road! This is where I thought I could link up with I75.. should just have emailed my cousin! lol.. Next time, I will take the route I’m more familiar with!

We made it to Holly, MI and found the shop quite easily.. on the main street in this small, quaint town with angled parking… I love angled parking :) :)! After lunch at the Bittersweet Cafe.. very cute little place with great food… we found Holly Hills Primitives across the street and met the owner, Dawn, who was very warm and welcoming. We had a fabulous time visiting with Dawn and the owner of a cafe attached to the store called Zanie Janie’s… Janie’s such a blast, it was fun meeting her!! Holly Hills is a really cool store, packed with antiques and prims, and lots of handmade items. The walls on one side are lined with several facades from old buildings that were rescued from the wrecking ball. Such a unique idea and honours the heritage of the town! Both Janet and I found the prices to be very good and we both found some treasures that didn’t break the bank.

I picked up this antique folding laundry rack... got a great deal from Dawn so I couldn’t pass it up!

Can’t wait to get that nasty green paint off! I’m not sure where it will go.. really no space for it but I’ll figure something out!

All Patriotic items were 50% off.. I am Canadian, but hey, the U.S. is right there!! lol I think my doll is so cool and very prim!

These were my Dollar Tree finds of the day! Yes, they’re getting their fall stuff in already and I knew if I didn’t snap these babies up I’d never find them the next time I cross the border.. since I’m not totally sure when that will be! They are so pretty and nice quality for $1!!

Janet and I did manage to find one yard sale… but didn’t realize we’d be driving down a gravel road to get there.. but it was a nice road, with the trees forming a canopy.. I got this corn bread pan for $1. I think I’ll paint it flat back and display it.

Thanks Janet for such a fun day!!

On to the next adventure.. wherever that may take me :D

Look what I got for free!!

2010-07-15T00:00:00.001-04:00

I was on kijiji a couple of weeks ago and came across an ad for a free wooden ladder for my garden. I didn’t realize this person lived about an hour away so when I found out I said no thanks. I mean, free is good but I wouldn’t drive an hour for a free ladder. About a week & a half goes by and I get an email from this person. She still has the ladder and needs to get rid of it and she was coming into London on Tuesday (July 13) if I still want it…. and offered to drop it off at my house.. can you believe that? I told her I might not be home but if she didn’t mind leaving it I would really appreciate it. As it turned out I was home (but totally forgot about it… where is my mind lately?!) and she gave me the ladder! Turned out she was quite chatty but has some interesting things to say. All in all, I think it was a good thing that I was home.

Here’s the ladder.. can’t you picture birdhouses on it? Anyone have any other suggestions?

No idea what this middle stretcher/brace thingy is called but it’s kind of cool :) Notice the round back rungs??

Look at this gorgeous ornate metal thingy!! Again.. really no idea what it’s called but it holds the top to the rungs.. so cool!! See why I appreciate old things???

So now I need to find a place in my garden to put this so I can add some birdhouses (YES, looking for freebies.. anybody??)… and whatever else comes to mind. I think my yard will have more cool prim stuff in it than it does flowers.. ;D haha.. at least “stuff” doesn’t need weeding!

Long weekend pics.. finally!

2010-07-13T21:14:00.038-04:00

Geez, a couple of weeks sure fly by don’t they… here we are almost mid-July already! I wanted to post a few pics of my long weekend getaway. A couple of friends and I went up to Wiarton (friend #1’s mom was raised there and lived out her last 20 years there). We visited a great old log cabin out in the country that’s been converted to an antique/gift shop. I believe the cabin came from Quebec and was re-assembled in Ontario. The store is called “The Bruce Beckons”. The area where we were is Bruce County.. makes sense :) Over the course of the weekend, we also went to Sauble Beach; a lighthouse at Cabot’s Head (I think I have the name right), on Georgian Bay; and Tobermory.

A pile of logs near the store.. I thought they made an interesting picture! Since I forgot to take a pic of the outside of the log cabin store, this is as close as you get! lol

Above 3 pics are of the loft area of the cabin, I didn’t get pics of the main floor.. geesh, what is wrong with me! Check out the interesting antiques, that round ceiling fixture (made with some round metal piece and T-bar), the chimney in the middle of the floor and the numbers on the beams. That must be from when they moved the building, they would have disassembled for shipping.. cool isn’t it??

Cute little shed with Dutch doors beside the main building. What do we have in the section on the left??

A bathroom! Awesome.. I love it!

Something to look at while you’re sitting around! lol

I thought this was really sweet.. rustic log and pump next to delicate purple petunias.

One of the out-buildings

Kind of self-explanatory :D

Love all the window boxes they had on the out-buildings!

Okay.. moving on…

Cool sand castle (or is it a coral reef?) at Sauble Beach

Sunsets over water are always beautiful! This is also Sauble Beach

Georgian Bay, on the way to the lighthouse

Here it is!

View of the Bay from the top of the lighthouse.. proof that we still have blue water in Canada! Who knew???

Another view, very pretty!

Look what we saw on the way back from the lighthouse! If I hadn’t been looking out the passenger side I would have missed it.. so we stopped for a photo op… I love waterfalls!

My foot in the clear water.. if you’ve followed my blog for a while you just knew that was going to happen! LOL

Look closely, how many frogs do you see? :D

The waterfall drains into a culvert on the other side of the road, right into Georgian Bay

Queen Anne’s Lace (I think!) on the side of the road.. used my macro setting! Haha.. was just told about it so I’m using it. a. lot!

Tobermory! This area is known for it’s scuba diving as there are many sunken ships off the coast. Combine that with relatively clear water and I can understand the attraction! Since we got here kind of late in the day, we didn’t have time to do the glass-bottom boat tour, just had dinner and did a bit of shopping before heading back to London.

Pretty!

Thanks for stopping by!

Before & After , etc..

2010-06-30T12:15:00.001-04:00

Hi all

In my last post I showed you a dresser I had purchased at a yard sale about a week and a half ago.. well I have now refinished it! It took reams of sandpaper because I really wanted to eradicate the old finish (still not sure how they got it and no, doesn’t seem to be a veneer!). I also used a bit of Circa 1850 stripper to get some of the finish off but I find it less effective on varnish than on paint. So I had to use my electric palm sander and 5 headaches later.. here is the before (front view)…

…. and the after:

I took this picture last night so there is no natural light and the pics always come out yellowy :(

Notice the legs? The dresser came on wooden wheels but when I was stripping it I discovered that one of them had broken in half. I really liked those wheels and have saved them in case I ever come across some identical ones.

Side views:

Ok, on to something I meant to post about a while back. Do you all remember this little girl made by Jenn over at Bittersweet Prims? I purchased it a while ago and had it sent to Michigan so it took a while before I picked it up (which I actually did about a month ago). Well she is just the cutest, crabbiest little Annie I’ve ever seen and she’s been put in a timeout on the chair that I bought at a yard sale (see last post as well) a week and a half ago! Doesn’t she look adorable and rather annoyed? LOL.. I love her and the chair is perfect.. I may still prim it up but it works for now.

Again, this pic was taken last night so it’s not the best lighting. Does anyone recognize the Valor kerosene heater behind Annie? This is the only thing I picked up this past Saturday at a yard sale I happened upon. I had other things to do so wasn’t out yardsaling but I did find my car following a sign! I actually have another Valor that I picked up last year but it is a different design and doesn’t have those delicate little legs and is in slightly rougher shape.. and I paid more! I got an excellent deal on this one so the other one has been put into the shed for now. I just love this piece! I haven’t looked too closely into the history but I believe these originated in England. I’m picturing this one with my fan-back wire chair and my pinky quilt on a covered porch… and me all curled up reading a book on a chilly afternoon with the heater going.. doesn’t that sound awesome! lol.. dreaming again!

I’m off this weekend with some friends so to all my fellow Canucks, Happy Canada Day tomorrow.. and to my American friends, Happy Independence Day on Sunday! For ALL of us, Let Freedom Ring!

Yard sale finds.. you will LOVE!!

2010-06-22T00:52:00.004-04:00

Hi all.. I went out Sat. morning and got a treasure trove of things, managing to squeeze everything into my car!! Who needs a truck? I’d just fill it up anyway! lol

First, this is a chair I purchased from Kijiji (think Craigslist) on Friday night, it’s metal and wire, kind of Victorian but I have a dream! I paid $25 for it, more than I wanted to (because I’ve gotten kind of cheap :D ) but I actually think it’s a good price. I will probably end up painting it, not sure what colour, but I do have to paint my porch and I have to work with that ugly brown brick so I’m not sure… any suggestions on colour? The porch will probably be Benjamin Moore’s Nordic Grey.

My dream? A deep covered porch with this chair, a wicker love seat or vintage glider, quilts, a ceiling fan, lamps and a good book.. does anyone else have this dream?? I just found this pic that incorporates some of my ideas and look.. a chair just like mine (in a different colour but I can't tell what it is)!!!!

It’s fun to dream isn’t it? At least I have a few things to get me started!

Ok, on to Saturday’s finds!!!!

This is a great doll’s chair, I think it stands about a foot tall! Paid $1!! I’m going to sand it down a bit and probably paint it black with a red base.. well, maybe. :D

Aren’t these wooden totes the best? I know the heart cutout harkens back to the 90’s but it’s kind of difficult to change so I’ll work with it. I will probably prim this piece up and offer it for sale.
I’m not sure if this basket was a good find or not. The guy selling would not budge on price (in fact he had a bicycle that was exactly what I wanted to put in my garden and he wanted $65 for it!! Really???) Anyway, I’m still looking for a bicycle and this will fit nicely on it when I do find it. As I said, he wouldn’t budge on price but agreed to $6 for the basket and the drawers in the following pic.

Closeup of the tag on the bottom.

One open drawer and a divided one.. not sure yet what I’ll do with these yet.

This was my major find! I guess you could call it a trencher, it appears to be handmade and probably not that old, but I really love it! It’s very solid and HUGE and she agreed to sell it to me for… drumrolllllllllllll….$3!!!!

See how much of my patio table top it covers? This will look amazing on my harvest table that I don’t have.. lol. Another dream :D

The next few things were all purchased from one lady. I managed to get this small dresser into the trunk of my car but had to tie it down.. :) It looks like it might be tiger maple but I suspect it’s not. The drawer fronts have a strange texture on them. I’ll be sanding this piece down (the top is scratched up anyway) and painting. I might sell the dresser that I have beside the front door and put this one in it’s place. I really have no room for both and this one is smaller so I think it works better in the space.

Check this out! Two quilts.. the pink one is either a double or queen and the blue is a throw. I think these are perfect for my “dream porch”. There is also 1 sham that matches the pink quilt. These aren't handmade but they do seem to be well-made and they're heavy so I think they're a good find.

Closeup of the pink one..

Closeup of the blue one..

She also had a bag full of gadgets. I don’t know what the wooden things are on the right at the back but I see them on a lot of prim blogs and Facebook pics .. potato mashers? I love them and will be keeping those and the butter hands and the paddle. The rest I may sell or I may attach to one of the drawers above. I got the dresser, the quilts and these gadgets for $20.. totally blew my budget! LOL.

I really have to slow down on the yard sales! I’ve only gone out a couple of times this year (went nuts last year and have a ton of things that I haven’t done anything with yet!). Once I get things done then I can think about going out again. I think I’ve done pretty well so this should satisfy me for now! LOL.. well.. maybe ;)

Till next time.. have a great week!

Before & After.. and a new trend :D

2010-06-15T23:12:00.002-04:00

Ok, no actual “before” pic ... can you believe it?? I bought a small wooden bookshelf at a yard sale a few weeks ago for $2... I think it’s maple and very solid.. it’s one of those shelves you see a lot of with kids’ bedroom furniture.. 2 shelves and about 28” tall? Ok, you get the (after) picture, well you will in a sec.. lol. I thought I’d use it in the front hall closet for shoes but then measured and realized it would fit in my linen closet instead… to replace the metal 2-drawer filing cabinet I thought was a great idea a few months back. Here’s a pic of the fake wood back piece that I removed... the shelf actually had 2 layers of paint and a layer of that wood conditioner that never comes off!

You can see that it was barn red at one time but the actual shelf looked more like an ugly brown. After removing the backing and as much of the paint as I could possibly get off, I decided to paint it (did try to stain it but it was blotchy). I have to confess that since it was going in my linen closet I wasn’t too worried about getting it perfect so I used my leftover kitchen wall paint. I used pine beadboard pieces on the back and painted the whole thing with the green (which looks more grey-green on the shelf); this was just painted and left, I didn’t do any sanding or staining to this piece, and I actually like it as it is now. Here it is with my new woven bins and all my shampoo, bodywash and other assorted crap… don’t look too closely…. lol. You can see the beadboard at the back.. what do you think? I love how it turned out, just wish I had taken a “before” pic.

I then decided to start a new trend.. LOL.. I put decals on the front of the linen closet door.. I think they’re a bit crooked but who cares, right? :) I tried to re-position but the paint started to come off so they’re on there until I sell the house someday then the new owners can enjoy them! :D

So why don’t most of us decorate our interior doors?? I’ve often thought of doing something interesting but I always seem to end up with cheap hollow-core doors and there is only so much you can do with them. I thought this was a good idea and decided to just go for it.

Enjoy the rest of your week!

Mulch is my new BFF.. and a yard sale makeover!

2010-05-30T22:37:00.003-04:00

Hi all!!

Well I finally discovered why all those gardeners out there love mulch! It’s like paint… hides a multitude of sins (and ugly)!! I went to our local recyclers and loaded up on mulch, had to make 2 trips because I only have a car (oh how I envy you truck owners!). I brought some Rubbermaid bins and some nylon-type bags with me and filled them up.. they weigh your car when you come in and when you are finished (as opposed to buying by the yard and having it delivered.. the cost is the same, just do-it-yourself in whatever quantity you can carry… who knew???? HA!). In total, I spent $12.50 and got 190 kg of mulch.. yeah it’s a lot but doesn’t go far, not when you have a lot to cover and this is quite rustic (large pieces), can’t imagine how much the fancy stuff would have cost! Oh well.. fits with the prim theme doesn’t it? I’ll probably go on Sat. for more, there’s still a small section I missed because I ran out and I was too exhausted to go back.

Here are 2 pics of the same side of the yard, different views. As you can see, this is where I put a bunch of white cedar trees a few weeks back. I added some bricks as a border and dumped a pile of mulch in. In the back corner, I brought the border out by adding clumps of dug-up grass upside-down onto the existing grass, then putting thick layers of newspaper on top and a bunch of mulch on top of that. In the fall I may add layers of dead leaves and more mulch. I don’t know what I’m doing.. lol.. just trying something that was suggested to me to help eliminate some of the back-breaking work of digging up the grass.. the dug-up grass and newspaper are supposed to compost over time.. we’ll see. I may add plants next year but in the meantime I’ve added a little yard sale tricycle I got last year, a log and a bird feeder.. should be hanging but the chain broke.. I think it looks fine for now :D

While I was adding mulch I was also thinning out some of the overgrown plants that I put in over the last two summers. I had started out by digging little sections of garden several feet apart and putting in plants. That wasn’t really a good thing to do as it turned out, but what it left me were sections of empty garden and overgrown sections. So I thinned out what I could before adding mulch.. this is along the back fence. The first pic is a dogwood I believe.. it’s getting huge! Anyone know if I’m supposed to prune, when and how?? See, told you I’m not a gardener!! Anyway, this looks so much better than before I added mulch.. now to find some more free bricks or rocks…

This is some kind of birch I think.. it’s really pretty and filling in the view of the shed in the yard behind my house nicely.. now why didn’t I plant it a few feet to the left and block the view of their back door? LOL

I found this weird contraption at a yard sale last summer.. I swear I went nuts last year! I was told that it had held glass bowls but they all broke. I had a vision of fitting the circles with enamel bowls then planting them up with cascading plants! Well I have enamel bowls but only found one that actually fit! So I plunked it down along the back fence over the clematis I got for $5 last weekend (yahooo.. excellent price up here!) and I’m confident that it will wind its way around and around this weird thing.. and once filled in you probably won’t even see it. Let’s hope..

Close-up of the clematis (can’t believe it bloomed in just one week!) So much for planting in the shade.. this is a north-facing backyard but gets lots of sun since the shade is still growing :) .. looking good!

Now, on to my makeover. I hit a few yard sales yesterday morning, wasn’t really into it but I did find a few things. One was this duck/goose/swan, not into fowl so I don’t know what it’s supposed to be. I do know that the ones that are all primmed up can be pricey so I bit the bullet and paid $7 for it.. she was asking $10, I offered $5.. yeah, I know.. I’m cheap! :D haha... Seems to be a lightweight wood but still solid. I wasn’t into all the carving so sanded off what I could.

Ta-da!!! What do you think??

I decided to make it into a swan, not sure if I got the black paint on in the proper pattern for a swan but I like it anyway. So happy I didn’t let my cheapness get the better of me :) I got a few other deals so it made up for it. Will be working on those makeovers and the ones from last year so I think I’ll have lots more to post.

Thanks for looking and have a Happy Monday for my fellow Canadians and Happy Memorial Day for my American friends!

Still a work in progress!

2010-05-26T00:03:00.003-04:00

Hey all…

The cold and rainy weather is gone finally.. and how! It was blistering hot yesterday here in Ontario, nicer today but still humid. I spent yesterday, our Victoria Day holiday, in the backyard continuing to work on my garden and getting sunburned.. still in pain today! Crazy to think that I broke down last week and put the heat back on, then had to put the central air on last night.. lol.

If you saw my previous post, these pictures might be familiar:

This is what it looks like now after working on it bit by bit over the past couple of weeks:

I touched up the paint on the old wicker rocker (well, it’s just a chair now, didn’t really need the rockers so off they came), added some bright pink geraniums and lime green sweet potato vine in the old canning pot.. I just love the contrast of colours! I also bought a purple wave petunia that I planted beside the chair.. never had one of those so I thought I’d try it in hopes that it fills in the space. Behind the petunia is a metal child’s wagon I picked up at a yard sale last summer, I think I paid $2 or $3 for it; it’s planted up with pansies and impatiens. I dug out as much of the grass from this area as I could but it’s just such exhausting work that last weekend I put down a few layers of newspaper and plopped a bunch of mulch on top, and added a brick border. I’m just going to leave it as is for at least the next year, my yard is quite large and there is still a ton of work to do so I’ll move on from here. I just need to get a LOT more mulch to add around the cedar trees and to the section to the right. I added some plants to that area as well but didn’t get a pic. Oh, actually I wanted to add a climbing plant to the clothesline pole.. so I guess I’m not done! lol..

Closeups of the wave petunia and the wagon:

I just love that purple! There is also a regular petunia that I added beside the back wheel of this wagon after I took the pic.

I also worked on another section of my garden yesterday, this is actually the first section I worked on 2 years ago when I started with an empty yard. I had some help from my ex-MIL who loves to garden, but I don’t know what she planted and it got quite overgrown over the past two years. I didn’t get a pic of the overall area, but here’s a closeup of the annoying plant that took over:

I did try to give it away but had no takers so it all came out yesterday. It seems to be very invasive, even popping up in the grass, so I suspect I haven’t seen the last of this, even though I pulled out roots by the mile!

These 2 pics show the whole area as it looks now:

This pic was taken in the sunshine so it’s not very clear. As you can see, there isn’t much here! I picked up a bleeding heart plant last weekend but it rained so much that I didn’t get a chance to plant it till yesterday. I also added some annuals to the whole section so I have a chance to see how it fills in over the next year. I turned an old shovel head on it’s side and tucked it up against the white cedar tree in the corner, and plunked an old fork head tines-up in front of the bleeding heart.

I also planted a hosta, a male fern and some annuals and thinned out most of the soloman’s seal. I still have some over-crowding to the right of this section that I have to deal with and I’ll be adding some mulch but overall I like how this has turned out. This is one of only a couple of areas of the yard with shade so it’s been a challenge with the rest of the yard.

Don’t forget to stop on over to my selling blog, I’ve sold a few things so have updated those.. recently had 2 orders that are on their way to Japan!

Here’s to a nicer summer than we had last year! I’m probably going to give up on the garden soon, you can only do so much in such a short season! I have lots of primming to do on some yard sale finds from last year, stay tuned, hopefully I’ll have something to show you soon. :)

The bees knees!!

2010-05-11T13:04:00.002-04:00

Hi all..

I made these cute little Americana bumble bee bowl fillers this past weekend (ok.. there are no knees on these bees! :D ). I'm making some traditional yellow and black ones as well, will post a pic when I'm done. Go on over to my selling blog for details (you’ll need to scroll down a little bit!)

So the picture is sideways, can’t seem to correct it! I think it was the angle I took the pic from.. weird!
What did you all work on this weekend??

Where did spring go so quickly???

2010-05-08T13:31:00.000-04:00

It really turned cold since Wednesday's little heat wave up here in Canada!! I had big plans for today, wanting to go pick up some mulch at our local Try Recycling.. it's such a good price @ 22.13/yard and I found out you don't have to buy it by the yard, just fill up some containers and they weigh your car going in and coming out and you pay that way ... which is good, not lucky enough to have a truck! However, they don't tarp the mulch and it rained overnight so I'm thinking that will make the mulch heavy = more money! Ha.. think I'll wait.

I actually went to a perennial sale this morning.. braving the cold wet wind! .. as it turns out the woman selling her hand-grown plants is a past participant of Garden Gates Open.. (mentioned in my last post!!) and I think she's entered this year as well... and her friend who was visiting has also been in it and actually works at the same hospital site that I do.. and is a FB friend!. I got 2 of one kind of plant and 1 of another.. I forget what they are.. lol, I left them in the car out of the wind. Geesh, it's really ugly out there!

Well... no pics to share right now so hope you all have a great day. :)

A work in progress… barely!!!

2010-05-04T22:27:00.005-04:00

Hi all!!

I hope everyone’s enjoying spring but I can’t believe it’s May already!!! As I mentioned in my last post, a couple of my friends came over to help me dig up a section of my yard that runs alongside a chain-link fence on one side of my backyard. We also had a great dinner of bbq chicken, baked potatoes and salad.. yumm!! Best of all, I didn’t cook! lol.. I’m sure my friends were relieved as well :D

Results of our hard work! As you can see, the neighbours don’t like to garden either!! This section was full of grass as well as the dug-out grass and weeds from other sections of the yard - it became a bit of a dumping ground!

All of this is from that one little section!

My 20 white cedar trees were delivered this past Saturday.. at 8 am!! I then spent most of the day continuing to dig grass out from both the back and the front (for the maple tree that I also got). My back was killing me by 3 pm when I finally had to quit; I could barely walk by then. I had only gotten about 13 of the trees planted but I just couldn’t go any further. Whoever said gardening is relaxing is nuts!!!

I think it looks 100% better, don’t you? Obviously I’m nowhere near being done but as I said, it’s a work in progress. I dug out a couple of feet past the trees so I can add some flowers, not sure when I’ll do that! As you can see I added a couple of trees along the back fence. Since I had planted a lilac bush in the corner 2 years ago (it hasn’t bloomed yet.. what’s the deal with that??) and didn’t want to dig it back up, I opted to put trees behind it as well. At least in the winter there will be some colour in that corner. Not sure if it looks okay or not, but I certainly can’t say it looks planned! I also planted 2 other trees along the section of chain-link that you can’t see.. in a section that has been already been planted (but needs to be cleaned up..ugh!!). Last night I got back out there (after taking Sunday off.. I just couldn’t face that yard again!) and continued digging in another corner of the yard… the other side of the privacy fence shown above.

This section has also caused me some issues. When I got the house, there was an old clothesline on that pole (leaving the pole for future owners but planning on doing something with it) and a composter in the corner, which was full of un-composted junk. I had no idea how to make it work so I finally gave it away. Last year I attempted to dig out this corner but only got so far before I gave up.. (the pile on the right was another little dumping ground for dug-up grass and weeds :). I got an old wicker rocker from a friend, spray-painted it a bright blue and added some hot-pink geraniums in the old canning pot.. I think I’ll do the same thing this year, it looked so cool! Along the back fence is a section of lily-of-the-valley which was already there when I got the house. So last night when I got out there I dug out a section big enough to plant the rest of the trees, left some of the lily-of-the-valley and dug out in front of it.. I know it will spread and I think it will look pretty tucked under the cedar trees.

What do you think?? Still lots to do! I think I’ll keep digging out the grass and make a nice big flower bed in front of the trees. Not sure if I’ll get the whole yard done this year but I’m certainly going to try! I’m in the process of looking for prim things that I can add to the yard so stayed tuned!

Now, I just wanted to add a couple of links to Garden Gates Open ~ Communities in Bloom, being held this year during the last weekend in July. This is similar to the garden tours that many cities have.. the ones where only the most perfect gardens are showcased. The difference is that the GGO organizers don’t care if the participants have perfect gardens or if, like me, they are still working on it. The main goal is to leave the red tape behind, showcase everyday gardens by everyday people and concentrate on having fun. Check out the CIB website: http://www.communitiesinbloom.ca/ and http://londonphotowalk.ca/06/communities-in-bloom/ for pics of the London, Ontario event from 2009.

Well I think this post is long enough! I will keep you updated as my garden starts to come together.. anyone want to help?? :D

Happy Spring all!

2010-04-22T13:12:00.002-04:00

Hey everyone!

Wow.. seriously slacking on my posting! I love the nice warm weather we've been getting but it's usually during the day, Monday to Friday when I'm stuck inside at my desk and can't really enjoy it.. then I just feel wiped out by the time I get home!. Can't wait till I get my mojo back and can get out and start working on the yard sale finds from last year that are still sitting in the shed.

Last Saturday it was really cold, we had little pellets of hard snow coming down at one point! So I'm really hoping for some warm days ahead soon.

This Saturday I have a couple of friends coming over to help dig up some of my yard. I ended up with another house that had no landscaping! This is probably not a good choice for someone who's not a gardener. I've been working on it the past two summers and not getting far! One side of my yard is chain link fence and since I do prefer privacy I have tried to plant things that will grow on the fence or provide a hedge but it's been slow going. I found someone selling bushy little white cedar trees for $3 a piece and went out and chose 20. He prefers you to dig and take them but that didn't quite work for me so for another $50 he'll dig them up and deliver them, along with a maple tree I got for $15. Great deals!! So on Saturday I hope to get the whole area beside the chain link fence dug up and turned over and ready to take the new bushes.. hope the neighbours aren't offended! lol :)

Not much else going on right now. I don't have pics to post so I'll cut this short to prevent rambling!!

Supposed to go to Michigan Sunday to help my friend find some baby items.. so hopefully I'll find some great deals for me and can post them!

Enjoy the weekend, I really hope it warms up!!!

Hello!!!

2010-04-11T22:48:00.003-04:00

Hi all!

Once again, I am way behind in my posts! I'm also behind in reading so I hope to get caught up this week!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Easter! My daughter, her half-brother and I went down to Pigeon Forge, Tennessee for the long weekend (added a couple of days for travel :) and had a great time! My daughter and I had been down there for the Easter weekend in 2007 but her brother had never been before. Once again I rented a cabin in the mountains, we went to Dollywood and to Gatlinburg. Unlike 3 years ago, we had fabulous weather, I was so happy!!
Check out these pics!

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Please check out my selling blog for new items! I take paypal now, makes things so much easier! I created two new posts, with pics that I took in Paris and New Orleans.. there are so awesome shots that would work well in a prim home or give as gifts.

Well, going to cut this short, but I’ll try to post again this week!

Have a great week :D

A few purchases... and a bit of help needed!

2010-03-21T23:58:00.004-04:00

Hi all!!

Yesterday I went to Michigan to visit my cousin and aunt and of course did some shopping! Did some serious damage at Dollar Tree.. don't you all just love that store?!?!?

I got these two items at the Christmas Tree Shop:

Got a great deal on this window box.. $4.99... it's 24" wide so it will work under the window on my shed, wish they'd have had one that was about 60" for the front window but oh well.. this will look cute all planted up. I think it's made of cedar so I'm not sure if I can just stain it and leave it or if I need to do something special to it.. it's way too pale to be prim! Notice my Spice Chicks in the background? I'm still looking for a more appropriate place to display them but I think this works for now.. get your own set from Lex's Etsy shop (NorthwindStar:)!! The Sweet Annie that's tucked into their aprons is now available from Lex!!

I got three of these mason jar tealight holders for the patio, at $1.99 each.

Then I stopped at JoAnn's and got these cool homespuns:

I really love the brown and blue striped fabric on top, it looks so Colonial! I also got the lighter tan stripe but can't remember why I wanted it.. just knew I did so I picked up a yard.. LOL. The little brown leaf print was on sale, it reminded me of a fabric that the pioneer women might have used for a bonnet... maybe I'll see how hard one of those are to make... anyone have a free pattern? ;) Oh, almost forgot, they have quilting thread on for .99.. not sure if that's the regular price but if not, run out and get yours before the price changes. I also got some Kraft cardstock, can't seem to find that up here in Canada.. I might use it to make business cards and maybe bag toppers.. I need a free pattern for the bag topper if anyone has any idea of where to get that. Yes.. I know.. I want something for nothing.. LOL.

I did get several other items but didn't get pictures of anything else. I got a couple of new candles at Walmart, a bunch of Easter candy and some little baskets.. just stuff! Every time I come home I wonder why I bought what I did.. I had a trunk full but once it's all unpacked it doesn't seem like I got anything. Anyone else experience that?

While I was at my cousin's, I picked up my order of candle/wreath hooks and wax flameless tealights.. I'm going to do some new pictures and post on my selling blog tomorrow. I had also ordered some Sweet Annie from Lex and that was waiting for me as well.. smells so good!! I have a couple more orders coming in soon.... if they're in by April 1 I'll pop in to pick them up before I head to Tennessee.. there will be a lot more things coming to the selling blog! I'm going to try to take paypal, all I have is my personal account but I'm told that is all I need.. I do have a sale pending so as soon as I get a box that will work and figure out the shipping, I'll send a paypal invoice and see if I can get it to work. Keep your fingers crossed for me!!

Thanks for stopping by.. have a great week!

Just checkin' in..

2010-03-19T12:39:00.000-04:00

Hi all,

I know I've been slacking again on my posting :(

I've been working on primitive wax-dipped spicy egg bowl fillers this past week which are now posted on my selling blog, Hayley's Prim Shop. I've also been wrestling with how to take paypal but my dear friend Sandie assures me it's quite easy.. lol.. hope she's right! Check out her website The Hollow Cupboard. She lives up here in Canada not too far from me, but she's actually an Ohio girl so check her out, send her an email to say hey.

Other than making these eggs, I've been spending time online trying to book a cabin for Easter weekend.. finally succeeded so I'm taking my daughter and possibly her two brothers (not my children, long story.. will not get into it :) to Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. If anyone has not been there I highly recommend it.. just love this place! The cabin is actually in Gatlinburg, a town at the foothills of Smoky Mountain National Park. It's a town that reminds me a lot of that Clifton Hill strip in Niagara Falls, ON.. just a lot of little tacky touristy shops and things like Ripley's. At least that was my impression 3 years ago! We can't wait to go.. if you know me at all or are starting to know me, then you realize I'm getting itchy feet and need to travel someplace! We'll be driving down and from my house it's about a 12-hour drive so it's a long trek but worth it.

Well, I don't have anything new to report other than we've been getting the most amazing weather but I hear that's going to stop shortly! lol.. March in Canada, you just take the good if you can get it and be glad of it! I just really hope the cold weather coming in does not follow us to the Smokies like it did 3 years ago.. everyone cross your fingers for me!

Enjoy the nice weather for those who have it.. have a great weekend all!

Selling blog!

2010-03-12T13:09:00.001-05:00

Hi all! I have decided to create a selling blog, Hayley's Prim Shop. I'll be selling things that I have created by hand, redone from yard sale finds, and items I have purchased for re-sale.

Please keep in mind that this is a Canadian site, therefore prices are reflected as such. Any purchases must be in Canadian dollars. At this time I am only accepting money orders, but I am hoping to upgrade to paypal in the near future. I'm starting small with the hope of expanding, so please stop by!

If you have any questions, I encourage you to email me at countryheart2@hotmail.com. I am accepting orders by email and will hold your item for 7 days pending receipt of payment. I will email you with the cost of shipping prior to you sending payment.

Thanks!!

Travellin’ Tuesday – Cozumel!

2010-03-03T00:14:00.004-05:00

Finally! I know I’ve been slacking but I’ve created a photo album to share with you of my trip to Cozumel with my daughter, can’t believe we’ve been home 9 days already :’(

While we were there we went to Stingray Beach which is close to the downtown area of the town. They have a fenced-off area where the stingrays live; it’s still in the sea but keeps the rays in a safe area. Barbs are trimmed every few months to prevent accidental stings and because of this, the rays would have no defences if they were out in the sea. As long as they’re not hurt I can live with it. If you’re ever in Cozumel I recommend this excursion.. the only thing I didn’t like was that they film you (and try to sell you the dvd for $50) and take pics so they don’t want you taking your own in the first part of the session (2nd part is snorkelling and you can take pics).

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As you look at the pictures you’ll see some rocky areas along the shore. I rented a car one day and we drove around the island, checking out the beaches on the east side of the island. The water is just so beautiful and crystal clear, nothing like what we see in this part of Canada! One of the pics is of my foot, I was standing in the water and it’s so clear that it looks like I’m just standing on the shore. I think I could get used to that!

We also went snorkelling out on 2 reefs, one was the Palancar reef.. it was surreal looking down below the surface of the water to another world.. scary at times but amazing. I don’t have an underwater digital camera yet (geez those are pricey, aren’t they??) so I took a chance and bought a disposable but the pics haven’t been processed yet. I just hope they turn out!

I’ve also included a few pics of our resort and the beach. The picture showing the door to room 2613 was of our room. We were only steps from the beach, very convenient! One night I went out just outside our room and took pictures of the sunset, I love how they turned out!

The weather wasn’t as warm as we would have liked but the island is beautiful and it was nice to get away!

Enjoy the pictures, thanks for looking :D

ps.. post was started on Tuesday but it took quite a while for the pics to load so it didn't publish till after midnight Wed! lol

New lamps!

2010-02-26T18:36:00.006-05:00

Hi all,

I told you in the last post that I would be posting pics from my trip last week ….it’s been a week already! :’( …. however I haven’t been feeling that well this week and I have a lot of pics to choose from so I’ll be working on it this weekend.

Instead I want to show you some lamps that were in box #4 at my cousin’s! Thought you’d never find out about the mystical box #4 huh? lol..
This is a pic of the lamps that I’ve been using for several years now. I actually think I bought them when my daughter was a baby and she’s almost 20, so I guess they don’t owe me anything!

I never really liked how small they looked above that big couch but this is a really tiny house and the wall space you see is what you get, no room for any kind of end table. Say hi to Daisy!

Closeup:

They’re not exactly prim are they??

This is what I have now! The lamps are so long I have to re-think what I put above them.. it’s a work in progress.

Here’s a few closeups… notice how scared Daisy is! lol.. poor dog, she was terrified of them!

Lit up:

I think it looks much better now and the lamps don’t look so lost. The lighting is better as well and I love the pattern that the punched tin leaves on the walls when they’re lit up. What do you think?? Any ideas on what I can put above? I do have my wall hanging from Lex but that’s as far as I’ve gotten.
Have a great weekend!

I’m baaaaaaaaaack!!!! :D

2010-02-22T00:25:00.002-05:00

Hi all!

I came back from Cozumel against my better judgement!! I will do a post this week with some pics.

In the meantime I wanted to share some things with you. As most of you know who read my blog, I have a cousin in Michigan who kindly lets me use her address when I order things online.

Friday (12th), my daughter and I went to my cousin’s as we had a very early morning flight from Detroit airport. I had 4 packages waiting for me and I want to show you the contents of 3 of them.

First is my swap item from the Valentine’s swap that I hosted. Many thanks to Andy from Andy's Primitive Farmhouse for these sweet chenille hearts… love them!! Andy conspired with Lex of NorthwindStar to help her choose something for me.. as I understand it, these were made by Lex… I just want to thank you ladies!!!! I appreciate all your efforts and will put these to good use :D

Speaking of my dear friend Lex, I had also placed an order from her Etsy shop.. please check it out, she has some great things, all handmade by her talented self! I ordered her Valentine’s love letter/dove bowl filler set and I just love it! The envelope is fabric and so unique, filled with the lovely glass glitter-covered heart and some Sweet Annie.. and the dove is so sweet.. I just love this set!!

In addition to the Valentine’s set, I also ordered this set of 4 “Spice Chicks”.. so fun and cute and much larger than I expected.. lol… so I have to find a spot for them in my kitchen. :D … (I’m thinking of a countertop wooden bench.. what do you all think??). These chicks have cute little cheesecloth kerchiefs as well as labels tied around them with twine and Sweet Annie tucked in. They smell amazing and are just so unique!

Along with my Spice Chicks and Valentine’s set, Lex tucked in this adorable little gift for me.. a handmade fabric wall hanging! So, so sweet, I really appreciate this Lex! I know how hard those French knots are so I know how much work this was! Hugggggs!!

Now my 3rd package had a whole bunch of sweet little things that I ordered from MT's Whimsey. Marilyn has a lot of really neat things on her site at good prices… check her out.

I ordered a stack of 3 fabric hearts with a crow theme.. the bottom one is black, it’s kind of hard to see in this pic; 5 Sweet Annie covered eggs, I think it’s beeswax that’s covering them; I also got 2 pairs of grubby tapers and a set of old clothespins dipped in wax.. never saw those before so I just had to have them. Cute stuff eh??

Well I think that’s it for now, I will be posting some pics of my trip this week. Hope everyone enjoys all this eye candy!!! :D

Happy Valentine’s Day, look what I got & I’m outta here!!!

2010-02-12T17:50:00.001-05:00

Hope everyone has a Happy Valentine’s Day Sunday.. I will be on a beach in Mexico with my awesome daughter….. can’t wait!!

See my sweet Valentine’s tree??? Do the cardinals and Annie look familiar? I told my sweet friend Lex of NorthwindStar, who made both of these items (3 gorgeous cardinals and one very sweet Annie) that they were not being packed away with the Christmas decorations.. I love these, they are part of the decor now! I also added a few felt hearts that I got at JoAnn’s after Christmas… 90% off! Works year-round too!

Well, I got such a surprise in the mail today, I couldn’t believe there was something for me!! My other sweet friend Barb of Dogmom Diva sent me this super-sweet little heart, tucked inside a cute bag and also included a cute card.. Barb, thanks so much, you really helped me.. it’s been a very stressful week at work and this made my week! Huggggs to you!!!

Closeup:

PARIS!!! So cute, and I love that button! It smells good also but I can’t place the scent! I think it might be stuffed with lavender.. but maybe Barb will tell me her secret :D …

What a thoughtful and touching little gift, I’m so grateful to Barb!! I just can’t thank you enough.. :)

So with that, I have to get ready to cross the border, have to pop in to my cousin’s before it gets too late. Our flight is 6 a.m. tomorrow morning but since we have to be there 3 hours early we’re not even going to get to sleep tonight :(

My daughter will have her laptop but I’m sure she won’t share much.. lol.. so I will post some pics when I get back! If I can get online I’ll post comments.

Adios to all my great bloggy friends!!

Things I’ve been making…

2010-02-09T00:04:00.002-05:00

Hello all!

I thought I’d share a few things I’ve made in the past little while.

This towel was made for a swap, I’ll be working on a couple more that are similar when I go to Mexico next week.. something to do on the beach.. :D. It’s made of muslin with a homespun accent trim on the bottom. All the hems were finished by hand and the homespun was sewn on by hand as well. It’s partly a desire to sew as the settlers would have, all by hand, making sure the stitches are tight enough to hold the item together.. and partly because I’m just too lazy to pull my sewing machine out to see if it actually works.. LOL! So much easier to just sit on my bed with the tv blaring and stitch away…

Close-up of the stitching, I found it online for free and altered it a bit to fit my skill level.. I’m sorry that I don’t know what site I got it from so can’t give credit, feel free to leave a comment so I know where I got it! I’m kind of proud of this, made it for a very special friend and I haven’t embroidered since I was a kid… probably didn’t do it right, but I did it how I thought I should and I’m ok with that!! Just a note, the back was done very neatly with almost no knots!

Candle mat I made for my friend as well.. again all hand-stitched.. warm & natural for the top and flannel for the bottom. I free-handed the design so I didn’t know what it would end up looking like.

Two more candle mats, very similar to the one I sent away. I’m selling these.. I hope.. lol.

Another hand-made towel, homespun with the stitching on muslin. This is a hen with her little chicks and some stars in the sky. I got this pattern from a book I bought several years ago and altered it a bit. The stitching is in brown embroidery thread. I really like it!

This towel is made from a striped flannel pillow case. The design was stitched in dark blue and the hems were done by hand as well.

Another towel made from the flannel and stitched in blue with an added row of blanket stitching along the seam.

I think you can call this a pillow tuck? It’s about 8”x9” .. so a fair size I’d say to tuck onto a prim shelf. I used the striped flannel again and sewed by hand all around then stuffed lightly with polyfill. A piece of homespun was attached with a running stitch and a piece of warm & natural was used for the ‘1867’ stitched onto it, then the piece was attached to the pillow, a couple of safety pins and a rusty bell also attached. I used 1867 because it’s the only year in Canadian history that means anything to me.. the year our country was born.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.. thanks!!

A little help here! :D

2010-02-06T13:10:00.002-05:00

Hi all!

I continue to be inspired by the talented ladies posting pics on the FB group “A PLACE FOR US PRIM GALS TO SHOW OFF THE PRIMITIVES IN OUR HOUSE”. There have been several pics posted of some wonderful bathrooms and I have decided to re-do mine. I actually have to do something anyway as I seem to have a bit of an issue with mildew at the top of my walls.

First, let me show you what the bathroom looked like when I bought my house about 2 years ago:

Gorgeous, no? :P .. love the bright blue J cloths she left me.. lol. You can’t see it, but the green tiles wrapped all the walls so they had to come down…. I’m not a big fan of tiled walls.

This is it now:

The first thing I had to do was replace the vanity which was leaking.. not to mention fa-reakin’ ugly!!!!! The toilet was the only thing fairly new in this bathroom so it stayed but the floor was replaced. I got a great deal on this flooring, it’s a piece of sheet vinyl (I find ceramic is cold.. good in the hot parts of the world but not so much in Canada!)… got it at the orange big box store in a 6x9’ roll for $24.99. That’s one advantage of having a tiny bathroom… you can use remnants!

This is a better view of the vanity. I looked for weeks for something that was the right size and nice-looking with some storage. I would have preferred to have several drawers but this one has a very large one at the bottom, not too deep but it holds a lot of stuff. Behind the doors is a rather cavernous cupboard, still trying to figure out what I can do to organize it better. I’ve redone it several times using several different baskets and containers but it’s still a pain! The drainpipe of course runs through the middle of it so that’s one problem. Oh well, one thing at a time.

As I was saying, I looked for weeks and found this again at the orange big box store, and the mirror came with it. It was a bit more than I wanted to pay but what can you do? I was trying to find something that didn’t look cheap and really wanted an old wooden dresser that I could convert but had no luck. This vanity is wood, but like most furniture pieces, it’s not solid wood. It has a black marble or granite top (not sure which..lol) and a cherry red finish. I chose a simple faucet set, I wanted the handles to be easy to turn and not those ones with the washers that always get stripped. The faucet part of this is a small gooseneck that turns from side to side. I thought that was a nice feature for a bathroom! Notice the fleur-de-lis hand towel ring on the wall.. a 50% off Hobby Lobby find!

In addition to the flooring and vanity, I removed the ugly green tiles on the walls. I actually had no choice because the previous vanity was one of those built-in ones that had the tile installed around it, not behind it. So, I was left with a big hole. I chose an mdf beadboard to put on the walls; this came in individual pieces with a tongue on one side and a groove on the other; once attached to the walls, they look like a solid piece of beadboard. I chose a high baseboard and for the top, a 4” straight piece. The pic above shows the baseboard as well as the pretty toilet paper holder I chose (notice how it's beside the toilet .. the old one was on the opposite wall..never understood that!)

This pic shows why I chose the 4” thick top piece for the beadboard. I found a pic that showed this type of top with hooks for towels and since my daughter and I use 2 towels each and I don’t like those traditional towel racks, I opted for hooks. The towels aren’t colour-coordinated but that’s life.. lol. When I go to sell the house I’ll make sure there are matching towels on these hooks! You can also see a reflection of the light fixture in the glass and some of the crap on the walls that I have to cover up. :P

This shelf above the toilet is made from an old shutter and the supports were also purchased 50% off at Hobby Lobby.. note the fleur-de-lis again :) I was going to paint the supports white to match the shelf but haven’t gotten to it yet. Please ignore the patching I did and the screw stuck in the wall.. lol.

I chose a Para Paint colour called Trading Post for the top half my walls. I love-love-love this colour! However, for the first 17 months that we lived in this house, we didn’t have a fan in the bathroom ceiling so there are streaks down the walls from the ceiling, caused by the moisture from the shower running. I have tried cleaning the walls with little success. I also have cleaned the mildew off the walls and that seems to work for a little bit. Even with the fan, there’s an issue. I was told by the person who installed the fan that the attic is so heavily insulated that the moisture can’t really escape the bathroom. That makes sense to me, but I also think I was sold the wrong paint.

So you’ve probably noticed the Parisian-themed shower curtain with matching hooks, the Eiffel Towers (3-d and pictures), the fleur-de-lis and the soap dispenser that says Paris (you probably can’t actually see that.. you’ll have to take my word for it :). About 6 years ago my daughter and I decided that we wanted a Paris-themed bathroom. I have no idea why we decided that but we started in my last house, continued it to the apartment I rented for 2 years and carried it to this house. I’ve decided that I need a change and want to prim the bathroom up.

This is where you all come in. I need some advise. I’m considering painting the beadboard. I love the white and I think white is the best colour for it, but I’m wondering if I should go dark on the bottom and paint the upper half of the wall a lighter colour. If I’m going to get the proper paint, I think it should be in a lighter colour. Hopefully that will solve the problem with the walls (after I prime of course). My thoughts on colours in the bathroom are still red but with mustard (I could do that in a homespun shower curtain). I have this great wooden wall cabinet that I’d like to hang in there but it’s red so would get lost on the walls if they stay red and I’ve decided that I don’t want to paint the cabinet. Here’s a pic of the cabinet:

It was set upside down on the floor so I rotated the pic but I think you get the idea. I paid a lot of money for this and I love it so other than dusting it, I don’t want to change it. Well.. maybe I’d take the pegs off and string wire across the bottom and put some prim towels on it.. okay maybe I would paint it.. any ideas??

I was also considering a black and tan theme for the bathroom, but I don’t think I should paint the vanity so there is still an element of red in the bathroom with the cherry finish. Basically the room is currently red, white and black and I’m okay with keeping that scheme and I will keep some of the Paris theme as well, but I want a new shower curtain and I need to paint. I could go black, tan and red as well.

So what do you all think?? Would you paint the beadboard and if so what colour? Red?? Mustard?? Tan?? What about the upper half of the walls? What about the vanity.. should I paint it? Keep in mind that I may be listing this in about 3 years so I have to be careful about any permanent changes that I make.

Thanks for any advise you can give me!!

Wishful thinking!!

2010-01-31T22:00:00.003-05:00

I was inspired by a Facebook group I joined called “A PLACE FOR US PRIM GALS TO SHOW OFF THE PRIMITIVES IN OUR HOUSE”. There are so many gorgeous prim things in these rooms that I’m overwhelmed! I haven’t uploaded any pics yet, my rooms aren’t nearly as beautifully prim but I’m certainly enjoying the gorgeous pics!

I’ve decided to compile a wish list of things that I want to get someday. I’ve gotten the pictures from the internet; just hoping that I don’t infringe on anyone’s copyright!

I hate to cook, but I would LOVE to have one of these antique reproduction stoves like this beautiful white one above.. and here’s another one:

This one is a wood-burning cookstove.. isn’t this cool??? I think I could figure it out!

One of my long-standing wishes would be to obtain one of these gorgeous antique wooden ice boxes. I have seen a couple in my city at a reasonable price but they weren’t in very good condition. Think I’ll wait until I have the money to buy what I want. This one is gorgeous and has 3 doors, most have 2 and some have 1 door on front and a door on top where the ice was dropped in.

I’ve wanted a “granny door” or wooden screen door for years! I have the hinges but haven’t gotten the door. Here’s a picture of one that’s being used as a pantry door.. clever idea! Other options: laundry room or linen closet, just back the door with homespun and you’ll hide the “stuff” behind the door. Of course, you can just use it on the front of your house as it was originally intended :D

I also love pie safes with punched tin panels like this one. I like the simplicity of the 2 doors and the little drawer at the bottom.

What collection would be complete without a dry sink? I really love this one, maybe in a different colour!

Now a wet one! This would look great with a skirt of homespun! Now where would the dishwasher go???

There are so many wonderful antiques that I’d love to own some day. I don’t like to cook but I would love to have a great big kitchen to decorate. My dream is an “unfit” kitchen like they had before built-in cupboards were standard, more like a big old farmhouse kitchen (think The Waltons kitchen!). Of course, I’m not Olivia Walton so I would need my microwave (oh wait, it died last week .. wahhhhhhh… send flowers please! ;) .. a dishwasher, toaster, blender, fridge etc..

Now on to my non-furniture wish list!!

Brown Tahitian pearls.. oh my!!

Which I could just pick up myself in Tahiti! I KNOW!! Breathtaking isn’t it??? Remember everyone, this is still my wish list! :( Can you just imagine waking up to this? Gorgeous!

Ok, one more just to keep the torment going.. hahaha..

Well now that I’m depressed.. LOL.. have a great day all :D

Favourite things..

2010-01-31T19:49:00.001-05:00

I’ve been slacking so much on my blog!!! I finally finished and mailed my swap item.. a few days ago.. so I can’t use that excuse any more! LOL

I thought I’d share a few of my favourite things with you. You may have seen this in other posts.. my Hoosier (actually made by the Hoosier company, who was the first company to add the flour sifter). I think this one was made in the 1920’s but I couldn’t find a date on it. I have a fabulous wooden swan on the top that I coveted from a store called Crate Designs.. not sure if you have them in the US, I just know this swan was really expensive. Finally got it several years ago, I just love it! Next to the swan is a great checkerboard I bought at an outdoor festival a number of years ago.. again it was very expensive but I HAD to have it! Then there is the snowlady and her chair that I had sitting on the floor beside my Christmas tree (the real one).. a Christmas stocking stitchery that stays up all year and a little wooden light with a silicone bulb.

Here is a close-up of the “countertop”. I just moved a few things around today, added a piece of burlap as a runner and moved the round braided mat from the kitchen. The saltbox sitting under the flour bin is one of the unfinished paper mache ones I got a couple months back at Hobby Lobby in Michigan on one of my cross-border shopping trips. I painted the roof and base black and the house rust red. I know it should have a light in it, haven’t gotten around to it yet :) .. in front of it is a mason jar with a candle holder that sits on the lip of the jar and holds a tealight. In front is an old metal tray found at a yard sale that I painted black and added some spices to for texture. I’ve added several small homespun rag balls and some cinnamon heart bowl fillers plus a larger crackled ball; I made all of these :D. At the back, I added a dowelled frame that I found at a yard sale last year with two little pieces of homepun hanging on. Next to that, I have a great prim towel that I purchased months ago from a talented coworker. She stitched on a cute Raggedy Ann plus some hearts and added a border of homespun. Love it!! It’s hanging on a built-in towel rack.. what an ingenious idea! I’ve also moved my little wooden paddle and pantry cake that I received in a swap with my friend Sandy back in November.. I think it looks cute here in front of my candlestick lamp. Hanging from one of the upper cupboards is a cute grungy Annie.

Beside the Hoosier is another of my favourite things, my one-room schoolhouse desk. I love this piece!!! My house is very small so it was a challenge finding room for these two items. Since I cut a hole in the wall between the kitchen and living room (see that here), I lost a solid wall that would have been perfect for the Hoosier .. the other wall has a random window in it and the other two have cabinets and appliances.... oh well, I like it in the living room!! I don’t have a whole lot on it, some dolls on the seat, a wooden teacher doll on top, a wooden apple in the inkwell as well as a little stack of wooden books. I also have a silver tray with a brush, comb and mirror set sitting on top.. can’t see these but they are sitting at the base of my little light that I also got from Sandy :)

Another of my favourite things are old windows. These ones were bought at a yard sale for $5 each.. I was trying to get them for a lot less but she wouldn’t budge! They are still sitting in the shed, haven’t decided what to do with them but windows with this many panes are hard to come by so I’m not giving them up anytime soon!

I also love this one that I have hanging over my head.. this one’s been following me for a while :D I also LOVE this paint colour. I had a lovely green that I used in this room and my last 2 bedrooms and it was time for a change. This one is called Caramel Apple from Benjamin Moore’s classic line (assuming I’m remembering correctly.. lol). It is quite dark but really pretty. Woo.. I’m brave ! :D

Now just a few little things… my favourite drink (not a coffee or tea drinker!):

My favourite chocolate bar (yes that’s what we call them up here… lol). If you’ve never had these, you are missing out!! These are waaaaaaaay better than M&M plain!!! I promise!

My favourite chips:

Favourite chick flicks (and I am NOT a huge fan of chick flicks!).. Bridget Jones’ Diary.. both of them!

Lastly…. my favourite city (no surprise there!):

Thanks for stopping by!

What is January??

2010-01-19T00:30:00.003-05:00

We’re past halfway into the month.. so I figured I’d try to have something interesting to say about this month.. a little slow, I know ;)

January’s birthstone is garnet.. so let’s see what I can find online about the garnet.

"... to resist melancholy and poison, stop the spitting of blood and dissolve tartar in the body" -(William Rowland, Physician, on a special medicine prepared from Garnets, 1669)

Haha.. interesting isn’t it???

Now for the good stuff.. some jewellery!! :D

Fancy!!

Nice combination of smooth beads and faceted stones in these grape cluster earrings!

Pretty little cluster ring with diamonds, set in yellow gold..

Now this reminds me of a ring I bought for my daughter a few years back.. but with a different centre stone.. this is such a sweet setting, don’t you think?

This is a rather fancy one.. the setting is a classic one, I used to see these all the time.. I love the tear-drop pendant.

This one I really like, I’m a big fan of pearls, and I like the red & white colour scheme.. pretty!!!

The flower for January is carnation.. definitely not one of my favourites but it is a pretty flower when it’s nice and fresh. I think I like white the most… I found this picture on www.judithbarathart.com .. hope she doesn’t mind me borrowing it!

Isn’t she a great photographer?? Beautiful!

Finally, if you live anywhere near me, January usually means blizzards, ice-cold temperatures, and snowplows.. but so far this month we’ve been pretty lucky!

Valentine’s swap and a yummmo recipe!!

2010-01-18T12:47:00.000-05:00

Hi all,

Just a short post and sorry, no pics again!!! I’d best get my act together I suppose… sigh :’(

Those who signed up for my handmade prim Valentine’s textile swap have been emailed their recipient’s name. Remember, I changed some of the rules.. so it’s a Secret Valentine’s swap, no partners, instead I chose names.. cause I’m cool like that!!!! :D You have 2 weeks to get your items shipped out! Questions, please respond to the email I sent out last night.

I went to a friend’s yesterday to play a board game called Cashflow.. never heard of it before. It was fun, I almost won!! Darn! Well in addition to playing the game we ate, of course! My friend made this amazing crustless quiche.. it has ricotta in it and is sweet, the “cake” part of it reminds me of a sweet cornbread.. we’re not big on cornbread up here in Canada so my experience is very limited. This recipe is from www.catchthespoon.com, click here for the actual recipe. My friend gave me a piece to take home and I would NOT share with my daughter.. lol.. it was that good! I brought it in to work for breakfast :). You can top it with fresh whipped cream, preserves, whatever you have. Enjoy!!

In addition to the quiche, I brought a salad. Here is a very quick “recipe” for it. The quantities depend on how many you’re serving.

- lettuce such as mixed spring greens... don't be a hero, get the pre-packaged! ;)
- Craisins.. to taste
- Granny Smith apples cut into chunks
- goat cheese (nice texture and much less salt than feta)
- grilled chicken, chopped

Mix all together, or as I did, keep in separate bowls and have everyone build their own. Suggested salad dressings: Balsamic Vinaigrette or Creamy Poppyseed (these are both from Kraft Canada, not sure what you have in the US!)

Enjoy the rest of your day :)

Reminder.. and some chatting!!! :D

2010-01-15T00:15:00.001-05:00

Hi my lovelies!

Just a reminder that you have until the end of today ... Friday, Jan. 15 to sign up for my prim Valentine's day fabric item swap! I amended some of the rules so be sure to read both my posts and sign up on either one.. PLUS you need to email me your snail mail address. Any questions, email me right away so I can clear them up.

As noted in the 2nd post, I changed things up a bit. You won't be swapping with the person who gets your name, rather I am picking names.. kind of like the Secret Santa idea.. but Secret Valentines! Only I will know who has your name ;D

Sorry for the lack of posts lately. I'm not sure if it's been the stressful couple of weeks at work or not.. but I've just been tired and not overly motivated.. LOL. Ugh..

As some of you know.. I'm taking my daughter to Cozumel, Mexico for reading week next month! We leave on Feb. 13 for one week and we are really looking forward to it! We went for the first time in May, 2008, 10 days after my daughter returned from Italy where she lived as an exchange student for 3 months. I figured she'd need a vacation! lol... That trip was my first one where I got to use my first-ever passport!!! As much as I love travelling I hadn't been outside Canada or the U.S. and I was itching to get a stamp in that book! Here are a couple of pics from that trip..

This is the beach at our resort.. the water was gorgeous! This was my first time in salt water too!

This is a tidal pool at Xcaret, an eco-park in the Mayan Riviera.. looks like a spa, but the water was very rough here.. you couldn't go in!

I hope the weather is really warm but not humid when we're there. Our last visit was very humid.. ..yuck.. that sticky feeling is just gross! lol.. I will be posting lots of pics when we get back. In the meantime I'll try to get back to posting for Travellin' Tuesdays! Wishing everyone a happy Friday!

Happy Sunday all!!

2010-01-10T19:00:00.002-05:00

Hi everyone!

I was so happy to get last week over with! I work in the payroll department of a fairly large hospital and last week was just crazy, not sure why but there were just a lot of issues.

My daughter and I decided yesterday to hop across the border to go shopping. Last weekend the weather was so bad that the highway was closed at one point but yesterday it was smooth sailing.

She hated all the places that I wanted to go to.. lol.. so sat in the car some of the time.. brat. ;P .. I stopped in at Hobby Lobby, was hoping there'd be some great leftover Christmas stuff but there was really not much there.. next stop was JoAnn's.. got a couple of pieces of homespun at 25% off, so they were only $3/yd, and got some nice muslin at only $1.99/yd. Great prices.

We spent many hours shopping but didn't find as much as I would have liked, however I still managed to spend a lot of money.

Well.. this is a short post, sorry folks.. no pics to boot! I need to get cracking on some projects around here and work on my swap item.

Have a great Monday!!

It's my SWAP and I'll cry if I want to!!!! Please read!!!

2010-01-07T18:54:00.005-05:00

Hi all

So the fun of having a blog is being able to do what you want.. so I'm exercising my rights to make some changes to my prim Valentine's Day swap. My reasons are based on some very valid concerns about shipping across the border. I would prefer to alter the swap than have anyone miss out on participating. So far I think I'm the only Canadian in the swap but I do have a U.S. address that I can use thanks to my cousin, so I think that will help if no other Canadians participate. So I want to encourage everyone to sign up who was hesitating before!!!

Here we go!

1) First thing.. you will "swap" with someone in your own country so you are not required to ship anything across the border. If you are Canadian and have a U.S. address that you can use, please submit that address to me if you wish. If you prefer, you can use your Canadian address. I am participating so I will use whichever address works based on the number of participants.

2) I have changed the definition of "swap". Instead of 2 people trading with each other, I'm doing a "Secret Valentine" sort of swap now. I'm making a list and will go down one by one and pull a name to go with that person. Therefore, the person you send your Valentine item to will not be sending their Valentine item to you; instead of a swap partner, you will be giver and recipient :D. This will help keep everything a surprise.. what do you think??

All other rules will remain the same. Please go to the original post here: http://hayley-primitup.blogspot.com/2010/01/lets-do-swap.html to see the rest of the rules.

PLEASE REMEMBER THIS IS A PRIM SWAP OF A TEXTILE ITEM.. THIS ITEM CAN BE ANY TEXTILE/FABRIC ITEM OF YOUR CHOICE BUT MUST BE PRIM AND MUST HAVE A VALENTINE'S THEME!!

You'll get your recipient's name by email by Jan. 17!

So I hope everyone is clear on the rules, sorry about the changes but I think it will work out well!

Let's do a SWAP!!! (See updated info)

2010-01-03T15:48:00.009-05:00

Hey everyone!

As you may have guessed from my last post, I'm not a big fan of Valentine's Day.. :D .. guess it's that whole being single stuff.. lol! I also feel that it's getting a bit out of hand.. have you seen the stuff they have in the stores now? Crazy!

Now having said that, I figure why fight it?? So, I'm thinking that a Valentine's swap is a great idea.

Keeping in mind the expense of Christmas past I'm going to keep this a small swap and since Feb. 14 is not that far off.. only 6 weeks.. we have a short timeline!!!

So the rules are:

1) you must have a blog and I would appreciate you spreading the word about this swap by adding a link to this post
2) you must be a follower of mine.. please feel free to add yourself, I love having new followers!
3) this is open to Canadian and US bloggers* (and I will be randomly matching you up with someone in either country; please do not sign up if you're not willing to send across the border) SEE THE NEW RULES ON JAN. 7TH POST!!
4)* this is where the * comes in.. this is also open to other countries, but the catch is, based on the expense of international shipping and the time contraints, your partner must be in your country; if you are my only follower in your country, this is a great opportunity to encourage someone new to sign up
5) please reply to this post if you want to participate, then send your home address to me at countryheart2@hotmail.com; ensure you do both please!
6) sign-up deadline is Jan. 15, matches will be done and emailed out by Jan. 17
7) swap item must be sent out by Feb. 1 at the latest (please check the postal guidelines and if possible send it out earlier) items should be received by Valentine's Day but keep in mind that is a Sunday! NOTE - THIS GIVES YOU JUST A MONTH TO GET YOUR SWAP ITEM MADE AND SENT!!! Make sure you can fulfill your committment!
8) email me the method of shipping and the tracking code - YOU MUST GET A TRACKING NUMBER
9) make sure you contact your swap partner to let her know you received the item and thank her
10) feel free to post your swap item on your blog.. we all love to see pics, don't we??

Now, what exactly is the swap? Well, I'm thinking something made of a fabric/textile, as it should be one of the least expensive items to ship and there are so many options.. even for Valentine's Day, with it's limited motifs! UPDATE - THIS ITEM IS TO HAVE A VALENTINE'S DAY THEME & COLOURS.

Item must be hand-crafted; if you're not a crafter you can purchase the item (still must be hand-crafted and not an imported item) but the goal for this swap is to keep costs down. Examples of items: stitcheries such as wall hangings (send unframed to keep costs down if you choose), candle mats, candle huggers, pillow covers (un-stuffed if you choose), towels, bowl fillers/ornies (like hearts, cupids, love letters.. google fabric envelopes??), small dolls, etc. The item must be prim'd, grungied, antiqued, stained etc.. feel free to use glitter glass, mica, very fine glitter if you want, but it still should look old and prim.

You can add any extra item if you want, but it's not necessary!

Hope this is clear, if not, please email me. Let's have fun!!!

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2010!!!!!

2009-12-31T18:32:00.002-05:00

Most people agree that as you get older the years pass much more quickly. I blinked and almost 20 years have passed since my daughter was born. I’m so proud of her, happy she’s doing well in school and has grown up to be a mature, kind-hearted young woman with a bright future. As each year end passes, I think back over the previous year and wonder where it went. This past year I gave my daughter a trip to Paris for her birthday gift; I can’t believe we landed at Charles de Gaulle airport 7 months ago, on May 31!! Seems like just last week.. I hate that time is marching on so quickly that Paris is quickly becoming a distant memory (of course I plan to go back within the next few years!.. lol).

I wish you all a very Happy New Year! For those who had a difficult 2009 I wish for you a peaceful, more content 2010. For those of you who are going this journey alone (no spouse, and/or no children), I wish for you the love you may be looking for (me included.. where is my Mr. Right Forever anyway? ), or continued happiness in your life. Finally, I, like billions of others on this planet, wish for world peace. I don’t understand inflicting pain and terror on others, whether it’s another human being or an animal… we all share this rock, we deserve to feel safe!

Thanks to all my followers, it feels wonderful to have 49 after only 2 months of blogging. I value your support and comments, so please keep them coming!

It’s over.. what now???

2009-12-28T19:18:00.004-05:00

So.. I’ve been reading one of my favourite blogs (and yours too, I know).. Sarah from Thrifty Decor Chick. Click on over, Sarah is already taking down her Christmas decorations!! *GASP*!!!

I just don’t think I’m quite ready for it yet. I’m also not ready for the carcasses of Christmas past that lay broken and unloved in the stores till mid-January either!! However, the alternative of all the Valentine’s Day crap is not a happy thought either. Now you know how I feel.. what about you? LOL.

So in answer to Sarah’s question of when we take down the Christmas decorations, I usually start New Year’s Eve.. I’m such a partier!!! Break out the big-girl glass of Diet Coke, maybe some Baked Lay’s, and the leftover candy canes, surround me with my new, smaller, clear plastic organizing bins (I had giganto-sized bins that I couldn’t see into.. or carry up from the storage room without getting a hernia for that matter... I’ve now gotten over my ~~fear~~ aversion to seeing all that crap inside the bins and got me some fancy see-through kinds that I can actually carry safely)… and my evening is all set!!

Woohoooo.. jealous??? Yeah I know, right? :P I still haven’t decided if I’ll put everything away starting New Year’s Eve and continuing New Year’s Day or not. We’ll see!

In my quest to make Christmas decorating a bit easier, I decided to “plant” my fake trees in buckets of drywall compound this year.

My thinking was.. decorate the tree this year, wrap it in bubble wrap or tissue and a clear plastic bag - fully decorated - put them in the aforementioned storage room for about 11 months.. and just bring ‘em up next year, unwrap, fluff and voila!!! Easy peasy, right? Uhhhh… maybe not. Problem.. two of my trees have revolted.. the lights are now out.. I mean.. COME ON!!!! They are clearly from the era before the “one bulb burns out the rest stay lit” light strands…. *snooooooooooort*.. like those really work! So at least two of my trees will have to be stripped down, ornies packed up, lights replaced and we’ll try it again next year. Sigh….

Speaking of Christmas, I’m not usually one to go buy a bunch of decorations afterwards. I usually find some cool stuff ahead and if I wait, they’ll be gone so I buy what I want when I see it (well, if the price is right of course!) Today I went to pick up my daughter and on the way home, we drove through Stratford. Anyone who lives in Canada and most likely the northern States probably knows about Stratford. As the name suggests, this small city is dedicated to Shakespeare’s legacy of plays.

People come from miles around to see a play at the theatres of Stratford. Famous Canadian and American actors frequently perform in one of the dozens of plays put on every year. One actor who has appeared this past season is the legendary Christopher Plummer… Google it, I dare ya!! :) Stratford is a charming little city worth exploring. As we drove down the main street, we pulled into a parking spot.. omg.. I actually parallel parked with very little fanfare!!! Snaps for me!!! LOL. We walked along both sides of the street and popped into a few shops. Most had some kind of sale going on. At the British store I found these funky shiny ornies.. they’re sort of a bronze colour and I’m picturing them on a chocolate brown tree next year.. if I don’t find one already done I’ll make one next year.. stay tuned!!! Three of them are made of a bottle-brush, tacky garland- type of material then covered in grommets. The other two are made of some sort of glittery twine.. well look for yourselves ladies.. a picture is worth a thousand words! ;D

Close-up.. what do they call this shape.. onion?.. ewwww! Not sure but it was a bit more interesting than the matching round ones. Original price was only $2 each.. really quite a deal at that.. the sale price was only 20% off, but I still think I got a good deal. Even though they’re not prim, they do have a funky vintage quality to them, don’tcha think?? I like a bit of sparkle and shine on my trees, regardless of what theme I’m going for. This was a good find!

I also found these very cool Spode plates. I think they’re part of a collection, one has 2006 on the back, the other 2007. The 2006 plate was marked at $1.00, the other $5.00 and the sign said $5.00 for each plate. At the cash, they charged me the prices marked on the plates, because some did come in at $1. So I thought that was just a super deal for a nice smooth china plate made in England! I’ll be packing them up with the other Christmas decorations and decide how to use them next year :)

Finally… I thought this little tartan moose would make a cute ornie on my full-size or my “red” tree. I think the tartan is the Mackintosh; my mother’s ancestors were septs of the Mackintosh clan so in essence, it’s my tartan… and the moose is a symbol of Canada.. oh my, how patriotic of me! LOL….

Well.. back to work tomorrow.. UGH.. have a great week all :)

Over already!!

2009-12-26T14:44:00.002-05:00

Hi all!!

Wow.. as someone said, weeks of preparation and it's all over! Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas day with family or friends and created wonderful memories! My daughter and I broke tradition and opened all gifts on Christmas Eve. She already knew about her "big" gift.. a trip to Cozumel with mom during her week off from university in Feb.. and.. my birthday is that week so I'll be lounging on a beach!! I bought her a few other items to put under the tree and she got me a new carry-on piece of luggage.. (planes seem to be getting tinier and my carry-on was too big on my last trip.. so it's a great gift to get!) and it was all good.. we had a nice night. Yesterday we drove about 90 miles from home to meet up with some family that she's just getting to know (long story, skipping that).. they live much further away and I felt it only fair to share the driving. She's now at their house till tomorrow or Monday. I was just a bit lonely yesterday but it's all right.. kids grow up and move on and when you're a single mom, you know you'll be alone when they go. I would never stop her from spreading her wings, so I have to learn to live without her here all the time.

No pics this time, just my wishes to everyone for a safe and fun holiday. I think I'll work on posting more travel pics.. whatcha think about that? ;)

Almost Christmas…

2009-12-23T23:04:00.003-05:00

Hi All..

I know I’ve been slacking on my blog posts.. what can I say? As with all of you, time is racing away from me!

Here’s a sweet pic of Daisy sitting under the tree.. isn’t she adorable?!?

Proof that I can cook (some things anyway!). My daughter is going away for a few days early on Christmas day so I thought I’d cook a turkey this past Sunday.. doesn’t it look great? It’s also cooked all the way through! I took a pic of it to prove that it’s cooked. :D

We had a very basic dinner, just a turkey, crock pot stuffing and sweet potatoes.. here’s a pic of my plate, I wasn’t hungry by this time so I only ate about half!

Simple decorations on my front porch.. white chair I got for $1 at a yard sale this summer, topped with an enamel bowl, filled with greens trimmed from the Christmas tree and some twig balls; an enamel pitcher with greens and some rough-cut ornies.. and a birdhouse on top of my old milk can. Simple but kind of rustic too. To date we’ve had barely any snow and that’s okay with me!

Sorry it’s a short post.. I baked over 11 dozen cookies Saturday night and brought in 8 doz. to work.. brought home the rest today (3!). Had to leave work early yesterday, not feeling well, went to the doctor, some kind of ear infection so wasn’t up to posting.. lol.. oh the excuses are just rolling in now!

Merry Christmas all!

More trees and a lovely gift!

2009-12-13T18:52:00.005-05:00

I’m finally getting around to posting pics of my real tree.. we bought it last Saturday at a place that sells them as a fundraiser, we’ve been going to this lot for many years and although it’s halfway across the city, we still end up there. I’m glad the money goes to a worthy cause and the trees are nice.

We’ve had the tree decorated for a week now so I’ve been procrastinating on posting. I’ve actually tweaked it a bit, moved a couple of ornies around and added some.. so I’d say it’s complete now! I also finished my “red” tree as I call it. This was done a week ago as well, until my blown glass Raggedy Ann fell off and shattered! I was so upset I was almost in tears. I have been collecting these ornies for a few years and I just love them, and Ann is one of my favourites. My daughter hopped online, found one in stock in Arizona and I had it shipped to my cousin’s in Michigan.

My real tree pics:

Closeups of some ornies; a blown glass Eiffel Tower (bought last year before I had any idea I’d see the real one this year!); :

Felt mitten ornie handmade by my coworker (the one I did the craft show with), she custom-made this one of my dog

An old favourite that I bought at a craft show many years ago.. a wooden reindeer with twig antlers

Blown glass piper to honour my Scottish heritage; handmade ornies that I purchased from my co-workers (the stocking and the mitten were part of a set of 6); the snowman face fabric bulb and the snowman light bulb on the far left were made by another crafty co-worker.. I love handmade ornies!

Yes, there’s actually an ornie on this tree that I made.. my warm & natural ice skate.. you can’t really see the runner very well, but it’s on there :)

Blown glass character from Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer movie, I forget his name!! Also fabric Santa’s long johns, wooden snowflakes and a penny (bought a mat from my co-worker and cut the pennies apart to make ornies); you can also see my cinnamon muslin candy canes that I got from my swap partner Sandy.. there are 6 on the tree :D

Another character.. I know this one – The Abominable Snowman! You can also see a bit of my NYC taxi ornie

More painted lightbulbs from my co-worker, I bought 6 in total, 3 snowman faces and these 3 coloured ones. These are antique small lightbulbs that her SO had from his days working for the hydro company (if I remember correctly!).. aren’t they awesome??

Blown glass suitcase ornie

Blown glass globe next to a fabric angel with rusty wings (yes, handmade by my co-worker :D! ).. I like the contrast of handmade and the blown glass

Blown glass airplane.. we have a bit of a travel theme going on here :D

As mentioned, I did tweak the tree a bit.. moved a stocking to make room for my new, very prim Raggedy Ann on my tree.. this was a lovely, thoughtful, surprise gift from Lex over at NorthwindStar Primitives. It was tucked in with my order from her Etsy shop (I went to Michigan yesterday to pick it up along with the blown glass Annie).. go to her blog and there is a link.. I love her handmade items!! I ordered a set of her cardinal bowl fillers, but they are currently nestled on branches of my tree.. this is my favourite bird so they needed a place of honour for Christmas.. they are so gorgeous and well-made and will find a home for sure after Christmas, no hiding these sweet birds!! Thanks so much Lex for the wonderful Annie.. I know you don’t make a lot of dolls anymore so it means an awful lot to me that you’d make her just for me… I love her.. and she also is NOT going to be packed away after Christmas!!!

Isn’t this cute?? It’s Cinderella’s coach, just picked it up yesterday 50% off at Hobby Lobby!

I thought I took more pics of my “red” tree.. but here it is from a distance, sitting on my Hoosier

Close-up of my new Raggedy Ann along with Andy… this tree has a tartan ribbon on it, a fabric sock monkey, some small soft teddies (dollar store, believe it or not and they’re cute!), a fire engine, fire hydrant, some paper mache stars, a Winnie the Pooh, some glitter Mickey Mouse ears and many other things. It’s a fun tree!

Arrangement on the top of my Hoosier; I found the framed stitchery at Winners (Canadian TJ Maxx) a couple of years back and it stays up there all year. The woodland Santa was bought a few months ago at a rummage sale, seemed to be unused, I paid $3 and the price tag was $27.99.. good deal!

A snowlady sitting in a mini chair.. bought at Winter Wheat .. along with one of the 3 trees that came with my order of cardinals from Lex

My decorated sled…

My country bin in my kitchen.. Gingy was also made by Lex.. how cute!! I’ve also added one of her trees. The cubbies are holding a lot of candy canes, some gingerbread ornies that I made, some greenery, cinnamon sticks, wooden snowflakes etc

Bowl of greenery, gingers, a rusted metal star, faux snowballs; Mason jar with a candle holder insert, cranberries covering the bottom.. and a plant.. all sitting on one of my Earth Rug trivets.

Well, that’s all for now, hope you enjoyed it all!

A giveaway at Bittersweet Prims!!!

2009-12-08T20:20:00.003-05:00

Just wanted everyone to know about a giveaway. Since I don't know how to put a button on the side of my blog I'll just do a post.. any tips for the button?? :S

Anyway.. Jenn, my lovely friend near Buffalo (she's about 3 hours and one border from me) is having another giveway.. Jenn's stuff is awesome and you have to check her blog, you'll see pics of her booth at a crafter's market (Jenn.. correct me if I'm wrong.. lol).. gorgeous display and I do want to go see it for myself but time is flying by! So.. go on over to Bittersweet Prims @ http://bittersweetfixinsnprimitives.blogspot.com/2009/12/im-having-another-giveaway.html and enter Jenn's Christmas giveaway. Or not.. then I'll win!! Haha!

Craft show & a tree…

2009-12-07T12:22:00.007-05:00

Hi all!

Well, this weekend my friend and I went into a craft show. She’s done many over the years and her work is beautiful, she’s very talented… I’ve bought a lot of things over the last few years from her. I had a few things I’ve been making up so I said I’d rent 1/2 of one of her tables. The show was at an elementary school on Saturday and sadly it was a bust… where are all the parents and teachers who are supposed to be supporting their school? Was it the wrong day, wrong location, not enough awareness? We’re not sure, but she said it was the worst craft show she’s ever been in. She did sell a lot more than I did but nowhere near what she’s used to. I sold enough to cover my 1/2 table rental and pay for the raffle tickets I bought there.. even with hardly any attendees, I still didn’t win! LOL.

Here are the two tables all loaded up..this first pic is my friend’s stuff.. see the snowmen front right? These are awesome mats for mugs or candles with touque-covered pennies all around. Love these, I have one!

My stuff is on the right half of this table, the basket and enamel bowl on the floor and we shared the tree. The display in the back is my friend's.. great stuff eh??

The tree... mine are the candy canes, the prim tags (I didn’t make those!), mini plush snowmen and primmed icicles.

Close-up of the basket holding faux snowballs.. these are just styrofoam covered in fake snow.. cute as bowl fillers. The enamel bowl is holding brown corded light strings.

Close-up of my mittens that I “whipped up” on Friday night! I think they turned out so cute.. but that's my opinion.. lol. Basically, I found the mittens plain on clearance last year and primmed them up with coffee stain. They’ve been sitting in a bin all year then I came up with this idea.. probably saw something similar on a blog so if I did, sorry, not sure who to give credit to. I did some with gingerbread (simple cinnamon/apple sauce recipe) and others with little felt birds plus greenery, easy-peasy candy canes, a single berry and jingle bells tied on with string.

Wax tarts packaged in threes; bowl filler made of dried cranberries, with cinnamon sticks, gingerbread men and faux mini snowballs. These smell great as I added a bit of oil.. mmmmmmm.

Primmed wooden spoons, grungy soap bowl filler (thanks for the idea Sandy :D), candle cappers, primmed light switch covers and prim star tissue paper.

Antiques signs, shutter angels and several of my wooden painted bowls, better view of the tissue paper.. lol. So as you can see I had a very small space to work with but managed to get a lot of stuff in it... too bad sales were so poor :(

Oh well, I did sell one string of lights, 3 sets of wax tarts, and 2 mittens.. not much but I'm happy that some people have my things in their homes. You have to start somewhere right??

Saturday afternoon my daughter and I went shopping and to pick out our real Christmas tree. Every year it seems the prices go higher.. but I guess that's the way it is. We've been going to the same place because the trees are a bit cheaper, just as nice and it's a fund-raiser... I think for a local troop of Scouts. We used to live much closer to the place where we get our tree but we are now on the other side of the city and I can't seem to find a good deal in my end of the city. I could go to Home Depot, I think the trees are cheaper but I like that I'm helping support a worthy cause.. so off we go to the Scout fundraiser instead. We ran into the son of a former coworker, haven't seen him in years so that was cool, he was very helpful and patient.. lol.. it's hard to find "the" tree, isn't it?? I did get it mostly decorated last night but plan on making some new ornies for it.. will probably post pics anyway, hopefully tomorrow.

Have a good one all!

Olde Fashioned Christmas Swap, Part Deux!!

2009-12-02T10:19:00.003-05:00

Ok all y’all (sorry, that’s for my Southern readers.. lol :D) .. so here are the rest of my pics of the prim pretties that I received from Sandy!! Woohoooo.. uh-oh, that might mean that Jazy will speak to me now! LOL.. well that is the chance I have to take (sorry Jazy, you know I love ya, but I just couldn’t let that one slide.. hahaha).. sooooo… Let’s get started shall we? I left you last post with an open box and a peek at the treasures inside. Now, before you scroll down, I’d like to suggest you get something to drink, maybe a snack and go to the bathroom! There’s a LOT to see (please ignore my kitchen in the background :)

Oh.. I just have to say that everything was packaged up so adorably! Love this cute brown paper bag done up with a great prim tag and tied with jute.. it had an awesome pantry cake inside.. my first!!! Love it.. and that sweet mustard paddle (wooden item) beside it is now holding my new pantry cake.. perfect size for it! Don’t you love that Christmas card??

Ok.. so I had to give up taking pics layer by layer.. LOL.. Sandy was soooooooo generous!!! So I pulled everything out and set the box aside. You can now see my pantry cake on the left (pic below), and behind it is a sweet painting (wooden item #2) of a saltbox house and a sheep and some trees.. done by a lady that Sandy knows.. she told me that she’s bought a lot of things from this artist.. love it! I also have several packages of wax tarts (smell good item).. they smell yummy!! There’s a package of prim nutmeg icicles, some handmade tags, a bottle of room spray (also smell good item :).. smells great, like pound cake! The next pic shows the items on the right a bit better.

So now you can see those lovely tin sconces (wild card item!).. I just love these, have wanted something like them for a long time, just couldn’t figure out what I wanted.. so thank you so much Sandy for these!! I also got some electric candles (lighted item), all primmed up so nicely.. these are great tucked on a shelf and they come complete with silicone bulbs.. oh my! Resting on one of the sconces are wax bowl filler balls.. these are so cute!! I would never have thought to make these, I’m not sure I’ve seen them around here.. in front of those are 6 candy cane ornies (ornie item).. cute in cinnamon-covered muslin.. they will go so nicely on my real tree! In front you can see my mini battery-operated tealights (more lighted items :).. all primmed with spices!! I have everything resting on my new, HUGE tree skirt (textile item)!! I love the stars sewn on and the mini rusted bells.. this is awesome!

Here are some close-ups: pantry cake, tealights, icicles and room spray.. mmmmmmmmmmm!

Close-up of one of the sconces! Oh I just love these.. I’m not sure where I’ll be putting these, but I will have fun trying different spots! I have battery-operated candles that I primmed that fit perfectly so they’ll be going in these once I find a home for them.

Close-up of the pantry cake paddle.. cute!!

Have you seen this many wax tarts outside a store???? lol.. Love the scents and the chunky ones in the front are chocolate and they look good enough to eat :) .. and the wax balls are on the left.. they look like rum balls don’t they? Okay, rum balls might be a tad smaller but I like the look! Here are my electric candles!!

Close-up of the painting… I just love that saltbox, it’s one of my new favourite things! This is a beautiful classic scene.. so peaceful :)

Handmade tags.. these are great, I can use them on the tree or a package.. love them!! They feature vintage Christmas scenes and are covered in glimmery flakes.. pretty!

Here are my cinnamon-covered candy cane ornies!! I just LOVE candy canes, it’s my newest ornie “thing”! These are going to go so well with all of my ornaments, I’ve got a nice collection of country/prim now! I love the jingle bells, they add a little something extra. One more thing.. I figured out how to rotate the pic on Live Writer!! Woohoo.. it’s like a Christmas miracle! lol.. :P

Ok, last pic but not least! This tree skirt is quite large, I think it’s about 3’ in diameter (my island is 4’ long).. I’ve been wanting a new skirt for my real tree and I think this will fit. I haven’t bought the tree yet so this has been carefully folded up, awaiting the tree.. this weekend most likely! Will post it when it’s up and decorated. I love these little jingle bells and the stars are white.. so it’s really a Canadian tree skirt now isn’t it?? lol..

I really want to thank Sandy, she went above and beyond, everything is wonderful and smells great, not only did you cover the rules, you threw in so many bonus items, I don't even know what to say except a humble thank-you!!! Her daughters also helped with some items and helped her pack up the box.. thanks to Tabitha and Abby.. you girls are awesome!!

Best of all, most everything was handmade and you can’t beat that! I have learned over the past couple of years to appreciate and love what goes into making something by hand and then to have someone enjoy that hard work. It’s a great feeling for all involved.. so thanks again to Sandy, the time you put into all of this means a lot to me.

Well I’m sure by now everyone needs a bathroom break (but lucky me for being able to write a nice long post and have lots of pics to share!!!)… so I think I’ll send this to post and let you all drool over my box of treasures.. oh yeah, be jealous! lol.. thanks for hanging in with me. Oh.. and Jazy.. you will leave a comment, I just know you won’t be able to resist.. hahaha!

Have a fabulous day all and see.. you didn’t have to wait all that long!!!

I got my Christmas swap package!!! But…

2009-12-02T00:46:00.001-05:00

Well, Tuesday evening really got away from me. I spent A LOT of time unwrapping my Christmas swap package from Sandy of For the LOVE of Prims.. LOL… I was so excited when I got home and saw the box!!! After unwrapping everything (Sandy was SO generous.. omg!!) and taking many, many pictures, I sent Sandy a thank-you email then started working on some things for a last-minute craft show I’m going into with a very talented co-worker. Sandy gave me some awesome things that got me thinking and I pulled some supplies out and started making some new things. I was also trying to sort and organize my items for sale. So.. I’m sorry to say that before I knew it, the clock struck 11 and it’s now after midnight.. have to get to bed but here are a couple of pics.. teasers really.. LOL!!! I will do a new post tomorrow to show you everything else, so be sure to come back Wednesday evening.

Here’s the package (with our addresses covered of course!)

Opened up! Oooh.. chips ;)

Okay.. here’s a quick peak inside the box!!

Ok, ok.. one more, but this is it!!!

Alright.. so you can probably figure a couple of things out from this pic.. but there are tons more to come.. stay tuned for the next post.. Wed. evening!!

Till then, my prim friends :D

A favourite place…

2009-11-27T23:21:00.002-05:00

I’m sure everyone has a favourite place that they love to visit.. maybe the lake, a park, a store, etc. One of my favourite places is a charming little shop nestled amongst a stand of very tall pine trees and beautiful, interesting gardens. Winter Wheat is located just outside the tiny village of Sparta, Ontario (Canada) and features artwork by Lucy Ogletree, who owns the store along with her partner Mike. They live in a restored home on the property, which you will pass by as you make your way to the store in the back. On the property are several little buildings… my favourite one is along the driveway just past the house. I love to sit in it and relax on a cold winter day when the stove is turned on.. it’s very relaxing; in the summer the back doors are left open on nice days and there is a lovely breeze floating through. There are other buildings as well, check the pics or their website.. :D

Each time I go to Winter Wheat I see something new that interests me. It seems that Lucy and Mike make changes to the grounds and stores on a regular basis.. which is one reason I keep coming back. I don’t always make a purchase, but customers are always welcome to come in, sit in one of the little buildings and relax a bit (there’s also an area inside the store where you can sit a spell!).. be sure to read the rules before you enter the property. There are cookies, coffee and tea offered for free but a donation box is set up at each station (for charity), so be sure to throw in some change, it could make a difference.

I’m attaching some pics that I took in the summer and last Sat.; Lucy and Mike don’t mind if you take pictures but I only take them outside, out of respect for their business. They have pictures of the inside of the store on their website, so link up and check it out.

Over the years that I have been visiting and shopping at Winter Wheat, I have brought friends out to see the property and everyone who has been there loves it. My daughter and I brought our exchange student from Italy out there and she absolutely loved it.. they don’t have anything like it at home. I even brought her back for a second visit just before she returned to Italy so she could buy a few things to take home. Then last year my daughter’s friend from Italy came to visit Canada and we took her out to Winter Wheat, and she also loved it. Lucy and Mike provide journals in the little buildings where people can sign their names and you can find people from all over the world in those books! Amazing!!

Enjoy the pics, first set was taken in the summer!

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I thought I had several pics from our visit in January but could only find one. My favourite little building was jammed full of visitors on Saturday so I didn’t get any pics inside; it's the one with the blue door. The larger building with the Winter Wheat sign is the store.. love that porch!!

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If you’re in the area, stop in.. you’ll want to go back time after time! Have a great weekend all!

More trees…

2009-11-26T14:13:00.002-05:00

Happy Thanksgiving to all my American friends (and those who just live there :D ).

I have one more tree done at home, this is my large alpine tree… just love these. The ornies were inspired by the ones that I have on my office tree…. which are for sale if anyone wants them. Pics of the home tree: note the little glass (but might actually be plastic!) pinecones.. I bought them at a yard sale in the summer.. I like the dark colour; I also have 3 little wooden tags, my candycanes, and some brown glittery stars.. can hardly see them but I like the sparkle.. I also “planted” this tree in a pail of joint compound. It weighs a ton, but I’ll probably just store this already decorated.. getting lazy in my old age.. lol. I have this tree sitting behind my love seat, between my two child’s rockers. Years ago I found paper mache deer, one sitting, one standing and I glued some dried flowers and raffia on them.. unpainted. I still like this look and someday if I don’t, I’ll have to prim them up.

Here is the office tree, as I mentioned all the ornies are for sale (if my coworkers like them:) .. but I only made the candy canes.. oh and the tree skirt, did that last year.

The last one is the “topper” that I made up freehand.. lol. It works I think.

Have a great day all!!

Swap finish & Christmas trees!!

2009-11-23T12:05:00.000-05:00

Hi all…

I want to thank Sarah of Thrifty Decor Chick and Barb of Dogmom Diva for encouraging me to try Live Writer.. so far so good!

Had a busy weekend, crafting my head off.. lol. I finished up my swap gifts for Sandy of For The Love of Prims and managed to decorate 3 of my trees! I can’t post a pic of what I made for Sandy.. fun for me and you but not for Sandy.. don’t want to spoil the surprise! I just hope she loves (or likes.. or tolerates) what I made.. and only one thing was store bought, but I know it’s something she’ll love.

Now on to my trees.. been so busy lately but yesterday I forced myself to decorate some of my trees.. I know, “forced” and “decorate” should never be in the same sentence but I’ve been procrastinating and feelin’ the pinch.. especially since my blogger buddies seem to be all decked out.. lol.. but I feel better now!

I have had a kitchen tree for years and although I keep most of the same ornies, each year I seem to add one or two or ten new ones so this year I ended up adding a 2nd tree.. haha.. all you decorators and crafters know exactly what I’m talking about! Here are some pics… (fingers crossed, trying this on LW for the first time!!)…

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OMG.. seems to work!!!!! Never mind, I spoke too soon.. can't seem to get some of the pictures to rotate and can't edit the photo album... HELP!!!

Anyway.. the tree sitting in the crock is the original kitchen tree and the one on the floor (please ignore missing baseboards :P) is the back-up. It’s been set in joint compound inside a bucket from the dollar store.. and I placed red ticking fabric (coffee-stained and baked of course) on top. The tree inside the crock was also set in joint compound into a metal bucket.. I have several trees I’ve done this to.. works out well! The great thing is, they’re not overly big so I can put the lights on (leave them on) and probably even leave the ornies on, place them in plastic bags and they’ll stand up in the storage room, ready for next Christmas, when all I have to do is bring them upstairs.. good plan! Notice the Santa, Angel and Snowman teapots? Got a great deal on them years ago, they're teapots. I also have nutmeg graters, mini whisks (they were keychains I bought at a kitchen store a very long time ago, only got 2 and couldn't find them again), a blown glass frying pan with breakfast in it, a blown glass pretzel, blown glass Christmas pickle (google Christmas pickle, it's an old German custom).. the red & white striped stockings I got in the US last week.. faux gingerbread rocking horses, gingerbread candy canes I made last year, various cookie cutter ornies, etc.. I try to put things kitchen and food related or whatever I think will look good on this tree. The backup tree :D .. hahaha... has a gingerbread and candy cane theme. I just used striped pipe cleaners and primmed them up with coffee.. and baked them of course to get that crisp feel. The ceramic gingerbread were made by me many years ago when I took ceramics classes.. wish I could take credit for the eyes but they were done by the owner of the shop, she had amazing talent for eyes.. brings them to life!

Next is a tree that I found at a rummage sale, think I paid $3.. hey, it was for the orchestra so I paid “full price”.. lol.. anyway, it’s one of those tacky tinselly gold ones but I had a vision.. a Mardi Gras tree! I already had strings of lights (yellow, green and purple bulbs...official colours of Mardi Gras :) that I bought in New Orleans and I was so shocked to go into my local Walmart a couple of weeks ago and find masks in the ornie section.. it was like karma people!! I also found some small sparkly ornaments that I added, plus a mask on a stick ornie that my daughter and I picked up on our trip to NOLA last year.. it never really fit the themes of my other trees so it was perfect here. I also tossed on a bracelet in the traditional colours. I have a silk tye-dyed scarf I won a few years back so may place that under the tree as a skirt. Again, I think some of the pics are sideways.. sigh... and there may be duplicates... oh well, it's not like I'm paying for this blog right?? LOL

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Now I just need to get my “red” tree and my other two prim (alpine) trees decorated.. oh and the one for the porch and one for my office (to feature ornies for sale :) … and my daughter still wants a live one… ugh, I’m so tired just thinking about it!

On a sad note, my laptop seems to have been fried (hope not, hope not, hope not.. say it with me folks!) .. so no computer at home right now. Comments will be approved tomorrow.. if I get any.. :DDD .. have a great evening.

Another recipe!!! Easy Apple Crisp

2009-11-21T15:37:00.004-05:00

My niece wanted a recipe for apple crisp. Having two small and freakin' adorable children, I knew she'd need something easy so I emailed her the following recipe. I've made this so many times, it always turns out amazingly well and tastes great! When our exchange student from Italy lived with us, we made this and she loved it. She asked for the recipe to take back home with her but they use only metric so I ended up buying her measuring cups and spoons... which she forgot! LOL... my daughter brought them with her for her half of the exchange and the people in Italy were finally able to enjoy this fabulous dessert!

So, without further ado, here it is! Please enjoy!! (sorry no pic)

Apple Crisp

5 or 6 medium apples
1/4 cup water
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/3 cup butter
1 cup brown sugar
3/4 cup flour

Peel and slice apples, layer in a buttered casserole dish; pour water over, then sprinkle cinnamon and nutmeg. In separate bowl, mix butter, brown sugar and flour. Tip: use a fork to mix it into a crumbly texture, then pour mixture over top of apples.

Bake at 350 for approximately 45 minutes, uncovered.

Yummmmmmmo!

Cross-border shopping.. oh yeah!!!

2009-11-18T00:41:00.015-05:00

Hi!

Ok.. so it's been a week already since I crossed the border to shop and pick up some orders from my cousin's in Michigan.. time is flying!!! I was headed to Windsor but I can cross into Sarnia (Port Huron) and drive to Detroit, then cross back into Canada. Much more interesting way of getting to Windsor!

I thought I'd show you a few pics of things I picked up while I was there. I found these oval bowls at a place called Christmas Tree Shops. Cool store! It's in the same plaza as the Target in Shelby Township and is across from Lakeside Mall, on Hall Rd at Schoenherr. I've been in this area many times over the years as my cousin lives nearby, but I have never seen this store. This area is really built up and depending on which road I take, I get turned around easily.. lol. These bowls would be great with Christmas greenery and votive candles (battery operated of course, I would not light real candles in this!) or a string of battery-operated mini-lights. They have both sayings that you see, one on each side, and were only $1.99 each!

I found this plate at Christmas Tree Shops as well, only $2.99! Not sure where I'm putting it, but I'll find a spot!

These felt pieces came from Hobby Lobby.. the only one in the area is in Port Huron. I love this line, Make it Christmas! Very interesting selection of things you can buy.. a lot of the line are craft items that you can make into something else. These were $2.99 each but I think they were on for 50% off.. gotta love that!!! No idea what I'll do with them, but I couldn't leave them for this price could I???

Of course I had to hit the Dollar Tree, and found this jute wrapped wire hanger and jingle bells. The ribbon will be replaced with homespun and I might add this to my door wreath.

Christmas Tree Shops again.. these adorable buckets were only $1 each!

This was a real deal at Hobby Lobby! Paper mache saltbox house, $3.99 and 40% off of that! I can see a hole cut in the back and a light attached to the inside, and the outside all painted, sanded and primmed up! Oh, and the roof is detachable .. I'm sure there are so many other ideas that my prim friends can come up with.. suggestions please?? :)

These cute stockings were also at Christmas Tree Shops. I've already coffee-stained and rubbed some ground cloves on them, but they are cute even if you don't prim them up. They were also $1 each. The spatula and whisk I found at Cracker Barrel.. aren't they adorable?? They look like something our grandmothers would have had.. full-size of course!. These are shown on my kitchen Christmas tree, which hasn't been decorated yet (time is seriously flying by.. oh my!!). Once it's done I'll post pics. These ornies were a bit pricey but oh-so-cute.. $3.99 each.

I bought tons more, but that's it for pics for now!! This is why Canadians cross the border to shop. You have so much that we just don't have over here, and if we do it's often a lot more money. Even if prices are comparable, we just love the variety.. it can really get overwhelming! But.. it's so much fun!!

Have a great day all :D

Hayley