Cedar Chest

Yesterday, my husband and I went to a city, about 150 miles from where we live, to see our best friends' son in a college production of Pride and Prejudice. Our daughter lives in the same city, and as we had some time prior to the performance, my daughter, my husband and myself dropped into the local Goodwill to check out the goodies.

This is what I found:

A beautiful (though somewhat worse for wear) Lane cedar chest. It has real cedar inside!

After some shrewd wheeling and dealing, I was able to purchase it for $100. Not too bad. My husband, and a helpful store worker, loaded into the back seat of our car, and we drove around the remainder of the weekend with a cedar chest filling the back seat of our Hyundai.

We arrived home today in the early afternoon. I washed the grime off the chest and removed the old handles and upholstery fabric.

After searching through my fabric stash, I found a piece of upholstery fabric I had purchased on clearance at Hobby Lobby. I used this to recover the upholstered top. My son helped me pick out some new handles for the chest at our local Home Depot.

A little 0000 steel wool and a can of Restore-a-Finish later, and we now have a beautiful heirloom sitting at the end of our bed.

I am extremely pleased with how it turned out.

Not only does it look lovely, and provide woodsy smelling storage; it also serves as a stepping stool for our older dog who is beginning to have a hard time jumping up onto the bed.

It is very gratifying to go from this:

 To this...in an afternoon!

Black Friday Craft Project 2012

Once again my daughter and I spent Black Friday crafting instead of battling  crowds of shoppers. 
This year's craft was a sock snowman.

I started looking for an appropriate Black Friday Craft project beginning in October. 
Pinterest provided the research venue. The inspiration for this project can be found at the following link: 
http://childmadetutorials.blogspot.com/2009/12/what-fun-way-to-display-your-candy.html
The blog described using a small white sock for both the face and the hat. We decided to use a white sock for the face, and a holiday sock from the Dollar Tree for the hat.
Some other changes we made; using Puff paint, for the eyes and mouth, beads for the eyes, and holiday buttons for the hat embellishment.
In addition we gave each of the snowmen, a different personality.

 
We watched movies while we crafted and had a wonderful time talking and working together. 
I treasure these times with my daughter, because I know that very soon we may not be able to spend this kind of time together.
Last year, we began this tradition with creating Christmas trees: A Little Fun on the Day After Thanksgiving

We ended up making 22 snowmen and some precious memories at the same time.

Kindle Cover

My wonderful husband gave me a Kindle Fire for Christmas! I absolutely love it!
I wanted to get a cover to protect it from bumps and dust, but when I looked for one to buy, I was put off by the price.
$30 to $100 for a Kindle cover!?!?! I was not willing to pay that.
The solution was for me to do what I always do in these situations...I searched the Internet for a pattern and instructions.
I found some on www.chicaandjo.com. The instructions on their site are for older models of the Kindle, but conversion instructions for different sized devices are included.
I think my first attempt at this little project turned out pretty well.  As my daughter said, "Fancy."

Working on this project, and seeing the results, got me thinking about modifying the instructions I found and creating a different style of Kindle case.
I am mulling it over as I write this, so check back to see what I manage to create.

A Little Fun on the Day After Thanksgiving

My daughter and I had a little fun on this Black Friday and it didn't involve going to the stores at midnight, or even 5:00 in the morning.
What we did was create a little Christmas magic using materials from our local Dollar Tree store.

I saw these paper trees in the December issue of Better Homes and Gardens and decided they would be an easy, fun little project.
They are filled with candies (also from the Dollar Tree). 
Believe it or not, they were created from various Christmas bags and boxes.

After a quick trip around the corner to the local Dollar Tree to pick up supplies, including shiny, sparkly Christmas bags and boxes, double-sided tape, and candy; we spent the rest of the afternoon cutting, gluing, taping and laughing. We watched a Christmas movie while we worked (The Holiday~ Could Jude Law be any yummier?). 
In addition to the trees, we made a mess...

but mostly we made some great memories!

This may become a new tradition for us. Much more enjoyable than getting up at the crack of dawn to shop at Walmart.

Dollar Tree Halloween Wreath

I absolutely love the Dollar Tree. The variety of items and the amazing quality of some of them is great. The Dollar Tree is my first stop when I am getting ready to decorate my home for the season or the holidays. It is also a budget friendly place to purchase cleaning supplies.
With that intent in mind (cleaning supplies) my husband and I made the trip to our local Dollar Tree this past weekend, and of course I had to check out the Halloween and fall decorations.

I decided I could use some of these to create a wreath to hang on our front door for Halloween. 
I love how it turned out and it cost a total of $4! It was fun and easy to make. By the way...the bats even glow in the dark!
Oh ya, we did get cleaning supplies too.