Broken but not defeated.

Broken but not defeated., originally uploaded by AnnieElf.

I ordered two butter dishes that were on sale through Anthropologie catalog. One was mint and the other this pretty, buttery yellow. Obviously the yellow one did not arrive intact. I called customer services and they are shipping me a replacement but rather than throw this away, I am repairing it. I didn't think to take a picture of all the broken pieces to be repaired until I was down to ONE, but better late than never. A bit of glue here and there and it's ready for new life. There will be nothing utilitarian about the new life though. I have plans for a shrine or perhaps a little fairy house.

What Brings Me Joy

Today was my big day. Today was the day that Don decreed that the garage decluttering of "stuff" was complete.

Three garage sale bound loads of "stuff", countless "stuff" tossed, and the rediscovering of treasures all over again, has brought me to the next phase of my decluttering adventure. Now it is time to put the remains back together.

I wish I could say that the two pictures above represent the remains but alas, I cannot. This is just a bit of it but I must have done something right because the Hubs is not complaining. In fact, he told me "You done good". I have to admit, his satisfaction left me feeling very satisfied and revved up for more.

Interestingly, all the divesting and dejunking also got me to thinking along the lines of china cabinets. I have so many pretty things from mom and grandma that are just packed away that I decided I really wanted to be able to see them again. But where would I put a china cabinet. There is just so much furniture. Well, that got me to thinking about a corner of our family room I call "the dirty corner".

The dirty corner is the line-up of an oversize TV/media center, a really big bookcase, a cedar chest filled with Christmas decor and it's all bumped up against a built in wall unit that connects to our fireplace. So - fresh from my dejunking efforts, I bravely broached the topic of china cabinets to the Hubs. I won't go into the details of our negotiations but the end result is that everyone is happy and will get what they want. We anticipate a summer renewal of the family room with photos, of course.

So yes, color me joyful. This decluttering thing has some decidedly unexpected benefits. I say, "go for it". You just have no idea where it will lead you.

Revisiting my favorite shop

The book club met up again at Divas so that involved another step over the threshold into my favorite antiques and collectibles shop. Crow Trading Company usually leaves me a little lighter in the pocket after I visit, but somehow that didn't happen today. I did find a Civil War print, all nicely framed and the owner very nicely dropped $6 off the $28 asking price. I showed it to Don and he suggested thinking about it. Well, two days later I'm thinking about it and I think if is still there NEXT Friday, I will just have to get it for him.

In the meanwhile, I wandered around discovering new items and fell in love with this sideboard. Don't look at the center of the picture too closely. It's a bit cockeyed since it's actually two pictures blended into one. The match up was a bit short of perfect. No mater though; I'm sure you get the idea.

If I could have, I would have brought this cross home with me. But at $138.00, I knew it would find a home somewhere else. However . . . the beauty of inspiration is that you can take something that appeals to you and reinvent it to make it your own. The possibilities of remaking this into my own are . . . well . . . endless and I have the simple pleasure of knowing that I don't have to spend a penny to recreate this. I already have an abundance of the materials I will need in my possession.

Once Upon A Time . . .

Over the years, I've had a tug of war of possessions with dear hubby. He tosses things. I don't. Everything has it's place with him. I am lost without my clutter. Sometimes this has created a lot of stress for both of us. Neither of us have changed much EXCEPT that he is more tolerant now and I try to be a little less cluttered. He might disagree, however, with that last statement about my change.

The projects below are a part of one of the struggles I won. Thirty plus years ago, I was trying out quilting and monochromatic embroidery. I got only so far with the projects and eventually tucked them away. Life moved on and they patiently waited in a box (occasionally threatened by Don raids), confident in MY confidence that their time would circle around again. This month their confidence paid off.

Two of the items I didn't finish were pillows. I completed the red embroidered pattern, attached the batting and didn't get any farther than that. The little squares (2 x 4) were sewn together and it stopped there.

Then, a few weeks ago, I started cleaning out the top of my closet and up they surfaced from the box. I went to Wal-Mart and found a pretty bit of rose patterned cotton and pulled out my very neglected sewing machine.

The end result was two pillows, one mini-tote, and one instruction video on how to thread a bobbin. The tote is lined with the rose pattern fabric and is reversible. I'm really pleased with the results and I've begun a love affair with my sewing machine.

Here is the other side of the tote.


Here is the exterior now turned into the interior.

And here is the turned inside out rose pattern tote

I also had started a larger quilt and I pieced together a backing for it from the remains of the rose fabric and four rectangle shaped islet samplers. The end result is about the size to wrap a newborn in. It is the perfect size for tucking into a bassinet or stroller.

So now the battle is over with the Hubs. He still wants me to get rid of them however. Now the question is "What are you going to do with them"? The answer is "I don't know but it sure won't take me 30 more years to decide".

No work Friday but not a Furlough Friday

During the summer I try to take time off on Fridays and give myself three day weekends. This usually adds up to using vacation days. This summer, though, with furloughs days now the order of the day for California state workers, I did not have to use vacation time for a couple of my Fridays after furloughing kicked in.

Today though was the last of my vacation Fridays. Academic workdays start this coming week and the first day of classes is September 9th. But even though it isn't a Furlough Friday, I did make lots of progress on some on-going projects this week. The first is this lamp.

Krista pulled an all-niters at a girlfriend's house last Fall celebrating her friend's brother's safe return from Afghanistan. It was a rowdy night and the girlfriends all ended up doing the pajama party thing later. She came home with this really pretty tequilla bottle (empty of course) and I immediately claimed it for a future lamp project.

One stop at Paul's Glass Shop to drill a hole in the base and several months later (today) with a trip to Orchard Supply, the bottle has now been wired into a lamp. I am happy to say that I DID THE WIRING. But that isn't to say that there weren't a few bumps along the way.

The first connecting of the wires was all wrong. When I plugged the lamp in to test the bulb and nothing happened I turned the lamp off and of course, unplugged the cord. Ouch. The cord was HOT!! and I burned my hand. I thought that was really weird but the cord cooled off, I re-read the directions, and plugged the lamp in again. Again, nothing happened but at least this time the cord wasn't hot.

One last try and then in went the plug again (in a different socket). Touchdown! The crowd roared! There was light. Now all I have to do is find/make the shade. Picture to follow, of course, when that is accomplished. But wait. The story isn't over yet.

Several hours later, Don mentions that the dishwasher, garbage disposal and over the sink light isn't working. He was going to call our electrician tomorrow and that is when I thought about the hot cord. Uh uh. I blew the fuse, circuit, switch - whatever you call that thingamajig - and of course that explains why the second plug-in test didn't work. It all had a happy ending though. Once Don knew what had happened, he reset the switch in the electrical box outside and all was well in the kitchen again.

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Fifteen to sixteen years ago, I found this stained glass window at a little antique shop in Placerville. At the time, it was three separate windows framed out in spectacularly plain and seriously ugly frames. They hung separately in their unfortunate frames for many years and after Christmas decorations came down one year, they just never went back up.

Last summer, I brought them to a stained glass artist here in town and over a period of a year, the frames were removed, the leading cleaned up, old paint scoured away, and the three windows rejoined to make one large window. She framed the now single window in a plain style and painted the base a soft taupe. Then she applied crackle medium and covered that with a soft creamy white. The overall effect was exactly what I was looking for. Finally, I found my way over to the shop last week and picked up the finished piece. My only problem now was to figure out where the heck I was going to hang it. THAT, of course, is where Don came in.

Don has really good taste and he has an excellent eye for seeing the possibilities that I totally miss. I'm really good with the big picture. He's that too plus he has an eye for detail. I knew I could depend on him to come up with a solution. And boy did he find the solution. The window is now hanging from the ceiling in our computer/crafts/library room. Set in front of the window, it catches the morning light and then all the indirect light throughout the day.

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One last and very important things was completed today. The yo-yo's have a new home. Several months ago I brought home from Goodwill, a white framed mirror. It leaned against one of my crafting cabinets, on the floor, through the winter and spring. I had no idea where to put it. It was just one of those things I had to get.

Then - I discovered that the mirror was the same dimensions as my finished yo-yo's. I dropped them on the mirror and oh my, did I ever have an OMG moment. I would make a tray.

I picked up the handles at Orchard (my favorite go-to place for hardware) and Don and his drill went to work. And, surprise, surprise, he also attached little feet on the bottom of the tray.

I went over to Paul's Glass Shop again and right on the spot, they cut a piece of glass to fit over the mirror and yo-yo's. The glass floats a bit above the edge of the mirror so OSH supplied the needed doodads to hold the glass in place and being small, round, and white, won't detract from the overall look at all.

It has been a wonderful day and I still have Saturday and Sunday in front of me. I have some reading ahead of me for a Monday night class Don and I are going to start attending. And I have a writing project that I hope to post sometime Sunday. Somewhere in all of this I'm going to use up the peaches before they go totally bad and make a peach cobbler. That will be the perfect thank you to my dear DH for all he has done this week to help me get to the end of these projects. Happy weekend everyone. I'll be visiting around soon.