Helpful Ideas

Hope your are having a GREAT Summer. Mine has just been too busy to do much blogging but this email came in today from my daughter and I wanted to share it with you. 


Very good helpful ideas:  
I have not edited the pictures and do not know the source. Some pictures are not very sharp, but I am sure you will be able to get the idea anyway. Some I have used and some I plan to use.

How neat is this ... I will surely use this one!  Place a rubber band around an open paint can to wipe your brush on and keep paint off the side of the can.

Would have to be careful not to pop the rubber band or you would have splattered paint all over. 

 

Love this ... so clever and useful.  

Wish I had though of that.

Use a (clean) dustpan to fill a container that doesn't fit in the sink

 

This is one for all the DYI Bloggers.

Save your fingers from the hammer. 

I use small needle nose pliers.

Use a Comb to Keep a Nail Steady for Hammering.

Not too sure how well this will work.

Put wooden spoon across boiling pot of water to keep from boiling over.

Use sunglasses or a small convex mirror to avoid people sneaking up on you while wearing headphones at work.   Okay !

I have used this one ...

Use a post-it-note to catch drilling debris.

Use bread clips to save flip-flops with split holes.  

I just repaired my $-Store flip-flops by twisting cord around it and hot glue ... so far so good. Great tip !

 
Use a microfiber cloth to prevent frost from forming on the windshield.

Use a staple remover to save your fingernails when trying to add things to your key ring!

 

How to put shoes in the dryer. 

 

How to keep the straw from rising out of your soda can.   Very clever.

Hope you found at least one of these Ideas helpful. 

Which one would be most helpful to you?

Blesssings:

Audrey Z.

Linking to: I Gotta Create 

 

Homemaker on a Dime

My Wedding Dress after 62 Years. Where is your Wedding Dress?

My Wedding Dress …
  

62 years … oh WOW …
June 25, 2012, Mr. Z. and I have been married 

for sixty-two years. 

Meet Olivia ... who will model my dress. She is much smaller than I was, but she is beautiful. 

  

I was eighteen, fresh out of high school 
and Mr. Z. was nineteen, almost twenty. 
We  were married in a very small, 

old but beautiful, 

First Baptist Church, Kerrville, Texas. 

(Church has now been torn down) … 

This is when women wore hats to Church 
and weddings. (notice the women on the left)

 This was taken as we were coming out of the Church.

Yesterday; when I read my friend Angie’s Knick of Time blog … “Where is your Wedding Dress?  about her Mother’s wedding dress; I decided to dig mine out and see how bad it looked and answer her question. I had to move six packed storage boxes to be able to open the cedar chest (which was my hope-chest) …  to get to my wedding dress. It has been packed away for a lot of years, and was pretty wrinkled but still in good condition and very precious to me. The veil has some holes ... but ... 

Sleeve with tiny covered buttons.

   

 My Mother and Grandmother made my dress and veil; the four attendant's dresses and head pieces. I kept losing weight because of stress over the wedding and my Grandmother had to alter it two times. My mother was a self-taught seamstress and made clothes for us. My Grandmother was also very good.  

If I could easily locate my photo album, I would show the complete wedding party. 

 

This is not a priceless necklace of diamonds, rubies and gold, but one my husband gave me before we got married. Very special and I wore it and matching earrings on our wedding day. 

My parents did not have money for my wedding, so don’t know how we pulled this off.  I worked at a Five and Dime Store (remember those) during my Senior year in High School and in the summer. I had very little money and spent my last dollar on a negligee. So I was really broke when we got married. 

 

Somewhere we lived and as a member of a Newcomers Club, for one luncheon program some of us modeled our wedding dresses … lucky me … I was still able to get into mine. This was some thirty-three to thirty-five years after our wedding. Could not get in it now. LOL

We celebrated our sixty-two years together by driving about one-hundred miles to visit my sister who is in a care facility and very sick right now.  She is ninety years old (90 … 91 in August) and the oldest and only surviving sibling out of seven.  

 On the way home, we stopped for a cooling banana-split blizzard; holding hands across the table and  remembering happy times spent in soda fountains sipping sodas, malts or root-beer floats.  

 The gloves I wore on my wedding day.

Thanks Angie, I am happy to have a reason to get out my wedding dress and bring back the wonderful memories especially on our anniversary.

Hope you enjoyed reminiscing with me.

So … where is your wedding dress?

Blessing,

Audrey Z. 

Linking to:
 Knick of Time Tuesday
 Savvy Southern Style WOW us Wednesday 
Potpourri Friday 2805 

 Inspiration Friday  At The Picket Fence

Home Sweet Home at  The Charm of Home

Vintage Inspiration Friday at Common Ground

Feathered Nest Friday at French Country Cottage

Show and Tell Friday at My Romantic Home

Fridays Unfolded at Stuff and Nonsense

My Challenge.Numbered Upcycled Stair Step Display

  2805 Potpourri Friday     So happy that this post was featured ... 
Thanks Honey at 2805.

A real Challenge …

 Challenges met with courage build endurance and strengthen faith.

Be strong and of a good courage … for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest. Joshua 1:9

Don’t know what this challenge taught me … maybe more confidence in myself.

 

My inspiration came from this shelf unit I saw on eBay and it sold for over $200.00. It was blue, very shabby and weathered. 

I said … that is a piece of cake, I can make one of those. Don’t know why I wanted one, but just wanted the challenge, and I had the courage … (and the help from Mr. Z.)

Well, when I was getting ready for our annual Subdivision Garage Sale, I decided a stair-step shelf would be nice to have for display and offer for sale.

I took these seven wonderful pieces of knotty pine boards that I bought at a thrift for $3.00, thinking I would someday paint some signs and built this stair-step display instead.

 I am sorry, but I had to get rid of Dancer, Donder, Dasher and Comet and the other Reindeer.  I sanded but tried to leave traces of the red and white paint along with the green.  This is how it ended up.

 
Shelves are about 24" across ... 
about 5½" deep and the shelf unit is about 24" tall and 22" deep. 
Open in the back.

 

 

We used new board for the sides, so those were intentionally banged up a bit to age. Paint and stain was added to hopefully match up with the old boards. Before painting the steps with my DIY white chalk paint, I smeared Vaseline in several areas, especially on the knots so the paint would not adhere there. Do that and the paint will wipe right off and give you a natural peeling look.

 

Heavy sanding continued the aging process.

I set up a display on my front porch until I could find time to number the shelves.
You can click on the picture for a better view.

   

The lighting in the next pictures is a little different so the shelf looks much lighter.

The numbers were printed on my Laser printer in a mirror image and then transferred with a hot iron. This is effective to achieve the time-worn look, but it will also remove some of the paint in the process. Keep the paper hot while peeling it off and that helps with less loss of paint. 

Love the  knots !!!  

This was a challenge, but I was very happy with the way it turned out. It sold very quickly in my garage sale …(under priced, I am sure) … to a dealer opening a new booth in a shop. She was most happy and bought most of things that we had up-cycled for this sale.

 

I love to re-purpose and up-cycle and will continue to do that with my collection of junk around here as long as I am able to do so. 

Looks great with just a few plants on it. 

Hope you enjoyed seeing my challenge.

Don't think I want to build another one though.

What are you re-purposing/re-cycling and saving from the dump?

Blessings,

Audrey Z.

Linking to: 2805 Potpourri Friday

Vintage Inspiration Friday at Common Ground

Feathered Nest Friday at French Country Cottage

Show and Tell Friday at My Romantic Home

Fridays Unfolded at Stuff and Nonsense

 

ReStore Brass Lantern and Sconce make-over

This is one of the reasons I love ReStore, Habitat for Humanity … they always have interesting things that need restored or repurposed and the money they generate from donated items goes to a worthy cause. 

  

The first area that I look in is the lighting and lamp section because I love to restore lighting fixtures. I am always on the look-out for the old outdoor lighting fixtures, especially lanterns. 

 

A few weeks ago, they had three brass lanterns, two that would have been on a post in the yard and the other was a wall sconce. 

 

Only one post light was in good condition and at $5.00; it was a bargain. I decided I did not need the other two with missing parts and broken glass. Well, after I got this one restored, I loved it so much and was all excited to go back and get the other two. (Just look at that beautiful glass).

 

 

I know better than to think that they would still be there one week later … but one was. It was a wall sconce that would have been mounted on the wall by the door. 

Regardless of the condition and broken glass, I got it anyway and I knew it would be just what I needed for my fireplace. $5.00 was okay with me for that one too. Mr. Z. was able to glue the three pieces of the pane back together. That piece leaning against the sconce in the before, is a pane of glass.

 

After a good cleaning, I painted them with my favorite color (dried thyme). New wiring, insulation covers and sleeves were added. I used Mod Podge and covered the sockets sleeves with old sheet music. They are not real noticeable, but I like the look.  

The glass is beautiful light amber with lots of bubbles, lines and character. In fact the glass in the sconce looks like it is raining when the light is on. 

 

I put the miniature iron bird bath inside and it looks like a garden scene, I use this as a night light on the fireplace. The post lantern on the entry hall table right now.   

 

Both turned out very nice and I am enjoying them very much.

 

 What have you found at ReStore that you just LOVE?

Blessings,
Audrey Z. 

Thanks for your visit and nice comment.

Linking to:  
Savvy Southern Style WOW us Wednesday

Pimpjunktion

I Gotta Create 
Ivy & Elephants What's It Wednesday