Category Archives: rustic

one chair-back, three ways

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What do you do with a broken chair? Fix it or throw it away, right? Or… you can re-use it as something else. For instance, you can make it into a shelf, a photo display or a coat rack. I know. Just look at Pinterest. There’s tons of ideas there. 
I couldn’t make up my mind what I wanted mine to be, but I found the bits to make it into an adaptable chair-back – it’ll adapt to any situation you put it in! Just pick a room and it’ll fit in with what you need it to do. Or be.
The best bit, I think, is the antique curtain rod holders I found. I’ve had these rusted and bent things for a few years, just waiting for the perfect project to use them on. They’re just so cute with their little flower topped screws for holding in the curtain rod.
I got a couple of bulldog clips – with the requisite amount of rust on them – and added those to the back to hold things… 
So, here are some options: 
1.  Kitchen utensil hanger. It can hold handy kitchen tools and recipes.

2. Garden tool hanger. The bulldog clips are a handy place for seed packets and gardening gloves.

3. Hand towel holder. The clips can hold shopping lists or notes.

I also tried the variation of a tea towel on the rod… it works, but the I think it works best as a hand towel roll holder. Hand rolls really struggle to look good in a kitchen and this kind of dresses it up in my opinion.

So where will it live? I’m not sure. I have to think about it. All three ideas work.
Till then it waits to find its home…
z

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cluttered easter sideboard

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I don’t usually do special things for Easter. In fact, I barely do special things for Christmas… I mean, who remembers the chalkboard Christmas tree when I was too lazy to make a real one? Or the book stack tree? Even when I did make an effort, it was minimal.

Well, this Easter, inspired by the anti-bunnies I’ve been making for my Etsy shop, and finding a rusty rubbish bin in my stash, I’ve gone all out.

Working on the theory of more is more, and the design principle of clutter is good, I’ve decorated our sideboard with a mix of vintage, rusty, junk and food.

I like it.

Of course, unless the hot cross buns get eaten soon they’ll have to be covered, ditto the chocolate, but hey, for one day it looks great. When the food is gone I’ll just add a few other things to maintain the cluttered look.

Its not like I don’t have a lot of junk.

So, what’s taking up space on my sideboard today?

Starting on the left, a couple of empty frames I’ve moved from one house to another and never got around to filling ‘frame’ (hahah) an antique vent I found at a tip shop. Just had to have it. I mean, could you resist that shape? Sure, its not exactly your average sideboard decor…

A couple of funnels add the necessary (in my life) rust factor. And a couple of anti-bunnies sit back and enjoy the view.

What are anti-bunnies you might ask? Well, they’re scrappy monster bunnies, kind of the opposite of cute Easter bunnies. Not that they aren’t cute. These guys are cute as. They’re made of a mix of recycled and vintage fabrics. I recycled bits of fabric out of an antique armchair the poodles pulled apart. Turns out it was stuffed with fabric scraps. Who knew.

The middle section is the serious section – ie the food section. Since I sold all my cake stands and haven’t made any more (yet) I’ve had to improvise using one of my retro kitchen scales and an antique serving dish. The dish holds eggs of both kinds: real and chocolate. I bet you know which I’ll be going for…

You can’t have Easter without hot cross buns, and naturally you need butter for those. I don’t have a butter curler so I’ve had to make do. The napkins are vintage ones I’ve collected over the years from different places. One on the right under the side dishes was given to me by my aunt Marissa in Greece – it used to belong to my grandmother.

On the right its ‘help yourself’ with a stack of smaller plates and knives. But it can’t be too practical… Old timber cogs, old books and a couple of sets of salt and pepper shakers, topped off by a wooden duck finish the look… Cause what sideboard is complete without a duck?

Above it all hangs the masterpiece. A rusty galvanised bin lid I scrounged from somewhere years ago. Does anyone remember my previous bin lid projects? I love rusty bin lids. This one holds more anti-bunnies and a couple of vintage Easter greeting cards I found online. The cards are held in place by vintage earring magnets (also for sale in my Etsy shop).

This rusty lid has little hooks on the side so I tied a bit of hemp rope to hang it with. I placed a few of those floor protector felt pads on the back to stop it from marking the wall.

The sideboard itself is something I acquired via barter. Barter = good. A friend of mine had a sideboard I’d admired and he admired the oriental cabinet I used to have my TV on. We swapped. Everyone is happy.

The sideboard is a very heavy solid tassie oak piece, made in Tasmania. It holds all kinds of useful things and doubles as our bar. Its very useful and very pretty.

Speaking of sideboards and cabinets, I saw this one in my online browsing and fell in love. I want it. Its nothing like the oriental – or ‘ming’ cabinet I had my TV on and swapped for my sideboard (ie it has the same ‘locks’ on the doors)… its way better!

Anyway, back to reality, you know what its like with these vintage cabinets – they have keys and if you lose them you’re in trouble. I think I have one key to share between 3 bits of furniture – including the small cupboard in my office.

In order to make this key less prone to being misplaced, I’ve added a tassel I made of jute string. It was okay, but a bit too plain. I thought the sideboard needed a bit of bling so I steampunked it up a bit with bits of chain, crystals and other bits from an old necklace.

Much better.

There you go. Our sideboard is finally all dressed up.

Now… what else can I decorate…?

z

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fun junky planters

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I’ve been a bad blogger. I’ve let other things (like working and earning money to eat) get in the way of sharing all the exciting things going on around here. I know you’ve missed me and are dying to hear how things are going at Wind Dancer Farm.
Well… not much really. Except that I’m about $1200 poorer thanks to Romeo. First a couple of weeks ago while grooming him, I found he’d got a grass seed in the sheath of his penis. Yikes. And while investigating that I saw he had a lump on his flank. It didn’t look like a grass seed but I took him straight to the vet. There was nothing in the privates, whatever had got in had got out thankfully. He got a course of antibiotics and it cleared up.
The other thing, the lump, the vet was concerned about. The ‘c’ word was mentioned. So Romeo went in for surgery to have the lump removed and a biopsy done. We then waited a week to hear. Romeo limping uncomfortably cause he also seemed to have a grass seed in his left front paw. I searched but couldn’t see anything so I waited to see if it would improve.
The biopsy said the lump was cutaneous reactive histiocytosis. Not something usually found in poodles or even, for that matter, on that part of the body. Wierd. We are waiting and seeing if it was a one off… I’ve got my fingers crossed.
When the stitches came out I asked the vet to check his foot which was not improving. He couldn’t find any indication of a grass seed either and thought Romeo might have broken his toe. He gave him anti-inflammatories.
Well, it got worse and worse till I saw that there was now a hole in the webbing between his toes. I searched and pulled out a grass seed spike and took him back to the vet. They kept him for the day and searched but didn’t find any more foreign bodies. They cleaned it out and sent him home with a red bandage, antibiotics and he’s also on anti-inflammatories again. It should clear up now but till then we call him Limpy.
Poor Romeo.
Other than that all is well. The garden is looking shocking but given that a reader commented on my old toolbox planter I thought I’d share some of my whimsical plant containers.
I have quite a few old and rusty galvanised buckets. This one, one of my favourites, sits on the porch cause the begonia doesn’t like it too hot or frosty.

Last year I bought this gorgeous 60s planter from a garage sale and have put small pots with succulents in it, as well as a cutting of a beautiful pinky white geranium I’m growing.

At the end of the porch I have my lovely old mop bucket. We had one of those things when I was growing up. I much prefer it as a planter.

Since its now autumn the garden is looking pretty awful. Most plants have finished flowering and look ratty. But some are coming up again. Like the sweetpeas in the rusty old washing machine tub and the columbines in and around the old ammo box.

The steps up the porch have some new seedlings in them, alysum and lobelia which will fill and overflow the old pots and loaf tins they’re in.

I’ve replaced the succulents in the bike basket with plants which will overflow and cascade as well. Cat mint, which has purple flowers, in one pot and a pink groundcover I’ve forgotten the name of in the other.

In three pots in a basket on the back of the bike I’ve got a white daisy like plant, some alysum and lobelia. The white will grow upwards and the others should cascade. One day it’ll look great… one day.

The succulents I put in my stacked containers are coming along nicely. I have three of these but the third isn’t looking too good yet. I made these a couple of years ago for indoor storage but decided they’d work better with plants in them. They’re made of spindles and baking tins.

I made hanging baskets out of old strainers and steamers, put succulents in them and hung them on the wall near the door. Only succulents do well in planters with so many holes as they dry out very quickly.

I’ve had this old cane chair for many years, I bought it in an op shop when I was living in Fentonbury. When I got it it was dark brown, I used a wire brush to brush off the flaking paint and sprayed it white. The paint is flaking off again now so I decided to relegate it to a garden ornament.

A bright petunia will full the jam pot. Next spring I’ll put in another one – this time in spring so I have flowers through summer.

I used to have a lot of old toolboxes with succulents in them but this is one of the last ones. I sold a few of them at the market stall I did in January. I love old toolboxes and this one in blue and rust is just gorgeous.

The last one is the one on the back of this little tricycle.

You’ll notice the flour sifter near the old (cheap) half barrel planter that I can’t move without it falling apart. I have 3 sifters but this is one in best condition – ie the plant is still thriving.

One of the other sifters lies next to an overturned pot full of succulents. Hopefully the succulent in it will grow and spread. If not I’ll just put another in there!
This little area is in a wasted corner of the driveway where the retaining wall meets the steps to the path. I envisage that the succulents will grow and fill the area.
The other side of the retaining wall is decorated with some more buckets and drums.

And more ammo boxes… with more seedlings in them!

Do you get the feeling I love rusty old things? Well, you wouldn’t be wrong!

I do need to get out into the garden and begin trimming things back for winter and, if things go to plan, there’ll be a ton of flowers next spring.
I’ve been holding myself back waiting for the right time to cut things back. I get the urge to do it as soon as things begin to look ratty. Well, time is fast approaching. Time to tidy the garden, plug up all the holes the birds use to nest in, continue making the yard safer for the dogs next summer (ie keep them safe from snakes).
Lots to do.
Always.
z

my new farm gate

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Progress on the new grooming room is slow. I had one day where things kinda just flowed and things got done. I was up on ladders, using my arms and head to hold up sheets of MDF to the ceiling and using the nail gun to secure them there.
Then I ran out of MDF.
Turns out I’d measured correctly but remembered wrong. I needed 6 sheets (of the biggest size I could handle on my own) but remembered to buy 4.
Live and learn my friends.
So, having NOT finished the ceiling I couldn’t very well finish everything else. I had one and a half walls I could put ‘skirting boards’ and ‘cornices’ on.
I placed those words in quotation marks cause I’m not using either cornice or skirting boards for the job. I got plain pine boards cause it was the cheapest way to go. The end result is the same: I’m covering gaps where walls meet ceiling or walls.
Having done the bits I could do without finishing the ceiling, I looked around at what I could do next…
…and found the gate.
Ok. I didn’t find the gate. I found the gate was a job I could do which wasn’t affected by the unfinishedness of the ceiling.

I had planned to use pallet wood to make the gate, but I had 2 long pieces of old tassie oak flooring outside the grooming room, in the tiny yard, just waiting for a use. So I used them.
Firstly I had to measure the distance between the cement slabs the casita and the tiny shed (its an aviary) are sitting on, then the distance between the walls. I’d already attached an extra post to the one on the side of the casita which holds up the porch roof so I could swing the gate off it.
I cut my timber pieces the height I wanted – tall enough to stop a dog jumping over them. 
Then I did what any sane, mathematically challenged person would do: I marked the measurments out on the floor and lay the timber down, spacing the boards by eye and laying the cross pieces over the top. Good enough for me.
I joined all the boards together using screws then reinforced those with nails. 
I cut my Z pieces. I did two cause I couldn’t work out the angle to cut a single one on… I did say I was mathematically challenged! In order to save wastage I went with 45 degree angles and 2 Z pieces. It should work fine.
I hope.
Last I used some nice strong chicken wire over the back of the gate cause the gaps are big enough to allow dogs through. I had wanted a picket style gate with small gaps but I didn’t want to spend money on treated pine or fence pickets.
This is one heavy gate cause tassie oak is heavy stuff. I had to get some pretty strong hinges from Wayne’s collection of rusty items to hang them with.
I love my new rustic gate. It fits between the wall of the casita and the aviary and will stop dogs from escaping into the paddocks.

I’ll be putting a bolt onto the gate at #1, put a hole into the aviary wall for the bolt to slide into.

#2 shows where the end board is cut short to accommodate the height of the concrete slab. I found I had to reinforce that spot as the wire could have been bent by a particularly insistent dog bent on escape. (haha)

#3 is where a sliver of wood was removed to allow the gate to swing without hitting the concrete on the casita side.

All in all, a job well done.

I’ll finish this post with a gratuitous photo of a poodle: Romeo was overseeing my gate-building efforts. He approves.
z

our junky porch

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Our porch is a receptacle for junk. I mean, its the natural place for it, right? You come home with  your hands full and think “I’ll just leave that here till later” and you put it on the old box Wayne uses for his boots.
Or you step out onto the porch with an armload of stuff that doesn’t belong in the house, or you no longer want in the house, and you think “I’ll just leave this here till later…”  Or forever.
See the oil stain on the decking? Well, that’s where someone sat a chainsaw when the porch was all new and shiny. I won’t mention names, but it starts with “W” and ends with “ayne”.
I’m sure that at the time he was thinking “I’ll just rest it here for a while”… which turned into weeks and a permanent stain.
But its the nice junk on our porch I want to share with you today. Like this rusty birdcage I found at a tip shop a few years ago.

The coat rack I made using big nails and recycled skirting board, with a cute little bird accent.

The rusty propeller (ok, tractor fan) light I made.

The beautiful rusty old typewriter found on the side of the road. You may recognise it as part of one my blog headers.

The old chalkboard, made from something I found once – no idea what it was. Now it hangs beside the door to the mudroom with hopeful advice.

I recycled an old mantle shelf I found in one of our sheds by putting it under the kitchen window for plants or my collection of old white vases. And rusty hooks and other rusty things. Don’t you just love this hook?

My collection of old shears and rusty scissors.

Even the unattractive electricity meter box is dressed up with two wire hearts. The white one was once a wire coathanger…

I have a collection of old galvanised buckets. This is one without holes so I’ve put a pot inside it with my tortured begonia. I’ve almost killed it at least three times.

The fish Wayne made hang on the wall. He made these out of wire and flattened corregated iron. Aren’t they great!

An old, weatherbeaten table, a very comfy cane chair and a kid size chair grouped around an old galv mop bucket bursting with succulents.

A not so old galvanised watering can is now a planter, sitting on an old school desk the sun and rain are doing their best to ruin.

I love our porch, even if it doesn’t actually have much of a comfy area to sit and relax. I just love looking over the garden and enjoying my collection of junk.
z

industrial rustic table

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Today I’m revisiting a project I did a couple of years ago. Not sure exactly when I made this table, but it was Wayne’s second desk for quite a while.
The base of the table is an old office desk from the tip shop. The top was ruined when I got it but that was ok, I got it with the plan of putting a salvaged timber top on it. That’s one plan I actually followed through on!

Up till now I’ve been quite lucky with salvaged timber – when we bought our farm there was tons of old wood just lying around the place, exposed to the weather and rotting away. We saved and reused, then stored what was left over. Wayne fixed and extended the stable using this wood. We revamped our woodshed using it. We’ve gone through a lot of it, but its not all gone yet.

I went through what’s left of the timber to find 4 pieces that matched. I didn’t. But I found some which were close enough. That’s the beauty of rustic… it doesn’t have to be perfect!

I had to brace the timber under the table to hold the slats together, and I used the holes in the metal frame to screw the top on. I then gave it a light sand to make sure there were no loose bits and to even out the worst of the wear.

Of course that ended up taking away the gorgeous grey weathered look I wanted.

Easy fixed. Using a mix of acrylic artist paints I gave the timber a wash, brushing on watery paint then rubbing it off, till I got the colour I wanted.

I used black wood putty in nail holes and filled the gaps between slats with gap filler. When that was dry I gave it a couple of coats of semi gloss polyurethane to make it easy to keep clean.

It was great as a desk. For a while. But it doesn’t have drawers. So I made Wayne a new desk (the less said about that one the better!), and this one is now for sale. If I had a large kitchen I’d keep it for an industrial rustic farmhouse look… but our kitchen is too small for such a long table. Its too cool to end up as a workbench, thus I’m trying to find it a new home.
Sometimes you just have to part with things in order to make room for new creations!
z

where we’re at

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Literally or philosophically? Maybe a bit of both!

Whatever.

Either way, I thought it was time to catch you up on stuff around here.

Everyone is well – dogs, horses, geese, ducks, chickens… us. Although one chicken is looking half plucked. Its autumn… I know they go through a molting phase, but she’s a step above being in a roasting pan by the looks of her.

Meanwhile, we’re down one rooster. We did have two – one was a home bred boy. He’s disappeared. Either he was run off by his dad or he met a sticky end. I haven’t found any evidence to suggest which.

Without rain there’s no grass so we’ve been hard feeding the horses a few months now. There’s no hay to be found anywhere and, if you can find it, it costs more than gold.

Here’s Waldo, sharing his breakfast with the chickens. I give Wally a wide berth… after the time he bit me I’m very wary of his teeth.

Dancer, on the other hand, is a real smoocher. We love that girl! 

We have a new female goose. She arrived one day and paired up with one of the boys. That now makes us the proud owners of 3 couples. I really am afraid of what will happen when they decide to have more babies. We got lucky last year. One of the girls lay 20 or so eggs but didn’t sit on them long enough to hatch them.

Next year when they lay eggs I think I’ll skulk around stealing them!

Our dam has never been so low. Its spring fed and it’s always been full. This summer its more mud puddle than dam. I think we either stuffed up the spring when we had it dug out or the spring has dried up. The dam never seemed to bounce back from being dug out, the water has been like brown soup since… then again, with the lack of rain around here, maybe the spring has just packed it in.

If the situation doesn’t improve I think the geese might move out. Not sure if that’ll make me sad or glad. I love them, but they’re pretty deadly on any plants I try to get growing where they can reach.

I mean the horses are bad enough, but now I had to rethink all the fencing. Not just tall and strong for the horses, also shorter and closer for the geese!

Wayne built a cute bonfire pile in the middle paddock. Won’t be long now and he’ll be out there roasting marshmallows. If he liked them. And if people actually roasted marshmallows in Australia.

It looks like a forest fairy home, complete with a door. I suggested we could do a rain dance one night under a full moon. The neighbours would enjoy that.

Providing we keep our clothes on.

Meanwhile, Wayne and I are doing a regular radio show at our local community radio station. It was my idea, I have a ton of cds and some vinyl from my rockabilly/rock’n’roll days and I thought it’d be a great opportunity to listen to and share my music. So far we’re really enjoying it.

Turns out Wayne is a closet radio announcer! Who knew? He’s a natural.

You can stream it online if you’re out of range, so look us up – TYGA FM 98.9 – 12-2pm on Sundays.

Other than that, I think I may have mentioned I’ve lost my mojo in terms of creativity lately. I just don’t have the motivation. Or energy. Or desire.

My get up and go has got up and gone.

One of the only things I dragged myself out to do last weekend was put up three old mirrors in the mud room. We now have someplace to check ourselves before we walk out the door. Surely that’s a good thing.

When I feel flat like this I have to remember – we’ve done so much to this place since we moved in. All I have to do is look at the old photos to appreciate that.

And darn… I have to remove the Xmas bow from the front door.

I told you I’ve been ‘off’ lately.

Sometimes its ok to just watch TV, read books and rest. Its ok to do nothing for a while.
At least that’s what I tell myself. I’m almost convinced.
z

an embarrassing desk makeover

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This is an embarrassing post… But in the interest of reality, here goes…
I’ll start at the beginning: 
Those of you who know me know that I like rearranging furniture. I also like re-assigning furniture and making it over. And over. Then moving it again.
It keeps me busy and Wayne confused.
When we first moved into our home I created an office for both myself and Wayne. He got an extra large desk and I got a cupboard door on filing cabinets. He never used his desk, preferring to work in the kitchen, so I created an office space in the living room for him using my original corner office desk. 
There was nothing wrong with that desk… It was large. It was practical.  But it didn’t have drawers and it was made of melamine.
I dislike melamine.
So, I replaced it with something more my style.* I had this old office desk with metal legs and a crappy top. I put weathered timber on top and all was well with my soul.
Wayne lost his corner desk and had to adjust to less desk acreage.
*Cause it might be his desk, but its my style!
This new improved desk had the same issue as the corner melamine desk. No drawers. Wayne ended up with about 54 odds and ends to hold all his stuff. When you don’t have drawers you have a small filing cabinet, an el cheapo metal and plastic drawer unit whose drawers fall out every time you pull them out, and a couple of bookcases… 
No so pretty. Not the style I was going for.
Just before Christmas I decided it was time to move Wayne’s office space. 
Again.
(No, he has no say in this.)
I put a divider in the middle of the living room for the TV and moved Wayne to the other side so the first thing you see when you walk into the living room isn’t his messy office desk.
Then, just to keep things interesting, I decided to change his desk. 
Again.
We had this old desk in the garage since we’d moved here. I got Wayne to remove the top cause it was beyond repair – he’d been sitting his chainsaws on it. As you do. It was covered in oil. 

The main issue with this desk was that the leg space was so narrow. Just imagine all the times you’d knock your knees on this!
I took the saw to it and cut it apart (in a really messy way), leaving me with two drawer units. The plan was to paint these units, put them on castors and plonk a large shed door on top.
It all started well enough. I gave them a light sand, then mixed up my own chalk paint – in white. Of course.

I added castors.

I painted some random numbers on it, cause I have stencils you know.

And yes, I know I put it on upside down.

This is the door I had earmarked for the top. Its half of a huge hinged garage door.

I love the chippy cream paint. 
I didn’t put a top on the units, just plonked this baby down on top of them. I mean, why bother, right? No one would see it.
I got all the pieces up to the living room (that is one heavy door!) and put it all together. Wayne began moving his stuff in…
I hated it. Not just cause of the upside down stencil either. It just didn’t look right.
Then, while I was wondering what I should do to fix it, Wayne broke it. One of the bottom drawers got stuck on a castor lock and he heaved and broke it.
I thought about repainting it. I mean, I had to fix it anyway… but what colour?
I thought about black, but I didn’t have any black. I did have dark grey… Same colour as our feature wall… I thought ok… how about I paint it dark grey? 
I painted the drawer fronts first. Not sure I liked that either so I didn’t paint the units.
I used offcuts of plywood, which I had planned to use to finish the TV unit, to put a top and bottom on the units. The plan this time was no castors, just a flat bottom. For the extra height needed, I put a little shelf on top. This provides a handy place for Wayne’s large sketchbooks.

Its still not right. Its messy looking, but given that its a door with Z braces on the back, not much I can do about that part.

The one thing I did do to the door is attach a small piece of pine along the back to stop things rolling off behind the desk. You can just see it below, behind the lamp base.

For now its more or less finished, and I can pull it apart easily any time.

The dressmakers model and the cream Ikea trolley are mine. In case you’re wondering. I’m working on a wearable art piece on the model and the trolley holds my pastels.

This is how the desk area looks now. Cosy.
But I’m still not happy with the desk. I’m thinking all black drawer units and natural timber on top would be the best way to go. I haven’t painting anything black since my student days…
I need to buy black paint.
Wayne won’t be happy if I pull his desk apart and start over…
z

easy industrial stencil art

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Somewhere along the line, my rustic shabby country farmhouse has turned a bit industrial. I mean with the poles in the middle of the living room there weren’t many places to go…

So I embraced the poles (not literally, though there was that one night when I thought I’d try pole dancing… best forgotten. Forget I mentioned it…) and built a TV unit/room divider between them.

Now I have a proper separation between the ‘work’ and ‘entertaiment’ areas of the living room. Instead of trying to hide the poles (ever tried to blend in poles in the middle of a room? impossible) I painted them black and made them a feature.

This resulted in a slightly more industrial feel to the decor.

Plywood and poles will do that.

I also bought a new leather couch and ended up with a scandanavian style instead of the old gentleman’s club style that I thought I wanted. The colour and style really suits the new rustic industrial farmhouse decor.

Here’s a preview of the new couch in place, including the mess all around it…

Anyway, I decided it was time to up the industrial aspect of the living room with some original recycled artwork.

Plus, it was time to take the christmas tree down!

These stencils are all real, factory shipping label stencils, some have even been used. Many times. Others are just plain old. They were given to me by a great friend and soon as I saw them I knew I wanted to make this artwork.

I recycled an old frame I got from the tip shop. I had originally put fabric in it to match some cushion covers and hung it over the bed in my house in Fentonbury when I was selling it.

Since then its been in our bedroom, just sitting there.

Waiting.

Till yesterday.

Yesterday I took it down to the casita, took out the fabric, laid out the stencils in a way that pleased me, used a ton of glue to hold them in place (there’s no glass on this) and then decided the frame looked wrong in distressed white.

So I taped off the inner rustic timber ‘mount’ and sprayed it gloss black. Then, after it was dry but before it had cured completely, I used a paint scraper to scrape a bit off here and there to show some white through.

Much better.

I especially love the splashes of blue!

It kinda looks good there now. It goes with the black poles and the little record side table. Which I haven’t shared yet… oops.

We’re getting there.

All I need to do now is paint the living room white. Or a grey that isn’t blue. Get rid of the carpet and put down some kind of floor that’s easy to clean and doesn’t make me gag. Finish the TV unit. Get a bigger rug. Find a solution to the world garbage problem.

I’ll get right on to it.

Easy.

z

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rustic tea light holder

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This is one of those projects I had lying around for ages. Its probably from some kind of gun safe, two bits of old timber with holes, just waiting for a makeover. I had it for so long I can’t remember where it came from.

I started making into a tea light holder a couple of years ago but then just left it in the shed till it got buried under piles of other projects ‘to do’.

Then one day I just sort of got inspired to finish it with some nuts and a rusty hinge.

It might not be exactly fire safe as far as tea light holders go…. but hey! You can put LED tea lights in it!

And its rustic and cute.

Those things count for a lot in my world.

I took it to a local shop and it sold straight away.

So there you go. Rustic and cute won out over fire safe for someone other than me!

Meanwhile I know its been a long time since I posted last. The cataract surgery in my right eye was not easy to get over. For the last month I’ve had tired eyes, dry eye, blurry vision and I’ve just been too tired to do anything online or any craft at all.

Luckily, my left eye, which was done 2 days ago, has been the total opposite. Its been a success from day one. Almost no pain after surgery, very little blurry vision or discomfort. Thank goodness as I was getting pretty depressed about the whole thing.

Both eyes are much better now and I can see well… except now my near vision is worse than it was before and I need to wear glasses (at least those magnifying ones from the chemist) in order to do any close up work. That means that sewing or fine craft work means glasses. Since I can’t get used to wearing glasses and looking up OVER them rather than through them, I get awful dizzy spells when I wear them. I’m sure I’ll get used to it.

The good news is that apparently my eyesight won’t get any worse from this point on so I’ll have plenty of time to get used to the new eyes.

z