Spring is Just Around the Corner

Or is it?

It has been cold and snowy here this past week, and we are supposed to get more snow this weekend.  We've had such a mild winter this year, and are in a pretty severe drought, so we'll take all the snow we can get.

But that doesn't mean I am not looking forward to spring!

I bought some tulips this week that were not even close to opening.  I like to buy my flowers 'green' so I can enjoy their full bloom.

Two of them started to open up today.  I couldn't have arranged them any better if I would have tried.

I love yellow tulips.

Little rays of sunshine to brighten snowy days.

What is your favorite flower?

K

A New Friend

Many years ago, I was a sales consultant for Longaberger.  I fell in love with their baskets the first time I went to a home show, and ended up signing up to sell them about a year later.  Then I fell in love with their pottery and got a full set of dishes (and bakeware which I absolutely LOVE!).  We have used them every day for 10 years, and not one of them has a crack or a chip.  They are very durable, but they do show utensil marks.

I had read somewhere that Bar Keepers Friend would work to remove the marks, but I had never tried it.  I told myself that the marks would just come back, so why waste my time to remove them?  Well, I got a wild hair the other day and tried it.

Here is one of the bowls before.  See all those grey lines?  Yuck!

I scrubbed away half of the marks just to show that it really works.

And here is the same bowl after.  It looks brand new again!

I was amazed at how well it worked.  I just made a fairly thick paste with the BKF and water, and rubbed the marks away with my finger.  It didn't take long at all to get the marks off, and you can see that the shine was restored to the bowl.  I don't know why I waited so long to try it!

If you have utensil marks on your dishes, give Bar Keepers Friend a try.  I use it all the time on my stainless steel sink, and it works great there, too.

Longaberger no longer knows who I am, and Bar Keeper's Friend has never heard of me.  I just wanted to share my secret little 'friend' with you.

Stay tuned, because I have another post coming up and you'll see why I needed to have 'clean' bowls.  : )

K

Lilacs

I love spring!

K

An Unstamped Project

While I was browsing at Joann's the other day, the thought occured to me to buy some fabric to recover a stool my aunt gave to me many years ago that I use at my sewing table.  It was in pretty poor shape and needed a makeover...badly.  The paint was chipped and dirty and dingy looking, and the fabric didn't even come close to going with my made-over craft room.  The legs were all wobbly and every time I sat on it, I was afraid I was going to end up on the floor.

See what I mean?  This is the only picture I had of it because I was in such a hurry to start my project, I forgot to take any before pictures.  Oops!

Now, I have never refinished a piece of furniture in my life, and I was a little leery to venture into uncharted territory.  That is one thing I don't like about myself, and it is directly related to my fear of failure.  If I haven't done it before, I want someone to hold my hand through the process.  And that comes from someone who used to take vacations to foreign countries by herself.  What's up with that?  Looks like there is something I need to work on.

Sorry about that.  Probably a little too much information.

But anyway, I did it!  And I survived.

And so did the stool.

My 'new' stool looks awesome if I don't say so myself!  *pat, pat*

If you heard distant screams yesterday, it was probably me while I was trying to staple the fabric to the frame. For some reason, two of the sides were very hard to get the staples to go into all the way. I tried hammering them in the rest of the way, but no matter how softly or hard I tapped, they would bend. I kept thinking that it never looks this hard on all those home improvement shows I see on TV. I never see a pile of mutilated staples next to them while they are recovering something. What was wrong with me? I was actually sweating from using a staple gun!

So I screamed. Really loud. And then miraculously, the staples went in.

Well, almost. I still had to tap them in the rest of the way. But it worked this time.


I used Citristrip paint str*pper, and it worked like a charm!    The paint bubbled up and slid right off within an hour.  The label says it is safe to use inside (with lots of ventilation), but I took advantage of the 70 degree weather we had yesterday and did it in the garage.  Even with all the ventilation, the citris smell was pretty strong.  From my label reading at Home Depot, it has low VOCs compared to other str*ppers, so it is fairly safe to use.

The best part is I learned how to do something I have never done before, and nobody held my hand.  I did it all by myself.  And now that I have refinished something, my next project is to refinish my daughter's dresser and highboy that I have been putting off for about four years.

Yes.  It is time.

K

Meet Stubby

When we bought our house a few years ago, the yard was severely neglected and had grown into "The Jungle".  But it was the perfect place for the foxes to live.  So perfect in fact, that they had removed enough dirt under the patio for their den that we had to have it mud jacked to fill the void.  All the construction activity we did on our house forced them to find another place to live.  They chose the yard directly behind us.  So now we have a great view of their comings and goings.

This is one of the neighborhood foxes I have named Stubby. Isn't he cute? My daughter wishes he wasn't mean so she could keep him for a pet.  (Anything that has fur is pet material to her.)  Most of the time, the foxes are on the move, and I never have enough time to grab my camera to get any pictures.  But on this morning, Stubby was just sitting there on the golf course enjoying the early morning breeze.   I grabbed my camera and started snapping away.

Breaking and entering!!!  He is coming into the yard!  And he just peed on the tree!  Just like a dog marking his territory.  The kids are really excited now, and its hard to keep their voices and bodies quiet.

Busted!  How did he hear my shutter through the window?  Or was it the kids' excitement he sensed?    From here he moseyed across our back yard to the corner of our house. I thought I might be able to ambush him if I went out the front door.

Busted again!  He heard me and decided he'd had enough of my stalking for the day.  See why I named him Stubby?

He never stopped looking back at me until he felt he was out of harm's way.  Just look at that cute little face!

Bye Stubby!  See you around!

K