Cozy Spring Activities

I have been blessed with a creative mind, and usually any hobby I tackle, I end up enjoying and doing well in.  Of course, there are some that I don't much care for, or turned out not to be what I thought it would.  But overall, you can describe me as a creative person.

 

I love creating, thinking, working with my hands, making things for the home, and mostly just relaxing with a fun cozy activity.

 

The past few weeks, I have really embraced Spring and ways to romanticize the season.

 

I have been doing a puzzle, which I finished yesterday and am already thinking about picking up another.  I have also gathered some simple materials to create handmade or rather, hand painted flower pots.  It's such a simple thing to do, and you don't need to be an artist or a perfectionist to create cute little pots with your personal touch.

 

The small clay pots are a little over a dollar and the acrylic paint I already had on hand.  The tiny brushes are super cheap too, like $2.   

I have never painted by hand, and to be honest, I am a little intimidated, but I keep telling myself that it doesn't matter, it's for me, it's just going to be a fun little project and it doesn't need to be perfect.  Can't wait to see what they look like.  I have two to work on.  I'll be sure to show you either this weekend or next week.

{ Painting Day and gifted yarn }

So I'm about to head to bed since it's already 9pm and tomorrow is back to work/school for everyone, but I wanted to come in a put up a post real quick, just to document my day.

First I'm going to show you what my husband's aunt brought me this weekend.  A bag full of yarn, I mean, the woman knows me well.

Some may be happy and excited with diamonds, I get super giddy with yarn.

I don't know what I'm going to do with it, it's not yarn that I usually use and the brand is not even ones I'm familiar with, so I'll have to research a bit online and see what I come up with.  Meantime, if either of you have used it before or have any ideas what to make with them, leave it down in the comments.  Please, and thank you :)

Super soft and these colors are gorgeous.

I saw someone make dishcloth with the yarn above, the Bellezza Collection Smania yarn, so I may do that with that specific skein.

I just absolutely love the colors, they are beyond beautiful, I'm just completely stumped as to what to use them for.

And these, which I know are usually used for scarves, so I may do that, not entirely sure.  Even if I don't do anything, they are so pretty that I won't mind having them on my yarn shelf just to pretty things up.

And since we're speaking of yarn, I made a few more blocks for my blanket.  I've now got 2 rows done and have started joining them using the Flat Braid method which I think is so pretty.  I'll take pictures tomorrow to show you all.

Ok now let me show you what I worked on today.  The green living room is finally coming along, it's nowhere near done, there are quite a few projects I still need to finish, but it's getting there.

Just in case you're wondering, this is the paint I'm using, it's the Chalk paint in Plaster color by Waverly Inspirations.  I love it because it goes on so well and I don't need to sand or strip anything before applying it.

I watched some youtube vlogs while painting one of my DVD shelves.  It didn't take very long at all and since I want it old and distressed looking, I only did one coat and then went in and sanded the edges and a few areas here and there.

There it is finished.  Some may not like this look, but I love it, I love anything that looks old and beat up and like the paint is coming off.

This week I have to do the other shelf on the other side of the window.

Do you remember a couple of years ago, back in Arizona actually, I asked my husband to build me a shelf unit with wheels that would slide in next to my refrigerator because we didn't have a pantry in base housing???

Well since then we've had pantries and I could never figure out what to do with it, at one house it sat in my garage and then when we moved here, same thing.  I decided to bring it in this weekend, removed the wheels and the black and white paper that I had used for the back of the shelves and painted it green to match the walls. 

I am now using it in one corner of the living room to display some of my crochet blankets.

I feel like now it has a purpose and it's not just gathering dust in the garage, besides, I have more crochet goodies to add on to it, and I can even switch out quilts for the crochet as well.

Also began pulling down the different wooden shelves in that room and am painting them to distress them.  The picture frame was gold, I threw on a coat of green and will take some sandpaper to it and see how it looks, if it's not what I want, then I'll put on a coat of white and then sand it.

The shelves got a coat of green first and then one of white chalk paint.  Tomorrow I will distress them before hanging them back up.

All that is left in there is wall shelf and the DVD shelf to finish and then I want to strip and repaint and stain the dining table in there too.

So, yeah, plenty of projects to keep me busy, I'll be moving from room to room doing what is needed until I have the house finally as I want it.

Alright, it's almost 10pm and I have got to get some sleep.  I hope you've all had a wonderful long weekend and wish you a blessed week ahead.

{ Friday and Saturday }

Hello friends, I was going to blog yesterday but didn't get a chance, had a busy day.

Our family arrived around 4:30pm and shortly after we went out to dinner.  We have a Mexican restaurant just up the road and hadn't tried it yet, and Mexican is my absolute favorite food to eat, well, aside from Portuguese of course.

Had a wonderful dinner, delicious food and it wasn't very expensive either.  We came back to our house and played a few card games before calling it a night.

Woke up this morning to a winter wonderland.  If I tell you they were some of the biggest flakes I have ever seen in my life, would you believe me?

My goodness, they were huge.

It came down pretty hard for about 3 hours.

But after a few hours, it all stopped, the skies opened up and everything melted away.  I kinda wish it had stuck around because I do love snow, but oh well, maybe next time.

Spent the rest of the day distressing some furniture and stripping down and re-staining our new dining table.

If you're wanting to remove paint or varnish to refinish something, this stuff works wonders, really. 

We have a pretty big table so it did take a while to get it done, and we did it two times to make sure that we got everything out.

It wasn't a quick process with all the applying of the stuff, letting it sit for an hour and then stripping and re-applying, waiting again and doing the same.  But we did manage to get it all stripped and re-stained.  All that is left is for hubby and I to put on the polyurethane and it will be done.  That is coming tomorrow!!!

In the meantime we painted the side tables in my green living room, and then used sand paper to distress the edges and corners.
 
The table above, we added a layer of antiquing paint which gave it a different finish.  After putting it in the living room, we decided that it didn't look quite right, so we kept them just as the one below and put the table above in my daughter's room.  It looks much better in there.

In the coming weeks, I will be painting my big DVD shelves in white and then distressing them as well, my plan is to have all the wood furniture in that room looking the same.  Can't wait to see it done, and I'll be sure to share the process with you all.

I did inhale quite a few painting fumes and it's produced the biggest headache ever, so I've taken some motrin and am calling it an early night since the family has already left to return home.

It was a nice day, lots of laughs, lots of work but overall productive.

Tomorrow, I have housework to tackle and the usual cooking, and speaking of cooking I have some recipes I need to upload here to the blog, so I'll try to get to those tomorrow.

Hope you've all had a wonderful Saturday.  I'm signing off for the night and hopefully getting a good night's rest very shortly. :)