Thrift Haul - Hodge Podge

Where the heck have I been?  Two weeks of silence should mean I was up to awesomeness!  Yeah, not so much...  Things have just gotten away from me I guess.  Booth sales are kicking ass right now though, so hopefully I'll have lots of fun stuff to blog about in the coming months.

 My first thrifted Desert Dawn!  It was in pretty rough shape, but I cleaned it right up and put it in the booth.  Same with the super cool Hazel Atlas pitcher.  Doesn't this have glasses that match?  

These were all given to me by a friend of mine from high school.  She cleaned out her grandma's kitchen and thought of me because she's so dang sweet!  Check out the Jadeite!!!!  Plus, when we went to get the goodies, she gave The Little Dude an adorable haircut.  Multi-tasking queen over here people!  : )  Thanks Lindsey!!!

Check out this beefy mofo.  It's a Frankoma cookie jar that is in perfect ok condition.  I don't know anything about it, so I'm going to have to do some research before I sell it.  Does anyone have any experience with this kind of pottery? Update - I dropped a cup on the dang lid and chipped it.  Guess I'm keeping it now!  

This was spotted in my antique mall and I scooped up with spastic quickness.  Isn't it awesome?   I LOVE this lard bucket!  Is it weird to love a lard bucket?  Not to you guys probably!  You don't judge, you understand, you get it.

Ok, blogger is being sassy and won't let me upload more pictures right now.  I'm going to have a stroke if I keep messing with it, so I'll save them for the next post.  I really wanted to show you guys my fabulous new stainless steel work table kitchen island.  It's FANTASTIC!!!

The Best Bud and I are headed up to Denver today to do some thrifting and goofing off with the kiddos.  Wish us luck!  I desperately need to fill up the booth.  Do you guys have any big plans for the weekend?  

 I'm joining the parties at  Sir Thrift A Lot, Remnant, Mod Vintage Life, The Thrifty Groove, A Living Space, Ivy And Elephants, The Cottage Market, We Call It Junkin', The Colorado Lady and Apron Thrift Girl. Have a great week everyone!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's Day everyone!!! 

 Here is a cute card I whipped up for The Husband last night.  

Print up one, or a dozen!  It's my Valentine's Day gift to you!  Download here. 

If you like it, put a Pin on it! : )

Thrift Haul: Too Many Keepers

Don't get me wrong, I LOVE finding good stuff almost as much as I love My Little Dude and cake, but there's a problem.  I end up freakin' keeping EVERYTHING!!!  Here's 10 items and I'm keeping half of them.  I think I need an intervention...

Squeeee!  This picture makes me happy, happy, happy!  The Horizon Blue loaf pan was thrifted from a shop that has been withholding for weeks.  Yes, finally!  A volunteer set it down and I scooped it right up while trying to not audibly squeal.  The other two were great picks from a little antique shop down the street.  Three pieces of glorious Pyrex, two are staying with me.  

 Keep, keep, KEEEEEEP, OMG KEEP!!!!  I found this atomic bullet shaped ice bucket at an antique shop for a really good price.  I don't even care that it's scratched, it's AWESOME!   Do any of you big brained lovelies know anything about this?

I don't usually buy Fire King, but the color of this large dish drew me in.  That and the little weird brass bird are actually for sale!  Holy crap, it is possible for me to sell something.  Except for that super cute little Yum cup.  Can't get crazy now...gotta keep something.  : )

 So you can probably already guess what I kept here.  Got to represent! Woohoo Colorado!  HA!  Anyway, so that lunch box is kind of killing me.  I took it to the booth yesterday, but I kind of want to go get it back.  Think of the things I could store in that...  Like little brass birds I don't need...  

Thanks again for all the nice words about my kitchen guys!  Tomorrow we're getting my new kitchen island and then over the weekend we'll hopefully be installing a new-to-us over the range type microwave (I can't think of what that's actually called right now).  And then my twin brother will be here in a week or so and it's going to be so much fun!!!   The three of us don't get to hang out together very much, so I'm pretty excited. It's going to be a busy few weeks and I couldn't be more grateful.   

 I'm joining the parties at  Sir Thrift A Lot, Remnant, Mod Vintage Life, The Thrifty Groove, A Living Space, Ivy And Elephants, The Cottage Market, We Call It Junkin', The Colorado Lady and Apron Thrift Girl. Have a great week everyone!

This Past Week...

The back splash is finished!  Holy crap, it looks SOOOOOOOOO much better.  I blogged about it here, I'm pretty dang proud of it.  Thank you for all the encouragement and nice words guys!  You're the BEST!

 I'm not sure who was more startled, me or the owl.  

 The Little Dude fell asleep in my lap as we were watching Dumbo.  My dumbass continued watching it and I cried like a fool at the "baby of mine" scene.  Dang Disney...tugs at the heart strings.

 Six more inches of snow fell on top of what we already had here.  I know it's nothing compared to what some of you have gotten, but we haven't had snow like this in a really long time so it's pretty exciting.  

 It's so nice to be at a point in my life where I am able to embrace my strangeness.  : )

 Little by little I'm adding to my Valentine's Day decor.  I bought these sweet cards from Shara via Instagram.   

 This is Benji.  Soak it all up...the cute drips off this little dude.

 And this is Benson.  Yup, that's right, there's two!  These cutey patooties belong to my parents and they are the squishiest, sweetest little puppy wuppy faces ever.   Sorry about that... 0_o

 Stop.  Just stop dude, it's too much. Ugh...so cute!!!

 Ok, enough of that.  Check out this pretty little ring I thrifted the other day.  The stone is super clear and bright, though I have no clue what it is.  It could be glass for all I care, I still like it. 

 These curtains are cute right?  I used some flour sack towels I had and thought I was a damn genius!  Well five minutes later, reality came crashing down onto my counter, knocking over a few plants in the process.  I'm going to try again, but this time I'll secure the saggy center of the rod.  Live and learn I guess... I'm still a bit salty about it.  

And last but not least, I bought this and told The Husband it was his to give to me.  He didn't get it at first.  HA!!!  Sometimes I crack myself up!  Look at that face...terrifying!  

I sent The Husband a few hints for what he could get me for Valentine's Day, should he feel so inclined.  I hate to do that, but I also hate when I get bugged at him for getting me something weird/expensive/nothing because he didn't know what to get.  I'm just trying to help him out! 

Do you drop hints to your main squeeze when gift giving time rolls around or do you just let them figure it out?

Instagram.  It's awesome.  No joke.    

Saying Goodbye To An Ugly Back Splash...

And HELLO to a fabulously bright and clean one!

Our house was built in the early 60's but remodeled in the dreaded 90's.  So much oak and slate...it hurts us.  Anyway, the previous owners of our home fancied themselves as do-it-yourselfers though they seemingly had no idea as to what they were doing!  My home is full of half-ass-handyman work and we've been fixing it since we got here.  Anyway, the back splash they put in is this drab looking faux slate ceramic tile.  They did a terrible job installing it.  TERRIBLE!  Did I say terrible, because that's what it is.   Some places have too much grout, others not enough and the spacing is so all over the place.  No grout line here, an inch of grout over there...I'm sure you're smelling what I'm cooking.  BAD!
Anyway, I really wanted a change, but didn't want to replace it entirely since we are hoping to one day do a big kitchen remodel and I didn't want to spend a lot of money (that crap is always putting a kink in my plans).  Still saving my pennies!  So I decided the best and most economical way to put a pretty yet temporary band aid over it was to paint it.  After lots of research, this is what I did:
Step 1:  Degrease the tile.  I used Simple Green and a sponge and went to town.
Step 2:  Remove all the switch plates and outlet covers and tape everything off.
Step 3:  Prep the surface.  I choose to use this fabulous stuff.

It was really easy to use.  Just apply it with a cloth, let it sit for five minutes and then wipe off the excess.  The surface is ready to paint in two hours and will stay active for 7 days.  It cleans the tile and gives it some microscopic magic for the paint to hang on to.  Plus it didn't stink too bad and was super easy to clean up.   I bought if from Amazon.

Step 4: Paint!  I went to Home Depot and asked for the best, toughest oil paint they had and this is what they suggested.  I went with oil paint mostly because of it's durability.  It also has a great self leveling quality that I like.  Brush strokes bug me!   I had them tint it a color called Minted Ice from Behr.  Isn't it lovely?!  

These are the colors I'm going for in the kitchen, in case you were wondering.  I found this palette on Pinterest. 

Apply one thin coat of paint at a time with a good natural bristle brush, allowing 24 hours dry time in between coats.  That's important!  It will gum up like old nail polish if you don't give it time to cure.   

I started by painting only the tile and leaving the grout grey.  Let me tell you guys, that was a pain in the ass!  So hard!  Ok...at this point I was starting to panic.  I wasn't in love with the dark grout and my paint color.  Want to know what I really thought?  "Sh*t!!!  It looks awful, I'm in so much trouble!"  I kept going because, really, what choice did I have?   

Still trying to be optimistic and convince myself it wasn't that bad.  It was ok, but not what I wanted.  I went ahead and dry brushed the grout with the same paint color.  I just did a light dry coat so I could retain the texture of the grout.

There we go, that's the ticket!  

It's so much fun to decorate with my thrifted vintage goodies!  

Step 5:  Enjoy!  So bright!  So clean!  Yup, this project is a win in my book.  I know it wasn't the ideal way to redo a back splash, but it is what was right for us at this point in the game.  And honestly, it was so EASY!  Plus, it only took five days working just a few hours a day.  I was able to do this in the morning before everyone woke up and in the evenings when The Husband and The Little Dude were playing.  I could have done it faster, but I stuck to the long drying time.  And best of all...it was CHEAP!

Lets add it up:

The paint was $24, but I only used about a quart.  They only sell it in gallons.  : (

The ESP was $30, and again, I didn't use all of it and I used a gift card. 

The brush was $14 and another Amazon gift card purchase.  

And everything else I had on hand.

Ok, so that adds up too... $68, $24 if you only count our out of pocket cost and I have lots of supplies left over for other projects.  That puts such a big smile on my face!!!  

So what do you guys think?  Are you inspired to maybe slap some paint on your ugly tiles?

Next step - new island!

Even though I didn't find any goods at the thrifts, this was a super thrifty project so I'm still joining the parties at  Sir Thrift A Lot,  Mod Vintage Life, The Thrifty Groove, A Living Space, Ivy And Elephants, The Cottage Market, We Call It Junkin', The Colorado Lady and a new to me party at Living Well, Spending Less. Have a great week everyone!

A before and after just for fun.

This Past Week...

I made a pair of jammie pants out of a vintage table cloth that had holes and was faded. 

 They turned out pretty dang cute if I do say so myself.  I just wish I hadn't messed up cutting my original pieces.  That's why I don't sew very often, I hate and suck at the cutting part.  Anyway, because I effed up one of the pieces I had to piece together the back.  They're cute, but they could be made better. Oh well, at least I tried. 

 Swoon!!!!  I found this fabulous turquoise bowl but it was horribly damaged.  But it's not like this little hoarder could leave it.

 I tried like hell to revive it, but had no luck.  Super sad, but at least I have an every day bowl that I don't have to worry about hurting.  

I HATE this cheap, yucky, dirty ass - terribly put in fake slate ceramic tile.  So I started to paint it!  It's tough because the tile was installed wrong by the previous owners and none of the grout lines are level, plus it's all jagged if that makes any sense.  One by one, I've been painting...

 Halfway there!  Except, I don't like the dark grout!  Ugh!!!  Maybe I'll paint that too!

 Look at this super mod fancy dancy air plant holder thing!  Found at the grocery store of all places.  

 My cousin turned 13 today, so instead of being forced to watch a football game I'm not totally interested in, I got to go get my nails done with my family - so much more fun!  I love these Cathrineholm inspired nails!  I could totally get used to this.  

This is my 13 year old cousin wearing the Katniss inspired cowl I made her for her birthday.  She's a big fan of The Hunger Games trilogy.  It's upside down, but still cute. ; )  

And have you joined in on the Instagram fun yet?  Come on...do it, you know you want to!