Vintage Flair

Loving my Mom's old junk

I recently visited my Mom's and asked her if I could have one of her old dressers in the basement that she kept all of her dirty old tools in.  We went down stairs and I showed her which one I wanted and she looked at me like I was crazy. I remember always looking at it when I was little and I always liked how the dresser curved at the top.  The top of the dresser had faux wood linoleum on the top and it was a bit dirty.  After a little elbow grease and some T.L.C., I was ready to spruce it up a bit.  Take a look at the rough top after I peeled off all of the faux wood.

My Mom found this dresser in the basement when my Dad and her bought their first house in Detroit.  She has hung on to it all of these years and now I am going to give it a good home.  I decided to keep the cream paint that was already on there that my Mom painted many moons ago.  As for the top, I decided to apply {using glue and water mixture and when it was dry a light coat of clear varnish} some of my vintage papers onto the top. The dresser sits between the burlap drapes in the family room and kitchen so the colors in the paper work perfectly with the burlap.

I added a some new crystal knobs to give it a little pick me up.  I love that this piece of furniture has some history and now it is mine.

Next time you are at your parents home or relative, check out to see what junk they may have.

Enough time for a bit of creativity

I have been feeling terrible that my craft room is right next to the girls playroom and I have not been making a lot of things lately.  We are still going full force on getting the house together and it leaves little time to do any of the creative things I love to do.  The other day while the girls were playing I decided to sit in my desk and play around with a few things that were just sitting on my desk.  From the pile of things that I needed to put away, I came up with this necklace.   I love to layer my jewelery and I have been wanting a longer one so I finally made one and it felt so good to get the creative juices flowing again.

She is mine now

A friend of mine is down sizing and she gave me this wonderful bulletin board that she made out of an old frame.  I love the details of the frame and it now holds one of my favorite collages I made quite some time ago.   I had always admired it in her home and I was thrilled beyond belief when she gave it to me...I promise to give it a good home!

Happy Valentine's Day

I made these fun Valentine cards for my girls and I really wanted to credit the source of where I found them but for the life of me.....I can't remember.  I think I have to many creative sources and I think I need to be a bit more organized, but it is so hard.  So I am sorry who created these and what a fun idea.  The gal who created these made red chocolate lip suckers and that was too much work for me so I found these Jolly Rancher lips and that worked perfectly for me.  Happy Valentine's Day everyone!

Yep I finally did it!

After years and years of HATING my dining room set, I finally took the plunge and painted it.  Our new house is so light and airy and I really felt like the dark mahogany was really weighing down everything.  My husband was not to happy with me when he came home and I am happy to report that he said this morning, it looks good Lori....just don't paint anything without talking me to first.  Ya, he has a point and I got it.  I don't regret a bit of painting it and I am happy with it.  I followed Karla's painting tutorials as well as calling her a few times to make sure I had it down pat.  I painted it a creamy white and then mixed my own glaze over top of it.  I was not happy when I went to Home Depot and there was not a ready made glaze there (I should of went to Lowes) and I sales guy said just mix your own...I was thinking OMG...that is easier said than done.  Well, I have to say it was really easy and while I was paining, I kept thinking Karla would be so proud of me.  The photo above was the fist coating of white paint and I have to say I was a little nervous about how it would turn out.  Here are some more before photos.

Here is a photo with the glaze on after all of the creamy white paint dried. 

I just love how everything looks so light and airy.  I am ready to paint the entire house creamy white....I just need to get my husband on board.  The final step is to change the fabric on the seats and that is next on my to do list.

A little creating just because

 

 With moving and unpacking creating has taken the back seat for too long.  The other day, I was cleaning up my craft space and there in a pile was one of my favorite fabrics laying on the floor.  I decided to make myself a little portfolio style journal just because and I am glad I did.

Crafting with my girls

Over the weekend my kids and I did a little crafting together and we had a lot of fun creating.  We updated these frames that we used in our old house and freshened them up a bit.  I changed the fabric and when that was completed, the girls painted with black paint their initials onto the boards.  Each board is theirs to display their artwork or whatever they would like to share or show off.  We also painted numbers on the boards to represent their ages {Olivia my oldest was not so excited about this project but she participated...she is kind of done bring artwork home from school}.  They now hang in our mudroom A.K.A the gallery.  I love to think up projects to do with my children...makes this Mom very happy!

My desk

 

 I have always loved this French kidney shaped desk and when a dear friend of was ready to part with it, she asked me if I wanted it.  I immediately said yes but the problem was the desk was in Michigan and I was living at the time in Arkansas.  I called my oh so wonderful brother to go pick it up and drop it off at my Mom's house.  There it sat for almost two years sitting in her basement and I would hear time to time, Lori when are you going to get that desk out of my basement?  Well, when we finally moved back to Michigan I knew one day we would be re-united once again.  Remember my brother, well I called him up again to deliver it to our new house and he did.  I am happy to report this little beauty is in my little temporary studio (located in my girls playroom). I just love how all of the paint is chipped off and there are layers of paint on it.  It makes me think this desk had a life before me and it has lived.  I stuffed both of the bottom drawers with some of my vintage millinery flowers {I have too many...a good problem to have, right?}.  The other drawers have all of my necessary crafting supplies and I just now need to get creating!

A few photos from around the house

Even though our house is still work in progress I do like a few little spots here and there that make me happy so I thought I would share a few of them with you.

Well Hello

Sorry I have been away for so long but we finally relocated to Western Michigan and I needed to focus on that as well as getting my girls situated in school.  Well, I am happy to report we are all doing well and the girls are getting adjusted to their new schools and my husband and I in our new roles {same company just different jobs for both of us}.  Our world has been turned up side down and getting it back on track takes a little time and focus.  The house is getting unpacked and there is a ton of work that needs to be done but I keep telling myself...it all can't be done at once.  I wish it could but it can't.  That is OK...it has been actually nice to see how much stuff I have accumulated over the years and I am going to get rid of a lot of things that I just don't need anymore. I  need to have a Vintage Flair garage sale.  So here is a funny story, I was adamant that we were NOT going to buy a house with out a spare room to use as my craft space.  Every house we looked at had a finished basement and I even had our realtor tell me when we were walking through homes, Lori this would make a great craft space for you.  Well, we ended up buying a house with out a finished basement and we had plans to finish it before we moved in {it is a long story so I won't bore you with the details} and ended up not finishing it right away.  So, low and behold NO CRAFT SPACE for me....sad uh?  I know.  That was the one thing that I really wanted and I will get eventually when we finish the basement but just not right away.  My girls have a pretty large open loft area up stairs that we are using as their media/play room and I carved out a small space in the corner for myself up there.  They are not really happy that I am crashing with them but I told them it was temporary.  Check out my "temporary" craft space....I hope you like it.