PROJECT MANIA!

I love to work on little projects, especially anything that has to do with wood. I worked for a lady several years back who taught me how to do the distressed look on furniture and ever since then I love to do anything like that.

At the beginning of summer I had quite a lot of small projects to do so I thought I would share some before and after pictures of what we did. Jonathan helped me with parts of it. As he says...his honey-do list just keeps growing. ;)

I recently got into wood burning and so I decided to make this sign for the quilt that we have that Jonathan's Granny made years ago. It has always been my favorite, but it has become VERY worn and so to try to preserve what is left of it I decided to put it on display where we can enjoy it that way. Here is a picture of me burning the sign and then the finished product hanging on the wall in our den!

~Before~

~After~

This small parlor set belonged to my Grandparents for many years and it was passed down to me. My Daddy says he remembers the day his Dad brought this home to his Mom. He said he was just a very little boy, he told me it is at least 40 yrs old. I think it's special that I got to have it after so many years. We put a good fresh coat of paint on it, and re-upholstered the chairs. I think it turned out pretty good! Especially considering its the first thing we have ever re-upholstered. ;)

~Before~

~After~

Last year Jonathan bought this double rocking chair for me for my birthday! When we got it, it did not have any kind of stain or polyurethane on it so over the winter it ended up looking very worn and rough. This spring I cleaned it up with bleach water, and to my surprise that bleach cleaned it up so well that it made it look like it had just come off the assembly line. I knew though that if I didn't put something on it that the same thing would happen all over again so I found a dark stain to put on it and then put a good coat of polyurethane over it to seal it. I think it turned out to be really pretty! I enjoy sitting on my front porch early in the morning or late in the evening...though I don't get to near as much as I would really like!

Anyway, hope you enjoyed looking at the pictures. :)

My Pretty Flowers

Jonathan built this flower bed for me a few years ago for my birthday. I planted one of my favorite flowers in it. Daffodils! But the only sad part about those flowers is that they don't last all summer so after they have bloomed and died back, I pull up all the dead leaves and replant some type of annual flower in their place to last for the rest of summer. This year I chose Impatients. I have always loved Impatients. They start out so small and by the end of summer never cease to amaze me at how big they have grown!

Here it is empty, but just wait and see!

A picture Jonathan took a few years ago when it was bursting with daffodils! I always love it because it looks like a sea of yellow. :)

See how much they grew! Call me partial, but I think they are beautiful!

I just thought I would share one of my favorite things of summer with y'all. Hope you enjoy as much as I do! :)

Garden Blessings!

The Lord has really blessed our garden this year with so much. We were able to get started a little earlier this spring than we normally do. I do not have pictures of everything, but I did try to get picture of most everything we had to come in. We have been so happy that things have gone as well as they have. Last year our garden didn't do so well, mainly due to harsh weather. However, I just have to tell the Lord thank you for the beautiful harvest He blessed us with this year! I put up a total of 60 cups of squash, 13 quarts plus we have a total of 30 ears of corn, 8 pints of cushaw, about 4 quarts of green bell peppers, and we had SO many tomatoes. I put up pasta sauce, pizza sauce, diced tomatoes, tomato juice, and salsa. I'm not sure how much of each one, but I know it ended up being about 60 jars total! What a blessing. :)

Here are a few pictures from our harvest~

Check out all that corn! oh! btw..I also ended up being stung by a packsaddle while picking the corn. I have never been stung by one and in fact was not even 100% sure of what it looked like. I remember right before it happened, I was thinking how happy I was to almost be finished picking all the corn without anyone being stung, and then BAM! I got it good. :) There were actually two of them and they both managed to get me pretty good. By the time I got inside the house my hand was already swollen and had two very big red welts.

Anyway, back to the corn..Here is a picture of the 13 quarts we put in the freezer!

Just in case you have never seen a packsaddle and wonder what it looks like, here ya go. Now that I look at it, I think it's kinda pretty, but at the time I got stung that was not at all the thought going through by mind!

A friend of mine said it right..."how can something so small and quite pretty, do something so awful?"

Chopped green bell peppers ready for the freezer. It's hard to tell it from the picture, but this ended up being about 2 quarts with by the time I got it all chopped up. I LOVE to cook with peppers so the fact that I have so much put up is awesome!

A few of the watermelon we grew! The two smaller ones were not as ripe as the rest, but it was OHHHH so good! Jonathan and I both love watermelon so we have grown it every year in our garden. I think it is a perfect sweet and cool treat on a hot summer day. :)

An over-flowing veggie basket!

Just one picture from the many times that my kitchen sink was this full of tomatoes!

Again I have to say, Thank you, Lord for your bountiful supply!