IT MAKES PERFECT SENSE!

It is time to take the camera out for a walk.  Actually it is time to strap my camera bag on my shoulder every time I step outside.  Have you noticed what is going on outside your door?

I had a Grandfather who watched nature very carefully - and likewise his son (my Dad) does the same.  I didn't always pay attention to their predictions based on what they were observing from nature - but I did become someone who does enjoy watching the world around me - just for the pure pleasure of what I am seeing.

And I am not talking about people.  Personally, I don't find a lot of pleasure in people at all - unless it is a child, or someone I love.

No I am talking about the pleasure of watching a bird at a feeder, or a tree when it shakes itself awake in early spring and decides to shoot green from it's brown winter branches.  Snow when it melts - it is so pretty how it sweats itself away - even ice, that we have come to detest so much  - it is beautiful ... the colours within it, the veins running through it...... Frost - there is nothing prettier than frost!

There is much to see out there, if you open your eyes and take it all in.

Look up - can you believe that beautiful deep blue up there?  You can't get that particular colour from any can...

While you are looking, don't forget to listen!

I know all about listening in the city.  I used to stand outside in the dark mornings of winter and wait at the curb while Gary went to fetch the car from the back.  I heard a lot of city noise... but I also heard the wind singing through the bare-limbed trees, and yes at that early morning hour I even heard the Sparrows in the shrubs across the street, waking up and having a chatter together about the new day - or whatever it is they are discussing at that time of the morning!

I am learning so much more about listening, here in the country.  It is a lot harder to listen to quiet.  One gets mesmerized by the silence - but sound is still present there too.

The other night I had Molly out for her last potty break after 11pm.  It was dark, except for our bright light over the door, and the Christmas lights that are still lit around our little barn shed.  There was no wind noise - but I knew there was a bit of wind, because the buckle on the rope on the flagpole was ever so gently tapping on the metal pole.  Ping, Ping, Ping.

If I stopped huffing my breath for a second -I could faintly hear my neighbour's wind chime  about 400 ft away, just barely making a sound.  Tink, Tink, Tink.  And yes - ever so faintly somewhere ( perhaps in the evergreens that border my property) birds were quietly saying good night.

I might have missed all these sounds, had I not been listening to the silence around me.

We have senses for a reason.  Sight, Sound, Smell.  Do we use them for anything exceptional?  I don't think so - we take them for granted, that's what we do.

Take them outside, give them some exercises.. you might be pleasantly surprised how wonderful you will feel after you do this.

Of course if you live anywhere near me , you might want to wait a day or two to take those senses outside.  We had a blizzard here last night, and although the sun is shinning brightly deceiving us into believing that spring is near, it is frigid cold with a wind chill that will freeze skin in here minutes.  The only thing we are going to be feeling outside today is frustration, and maybe a little bit of pain...if we stay out too long!

REPURPOSE FRIDAY THE THIRD!

Here we are, another Friday Re- purpose day!

I have been concentrating a lot of my attention on lighting the past few weeks.  We have a big square box of florescent lighting on our kitchen ceiling that I really don't want.  Even if I did want it, we have learned that the larger florescent bulbs are being phased out, just like the regular lights bulbs have been, and that we will eventually have to replace that fixture anyway.... Music to my ears!

I know what I want to replace it with and my idea came straight out of the re- purposed light fixtures I have been seeing on the Internet... Check out these awesome light fixtures made from repurposed items.

I know these are not for everyone - but for my kitchen - they are so perfect... and what great ideas for using some items from the kitchen - and maybe even the barn or workshop!

 

 

I love all these lights for sure for a kitchen, and some of them would be awesome in other rooms of the home as well..

Imagine my surprise when I opened the new Home Hardware Catalogue and found this!  Bingo!  I'll take two, PLEASE!

Lets step outdoors for a moment:

This lovely shady nook was shared to me on Face book.  I would love to have one of these in my garden.   Can you image sitting outside on a sunny warm morning with your cup of coffee or tea and just enjoying the morning garden, bees and birds?  All made from repurposed wood.

or here... old doors made into a lovely little sheltered sitting area in the garden...

cynthiabanessa.com

And wouldn't it be cool to have this sitting on a feature rock, or wall somewhere nearby to catch your eye?

annsgardenpath.blogspot.com

I think so...

Have a great weekend everyone!

CHILD'S PLAY!

Where has this week gone?  I haven't been able to post much this week - I have been painting again and I bought even more paint again yesterday.!

Yes sirree...

The main floor is more than half done - and we have started in the family room downstairs, so there is painting going on all over the place at the moment.

I bought paint yesterday for the two spare bedrooms -  one on the main floor and one in the basement.  At the moment they are white - like every other room in this house was.  I am painting both rooms a deep yellow.  The one on the main floor will be accented with blues, and whites and the one downstairs will be accented with greens and other yellows.

Tomorrow we are going to Neepawa to order our island top.  While there, we will stop and see my Aunt who is still in the hospital, and I want to check out the thrift shop there (have not done that one yet) as well.  It will be a beautiful day for a drive, and hopefully we will be able to finally find the counter top we want for our island.

I have to tell you about Tuesday tho...

My cousin, his wife and their little granddaughter came for a visit on Tuesday afternoon.  Their little granddaughter is just turning 4 and is the most adorable - and smart little cutie that I have ever seen.

She wanted to see Auntie Dale's dolls so upstairs we went to the doll room and she didn't know what to do or where to look first.  She was very good - I half expected her to start touching everything but she didn't.

I had just moved my Litho Tin Dollhouse on to the floor last week, and she honed into that vintage toy like a bee to a flower.  I gave her a couple of my not- at -all -valuable Barbie-type dolls and some smaller little dolls, and she played with the house and furniture and dolls the way I believe a child might have played with that house in the 1950's.

We haven't had a small child around us since our own son was small, so this was a special treat for Gary and I.  When it came time for me to make supper I threw some clothes and some dolls in a basket and we headed down to the sun room.  There again - while the adults were occupied - she played.

After supper she wanted me to come and play Barbies with her, so I got down on the floor with her and we played dolls.  We dressed and undressed our Barbies, they had conversations, and all the while I was down there, I thought - "Wow - this is so great to be able to be on the floor and play dolls with this little human doll."

It was a fun afternoon and evening, and I hope she comes back to play again.  Maybe next time we will have a tea party with my china dishes from my own childhood.

Awe - can you imagine what fun that would be!

IFFY WEATHER AND SOME NEW PROJECTS!

How was every one's weekend?

 It was a mixed bag weather-wise here this weekend.  We had mild temperatures and rain on Friday night, and then snow and -25 on Saturday night.  Woke up Sunday morning to bright sun and very cold temperatures, and by noon the warm up had started and the clouds had rolled in again.  Up and down we go... it seems to be the way this winter has been.  It is frustrating to be teased with the mild spring-like weather and then to have to hunker down to the cold again - but every day, we get a day closer to true spring  - so I am going to force myself to be generous with my comments about the weather!

I had a busy weekend.  I finally cleaned the horrid mess in the studio, rearranged the dolls, sorted through some craft supplies, did a vacuum and a general dusting in the studio, and then I headed downstairs and worked some cleaning magic on my kitchen, living room and sun room floors.

Even though my new island is not ready to be used as such, I moved it to the spot it will be when finished and moved the kitchen table to a new place in the kitchen - if anything it has made the kitchen larger yet!  I do know one thing - the island is going to be a fantastic addition to our kitchen, and once we get the top on it and some stools around it - I rather doubt we will use our kitchen table all that much.

By midday Sunday I was bored with cleaning so I decided to spend some time checking out some red work patterns on the Internet.   I found a lot that are so cute, a person could just never have enough wall space for them all... I might make some up even so...

Then I saw this...

I love the sentiment in this so much...

I was going to stitch it, but decided I would try something else instead.











What I came up with is a very small plaque for a tiny space in my kitchen. I used a small frame I had picked up for .10 at a thrift store, and I covered it with some card stock paper,  made the little note with another piece of paper and then embellished it with a few of my little treasures.

Next project:

I found this Robin Hood Flour sack in a bunch of material that was my Mother's.  I have kept it all these years thinking some day I would do something with it.

Now that I have a big country kitchen, I know exactly what I want to do with it - so stay tuned... I hope my idea works as well in actual fact as it is working in my brain!

Time to get to work!

REPURPOSE FRIDAY - THE SECOND!

I have had more fun than you can imagine, gathering the images for this weeks edition of Re purpose Friday.

I am trying really hard to give everyone something they would like to see.  Not everyone is interested in gardens, or country decorating, or even old stuff.  Keep an open mind... even if you are a minimalist or like the super modern look - there may be something here you like.

This time, I will try and do it right -and give you not only the image, but the link to the image on the Internet, where there is one available.

So Enjoy....

I will start off with some things for the garden made from everyday household items.  Check these out!

How adorable is this bird feeder, and flowers made from forks, spoons and is that a shaker in the middle?  Of course this arrangement of flowers requires knowing someone with a welder - but I have seen the same thing made with plastic utensils - and those only require a glue gun and they can be painted!

dishfunctionaldesigns.blogspot.com

This next picture is so cool.   A yard such as mine could use some of these at night!  My apologies  to Rust Oleum - the information with this image stated that these glowing pots were made by painting pots with glow-in- the- dark Rust Oleum paint.  According to Rust-Oleum there is no such product.

indulgy.com

These lights are so adorable  - and they could be used inside the house - or out on the patio.  No need to use real tea-lights  - there are battery operated ones now that would do just as well.

homedit.com

I am sure there still are a lot of these microwave carts around - (red face ) - I inherited one with this house that I converted into my little temporary island - but now that I have the makings for a real island - I just might do this...

                                                                             Sweet....



But the absolutely best thing I found today is this!

anvilironworks.co.uk

This is the best piece of scrap iron art I think I have ever seen.  Wish it were standing in my garden!

So there you have your inspirations for the week.

See you next week!

HORN TOOTIN, HAND WAVING WONDERFUL!

Yesterday we decided to take a drive to Dauphin Manitoba.  It was a bright sunny morning, the forecast wasn't looking too bad, so we hopped in the car and were on our way by 10:30.  Its only a 40 minute drive so we got there long before noon.

We were looking for the hardware/lumber store, McMumm and Yates - apparently there is a large one there - our mission was to order a counter top for our island, and hopefully also pick up some finishing wood for the back and sides.

Before I say anything else - just let me say that I really do not like Dauphin.  I don't know what it is about that place - but it just doesn't do anything for me.

Well -  we drove to where google maps said this store was - and couldn't find it.  We should have taken our GPS along - our fault we did not.

So we changed gears and went to Extra Foods (we know where that is) for dog food.  That stop for dog food cost us 130.00!

Next stop - Walmart!  Mission there was to get a copy of Ufile to do our taxes.  Yes  - we know you can download it off the Internet - however  - our Internet is slow - and so it the old PC we use to do taxes on... hence the stop at Walmart.

The stop for the UFILE software cost us 120.00... and change!

It was past lunch - Gary wanted a DQ burger - Guess what - we couldn't find the DQ!  The Internet says they have one - we couldn't seem to find it!

The golden arches were right there - so we pulled in there for the first time in over 7 months!  Say no more!

Gary was getting a headache - so I took the wheel for the ride home.  We hadn't even gone a mile and we hit snow-packed roads from heavy ground drifting, and side winds that just about blew us off the road.  It looked like that was going to be the conditions most of the ride home.

We drove through the stretch of road where silver birch trees are all one can see for miles - I break out into a grade- school song I remember from my youth... "Land of the Silver Birch - Home of the Beaver"...

.... and then we were at Ste. Rose Du Lac!

The roads are dry, the wind is gone - my right foot goes down - and we are sailing home!

My spirits lifted, my dissatisfaction with our outing disappeared as we got closer to home.  We passed the lone pine tree in the middle of the field that tells me Laurier is the next town on the right...

Cheerio, Laurier - you great, wonderful little Hamlet, you!

And then I see our tower - our grain elevator - and I am so happy I could sing once again!  "Take me home, country roads... to the place.... that I love!

Horn tootin - hand waving, wonderful home town of mine!

WE ARE HOME!

WELL - THAT WAS FUN!

I don't know about you - but I seem to be back into those "doldrums" again.  I have so much to do, and just no ambition to do it.

I forced myself to deal with a project that I have been wanting to tackle for a very long time.  Doll Clothes!  I have totes upon totes of vintage baby dresses, suitable for large baby dolls.  More totes yet of real doll clothes to fit almost every size doll imaginable.

It is really quite unimaginable!

And it is driving me absolutely around the bend!

So I opened up three large totes and dumped them in the middle of my studio floor - and then talked  nasty to myself for the rest of the weekend!

"That will teach her - now she will HAVE to deal with these clothes!"  says the always nattery (is this a word?), practical Dale.

"Huh!  That's what SHE thinks!"  says the lazy "retired" and I deserve to be lazy - don't I? "  Dale!

Yeah, well neither one won this battle.  I did manage to undress and redress my Vintage 1957 Baby Doll twelve times to get some pictures to post on the sale site.

These 4 and 8 more...

And I managed to take photos of about 25 more of the dresses for the same site - I even managed to get the doll photos posted on the site.  I had a lot of views - some even wanted to buy the doll - lots of interest - no sales!

The bad is what I am left with... I am sure you all feel very sorry for me....

 






I do feel your sympathy - really I do!




End of story.

Well - not quite - I just got an email from a fellow doll collector - she wants all 12 items I posted and everything else I have like them.

Okay - so maybe this wasn't such a bad idea after all!