{Some Wonderful Things..}

 Some random things that made me happy of late...

you talkin' to me?

Meet one of my three nephews.  Words can't express how special this little guy is (I knooowww, every aunt/parent/grandparent says that) but he REEALLY is!  :)  He is so independent, so innocent, and just a down right good boy.   Now don't get me wrong, he's still a boy so he's still a very rambunctious little mischief maker.  But he always does the right thing, and he always tells the truth even when he gets in trouble.  Anyway, I could have chosen one of the nicely taken pictures where he was staring right into the camera smiling merrily with his ice cream, but this picture is just so typical of the hilarious expressions he always inadvertently makes.  It's priceless.   He's priceless.  And there he is, just chillin' on the back patio with me and my dad.. ♥ him.

I bought these when I was in Italy at this store called EATaly.  It was an awesome store, a bookstore, mixed with foodie goodies which all support the slow food movement.  They also serve food there in keeping with the values of the movement!  All fresh local ingredients.  {wonderful}.  So, I had to get something to commemorate my love of this store!

I love the bottle of the ginger drink!  The font, the colour, the graphics.. for some reason it just makes my heart skip a beat.  It's just..beautiful.  I wish I could drink drinks like this at home, all the time.  My refrigerator door would be lined with them.  Ah, so beautiful and perfect that would be.  I can imagine it would be similar to the feeling of living in an IKEA ad.  Everything in it's place, everything perfect, everything looking awesome.

Also, I couldn't resist the tea cup w/ the mini milk jug!  When I saw it I immediately imagined myself snuggled up in bed on a cold rainy day, pouring milk into my Earl Grey filled tea cup.  ;)  Do I sound nuts?  Please forgive me, I'm like this sometimes... :(

This was handcrafted by yours truly on Friday.  Yum.  It's Strawberry Shortcake.  Actually, I've been told the "cake" wasn't really cake.  Then I realized it wasn't really either. It was more of a biscuit texture.  The jury is actually still out on how good it tastes.  All I know is EYE sure like it.  I think my friends thought it was at least decent..!.  It's okay, the atmosphere of sitting on the patio, eating strawberry...err, biscuit with my friends, while the sun was slowly setting, made it extra good!  :)

This is Welcome, Ontario.  Can you believe there's a town called, Welcome?!!  Like, who lives there?  It's just such a delightful town name that there has just got to be some sort of strict requirements as to who can take up residency there!  One sour grape would just ruin the whole inspiration of the town name itself!  So, I'm thinking this is what the questionnaire must ask..

CRITERIA:  

○ Do you have a kind/benevolent nature?

○Do you go out of your way to be social and friendly?

○Do you smile at least 75% of the day?

○What do you like better, rain or rainbows?

;)

You get the idea.  :)  I cannot imagine a grumpy old man living in Welcome.  I certainly can't...I won't!

And the problems begin...

OKay, so I've begun the sanding.  I think I sanded for about 5 hours yesterday (probably more but I don't want to admit it to myself).. and I'm only barely done HALF the table.  Someone please tell me if that is right or wrong?!  I went on the site TLC home and they have an article about refinishing wooden furniture.  Quite informative, though some things I'm not quite sure I understand.  Also, they recommend HAND sanding the furniture.  Ummm, 'scuse me?  Seriously, my DeWalt is taking long enough, I doubt my hand will do a better job (insert dirty joke here).  So here is the progress..

in it's natural state, scratched up and wonderful!

part sanded/ part somewhat sanded/ part omg when will it be done!

ahh :)  i could stare at this area forever, nice plain wood

where sanded meets unsanded

Now I will admit...I made a big boo boo.  I sanded the whole thing with a heavy grit paper right down to the bare wood.  Now I read that you're not supposed to do that and you're supposed to use finer and finer paper as you go.  Arg.  We'll just have to see what happens.  I'll try to do that with the rest of the table, I just don't have that much varying degrees of fine to coarse paper on hand.   And yes, I am too lazy at this moment to go get more.   Let's just say I'm more of a "let mistakes happen then fix them and then learn from them " kind of girl.  :)  hee.  More to come...

The weekend

Quite a bit went on this weekend..!  A welcome change as most of the time I just like to veg out.  Last week I visited the page of one Miss Korrie @ Red Hen Home and now my life has completely changed!  She restores furniture in the most exquisite way.  All I want to do now is go on kijiji, buy furniture, and refinish it.  Of course, I have no clue in the world how to do that exactly, but I'm sure gonna try!!  :)  For some reason I feel if I can make something old and not so obviously beautiful into something amazing, then I will have done something good and useful.

 I've found my true calling.

Okay okay, let's not be so dramatic.  hee.  :)  But I'm really excited and can't wait to see if I will be able to finish a table and have it look decent enough that others want to possess it.  :)    

This is my goal.

I, of course, immediately set up two appointments to pick up two tables from two separate people on the weekend.  One of them, I will say was a good pick (I think, from my limited knowledge) and the other, hmm, how can I say this gently..?  It's a useless piece of crap.  I wouldn't even be able to PAY someone $10 to take it off my hands, and I had to PAY $10 for it!   The kicker is, her asking price was $20!!  Now you might ask, how did I get stuck with this rotten lemon of a table if I was able to inspect it when I went to collect it from the owner?  Well, I wasn't the one that picked it up!  I'm kicking myself still.  

solid wood, really?!

 The nerve of this seller!  

Her ad said "SOLID WOOD ROUND TABLE"

Since when does chip wood and flaking off veneer = solid wood??

Funny thing is, I even specifically asked if it was a veneer even in SPITE of her ad saying solid wood, it went exactly like this:

Me: Is this a wood core table with a veneer on top, or is it solid wood? 

Her: It is solid wood

Me: So when you look at the bottom of the table and the top, the wood is the same?

Her: Yes

It was CHIP wood on the bottom!!!  I'd really like to give her the benefit of the doubt here, but there is NO excuse for her.  grrr.  >=T     But you know, it's all okay because you live and you learn.  The only way I can learn more about the process of furniture restoration is to do it, and I think this is part of it.  I won't be fooled again!  We hope.  

 

 And this is my potential beauty...

Now, let me just say, the table does NOT look like this.  I am a bit miffed, not that it matters because I was going to finish it anyway, but they kind of misrepresented the table a bit in their ad too.  This must have been a picture of the day they bought it, because it is not as neat and clean as this!  sigh.  People nowadays.  You can't trust 'em... You can't... kill 'em?  haha ha..  JUST KIDDING.  =I   seriously, kidding.  :)

I mean, what if I had to drive 30km away to go pick these items up?! 

Anyway, I hope to fix it up by painting on some french writing, just like on Red Hen Home.  I'm a copycat what can I say.  I'm gonna need some more experience before I can branch out and be creative.  :)

Wish me luck!  I think I need it!