My Weekend On The Town

So this weekend, like many weekends found me out on the town living it up! Dressed in heels with pearls in my ears being ushered into fabulous establishments with glasses clinking and sparkling conversation. 

As if....

Not even.....

Close....

This weekend found me frantically driving from garage sale to estate sale to backyard hoard. All in 110 degree weather. In the Camry....

Note my fancy getup. Sexy right?

I know...I know...it's what I do, right? But this time the stakes were a little higher. I have a booth to fill at Junk In The Trunk Vintage Market in San Diego this weekend and not much time to do it. 

Anyone love gears? Wait til you see what I do with these!!

Toolboxes! Don't mind if I do!

Can you guess what I'll do with that window? See HERE for a clue!

Now I ask myself...Self? Don't you have a garage full and a side yard full and an office full of wonderful projects in the making? So I answered myself...Self...Yes I do, but you don't get it! Those things either:

1) require too much work
2) don't "go" with my look
3) won't fit into the tetris I have planned for packing

So I find myself out on the town. 

Wearing my grubbies and packing gloves. 

Sweating.....


Swearing....

And packing it all into a Camry

Thanks to all of those whose path I crossed this weekend. Had a blast!

Packing My Bags For The Beach

 I'm packing my bags to get out of Phoenix!! Here is a basic truth about living in the desert...it's hot in the summer. I mean UNBEARABLY hot....and no one has any patience with everyone being hot. So the only reasonable thing to do is get out. And any smart person knows that they should head to the beach. Right?

So when the sweet gals at Junk In The Trunk announced that they were doing their fabulous vintage market in San Diego....in July....right near the water.....I waffled.

I hemmed and I hawed....I sat a spell and thunk on it. I deliberated. I carefully weighed the pros and the cons. I calculated profitability vs effort. 

And 30 seconds later I pressed SEND! 

No brainer.... 

Duh... 

So here I find myself packing up to head out to San Diego. And it couldn't come a moment too soon! May and June nearly killed me! But I wanted to do something a little different this summer. I've been super inspired by maps and globes and the saturated color that I associate with summer. So I've been on a quest and here are some of my treasures that will be coming with me to the beach!

See a color trend? I just can't get over the gorgeous blues in the DIY Paint line! 

It is so easy to paint with this paint. This color (Pedal Pusher) is so yummy! If you want to learn how to paint with chalk and clay paints and you are in the Phoenix area, check out my workshops HERE!

Check out my market schedule so you can come find me HERE!

Pin me please

Fourth Of July Fail

Fourth Of July Fail

In the past 50 years I've learned some things about myself. 

#1  I really love crafts

#2  I'm really bad at crafts

#3  I love buying supplies for craft projects

#4  I'm really bad at following through on craft projects. 

So you will understand that when I saw the lovely Jennifer Allwood with her mane of blond hair and her adorable accent doing a super-easy, super-inexpensive craft for Fourth Of July I had to bite. 

Here are her super adorable balls:

Photo Via The Magic Brush-Jennifer Allwood

Please see her fantastic live FB feed on how to do these darling stars and stripes balls here!

Now that you've seen her project and how easy she makes it look you can agree that this seems like something that I, as a homo-sapien that manages to walk upright and form complete sentences should be able to accomplish. Right? Are you with me?

So of course I took myself immediately to the craft store to buy me up some supplies (because I've never met a supply I didn't like). I had these cute little metal buckets that I thought would be adorable with the napkins decoupaged on them. I'd use as a flower container or to hold silverware etc. Sounds reasonable right? Anyone want to take bets on how much I bought while I was there? Here was my list. 

1) Mod Podge (I already had a supply at home)

2) Sponge brush (I already had a supply at home)

3) Festive napkins

ONE ITEM! I only had to buy ONE ITEM!!!

Does this look like one item to you?

No...No...this does not look like one item. This looks like someone with a shopping/hoarding problem. Is there a meeting for that? But I digress....so I brought my haul home and set out a space on the dining room table (because isn't that where everyone does their crafting?) and got started. 

On this day I had my lovely assistant with me. She is 16 and very willing to try whatever task I set before her. We discovered however that mod podge and Maia don't mix. 

Here is Maia...isn't she cute? 

Maia

We've got this!

Easy, right?

Just apply mod podge then napkin

 Now you can see from this photo that Maia has clearly confused our Fourth of July project for a candy cane. Her first attempt was to apply the napkins in a more organized fashion than the haphazard fashion in the video. Haphazard is the way to go here. 

So because I am the adult (clearly) and I have a fabulous grasp on crafting do's and don'ts (that's a damned lie) I picked up the stars portion of the napkin and another metal vessel and started to show her how's it's done (too ridiculous to mention). 

No words

Here is what I learned:


1) Mod podge sticks to everything including fingers and fingernails. 
2) Brushes are borderline pointless
3) I'm not good at crafts
4) Tearing the napkins is way better than cutting. They lay down easier and blend together effortlessly
5) Take the white layer off the back of the napkin leaving the thinner overlay.
6) Smaller pieces = Better
7) Be ok with lumpy and bumpy
8) Don't plan a blog post about a craft before you've done it

Here is the final project as I set our Fourth Of July Table:

The finished project

Stars and Stripes and Watermelons

How could I not buy piggy salt and pepper shakers?

Extra napkins did NOT go to waste!!

Fourth of July!

Be Safe everyone!!

First of July Baby

First of July Baby

Oh for heavens sake.....it hardly seems possible but today is the First of July. Now for most people that means that BBQ's are coming soon and visions of fireworks are dancing in their heads. Not for me....or my family. First of July is the day my little redhead firecracker was born and life has never been the same. 

What Fireworks SHOULD look like

When my little firecracker exploded very very slowly (33 1/2 hours of labor, but who's counting) into my life I thought "GOOD"! A little bundle of red hair, blue eyes and blinking lashes will bring us all joy and excitement. And I was right! But rather than a beautiful synchronized display of fireworks, my little fireball was more like this:

Erica Nicole Gilgenbach was born in Moanalua, Hawaii and came 4 weeks early. She was a tiny little quiet thing and that's probably the last time anyone could call her that. She's been anything but quiet since and she definitely always has an opinion. 

Look at that tiny little bundle!

Erica with her Uncle Nate at the San Diego Zoo

Look at that face! How could you tell that face no?

So that little spitfire grew up to be a beautiful young lady. I won't say those teenage years were easy....I won't even say they were hard. They were darned near inhumane. But I kept reminding myself that I didn't want shrinking violets for daughters, I wanted strong, independent, free-thinkers. And boy did I get them! This one was obstinate, defiant, self-centered and not particularly lovable at times. But thank goodness she eventually grew out of it. 

Well....most of it. 

And then she met her soul-mate. 

And this happened. 

Since then Erica continues to be a little firecracker in my life. Now she doesn't really explode all over the place...she just lights little fires here and there. She is talented and loving and cared deeply about her causes and concerns. She's just a beautiful young lady and I'm proud to call her my daughter. 

Happy Birthday Dear One!

There is no e-space between us!!