A July 4th Project

When a holiday comes around, I like to make some sort of themed project. The problem is that I don't usually think about it until a day or two before the holiday. Which means the project needs to be quick. I have tons of bigger projects filed away for all the major holidays. Some year I'm going to be prepared and remember weeks before the holiday. Some year.On Sunday morning, I started thinking about the 4th being this Wednesday. And I remembered that I'd always wanted to make these little candle holders that I saw years ago at a tole painting convention. I've always wanted to place them along my patio walk when we have our annual cookout. Every year, when I would remember that I wanted to make them, it was always too late. This year though, I had a whole day! (The fact that I had planned on working on the blue and white quilt was beside the point. Or, maybe that was the point -- I was putting off having to make yet more blocks.) I ran to the store and bought 8 jars of baby food and got to work.

They're really pretty simple to make. I removed the labels and washed and dried the jars. I used GooGone to help remove the sticky residue. Then I applied some white paint to the outside of the jar with a sponge. This gives the paint a little texture and doesn't show lots of brush strokes.When the paint was dry, I drew a line to mark the area that was painted blue. I could have freehanded this area without marking it -- I did one jar that way and it came out pretty even. To mark it, I placed a pencil on a short box and put the upside down jar next to the pencil. Then I rotated the jar to draw a line.After the line was on, I painted above the line with a blue paint. When the blue paint was dry, I freehanded the red stripes.When the red paint was dry, I painted some little freehand stars on with white paint. I drew them the way we used to draw them as children and then filled them in. They're very casual and rough looking. A small heart stencil or stamp would have been a good way to go, but I didn't have one, and since this was a last minute project, I had to make due with what I had -- which was nothing!When all the paint was dry, I took a fine tip black pen and drew in some detail lines. (There are lots of possibilities here -- I debated about writing some patriotic words on the jars, but in the end, I just left them as you see in the pictures.) Then I gave the jar a light coat of a spray varnish. After the varnish was dry, I made a hanger out of some wire and attached it around the neck of the jar. For a little decoration, I also tied a strip of red fabric and a little decorative yarn around the neck.

When all done, I put a little tea-light candle into each jar. I had some little garden stake thingies (highly technical term there) so I planted them along the walk and hung my little jars on them. They'll be fun on the patio when we're sitting around, after dinner, in the evening.If you'd like to make some little jars -- you still have a whole day before the 4th -- plenty of time! ;-) Even if you don't want to paint the jars, you could just leave them plain and tie some little bits around them for decoration. It's the same idea as the bigger jars you've probably seen in catalogs hanging from trees! The sky's jar's the limit!

XOXO,
Anna

The Garden Shed

With all the gardening going on in blogland, I've been wanting to show you the pond and the little shed that my brother-in-law built for MyDadLovesMeBestSister a few years ago.The pond area used to be a big hill -- my BIL dug it all out (the whole area, not just where the actual water is) by hand with a shovel. He's such a hard worker! My BIL is a lot of fun and he loves to do handyman things. He'll try anything -- even if he's never done it before. (Which is a little scarey, if you think about it.) I love that sense of adventure about him! They live in an 80 year old house, so he's had a lot of projects. When the family girls were in Hawaii, he gutted the one full bath in the house, as a surprise for MyDadLovesMeBestSister upon her return. She had been wanting to re-do the bathroom for years. He did a great job -- it wasn't quite complete when we returned, but what can you expect for only one week? MyDadLovesMeBestSister was SO excited. *

Anyway, back to the pond and shed. My BIL also did all the work on the shed himself, with barely any plans. The picture to the right is a close-up of the door. They found an old screen door in the attic and asked me to paint it for them. He did a great job on the shed -- it's so cute and MyDadLovesMeBestSister keeps all of her gardening tools inside, along with a potting bench. She did all the landscaping around the pond. I think she did a great job of planning where everything should go. You can't really tell it from the pictures, but the pond is directly in front of the shed. So, if you are standing with your back to the door of the shed, you'll be looking at the pond.Wouldn't you just love to have a little gardening shed with a pond like this? I sure would!

Have a great weekend everyone!
XOXO,
Anna

P.S. It should be noted, that while I would love for TheManoftheHouse to be such a hard worker like my BIL, if TheManoftheHouse decided to completely redecorate a room in the house while I was gone, I would have to "do him bodily harm"! Really, would your ManoftheHouse be able to remodel to your tastes? I also admire my sister's fabulous ability to be so easy going!

My Favorite

As I mentioned in my last post, on Feb. 19th, Portobello Pixie challenged anyone interested to write about their favorite "design". It could be anything, she said, it didn't have to be something sewn. I thought this would be fun and fit right in with the category of things that I already post as "my favorites."

About 6 or 7 years ago I saw an article about painting chairs in different ways. And somewhere in there, I was thinking about those special plates that you can order that say "It's Your Birthday" or "It's your Special Day" or something like that. I've always loved the idea of making a big deal over a kid's birthday. Or the day they get their braces off. Or have a stellar report card. Etc. And the thoughts collided and I thought it would be fun to have a chair that the kids could sit on for "their special day." Then, the idea expanded a little more, and I thought it would be fun for others in the family to be able to sit on the chair -- for Father's Day, or Mother's Day, or a promotion at work, etc. So, I thought it might be fun to paint a "Celebration " chair.

I started looking for chairs and soon found three chairs at an auction for $7.00 each. They were so odd looking, but I thought I'd see what I could do with them, and the chair to the right is what happened. I painted the three chairs exactly alike and gave one to my mom and one to my sister. So now, no matter who's house we're at for a party, the honoree sits in the celebration chair. The idea has grown a little too, for birthdays we've added a banner, placemats and one of those goofy stuffed hats with candles on top to the collection.

Here's a closer view of the front and back of the top of the chair:





A year or two later I was asked to paint some chairs for charity auctions. These pictures were taken before the chairs were sold and long before I had a digital camera, so they're dark, but you can see how the idea can be extended to different style chairs. The first chair didn't have a solid piece of wood running down the middle of the back, so I put the special days on little pieces of wood running along the top of the chair.
PeaSoup blogged the other day about a cape that she'd made for her child's classroom. When a child has his birthday, he gets to wear the cape and a crown all day at school. How I wish I'd known about that when my children were still in school -- just another thing to make their day SO special!

XOXO,
Anna