Five Years Ago Tonight

It has been five years ago tonight that Amber was killed. Chandler is now seventeen. Oh, how I wish this happy picture could be a picture of them together and well today.

Happy Birthday, Amber...February 23rd

I Miss You!

Love, Mom

It has been a long time....

since I posted.

Too many projects and not enough time.

Not to mention I have yet learned to use my camera

although I have excellent online lessons.

Obviously, though I say I want to learn to be a good photographer,

I choose to do DIY projects instead of learning my camera.

This is one of the reasons I have not posted.

I got so tired of going to blogs, that I loved, by the way, and

reading apologies for the pictures. Their pictures looked 

GrEaT

to

me

So, I thought, " If theirs aren't good, mine are horrible!"

AnD

they are just that

Horrible

taken

with

an

IPhone

and not

doctored...

so if you dare

read on...

This project started with this...a small refrigerator

which used to reside in the guest room closet.

We are remodeling our kitchen ( among other things)

in our Gilbert home

and I needed to

practice

for I do not want to spend $6,000. and upwards

for a new

panel

refrigerator.

I currently have a Stainless Steel French Door.

I despise Stainless Steel

but my refrigerator is not very old

and sooooooooo

practice was in order...

Practice doing what, you ask?

Painting and Embellishing 

to

get 

rid of the

Stainless 

 Sides of the refrigerator are black. 

Luckily, I had brought to Pinetop some blue, off white, 

and white Annie Sloan Chalk Paint.  I forget the color of the blue.

On the fridge, in the valley, I will be using Duck Egg Blue.

  I warned you the pictures are horrible and do not do justice

to the real thing.

This is the fridge painted with the blue.

I know...it looks white. It was cloudy and the light was awful, even

for IPhone pictures.

  A view of the side

  After painting the fridge blue...and I used 3 coats of paint,

by the way, I white washed the entire fridge. This lets you

see the background blue color a little better.

I mixed equal parts of Old White and Pure White and then added

about the same amount of water. I wiped it away, with a rag, as I painted.

  A view of the front white washed.

 I purchased moldings from Home Depot. We had measured

the lengths we wanted our frames to be so we could

miter the pieces at the store. Since the fridge is small

we used small moldings. I painted them and then antiqued

them with Valspar antiquing glaze. I had not brought my

Annie Sloan waxes up here with me. Oh, I bought the glaze at Lowe's.

  Picture of the glaze. I like to use the glaze out of the lid.

I shake the bottle and then open the bottle. I wet a rag, dip it

in just a tad of the glaze and then wipe it on whatever I am antiquing.

If there is too much to your liking, you can get a clean wet rag

and wipe away more. It is nice to try to leave some of the glaze 

in the grooves of the embellishments.

  I like to work on top of garbage sacks. I also use

gloves ( most of the time ) when using the glaze.

 The above picture shows the front of the fridge and the one below

the side after I had used the antiquing glaze on the fridge.

 I am showing you a level, in case you want to try a

similar project. We used it to make sure our frame pieces were level.

 And here she is completely finished.

We used contact cement to apply the moldings.

A hint....follow the directions....place the glue on

the object and where it is to be glued. Wait the 15 minutes

the directions say to wait.

We did not, at first, and the pieces would not stay. Lesson

learned.

  I glued, with E6000 glue, vintage buttons on two places

on the front of the fridge where there were little pieces that

were not flat.

  Finished Sides

 I lightly used Minn Wax Paste to protect the finish.

I am not really sure this was necessary.

Here it is, out of the closet. Sadly, I moved a vintage 

table into the closet to make room for it. For now,

I could not bare for it to be hidden.

I am pretty sure I will be painting that Stainless Refrigerator,

in Gilbert!

Also, I need to mention the below containers for housing Chalk Paint.

They are wonderful. They keep your paint from drying out and all you

do is squeeze the bottle to get out some paint.

I purchase them at

The Green Table 

in Gilbert, AZ
Visit their blog here.

Lastly, I got my inspiration when I was blog hopping and found Victoria's blog.

Visit her here and you will really enjoy her post!

Plants on The Deck

Our Deck

We arrived back in Destin, FL, on Saturday.

By the time we got to our place,

it was dark, so we did not go

out on our deck until Sunday.

My neighbor and friend, Brenda, takes

care of our plants while we are gone.

I was amazed that not only was everything

still alive, everything was thriving.

I told her if things started to die I would

need to leave, as I do not have a green thumb, at all!

Below is one of my Boston Ferns

and my little Lime tree.

Some leaves of my ficus are sticking out

in this photo also.The Ivy is starting to really grow and has a good start on covering 

the trellis.

See one of my Limes...

There are seven of them on this

little tree. :)

You can see another one

hanging over the bottom of the

pot in this photo.

You will also see the pot is

sitting on an ottoman.

My honey is going to cover it

with a solid piece of wood..

I don't have my Annie Sloan Duck Egg blue paint with

me, so it might need to wait awhile.

When I left here,

four months ago,

this fern was a tiny thing.

I am not even sure what the

name of this fern is.

I bought it after seeing Brenda's

beautiful plant. She told me the

name but I don't recall it, at the moment.

It resembles a Boston Fern but the leaves are bigger.

My African Violet.

Brenda said it bloomed while

we were gone. She also said she

has never had any luck with

African Violets.

Well, she had luck with this one.

We will see if it stays alive.

See the deck over there?

That is Brenda's beautiful Jungle!

Today is so wonderful here.

The sky is overcast and there is a

breeze which makes it perfect for

sitting on our deck and looking 

at our plants Brenda kept growing for us.

I hope your weather is as lovely as here today!

 The name of the store?

Guess...

Embellish

This is the sign they have

in front of each parking 

space..

and now meet

 Trisha,

The Owner,

The Designer,

The Lovely...

BUT,

I

had

to 

BEG

her 

for

a 

Picture!

I was going to Photshop me out

of the picture taking,

but

time

got

in

the 

    way...

Imagine that..

Below are pictures

of her 

FABULOUS SHOP

in Pinetop, AZ.

It is my favorite shop in AZ.

Yes,

everywhere

in 

AZ.

It is a Boutique.

It is a Scrapbook store.

It is MAGNIFICENT!

Enjoy some photos 

she allowed me

to snap

with 

my

cell

phone...

No Manual Practicing Here..

I was too busy 

shopping!

If there was ever a reason to visit

Pinetop, AZ,

This store is IT!

Mother Nature

In just a week and a half,  Mother Nature has 

certainly been transforming our

new Aspens and our Maple tree!

I purchased an iron bed to turn into a 

"flower bed"

at an antique shop in Miami, AZ.

My hubby dug some holes and put the bed in.

We discovered the pegs were not given to me with the bed.

Randy bought some at Ace and secured the bed.

Next spring/summer when we return to Pinetop,

we will place rocks around the bed to hold the

compost, soil, and manure.

Then we will fill it with flowers and hope they live!

 The only thing, so far, that we have had any

luck with up here are roses.

Anyway, I am looking forward to seeing my

new vintage bed transformed.

I gave it a couple of coats of lacquer to help protect

the choppiness of the paint.

Practicing in Manual Mode

 I am practicing Manual mode

on my camera.

I took the first class of Photography 101 from
shootflyshoot.com

and I highly recommend it.

I love that it is available to me forever.

I plan to take their second class

but I still need to practice what

is taught in the first class.

Today's post was chosen because of a party hosted by
Funky Junk Interiors. See the link at the end of the post.
I decided to practice photographing my

 yellow vintage door turned shelf
 and my whitevintage door
turned into part of our headboard

in Pinetop...

See all those Pine trees...

We have 28 of them in our front yard.

Side View

Even my husband said he loves seeing the

scrolls on the sides when out in the yard.

The door used to be in our pantry.

Now it is on the deck and holds

dishes I use for Mosaic.

It also holds vintage bottles and a what not here or there,

waiting to be transformed.

This was the first picture I took this morning.

I looked at it and my first thought was

Oh My...

But

Then

I decided it was sort of

Artsy

and 

I 

liked

it!

I also could not get enough light

in our Master Bedroom

to showcase the Vintage French Door

Turned into our headboard.

I worked with it just a little in PSE

and I also decided I sort of liked the

graniness ( is that a word?! )

Linking up with the party below!