market makeovers

 Here are a few  make-overs that came to the markets with me on Saturday.

This box came to me without a base, bit it was solid and heavy.

We put a new base and some castors on it and painted grey inside and used homemade white chalk paint on the inside.

It was then heavily distressed and I applied decals to the front,

and the back, with a grocery theme.

If it didn't sell I was going to bring it home to use to store wood next to the fireplace, but someone loved it and it is on it's way to a new home.

 I picked this stool up at an op shop 

 and repainted it grey and added this Parisian fabric,

 it went home with a little girl who happened to have a quilt in the same fabric.

 I can't seem to find a before shot of this chair, maybe because we has to fix the front legs so it sat upside down on a table for a while.

The original fabric was green and while it was in fairly good condition on the top it was ripped at the bottom.

I sprayed it charcoal with an upholstery spray paint.

I sprayed the woodwork with a an almost identical colour and then I painted on Miss Mustard Seed's Milk Paint in Ironstone over the top and then distressed it.

 We reupholstered the base in the same Parisian fabric. 

VCH has bought a staple gun for the air compressor and that made the job super easy, I held the fabric and he stapled it on.

  I covered up a couple of little holes on the top part with a small piece of the fabric.

It has gone to a salon in town.

 Here is a lamp that we were also given. It just needed a little gluing to get it right and then I painted it in the same charcoal colour,

and made a new lamp shade for it.

This was the tricky part, but I think it came out OK for my first time.

 Here is the completed lamp.

It came home with me, but that's OK as there is always a next time!

For those of you who are going to ask, 

I had a fabulous position at the markets right on a corner where everyone has to go past and that meant a two sided frontage. 

The sites are huge 5m x 5m so plenty of room to spread out!

I sold quite a lot of stuff and made a nice profit.

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some recent makeovers

Today I thought I would share some of my recent makeovers, that I had for sale at the markets.

 

 Here is my bench- which you have seen before,

 this time with some warm winter cushions that I upcycled from knitted items.

Lots of people were fascinated by them, at first wondering if I had knitted them myself, 

I then had to explain that I made them from previously knitted items. 

 

I showed you this chair before, well actually there were two the same.

I debated whether or not to treat them as a pair or do them different, I chose different.

 The first one I painted white and put a cute navy and white postage fabric on the seat.

 

 The second I painted red and used this cute aqua floral for the seat.

I actually sold both to a young man after he sent photos to his girlfriend at work.

I also had a lady who really loved the red but wanted two, 

she emailed me to see if they sold since the market.

 I will have to see if I can get some more and do them up for her.

Remember this coffee table that was originally all black- here it has already been painted.

This is how it looked when I had finished with it.

I took this photo the night before the market, I had been meaning to do so all day but just didn't get there, so the light is not fantastic.

It wasn't a cheap project to do, the foam was very expensive and I used a good indoor/outdoor fabric that I had in my stash from Fabric Traders.

I was a bit worried about selling it because it was going to be quite expensive, so I didn't put my usual mark- up on it, but it turned out to be the first thing that sold on the day, to a neighbouring stall holder. 

It sat there in my stall until the end of the markets and I had lots of inquiries about it

 - so I really probably could have charged more!

I am hoping to be back tomorrow with a recipe.

winter holiday catch up

We are one week into our winter school holiday, so I thought I would share a few things I have been up to.

First of course was my market stall at the Legacy Winter Markets, this is the first time they have done a winter market, taking over from our local gallery who no longer wanted to do it.

I did extremely well at the Christmas Markets they had, so I was keen to go along.

Thankfully the rain stayed away for the day- I was a bit worried!

I did quite well on the day, and have since got a custom order from the lady who bought the pink chair.

She bought this for her granddaughter's nursery and now other family members want some chairs in their chosen colours for their homes. 

This lady is actually from Queensland but visits family in our town regularly.

The little ones spent Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday morning at Kid's Club and had a great time- it was rather strange for this homeschooler to get everyone breakfasted and dressed and in the car by 8:30am each morning- I don't know how school mums do it!

I spent the time while the kids were at Kids Club, Op shopping and having morning tea with different friends each day- it was lots of fun!

But by the time we got home and had lunch the day seemed to have just gone and very little got done, except maybe some reading!

Thursday and Friday saw a bit more productivity as I enforced 2 screen free days for the kids- no computer, playstation, iPods, DVD's or TV until we had our nightly dose of The Block.

It makes it so much calmer when they don't constantly ask me if they can watch a movie,play a computer game etc.

I started out cleaning and decluttering my bedroom.

I also cleaned out the desk that my great grandfather built and moved it from my dining room into the parents retreat, off my bedroom.

Maggie hopped into an empty alcove for a little nap!

I have plans for my dining room and I still need to tackle a few things in my bedroom but it is looking a lot neater- I want to go through the bookshelf and I have some magazines to sort through before passing them on.

 

The desk needs a new coat of beeswax, but I am really liking it here.

At the request of B2, I made a chicken and mushroom pie- it was delicious!

 I made my own GF pastry and then made half of it into puff pastry - I was quite pleased with the result- I was just going on my memory of how I did it at school about 30 years ago.

 I then decided to make some fabulous spinach and cheese rolls on Saturday, I had discovered a recipe in my decluttering  and after finding heaps of silverbeet in the garden waiting to be picked thought it the perfect time to make them.

 I was half way through making the puff pastry when I thought I should take a look at exactly how to make it, I headed to pinterest and discovered I was making it slightly wrong and adjusted the recipe half way through- the result- DISASTER! 

I ended up with too much butter in the pastry and the result was an extremely short falling apart pastry with butter oozing from it in the oven, the filling however was delicious, so with plenty of silverbeet still in the garden I will be trying this again this week- hopefully with a better result!

Friday night I tagged along with the three big boys when they went to the cinema to see the Lone Ranger with friends ( I told them to pretend I wasn't there and that I wouldn't sit with them- but they some of his friends came and sat with me).

I was planning to go with VCH - but apparently he never liked the Lone Ranger as a kid and had no interest in seeing it!

I actually think he would have enjoyed it. 

Johnny Depp was brilliant. 

The movie was great but definitely geared to an older audience with an M rating.

 I would not recommend it to anyone under 13.

I have also discovered a way to get some cheaper tickets to go to the movies.

Our local theatre sells bulk movie passes so for $50 you can get five 2D tickets, and for $60 five 3D tickets, the only catch- you must purchase them at least 24hrs in advance of using them, but you have 1 year to use them after this. This works out great if you plan on going on days other than cheap Tuesday. 

I sent B1 in the day before and we used them on Friday night and have one left for another time.

I will definitely be doing this again!

This week I am planning to clean out my sewing room and sort out some "redeemed" stuff.

I have a dresser that I will be striping paint off ready for the arrival of my Miss Mustard Seed Milk paint.

 I will be taking my 3 little ones to see Despicable Me 2 in 3D and to the ice cream shop tomorrow as their reward for completing all their schoolwork last term.

They had to earn 40 points to go to the movies, 50 points to get a drink and popcorn, and 60 points to include an ice cream (1 scoop)  from the ice cream shop. 

If they only did the bare minimum they would have only got 35 points (I didn't start this until a couple of weeks into term), but to earn extra points they had to read extra books. B5 ended up getting 90 points- so he ended up with a mini sundae at the ice cream shop, B4 and The Girl earned a mix in with 70 points.- I kept having to add extras on as they worked so hard and exceeded my expectations!

I am hoping to catch up with a few friends later in the week.

Somewhere in this I think I had better do some planning for term 3!

Hope you are enjoying your holiday - even if it is a bit cold!

I will be back with some recipes, some gardening and some more details about the markets later in the week.

outdoor table looking good

Just a quick post today to show you how these outdoor table and chairs 

that we found on the side of the road came up with a bit of paint.

Before

After

They look so amazing now!

VCH had to fix a couple of things on them and then we just slapped on some Dulux Leadman.

I really like them and am still debating with myself whether to keep them or sell them.

I think for the moment they will stay.

I have lots of coloured cans of succulents scattered around our outdoor area left over from the boys' party, they add a bit of colour to the table.

I am off for a Girly weekend on the Gold Coast with 6 of my old school friends

- looking forward to lots of fun, good food, shopping, laughter and catching up!

Here is a post about our last weekend away 2 years ago. 

bedhead bench

Remember I told you how I had found lots of fabulous bedheads on my roadside foraging?

Well one that didn't end up in the garden lent itself very nicely to a bench seat.

 

I thought I took a before shot but cannot find it.

Basically we used the top as the back and the bottom as the front.

VCH thought that we should leave the metal in place at the front for extra stability.

 I think it also adds a nice detail.

 VCH used some metal brackets we found at Bunnings to attach the seat.

 The seat itself is a piece left over from the outdoor kitchen benchtops.

I stained it with a cedar stain and did a couple of coats to try and match the original timber and then gave it a satin finish.

I gave the original wood a coat with a combination cedar stain and varnish to freshen it up.

It got a bit wet in last night's rain that's why the seat looks wet.

 

 We put it to good use at the party, here is VCH's dad and nieces and nephew testing it out.

 I think it would look fabulous in someone's entry hall or front veranda!

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kid's play kitchen reveal

 I have just finished this kid's play kitchen and put it on the market.

It started out looking like this.

I managed to find this old TV cabinet on Gumtree for FREE!

Although VCH wasn't too happy when we went to pick it up and discovered how heavy it was!

It took three men (I am including B2 as a man here) to get it onto the back of the ute.

It was quite fiddly to do and I had to rely on VCH to do all the hard parts, like cut out round bits for sinks and make the shelf after B3 sat on it and broke the original one! and put in taps and hinges etc- you get the picture!

It took a lot longer than I thought mainly because of the rain and our holiday and VCH building an outdoor  kitchen and then having to wait until he got home from work to do certain things etc.

But now finally it is finished and hopefully it will sell quickly because I would like to move it out of my entertaining area to a new home rather than having to find somewhere else for it to live at my place until it is sold.

We are having a party Monday night so it will need to be moved before then!

 We painted the whole of the inside white and made a fridge and freezer with little baskets on the doors.

 

 Here we have a cooktop made of some ply, recycled from the original back, CD's painted matt black and knobs recycled from an old kid's kitchen and painted gloss black.

Above the cooktop is a little wooden plaque that VCH picked up at a garage sale one day while I was at  market, I painted it with chalkboard paint and replaced the cup hooks with new ones, it's perfect for hanging some utensils off.

There is also a faux window to look out of with replaceable pictures.

The sink is a stainless steel bowl and can be removed in case a child fills it with water, the taps came from our second hand building centre and they can turn.

I have also added some battery operated lights and some more hooks.

 One door became an oven with perspex in the door, the other door is for the cupboard.

Here you can see inside.

There is a shelf in the oven- I really wanted a wire rack/ shelf here but we were unable to find one the right size.

There is a rail for the tea towel to hang off in the cupboard

I almost wish I was a kid again so I could have one of these!

Edited to add, it has been sold, was delivered it to its new owner on Saturday!

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