SPARKLING SAND DOLLAR

Last week I posted my Floating Gallery Wall that was inspired by the sand dollars sent to me by Donna at Distressed Donna Down Home.  I saved just one of those sand dollars for another project.  I wish I had more because I love them.  I need to live near the beach.  In fact, I'm sure it is my destiny to eventually give coastal living a try.

Maybe I could kill two birds with one stone and have a cottage by the sea.  I always thought it would be awesome to live in a seaside cottage.  When I was a kid, one of my dreams was to live in a log cabin in the mountains by a stream.  Did it.  Loved it. Then I thought it would be fun to live in a little farmhouse in the country by a creek.  Did it.  Loved it.  Obviously, I'm a girl who feels like making dreams a reality is perfectly within my grasp.  Why not?
In the meantime, I'll continue dreaming about the coastal life in my beach themed master bedroom where I like to surround myself with sparkly, beachy, dreamy decor...like this bejeweled sand dollar.

When the sun catches it, it twinkles just enough.  Anything that sparkles or twinkles and does NOT involve glitter makes me smile.  Glitter makes me twitch.  

Now I do realize that this project is nothing more than sticking on a few gems to a painted sand dollar and stringing it up with some beads and a meaningful charm.  I also realize that this is not an original idea.  You can find a ton of these used as wedding favors and Christmas ornaments on pinterest.  You can even buy yourself one on several etsy shops for around $30.00 plus shipping.  But I decided to just make one for myself....for free, because someone was nice enough to send me some sand dollars and I already had gems and beads.    Besides, I need to save my money for that little seaside cottage that I'm dreaming of.

Dream Sign

Enjoy your day and thank you for stopping by.

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MOSS-COVERED FRAME

It's a new year. I haven't really made any serious resolutions.  I got a fitbit.  It's monitoring me and I'm monitoring it.  That's our relationship thus far, but I imagine it will grow into something more intimate as we become less weary of each other.
I didn't do a round-up of all of my popular posts for last year (although I've been inspired by some good ones already).  
I didn't pick a "word" for the year (although I've seen some inspiring ones out there).
The blog police are probably coming for me even as I post this.
Christmas has all been packed away and my house is barren of much of any decor.  *sigh*
I suppose the lack of personal touch is the most noticeable in my living room, so I thought I would begin post-holiday resuscitation there.

Since I moved from the country into town last May, I've been missing my woods and creek the most.  I decided to go with a woodland kind of theme to my living room, at least through the spring or until I'm tired of it or until actual moss grows in there.
I made this moss-covered frame as a holder for my little tillandsia, or airplant as they are more commonly called.  I started seeing them all over pinterest last year and found one for $4 on clearance.  It came in a glass ball, similar to this...

I had other plans for it.  It also came hot glued to some reindeer moss that had been spray painted bright red and glued to the glass ball with some of the most wickedly aggressive adhesive I have ever come upon.  I figured I would either kill the plant or break the glass ball getting that out of there, or both, but 24 hours and a half a bottle of "goo gone" later, it was free of it's ugly moss and the ball remained in tact. (I will admit to post holiday egg nog to calm my frustration.)
This project was a no-brainer.  It kind of went like this...

Ugly picture frame

Remove those metal things that hold the picture in from the back

Trace frame onto back of sheet moss

Cut it out and glue it onto the frame

Glue on some reindeer moss

Glue on some smooth river rocks to make a corner pocket for plant

That's about it.  Took about 45 minutes.
I hung it on my pallet shelf in the living room along with a birch vase full of faux pussy willows, an antler I found on the farm and a little candle that smells like cedar.  (Candles that smell like cedar are always an inexpensive score right after Christmas.)

You may recognize some of the components of this project from when I made this.....

Pallet Board Candlescape

If you want to know how to dismantle a pallet to make a cool shelf, you can see this post...

Pallet Shelf

......little bit creepy to see Halloween right now, isn't it? I should take a better picture of that shelf to use.
I'm kind of excited to be back to blogging because it's a great motivator and most of the inspiration for my house reno has come from all of the wonderful blogs out there.  (This means YOU.)  Thank you.  
I'm happy to say that as soon as the weather gets just a little better, I'll be picking up the back yard and patio projects. (This is going to make my fitbit very happy.)  We did get almost all of the landscaping block and gravel finished with the exception of the final layer of gravel and the capstone...which is just waiting for me.
I'm even happier to say that my dear friend Judy is coming from Arizona to visit me towards the end of this month.  She's nothing short of awesome and I can't wait.  I haven't seen her since August. 
Finally...I should mention that I realized that I have a lot of guest posts that I've done which have never published on my old blog.  I'm going to post them every now and then, so if you see something you think you've seen before...you probably have.
Now I need to go do something so that my fitbit doesn't think I'm sleeping.

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DREAM SIGN

This post is all about making a dream out of a disaster.

Lovely isn't it?  It wasn't always so.  It was born from a disaster.  
I had this fun little cabinet.  I got it at an antique store on sale for $20.00 and it really wasn't that great, but I fell in love with the door on it and used it for years.

I decided to use it in my new coastal themed bedroom, but it was going to have to be prettied up a little first.  I painted it with Annie Sloan Old Ochre Chalk Paint.  Two coats.  It was beautiful.  I gave it two coats of Miss Mustard Seed Clear Wax.  It was gorgeous.  I was buffing out the last coat when my table broke and the whole cabinet came crashing down onto my concrete garage floor.  That beautiful door broke.

I said a lot of swears.  Sam felt bad enough for me that he tried to fix it with some Gorilla Glue and clamps.

I was fearful that it wouldn't hold up to the pulling that a cabinet door would get.  I decided to touch up the damaged paint on the rest of the cabinet and use it without the door.  I couldn't toss the door though because I loved it so.  I decided to make a little sign out of it and maybe something to hang my robe and jammies on.
I had this metal sign that said "Dream" and I wired it onto the front.
I also had this awesome metal seahorse pull that I was going to use on the door anyway, but it was "chippy" and I wanted it bright and clean.  I gave it a coat of spray paint.

So began the bones of this new project.

I taped the edges and gave the border a quick coat of Annie Sloan "Provence".

 Then, I just left it out and stared at it for about 2 weeks.  I tried several things and settled on some beach glass, shells, starfish and glass stones - all attached with my trusty finger-burnin' hot glue gun.

I added a few hooks....in the wrong place, which led to adding a few more shells.  Finally, I was pretty happy with it and mounted it to my walk-in closet door.

I did salvage the rest of that cabinet, but that's a different post coming soon to a computer screen near you.
In the mean time, I'm enjoying my new robe hook/sign.  

Kind of goes with my beachy wreath don't ya think?

I have had a lot of fun making decor for my master bedroom...maybe too much fun.  As soon as I get the mate to my nightstand and paint it, I'll show you the rest.  In the mean time...I'm packing up my craft room and moving everything out of it because I'm getting all of my flooring replaced, except the kitchen.  That's right...all of that beautiful coastal cypress that was installed less than 5 months ago has to be replaced.  Installation failure.  Glad we had professionals do it because I would not want to have to fight that fight with the company myself.  So....replacement won't cost me anything, but can I just tell you what a pain in the butt packing everything up and moving it out is?  It seems like I just did that!  (Oh yeah....it's because I did.)  I know...first world problem, but still.  I can tell you that some swears were said over that issue as well. (My swear jar overfloweth.) Hope it ends as well as my cabinet door disaster.

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