Me and My Space - Paint, Collectibles and A little Jam

Hello Sunday - Bringing back one of my old post days, you seemed to like me showing off a few of my old things last week. So I thought I might on Sundays try and show you a few things we (Hubby and I) have been working on that week, and/or show off a few of my treasured pieces around my house.

The main project we started this last week was jumping in head first into re-doing furniture in our house. Now we never tip toe into anything we do. We dive right into the deep end. Last winter we painted our house inside. Was Sage Green... was tired and worn, so we went with a new color and did Taupe. I love it. But the furniture that we have in the Living Room and Dining Room. Well it all was purchased from a small unique furniture store in town, and it all matched. Something I had never had and thought we would like. And honestly we did... but when the green left the furniture well.. the cream color somehow turned yellow. And the more we lived with it, the yellower it got. So last weekend we were talking and decided that it was time for another change. And from that decision over breakfast we now have plans for 7 pieces of furniture. LOL Told you we dive...   I did some surfing and reading and found a paint that sounded interesting. We went out and found it in a small store in town and since then have been back two more times for more colors! Diving here...

First here is one of the pieces in my Living Room that we just finished. (We meaning I hold, move things and support Hubby while he is doing. He is a bit of a control freak when it comes to standards of painting. I don't pass.. so he does it.)  Anyway... here is the before

 Sorry the photos STINK! The lighting in my Living Room is not good at and for some reason every photo I took is a bit grainy... but I think you can still see it.

Ok.. now you may not see it, but to me, this thing is WAY yellow. All the furniture is this same color. And we are really tired of it. It is still great solid wood furniture, just boring. So... We went and did this to it!

AFTER

I LOVE IT! It is Chalk Paint with a wax coat over it. So So So happy with how it turned out. Again Sorry the photo are so bad. LIGHTING IT HORRIBLE. Anyway this is my Flow Blue cabinet. Well, it has lots in it actually... Flow Blue, Feather Edge, Iron Stone, Iridescent Glass, and so on and so on. But we call this the Flow Blue Cabinet.

We painted it with this...

Annie Sloan Chalk Paint. In Duck Egg color. A pretty soft light blue. Have you heard of this paint? It isn't everywhere. But if you google you can find it in more and more places. I got mine at HERE at a cute little shop called Woodland Cottage. This paint is so freaking awesome! Covers amazingly, water based for easy clean up, will paint and stick to just about everything. (I am trying to get Hubby to do our steel front door too!) But the bestest thing... NO PREP work. Yes... NO SANDING to get it ready for paint. Just dust it off.. and paint! It really covers amazingly. It is a flat "CHALK" finish when done. But they have wax that they sell that you put on over it that gives a warm sheen and that fabulous vintage feel to it. And they have another wax "Dark Wax" that you can use that really gives a totally antiqued darkening feel! (We did the donkey cabinet with that... I'll show it next week)  Google this stuff... it ROCKS!!

The paint colors can be mixed to make lots more colors. I think there are 30 available. But you can lighten and darken shades. You can take a little and add water to create a wash.. So you get that we are impressed with the paint right?

But after all of that... This on the can is probably one of my favorite things...

Ha! Hubby didn't think it was that funny.. Oh well, I am easily amused sometimes.  I'll show off other pieces each week as we do them... that will show of a lot more of the colors as well - LOL told you we DIVE into things.

Thought I would mention another thing that was a new thing for us this week... One little comment about how store bought preserves just taste like sugar. And how good some home made would be. From there I ran across a display while waiting for Hubby at Lowes... and then here was my kitchen counter Thursday -

Now I probably should let you know we tried Canning 25 years ago just after we married. Nastiest Limp Pickles I have ever tried to eat. We threw away every bottle. So trying again was a bit scary to me. But we Dove in... First I made the Strawberry Preserves... my favorite flavor. Followed the instructions and it didn't take nearly as long as I thought it would, and soon we had 9 8oz jars cooling on the counter. Next morning we opened up one for breakfast.. OMG! SOOO good. So Friday afternoon we jumped in again and did the Peach Preserves...Hubby's favorite flavor. Now we had quite a few peaches. And once all cut up... well enough for 3 batches.... so it took a bit longer, as we did one batch at a time to not mess anything up. But in the end we had 8  - 16oz jars and 9 - 8 oz jars cooling! And yesterday morning we popped open one of them.. OMG! SOOOO good! Don't think we will be buying store bought any more. Now I am planning our garden and LOTS more canning!

All right Collectibles - To end up today I thought I would show you two of my favorite Donkeys from my almost 10 years of buying everything donkey....

I have had these two guys for quite a few years. And I was thrilled when I found each of them. They are late 1920's - 1930's Fisher Price Pull Toys. The Donkey ones are pretty hard to find. Especially in such great condition. They are all wood, with rope tails and Leather ears. Jack's ears don't stand up well.. but hey he is old.. LOL  I think it would be really hard to force me to pick one favorite from all my treasures. But these two guys would be way up on my list for sure.

Hope you enjoyed today's post... a little bit of "Me and My Space"

Have a wonderful day  - HUGS and