by Wendy Scheel | Nov 11, 2015 | Life
Sometimes I have no idea what to blog about. Okay, that’s not entirely true. I have a list of things I could blog about but I mentally filter those ideas as to what makes it onto the blog and what doesn’t.
That filter has one question.
Would I be interested in reading about this? That’s it. One question.
For instance, today I was going to share about this little Christmas tree that I have set up. But, it’s 61 degrees outside and I’m not feeling it. By the way the average high in Minnesota in November is 41 degrees. Believe me, no one is complaining but it’s not normal. Last year on this date we had 3 inches of snow on the ground.
Wait, where was I going with all of this? Oh yeah, my filter.
Christmas décor didn’t make it thru today’s filter.
So I took advantage of the warm fall day and went on a walk with Nikki. Nikki as in Jimmy and Nikki.
When we returned I had a text from my Mom.
She saw on my Instagram account (OldLakeGeorge) that people have commented on the green glasses that are in this picture.
These were given to me by my Mom. And now that I really look at that picture, so was that duck, the lamp and the card catalog. 🙂 My Mom has great taste.
The day that she gave me the glasses and decanter, I was at my parents house and my Mom asked if there were any dish sets I wanted. She has so many beautiful sets of dishes. The set I wanted is a blue and white set that for me represents the many loud and festive family dinners we shared. BUT, she was not quite ready to give them away. That only makes it more special for me knowing those dishes hold great sentimental value for her.
So as we moved on to other things, I spotted these green and gold glasses and decanter in her glass front kitchen cupboard.
I thought they were pretty but I don’t remember seeing them around our house as we were growing up. Reason for that; my Mom had recently purchased them at a garage sale.
So, the text she sent read, “Hey, I just saw the comments about your gold and green glasses I gave you. Did you look up how much they are worth? I got them at a garage sale for probably $10.”
I read the Instagram comments, which I love getting and someone mentioned that they might be Culver green and gold glasses. So I googled Culver green and gold glasses and yep, that’s what I had.
This is a set of 3 double Old Fashioned and 6 Old Fashioned glasses along with a decanter. The pattern is called Valencia. The gold is 22k and I found prices from $10-$20 per glass up to $250 for the decanter and 6 glasses.
Told you my Mom had great taste!
In honor of Veterans Day and green and gold cocktail glasses, let’s raise our glass to all of the Veterans, men and women that have served and are currently serving our country! Thank you!
See you on Friday,
Wendy
by Wendy Scheel | Sep 30, 2015 | DIY
Yesterday, I woke up crabby. So, I went fabric shopping. 🙂 No more crabby pants. Works every time.
Today, I woke up unmotivated. So, I went to the gym to see Gillian the Body Pump instructor. She can motivate anyone. After said workout, I took my motivated self to Walmart to get some glue and a Dremel tool. I had borrowed a Dremel tool from Jimmy, (Jimmy the neighbor that you met the other day), and I knew I couldn’t shouldn’t keep his Dremel piece, so I went and purchased my own.
While I was at Walmart, I was checking out the cut out letters. Some made of wood, some made of paper mache, and some made out of plastic. I couldn’t quite find what I wanted. I bought some stuff to make my own. I had seen some ideas on Pinterest but of course I tweaked it.
These are the things I bought: Masking tape, gold spray paint and little containers.
I wanted my letters to be short and chunky. So I drew them about 3 inches tall and 2.5 inches wide.
I cut these from a piece of cardboard. I needed two of each letter. I drew the letter once, cut it out, and then traced it so both sides would match.
My intention was to use the little containers as the in-between piece for thickness. I didn’t like how wide I would have to make the letters to use the containers, so I ditched that idea. However, I have branches with a 3/4 inch diameter out in the garage that are too small to make candle holders out of, so I used those instead.
I cut the branches about 2.75 inches long. I placed these between the two cardboard letters.
The masking tape was used to hold everything together. This step was kinda tedious. I don’t do well with tedious, but I persevered. 🙂
The next step was to cut up newspapers and dip them in glue and do a paper mache effect thingee. Back to back tediousness. Changed my mind on that one also.
Instead, I took little pieces of masking tape and put them all over the front.
I remember doing this when I was little. I put small pieces of masking tape all over a glass flower vase. Then we took brown shoe polish and rubbed it all over the tape pieces. The intention was for it to look like leather. Don’t really know why you would want a leather flower vase, but after arranging my Mom’s flower garden tulips in the vase it looked pretty cool. At least that’s what my Mom said. 🙂
Anywho… instead of continuing on the shoe polish vein, I spray painted the letters gold. And let them dry in the breeze.
I couldn’t quite decide where I wanted to use them, so I decorated with them a couple of different ways.
Take a look.
What do you think?
In all honesty, the real reason I didn’t make the newspaper paper mache was that I had forgotten to buy the glue at Walmart. Yep, two things on my list. Glue and Dremel tool. Forgot the glue. 🙂
by Wendy Scheel | Sep 28, 2015 | DIY
Happy Monday everyone! I hope you had a great weekend. It was a top 10 day here this weekend in Minnesota!
I took this picture yesterday. You can see what amazing weather we had, June temperatures in late September. Beautiful.
Let me introduce you to my neighbor.
Everyone, this is Jimmy.
Jimmy, this is everyone.
Jimmy and his cute as a button wife Nikki live two doors down from us. You may remember me mentioning my neighbor that works at the local tree farm? He cuts the birch tree branches for me that I use to make these candlesticks.
This is him. (Nikki said she wasn’t ready for a photo, silly Nikki. I’ll catch you next time.)
Jimmy and Nikki both love to mill around on Pinterest. Not only do the pin ideas to their boards, they actually make the ideas they pin.
Last weekend they invited us over for a fish fry.
Fish fry. Someone else making dinner. Win-Win.
They deep fat fried the fish out in their garage. Very smart, plus it was another beautiful Minnesota evening.
While Jimmy was frying, I noticed this tool organizer on the wall.
I asked him where he got it and he causally said that he made it off of an idea from Pinterest.
So today I would like to share with you the steps he took to make this.
He started with 2×3 boards. In hindsight he should have used 2×4’s, but he used what he had in the garage at the time. He then made this template to use as the cut out for his tool handles. The rounded top is a 1.5 inch diameter and the length is almost 4 inches.
His next step was placing the template onto the 2×3, tracing it about every six inches.
Here is where he drilled out the top rounded section with a 1.5 inch drill bit.
After that section is drilled through, he simply took his circular saw and followed the black lines until they connected to the rounded out section.
Place, trace, drill and cut each area until you have the desired amount of spots for your tool handles.
There will be a lot of weight on these brackets so for the final step Jimmy attached each one of these brackets into a wall stud.
Another suggestion he had was to attach a horizontal brace behind the vertical brackets to make them stick out further. That way the deeper tools such as shovels would sit nicely into the slot.
I love how everything is on the wall, organized and ready to use without digging in a barrel or a pile for the right tool.
I hope I can convince Jimmy to share more of his DIY Pinterest influenced items. The guy has so many skills. 🙂
Here’s to getting organized! See you Wednesday.
by Wendy Scheel | Sep 25, 2015 | DIY
Years ago when our children were little, I worked nights and weekends as a cook and caterer at a quaint little restaurant in Lake Geneva, WI. The owner/chef was John and he loved to try new recipes. The menu was always changing. John would share his recipes with anyone that asked.
That always confused me.
Why would he give away his recipes? People could just make these dishes themselves and he would lose customers. In his gentle manner, he explained that you can give someone a recipe down to the tsp. but they will always, always substitute at least one of the ingredients so it will never be exactly the same. They will come back.
And they did. 🙂
I am finding this same principle to be true when I am attempting something from Pinterest.
My friend Karianne from Thistlewood Farms posted this blog earlier this week about how to DIY Pinecone Acorns.
What a great idea to add to my White Sweater Pumpkin décor!
Problem was that I changed the ingredients. My acorns don’t look like Kariannes.
Karianne used wooden eggs, I used paper mache eggs.
She stained her eggs, I spray painted and spray-glittered mine.
BUT, we both got our supplies from Hobby Lobby. 🙂
Here’s what I did.
I bought the paper mache eggs and pine cones from Hobby Lobby. The black spray paint and glitter spray paint came from an estate sale and I think the skewers came from IKEA. All very inexpensive items.
I then stabbed the eggs with the skewers and stuck them into the ground in the backyard to spray paint them.
(Can I let you in on a secret? My husband proof reads my blogs before I post them. He is going to sigh and roll his eyes when he sees the grass. Heehee, love you honey!)
After the paint had dried, I cut off the top of the pinecone and cut off the wider end of the egg. The egg was plastic on the inside. I was surprised by that. I thought paper mache meant it was paper all the way through. Obvi, not. ;(
Anyway, cutting off the top of the egg created more of a flat section to hot glue gun the pinecone top onto.
Then I simply added the acorns to my fall décor.
Thank you Karianne for the great idea even if I did change your recipe. 😉
Stop in tomorrow for a quick SideNote Saturday!
by Wendy Scheel | Sep 16, 2015 | DIY
As the saying goes, If you don’t like the weather, just give it a few minutes.
The weather here in Minnesota is starting to change. Some mornings we are still grabbing shorts to wear and then by late afternoon a change to a sweater and jeans is needed.
On Sunday I pulled out my sweaters and selected my favorite white cable knit to wear.
I am a wash and wear kind of gal, but doing laundry is not a strong suit for me.
Case in point, I put this sweater on and saw this lovely spot.
If I was to venture a guess, last winter I slopped spaghetti sauce on myself and then failed with my attempt to spot clean. I guess packing it away for 6 months didn’t do the trick either. 🙂 The spot may not look too bad, but it was and it was perfectly placed in the wrong spot in the chestorial area. You know what I’m saying. 🙂
So let’s make some lemonade out of this lemon color spotted sweater. 🙂
Enter Pinterest.
I found this pin tutorial titled, Warm and Toasty Pumpkins. Jill Ruskamp created this tutorial about making fall pumpkin décor from a cable knit sweater.
Since Jill did such a great job of explaining each step, I will give you the CliffsNotes.
Sweater. Sleeves cut off. Sleeves cut to different lengths.
Turn one of the sleeve sections inside out and sew it shut. I used cotton twine and a gathering stitch, an in-out, in-out stitch, to sew the bottom shut.
After it is sewn, turn the sleeve right side out. This is what the bottom of the pumpkin will look like.
Per the instructions, I stuffed the sleeve with poly fiber fill and wound some twine around the “stem”.
I don’t know if I really love these, but they were super simple to make. Making three of them took me about one and a half shows of Family Feud with Steve Harvey. All three pumpkins took about 45 minutes which may or may not have included me stopping to watch the Fast Money portion of the show. 🙂
Side note: As promised, The 2015 House Tour starts on Friday!
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