These are some salts I picked up at an auction I attended last weekend. I was so taken by the silhouette (spelling?) in the middle of them. I have seen many salts in my day but not like these. Perhaps they aren't even salt dishes. Does anyone know? I believe them to be but am not sure. I found them scrounging in some box lots and kept praying no one would take that box lot before the price came down. By the time they got down to $5.00 a box they were still there so I grabbed them. I also got a cut lead crystal heart, a green pressed glass toothpick holder, two small dishes with silver metal casings, a chamber pot with lid (damaged and glued) and two old books. It was a deal in my book.

Below is a chair that I found at that same auction. They described it as a French Provincial chair however, the carvings look more victorian to me than French. Either way, I love this chair and plan to have it reupholstered and possibly whitewashed to make it fit my decor. I haven't picked out the material but I love all things white and am thinking a white brocade fabric with antique whitewashing would be delightful to me, since I'm planing on painting my living room a very pale blue before the fall weather sets in. By the way, this chair was only $10.00. Can you believe it? I had a hard time with the excitement of this deal.

Thank you for stopping by my blog. I love receiving comments as they help to motivate me to work on these projects and also to follow others blogs as well.

Well bloggers, I've been busy just like everyone else but finally found some things I wanted to share with you. This is a gourd birdhouse I finished painting today. I grew the gourds in my garden about 5 years ago and haven't done a thing with them since other than store them in my garage.

Of course I had to eventually clean out my garage and I must say I have moved these from the garage to the house and back to the garage a few times. This time I decided to finally make a birdhouse for a very nice friend of mine who loves birds and has all kinds of feeders and drip bird baths (that he heats in the winter). You get the picture. Tomorrow is his birthday so I decided this would be a nice gift (provided he likes my design). I stained the top half and just varnished the bottom with polyurethane. Then added the paint and reapplied polyurethane to finish. I hope by keeping it natural looking (minus the paint of course) the birds might actually inhabit it.

If you have never done this I have to tell you that when I drilled the hole in it the edges were very rough and the inside was very dry, but it sanded very smooth with my dremel tool. Probably would be very easy with regular sandpaper too. The seeds when they came out also brought with it a very soft and silky membrane that I'm sure the birds would love to use as their nest. When I felt inside it was like a cushion, so soft and silky and dry. A wonderful nest. I shook out the seeds and left most of the membrane as their mattress. I thouroughly enjoyed this process and am happy with the results. Now, to see if we get any takers. I'll let you know.

Hope your holiday was wonderful and you have found time to do the things you love.

I really didn't realize how much time had gone by since my last post. I decided that anyone who might look at my blog would think I had abandoned it, but not the case. I just have been busy.

This picture is of my oldest daughter Claudine in the middle and my grandaughter Alyssa on the left. They recently went into 11 weeks training to run the Freihofer's Run for Women in Albany, New York and this was after the finish line. For anyone who is not familiar, it is an annual race and is 5K in distance. There were over 5,000 women running this year and so I was so proud of their accomplishment. It was the first race they had ever run. The training really was good and got them in shape and told them what to eat the nights before and what to wear and what to avoid so they would decrease their chances of any medical emergencies. Outside of being very tired at the end, they were great.

Outside of that I had a grandaughter graduate from Albany Academy for Girls and have two more grandaughters (the twins) graduating this weekend from Shaker High School.

Am working craft wise on a lacy knitted shawl but it will take me a long time to complete that as it is so big a project and hase 4 different lace patterns in it. I am challenging myself to finish it and to get it right. One mistake in the pattern throws the whole thing off. Thank God someone taught me to put in life lines while knitting so when I tear out a section I don't have to go all the way back to the beginning.

So with working on the house, family celebrations, etc, I have not spent much time in the blogging community. I will have to go and see what all my blogger friends have been up to. I've missed you all.

Hope you are enjoying the fresh summer weather.

My good neighbor Marilyn is going to be a great grandmother to a little girl and her favorite color is lavender and so it made sense since I love to knit baby items for me to knit this sweater for her. The pattern is from knitwits-heaven.com/pretty_baby_sweater.htm., and uses one 4oz skein of worsted weight yarn. I had some yarn in my stash that I used. It is "Spotlight" Classic Elite Yarn made in Italy that I picked up on one of my trips and made of 100% cotton. I used 2 balls of 50gr/92 yards and knit it on #8 needles. It was a very easy pattern and worked up quite fast since the yarn was bigger and the needles bigger.

My life is changing a lot as I have not been working the aide job. Instead I am doing odd jobs for people like cleaning, and last week I wallpapered a bedroom for a friend. A few extra $s to help out the cause. Am working on old projects and new projects for my house and working in my garden too. All the flowers are coming out now and it is taking on a colorful show. Love it.

Hope you all had a great holiday weekend.

Second Wet Felted Purse

Just finished a project I started with my grand daughter. She wanted to make one of these purses. I wish I had a picture of hers'. It was quite pretty but she left and took it with her before I realized I didn't have a picture.

So this is mine and I enjoyed doing it as much as the first one. I did something different though.

I used a solid navy blue piece of felt from the craft store as a base and added my piece of hand felted on top and felted them together giving it more body. It worked really well, but I think almost too thick. Not quite, and definately much sturdier.

The felting material can be bought at yarn shops but should be 100% wool, as this felting must have had some synthetic material with it as it did not felt easily. Kept seperating hence the reason I felted it to a solid piece. Just things to consider in the event you want to try to do one on your own. I may add some beading to it, but for now it pleases me just fine.

Have been witnessing some pretty neat art on all your blogs. Thank you for always inspiring me to do more.