Treasure and Trinkets Thursday

Melissa over at My Cottage Charm is having a linky party today. So feel free to go over there, see what others have been doing and add yourself too. 

My son is a very talented young man with wood. He began taking woodshop classes in junior high. We homeschooled through a charter school for homeschoolers for several years and that's where he took his woodworking classes even through all 4 years of high school. So over the years he has made his momma quite a few things. Which I will proudly display here today.

This is a high school project that he did and it sits on our patio. I just love this piece and wish he'd made a matching chair. I guess he really didn't like making this so I haven't gotten a twin yet. :) I keep hoping.

This poor, neglected birdhouse. I have had it for years and still have not painted it. I am not sure why. I guess because I can't commit to a certain color. Who knows?! This is probably one of the first pieces he ever made me.

This little bookcase was his first piece of furniture I think. It sits in my room with my favorite books on it. Again no paint. :(

This is a little hand lathed bowl that he did. His first time lathing.

He loves scroll saw work as you can tell by the next couple of pictures. These actually sit in his room, but I just thought I would show them.

This large beauty was not made specifically for me, but I love it anyway. This was made for the Fresh Wood Competition and took his team to nationals in 2007. Afterwards the school raffled it off to help raise money for the next competition which is held every two years. Lucky me won it, that and purchasing a whole lot of tickets. When he leaves home for a place of his own it will follow him as I think he deserves it.

This was supposed to be a plate rack but morphed into a small shelf that I needed for this spot. The dowels were not positioned right for my plates. It was a valuable learning experience for him. Measure your plates first and how to repurpose a mistake.

This is my spice cupboard that he made me for Mother's Day a couple of years ago. It's very large and holds a ton of stuff. Another piece needing paint. I don't mind painting walls but furniture just makes me pause. I did get the go ahead to paint this piece. Seth really doesn't like when I paint wood pieces.

Step stool. Very handy in the kitchen.

Magazine holder. Maybe he'll let me paint that white? We'll see.

He made the tissue box and scroll cut the hummingbird and had a friend paint the whole thing for me for Mother's Day last year. So love this piece.

My bench/coffee table in the sitting room. I really love and use this piece a lot. It also fills in as seating when we have guests over at the dining room table. So it's versatile and I like that about it.
So I'm a very lucky momma to have such a talented son. oh I almost forgot his best piece yet. He made me this grape arbor last fall. We have a guest nesting in it already. I'll post pictures of this tomorrow. Also all photos were taken by the carpenter himself.

Have a glorious week. {{HUGS}} Amanda
I'm joining in

Wednesday Review

So I really love to bake and cook when I have the time and energy. I thought I would share this fabulous book I bought a couple of years ago at a sale at school. I have loved this book. There are so many great recipes but the best thing is all the cooking advice. For those who are just starting to bake this is a great addition to your cookbook collection. It covers tools, methods, ingredients, etc. Taste of Home has great cooking magazines also. I have purchased and subscribed to several over the years.
So I thought I would give one copy of this delightful book away. Just leave a comment on this post and I will draw a winner out next Wednesday on the Wednesday review. Here's hoping you have a terrific week.
{{HUGS}} Amanda

Treasures and Trinkets Thursday

Melissa over at My Cottage Charm is having a linky party. She's asked what do we treasure. Well I treasure my relationship with God first and foremost. But next is my family. I can replace everything else but I can't replace them.

There's my sweet husband of 21 years, Neil. We met while serving in the Army at Fort Eustis, VA. He hated me at first and wanted nothing to do with me. Guess I changed his mind. So my silly saying for us is " I had to go all the way to Virginia to meet a California boy." See we were both born and raised in California, opposite ends of the state though. We only dated for three months and then got married. It's worked for us. The last 21 years have certainly been an adventure and a treasure.

Next there's my oldest son, Seth. I can't believe that next Sunday he will turn 20 years old. The years have flown by. He's currently working and taking classes at the local community college. He'd like to do something with his wood talent.  He's always doing some project or another for me. I'll ask him can you do this? He always says "get me the wood mom." He built my grape arbor last fall and finished the closet up just recently. He's a sweetie and I just love him.

Then there's my daughter Tina. I featured her just a post or two ago. She's this incredibly beautiful young lady with a sweet heart and she knows what she wants. She'll be attending a technical college this fall. We will miss her, but want the best for her whatever that may be. She always makes me laugh. 

So be sure to join in.

{{HUGS}} Amanda

Wednesday Review

I'd like to start doing reviews on Wednesday. I'd like to introduce great blogs and great reads and well you get the point. Anything I've tried lately that I think someone else might like. Being a librarian I'm exposed to a lot of literature, mostly children's literature, but I love to read. I've gotten hooked on Robert Liparulo's Dreamhouse Kings series. If you like suspense and mystery, you'll love these books. I've gotten quite a few of the students hooked and some office staff as well. 6 books in the series and you'll love them. Have fun reading.
Next I'd like to introduce you to Melissa over at My Cottage Charm. I just found her blog while surfing the other day. You're going to love this spunky lady. She's got some great ideas and pictures up on her blog.  She's only been blogging since February but she's got a lot of posts up already. I think she'll hit her 100th post by this summer. LOL! Just kidding. So go visit Melissa and be sure to leave a kind comment.





{{HUGS}} Amanda

Cloche Affair

Okay so I have totally been having an affair. An affair you say???? What??? Yes an affair with cloches. I just can't seem to get enough of them. Of course they are pricey and it takes awhile to save up for them. So I've got two cloche projects I'm going to share with you. One was cheap and one was not too cheap but still under $20 for the whole thing. I just love bargains. I started with the dome. Fell in love with it at the shop. But it looked so lonely by itself. What to do?

Visit your favorite thrift store of course and pick up a candlestick holder and a plate.

Glue plate to candlestick holder, add cute little item, cover with cloche, tada! Not lonely anymore.

I got the idea for the cheese dome cloche after reading about it here. I thought okay I've got an extra one left laying around here somewhere. I gave them away as Christmas gifts to co-workers 2 years ago. I made the cheese dome/plate/candlestick holders into cute pedestals which I put Christmas cookies under. (Wondering what I'm going to come up with for them this year??) It's not complete yet. I have to paint the candlestick holder and cheese dome base. Can't decide which color yet. Any ideas?

My third cloche is my large one which I just love. Yes it was pricey. But I saved for it and knew I would use it for a long time. Picture is a bit blurry, sorry.

So here's hoping you have a great week.
{{HUGS}} Amanda

Time Passes Like a Dream .....

Time has certainly flown by. Seems like yesterday she was this little girl

and now she's this beautiful, young lady

who will be graduating high school next month and attending a tech school this fall. She signed up this past Thursday and leaves in August. She will be studying collision and repair with a specialization in Street Rods and Customization. She definitely knows what she wants. But she also knows how to be a girl.
I thought I would share some of the projects she has completed lately as gifts for friends of hers.
She did the quilt for her friend Lyz. She designed and completed it herself.

 

Lyz and Tina, BFFs
The pillows were for a family she often goes to visit down South. She drew the Japanese lady after looking at several different ones and then transferred it to fabric and surrounded it with Japanese prints piano key style.

The other pillow she took a focus fabric and just cut it up to create a mosaic effect and put borders around the pieces.

They all turned out really nice I think. I'm so proud of this girl of mine.
{{HUGS}} Amanda

Closet Completion - Finally!

So if any of you have been reading for awhile you will know that the carpenter started this project shown here and here for his senior project last spring. It's sat unfinished for a year now. Just waiting to be finished. The things that belonged in the closet were just piled in there so that if you needed anything you had to pull everything out because what you needed was always on the bottom. So this spring break I resolved I would finish this sore thumb of a project. I'm tickled pink with the results so to speak. It's nice to finally be able to open the door and find what you need without having to dig for it and the vacuum cleaner finally has it's own home after 10 years. Like most older homes this had no hallway coat closet, just a linen press, a place with drawers and shelves. This is one project I'm glad to have done. Well we still have to decide what kind of flooring to do. I'm leaning towards the remnant left over from kitchen flooring. The carpenter wants to do bamboo. I just laughed. 

 Here's everything from the closet, just waiting for their new home.

Closet with a coat of primer. Of course the weather would have to change drastically after this and get cold and rainy.

Waiting for the last coat of paint to dry.

Installing the shelves, finally!

New shelves, happy dance.....
:-)

Everything in it's place. Well not the vacuum cleaner yet, but it did fit. Another project bites the dust. Next!















I'll be joining in over at Make Your Monday at Twice Remembered for Week 19. Tomorrow it's back to work. The week went by way too fast. I still have so many projects left to do.

Amanda

Happy Easter to Everyone.

{{HUGS}}, Amanda