More fun with sheet music

I've had so many positive comments on my sheet music cabinet that I decided to try the same technique with this bookshelf. I love how it turned out, old pages give everything such a warm feeling.

I'm selling this piece....as much as I enjoy making over furniture, my house is full! If you are a local reader and interested, email me at brosequilts(at)yahoo.com

Do you have a favorite piece that you've done? I love before and afters, leave a link in the comments so I can see your fave redos!

Pups and Parties

We got to spend an afternoon with this sweet girl over the weekend. As we were leaving the campground, we spotted her wandering along the street with a collar but no tags. After a half hour of knocking on doors and stopping people to find her owners, we took her back to our camper and made some calls.

Luckily for us, she was a racing greyhound and they are all tattooed inside their ears. A phone call to the local greyhound rescue with those numbers was all it took for them to identify her. Just a friendly reminder to make sure you tag your pets! Our dogs have two tags on their collars, one with our address and cell phone numbers and one from the vet.

We sure didn't mind spending some time with her, she was such a sweetie!

Emidio's birthday was a lot of fun! I managed to take some pictures before the kids all arrived. He said it was the most fun party ever. That just made my day!

Five

The past five years sure have flown by. It's hard to believe the baby of our family is no baby anymore. Emidio Nicholas was born five years ago today and it feels like just yesterday we were putting that tiny baby in the car and driving home from the hospital. You can tell just how thrilled he was with that whole process.


We named him after my grandfather (Papa) Emidio and they share a birthday. We're all positive that is no coincidence. My Papa passed away when I was 4 but I'm sure he's looking out for me and my family.

As is his grandfather, who his middle name is after. I'm sure those two are up there talking and trying not to laugh, watching us stumble over the difficulties of parenthood down here.

I miss those chubby cheeks.....

But then again, 5 year old freckled cheeks are still super kissable.....

A lot of people ask me about his name so here's a little bit of info:


syll. e-mi-dio, em-id-io ] The boy name Emidio has its origins in the Germanic language and it is used largely in Italian. Emidio's meaning is 'great, strong'.

Emidio is not widely used as a baby name for boys. It is not in the top 1000 names.


My family is Italian and I'm sure the name would sound neat spoken with a true Italian accent.


As my mom has always told me, it was also a ship, the S.S. Emidio.

Source

According to this site:

On 20 December 1941, 25 miles west of Cape Mendocino, the Imperial Japanese Navy's I-17 shells and then fires two torpedoes at the 6, 912-ton Socony-Vacuum oil company tanker EMIDIO returning empty from Seattle to San Francisco. A patrolling PBY "Catalina" flying boat of Patrol Squadron (VP) 44 spots the EMIDIO dead in the water with people going over the sides and getting into lifeboats.

Despite the torpedo hit, Emidio did not sink. Several days later, in fact, she ran aground on a pile of rocks off Crescent City, Calif., an amazing 85 miles north of where she had been torpedoed. The 31 survivors of the stricken ship rowed their lifeboats for 16 hours and 20 miles through a driving rainstorm until they were picked up by a Coast Guard lightship a few miles off Humbolt Bay.

I think it's neat that his name has not only a strong family connection but a history to it as well.

Today we're having some of his little friends over for a birthday party. He's requested Spiderman and Wolverine for his party. Whatever the birthday boy wants, the birthday boy gets.....

Forever Young

May the good Lord be with you

Down every road you roam

And may sunshine and happiness surround you when you're far from home

And may you grow to be proud

Dignified and true

And do unto others

As you'd have done to you

Be courageous and be brave

And in my heart you'll always stay

Forever Young, Forever Young Forever Young, Forever Young

May good fortune be with you

May your guiding light be strong

Build a stairway to heaven with a prince or a vagabond

And may you never love in vain and in my heart you will remain

Forever Young, Forever Young Forever Young, Forever Young Forever Young Forever Young

And when you finally fly away I'll be hoping that I served you well

For all the wisdom of a lifetime

No one can ever tell

But whatever road you choose I'm right behind you, win or lose

Forever Young, Forever Young Forever Young ,Forever Young Forever Young, Forever Young For, Forever Young, Forever Young

~Rod Stewart

The Non-Reveal Reveal

I'm calling this the non reveal because it's not "done" but I wanted to show you the paint color! Although, with the amount things move around in this house, "done" is never really the case.

Ignore the air conditioner, I know it's ugly but you do not want to be around me when the temperature is 90 something degrees and there is no air. Just trust me on that one.

I ended up going with two colors. In the future we'll put a chair rail up but for now a roll of painters tape was a whole lot cheaper. The top is a light gray that I mixed and the bottom is my old favorite, Clear Moon by Behr.

It was a subtle change but the lighter color really made a difference in the room. Before the paint was very blue and I'm loving it toned down a bit.

I'm thinking of putting some sort of wall lamp on either side of the hutch. I had a candle sconce up but I think a soft light would be nice in here. Hopefully I can find something vintage that we can rewire.





And we finally got those lights switched around. I'm thrilled with how the schoolhouse light looks in the kitchen.












There's a special message on that chalkboard. More about that tomorrow.....

Flowers and paint

Good morning bloggers! My laptop isn't fixed yet but I thought I would post anyway, I miss it! It's taking me a little longer with this computer but it's working so that's a plus! I figured I would start off the post with some pretty. My hubby brought these flowers home for me last week and they were so pretty. I couldn't get a good picture to capture all the colors but they were beautiful.





The dining room has been bugging me for a while. I love the paint color in the living room but the lighting difference in the dining room made it much darker, and bluer. I've had a bunch of paint swatches on the walls for weeks trying to decide on something which leads to this......

A huge mess! I did finally decide on a color and it's coming along! I appreciated all your suggestions on painting my chairs! For now I'm going to leave them be and see how they are with the new wall color. My hesitation is that the dining room is our main eating area and the chairs would chip easily with kids who put their feet under them to eat and buttons and such on pants. I'm worried I'd be repainting them constantly.

I'll be back soon with the results. This will be the 3rd color this room has seen in 2 years. I told my husband if this color doesn't work out, we're moving.

Are your kids back to school? Are you happy or sad about the start of a new year? Mine start next week and yes, I'm one of those moms. You know, the ones putting the kids on the bus and then dancing on the sidewalk. I need the routine back, I need some time without kids arguing over the Wii and who gets which swing, and I need to clean! Heck with spring cleaning, I'm going to do fall cleaning while the kids are at school!

Watch out dust bunnies, I'm a coming for ya!!

Hey Remember Me?

It's been a long time! This summer has been so busy, it's flown by. How has your summer been? Good I hope!

I'll be back to blogging soon hopefully. My laptop decided it didn't feel like working anymore so all we have right now is an ancient desktop computer that is painfully slow. I won't dare upload any pictures or anything so I'm kind of stuck until the laptop is fixed or we get a replacement.

Just wanted to pop in and say hello! I miss all my blogging friends! I'm also longing for fall, I am an autumn girl through and through, hence the picture. That little boy will be 5 in a couple weeks, hard to believe. Time goes so fast.

The After

Hi again! Two posts in one day, that might be a record for me.

I wanted to show you all my finished projects that I shared with you here on this Before post.

The plan was to show you last week but yikes, things just got so busy. My son was sick for a few days and the whirlwind of summer began. Swimming, camping, fighting siblings....yup, we have it all over here.

So onto The Afters!

First I painted the table base to see how I liked that. I thought maybe I could leave the top alone. Here's a pic which you can see was taken after I started sanding it. I needed it all to be white so the top was painted as well......

Here is the table now, what do you think? Better?

Oh and did I mention that my hubby totally threw me under the bus with this one?

It went something like this:

Ron: "I just want you to know I had nothing to do with this...at all. I didn't know she was painting it....I came home from work and she was under the table with a PAINTBRUSH. I had NO idea, I swear!!!!!!"

Me: "Umm, thanks."

Dad: *grimace*

Ron: "I TOLD her not to paint it. I TOLD her you would be upset. It wasn't my idea."

Dad: *grimace*

Me: "Seriously guys. It's a TABLE for crying out loud."



Ten years of marriage and my hubby is still scared of my dad. Go figure!

Hmmmm....do I paint the chairs too or leave them alone??

Then we have the dresser which had been painted in a deep red. I love how the details come out with it being all white now.




I brought out all my shells to make it feel a bit beachy in here....

And of course, the mantel. I'm still trying to figure out if I like it plain white or if I'd like to antique it a bit. Planning on leaving it alone for a while and see how it goes....

I realize it's June but seriously, I can't wait to decorate this for the Fall. I'm already dreaming of pumpkins.

I also wanted to update you on my sons room. The star quilt was added, as well as a shelf above his bed and the maps I was waiting on. He loves his room but still asks to sleep with us every.single.night. Oh well, I'm just glad he's a cuddly kid. Before you know it, he'll be trying to wriggle away from me as I'm hugging him.

You can see the original post on his room Here .

And with that, I'm leaving you for the weekend. My mom and I are off for our 2nd annual girls weekend in Lancaster, Pa for shopping, shopping and shopping. I can't wait to see what treasures are waiting for us.

My hubby will be here with the 3 kids and 2 dogs to care for while I'm gone. I just hope the kids are all behaved while I'm gone or our "annual" girls weekend will turn into "Hey, remember those two times we went away and then we were banned from leaving the county ever again?"

I hope you are having a beautiful summer so far! I'll catch up with you all when I return next week.

P.S. ~ Say a little prayer that my hubby remembers to water my flowers (fingers crossed).




I'm linking this up to Transformation Thursday at The Shabby Chic Cottage. Lots of great fun over there!!

http://www.theshabbychiccottage.net/