Craft Room again

I've finally got the craftroom kind of like I want it... when we got out new tv for the living room (doesn't it look good?) John mounted it on the wall and I rearranged the furniture to fit.

He bought me a Roku box for the craftroom and hung the old set up for me so I can watch netflix while I craft (we don't have cable in there, that would cost too much extra)... I hung my shower curtains on a tension rod, put some of my favourite pictures I'd drawn up above the closet, and I found some cute silver butterfly wall stickers at the Dollar Tree to fill in the blank space on the wall and tie the tv into it. They only had two packs left and it took all of them - if I can ever manage to find any more to match, I'll continue the butterflies up over the door (on the left side of the closet).

Problem is, that if you open the pretty curtain on the cupboard, this is what you see inside... a big pile of JUNK and empty moving boxes, a pile of stuff waiting to go to the thrift store for donation, and not much else that actually needs to be there.

 I would just love to turn it into a craft closet and get all of my stuff neatly put away so that we can bring a daybed or a guest bed into the room, while the stainless steel storage rack will move out to the laundry with the christmas decorations, cat carriers etc that we don't need regularly. But before I can do that, we have go find a way to fit all of THIS into that closet. Wish us luck...

Still to be added (if we can find the money, which probably won't be for a long time unless we stumble across some super bargains)

• - a daybed with nice cushions...
• - white frilly valances above the closet and the window (matching)... to hide the fact that a shower curtain is only 72 inches long while a closet door is 80 tall, and tie the two openings together.
• - SHELVES in the closet. Not sure if we'll be able to remove the one fixed shelf that's already there or if we should work around it. 
• a smaller computer desk. Since I have a whole table to do my crafts on, I don't need such a large desk any more, plus this one is falling apart as I look at it! 
• Some kind of decorative feature for the corner of the room under the tv. Thinking maybe a white wrought-iron style plant stand. Or we could just put a filing cabinet over there and get the paperwork out of the plastic storage bins I've got it in now... whatever we get, it just has to be white or silver - white or silver looks by far the best with the blue walls...

Watoto Children's Choir

Today we went to the Jensen Beach Community Church to see the Watoto Children's Choir... it was a lovely performance. And the Watoto community is doing an invaluable service to their community - they care for six thousand children and infants all the way through to adulthood, and women in need, educate them, teach them practical work skills, and help them to become community leaders... they've been operating for twenty years and they've helped ten THOUSAND children. The children's choirs travel the world raising awareness, and funds, and I'm sure it gives the kids a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to travel. Now for the pics...

Singing Christmas Tree

I can't believe I haven't posted any pics since July! I'm going to make up for it now... this month we've gone to three concerts and dinner-and-a-movie for our Anniversary, plus one day I went for a lovely walk on the beach with my camera... Firstly, the Hobe Sound Bible Church Singing Christmas Tree...

The moon was rising as we pulled into the carpark, in a HUGE golden orb.

They had a full house, and this was the third of four performances

Carolers

The children's choir was adorable

The Tree and Angels

Have a Blessed Christmas...

Two big creative projects

I've done two big projects this week... the first was to decoupage the grotty old (scratched, paint-laden) craft table that I've been using ever since we were married (a friend gave it to me for free because it was so beat-up)... I put a plastic tablecloth on it to cover up the marks and called it all good, but it finally occurred to me that I could do something much more permanent (and elegant) with a bottle of mod-podge and my scrapbooking supplies. It took a day to do the initial work, and it's going to take a few more to put the top coats on it but I'm very pleased with it.

The second project was recovering my three-wheeled walker with some lovely pastel duck tape, and then decorating the basket with ribbon and flowers. It took a full week to get the tape applied because it was a heck of a lot more fiddly and difficult than I'd expected, but I love how it came out. Today I decorated the basket with a vintage ribbon and silk flowers that I assembled with my glue gun. I didn't want to put any glue on the ribbon because it IS vintage (practically antique) and I might want to take it off again, so I sewed the ribbon onto the basket and then I rigged up wire fastenings for the flowers with wire so that I can remove them again by cutting the wires. I tried all sorts of fasteners for the flowers, but what worked in the end were long thin pipe-cleaners - the wire's more flexible than floral wire and far less pokey because it's got the coating on it. Again, it was fiddly but I'm thrilled with how it came out. I like it a lot more than my other walker... at some point I'll probably get more flowers and redo the lavender one too, but not right now! The best thing about both of these projects? I used almost entirely supplies and materials I already had on hand. I only had to buy the mod-podge and the pastel tape. Everything else was in my craft collection waiting to be used. :)

Now for the photos...

I had tons of the flowers, so while I had my glue gun out I whipped up a couple of decorated hair clips (I made the red one a few weeks ago with temporary gluedots, but I wanted to make it permanent with the gluegun...)

Beribboned walker, and mystery plant

The mystery plant in our front garden bed has grown by leaps and bounds... still no idea what it is, but it's obviously very happy in that garden bed, and it's better than the barren wasteland that the yard crew made of the rest of our front yard last week when they came along and 'pruned' everything into non-existence, including chopping all the bananas off at ground level. I know the banana trees will grow back, but it's awfully bare out there right now! Anyway here's the plant...

And this is the other plant struggling along in that bed.

And now you've seen the mystery plant, here's something a little more creative... I have to use a walking aid to go any distance, and I just bought myself a lavender walker which had a plain black back rest and basket. The plain black part was just begging to be decorated, so I bought a rainbow of voile ribbon and went to town.

Happy birthday to me...

It's friday and the cupboards are pretty bare... and it's my birthday. John had to work a long hard day today, but he stopped at Publix on his way home and brought me home a gorgeous birthday cake, a little vase of roses (extra thoughtful because we don't have a vase to put flowers in and these roses came with their own specimen vase), and a roast chicken for dinner. After nine years of marriage he seems to have 'got it' - I am a romantic at heart and flowers and candy or cake from my husband make my heart sing... he also got me a little beanie baby yesterday, so I put it into the photo. I didn't want to sit home all day and he had another long drive with very little work so I went with him, and when we stopped to send his parts back at Fed-Ex, they had these adorable beanie babies by the counter... sorry the photos blurry but my hand is hurting badly today and I couldn't hold the phone still enough, but of course I wanted to take the photo before we cut the cake. :)

Craft room befores

I'm going to take these as 'before' shots... the craftroom is less of a mess than it was when we moved in in February, but it's far from organised, or complete. I got the metal shelf from Amazon and it's started the organising process... but I just looked in the Target catalog and the shelves are on sale for $40 each (I paid $75 on Amazon, but it was Christmas money)... I'd like to get another two or three but John says I can have one. Not sure if it'll replace the worn out bakers rack, or the salvaged wooden 'shoeholder'... but I'm sure it'll look better and be more efficient! So without further ado, here are my 'before' shots. And hmmm... one of them refuses to upload. I'll have to take it again.

The main thing to notice about this is that although it's called the 'craftroom' in its current incarnation there is NOWHERE for me to work, so I've yet to attempt a single crafting project more complicated than glueing some coloured paper onto a box or two... the desks are entirely occupied by computer junk and cats and there's no more level space in the room. Also, the closet door is open, not because I want to show you the mess inside, but because the doors won't stay closed! They 'fixed' them for us but it was totally futile... I figured out a way to fix it for myself though - John's going to take them down and I'll use them to screen the ugly hot water service in the laundry, and then I'll put up a tension rod and a shower curtain in the closet doorway... 

Sunset, a mystery plant, and a mitzvah

Has it really been that long since I posted? Well, I have an assortment for you today...

Firstly, a gorgeous sunset pic that I snapped when we were going to get some dinner last week. I took it out the side car window while we were stopped at a traffic light, and I tilted the camera to get as much sky in as I could so that's why it looks a little odd... but aren't those clouds gorgeous with the setting sun behind them?



Nextly, we have a mystery plant that's just popped up in our empty garden bed. I don't know if it's an actual plant that was dormant when we moved in and now it's woken up for the Spring, or if it's a noxious weed that blew in and took up housekeeping in the otherwise empty bed... I'm more than a little afraid that it might be poison ivy, but since I've never seen the stuff before I really don't know what it looks like! Any and all opinions are welcome... I put a whirly gig next to it for scale so you can see that it's grown more than a foot in a week... it looks like it's looking for something to climb up.

And lastly, John rescued a litter of orphaned bitties today. The little ones were crying in the bushes at a bank branch and the tellers said that mama had been around and not let anyone get close, but she's disappeared. The poor little babies were hungry and cold and lonely so they were crying for somebody to help them and John heard them... he put them in a box and called around until he found an animal shelter to take them too, then he drove them over there in person. I wish we could have kept them, but we have too many cats already... They're too young and we already have too many furry mouths to feed. There won't be any new feline residents in our household until at least two have gone to the Rainbow Bridge, hopefully in many years since they're aged 8-10. Plus it takes a special person to bottle feed a litter of five! I'd go insane from sleeplessness inside a week... I made him take a picture for me before he handed them over, but that's as close as I got to seeing them. Praying for them to grow up strong and healthy and to find loving homes... they're totally adorable and I'm sure they'll be extremely adoptable in another four weeks or so when they're old enough to be seperated. The little white one was mountaineering up John's arm all the way to the shelter, so they're not afraid of people, and that's one big plus on their side. If we were Jewish I'd say John definitely did a mitzvah today and I'm very proud of him for taking the time to help when he could have said 'it's not my problem, I'm too busy'...

A beautiful Spring day in Jupiter and Hobe Sound

John had to run a short call down in Jupiter so he took me with him to see the lighthouse... the weather was GLORIOUS today! We'll go back one day when I've managed to kick my asthma and do the lighthouse tour, but for today I just snapped some pics, then we drove up the beach road and stopped at Hobe Sound for a few more piccies of the beach.

Jupiter Lighthouse

Very tame pelicans (but they didn't want to look at me)

A seagull on the beach

A glorious day at the beach

 

Bridge across the intercoastal waterway at Hobe Sound (sorry you can't see much...)

And lastly, a HUGE tree... we had to stop for ages at a light and this tree trunk was right next to my window, so I took some pics. I adore the intricate braiding of the roots...

Completely gratuitous cat pics

The girls decided on mass cuteness this afternoon... so I give you some cat pics. The only one I haven't seen acting cute is Tess... but I'm sure she'll make up for it later.

Scouty thinks that my desk is there solely for her sleeping benefit... and if I'm lucky she'll let me use my keyboard and mouse over on the right-hand corner.

Scouty giving me a look of complete and utter ineffable(sp?) cuteness.

Silver is bird-watching from the bedroom window sill... only unfortunate thing about this habit is that she uses me as a springboard to get there!

Never mind the perfectly good pillow I put into an empty drawer to make a cosy cat basket - Zho-Zho decided she'd rather sleep in the little one.

Spring time in Florida

On the weekend we drove over to Okeechobee... there's not much there, but the 'highway' to get from Stuart to there is GORGEOUS. 'Old Florida' at its best. The speed limit is only 40 or 50 so it takes a long time to drive, but there are so many miles of magnificent Floridian trees lining the road that it didn't seem like a long trip at all. We came back on a more major highway and it was a regular old divided road so the trip was faster, but not nearly as interesting. Glad I could see the forest first!

Then yesterday John had to run a call in West Palm Beach so I went with him to go to Brandsmart and buy ourselves a chest freezer for the duplex (there's almost no room in the freezer because it has an ice maker taking up more than half of the already tiny space and we like to buy meat in bulk to save money). While he worked in the bank, I walked the short block to the beach and sat under a shady palm tree enjoying the blissful balmy Florida spring afternoon. Ahhhh... sometimes it's really nice to live in Florida!