Painted FABRIC… oh yes!

Here is the tale of the ugly bench that is now the darling bench.  I’ve read for many years about painting fabric to re-do furniture.  I finally jumped in with both feet and finished my first of many painted fabric projects. Feast your eyeballs on what I started with… the ugly bench.

Maroon and orange… who thought up that mess?  I researched many types of mediums to use and this one seemed the most economical and straight forward to mix and use.

That white bottle is Martha Stewart’s tintable fabric medium. They are $5.99 at Michael’s so use your 50% off coupon! I used two kinds of paint, just because I already had one… the Valspar “Aqua Ocean” sample and the Craft Smart cheap turquoise. The mixture is one part Martha’s medium to two parts paint. I used up two bottles of Martha’s mixture and probably have 1/4 of the paint/medium left over.

One trick I read that sure worked well was to spray the whole piece once over with water before each coat of paint. It helped the fabric absorb the paint.

I taped off the wood with masking tape. Not the best results.  Next time I will use blue painter’s tape. Here are the results of one coat of paint:

After the first coat of yummy turquoise dried over night, I sanded the whole thing with sand paper.  Yes, you read that right.  It turned the crunchy hard fabric back into nice soft fabric. I sanded between each coat after it was thoroughly dried. It took four coats of paint to completely hide the maroon color.

Here is the half way finished bench in our entry way… the fabric is done, but I still want to paint the wooden arms and legs, but I can’t decide on a color, and people were coming over… so there is sits.  My littlest one is so excited because she asked if one of those baskets could be ONLY hers for her shoes and whatnot… I said yes.

This makes me happy.

Beachcombers R Us

We spent last week at Monterey, California and God blessed us with unbelievable weather for April on the coast!  Sunny and gorgeous!  My friend, Connie, got our whole family hooked on searching for sea glass…. I’m not quite sure why it is so addicting.  Possibly because it is FREE and the colors of glass are so amazing.  We found this little cove, after much climbing and crawling over large rocks, where the waves were bringing new pieces of glass with each crash and roll.  After my entire tennis shoe went under the water, in pursuit of a huge green treasure, even I joined the freezing barefoot ranks and took the plunge.  Usually I prefer to view the water, not feel the water.

The majority of our discoveries were green and brown….. 7-Up and beer bottles in past lives.  But we did find some rare gems in PINK!, red, yellow, white and royal blue.  My 15-year-old son saw a shining royal blue bottle in a thrift store and asked if we could buy it and throw it in the ocean…. for our next visit in three months!  GREAT idea!

What do we do with the sea litter, you ask?  There are mini jars at the beach house that have sorted-by-color sea glass…. so I added my finds to that happy color display.  For homeschooling we count this as math…. sorting.  :o)  It could also be categorized as history, science and social studies.  Whatever we call it, it was the BEST kind of schooling, in my humble opinion.  The rest of the family brought home their glass pieces …. I’m not sure why.  Possibly because they were FREE and the colors of glass are so amazing!

And no, we didn’t color coordinate our clothes with the ocean… it simply worked out that way.  It was a matchy-matchy sort of day all the way around.

I’m the one on the OUTSIDE???

Growing up in the 60s and 70s, I was a fortunate kid who had both sets of grandparents until my teens.  Most of our family vacations (in the station wagon with the 8-track tape of the singing Statesmen) were spent driving to and from one of my grandparents’ homes.  My maternal grandparents lived in White Rock, B.C. a block from the beach and they had a trampoline in the back yard and wild blackberry vines that grew down the hill from their home.  All of those were important items on my list as a kid.  They lived in a four-story yellow house that stood out like Big Bird when we were on the beach looking toward land.  The reason they lived in a four-story, gargantuan home was because my Grandmother took care of 10 women who had special needs, all who lived in the top floors of the canary-colored house. Grandma and Grandpa lived in the lower floor in two cramped bedrooms, a kitchen and livingroom.  I can’t remember where we slept when we stayed there, but I have fond memories of that house.

The Ladies ate at a large diningroom table in a window-laden room facing the ocean on the second floor.  It was a ways from the kitchen, where my grandmother cooked for all 17 of us inhabitants.  We ate at a squishy kitchen table that was at the back of the house in a nook with windows across the far wall.  Our view was the driveway and the neighbor’s fence. The table was formica with a gray and white pattern of triangles, and there were secured benches all the way around the table.  No chairs.  There was no room for chairs.  I felt like a sardine lined up with my siblings and sometimes my cousins. And I loved it.

The day we arrived, Grandma gave each of us a see-through pill bottle with a white snap-on lid with our name written on it in a rainbow-shaped curve. It was for vacation allowance.  Each and every day she handed out a quarter to me and my brother and sister.  The coins fit perfectly in the little bottles. I have always relished things that fit perfectly.  True to form, my brother would save his coins all week so on the last day he could carefully purchase a yo-yo, or a rubber coin purse that squeezed open or a candy bar.  I lavishly spent my quarter every day.  On junk candy.  And I was okay with that. Because the next morning, for at least 20 minutes, there would be another shiny quarter that would fit perfectly into the bottom of my pill bottle that said L-I-N-D-A in the rainbow-shaped curve.

There were “other” cousins that also came to Grandma’s yellow beach house on Buena Vista Drive.  Three girls, close to the same ages as us, but we weren’t “real” cousins.  We spent a Christmas or two together when we were very young, eating at Grandma’s, but we never swapped gifts.  I never gave it much thought but somehow felt sorry for them because they weren’t Grandma’s “real” grandchildren.  I considered them on the outside.

In my 16th year of life, I came to the realization that the Grandmother that I loved, was married to my Grandfather…. after my maternal Grandmother passed away years previously.  She was my STEP-Grandmother.  But how could that be?  She was not like Cinderella’s Step-anything!  She loved us and fed us and gave us vacation allowance.  THEN I realized that I was not a “real” grandchild…. I was on the outside!  The three girls were on the INSIDE! That shocked me for days.  It was my first real-life experience knowing unconditional non-blood related love.  We were family and that was all that mattered. And I loved it.

More tomorrow, on my beloved Grandmother.

Two Player Bicycle

There is a bicycle-built-for-two at the home we’re vacationing in right now.  It had flat tires when we arrived, but when my boys discovered it they rectified that situation quickly… because they have never ridden such an inviting contraption.  They went on their first ride down a paved path that leads to the beach…. but the path stopped and the sand started more abruptly then they anticipated.  They were being followed by another 11-year-old who witnessed the initial adventure.  And an adventure it was.  There was a group of kids at the park/beach on a day camp trip who also witnessed the initial adventure.

After the bike hit the sand, it slowed considerably, but not quite slow enough to disembark safely.  My strong and brave sons went over a small hill and crashed, face first, into the sand.  Their following friend said he saw them disappear and then there was a large cloud of dust.  Keeve appeared over the hill first, raised his hand and yelled to the wide-eyed kids who witnessed the out-of-control bicycle-built-for-two crash, “We’re OK!”  I wish I could have seen the whole trip down the hill… and to video tape it would have even been better.

When they got home, they still had sand all over their faces and shirts and shorts and arms and legs, but were so full of hilarity as they told us the whole story of their trip and wipe-out on the “Two-Player Bike“… like it’s a Wii game for two players.  The bike is the biggest hit yet!  Who knew?!

100

 

Yes, April 21st, 2009… it hit 100 degrees today.   {{{sigh}}}  No more buying Skinny Cow mint ice cream sandwiches in the middle of the day without a cooler of ice in the back of the van.  No more barefoot runs across the street to my brother’s house.  No more lobelia.  No more jeans, unless of course we’re going to a hockey game, but that won’t happen because the Coyotes didn’t make the playoffs.  No more comfortable car to get into.  No more windows open at night.  Bye bye long sleeves and closed toed shoes. 

Bring on the sunscreen and the water bottles.  I just washed all the beach towels, so we’re READY should a water opportunity present itself.  I bet the Popsicle man is happy.

Larisa asked me today why we live in Phoenix.  I wonder that myself every SPRING when the thermometer hits 100 before Mother’s day.  I dream of someday living in a cooler place where plants actually grow in the summer.  Where the a/c doesn’t run 24/7 for six months of the year.  And where there are four seasons instead of just two:  nice or HOT.

I need to go find my fake tanning lotion.  It’s time.

Hotel Amenities

Yes, we are in Anaheim, my two girlfriends and our three teenage daughters.  The girls are attending the Revolve Tour and got to meet Hawk Nelson last night (a Christian rock band from Canada).  They were thrilled.  Forty-five minutes of their five hours in California Adventures yesterday was spent helping three-year-old Mason find his mom and dad.  Talk about horror at Disney for that poor family.  The girls said the mom was hysterically crying…. as expected.  Anyway, it all turned out, fortunately.  Our girls found security and reported the kid’s name…. that was thankfully sewn on the back of his Mickey Mouse ears.

On to hotel amenities….  one of the choice amenities this establishment has to offer, as is expected these days, is HIGH speed Internet.  Well, this is a farce.  There ain’t nothin’ highspeedy about this connection.  I’ve typed this blog up until now and my email page still hasn’t loaded…. good grief.  And there should be an international thickness regulator for oatmeal.  Good grief, again.  This stuff was like weak soup with the occasional oat flake.  Being that I’m with two of the pickiest eaters on God’s green earth, the management was notified of the oversight on the breaky buffet, but alas, this morning there was not much of an improvement. We can’t complain, though.  The room is decent…. minus the few bugs that we’ve located and killed.  The location is KEY, which is why we picked this place. 

And a special bonus for us… there is a “Gamers” convention going on across the street.  So, needless to say, if you’re not wearing black, you’re so not cool.  We’re not cool.  We keep wondering what in the world they do at a gamers convention?  Play games?  Watch video clips of how to beat the latest games???  Meet people dressed up like the mythical characters in the make-believe video games???  They’re here.  We’ve seen them.  Makes me wonder.

OH!  Yesterday Jill dragged us through Mexico City, right here in Anaheim.  It is the oldest indoor swap meet in the world, or so they say.  We did purchase some unique items for those we love, as well as taking cell phone pictures of lizards on skulls, wacky sunglasses and the general folklore that surrounds Mexico… right here in the good ol’ USA.

We dropped the girls off this morning and we’re off to the beach.  Wooo HOooo.  This is just like Thelma and Louise on their vacation: carefree,  wonderful, and the beach.  Oh to feel the sand between my freezing toes. 

BAGS end tonight!  www.bagsforzaza.blogspot.com