The Apple Street Cottage

As you know, we sold the Cottage and moved.  Did I mention that our buyer also bought most of our furniture?  Yes, she did, and we were in dire need of someplace to put our clothes.  After much discussion, the decision was made to buy an unfinished piece for me to finish.  Since the new place is small, we started out with one unfinished chest of drawers. This is how it was delivered: Yes, I forgot to take that 'before' picture again, so I had to find an image online! The top was stained with dark walnut stain, followed up with 3 coats of satin polycrylic. I know you've heard me say I'm not a fan of polycrylic, but that's for tables that get heavy use.  (If you want to read that sad story, click HERE ).  Since this is a dresser, polycrylic is a great choice. Once the top was done, I primed and then painted the dresser in Silver Lining Chalk Paint.  Before I started the drawers, I brushed some walnut stain on those edges so it would...

Before the jig saw was packed away for the move, I decided to make a few birds.  They are about 8 inches long and 5 inches tall; perfect for hanging in a kitchen window. They were pretty simple to make.  I drew a pattern and cut it out from an old cracker box. The two pieces were traced on the wood, cut, sanded, and painted.   I attached the wing with strong glue and added a small screw eye to thread a length of fishing line for hanging.   Now tell me, which is your favorite, the red bird or the blue bird? I hope you have a wonderful week.  Be sure to stop by again soon! You may have noticed I added a page at the top of my blog for Apple Street Crafts .  It contains a link to the new facebook page - swing by and 'like' it, won't you? Linking to: Snickerdoodle Saturday Shuffle Bouquet of Talent Sundays at Home Sunday's Best That DIY Party Do It Yourself - Crafty Link Silver Pennies Sunday Happiness is Homemade ...

Welcome back!  Last week I mentioned that we were on our down-sizing adventure and were being 'Lobsters'.  I promised to share the story, so, if you aren't familiar with it, here it is... Many years ago, I read an article about the difficulty of growth and change.  There was an analogy between that growth and a lobster. A lobster, you say?  Think about it... A lobster is a crustacean with a hard, protective shell.  When it grows, the lobster must break out of, or shed its shell.  At that point, the lobster has no protection and is soft and vulnerable until the new hard shell forms.   As human beings, in order to change and grow, we need to break out of our old shell and be vulnerable for a bit.  If we don't break out of that shell once in a while, we will never grow.  It can be difficult and sometimes scary, but necessary if we want to change.  So, break out of that shell, be soft and vulnerable for a bit, and new things will come....

It came to my attention last week that I never posted a moving update.  As you know, the Cottage was sold - read that funny story HERE  and we had to decide what we were going to do next.   About 5 weeks ago we moved into a small apartment in a turn-of-the-century house.  Although much of the original woodwork, etc is gone, it does have new windows, insulation, and hardwood floors.   'Small' is the operative word here - the apartment is about 550 square feet.  I know what you're thinking, and no, we haven't lost our minds.  We really are working on down-sizing, because, let's face it, how much 'stuff' do you really need? Since it's just the two of us and we've already done the 4 bdr, 3 bath house, it was time to try something new.   Since the woman who bought our house also bought most of our furniture, we were starting with a pretty clean slate.  This is not our forever home, so we have a storage unit for those things that just don't h...