The Mandy Mirror

The Mandy Mirror is a revamp of a 1970’s mirror. It was super “rad, man” (can you tell I’ve watched Cars a few times with my kids, LOL). Our friends were driving through from Utah on their way East to a family reunion. We had a day to do something so the girls wanted to go check out some cool shops. I wanted to show Mandy this little main street I had found that had some fun shops.  I saw this mirror and loved it…except the GAUDY shell sticking up on the top. I love gorgeous shaped mirrors but this one was over the top with the huge shell sticking off the top. A little TOO 70’s for me!

Back story: I saw this mirror a few weeks previously at the little furniture store on the main street (it has like five antique stores within 3 blocks! Fun little town). I had joked with the store owner and asked if he would take $50 but, he had declined saying others had offered $50 but, he was selling it for his mother-in-law and wanted more for it. I had walked away that day but….

When I took my friend Mandy to this cute little town for a little “girls” time. I walked back in this furniture store and joked if he wouldn’t still not take $50 for it. Mandy loved the mirror too! We talked back and forth but, I really didn’t want to pay more than $50 for it especially since I would still have to experiment and see if I could chop off the shell on the top. When, before I knew it, “Mandy had offered him $65 for the mirror and he took it! I was standing there (hopefully not with my mouth hanging open) and realized that my friend had just offered for ME to pay $65 for this mirror. I tried to act cool as I paid for the purchase but, inside I was a mix of laughter. My friend had just spent my money and I had been ready to walk away from it. Oh well, I guess it was meant to come home with me and my friendship is definitely worth more than a mirror. ( Sorry Mandy if you are reading this for the first time, I was so stunned that I didn’t say anything at the time. But, imagine telling your husband that you came home with a mirror, ONLY that your best friend bought this mirror….. I bought this mirror and you are laughing so hard, you can hardly tell him the story and the best part is….yes, your friend YOU surprisingly bought a mirror because your friend made the deal! I am glad he found the humor in it too! Love you Mandy! You are awesome! Hope the homemade cinnamon rolls we sent with you on the road somehow makes up for me telling this story!?!)

The LOVELY shell detail. (Yuck!) It hung out from the mirror a good 3 inches…too over the top! The rest of the lines of the mirror are beautiful!Well, my experiment with the jig saw worked. If a mirror is made of foam core or whatever it is…you really can use a jig saw and while following the shape of the emblem below it, cut it off to reveal a perfectly gorgeous frame that is simply elegant.

I sanded down the edges to make it smooth and ready for primer and paint.

I primed and then painted the frame Rustoleum Heritage White (my favorite white color) and attached the original hardware that kept the mirror in the frame.

The details of the frame are GORGEOUS! It’s simply elegant without being over the top (without the shell at the top, that is!) I love my Mandy Mirror!

I hung it above my piano and am excited to get my Halloween decoration up because a mirror will be awesome to reflect, not only the lovely glow of lamps at night but, the twinkling midnight lights of Halloween!

C is for Creighton

My friend had her baby shower this last week. The shower was after the baby was born because they weren’t finding out the gender of the baby. I don’t think I could do that…I don’t have that kind of patience!

Because the baby shower was after Creighton was born, it meant I could give her a really personal gift. She babysat for me all summer and I wanted to give her a really great gift but, I knew I was on a budget so, I was going to have to use my ingenuity and skills to give her the type of gift she deserved but, without a lot out of my checkbook.

When I got home from Hobby Lobby I knew I had to go another direction (I wanted to do a chevron grey/white sign with the baby’s name on it but, his name has 9 letters and I came home from Hobby Lobby with $37 of stuff) By the time I got home, I knew the supplies had to go back, it was just too expensive. I went to my studio and started looking through my vintage frames. I found this beauty and instantly knew I could do his name sign inside of it to replicate the old alphabet flash cards. I was really short on time because I worked at the hospital that morning and the shower was at 7:30….yep, that’s 4.5 hours to get a baby shower gift done.

Here nursery wasn’t done, so I went with a pretty neutral color scheme so it could go with most color palette’s. I painted the frame glossy white.I took the original mirror from the middle and painted it grey. I would use the mirror as the backer for the original artwork.

I found FREE images online and chose a simple chevron for the background and an airplane (because the dad’s a pilot) and a crocodile to go with the letter “C”.

This was my design for the inside of the glossy white frame replica of a vintage alphabet flash card

I  mod podged the paper (I actually used my husband nice resume paper so it would be on really nice quality paper, Thanks Babe!) to the original mirror and mod podged the top to give it a protective coating. I had to prop my hairdryer up to dry the mod podge so I could make it to the baby shower on time.

It turned out awesome! As I was at the party, I noticed something…I had forgotten to attach a way to hang it on the wall..Oops! So, the next day I drove back to her house to pick it up to finish it. Ha Ha…good thing we live down the road from each other. I also wanted to put another coat of paint on it because I noticed one of the edges didn’t get sprayed as well as I like. I know, I know…I can be a little bit of a perfectionist. She was cool with letting me finish it….because it still looked great for the baby shower! I attached a wall hanger to the back.

The baby gift was perfect for her and she loved it! It’s the best feeling ever, when someone loves what you put your heart and soul into making perfect, JUST for them!

I used a vintage frame that I had picked up for cheap a while ago, it was chunky and beautiful…used white paint I had in the garage, used a little Photoshop to create the artwork reminiscent of an alphabet flash card and the only thing I kept from my Hobby Lobby purchase was the modpodge  (cause I was out but, I did used my 40% off coupon…so I returned everything else and kept the $4 modpodge bottle). So, I created a custom baby shower gift with items I had on hand for a special lady and precious baby boy for $4. Perfect!

Flea Market: Sparks, Kansas….Population 7

My coworker handed me this newspaper article and said I would like to read it. Oh yeah!! It was an article of this town, going from population 7 to (on Memorial Day and Labor Day) to 70,000 people(over the course of the weekend). It said a ton of dealers go to stock their booths. I was so excited. I worked the entire Labor Day Weekend but, the booths opened on Thursday so I was planning on going opening day while the kids were in school. I was talking to Ruth the day before (Wed) at work and she asked if she could come too. I warned her I was talking a 15 month old with me but, I was thrilled if she wanted to come too!

I had to take a picture of one of the same buildings (one of very few) as in the newspaper article. This is probably the only picture that didn’t have Ruth in it. It’s almost like Where’s Waldo….only it should be Where’s Ruth?

There’s Ruth coming out of the Sheep Shed. This booth had all Primitives, Country Items.

This was a swimming/Locker Shelf but, it only had three of the original baskets. Sad…there wasn’t a complete set!

Can you find Ruth in all the stuff? Ha Ha…okay…I’ll quit pointing it out! It was so much fun! We laughed the whole day and found great deals!

Look at this ingenuity! A phone that is made into a lamp…seriously cute!

Brooklyn was such a great kiddo all day! She was happy even though it was SUPER hot! (Can you tell she loves to wave at the camera) I was impressed with how well behaved she was because it was so hot. Ruth and I had both brought a water bottle but, by the end of the day we had each bought at least three more waters! Man, it was hot (but, apparently the next two days it was pouring rain so we definitely went the best day of the weekend!)

I bought a chair to go with my farm table at this booth for a whopping $4. I LOVED the prices! This lady was the nicest booth owner.

By the time we left Sparks…the stroller was hanging with both of our bags. You can even see the child’s chair that we used to hold other bags. Brooklyn is in the stroller! (just in case you were wondering) This was where we parked…WAY DOWN THE COUNTRY ROAD! My GPS showed sparks as the little triangular piece of grass where two country roads converged…and it was pretty accurate! Once we got loaded up in the truck and sat in the A/C for a while(it was SO hot), we decided to be adventurous and go to White Cloud (a small town up the road that does the same thing as Sparks) We stopped at a few Barns along the country road that had signs saying they were having a flea market and we went wherever the wind blew! (or the floating island moved!….sorry inside joke, Had to be there!)

A lot of the booths were getting ready to close in White Cloud. With it being SO blasted hot, a lot of the people had gone home so the booths were closing and getting ready for the BIG day tomorrow and the weekend (I don’t think they could have fathomed that it would be pouring rain for the next few days…sad). I was walking on one side of the center isle in a booth and Ruth walked down the other. She quickly summoned me to the other side. There was a printer’s cabinet that needed a new top (that’s why I didn’t see it from the other side, it was a piece of paneling but the rest is original). I asked the booth’s owner about this piece and he said his mother-in-law had taken this out of print shop before it was torn down 25+ years ago and it had sat in her barn protected. It was waiting for me!! If you all know(or maybe you don’t)…I built a cupboard just for printer’s drawers to hold all my scrapbook items. You can view it Here or Here.

So, do you all want to know what I did….I walked away….felt like I would be cheating on my one I made! (I know, I know….you are all screaming at the screen right now but, that’s how I felt)

We walked back down main street and to the car. Let’s just say…talking to her the whole way back to the car about the cabinet. Ruth talked me into it! See, I went with the girl with smarts….had a level head…and knew that I would be sorry if I left it there. It’s a once-in-a-long time find! Plus the guys had already told me if I came back the next day that they wouldn’t give me the killer deal that I had talked them down to. They were really honest and said that it would be about double the price because all the dealers would be there.

We DROVE back up Main Street to the booth (it was HOT people!) and bought the cabinet! Thank goodness the men from the booth helped me load it, it’s heavy! ( I glad that I have my rainy day fund from all the stuff I sold at our garage sale before we moved because moving here where the antique’s are, I know I will find AWESOME stuff!)  I got a killer deal because it only cost me $125. Which is about $10 a drawer! Really!! Seriously!! I bought the ones for my cabinet at a steal for $35(I think) in Utah(granted, they are harder to find in Utah)

So, what other stuff did I find? CAMERA’S….I LOVE photography and have wanted to have some vintage camera’s for display. I found them at a booth under a table on a piece of cardboard. I asked them how much and they were asking $8 a piece. I asked if they would take $5. They said, “sure!” So, I bought my favorites! Cute huh?

I also bought door plates (project coming…once I find a few more for another killer price) a Tin soap container($5 bought for a wedding gift/shower gift to give with towels but, I don’t know if I can part with it, it’s too cute!, an antique wood box ($10 like the ones from my antique box cupboard….love that finger/box joint detail) a scoop ($2 for my glass laundry jar) and a flour bag ($12 for a chair upholstery) and farm table chairs ($4 and $5 dollars).

And the cutest Red Chippy Child’s Chair! This will be going in the playroom (although it still is in the living room because Brooklyn loves it and it’s super cute!)

So, if anyone ever wanted to go on a little road trip….Sparks, Kansas is worth the drive but, only on Memorial Day or Labor Day because the rest of the year…it has a population of 7!

Mom, is that a Rhombus?

The kids were all excited to see how their pictures turned out for the playroom. I hung them all, stepped back and this is what I heard… “Mom, is that a Rhombus?” My husband and I just looked at each other and cracked up! Back in the day, we were allowed to call things a “diamond” but, to be politically correct now, it is called a Rhombus. (I guess I should be proud that he sees the bigger picture but, all my husband and I could do was chuckle because it was….I don’t know…unexpected!)

I started out with cute frames from Hobby Lobby (which I purchased 50% off, of course, before we moved knowing that I wanted to do this in the basement and make a fun room for the kids). I could only find four colors….not exactly the vision I was going for. If it’s going to be a basement, it needed to be, at least, cheerful.

I kept one blue frame blue and one red frame red (their original painted color). The other white and black frames got a bit of color! (I almost forgot to take a before pic, that’s why there is one pink and the other ones black and white! Oh well…at least I took one before they were all painted!)

There, that’s better…..a little more color to brighten up the basement playroom!

Then all the frames were laid out in my “diamond” pattern and I counted how many 8x10’s and 5x7’s I would need and what way the photo would need to be, vertical or horizontal print.

After I printed my photos…I cleaned the glass with Windex and was ready to hang my wall of color!

The colors are so happy and lively, which is exactly the feel I want this room to reflect…FUN!!!

I even printed pictures of the kids adventures from this year! They were excited to see these pics!

So, all the frames were hung and created a nice Rhombus! The colors on this end of the room now help bring in all the fun colors of the alphabet wall on the other end of this room! Perfect!

You can see that post here.

Now, the kids have a space to watch movies and play games and it reflects their high energy personalities!

The wall hanging turned out just as I had pictured it (I knew I wanted this wall to look like this before we ever saw this house…this rental house was sight-unseen before we rented it but, the super nice homeowners had sent us pictures so we would know what furniture to bring and what to sell) I instantly saw a wall of fun shaped frames set in a diamond pattern at the end of this long room. I wanted the kids to have a space where they could relax, be rambunctious and build forts. It’s been everything we wanted for this room….I just didn’t realize that I had wanted a Rhombus! LOL