Stumble Upon????

O.K., so being a newbie...I am always looking for easy ways to get more traffic to the ole blog, with out buying  views...(who has the money for that) and spending every day all day doing Link parties ( I wouldn't have time to paint anything)
One of the new sites I heard about is Stumble Upon. It gives readers (think addictions like Pinterest and Craftgawker) more things to distract them from laundry or cleaning the house...:)
To get people to STUMBLE you need to add a STUMBLE button to your page.....GULP.......CRAP!!!,  that means more HTML code.....That right there gives me nightmares. Well guess what?  They give you the information right there on there page. Hit this Button...http://www.stumbleupon.com/badges/ and it will take you to the page to copy the code and add to your blog.
They even tell you the secret "CONTROL F" code to find the HTML you were looking for. No more searching and reading through all that code to find one little line.  I hit Control F on my Edit Template page ....copy and pasted the code and hit highlight all and scrolled until I found it!!! BINGO....added the code and now the button is on EVERY POST!!! GENIUS!!!
I hope this helped you as much as it helped me.....MERRY CHRISTMAS....this is all your getting so deal with it.....LOL!!!
I hope you have a BEAUTIFUL day and Stumble upon many other good things.

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Roadside rescue free door, made shaby chic French Door shelf

I had to clean out the garage.....................AGAIN!!! (I don't know when my hubby will realize that when he makes me clean the garage it makes me think there is more room for me to fill)

Remember this...The free door I got when I saved that table and dresser a couple of weeks ago. Well I painted "French Market" on it to go along with that old Shabby Chic feel of the door.

I then had an old shelf that was missing the little hangy bracket thingies (yes those are the Latin words for it...:)) So I screwed them in to the little wooden brackets between the pains of glass.

The old door even had a nail in the top that was perfect for hanging a wreath. Now I know the colors don't really match up, but I had to quick throw something together before the hubby realized instead of cleaning out the garage I had started another project...:) So I grabbed what I had within reaching distance. I love how rustic and chic it turned out. Just goes to show you...You should never throw out a good door. Someone can do something with it.

I hope you have a BEAUTIFUL day.

 http://www.homestoriesatoz.com/2011/11/tutorials-tips-link-party-38.html
 http://missmustardseed.com/2011/12/furniture-feature-friday-favorites-a-link-party-2/
http://www.serenitynowblog.com/
http://www.getouttamyheadplease.com/2011/12/show-it-off-mondays-link-party-1.html

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my handpainted "joyeux noel" banner

This is my hand painted "Joyeux Noel" banner. I have a painting class and this is what we chose to paint. We painted it from an old pattern. But do not mistake...This was not easy!!

This took almost 13 hours to paint. So when you go to your next arts and craft show I want you to think about how much time is spent doing what they love. This is now hanging on my front door for the Christmas season. I smile everytime I look at it, and that is worth all the time and money in the world to me.

I hope you all have a Beautiful Thanksgiving.

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plain chair turned Faux French Grain sack chair

Good Morning and Thank you again to Karen of at The Graphics Fairy, for this beautiful Graphic. My sister picked up this chair for me at Goodwill for $9.99  The chair was in perfect condition, but very simple and plain.

I thought about recovering in some pretty fabric, but I couldn't. The fabric was in absolutely perfect condition. Not a stain on it and actually really nice.

Well I have been wanting a French Grain sack chair, but didn't want to spend the money. Also like other people I know who have gotten ahold of those vintage grain sacks....They have such a hard time cutting them...(meaning, they feel guilty cutting them up)

So I got out my fabric paints. I used some carbon paper and traced over the printed out graphic. It left a very light outline. Just enough for me to follow.

Here it is, on its way.

Now it looked O.K. like this, but It needed something more. So I watered down my fabric paint and ran two light lines right down the middle. I love how it looks and cost me nothing besides the chair. I had the paints...(which I got at Goodwill, in a giant bag for a buck....:))  I love how it looks and its Oh SO comfortable.  I hope you enjoyed this little project and you have a BEAUTIFUL day.

http://www.homestoriesatoz.com/2011/11/tutorials-tips-link-party-37.html
http://primitiveandproper.blogspot.com/2011/11/piece-of-work-wednesday-furniture-link_22.html 
 http://missmustardseed.com/2011/12/furniture-feature-friday-favorites-a-link-party-2/http://missmustardseed.com/2011/12/furniture-feature-friday-favorites-a-link-party-2/

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Goodwill Fireplace Reveal.....FINALLY :)

Can you tell I am a little bit EXCITED!! I have sooo been wanting a Fireplace in my living room FOREVER!!

Low and behold my favorite Goodwill (HI ladies...:) ) had this perfectly working electric fireplace and solid oak mantle.

They had just marked it down from 100 bucks....How could I turn that down...Well.... I couldn't...:) So the hubby got home and didn't even kill me when he saw it sitting in the garage. I got that sucker out of my truck all by my lonesome because I am so impatient. Well of course the snow started flying that night so I had to work in the garage. (Hubby was thrilled...LOL) I first started by painting the brass with a hammered bronze paint. Guess what we had for dinner that night..Hahahaha..:)

Then I got to sanding her down and priming.

When she was dry I painted her and waited her to dry so I could distress and wax her.

Then, again, all by my lonesome I dragged her in the house to see where she was gonna go. This is where I found out I was gonna have to sweet talk the hubby into cutting the trim..:) He is much better at cutting exact cuts.

So he pulled off the trim and got to work.

We got her positioned where she needed to go and then it was my turn to do filling of nail holes and touch up of paint.

Then the fun stuff....Decorating. I normally don't decorate this early for Christmas, but as Thanksgiving is only a week away I decided to forgo the Turkey day decor and jump right to the Christmas decor, since it takes me a week to set it all up anyway.

Here you can see the awesome trim work the hubby did to make it look like the mantle was built right into the wall.

Here are some shots of the detail.

I am so excited to have the fireplace going during our long cold winters here in Michigan, and even more so to Holidays with the Christmas tree and fire going. I am a happy camper.
I hope you all have a wonderful day and super duper Holidays!!!

http://primitiveandproper.blogspot.com/
http://www.perfectlyimperfectblog.com/2011/11/the-military-desk-an-all-things-furniture-link-up.html
http://missmustardseed.com/2011/11/3079/
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Addicted-2-Decorating/227603822606
 http://www.homestoriesatoz.com/2011/11/tutorials-tips-link-party-37.html

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"Merry Christmas" sign

This weekend among the millions of other things that I had to get done...(which always seems to include cleaning out the garage) I
found this shelf that I had nabbed before it went in the trash. When I saw it, I thought.."this would make the perfect sign"

Well it sat...in the garage....WAITING.... :)

Then on Sunday as is the norm with the wind down, I thought..I will make a Christmas sign for my new living room mantle..(that post will be later this week) So I jumped on my computer and printed off the font that I wanted. I knew I wanted more than just words so I quick clicked over to the GRAPHICS FAIRY, and grabbed her cute little snowflakes. I used carbon paper to transfer them and then got to painting. When it was all done I distressed it. I wish the pictures had turned out better but it was evening when I took the pictures and couldn't quite grab the "old distressed sign" look on the lettering. I am looking at it right now and it looks like an old vintage
Christmas Sign. I had so much fun doing this project.
I hope you guys have a BEAUTIFUL day!.

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Poppy flowered Night stand

Here is another project that I decided that I want to put my own personal touch on.

My girlfriend gave me this nightstand that used to be her hubby's and it as is the usual with me; been sitting in my shed..:)  

Well, this weekend we got some BEAUTIFUL weather, so I painted a bunch of furniture. This is what it looked like, just painted.

Cute all on its own, but not good enough for me....:)

I LOVE poppy's...I don't know what it is about them...I just love them...so I decided that I wanted this to have a poppy on it. I looked at tons of pictures online and got one I thought would work for this nightstand. This is not the type of picture you can "just transfer" This one had to be painted. So I got to drawing it on, and started painting.



Just so you know, artists don't always use fancy brushes and such...one part of the center flower needed cute little perfect circles. Guess what I used for that????? A q-tip...that's right....this makes perfect little circles...:)

This is before I added more shading and distressing.....
and here she is all finished...I hope you like it....I had so much fun..listening to music and painting on this rainy windy cold day...
I hope you have a BEAUTIFUL day!!!!!

http://missmustardseed.com/

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