Tutorial - Upcycling a Mirror

My first attempt at a tutorial.
I kept forgetting to take pictures.
Ahem....

Well, let's begin.

I had an oval mirror with a missing piece of frame.

Did I think to take a picture of the whole mirror?
No, I was doing good to remember to take one of the missing piece.

I decided to try hiding the broken frame with some flowers.
Hot glue sticks amazingly well to a mirror.

I glued some leaves down first, then added a piece of ribbon.
And then a flower. But I forgot to take a picture.

Then I stood back and looked at it. 

And decided it needed flowers in the opposite corner to make it looked balanced.

So, I repeated what I had already done on the opposite corner.

And after I did that, I discovered the mirror was showing a bit between the backing and frame right where I had added the flowers. 

That's ok, the leaves hide it.

For the most part.... if you don't look too closely.

The finished mirror!

And everything in it's reflection.

The missing frame piece is hidden behind the flower on the bottom.

I could see this hanging in a girly girls room, or a cottage themed or Victorian home. 

Next time I do a tutorial, I'll try to remember to take more pics.

But look what I did remember to do.....

Take a selfie!

Ha! 

Man Cave... Stage One

We have a new display in the shop. It has several pieces perfect for the man cave, or a home decorated with the rustic/woodsy/lodge theme.

Can you guess what the Old Treasures and Man Cave signs are painted on?

Concrete trowels!

Speaking of tools, how about a couple shovels?
Note the all wood handles.
And check out that cool old wooden clamp.

Around here, many guys (and gals) are into fishing & hunting.

So that seemed an appropriate beginning for adding more guy stuff.

This plywood cabinet came straight out of a guys woodshop. It had been in my dads workshop, holding a variety of wood making tools.

The green metal box underneath is an old ammo box. I tried selling it plain for a while, and since it hadn't sold yet, I dressed it up a bit with some burlap ribbon and rusty stars.

I dressed up a couple metal skillets too.








































They made for some fun Fish Fry signage.

All together now.... "Awwww".

I will be adding more stuff for the guys, this is just the beginning.

But don't worry girls, I certainly haven't forgotten about you!

I'm also adding lots of wedding/love decor.
But that's a post for another day.

Embellished Signs

Sure, you can make a sign with a paint brush and paint.
But why stop there?

Lately, I've been adding some embellishments.
Rusty stars are a good place to start.
And even a rusty chicken.

 I like to tie on a scrap of fabric, then add a rusty star on top.

Burlap flowers are always a good choice.
But why stop there?
Lace and barbwire?
Sure!

I painted Antiques & Old Stuff on a saw blade, then nailed it to a piece of barnwood.
The old friend sign is a piece of baseboard, perhaps from an old farmhouse.
It already had the white chippy paint on it when I bought it.
A couple scraps of fabric gave it the finishing touch.

Or, how about a flower made from a cutter quilt?
There's no end to the ideas of what can be added to a sign.

Time for a treasure hunt through the junk craft stash!

By the way - I'm having problems writing posts and adding pictures. When I add photos, it messes up the spacing. Sometimes it throws the written part all out of whack, adding large spaces to the post at times. Eventually, I can get it to look right on my laptop, but it ends up creating large spaces when I look at it on my phone. Hmmm.......

The Elusive 4 Leaf Clover

As far as I know, I'm don't have any Irish in me.
But I'm wearin' my green today anyway, in honor of the day, and of our Irish son-in-law.

And of our son Kevin, who has the uncanny ability to find 4 leaf clovers.

It's unreal. He will be walking through the yard, or a pasture field, and will look down, pause, and say, "there's one". And there is.

When he was a boy, he would pick them, and dry them in a book. It reached the point he didn't even bother anymore. After all, he can spot them and pick them just about anytime he's outside if he takes the time to look down.

Me? I can remember sitting in clover patches like this one as a kid, scouring the ground for a 4 leaf one. With absolutely no luck.

I finally found one a couple years ago, and the funny thing was, George found one at the same time, and just like me, it was his first one. We were pretty excited until Kevin walked over, and pointed out a couple more, just by glancing at the patch.

Some people have all the luck.

Happy St. Paddy's Day!!!

Bread Stuff

This is not my mom's hands, but oh, how this picture makes me think of her.

She made the best bread, and made it every week. Our daughter associates the smell of baking bread with Grandma's house. I do too, but even more, it's the color of bread. Mom's bread had the most beautiful dark brown crust. I rarely see it in homemade breads, it must have been particular to mom's oven.

And the taste! Warm from the oven with butter or jelly. Oh my.

Sadly, I never learned to bake it. I tried a few times, but it just didn't come close. Maybe I don't have the patience to knead it correctly. One of my strongest memories of mom is of her kneading that dough. She often had fun with it - she would put on a couple 50's records, and dance while she kneaded.

Then, in a few hours, we would get to eat slices of heaven.

Oh, the memories.

By the way, the 2 bread photos above are from the free photo site, Pixabay. Love them!

I have my mom's bread boards, and they are some of my most treasured possessions. 

Speaking of bread boards, I picked up several pig shaped ones at an auction.

Some sold as they were, but I a few lingered around the shop.

One day, I decided to get creative with them.

What is it with the bacon craze these days? 

I like bacon, but have no desire to eat bacon flavored everything. 

Bacon flavored ice cream? Really? 

No thank you.

But, bacon decor? I can do that.

Of course, they can no longer be used as cutting boards, but that's ok.

They already lived that life. 

Now they can rest and just hang around the kitchen.

Literally.

It appears this old bread box is ready to rest too.

I have no idea what caused the lid to break.

But, it's still a cool box. I painted it green, then added a burlap ribbon and a "Stuff" tag.

Who says a bread box can only be used for bread? 

This canvas painting was an experiment. 

I had picked it up an an auction, or flea market, or some such place.

It wasn't framed, and had a couple slight stains.

Around that same time, I saw a woman on some TV decorating show write on a painting with a Sharpie.

What? 

Hers turned out so well, I decided to try it on the bread painting.

Hmmm. Mine didn't turn out nearly as well as hers did.

I put the painting aside, and you know what happened next.

Out of sight, out of mind.

Recently, I discovered the painting again, and while I still don't like it as well as the ladies on TV, I decided it wasn't THAT bad.

I brought it into the shop, and put it out for sale.

It sold a few days ago, and the lady who bought it was quite happy with it.

All's well that ends well!

Country Life and Shop Life Collide, with an E-I-E-I-E

With a shop name of Country Lane, it's only fitting to carry farm decor, don't you think?

So, we do. 

After all, farms and country lanes go together. 

For us, farming is who we are, in large part thanks to our son who started a farm on our property.

Then he married a farm girl.

And they are now raising a little boy who is a farmer thru & thru.

One of his first words was tractor.

He loves the maaas. 

And any piece of equipment.

Note he is wearing muck boots.

He prefers those (and cowboy boots) over sneakers.

He even discovered where old farm equipment goes to die. 

He didn't care, it was just his size.

He loves to sing Old MacDonalds farm.

E-I-E-I-E.

He never sings E-I-E-I-O, it's always E-I-E-I-E.

Love that little farmer boy! 

Even when he's in the shop with Mimi, he is still surrounded by farm animals.

With a moo moo here....

And a baa baa there....

With a cluck cluck here.....

And a quack quack there..... 

And everywhere an oink oink!

Back on the farm, I'm not sure what he was so awe struck by. Maybe a bird.

With a tweet tweet here, and a tweet tweet there.......

Country Life = An Icy Wheel is a Beautiful Wheel

We woke up to a pretty sight this morning....

Mother Nature had decorated the wheel in front of our porch.

It was quite nippy at 17 degrees. But since the sun was shining directly on it, I was afraid the ice would melt if I waited until after my shower to go out and take a picture. So, I threw my winter coat on over my night gown, grabbed a pair of shoes and went out with my phone to get the picture.

I'm just glad no one drove by while I was out there!

Country Life = Winter? Spring? Who Knows

I took this photo in our back yard a few days ago. Aren't the daffodils pretty? 

They shouldn't be. It was late February.

Daffodils should not be blooming in February in the northern panhandle of WV.

It's been a crazy warm winter for the most part.

But let me tell you, if all the rain that fell this winter had been snow, we'd be snowed in until Mother's Day. 

Finally, in late February, we had a dry spell, plus more warm temps: 60's and even 70's. 

We took full advantage of it and cleaned off a hillside, burned lots of brush, and worked on a road into our woods.

Ask me if I thought to take pictures.

Nope. 

Just this one of George digging a stump out of the road.

He said, "I don't want to dig a hole to get it out".

Famous last words.

A few days later, the rains came tumbling down.

That is not a creek. It's just water run-off from the road. Running right down our new road. Fortunately, it didn't do as much damage as we feared.

But we're not complaining too loudly. Many locals are cleaning up their homes after the lots of flash flooding. A road into our woods is not nearly as important as someone's home.

That was a wild day though. 60 something temps, 4-6 inches of rain in a few hours, severe storm & even tornado warnings, then sunshine for a bit. More heavy rain that evening, then the winds hit. And hit hard. Temps dropped to the 20's. Our electric went off so many times we lost count, but always came back on. Until it didn't. For 12 hours.

You know what? Nothing makes you appreciate your electric bill as much as not having power for 12 hours. (Or 2 or 3 days as happens occasionally)

Now today, we woke up to snow again. Just an inch or so, but very slick roads early in the day.

And how do our beautiful daffodils feel about that?

They aren't impressed.

National Old Stuff Day

March 2 is National Old Stuff Day. 
Who knew? I didn't, until a couple days ago.

Sounds like a good day for a sale!
Let's do 20% off all regular priced vintage items in our shop that day.
Walk-in customers only.

We are a little low on vintage items right now, but still have plenty to choose from. 

Like these windows, and the stepladders behind them.

And this pirates chest. Well - it's actually just a dome topped trunk, but little boys like to call it a pirates chest, while they dream of buried treasure.

Kitchenware. Ahh, I can almost smell the food baking! 

Isn't that Singer sewing machine a beauty? And that cabinet with it's iron base? 

Shoe stretchers. LOTS of shoe stretchers! 

There's some chippy perfection going on with that table! 

Or how about some shovels with wood handles?

Or a wooden jewelry box? 

What a fun wagon for your porch filled with flowers! Or in your yard filled with kids! 

Old metal cookie cutters. Fun, fun, fun.

A HUGE dictionary! 

Let's zoom in, shall we? 

Stuff. 

Noun.

We will go with meaning 1 or 2. 

Just ignore meaning 4.

Let's see. What else? 

Wooden boxes, crates and drawers and aluminum bowls.

Vintage quilts and quilt racks.

Plus more not pictured. You'll just have to come see for yourself!

While you're here, don't forget to stop by the Clearance Corner. The additional 20% off won't apply there, but.... everything in the Clearance Corner is already half off or more, so you're still getting a deal. 

The shop will be open from 10-5 on March 2.

Well, that's the plan anyway. This morning, (March 1) I was just ready to leave the house when a tornado warning came over the phone. 

Ok then, I can wait. No tornados that I'm aware of, but LOTS of rain, on top of the already LOTS of rain we had in the night.

Betcha can guess the result of that! Yep, lots of flooding. It doesn't affect us, we live on a hill, and the shop is in an area of town that doesn't flood.

But, this is what I saw as I came into town half an hour late:

That is a campground. Fortunately, there are only a couple campers in it right now. Unfortunately, they were still in it, the water can rise there VERY quickly. Hopefully the owners were able to get them out before the water rose any more. 

So, sometimes life happens and I get to the store late. But, the plan will be to be open from 10-5, with 20% off all regular priced vintage items. 

Thursday, March 2.

National Old Stuff Day.

What a fun holiday!!!