SOMETHINGS IN THE AIR!!

Yep there surely is something in the air this morning!!!

It is actually cool on the porch  and  I can hear the rustle of the leaves.  Is it my imagination or could it be a little hint of fall?  Maybe I am just yearning for fall!

  Not sure why I would since I hardly had time for that lazy summer day! You know the one when we can just lie on the beach or on the lake in a boat and just feel nature!!!   My favorite thing in the summers were the long days which gave us time to do several things in one day! Like read and listen to the birds or go for a swim!! I miss those days and being in the beautiful North GA Mountains!!!

  I also miss the sound of our children playing and laughing and the Christmas movies when it was to hot to be outside!  I would love to go back there for even just one day! PLUS I was really skinny then:)

Well, we can't go back so its time to move forward!!!

  I am a little restless and feel the need to change the whole house around!  I moved the tavern room furniture around every which way and I ended up with it just the way it was!!  Even though the room is fairly large it is square with the fireplace in the center of the outside wall so I am somewhat limited in  furniture placement.

I am thinking of taking the rug out, I have never really liked it with the sofa fabric!  Not much of a change but something:)  Maybe I will slip cover the chairs.

Oh well, I did sort of get my garden room/studio somewhat organized!

Well at least a little bit:)  I will get better pictures!  These are not so great, but it gives you an idea of the mess:)  I like to do so many different things that I can't settle on just one so I just do everything in that one room:)  I sort of hang out there all day!  When my husband is home we have dinner together and then I wander off to "my room" and he wanders to the tavern room with espn on the TV:) LOL

 

 As much as I hate to leave the porch and talking with y'all I must get going!  Have to be at a meeting at eleven and I haven't even vacuumed up the dog hair yet!

I hope that you are feeling a little bit of fall weather today! 

  And please remember our troops over in those hot places under the worst conditions!  They need our prayers every single day!!!

If you are feeling "a little restless" and moving things around, send us pictures of your changes and we can all be inspired!!

HAVE A HAPPY DAY AND LISTEN FOR THE RUSTLE OF THE LEAVES, FALL WILL BE HERE SOON!

A LITTLE BIT OLD, A LITTLE BIT NEW

Sometimes I think I should have been born in the 1800's!  Then I think about no electricity, no indoor bath or water and no computer!!

Since I don't live in the 1800's I am always trying to find ways to "age" everyday things!  Take my very ugly record book, I can't function without it, it has all the necessary information in it! So the answer for me is to cover it just like the children did in the old days!!  I can just see them sitting by the fire with Mom's rag bag making covers for their school books!

THESE ARE TWO OF MY FAVORITE OLD BOOKS, THE ONE ON THE TOP IS A CHILD'S SCHOOL BOOK.  THE ONE ON THE BOTTOM IS AN OLD RECORD BOOK.

I have sold some on my picturetrail site, here are some examples!

THIS IS MY FAVORITE, I STITCHED FRENCH KNOTS AROUND THE EDGES.

A CLOSEUP OF THE FRENCH KNOTS!

HERE IS THE INSIDE

THE STITCHING!

VERY AGED SMALL ONE, GOOD FOR MY PURSE

THIS ONE IS DOWNRIGHT GRUDGY!!!

THIS ONE COMES IN RED OR THIS BLUE.

All of these are available for purchase.  You decide which fabric you would like and if you want the candlewicking.  The large journals are $18.00 and the small $12.00

For more information go to

www.picturetrail.com/tansyanniestudio

THIS IS MY UGLY RECORD BOOK COVERED!!

This is a picture of my desk, with all of the old and the new!!!

These are a few of my favorite aged everyday things! 

Look around your house and see if there are some things that you use everyday that can be aged!  Its a great way to spend the rest of the HOT summer!! 

Send us your pictures and inspire us!!!

I wish you a cooler and fun week!!

FIRELIES OR IS IT LIGHTNIN BUGS?

Fireflies with their tiny lights

give sparkle to a summer night

When the sun goes down and the stars come out

Their little lights start to dance about

Summer is their time to shine

til the fall moon takes over

Back home they go to build their light

til again they dance on a warm summer's night

SOOO I am not a great poet!!! BUT I love those little flies, we called them lightnin bugs.  We caught them in a jar and kept them in our rooms for a night and let them go the next day, well some were still alive:)

I still love to watch them and have tried and tried to get a picture of the yard with all the lights,  no luck though.

I can't believe that it is already AUGUST!!!!  I am in the process of gathering the fall items for the picture trail site!  Somehow it makes the heat bearable:)

When the children were young we used to watch Christmas movies and make Christmas decorations and gifts in the summer.   We always moved in June or July so they didn't have friends yet, I selfishly was glad to have them alllllll to myself!!  I am still inclined to do the "Summer" Christmas thing but it is not as much fun!

I will be posting some new aging examples soon.   I hope you can use these ideas.  Feel free to send along yours too:)

Well that's about it for today!    I hope you can catch lots lightnin bugs! 

HAVE A GREAT WEEK!!!!!!!!!!!

ANTS AND PLANTS!

I mentioned this on my facebook page but I would like to share it with y'all!!  SOOOOOO a few years ago I noticed that our jasmine trees had ants allllll over them.  As I looked closer I saw scale.  Since they were outside I decided to just let it go until the fall when they come inside.  When I checked it again the ants AND the scale were GONE!!!  I couldn't believe it.  I just thought that it was just some weird event:)   THIS year my favorite myrtle topiary had scale so I took it outside and found some ants, really easy to do this year, and put them onto the plant.   In about a week they had cleaned that plant as well!  Even the stickyness was gone!!! I don't think that  ANTS COULD REALLY MOVE A RUBBER TREE PLANT   but they sure can clean up the scale:)  I have a new respect for those little critters:)

It has been really hot and humid so I haven't finished painting the porch, I have been sitting on it though, not as long as I would like because I feel like I am sitting in a sauna!! When it gets a little less humid I will get back to the porch.  We still need to paint the doors and the shelves.

I hope y'all are keeping cool and drinking LOTS of water!! I like to put lemon in mine and it is so refreshing that I don't want anything else.  I DO have my sweet tea at least once a day though!!

OK I am outta here!!  And don't forget to thank a Service Member for his or her service to our great country!!

Oh yeah, here is a little bit of trivia~~~~~ The heat in Afghanistan at this time of the year is about 130 degrees with high humidity!  I try to remind myself of that when I think I can't stand the heat anymore! 

Have a GREAT week!!!!!!!!

About that porch......

Good Morning!!

Whoever said "Time Flies" knew what they were talking about!

 Somehow I have lost about 2 weeks.  So here is what has been going on!   My husband and I ACTUALLY TOOK A VACATION!!!  We hardly ever go away for very long.  We both hate to leave our babies, which are the two dogs y'all see in my pictures all the time:).  BUT we have a wonderful friend who started a pet sitting business a few years ago and she is great so we decided to give her a call and see if she had any openings, she did,  so we toke off!  

Since we settled on Maine for our little get away, I thought I would brave the heat and see the beautiful North East!   It WAS SOOOOO beautiful.  We left on a Wed. and stayed in Saratoga Springs NY, which was a really cute town, then on to a small town in Maine called Auburn.  I loved that little town although it was a little depressed as the mills have all closed, soooo sad.  

This is Auburn!

These are the views from our hotel room, we walked along a little path that went by this river an took tons of pictures!

I loved the water!! it looked so pure!!!!

The next day was  my favorite of all!!  Driving through Maine was the most fun and the scenery was great!  AND GET THIS!!! :D  ALLLLL of the houses were different and most were OLD!!!  I did notice that most of the porches were~~~ you guessed it ~~ BLUE!!!!   They were well maintained and loved!  We took the back roads along the coast and I couldn't believe all the antique stores!  My "antique store radar" was going off every 2 or 3 SECONDS!  We didn't go into even one because our little car that only seats 2 was full already!  But we have decided to go back and take the TRUCK:)

Our destination was way up on the boarder with Canada and it was really cool and beautiful!

It was cloudy when we got there

The wind was blowing designs in the water!!

These are views from the deck of the little cottage we stayed in! 

We didn't want to ever leave:) 

The only thing I found a little strange was that there were no sounds 

AT ALL  during the night.   I missed the frogs croaking and the lightin bugs that are so much a part of our Southern Summers!

We saw beautiful Acadia National Park and spent some time with good friends.  

Our trip came to an end and we headed out to West Point NY and then home to VA!

 As we all know it is great fun to take a vacation, but it is GREAT to get back home:)

As you might have guessed by now,  the porch is still not completely finished! SOOOO back to work soon, probably not today though, its my day to work in the gift shop at the wonderful

Mary Washington House, George Washington's mother's home.

I have gone on tooo long about our trip but I just had to share:)

I hope you have a great day, and if you get the chance, go out and see our beautiful country, it is all out there waiting for your visit!!

A little update!!

I usually like to blog on Mondays but I decided to pass this along today! :)
I wanted to alter something that I said earlier about aging a wall.  I mentioned staining it first, then dry brushing.   You would NOT have to stain first, unless you wanted the aged look sooner, just dry brushing over the bare wood would be fine.  Just let nature do the rest!  It might take a little while, not sure how long!

I am having problems getting the pictures side by side, I will have to work on that, I have lots of wasted
space:)

These are examples of dry brushing.

These are some pictures of the almost finished porch.  I still need to do the doors and the inside of the cabinets.  Still deciding on the color, but I am thinking a light mustardy color.  I like Benjamin Moore's
HC 40 or HC41.  That decision will be made on Mon!  Hope the paint store it open since it is the 4th.

 Charlie loves the porch:)

My Favorite rocking chair:)

I liked the shadows here.

A FEW EXTRA PICTURES!!!

Charlie and Rowdy !  We all stayed on the porch most of the day!



Right after I took this picture Rowdy stole my peanut butter bagel!!
She had trouble getting the peanut butter off the roof of her mouth!!
It was sort of funny watching her, but not to healthy for her!




I HOPE YOU ALL HAVE A SAFE AND HAPPY 4TH OF JULY!
PLEASE REMEMBER OUR TROOPS!


So long until next time!

"SAY WHEN"!!!

Now that the porch is almost done, I am constantly thinking of what else I can do!  What is THAT about!!  I can never just finish and sometimes things look overworked!  So tonight I am sitting on the porch listening to the rain, and deciding to finish tomorrow.  I will do as much as I can in the next day and "Say When"!!  I don't think that it looks all that old.  I was going for the Old Farmhouse Porch look that I remember from childhood. They always seemed to be sort of plain with lots of wicker and plants. I was thinking that I should have stained the wood then just dry brushed it with the tinted primer.  Primer is so thick and dry that it is a great medium to use as a dry brush technique.  I think that would give the look of old peeling dry paint without sanding and roughing up the surface!

Oh well, next time!

Hopefully when I get the old furniture back out it will look better.  My favorite porch was in the North GA mountains I loved daydreaming as I sat on the old swing.  ~   Ahhhh that was so much fun! ~

Well the sun has set and the frogs are croaking so I guess that means it is time to hit the hay! 

I hope y'all have a great day tomorrow and don't forget to take a little time for some Sweet Tea and a little daydreaming on the porch!