I could hardly wait for the day after Thanksgiving.  Not for the leftovers, or shopping... but for my Niece Caeleigh to come over for a slumber party and to help me start decorating for Christmas!





She is such a great helper!






We had hot chocolate... 

Our city (Eagle Mountain, UT) is having a bake sale to raise funds for my best friends surviving husband & son.  Of course I signed up to bake as well as volunteer at the sale.  

Today, my sweet niece, Julee, came over to help me bake.  She also made some delicious sea salted caramels.  


We had such a good time.  Just like the old days.  

We are, of course, complete dorks.  :-)



Julee made these YUMMY sea salted caramels:



I quality controlled them... they pass with flying colors!  

We also made Pecan Shortbread Cookies via The Barefoot Contessa.  



I added my own special flair, and partially dipped them in milk chocolate. 

This morning I spent some quiet time alone with my ice coffee and my camera.  It snowed the first big snow in our little town.  The sun was coming out, my house was bright & quiet and I thought about burying my best friend and her 2 darling sons.  I will always keep sunflowers in my house to honor her.  

Here are some of the random shots I took:

  






















I will always miss them.  

 

Hello hello everyone! Are we all getting excited for the holidays?? I know I am!  Honestly, the 'holidays' actually start with Halloween, so I'm already in the zone.  

Things have been beyond hectic in our world.  On November 12th, 2011... my next door neighbor and best friend, Inndia DeGraw Powell and her 2 youngest sons Alex and Ashton Powell, were all killed in a tragic car accident.  So, life was put on hold. They will all be greatly missed.


I finally found some burlap locally.  I swear, there is a burlap shortage going on in Utah.  So, when I found it at Joanns... I hoarded 4 yards.  What in the world am I going to do with 4 yards of burlap?!?!  I dunno... but I will use it all.  The thing about burlap?  It smells horrible and there really isnt much that can be done.  I mean, you can't wash it...it will fall apart.  Yikes!


The dining table finally got a little fluffing.  I added a burlap runner, the cinnamon stick candles and my leftover little Halloween pumpkins along the runner.  





 





I'm seriously head over heels for my table.  Can you tell??








I'm planning on a couple more small items.  Some small moss wreaths added to the backs of the chairs, but that means I have to make them... and I'm having a hard time being motivated right now.  I promise to have them done before our gathering Thanksgiving night!  :-) 




Any thoughts or suggestions?  I know that my friends out there are way more creative than I am at this stuff.  So, please share!

Happy holidays!!

XOXOXO

Linking to: 
 

Common Ground
French Country Cottage 
The Shabby Creek Cottage 
The Shabby Nest 

Centsational Girl 
Faded Charm 

Warning: Lots of pics to follow!! 

You can see the before post, here: Before

Let me start out by saying that I've learned that staining is not my thing. My projects never turn out like my vision.  But, they have a way of turning out how they are supposed to look.  I had visions of this one with a lovely, perfectly dark stained top with a beautifully painted & distressed base.  I did my research on how to stain... bought all the stuffs... then started the process:

I'm not going to go into a tutorial of how to re-stain a table top, there are thousands out there on the interwebs.  But, this is how I made my old table, look even older. 

Started with the sanding: 




Put on a coat of 'pre-stain conditioner' and then started with the Dark Walnut stain:









Gotta love these action shots!!  :-)

Let the stain set: (See the bubbles?  Those are bad...)



Those bubbles mean you didnt sand off the previous finish well enough.  Oh yay!!



After the stain was on, I thought the base was looking way too yellow.  So, it got painted white.  Oh, and the stain was VERY blotchy and yellow.  I put down 3 coats of stain, and then several heavy coats of ebony wax.  At that point, I fell in love, love, love with this table.  


Funny things happen sometimes when redoing furniture.  I did this in the garage and the temps were in the 40's or so.  We brought it in and it started seeping stain.  Yep, it warmed up and started pushing out some of that extra stain.  Since I had used wax, and lots of it, I couldn't put anything like a polyurethane coating on it.  So, I decided it needed more wax, and clear wax this time.  We made a quick trip to get some and after a couple heavy coatings this is my makes my heart skip a beat farm table:










This table looks like it's been around for hundreds of years.  I imagine thousands of family meals at this table.  All the holiday's, triumphs and tragedies it's seen.  All the conversations it has heard... I am in L-O-V-E with this table. 














I still have to paint the 2 end chairs to match the base.  But, I am kinda digging the black chairs and I was going to buy some covers for them... but now I'm not really sure.  I'm going to live with them for a few days, then decide. 


 















My photographer, hard at work.  :-)  



The moral of my story is... let the furniture talk to you and tell you how it's supposed to look.  Things don't always turn out the way you hope they will, but they turn out the way they should. 

Wanna see where the previous table ended up?


I'm digging this as well.  :-) 


Linking to: