Hey Meester Did We Miss Easter?

 Nope, We had Easter, and a rather festive day it was.  What I missed was blogging about it in the midst of everything else that was happening.  Fortunately I took pictures and have a few minutes this morning to play catch up.  

Rui (pronounced Roo-ee), who is our Japanese exchange student, and I had a lot of fun doing the Easter eggs.  I found a method for leaving designs on eggs at a blog I love to frequent in their 'I Did It Wednesdays' section. http://sewmuchado.blogspot.com/ One writes or draws on the cool egg with a glue gun, then dyes the egg, removing the glue residue when the eggs is dry.

 Here we see Rui posing with some of the eggs in a new version of an 'egg cup'!

Of course when there's eggs there is bound to be an egg hunt and this year it is possible that we had our worst egg hunt ever. In fact we could dub this year as 'Rui and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Egg Hunt Day'.  It wasn't Rui fault, mind you,  but it will be her only Easter with us, and this is her egg hunt memory with the Perkins.  First of all we had exactly 'One' grandchild of ten to participate and she is our oldest at age 12.  Our 9 year old grandson is not as social as his sister and opted to stay home.  Our other grand kids in the area had planned to be here before it got dark but got held up at other festivities.  Thus we had to rush the hunt as it was getting dark, and just at dusk a storm came up, so my 'children' and their spouses (ages 23 to 32) along with Rui (16) and Kim (12) ran through the dark and sleet dutifully collecting eggs that two of them had just 'hidden'.  Ah well, I guess it was a historic hunt anyway, as in one we won't be able to forget, and look how happy those hunters look!! Above we see my son Davin (through his egg bag) with his wife and her 'basket'!

 This of course is our one bonafide 'Grandchild' collector, Kim, who is always, always a good sport!!

                                                                     These egg hunters include my oldest and youngest participating children.  Darby at 32 and Rebecca at 23!

Of course baby play is always a fun part of any gathering as these two cousins get a chance to get better acquainted.  They are the oldest, Elias and youngest, Titan of our three grand babies that were born in six weeks back in the fall of last year. (with Grandpa Scott and Uncle Sam as props!)

Of course Easter dinner is a must with Ham, Funeral Potatoes  http://www.grouprecipes.com/12808/funeral-potatoes.html and the one thing I make that ever gets compliments, my homemade rolls.

And below we see my two cute daughters-in-law in their matching spring greens.

Of course my favorite part of any family get together is the sitting around visiting part, is anyone who knows me actually surprised by that?

And look at the cute Easter outfits that Eleanor and Eva came to charm with.


All in all we had a delightful Easter evening, though we missed our daughter Brittany and her boys for the first time at Easter, as they have recently moved to Idaho and were enjoying their own celebrations there without us. (Though fortunately their other Grandparents were able to drive north to enjoy the 'spring orb' festival in Twin!!)


Rui will definitely have 'memories' of her Easter with us, but next year she is sure to have the BEST Easter ever as she will be living with the Best Family.  Not that we are not the best in many ways, its just that our family name is Perkins, and her new host family's name is the Bests.  Luckeeeee! (and they really are great people!)


Last of all, we will rely on the Easter fairy, seen below with her crown and magic wand, to bring us some better weather and maybe even more grand children to enjoy the festivities with us..    Happy Easter a Month Late!!



More Patchwork Furniture (6 original sources)

 I am going to start at the end and show you our completed project.  This great white cupboard really looks like the real McCoy, doesn't it.   I had several browsers at our first flea.o.logy sale who thought it was an 1800's cupboard.  Of course to knowledgeable antiquers it was obvious that we have mixed periods a bit.  The wonderful leaded glass doors are from the 1930's and their original home was as windows in a cottage.

The cupboard shown here, without its green glass (30's style) knobs, was for sale at flea.o.logy http://fleaology.blogspot.com/ but didn't sell and will soon be available at Treasures Antiques. http://treasuresantiquemall.blogspot.com/ We think that fixing the doors to latch more securely will help it find a new home.
 This picture shows the entire cabinet.  Such a charmer.  Now I am going to tell all in sort of an exposé.

This is the inspiration piece.  It is a mid 1800's pine cupboard as evidenced by the square nail construction.  It had a pair of gloves boxes on top, originally, though by the time it came into my possession it had just one in tact.  I am really baffled as to how it was used, since the glove boxes are usually on dressers, and dressers are usually all drawers.  But alas, whatever its original function it was the perfect base for a cupboard.

With the remaining glove box removed it was ready for a new top.

I had in my possession the pair of leaded windows mentioned above.  They were to form the doors, while the dresser harp above was an unlikely candidate for the crown of the cupboard. 

The harp obviously needed some reconfiguring, but with a jig saw and moving some of the decorative wood trim pieces it suited just fine. 

The next necessity was making the upper shelf unit.  My husband did this with some pine boards, so that the top wood matches the base.  Antique tongue and grove bead board, also pine, completed the back and provides a traditional anchor to the base of the cupboard.  Paint, as always, unites and a set of reproduction green glass knobs adds the 'jewelry' to the piece.

The reinvented cupboard actually ended up costing me a lot more than I had expected.  Let me crunch the numbers and give you some ideas as to where to get your 'building blocks'

1. Cupboard base, bought from a friend, but at her public yard sale                                             $50
2. 30's cottage windows purchased at my flea market 'flea.o.logy' from another vendor                $40
3. Dresser harp was a matter of being in the right place at the right time.  Another dealer at Treasures brought  it to work to give it to a friend of hers, but when the friend did not show, she gave it to me!! :-)
4. Pine lumber and hinges from hardware store                                                                            $30
5. Tongue and groove antique bead board bought at Treasures Antiques                                      $20
6. reproduction glass knobs (4) bought at TreasuresAntiques                                                       $12
7. paint purchased at hardware store                                                                                           $15
Total materials expense                                                                                                        $167.00

Lunch with My Antiqueing Friends!! Plus Fabby Decor!!

After two years of getting together with antiquing friends for lunch on a rotating basis we have possibly had our last luncheon this past week, it was at Marci's house, hosted by our friend Dorothy.  Now you might expect, by her name, that her house flew away to somewhere over the rainbow, which prevented her hosting at her own charming home.  However weather related it might be, the wind did not pick her house up and spin it away, it just knocked over the carport into her house, causing a huge crack and lots of renovation. 

 Fortunately Marci was good enough to step in and provide a location for the get together.  I always love going to Marci's which you already know if you have read much on my blog.  This wonderful 'ohh la la' mannequin always makes me smile.  I love the puffy pinned up skirt it makes one think of the Moulin Rouge.

Here we see the mannequin in her element in front of  Marci's most recent project, a decoupaged screen, which she cut out of plywood, hinged and decoupaged  with the pages and pictures of old books. 

Marci's vignettes are always charming and unexpected.  She mixes textures, graphics, found items and repurposed items, gathering them together in bold arrangements.

These include numbers from an old cash register, a camera, game pieces, a gauge, a flute, silhouettes, clocks and a rubber stamp.

 
 

The black and white boxes on the left, above, one round and one square, were actually gifts to Marci from a devoted friend, me!  I feel honored that they have made the cut several times.  I also love how Marci has used them in this vignette.

Her use of old books without their covers juxtapositioned with a wonderful crusty crown is stunning.

 And now after all the eye candy, and the sense of visual satiation, its time to take care of our tummies. 

And a special thank you to my dear friends who have made this luncheon group something to happily anticipate.  They are Dorothy, Stacy, Marci, Michelle and Wendy.