Pssst Want a Free Pair of Eyeglasses?

A few weeks ago, Firmoo contacted me to ask if I would like to review their service and receive a free pair of glasses.  Since I've been wanting a pair of prescription sunglasses (can't wear my contacts anymore - BOO!), I jumped at the chance!  Firmoo is an online optical store that offers prescription eyeglasses and sunglasses as well as non-prescription sunglasses AND the first pair you order from them is FREE*!

I went searching through their website for sunglasses, downloaded my picture so I could see what the frames looked like on me and picked out a pair.  I created an account, filled in  my prescription information and sent off my order.  Two weeks later, I have a lovely pair of sunglasses.

The glasses arrived with a hard plastic case, a soft case, cleaning cloth, a tiny little eyeglass screwdriver and two extra screws.

I didn't experience any difficulty with navigating the website and filling in the information needed, but I have ordered glasses online before with another company.  I highly recommend ordering online, you can save so much on frames!  I was really impressed with the quality of the frames as well.

Check out Firmoo.com, they offer frames for prescription eyewear as well as regular sunglasses and your first pair is FREE*! (*for 1.50 single vision lenses)  Click on the icon below to go to the site:

Disclaimer:  I received a free pair of sunglasses from Firmoo.com in exchange for my review; however, the opinions stated are 100% my own.

Ta ta now, I'm off for a spin!

Cheers!

Linking to:

Meet me Monday
Open Call Tuesday

Bathroom Sneak Peek

The project that never ends... welcome to my bathroom gut-and-build-again impossibilities challenge!

My challenge was to do as much of the work myself as I could and to keep the budget to $3000.  Well, so much for the $3 grand - I'm at the $4000 mark already but almost everything has been bought and paid for.  I am still quite far away from finishing the beadboard walls and the trim as I wait patiently - ok, NOT patiently, for my plumber to work on the plumbing so I can finish.

What I did to appease my frustration was to go shopping for accessories.  I'm so excited by all the things I found and today I'm going to show you the one part of the bathroom that IS finished.

This is how the vanity looked when I bought it:

I painted it a pale blue-green that is so light it only hints at colour and I love the way it turned out:

Then I picked up a glass shelf and a pretty green glass bathroom set from Ikea.  I got the mirror from Home Sense and painted it white with the details in pale blue.

I found the tin tarts at a yard sale this summer. One is a tealight holder and one will hold rings  or other jewelry.  The lavender is from my garden and the glass vase is a bottle I've been carrying around forever.

Isn't this gorgeous??  I toured a lavender farm on my summer vacation and bought quite a few lavender items from their boutique.  It was heavenly.

Oh and one more little peek at the opposite side of the bathroom:

Not sure if I like this styling or not yet, it may change!!

Do you remember what this room looked like this time last fall??  This photo is the bathroom after the drywall and panelling came down.  Shudder!!!!  That's plywood on the walls.  Smelly, damp, beginning to mould plywood.  Attached to the walls with 3" spiral nails placed every 6 inches.  Sigh.  This is one reno I am very glad to see the (near) end of.

So I'm still plugging away at it, but the room looks pretty even though the tub surround isn't done and the walls and trim aren't finished.  I can live with it now :)  To see all three posts on my Impossibilities Challenge, click HERE

Have a happy and creative week!

Linking to these fabulous parties:

Funky Junk SNS     Overflowing with Creativity

Sundae Scoop
DIY Project Parade
Meet Me Monday     Mod Mix Monday
Creative Bloggers Party Hop
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Nifty Thrifty Tuesday
All Star Block Party     Wow us Wednesdays
Fall into Fall
White Wednesdays
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Pin'Inspirational Thursday
Time Travel Thursday

Inspiration Friday

Fabulously Creative Friday Linky Party

EBTKS Link Party

Potpourri Friday
Frugal Friday
Simple Creations   Show and Tell Friday
Flaunt it Friday
Catch as Catch Can
Feathered Nest Friday
aka by Design
Junkin' Joe

Upcycle an Ugly Cube to a Classy Console

When I first moved into my new house, I bought a Martha Stewart cube storage unit for my front entry.  You know the one I mean?  It's not the most attractive piece of furniture by a long shot, but it does the job for a reasonable price.

Now that I have my beadboard feature wall in the front entry, I don't really need that storage unit anymore.  It wound up in my den alongside all the other mismatched and unused pieces that I don't really know what to do with.   The poor thing sat there, unused and ignored, until I decided this past weekend to give it a makeover.

Here is the before shot:

Basic and kind of ugly with those drawer thingys...

Here's the full-on view Ya, well, it needs work...


I turned it on its side, added 36" 1x2 legs and 1x2 cross-piece centered on the bottom for bracing (not shown).  I topped it with a piece of maple plywood as well.


I used primed, fingerjointed pine for the legs and support pieces because I planned to paint the whole thing, but then I decided to use maple veneer on the sides of the piece:

So I used a Minwax Dark Oak stain instead and top coated with a water based poly.

Remember the ugly drawer thingys?? I have a sheet of 1/4" maple veneer.  I used the drawer as a template and cut two squares out with my circular saw.  I sanded the edges with a sanding sponge to make them nice and smooth and glued them to the fronts of the two largest bins.  I had two cute handles in my stash, so I drilled holes right through the veneer and the bin (helps to secure the panel to the front as well) and now those bins look like real drawers.

In fact, that process went so well that I measured the sides and cut two more pieces of veneer that I glued and nailed into place.  Then I stained all the veneer to match the top piece.  I added some felt "feet" to the bottom of the legs to avoid scratches on my wood floor.

Voila!  Now this sad little MS cast off is a thing of beauty! The perfect console table with storage and it's now counter height as well -  I love it!!

Cheers!

Linking to all these fabulous parties:

Recyled Repurposed DIY Project Party

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Best DIY Projects from September

Funky Junk Interiors SNS   
Overflowing with Creativity   Serenity Now Weekend Links
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DIY Project Parade
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Cowgirl Up
Open Call Tuesday
One Project at a Time   Show me what you got
Inspiration Board
Transformation Tuesday
Tuesday Treasures
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Creative Spark
Success U   It's so very Cheri
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Miss Mustard Seed
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Rustic Restorations
Flaunt it Friday     Catch as Catch Can
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aka by Design     Junkin' Joe

Anything goes linky party
Friday Link Party
Say g'day party
Clever Chicks Linky Party
Creating with the Stars Upcycle Round 1

Sailboats

I was so inspired by another artist a few weeks ago that I painted a series of sailboats.  I love these paintings!  I am totally drawn to water, don't know why I'm living in the mountains!!!  I should be by the ocean...

Enjoy!

Sailboats 1 

Acrylic on 12 x 12 x 1 1/4 wrapped canvas

Sailboats 2

Acrylic on 8 x 10 x 3/4 wrapped canvas

Sailboats 3

Acrylic on 8 x 10 x 3/4 wrapped canvas

The first painting is my favourite.  Don't you just love it when you find an inspiration that fits your vision so perfectly?  Hope you all have a fabulous weekend!

ps if you love sailboats, here's a link to a few more   Sailboats & Sunflowers

Hooking up with Paint Party Friday

I won a "cool" prize!!

Look at this beautiful prize.  It's an "All Scream for Ice Cream" theme and I LOVE it!  Everybody come over to my place for an ice cream party!!!!

This gorgeous offering came courtesy of JoAnne @ A Pocketful of Blue.  Just LOOK at all that aqua!!!  JoAnne has such a lovely blog, pop over and check it out.

Thanks so much JoAnne!  I'm thoroughly enjoying this prize and all the ice cream consumption it inspires...

Cheers!

New Shelves for my Eclectic Kitchen

A year ago I added a rough-sawn maple shelf above my kitchen sideboard.

-

This is how it looks now:

I love open shelves so much I decided to add two more to the opposite wall.  Brackets seem to be horribly expensive in the stores near me, minimum price is $8.99 per bracket so I popped into Ikea when I was away on vacation and bought 6 of the Ekby Valter brackets for $2 a pop instead.  Woo hoo!  Cute brackets and inexpensive to boot - that made me very, very happy!

I have several rough sawn maple planks sitting in my shed, so I cut one down to two 36" lengths and sanded them down.  I primed and painted the brackets and the shelves.  I was going to hang them up fairly high on the wall to avoid the fridge door but that was too high for comfort.  Eventually I will cut the shelf edges on an angle to allow for the fridge door to open wider but for now, I'm loving this look!

 I only used four of the brackets and I had all the paint and primer on hand already, so this project cost me $8 - less than the cost of buying ONE bracket locally.

After admiring my work for a day and coming up with all sorts of options for the space under the bottom shelf, I decided to use the extra brackets and add another shelf.  So glad I did!

SO looking forward to painting my kitchen cabinets :)  

UPDATE!

Before my poor fridge door got too many more dings in it from banging up against the shelf edges, I got out the circular saw and cut the edges on an angle.  Much better now!  I even like the look better now:

And I'm so thrilled with my wall pot rack.  I can hang all sorts of things from it, it's so handy!!

Happy creating everyone!  Or should I say happy Fall y'all instead :)  I'm so happy it's the fall!!!!!!!!!!!!

Linking to:
Treasure Hunt Thursday
All Star Block Party
Catch as Catch Can

Under $100 Linky Party

Time Travel Thursday

Transformation Thursday

Wildly Original Linky Party

Rustic Restorations
Simply Creations
Inspiration Friday
Feathered Nest Friday
Potpourri Friday
Simple & Sweet Fridays
Show and Tell Friday
EBTKS Party
Free for All Friday
Days of Chalk and Chocolate
Frugal Friday
Classy Clutter
Funky Junk SNS
DIY Project Parade
Sundae Scoop
Overflowing with Creativity
Homemaker on a Dime
Mod Mix Monday
Manic Monday
Nifty Thrifty Tuesday
Metamorphosis Monday
Make it Pretty Monday
Cowgirl Up
Fall into Fall
Wow Us Wednesdays

Change of Mood

Have you ever buried your emotions so deep that you aren't in touch with how you feel at all?  That was me for a very long period of my life.  Learning to paint pictures has helped to release me from that trend.  I can always tell my mood from whatever I have just painted.  Sometimes I can't identify my feelings until a few months pass and I can't look at a piece without feeling uncomfortable...  Like this painting, for example. I loved it when I painted it.

Now I look at it and it's dark and bleak and makes me feel uncomfortable.  It was painted at the time my mood was actually changing and becoming more positive and happy - can you see how the sun is trying to break through the clouds in the painting?

Dark, bleak, dreary - ugh!  The best part about being an artist is the ability to change your work at will.  That is precisely what I did today.  I adore the fall and the brilliant colours of nature.  Here is my new painting, now of a soft, autumn morning and I'm so in love with this piece now!!!!

BEFORE

AFTER

My heart is happy. Painting pictures helps me to release emotions and move on.  To create a work of art requires absolute focus and that focus takes your mind off everything.  When I have finished a piece, I feel amazing.  It happens time after time and it is a much better option than writing in a journal.  Writing down whatever happened just makes you focus more on the situation and keep reliving it.  Finding something to distract you from what happened breaks the hold it has on you.  I highly recommend painting pictures as a mood boosting technique.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Linking up with Paint Party Friday
Potpourri Friday
Feathered Nest Friday