Little Pearls of Wisdom

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When we are little we have the feeling we can conquer the world.  We feel the moon and the stars beyond it are in our reach.  What do we want to be?  A race car driver?  An actress?  A paleontologist? An adventurer?  A cowboy?  An artist?  It may change from day to day or maybe we think we'll be able to do all of the above.

I'm not sure when, but somewhere along the line from age 5 to say age 25 that our ideals shift.  Our confidence in ourself that was so strong and over-flowing seems to diminish.  We suddenly feel set in our current role. Perhaps, that fledging dream won't come true.

I know I felt this way in my 20s.  I had dreamed of being an actress and then that shifted to a dream of working in film and TV production (which happened kind of) and then I really wanted to be a mom. Well, here I am!  A mom of two wonderful boys who I love so very much.

Anyway, I had this desperate need beyond them to write and create which is where Silver Pennies came in and I've gotten to experiment and try things and stretch and challenge myself. If you remember in January, my word for the year was Creativity and I'm trying to tap into this creativity each and every day.

I'm currently working on this piece.  It is French in style and extremely detailed.  I had painted two coats, but had yet to start on all that detail.  I've never done anything so detailed before and I must have been looking at it during dinner without realizing it, I said, "I hope I can do the detail okay.  I hope I don't mess it up."

My 6 year old looked right at me with his warm brown eyes and said:

John, photo by Katina Bentley

"Mommy, believe in yourself.  Don't give up.  You can do it, Mommy."

Isn't that just the sweetest?  It took my 6 year old to believe in me, to give me the confidence to believe in myself.  As I'm painting he comes in and gives me the thumbs up.  I'm not ready to share the piece with you just yet as it isn't done, but it is getting there.

So I wanted to let you guys know, if you have a task that is hard right now or you're working on a painted piece or maybe you, personally, are going through something difficult in your life.  I believe in you.  Don't give up.  You can do whatever you set your mind to.

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It is amazing that such profound and big thoughts can come from such a little being (with the biggest heart).  My little pearls of wisdom.  I am so grateful for them!

Hooray for Herringbone

I used to love going shopping.  It was such fun before kids, but now I HATE it.  Running after two little ones or trying to find them hiding in the clothes racks - gives retail therapy a new twist!

But one place I like to go with them is Target. Target isn't paying me to say any of this by the way!  I love going there with my boys. I get one of those huge trolleys with the two seats and get them set up with slushies and that buttery popcorn and strap them in.  They're as happy as clams as I get whatever we need for the house.

I went the other day to pick up some medicine and some cleaning stuff and came across this:

Herringbone Ottoman

Target's Herringbone Ottoman.  It is microsuede gray with black herringbone detail.  Isn't it sweet in that kind of masculine, nautical way?!?  Even sweeter was the price - $17!

I had to have two for our living room.  I was tired of the ones I got from Ikea because the slipcovers had shrunk.  Here's what they look like in our place:

  I love how they pick up the gray of the bluestone hearth!  The bonus with these is they open:

If you're a mom you know why this is essential.  The toys don't stay in the playroom but mysteriously make their way into the living room.  Once I finally get the kids in bed and can sit down for a glass of wine the last thing I want to do is look at all the toys that don't belong there.  Now I can throw them in the ottomans until the morning :)

Can we just talk about how much I love Target?  First I got those great tea light holders for $5:

Privet Collection Tea Light Holder and handmade fabric scrap garland

and now these great ottomans:

I think I'll be taking some more trips to get the boys slushies!

Sea Shell Nightstand (Before & After)

Here's my sea shell nightstand! I call it this because it looks like the inside of a sea shell - that beautiful light pink.

Sea Shell Nightstand

Here's what the nightstand looked like before.  It was white, but there was a dark glaze over it.  It just looked a little dirty and I thought it would be so sweet freshened up.

Nightstand (Before)

While I was painting, I came across this stamp on the bottom:

It is from 1952!  I thought that was fun to find a date on the bottom of the drawer.  I started off by washing down the nightstand and then painted it in ASCP Antoinette.  The weather was warm enough to paint outside and it was great to be in natural light breathing in all that fresh air.  I love this color pink!

Then I distressed it to show through some of the white.

Inside the drawer is a little surprise - a pop of grey - Paris Grey that is!

Paris Grey inside the drawer

I can't resist but show you a few more photos.  From the side: 

 and a close up of the front:

Isn't she sweet?  She'd look fantastic in a little or big girl's bedroom!  She's looking for a new home.

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Touch A Truck

On Sunday, we did just that!  It was the 3rd annual event held in honor of Luca De Lisi, who lost his battle with cancer at the age of 3.

Touch a Truck, 2011

It is an event that my boys look forward to each and every year.  It is also a wonderful way to help out Luca's Light Foundation, which helps families care for children with cancer.  You may remember that I wrote about the launch of their foundation in February.  If you'd like to read about it, click here.

Sunday was a glorious day.  The fields over by Lawson Tower were filled with huge dragon flies and many, many smiling faces.  Children were in awe of all the enormous trucks they were  actually able to touch and horns they were able to honk.

John and Conor loved this mini digger:

Watch out Bob the Builder! 

Conor was also very interested in this concrete mixer:

I wish I got more photos of the trucks, but Mr. C enjoyed running to each one!  If you'd like to see more, Scituate Daily Photo has some lovely shots here.

We walked up the many stairs to the top of Lawson Tower:

Lawson Tower

At the top, we enjoyed the spectacular view of Scituate, the gorgeous bells (that chimed while were up there):

and also enjoyed a cuddle together:

My boys

But my favorite truck of all, was the Nona's Ice Cream truck.

Nona's Ice Cream Truck

I'm not sure if my boys would agree, but they certainly enjoyed their ice cream!

If you're local, I hope you join us at Touch a Truck next year!  Please visit the Luca's Light Foundation website - they are doing such wonderful things!

Country Grey Buffet (Before & After)

County Grey Buffet (After)

I'm really pleased with how this one turned out!  My friend, Annie, asked for some help with this cedar chest turned dining room buffet.  There was nothing wrong with the piece before - it was white - as it had been used in a bedroom in their previous house, but no longer really worked in their new dining room with the beautiful farm table and wainscotting.  The bright white just stood out:

(Before)

See what I mean?  Nothing wrong at all, but just didn't work in the room.  I'm not sure if you can see in the first photo, but Annie has the most unbelievable wallpaper.  I fell in love with it.  A floral design with browns, grays, tans and a color that looks just like Annie Sloan's Duck Egg Blue (my favorite!).  So we used the wallpaper as our jumping off point for color selection - going with Country Grey and Duck Egg Blue.

After washing the furniture down, I first painted the top with Duck Egg Blue.  That way when I sanded back the Country Grey that beautiful green blue would shine through.

Duck Egg Blue on top

Then I did one coat of ASCP Country Grey on top and two coats on the rest of the piece.  Duck
Egg Blue was used to highlight the moulding.  Once dry, I brought her outside because sanding can be really dusty business.

Before sanding

The buffet was looking really pristine when I brought her out, but that wasn't the look we were going for.  We wanted shabby chic and rustic.  Heavily sanded to go with the farm table.  We wanted it to look like piece had been around for a bit.

After sanding, I wiped it down and then applied two coats of Annie Sloan's clear wax to protect it.  While the clear wax was still tacky I started to apply the dark wax.

Dark Wax

I apply it liberally and then wipe away the access.  Then I apply clear wax on areas to 'erase' the dark wax.  Originally, I was going to just do around the moulding and the top, but it didn't look right.  So I applied the dark wax all over working in sections.

I wanted to show you a couple of close ups of how the distressing and wax came out:

The top

Here's the side - you can see some of the white peaking through:

The side

Here's a close up of the front:

After distressing and dark wax

Annie was really happy with her 'new' buffet and I absolutely adore the pulls she found.  Doesn't the buffet look great in the dining room?

Country Grey Buffet (After)

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