My Coffee Corner and passing on a giveaway!

I LOVE Coffee!!! My friends and family know how much I LOVE coffee…fresh ground, fairly strong coffee with just the right amount of cream (half and half) and sugar! My sister in law  gave me a little sign in the picture below that says “Give me the coffee and no one gets hurt!” So my coffee grinder and coffee pot are the most used appliances in my house…my husband and son drink coffee too! :) Since we use everything several times a day, it stays out on the counter. I like to have everything within reach but was getting tired of how messy my coffee corner looked most of the time. So I started keeping my eye out for containers that would be easy to open and close and look good too. *I’m going to interrupt myself here to say that I FINALLY remembered to take BEFORE pictures and had everything laid out in steps with good pics and I let my son DELETE them….GGGRRRRR..So I am restaging the best I can!*Here is  the lineup:

First, I found the smaller jars like the one on the left at Dollar tree and the larger one on the right at Dollar General. Then at CVS, I found on clearance for .75 a very wide mouth but plastic Rubbermaid  jar that could hold my coffee filters. That was my most difficult find, something with a wide enough mouth that wasn’t a HUGE container. I didn’t have two of them so you don’t get to see a “before” of that one.   I liked the style of the jars, but not the white lids…enter MR. ORB…and his very helpful friend Rustoleum Plastic Primer! I coated the white plastic lids with two very light coats of the primer and then two coats of the Oil Rubbed Bronze. I was skeptical, cause I’ve never gotten any paint to stick to plastic, but this stuff did!
Did you see the old metal tray behind the jars and paint? He got a couple of coats of ORB too! I love that stuff! Then I let everything dry for several days, because it will be handled ALOT! Tonight, I put it all together:

OOPS! I almost forgot about the labels! I have another new best friend…my Craft ROBO
vinyl cutter. It’s like a Cricut, but you don’t need cartridges and it hooks up to your computer. Lots of fun! I made a labels  from black self-adhesive vinyl for each jar: Coffee, Filters, Sugar and Creamer. This is the first project that I have done with the ROBO, but I think we are going to become good friends!

Everything fits together with my grinder on the metal tray! I like the way it looks all neat and tidy!
I’m going to share this over at:

She is starting a new weekly linky party “Spotlight Yourself”!
And she’s kicking it off with a great Jewelry giveaway! Go check it out!

Her It's so Very Creative Monday is a Blog Hop this week!



I am also sharing  at these fun spots:




The Persimmon Porch

Taking life one cup at a time, good night!

Meet Rumplestiltskin…

…”he” turns straw and leaves into “gold”…brown gold that is!

This is my Craftsman chipper/shredder that my husband brought home for me last year. It came  with a bag attached on the side where you see the white tube. It was about the size of a lawn mower bag and caught the leaves as they were shredded. Nice,  but slow going for the amount of leaves that I need for my “lasagna gardening”. So my wonderful  husband built me a box to hold a “Keen-size” load of leaves! Rumplestiltskin turned this
 
Into this:

Now I can shred and shred and shred and then move the box and shred some more!  This has become one of my favorite pieces of gardening equipment! Any garden needs mulch, but the lasagna gardening method uses ALOT of shredded leaves, straw and such. I am turning my raised beds into lasagna garden beds and building new beds lasagna style, so Rumpy will be getting quite a work out!
Today was the first day that I have worked in the garden. I am sore and tired, but it was worth it! :) Tomorrow I plan to post my first lasagna garden “recipe” and pictures!

Happy Gardening!

P.S. I found two new places to meet folks:

and

Here’s another fun Giveaway…

…this time it’s from Kathy over at Creative Home Expressions!
Check it out here:


Very Springy!

Better Blog Day and My First Topiary!

Today seems to be a “better blog day”…I’ve gotten by banner to cooperate! Yay! I am working on the rest of it! Instead of more complaining, I thought I’d show you something I never thought I’d make or like…a topiary!
The blogging world has caused me to grow in my ‘likes’. One of my new likes is a topiary, specifically this type:

created by Miss Mustard Seed. I saw it and was hooked! So imagine my excitement when 2 days later I walked into a local thrift store and found this for only $1!
Yup, the whole thing was only one dollar! Do you think that no one saw the potential here? Well, six months ago I wouldn’t have either…I would have passed this up and wondered why they hadn’t just thrown this into the trash can! But after my education via blog land, I knew that underneath all that ‘80’s mauve hideousness was a foam ball waiting to be made over and a coat of ORB would do wonders for the urn!
After several trips to  Hobby Lobby and Joann’s and Michael’s with NO boxwood bushes, I gave in and bought two eucalyptus bushes at Michael’s. I wanted to make my topiary NOW! The eucalyptus may go better with in my bedroom anyway.
I pulled out all the old “stuff” and started putting in small pieces of the eucalyptus. Check out Miss Mustard Seed’s tutorial here. I followed it  and voila’:

For some reason it looks a little more wild here than it really is…But I think it will look good in my made over bedroom IF I can ever get it completely made over!
I’m off to take five kiddos to the dentist/orthodontist….Yay!
Why am I excited about an hour and a half trip to the dentist? Because of all the thrift stores on the way…AND a well stocked Dollar Tree! (My 11 year old son is snickering as he reads over my shoulder…)
Sharing this at:

and


Posting my finds later!

BAD Blog Day!!!

Ever had a "bad hair day"? You know when as hard as you try, you just can't get your hair to do what you want it to??? Well...I'm having that blog style!! I'm trying to give my blog a makeover... I thought, well how hard can it be? I can digital scrapbook, work in PSE, follow a tutorial, right? WRONG!  I found a template at KevinandAmanda.com ,got pemission to use a digital scrapbook kit, and even made the background, but when I upload it, it's too small! GRRRR......So, I am starting over. Please bear with me while everything looks like a "bad blog day". 

Any suggestions?

I love a GIVEAWAY!

I love a giveaway, and I have found another one from Allison over at House of Hepworths. It’s for a large jute covered ball!

I LOVE it and would love to win…but ‘cause I also like to share…I’m sharing the link here! ;) I think it would go great with my smaller decorative balls, maybe on a pedestal?


Allison has a fun blog with lots of creative decorating ideas, so check around after you enter her give-away.


I am trying to figure out how I want my blog to look, so please forgive my “half dressed” look til I get it figured out!
Enjoy the sunshine!

Nothing like waiting ‘til the last minute…

That’s me…a put it off til the last minute kind of girl! This is our families month to clean our church. We attend a small rural church and many of the families take turns cleaning and decorating.

(oops, I left the door open) That is ivy growing all over and our church is known through out the county as “the little brick church with all the ivy.” The building is over 50 years old and was empty for a loooong time before our church bought and renovated it.
Anyway.. I thought April would be “easy”. Easter…just buy some Easter Lilies, a few candles and be done, right? Well, I thought I’d grab a few things on the way to clean today and much to my dismay…the lilies and most fresh flowers were SOLD OUT! :( I finally found two, one left at each grocery store. My friend Cindy suggested cutting some fresh daffodils and putting them in bud vases and using some of those. Well, I found enough vases for the windowsills at my favorite local thrift store and brand new doilies to go under them..all for $3.25! My daughters and I drove the 17 miles and got busy! This is how it turned out:
                        
The pictures don’t do them justice, but these are lovely old stained glass windows.  So, with everything clean and decorated, we drove the 17 miles back home and were treated to this view. When the verse came  to my mind, I put the two together!

Happy Easter!!