lets rock and rolls!

This weekend was an eventful one at The Fox's house. It all started with this fella..

I found him on the side of the road during lunch the week before. I had originally passed it by thinking, "What am I going to do with that thing? How am I going to get it in my car? I already have 1000 things in this car, I can't possibly fit it. Could The Fox come get it? No, he's at work. Maybe I could drag it home, I'm only a couple blocks away..."

Many, many things run through my mind when I find a goodie on the side of the road, but there is no worse feeling than finding that great roadside treasure and not being able to get it! So, I drove away to my house and the nagging feeling began. I just couldn't leave such a cool piece sitting there for someone else! I had to have it.

In a dress. During my lunch hour. I turned around. In the heat. To get that red beauty. One way or another it was going to be mine. I move those 1000 things around in my car, hoisted it up into my deal mobile and made that sucker fit. FINALLY! It was mine! It only took a good 10 minutes, but in the end, it was mine, all mine.

Being the first weekend The Fox and I have been home, I was determined to do a project. I wasn't quite sure what I wanted to do (because I have so many to choose from), but I was doing one no matter what.

The red beast was still sardined in my car, so I asked The Fox to help me unload it and I started brainstorming. After some Pinteresting/Googling, I came up with the idea to create a record cabinet! The Fox and I love finding old vinyls and we have a group of them just laying around. We needed to organize it and make it easier to find our jams.

I had purchased some old porch spindles at the 40 mile long yard sale back in the spring and thought, "How cute would those be as legs for this thing?" It turns out, not so perfect. After measuring (and getting caught reorganizing The Fox's ENTIRE storage shed), they turned out to be too tall. About 8 inches too tall. Bummer. But, then I remembered buying another set of legs (clearly I have a problem) and not surprisingly, I ran back to my house (boy, it will be nice when we have all our stuff in the same place), grabbed the legs then hurried back to get started!

This is what the piece looked like before. Well by "before" I mean sans legs.

I'm pretty certain it was a trunk, because if you look at the bottom, there are hinge spots. Unfortunately, the door wasn't there (ugh), but it all worked out in the end. 

Sooo, with some FREE paint - yep, we got totally lucky this weekend because ACE Hardware was giving away free quarts of paint - and the super cheap legs (that weren't so cute), we put some height on that sucker.

This is what the legs looked like before:

Not so cute. But I figured we would have a use for them one day. And "one day" came sooner than later! I lightly sanded them down and started painting them. Thanks to The Fox for engineering me a fancy painting board...

It took a whole 10 minutes to paint just one coat. We were going for the rustic/shabby look to match the rustic look of the cabinet, so 1 coat is all we needed. After the paint dried, I scuffed it up with my handy mouse sander...

which was super easy and quick. I started hand sanding them, but it was faster and gave a deeper scuff with the mouse. 

Thankfully, the legs had screws already in them, so all we had to do to attach them to the cabinet was drill holes and screw them in with some wood glue! It took no time to put them on and we felt we could go ahead and put it in the house to dry.

For those who know me, I'm super impatient. So it was no surprise that within 15 mins I was decorating that bad boy. There was no stopping me. The end product turned out just as I'd hoped.

I organized The Fox's albums in an old suitcase and arranged his cookbooks atop of a vintage tackle box (not a fisher, but still cute). The albums fit perfectly in the suitcase and it makes it SOOO much easier to flip through.

The legs turned out pretty great, too, and they match the cabinet finish perfectly. Often times I hate the way things look when they are made to look old, but thankfully these turned out just fine.

It's the perfect height and I look forward to adding to our collection. You just never know what you'll find...

Night all!

props for pics

I'm a prop person. I don't have nearly as many as I should, but I enjoy taking pictures with the unconventional - chairs, vintage suitcases, quilts, etc. If I had a warehouse and a van, I could make any outdoor space look like a room. Unfortunately, my one bedroom apartment and small SUV don't allow for that kind of pack ratting, so I must use what I have.

In this weekend's impromptu photo shoot with The Fox's cousin, I had to use my surroundings. Thankfully, we were able to scout out a couple of cool backdrops that made for great pictures. This picture taken outside of a replica of Elijah Clark's cabin.

If you don't know who good ole Elijah is, he's this guy:

Learn about him, here. Otherwise, if you have no interest, please continue reading.

The park we were visiting was on Lake Thurmond and they just so happened to have canoes! Which also made for a fun backdrop with great coloring.

It was exciting to use my imagination to find props that were not premeditated. I usually have things pretty planned out - like in this session - where we used a vintage suitcase and quilt that I had. Both added character to the pictures.

But sometimes it's a lot of work to haul around those heavy quilts. So while surf the webs tonight, I noticed that you can make your own printed fabrics out of drop cloths/white dish towels and paint! I love the idea. Here is one from a blog called Beautifully Contained.

Actually, that was her inspiration, but this is what she created from just plain, white dish towels and a potato stamp.

Pretty darn cute, huh? Another blogger, over at A Blissful Nest, create a cute picnic blanket with a drop cloth.

I was blown away! I knew drop cloths were great for super cheap curtains, but I never thought about blankets and such! These would be great for photo shoots. They are colorful, light weight and easy to stuff in a backpack.

While, I don't have any immediate plans to make one of these fancy props, I thought they were a great idea for sharing! Hope you agree!

Happy hump day, by the way. Until the next post!