Miss Tennessee Pole

I got a FREE PASS to the Miss TN Pole Fitness Competition!!!!!

Ok, so free may be a little bit of an exaggeration. I was supposed to assist my friend Nicole who just happens to be the owner of Studio Goddess with her vendor table. But since that's technically something I like doing it's not really work. So...it was a free pass. Woot!

I wasn't really sure what I was supposed to do. And, arranging stuff on a table just isn't enough work for me, so I made this awesome thing.



They're Hershey's Kisses with her logo on the bottom!




That's a damn effective way to get your brand name in the hand of every person in the room if you ask me. Especially when the majority of those people are women. Yeah, I'm a genius.

Nicole had a bunch of flyers and business cards printed and brought a table cloth, some standees, t-shirts and such. Jacob did those awesome flyer swirls and arranged all the merchandise. I brought cake dummies to add height, and worked on getting all the tall stuff placed properly.

The table looked amazing!



I am so proud of all the girls that got out there to compete. They each did an amazing job. Especially our Studio Goddess girls; Diana and Sara Beth.

Oh, and here's a shot of Nicole after she won the award for People's Choice, Miss Echo, and Miss Tennessee Pole!!!!



Now we get to start planning our trip to the next competition!!

Totally Random Free Crap Redux

Woo free crap!

I recently scored these delights:

A table.


Another table.



Another table...


Wait, this one has....

WINGS!!!

A lamp.

Which I've already disassembled and begun repurposing as something else.

A little bookshelf.


A hutch.




A train set.


A wash stand bowl and pitcher.


A basket of colanders.


Some teeny tiny turtles.


All of this crap came to me courtesy of my FIL. He's a good crap finder. Some friend of his is moving to Florida and they asked him to carry all this to the dump. They apparently didn't want to spend the money to rent a U-haul so everything that they couldn't fit in their truck was going to the dump.

May I rant for a minute? What the heck people? Have we completely stopped caring about everything? When I see a thing, wether it's a piece of furniture, toy, knick knack, whatever. I recognize that someone had to work for that. Someone wanted that thing badly enough to spend their time and energy, add wear and tear to their body, and exclude themselves from their family to work to earn money to buy that thing. What about that rustic table up there? That was made by Amish folks. Someone made that with their hands! So not only did some one have to work to buy it, someone had to actually work to build the thing. A whole lot of human went into that. Not to mention the fact that that was obviously a tree. It was probably a couple hundred years old before it was chopped down to be made into that cute little table. Am I the only person left that looks at things this way? I see the time and effort and life that went into it. I try to use it for every last little thing it can be used for, not just send it to the dump. When did so many people start viewing so many things as disposable? Every last bit of this stuff is perfectly fine, totally useable, absolutely nothing wrong with it stuff. It had absolutely no business going to the dump. Ok, i've lost my steam. Rant over.


Please, please don't send perfectly good stuff to the dump. Even if it's broken, it usually just needs some glue and a clamp. Call me or something, I'll fix it just for fun or take it home with me if you've gotten too mad at it.

I'm actually serious about that last bit.

Later.


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Halloween Wreath or Why it's Important to Use Primer.

So, this post is more about the lesson I learned while making my wreath than the actual wreath. Here goes...


Yay Halloween!

Ok, so I really just went brain dead. Why in the world did I make a Halloween wreath!? Wreath's are for Christmas, not Halloween. Oh, I think I may have Old Lady-itis.

Well, so anyway...I made a Halloween wreath (boy do I feel silly). It was pretty simple. I used a pre made wooden wreath form, a bag of big plastic snakes, two bags of little plastic snakes, and a can of black spray paint.

You can find everything except the spray paint at the dollar store so the whole thing ended up being around $6.

My plan was to spray paint everything black and hot glue it all together. It's super simple. It's super cheap. Plus, it'll only take as long as it takes for the paint to dry!

So I got to painting. I got everything painted in one day...in August...of 2011.

Oh the shame!!

But!! I have a really good reason for this project taking a year to finish.

The paint never dried. No really, it was still wet when I took the snakes out of the ziplock bag two days ago.

So, being the stubborn ox that I am, I attempted to finish the thing the way I intended to initially. With hot glue. Which was a huge failure. The hot glue cooled to the wet paint and the snakes just peeled off. Well, when hot glue fails I break out the E-6000. (I'm stubborn and lazy)

This is the wreath after I epoxied all the wet snakes onto it.



I had to tie everybody down so the epoxy could cure. The snakes, not the kids. Although, that may have worked better...

Well anyway, now I have this super awesome wet snake wreath. Yay? I guess I've always wanted a sticky snake wreath.

No actually I haven't. I have to fix this. What do I do when I don't know what to do? I put primer on it!



I used Valspar grey primer. Yesterday. It's still wet.

Okay......more primer!!!



This time I used the shellac based Zissner, which I know I should have done from the very start. And guess what!? It dried!!!

Of course I have a completely new problem. I've seen the snake wreath in black, grey, and white. Now I can't decide what color to paint it! What color do you think it should be? I'll update in a few days when it's completely finished.






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Estate Sale Sofa

I scored this awesome French Provincial Sofa and Chair set at an estate sale this past year for $25 dollars.





I was pretty freaking proud of myself.

So, other than having this really awesome sofa set, my living room is generally in a constant state of discord (yeah, that's right, discord). Ok, I'm not kidding anyone, my whole house is a state of disharmony between ponies.

No, seriously. My mantle is orange.



Oh, uh...ADD, sorry.

Anyway, Tom is redecorating his house and it looks fantastic!!! There will be some guest posts! Before the remodel he had this really awesome formal/romantic/cozy/bookstore/cave thing going on. I LOVED it. I subtly tried to convince him not to change it but then he said that it reminded him of his ex. That's the single best reason I've ever heard. End of argument. Change it. Change it NOW!

Holy crap...did I mention I have a cold? I just can't focus. I'm soooooo sorry.

So...Tom gave me the area rug that he had in his living room.



Suddenly my living room made sense. This rug seriously pulled the room together. Like, Big Lebowski style, Pulled. The. Room. Together. I was really happy.

For about 10 minutes.

Then this happened.



Ugh...even trying to write this post I'm staring at that picture and feeling my heart break a little. Now I have a hot pink stain on my sofa. Fan-flipping-tastic.

My initial reaction was to reupholster it. But, I really haven't been feeling the "reupholster an entire sofa" itch lately. So that just bogged me down. Then I remembered this awesome sofa over at DesignSponge and knew what I had to do. I had to paint my sofa.

So I ran out to Home Depot to get some paint and to Michael's to get the Textile Medium stuff then set out on a quest to make my sofa the most ass kicking-est sofa there ever was.

Now it looks like this:



Pretty freaking cool, huh!!! My mom thought I had reupholstered it in purple leather!

I decided to leave the chair gold and rearrange a little. Now my living room is making WAY more sense, plus my sofa is water resistant! I'm SO HAAAAAPPPPPEEEEEEEEYYYYYYY!!!!!





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