Birthday Boy

Tomorrow is my baby brother's birthday!  I just thought I'd give a shout out to the 35 year old young man.  :)

Here's a pic of one of his birthdays "way back when."  Notice the cake that my mother made and decorated:

All together now!  "Awwwwwwwwwwwwwww!"

Have a great holiday weekend everyone!

A Use for Peach Pits

Remember my last trip to the dollar store?    Well, I went back and found a few other gems.

More glassware that will be transformed into smaller versions of the hurricane lamps:

Also, gearing up for Fall, I found these lovely darlings:

Speaking of the William Sonoma Hurricane Knockoffs, I finally found something to put in them:

Peach Pits!  Two summers ago, we had a bumper crop of peaches from our peach tree in the back yard.  I spent quite a bit of time scrubbing the pits and drying them out.  I wasn't sure what I was going to be using them for, but I loved the color and texture that they had.  They'll add a lot to the Fall mantlescape.

Just look at all that texture:

Also, look at what a difference a change of lighting makes.  Who knew peach pits could be interesting?

Little Pirates are Gross

"Gentlemen; m'lady. This is the day you will always remember as the day that you almost caught Captain Jack Sparrow!"

This boy is a natural born pirate.  He does way more work coming up with imaginative ways to get out of trouble and work than if he just did what he had been told to do in the first place.

Case in point:

We thought we had gotten past all the woes of potty training a while ago, but a new issue has cropped up.  The boy has been stopping up the toilet by using wads and wads of toilet paper.  I threatened to start deducting from his allowance if he did it again.  Lo and behold, there was no more stoppage of the plumbing.  I patted myself on the back on a parenting job well done.  Yeah.

How he got around it:

We found the trash can full of (used) toilet paper.  The little pirate filled the trash can with copious amounts of the toilet paper.  Icky, but at least the plumbing is not stopped up anymore.  Little pirates are gross. 

I am so going to use this blog as blackmail later on when he starts dating.  Mommies can use Pirate Ethics too!

Give A Lamp A New Life

Everyone makes bad decisions on decorating once in a while.  One of my worst was made almost 14 years ago.  I purchased some basic brass lamps for our bedroom and over the years have come to loathe them.  My first instinct was to throw them in the trash and go out and buy new ones.  Then I came to my senses.  The lamps are in perfect working order, so what could I do to make them look better?  The answer?  PAINT!

Start with one ugly lamp that has potential and tape off the bits that you don't want painted (please ignore the kiddie basketball goal in the background):

Next, Get out some spray primer and turn it gray:

Once it dries, get out the paint that you want and paint it!  I used Rustoleum's Universal Metallic Oil Rubbed Bronze.  

So how does it look now?

Look at the before and after:

And because the above photos don't do the paint color justice, look at it in the sunlight:

Isn't it amazing the difference that a little bit of paint can make?  I still have to get some lampshades to compliment the "new" lamps.  The old ones are hideous and have been very abused.  Once I get the new shades the lamps are going to be gorgeous!