Fun Discoveries

I guess I could write a post about what David and I did for Valentine's Day. But that would be about two sentences and not very interesting since we decided to boycott heart day this year. It  was a low-key weekend with my boys, just how I like it!

On Saturday, we went downtown just to get out and about some. All of the shops were having a sidewalk sale, so needless to say it was super busy. Um- dislike. It's good for the local businesses, but it makes shopping in those tiny shops a little troublesome. I have now lived in Thomasville for 7 years. In those 7 years, I have never been in the little antique shop A Different Drummer. I saw a commercial for this shop, and I was wondering where on earth it was downtown and how I could have missed it! So I dragged David down to go shop and for once, we both agreed that this shop was the bomb dot com.

A shop where they have a merganser on their bags? Obviously this place was going to be my jam. This shop specializes in vintage sports art. Mainly wooden decoys.

There were all kinds of sportsman treasures in there. Beautiful works of art, handcrafted furniture, wooden fishing lures, vintage hunting magazines. You name it- they had it. They also have the cutest garden out back. I have seen numerous pictures of this garden and never knew where in town it was. Now I know!

 

The birder in me of course was in love with all of this! I probably would have left with lots of goodies if I had the mind to! Click on the link above to check out much better pictures of this cute store.

I left with this hunting themed framed needlepoint.

It is now hanging up in my kitchen, that is quickly becoming my "plantation" room. My mother knew I had been wanting to start a collection of Spode Woodlands china, so for Christmas, she gifted me some plates.

All of the white plates are Lenox Butler's Pantry and all of the pewter pine cone serving pieces are from The Gift Shop located in downtown Thomasville. The pine cone wine glasses are from Kevin's Outdoors, also in Thomasville.
My sweet brother gifted me one of the prints that my parents had framed for his birthday.

We always had Springer Spaniels growing up, so this print was super special to me. He kept the German Shorthair Pointer picture, which was the other dogs we always had as well. So my new hunting picture I found fits right in!

Other than Valentine's Day, this weekend was also the Great Backyard Bird Count weekend. This is an annual event that the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and the National Audubon Society does to gather important data on wild birds. It is to help gauge where bird populations are before spring migration. So of course, I had to get a little bird watching in so that I could do my part to help! We had plans to go down to St. Marks so that we could see some ducks and other water birds, but it was a bit too cold on Saturday for all of that. So we hung around the house.

We did go over to Cherokee Lake (which is a local public park) on a whim to see if maybe there were a few brave ducks out on the lake. We got quite the surprise! There were wood storks at the lake. Cherokee Lake is always packed with people, so I was shocked that those storks were just hanging out.  Wood Storks are an endangered species (although they may have been downgraded to just threatened) so it is usually considered rare to get a sighting of these birds. There were 6 of these guys up in the pine trees.

So that was a nice discovery this weekend! It was the first time I have ever been that close to one to get a good picture. We usually only see them flying. I also got to knock a new bird off my list while at the lake- this pretty white-eyed vireo.

It was a relaxing weekend spent with my sweetie with some fun, new discoveries! Hope everyone had a great weekend as well!



DIY Oyster Ball

I have a little project to share that I completed last weekend. If you are a Pinterest or blog addict like I am, you see all kinds of projects out there in cyber-land. I have had a 5-gallon bucket full of oyster shells that I have been hoarding since back in October. I kept them thinking I could simply display them in a glass container or find some fun project for them. Well, like most things around my house, they have sat in that bucket for months on end. So it was definitely time to do something with those things! I have seen these pretty gems floating around and at $180 a pop, I figured I could make one myself (although if you click through to see the one for sale, it looks 1,000,000x better than mine does!).

First, gather your supplies. You will need:

• Styrofoam ball
• Hot glue gun/glue sticks
• Oysters
• Spray/craft paint in a white or light gray

My first mistake was relying on Wal-Mart to have what I needed. They had no Styrofoam balls there, but they did have a topiary form. With that weird moss stuff on it. Ladies (or gentlemen) do yourself a favor and get a regular Styrofoam ball. That moss made this project much more difficult than it needed to be! Also, cutting that wire stick out wasn't any fun either.

Prepping the oysters was fairly simple. After shucking and devouring the delicious oysters, I simply threw them in the 5-gallon bucket, filled it with water, and added bleach. That's how they sat for the longest time until I realized that it was attracting too much attention from the wiener dogs, so the bleach water got dumped and shortly abandoned/forgotten. Therefore, they were sitting in a bucket full of rain water and pine straw for probably 3 months! So I brought them in, and gave them a good soak in the sink with hot water and bleach and then just took a scrub brush to them.

 

Then I laid them outside to dry. Once they were dry, I gave them a quick clear coating (just spray paint you can pick up at any hardware store) to make sure that any funky smells would be forever locked in!

Once that was complete, it was time to assemble. **Learn from my mistake and paint your ball before you begin. I didn't and I really wish I did. That green moss sticks out like a soar thumb peeking out between the oysters.

I grabbed oysters that all had about the same length to go around the circumference in the hopes that it would produce a somewhat round shape. Just keep sticking the shells in and gluing them in place. Since my ball had that moss stuff on it, I couldn't really stick the shells in, so mainly I had to glue them in place. This took FOREVER! So word to the wise- I thought this would be like a 30 minute project and it ended up taking me about 3 hours! So it wasn't the quickest project. But that was because I had to hold each and every shell to wait for the glue to set.

 

Just keep going and sticking those suckers in the ball! You can see that I had it sitting on that small container, which was a great way to keep it steady in the beginning.

This ball ended up taking quite a lot of oysters surprisingly. And when I was finished it was super, super heavy!

I am going to go back and try to add a few more shells in the gaps if I can because it needs a little extra. But by the time I got the ball to this point, I was so over this project and didn't want to see another oyster for quite some time. I will eventually go back with a paint brush and some paint and paint the gaps that are too small to fill with another oyster shell. You can really see the gaps in this photo.

This thing is quite large, so if I make another one, I will be getting a smaller Styrofoam ball for sure. It doesn't look quite as good as the ones I've seen, but it's close! And for $10, I'll take it!

Happy crafting!

 



Christmas Home Tour

Happy holiday season, everyone! I just wanted to pop in and share a few pictures of my Christmas decorations. It's nothing fancy, but I know that my mom wants to see what all I have done. (ha!) So here you go mom. Merry Christmas :-D

I always decorate my tree in gold, silver, bronze, and whatever color that brown ribbon is. I also love to have lots of mercury glass and winter white thrown in as well. As you can tell, I love all my little birds on the tree!

Since I didn't use a real tree, I still wanted some fresh pine in the room. I grabbed a live wreath from Lowe's and put it on my coffee table with some candles and a poinsettia.

In the foyer, I added a huge arrangement of cotton that I picked from my father's field and a reindeer. This is where I put all the Christmas cards I receive on display. I just love getting Christmas cards!

Ignore the present..it was too big to fit under the tree!

Speaking of Christmas cards, I actually got some out this year. So if you didn't receive one from me- here is your virtual one- with much love!

A few more touches around the living room include hanging my wreath over the console table and adding some garland around the tv unit.

My mom found this Christmas pillow for my couch. Love it!

It's not easy finding black and white Christmas pillows, so I'm glad she found that one.

Moving on to the kitchen, I put up the tree that contains all of my special ornaments. Granted, the tree is pretty sad and puny and I didn't decorate it at all other than the ornaments, but it is still my favorite because it has all those ornaments that are very dear.

This is my new ornament that my parents gave me for the year. 

One main thing I love about Christmas is that I get to pull out my Christmas china. I have two place settings out on display.

I also took down the thing I normally have on display on the hutch and put up a few Christmas items.

I put out another Christmas pillow on the bench and I'm totally excited that my Christmas cactus that I inherited from my grandmother is finally showing signs of blooming. My poor kitchen has turned into a greenhouse since I have pulled all my plants from outside in. However, after I took this photo I decided I was done with the ferns and took them back outside. I am soooo over sweeping up after that thing constantly! Oh- and I repainted the bench because, well yeah it needed it.

Finally, the last thing I did was put up a small table top tree in my bedroom. I've been sick, so it's been nice to lay in bed with the tree lit up. Makes me feel a little bit less bahumbug and a little more in the spirit of the season.

That's it, folks! Hope you enjoyed my mini Christmas home tour. Here's to a very Merry Christmas to you all!

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4 In him was life,and that life was the light of all mankind. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome[a] it.

6 There was a man sent from God whose name was John. 7 He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all might believe. 8 He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light.

9 The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. 10 He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. 11 He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. 12 Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— 13 children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.

14 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

15 (John testified concerning him. He cried out, saying, “This is the one I spoke about when I said, ‘He who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.’”) 16 Out of his fullness we have all received grace in place of grace already given. 17 For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. 18 No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God and[b] is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known.

~ John1:1-18