Cottage side table

I finally finished a piece of furniture!  It may just be a little side table, but hey that's something, right?
The client who wanted this cottage dresser for his lake house, also wanted me to redo this little side table to go with it.

The month of June has been a pretty busy one.  Between our beach trip, Haven, family gatherings, birthday parties,  I've had so little time to be creative and work on my bigger pieces.  I'm hoping things will slow down in July, but it's already filling up fast.  But that's what I love about summer, all the fun activities just waiting around the corner.

On to the table.

The end.

Fun at Haven

Life is returning to normal after the whirlwind that was Haven.  I had such a nice time mingling with all the lovely ladies, and some men, that crowded the Crown Plaza in Atlanta.  I met so many women who are the forces behind some of the most popular blogs on the net.  And I must say, most of them were just as kind and friendly as I would have expected. 

First, I started out meeting up with this awesome girl.  Cassie from Primitive and Proper

She was so cool, fun, and all around great person. 

 

Here are some of the other great women I met along the way.

Sarah from The Thriftress, Andrea from Oak Ridge Revival, and Carmel from Our Fifth House

Layla The Lettered Cottage

 Me with Francine from Skyblupink and Sabrina from Plantation Relics

Then I finished off the weekend with Cassie and Sarah.  We went thrifting and toured some yard sales.

Overall, the conference was fun.  I think it may have been aimed more at beginners, so I didn't come away from the conference with any more knowledge than I already had.  

I hope you all had a great weekend, hopefully I can get my act together and start a new piece of furniture to share.

By the way, I won some Annie Sloan chalk paint and a brush at the conference!

Excited to finally test this stuff out.

Haven and beach pics

So I'm one of the hundreds of lucky ladies who got a Haven Conference ticket before it sold out.  I felt so lazy for procrastinating and narrowly missing this great opportunity to meet some of my wonderful blog friends.

The conference is about 20 minutes from my doorstep, and I will be hosting the lovely and talented Cassie from Primitive and Proper.  So excited to meet her!

If you are going please leave me a comment, I would love to meet you.

I look forward to meeting all the lovely ladies who put this together, sounds like it's going to be a wonderful time. 

And so this post isn't totally without pictures...
Here are a couple pics from our beach trip a week ago.

Home Made Birthday

We celebrated the 3rd birthday of our sweet little girl on Saturday.  I had about a week to pull it all together and it turned out just how I wanted.  Vintage sweet, with a twist of girly.

 I made these delicious chocolate cupcakes, with homemade cinnamon vanilla ice cream.

Everything from the pinwheels to the strawberry lemonade was homemade.  I couldn't have done it with out the help of my brother & sister in law and my husband.  

Easy now sew bunting, tutorial coming soon.

The kids played in the pool, jumped rope and we had a bubble machine.  Keeping it simple with just a few of her close friends and some family. It was a good old fashioned party.

New little walk way

 This is the area where my wrap around porch ends and there is a little garden area with a large dogwood and some hosta. I thought it would make sense to take out the railing and make the porch easily accessible from this side of the house.  I also wanted to store all my paints and such out there because this is where I do most of my work.

Here is the before taken last fall

And today I finally got around to buying the stones for the walk way.

 See that shelving unit in the background?  My neighbor was tossing it out, it works perfectly for all my paints and tools.

 I used a shovel and dug out level sections for my rocks to rest in. Then pounded in the dirt around them, added some river rocks and called it a day.

 It's a pretty simple project if you are looking to add a cute little path to your yard.

I also plan to add some more shade tolerant plants under there.

I like it!

Ikea lamp make over

I've had these Ikea lamps for several years now.  I never really liked them to begin with, but they were cheap and I needed some lamps.  Since I gained some confidence from this lamp make over, I figured it couldn't hurt to try it again.

Here is the totally bland before~

 After~

I spray painted the base oil rubbed bronze, and found the shade at Old Time Pottery. 

By the way any one out there going to Haven?

Link Parties~
DIY Show Off

Monday

We just got back from a week long trip to the beach with my folks.  It was a nice time, even though we had two full days of clouds and rain.  And let me just tell you, a beach trip is drastically different with two little ones.  I feel like I never got to relax, it was just a change of scenery all the same routine.  My baby girl was a little more fussy than usual, and woke up about 5:45am every morning.  Well, at least now I can say I have seen the sunrise at the beach. 

I plan to get going on more furniture posts for you.  I have several pieces waiting around that need some love.
I will get to that....after all the vacation laundry is done..after the house is clean...after I plan the 3rd birthday party for my big girl....after....after....

Speaking of party, here are some of my ideas I need to get on for her party this Saturday.

Food~

Decor~

All of these ideas are in my Pinterest folder

I'm keeping it somewhat simple with these water activities~

Hope you all have a great Monday :)