A Chippy Little Side Table

Today I ventured to several cute little shops in Wilmington in search of a dresser. On the way back home, I stopped at Uptown Market Antiques. I found one. I found a gem of a dresser. I have to wait a week for it.... one of the owners of the shop offered to drop it off herself because their delivery people don't drive this far away. How sweet is that? This post isn't about the dresser, though.

Uptown Market Antiques was filled with so many treasures! Amazing furniture, beautiful wall decorations.... I spotted an oval mirror with a hobnail milk glass frame that made my heart go pitter pat. It was overpriced. I moved on. My heart kept beating.

I did find this chippy little side table in need of a home. And for $15, I got it!



It is pretty much the epitome of junk salvation.

And I think it is wonderful. I love the chippy paint.

Maybe one day I'll sand it down and repaint it.

It has a lot of character. I want to just enjoy that for a while.

It fits just right next to the bed. Not too wide and narrow enough that Michael can still open his closet door all the way. (That wasn't the case when I had the other side table there.)

Shortly after returning home from my outing it started storming. Lightning. Thunder shaking the house. Downpour. This is why you have to be careful when using the front door while it is raining at my house:

Other than the mini-waterfall, please take note of two things:

1. My crooked mailbox, which is in must worse shape than this picture captures. So much so that the yard guy offered to install a new one for $5 next time he stops by. He was probably worried he was going to completely destroy it with his riding lawn mower.

2. How incredibly thankful I am for taking my trash can to the curb this morning, instead of waiting until until this evening. Trash gets picked up at midnight by Ray's Rural Trash Collection. You have your pick of three or four competitive businesses that collect trash in this town (they all cost the same though...). We had Ray's at our last place. They're small, family owned and operated. I was delighted when I found out I was living in an area they covered again.... mostly because our bill comes with a new religious quote each month. Haha. I'm not kidding, this month it said: "The Lord preserveth all them that love Him."

Okay, I'm done boring you about our trash collection. :)

Feeling Crafty!

Last Thursday I spent the day with my friend Amanda and her sweet baby boy, Mason. (You might remember them from this post.) I think we visited every thrift shop in town! It was an laid back and fun filled day. I'm extremely tempted to go back to a couple of the shops to buy a few items. Before I give in to that hankering, I need to find myself a dresser so I can get the rest of our clothes unpacked!

All that thrifting also inspired me to do something with a couple thrifty items I had at the house already. This shelf, which accompanied me in my road trip from Washington, had been hiding in a closet at my parent's house and was in need of some sprucing up:

So I set up a little painting station on the back patio and painted it white. I did another coat after this picture. I like how it turned out! I'll have to update when I decide where to hang it in the house.

This squirrel was watching me paint. Isn't he cute? :)

Now, on to the second thrifty project.... I did a little upcycling of an old coffee bean burlap sack that I found in Washington while antiquing with Meagan. I only used a small amount of it, and I have a whole different burlap sack in the closet. So, perhaps there will be more burlap crafting in the future.

I decided to make some pennant bunting! So I traced out some flags. I cut out a reference pattern made from an old Wheat Thins box that had retired to the recycling bin. It worked well:

After they were all cut out, I stitched around the borders to minimize the fraying. Burlap sure loves to fray!

Then I ironed and pinned down the tops to create an opening for string or ribbon to thread through. I stitched the tops down and they were ready to decorate!

I can't wait to use this banner!

Isn't it just beautiful? I'm quite pleased with the final product. :)

I used the tiny flags to decorate this wreath I found on sale today. I'm not done with it yet, but if you were interested in where those little flags ended up...

In other news, I finally hired someone to cut the grass! So, I'm no longer the annoying neighbor who doesn't take care of their yard. Yay! :)

Presenting My Capstone and Shopping for Junk!

My graduation is only fifteen days away now! I'm only 3 papers, 2 presentations, 2 lab reports, and 2 final exams from being completely done with college. I'm so thrilled to be finishing this chapter in my life and starting another, but I'll write more about that in a couple weeks. :)

Last week all the chemistry seniors, including myself, presented our capstones. All of the bachelor of science students must present research that they completed during their time at PLU. My presentation covered the work I completed on nanocrystals this year. Here is my research mentor introducing me to the audience:



Then they dimmed the lights and it was time for me to start. I was so nervous!


It went really well! I was so relieved! Here is the group of students I presented with.... Jonah, me, Erik, and Sam. We're clearly all happy to be so close to graduation!

I presented right after my good friend, Jonah.

Here is the whole group and our professors. I think we're the second largest class of chemistry students to graduate in the history of PLU!

Okay, now for the fun second half of my post. Yesterday I went with Meagan to the junk salvation show! I didn't purchase anything yesterday, we just had fun looking at all of the cool things and enjoying the flea market atmosphere. Today I went back and ended up getting two items that caught my eye.

The first item is this old string bean crate from Oregon. I love the character of old crates, I had a difficult time choosing which one I liked the most! Here is the side of my crate:

I'm going to be using it to store Michael's small record collection. I can't wait to get the rest of his records out of storage and place them in their new home!

I really love the second item I bought. And unlike the crate, it wasn't something I was planning on getting, but I fell in love with it! When the seller accepted my offer of $15 for this mirror, I just had to get it. Can't wait to hang it up in our new place this summer!