Early Spring Robins? Finished Faux Planter, Thrifting Scores!!! It's A Small World After All

Early Spring Robins?-

After our cold, torrential downpour all day yesterday we woke up to 28 degrees, blue skies and sun! I was outside about 9 and saw the most amazing thing- tons of Robins all over. Our yard, across the street and next door. I spotted these guys a bit later using our heated (thrifted of course) birdbath. WOW, does this seems early for robins?

An American Robin, smile for the camera! 

 Ground doves came by too

My bushy tail needed a drink too

the sun hitting our red twig dogwood, it was redder in real life

Finished Faux Planter-

I went to Hobby Lobby today for the last of my supplies for my vintagey French crafts. I finished this with moss, lavender, yellow flowers, and a small white bird. Last week I added some brown glaze on both sides to make the paint look more aged-

My small crate, now filled with soaps in our main bathroom, I haven't decided what to put into my medium sized crate yet...

Thrifting Scores!!!

I went to Goodwill today to find some work clothes for spring. Wow did I score, again! I got 4 new tops and a denim jacket for work. I spied this wire basket and thought it was junk metal. It was heavy, and greasy, dirty and dusty. I flipped it over and saw a stamped name. I checked on my phone and it turned out to be a silver plated. For $5.00 I brought it home. After a simple scrubbing with hot water and dawn it looked like silver again! I found one on eBay for $25.00. I really like it and will use it somewhere, or gift it.

I didn't even polish it, just soap and water!

Painted concrete bird about 6" long, $2.00

A working, wire french clock with doors that open, $4.00. Not sure what I'll put inside?

Fun little bunny from Hobby Lobby, 1/2 price, for Spring

Also Spring-y, sheep from another thrift store, 99 cents each, new, and ceramic! They had Pier One stickers underneath for $10.00. I found the large one on Etsy (sold) for $29.00, can you believe it??? It's funny as I had wanted some ceramic sheep and rabbits, now I have both. Now if I only had some land and real ones, and goats!

Clearance pot for $3.00 filled with left-over flowers from my stash

It's A Small World After All-

I've done this little blog for several years now. When you have less than 100 "followers" you think not that many people read your blog. That can be deceiving! When I look at my stats above it shows most of my visitors are from the U.S., not a big surprise. Interesting where others visit this blog from, and it paints a very International picture! On the list below Russia and France came in too, fascinating! It just goes to show that you never know the impact you make even with small actions. I even have readers in Poland! So, hello out there to my International readers, leave some comments sometime and let me know where you're from!!!

More Thrifting Scores! French Country Vintagey Crafts w/Thrifted Goodies, Lots Of Eggs Again! V Day Decor

More Thrifting Scores! 
Last week I stopped at a thrift store I hadn't been to for a while. I really scored! I had found out I'm moving into a larger space at work soon and was looking for a few things to brighten up the space. Here's my score- my snowman above is actually a tree topper but fits perfectly in the top of my entertainment center

I found this at a local feed store, 80% off

perfect for my dining room shelf

For my new office space, a small mettalicy bamboo mirror to reflect some light and a dry erase board for my cubicle wall

Remember the plain wire basket a while back?

French Country Vintagey Crafts w/Thrifted Goodies-
I stumbled on to so many great ideas recently! My taste for decor ranges from Scandinavian/Swedish country to French country. There are so many similarities! I think I have some major Spring Fever! While we haven't had the snow the East is getting we've had more than usual. It was also colder earlier here. Anyway, I found the basket above, just wire and lavender that needed some minor repairs. I had to think about what to do with it for a while. I came up with this- I lined it with spare white burlap, stitched it to the upper edge, put some pebbles in the bottom, filled with floral foam and used leftover sunflowers. Whala! It's now on my shelf, looking down right Spring-ish!

To the right of it is the vase I bought recently, topped of with a moss sphere, recycled from another topiary of mine

What to do with these? Paint them with my new sample of Restore Paint, a thick, pudding-like chalky paint. More later on that...

my old bathroom mini soap crate before...

now....

I got the graphics from Thegraphicsfairy, tons there FREE! Not quite done, but French country!

other side

I got this faux planter idea from Confessionsofaplateaddict, same graphic, it's mini orange crate from the grocery store!

I found the bird graphic and it was too cute! These aren't quite done either, will finish and distress tomorrow

Medium sized crate, for something else fun

other side, maybe for yarn?

I added some more sunflowers to my iron bar above my kitchen window

I recently saw this at Hobby Lobby but I'm not sure if I like this enough to make my own

what do you think???

Lots Of Eggs Again!
Our wonderful girls are laying those delectable eggs again, 3 per day! We were down to 1 or 2 eggs per day most of the winter. Poor Ellie, my Barred Rock, molted during the worst of the cold weather, poor baby. I had 2 very thin Trader Joe's French tarts, both with cheese, veggie and herbs. I decided to top them with eggs, but since they were frozen I poached the eggs separately, then added them at the end with herbs. OMG, talk about great. WOW!!!!!! I will do that again soon!

V Day Decor-

We took down the last of the winter decor today. I deep cleaned and put some regular decorative things out again, and then some red and Valentine's Day things. I keep it very minimal-

looking more like Spring!

My fun kitchen window

I just added some red floral things to the mini greenhouse conservatory, all thrifted

More red and fun little birds

ARE YOU READY FOR SPRING???

Deleting/Restoring A Blog, Faux Lavender Wreath & Crafting W/Thrifted Finds, For You Baseball Fans!

Deleting/Restoring A Blog-

I can't even begin to tell you how much I hate Google. There are NO words. When you have someone start buying up every smaller company their "customer service" (and your privacy) evaporates. It's their nature. Here's the short version with some helpful info in case something happens to your blog!

I backed up my blog and theme before I went to delete an old junk email account last weekend. After recreating a new blog, because google closed mine, I also had to choose a new URL, or web address. I chose something similar- "The" little homestead in Boise. When you Import your blog it still misses quite a few things- links, photos, etc. so you may want to create a back up word Doc for that. It would save a LOT of time restoring or recreating. You might also document the size of the side bar, etc. if it's not the default. I like mine a bitter narrower. I finally realized I could restore the junk email I deleted and within 1 or 2  minutes my blog reappeared. I disconnected the junk email from it and added my main email. This took me 7 hours!!! And a lot of tears. I did find this fix after I published this- How To Change Blogger Login Email Address  Additional instructions I figured out- send the invite then log out. Log on with the new email, THEN accept then invite. Then log in with the old email and make the change. It worked! Pretty easy. I also deleted the new-recreated blog.

When you have blogged for several years, and create a following, it's really sad to lose all that. PROTECT YOURSELF FROM GOOGLE, ETC!!! Backup, or archive your stuff. Lesson learned :(

My faux lavender wreath

Faux Lavender Wreath & Crafting W/Thrifted Finds-
I'm getting some spring fever, with 2 inches of snow forecast tonite! We had an inch this morning. I've been loving Provence French Country colors for a while with their famous blues and yellows. I've always loved sunflowers, and I'm going to plant some BIG ones this summer. I have a tendency to put these kinds of things only in my kitchen dining room, so I'm going to spread them out into the living room and our main bedroom. This summer I'm giving our bedroom a fresh, much-needed coat of paint. I'll go with white or cream and use a lot of these kinds of blue/yellow items to brighten it up! I'm going for a rustic, shabby chic bedroom with pops of color. With blue being my fave color and loving lavender (I grow a lot!) I stumbled on to this fun lavender wreath project. It's easy- no glue, and only took me about 15 minutes. I used these 2 components, a fake lavender "bush" and a twig wreath (+wire cutter), total cost about $8.00 with a coupon from Hobby Lobby. I LOVE that place, great prices and very helpful staff. Their lavender is very realistic-

Directions here from Confessionsofaplateaddict

I saw this on Joss and Main for $60.00 and laughed! A jar, pebbles and fake sunflowers. I'll be making one. For a LOT less!

I saw this too at Confessionsofaplateaddict and loved the tin house look for winter decor. You take paper mache houses and spray paint them with "hammered paint", how cool! Also from Hobby Lobby.

My thrifted pile of components-

Recognize the house? Ready to paint and stash for next winter!

My thrifted print I just found, $1.99! Sorry, no no-glare glass :( 

The blue/yellow vase will hold a topiary ($2.00) and I found a new French butter dish. It was a steal at .99 cents, since they run about $25.00 new. They work great!

My fave new ceramic teapot (not kettle), got it from eBay for $8.00 great condition! Reminds me of Swedish country style designs -

And Santa's (me) new French tin postcard sign will go up, but where??? Hmmm...

I finally re-habbed my real Birch Yule log that I got for about $3.00 with really ugly 70's-style greenery. I stripped it down, left the candle holders as is. It has nice heavy metal feet underneath. I deconstructed a small swag I'd made and re-used it, nice! I may add something else, we'll see...

My simple winter goodies are out now, with berries from the garden. Soon sunflowers & lavender crafts and decor will emerge from my pile of thrifted supplies! Stay tuned!

For You Baseball Fans!
Dave and I are both baseball fans, so when I bought him the new James Taylor CD Before This World (excellent!) for Christmas we were both thrilled! He has a great new baseball song that he took 10 years to write. It's about the 2004 world series game, won by the Red Socks, the 1st win since 1918. It's called Angels Of Fenway, luckily he did a great music video too! Enjoy!!!