Turquoise, Red Checkered Kitchen. What?

Don't you just love when you find proof that your eclectic taste isn't wrong?  Like when I painted my house lantern yellow and added a blue roof.  My daughter came home and asked me, "Mom, have you lost your mind".  Or when my neighbor stopped by several months after I moved in and told me that he and the other neighbors thought I was one of them artists from Austin.  You know the kind.  That is just too funny! 

I always dreamed of a mint green kitchen with red accents.  So when I moved into my dream house I got what I wanted.  Of course when I hung red gingham curtains my kids thought it was weird. 

 

 

I particularly love Red Rose Tea metal signs.  I found this one in French on Ebay from Canada.

 

 



I was at one of my favorite stores yesterday called "Gatherings" here in Corpus Christi and came across a new line of kitchen textiles from a company in Holland called Pip Studio.    The tea towel I found has all the colors from my kitchen including turquoise, red, and mint green! 

 

 

Grandma Mary's Shadow Box

I love shadow boxes.  They are a great way to display the things you love, family treasures, pictures, etc.  I found this one a few months back and found it irresistible.  It took me a few days to gather together the momentos I wanted to put inside the box.  

A few years ago I went to visit my Grandma Mary in San Benito at her farmhouse.  Grandma's husband had passed away a few months before and I stayed over night.  She was sharing stories with me and showing me things from her past and I began to have an epiphany.  I realized that the thing I collected and loved were all the things she loved as well.  I didn't know my Grandmother very well so it was startling.  I got to know here over the next couple of years until her death in 2008.  We have a lot of the same talents.  Genetics is so fascinating.

So I filled my shadow box with things my Grandmother gave me as a dedication her memory.

Romantic Prairie Style

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It seems that I like what they call Romantic Prairie Style.  I saw things I have in my home in the book and now they are coming out with a new magazine in two weeks.  Yahoo!   So now I can justify my purchase of a Pottery Barn downfilled couch as my gift to myself when I retired.  Well, and all the things I bring into the house that most people would throw away.  I am all about salvaging and repurposing.  And of course I love all things old.   This is the back side of my couch, but you get the idea. 

I have to use a lot of cabinets for storage.  The problem with old houses is that traditionally they have really small closets and limited storage space.  Thank goodness for big attics!

Children's Book Wreaths and Pinwheels

Old Reading Books have the best pictures in them.  They remind me of when I was growing up as a child.  You know the ones I'm talking about that look a lot like Dick and Jane books but use different names.  I can't afford the Dick and Jane collectible books.  Well, I wouldn't tear them apart and use them for pinwheels and wreaths. 

One of my favorite blogs is called Miss Mustard Seed.  I have been a fan for several months now and have really enjoyed reading about her life and learning how to create some of her decorations. 
When I started reading her blog it was really small and she had just a few followers.  Now she is in magazines and the like.

Here is her pinwheel tutorial that I found really to follow. 

I used an old Children's music book to make a wreath similar to one I had seen on Miss Mustard Seed's website.

Recipe Wreaths

I absolutely love recipes. . . . . . recipe books, recipe cards, recipes online.  I love recipes.  I saw a wreath on pinterest that someone had made with old handwritten recipe cards and just had to make my own. 

I used some old scraps of shelf paper that had used in my hoosier cabinet years ago to create the middle of the wreath.  I folded several sections of paper accordian style and then used a needle and thread to sew the sections together in the middle.

I used a medium sized flat wreath that I had purchased at Michael's.  Note:  I never buy anything at Michael's or JoAnn's without using 40% or 50% off coupons that can be scanned straight off my phone app.  I love that!  I don't have to worry about cutting out coupons and carrying in my purse.

I used a glue gun to glue the vintage, handwritten recipe cards that I found on Etsy to the edge of the wreath.  Then I glued the shelf paper piece to the middle of the wreath.  Lastly I placed a vintage hand crocheted potholder in the very center of the shelf paper.

I couldn't stop with just one.  I made one for my friend Sandra too.

Hand Crocheted Lace Lamp Shade

I found an old lampshade shell at my favorite junk store in town a couple weeks ago.  I came home and placed it on a lamp stand in the living room.  My daughter, Katie asked "what is that?" with some indignation.  I told her it was a lampshade, with a smile on my face.  She should know by now that the odd things that I buy always have a future purpose.  I may not know for sure what that purpose is yet, but I have confidence in the end result.

So I started digging through several boxes of old lace scraps that I had collected and found another "future purpose" item I had bought in the past.  I found a roll of ecru, hand crocheted lace that would look just perfect on that lampshade.  As I held it in my hands I couldn't help but wonder about the person who had spent countless hours crocheting something so lovely. 

With a hot glue gun in hand, I proceeded to wrap the lace around the lampshade while gluing at key points on the shade.  I really liked the way it turned out.

Corpus Christi Caller Times Sunday Homes

Nine months after beginning work on the remodel, pictures of my house appeared in the Corpus Christi Caller Times Sunday Homes section.  A photographer came out to the house a couple weeks before the Father's Day edition to take pictures.  He emailed a questionnaire filled with questions about the house.  When I got finished answering the questions it sounded more like an advertisement or a blog.  I couldn't help wanting to give everyone credit for helping me with such a big project.

Fall 2011

 

In the Fall of 2011 I retired from education and returned home to Corpus Christi to renovate the house I had rented for the last ten years. 

The house was originally built in 1940 and still had a lot of the original infrastructure.  The original clay pipe had to be replaced with new pipe from inside the house to the alley.  New electrical lines and a new electrical box had to be installed to replace old wiring. The original hardwood floors were refinished and repaired.  The house had to be leveled.  The roof was over twenty five years old and no longer met Windstorm Insurance requirements.   With South Texas had suffered a severe drought for several years and the yard was in sad shape. I removed all the dead foliage and trees, installed new flower beds in the front and started watering the grass in the front yard hoping for a miracle.

The entire house needed a paint job inside and out.  I used colors from Sherwin Williams Gentle Medley Collection for the inside of the house.  I painted the outside Lantern Yellow.
 

I painted the dining room Sherwin Williams Chivalry Copper.  I used a mixture of Farmhouse Chic, French Farmhouse and Vintage Mexican.  I hung stained glass windows in every window in the front of the house. 

The living room paint was called "Whole Wheat".  That room was done with a mixture of primitive furniture and old ranch style decor.  It definitely shows my eclectic taste.

I got my love of roses from my grandmother.  My entire bedroom is filled with a mixture of different collections including old sewing notions, lace, buttons, and old pictures.

Grandma's House

When my Mom died in 2005, she left me my Grandma's farmhouse in San Benito, Texas.  That summer my Grandma and I spent a lot of time together through the death of her husband Newt in July of 2005 and until her death in August of 2008.  During that time, I wrote her story and published it in a the picture book above on mpix.com.   

When Newt died I remember her saying something that was extremely meaningful for people my age (50).  She said, "Those forty years with Newt were the best years of my life!".  Really Grandma, I said, how old were you when you met him?  And she answered, I was fifty years old.  I remember thinking that it really put life into perspective! I wrote Grandma's story in her words.   

 

Here is the beginning of it. . . . . .I was born Mary Irene Guthrie on September 11, 1915 in Rockdale, Texas. My daddy always wanted me to take up music. He started me out singing and he would play the guitar. My cousin Dolie always told people at her beauty shop about Mary entertaining them when we were little. My daddy always thought that I was gonna be a movie star or somethin. Anyway the Guthries were quite musical and they would go to square dancin. Grandpa Jones would call me his big eyed turkey. I had convulsions and my eyes crossed when I was little. I was slightly paralyzed on one side. Momma tied my arm on one side to make me use my bad one. My Daddy had big eyes too. I had weak eyes like my Momma. Grandpa Jones died young. Down in the swamps he got some kind of fever. He got it after going fishing down in the swamps. It was yellow fever. 

We lived down below the Black Jack Cemetery. That cemetery is 12 miles NW of Caldwell on SH 21 W then FM 908 NW. Black Jack Baptist Church is on CR 301, 0.1 miles E. of FM 908. I’d walk up to Grandma’s house past a black oak tree. I remember my mother sunning our mattresses and a big old black snake coming up and waggin its tail. Momma and Aunt Evie (Dolie’s mom) would go out and pick blackberries.  They put a pallet down and put us down on it.  Grandpa Guthrie had a dog named Keiser.  That old dog watched the kids.  They came back from pickin their blackberries and Keiser had killed a rattlesnake.  It was timber country.   I went on to do a lot of research on Grandma's family and found information on the internet that she and Newt had driven hundreds of miles searching for.   I wish she was still alive so that I could share it with her.