For the love of elbow grease

This past spring, my husband and I highjacked our family's traditional Easter celebrations at the family farm to announce that we were pregnant.  It was a blast as we handed my parents a 2 foot nesting egg style Easter egg that had a sonogram in the final piece.  After a moment of surprise and confusion, everyone was in on it and it was wonderful to celebrate together.  I knew immediately that I wanted to ask my aunt if we could use her old crib, and all the girls were gracious enough to approve.

Luckily, my aunt also knew exactly where the old crib was and it wasn't buried too badly in one of the old storage sheds.  We hauled it back to Austin and there it has sat, in the corner of our bedroom, for the past 4 months...waiting to be lovingly brought back to life.  It's a beautiful Bassett crib made from Walnut and it has survived her 6 growing girls...but not without some scars.  It was looking a little rough, so she told me I was welcome to paint it but there's absolutely no way I could bring myself to completely destroy the years of character it had worked so hard for.

 Looks like some babies had a taste for walnut.

Since we finally decided to put the baby in her own nursery, got the room painted last weekend, it was time to start getting the crib ready.  I started researching my options for restoring it.  Sanding it down seemed just as destructive as painting and honestly too work intensive with all those little rails.  I wanted to keep some of those old scars, but just polish her up a bit.  I was walking around the hardware store looking for options when I stumbled upon a miracle pair!

This stuff worked wonders!!! First, I had to wash the crib down really well, get all the dust and cobwebs off (this took several wipe downs).  Then I started working in the Restor-a-finish and watched the dings, gouges, and scuff marks dissapear.  It wasn't quite as simple as just wiping the stuff on - I used the recommended Grade 0000 steel wool and had to really work the finish in  to the roughest spots and really scrub scrub scrub some old paint scuffs.  Just look at the before and after.

Before.

After.
After I worked the finish restorer all over the crib, in between every rung and my arms were jello...I had to clean it all again.  There was some excess oil in places and some steel wool grime, so I wiped the whole thing down several more times with damp cloths.  I wanted this sucker to be grime-free since grime and baby drool do not mix well.  For the final step I added the wax all over, wiped off the excess and we're back in action!  I am thrilled with the way the whole thing turned out - shiny, polished, but still well-loved.

Now we can start nesting into the room a little bit more.  I reclaimed the bookshelf for baby and we're re-finishing some shelves, a freebie glider, among other projects.  I really like using thrift store and hand-me-down finds because a) it's cost effective, b) it's eco-friendly, and c) it creates a room that is so much more interesting than a catalog.  I will keep you up to date as these other projects begin to fill the room with life!

The beginning of the end

Life has been busy the last couple weeks, but school work is finally done which means I have a little more time to do what I love (at least without so much guilt).  One of the things I'm spending most my time with is a sewing project.  I am only beginning to learn to sew, so I can't sew clothes, but I can cut and sew straight lines.  That happens to work pretty well with the art of quilting.  Personally, I think it's a great intro to sewing.  I've learned from the lovely ladies in the quilting group at church and I think I can say that any experienced quilter is happy to share their knowledge with us young'ns.  Last Winter/Spring I sewed my first easy star quilt for a friend and her baby.

The quilting ladies give me a hard time about being a perfectionist because I probably spent more time with the seam ripper than the sewing machine on this one, but I was happy with the way it turned out.  Now, I'm speedily working on my next project.  It's a sampler quilt with a few special applique blocks.  What makes it special is that I'm making it for the Lutherhill Gala which is coming up right around the corner so I really need to get movin.  I've gotten several blocks done so far.

It's exciting to see that I've actually learned things, my points are matching up and the blocks are laying flat.  It's a quilting break through!  Now I've got 4 weeks to take them from blocks to an actual finished quilt.  Wish me luck!

The other thing I've been spending some time on......

loading up the trailer with antiques, treasures, and various finds.  These came from an antique store going out of business and I just couldn't resist.  Obviously, I do not need 3 French church pews or a drying rack, but I knew others would find them as beautiful as I do.

They're curvaceous, and worn, and have an irresistible patina.  So....I called up my aunt - a mutual lover of crazy ideas, my co-pilot in junky crime....and the plans are in the works for us to have a booth at the infamous Warrenton Antique Fair!  I have been treasure hunting at this mother-of-all-shows twice a year since I can remember.  Our family farm is just 5 minutes down the road, so I guess I have a whole barn to fill up with everything I can find, repurpose, and create between now and then.  This has started me down a downward spiral of thrifting, estate sale-ing, and picking a la American Pickers, Picker Sisters, Dirty Money, etc.  I love the idea of discovering a jewel of junk, giving it new life, and showing it off/selling it to someone else who finds beauty in the unique and unusual.  Stay tuned to see what else I find and save the date to come see the end results!