(Great) Grandma's Furniture

This post has been a LOOOONG time in the making!

 

After my grandmother passed away earlier this year my dad asked me if i wanted her vanity. I screamed YES before he could even finish his sentence. I was so thrilled to be able to get to have a little something that was special to her. Come to find out is was more special than I could have ever imagined! Turns out her chest of drawers and vanity were a matching set so I was going to get BOTH of them!!! When we got the furniture back here I made the decision to have someone restore the pieces. My dad found a guy who has a business out of his house and thats who we chose, and I am so glad we did. He did such an amazing job! Here are the pictures that were taken before any work was done.

Originally we were going to have the pieces stripped and restained. But after thinking about it, I decided I wanted them to look as natural as possible. So I asked the man doing the work for us if we could see them after they were stripped to make up our mind. Here they are after stripping

I chose to just have them clear coated and to let the natural mahogany shine. I am so thankful I did because they turned out magnificent!  The man told me that when he took the backing of the mirror off to remove the glass he found a date. Turns out these were made in July 1937. My grandparents were married JULY 1937 and these were most likely a wedding gift or purchased by them after their marriage. When I learned this my knees almost buckled (and Im getting goose bumps right now just typing about it) How lucky am I to be able to have pieces of furniture that were obviously super special in the life of the woman I admire most! And this marks the 2nd set of furniture I own from my grandparents. I've had my maternal grandmothers' bedroom suite for like 15 years now, and it too holds a special place in my heart!
Here are the pieces as soon as we got them into Kaylee's room. We werent allowed to put the hardware back on for 5 days so that the sealer stuff could harden and set properly.

Here is the chest of drawers completely finished with the hardware.

And the vanity

I am still so happy everytime I think about the fact that I am lucky enough to own both sets of grandparents' furniture. And they are both remarkably beautiful sets!

Kaylee's New Room

We I finally moved Kaylee up into her new room!
I removed all the office "stuff", and cleaned it out
I paint it
repaired parts of the wall thanks dad
I drug the bed rails out from the back of the tiny attic crawl space and set them up just to realize they dont go down to a full size. So i asked my mom if we could trade rails. She had a set just collecting dust in her attic.
I set up the new rails
Put the foundation together, its my old select comfort bed, so it is a solid foundation made of plastic, not a box spring
I fixed the zipper on the cover of the mattress, which included ripping it apart and resewing it, after watching a YouTube video......YouTube is awesome for stuff like that!
put the mattress together and inflated it
washed all her linens
hung the curtains my mom made for her
and am almost finished with her desk....so far i have painted 3 coats of white on the desk, and 3 coats of purple on the drawers, my mom has decorated it ever so awesomely with a quote and some flowers.........see pics below, I have put 3 coats of shellac on it to seal/protect it. And when doing a 4th and final coat on the top surface I accidentally grabbed the wrong paint brush and ruined it! UGH! Now there are little specs in the top coat of shellac because of lint/dust/paint residue from the darn paint brush! Oh well it is definitely a one of a kind piece, and I know Kaylee will just adore it!

Here she is coming into her room for the first time when I told her she was going to sleep in it.

She was so excited. Even though she has no furniture**, the desk isnt completed, and there are no decorations are not on the wall, she LOVED it anyways!

She walked around looking at everything. This is her beloved "fishy light" Amma gave her for her birthday. It is a source of power when it comes to naps and bedtime. If she doesnt do as she is told she gets her fishy light turned off. Which is a huge deal to her!

Climbing into bed for her first nights sleep

All tucked in

The first night went surprisingly well. The second night not so much......

 

This was the end of a nearly 2 hour fit she threw. i didnt catch the good stuff on camera. Since this night she has slept much better in her new room, but man that fit was C.R.A.Z.Y!!!

Now if Ainslee's bed would just arrive and then I can get her moved into her room and Brynlee in her crib. Brynlee is now spending her nights and naps in the bassinet in Kaylee's old room. We have gone 2 nights now with her out of my room. I have to ask, why are transitions always harder on the parents than the child? Part of me wants her back next to me, and part of me is thrilled to pieces that I have my room back. She is growing SO fast, but anyone with children knows thats the way the cookie crumbles!

notice the highlights on the word Imagination

**Kaylee is getting my grandmother's furniture. It is still at the furniture repairman getting a make over. More on that in another post.

Minnie Mouse Pinata

I had the brilliant idea of making a pinata for Ainslee's birthday. We were unable to break it at her party, considering we were a Claire's getting her ears pierced and then a restaurant, i doubt either of those establishments would have appreciated us breaking a pinata. So I attempted (obviously not very well) to schedule a time for everyone to be in attendance for the big event! After 2 1/2 months I decided to just go ahead and get it done, I was so sad that Marcus, my mom, and Mary were not able to be there to witness it.

I didnt get many shots of Minnie in the making.......it was quite a messy project

I have to admit she turned out rather nice

2 1/2 months later........we finally busted her!

My little Minnie Mouse

After breaking this pinata the girls said "now we want to make a Daisy pinata!" I think my pinata making days are over, at least for a few months

Easter Activities

I know it has been FOR.EVVVV.ER since my last post, I apologize to the 3 of you that actually read this blog of mine. I am going to go ahead and warn you I have a LOT of catching up to do, so the next few posts are going to be very picture heavy.

Here are some of the Easter/Spring projects that we have been doing, no that we DID about a month ago!

Shaving cream eggs - the materials

the process



The finished product

these turned out so super nice! we had a great time doing this activity

The aftermath

I striped them down, gave them a pile of shaving cream, a few "tools", and let them go to town. This actually kept them occupied for over 30 minutes! You should try this at home, it was amazing!

Rice Krispy Pops

disclaimer: Ive never made these, cake pops, or anything even remotely similar to these things. And this turned out to be WAY more time consuming than I anticipated. But man was it worth every second, and the fact that we had extra hands to help was crucial to the process!

The girls helped me make the rice krispy treats. Then we lathered up with butter and formed the eggs. Then we put them in the frig to harden over night. It took every last ounce of self control NOT to eat those suckers! 

After they cooled, we dipped the wooden skewers into chocolate then poked one into each egg. After the chocolate hardened then we were able to decorate each one.



While we were attempting to "decorate" Bethany had to eat one that was falling off the stick. She tried to hide it from the girls, since we told them they had to wait until Easter to eat theirs. But nothing slipped by my girls.

I would say she enjoyed every bite!

Here was her pride and joy.

Needless to say the girls didnt do much decorating. They DID a WHOLE LOT OF EATING though! I swear my girls were on a sugar high the rest of the night! And i was cleaning up sprinkles off my floor for weeks despite all the sweeping, vacuuming and mopping!

We attempted some bunnies, it was quite amusing to see how they turned out

Mary called this one a chick



We also made Jolly Rancher cross pops and flower pops

Here is the baskets ready for Easter

Oil Pastel Rub

first we colored the edges of the cross

 

Then we taped the cross to a blank piece of paper and rubbed the oil pastel off the edge of the cross onto the blank paper

 

Then we water colored the sky and grass

Bunny hiding in the grass

Eggs decorated with white crayons then painted with water colors

naturally the crayons repel the water colors and leave a nicely decorated egg

Easter at my parents house

The girls and their loot

Shaved/Melted crayon dyed eggs

Easter Morning Breakfast

All my Easter Bunnies

littlest

the big ones



 

 We had a spectacular Easter! And hope you all did too!