The thing with lots of museums these days is that you can take photos, as long as you don’t use a flash. That’s a big change from years past, where cameras were often not allowed inside. I had more fun watching Maddie see works by the artists she learned about over the last year than I did actually viewing the art. Don’t get me wrong, the art was extraordinary and the volume of famous artists and their work was incredible. Because it’s here, in the middle of the country where we aren’t known for our fabulous art museums, I wasn’t expecting this museum to be as great as it was. It is a world class facility, as good (or better than) any museum I’ve visited in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Washington DC, Chicago or Boston.

I highly recommend visiting Crystal Bridges.

I told you before that I loved seeing Maddie light up when she recognized another famous artist or their work. Well, the best part of the trip wasn’t even inside the museum. It was outside in the courtyard area, where, for that day, they had a table with bags of chalk that you could use to create your own art on the sidewalk. Maddie decided to grab a bag of chalk and draw something. There were kids and adults, both, adding color to the concrete. Maddie started drawing and got into that zone where she wasn’t paying attention to anything other than her drawing. Then something unexpected happened: people starting watching her, like she was some kind of street artist or something. At one point there were probably 10 people standing at the top of the steps where she was working, looking down while she drew. They were taking photos and shooting video. She didn’t even realize it until I showed her my photos later. It was super cool. Here’s the courtyard, with the red Keith Haring art, and the photos I took while Maddie was creating. It was one of those times when it felt like I was fully living in the moment, and appreciating everything beautiful and amazing about this experience. To have this special day with Maddie, to watch her stand in awe before some of the great American artists’ work, to see her curiosity piqued when she learned new facts from the docents, and then to see her go out and create her own art was…I don’t think I can choose one word here. It was amazing, incredible, golden, wonderful, glorious, brilliant, and gratifying.

Linking up to some of these fabulous parties:

Whipperberry
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More than 500,000 consumers have used Gazelle to sell nearly one million gadgets. That number includes my family. Visit Gazelle today, and see what your items are worth!

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Full of glitz, glamour, ornate details, and a true style all its own – what girl wouldn’t want “The Great Gatsby” look? Whether you are looking to enjoy a casual Gatsby themed garden party or don your most glamorous look at a fabulous cocktail evening, there are plenty of ways with ModCloth to add a flapper-esque flair to any look this spring/summer.

• Details, details, details. Epaulets, pearls, rhinestones, and sequins were highly used during this time period to add glitz to an evening outfit.
• Slender silhouettes. While you could still see a full skirt, long hemline, and high neck, the robe de style dress featuring a drop waist and straight cut was the most popular style.
• Haute headpieces. To top off the entire look, add a whimsical & decadent headpiece from ModCloth. You can even DIY a fabulous headband with ribbon, feathers, and gemstones!

I’ve told you before how I get into movies or television series, then feel the need to dress the part. {Most recently it was the Winnie Cooper headband look and the Audrey Hepburn bun that I shared here.} I’m pretty sure that’s going to happen with this movie, too. In my hunt for the perfect 1920s inspired outfit, so far this dress and these shoes are my favorites.

Will you be needing some 1920s styled clothes, too?

For more tips & tricks to achieve the perfect flapper-esque look, you can visit the ModStylists here: ModCloth ModStylists Will Style You Up!. The ModStylists can put together a look-book specifically for you!

1920′s Great Gatsby Fashion at ModCloth

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l saw these cute graduation caps over at Lil’ Luna. {Of course I pinned them to my Pinterest board}. With my daughter graduating from high school, I decided to use Kristyn’s idea, but use different ingredients because I was in a bit of a time crunch. Instead of mini muffins, I used mini Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. For the mortar boards I used chocolate graham crackers. For the tassels I used Twizzlers. To glue everything together I used frosting. I cut the Twizzlers at the end to make them look like tassels. Red M&Ms were used for the tops.

They turned out looking a lot like Kristyn’s.

I put them on upside down bowls {I called them pedestals} and decorated the table with them. They looked cute and were pretty tasty.

Linking up to some of these fabulous parties:

Whipperberry
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I like the orange suits best. The orange and navy blue two piece is my absolute favorite. Here is the closest thing I could find in modern swimwear from ModCloth:

Fruity Suity Two Piece from ModCloth
from: ModCloth

Which one is your favorite?

Linking up to some of these fabulous parties:

Whipperberry
Poor and Gluten Free

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Lately I’ve felt like painting furniture using chalk paint. This is the most recent victim: it’s an upcycled armoire that used to house our old television and the Wii. It was a project that I was very excited about getting done, but one that didn’t turn out the way I hoped it would. Here is what the piece looked like. I had to use a flash for these before pictures, but it didn’t really look that brown, it looked more black. We hadn’t opened this cupboard more than a couple of times during the past year, probably just to replace the Christmas tree light bulbs when they burned out. Clearly I haven’t opened it since Christmas, because I would have moved the light bulbs to the Christmas box. Anyway, I decided we didn’t need this in our living room and that it could be repurposed into a craft cupboard. I have been wanting to organize and shrink my craft footprint in this house, and prepare for a future {in the next 1-10 years} in a smaller space. This seemed like the perfect piece of furniture to make it happen.

I started by taking off all the hardware and labeling it in ziploc bags. I am the kind of person who might end up with extra parts if I didn’t do this.

Next I painted the armoire with a couple coats of homemade green chalk paint {one cup of flat green latex paint, 2 tablespoons of unsanded grout, and water as needed}. A few places got three coats.

Once the paint was dry I distressed to armoire with sandpaper to let some of the blackish brown show through from the old color. Then I gave it a coat of Minwax Paste Finishing Wax and buffed it out with an orbital sander.

Once I put it all back together {which may or may not have taken as long as painting the thing}, I moved it from the garage into the house. I’m pretty sure I was the neighborhood spectacle because this thing is heavy and I was home alone at the time, but I was really excited to get it inside to start organizing, so I rolled the front of it on a skateboard up our front walk. One of the doors fell off during the process, it tried to tip over a few times, it got hung up on our front bushes, the skateboard rolled into the planter a few times and I may have said a couple of inappropriate words. Luckily, I was going for the distressed look. After finally jostling it on its feet enough to get it through the front door I came to a very sad realization: I couldn’t get it around the corner or over banister in order to get it up the stairs to the craft room. After all that work it didn’t look like I would even be able to use it for its intended repurpose. I was crushed. I walked away from it for the rest of the day. When my husband and son got home they tried to lift it up over the banister and it was too heavy. They scraped the wall, scraped the banister, and scraped the armoire in the attempt. Good thing I was going for the distressed look, but only on the armoire, not on the house! My poor husband and son broke a sweat trying to make it work, but with no luck. So, here is the pretty green armoire, sitting in the same place it’s always been.

It was going to look so cute with the chair that I posted about yesterday. On the top I was going to display these family sewing boxes from my mother, grandmother, and great grandmother.

I’m resigned to keeping the this in the living room now. I guess it was fortuitous that when I chose the paint color, the sample I used was the inside of our jukebox. I downloaded an app on my phone, took a photo of the inside of the jukebox, then got color suggestions from the app.

So now, while I don’t have a craft cupboard, the armoire looks better and it matches our living room. Here’s what the armoire is facing:

Now that it’s cleaned out of the prior contents, I’m not sure what we will keep in there. Probably nothing for a while.

Linking up to some of these fabulous parties:

Whipperberry
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This chair is known fondly at our house as Old Straightback. I bought it from a friend at her yard sale many years ago. Since then it has been sitting in the dining room as additional seating, and is only used when we have lots of people over for a sit down dinner. It had a cushion on it, so I didn’t realize that the seat was breaking underneath the cushion until I picked it up over the weekend. It was just dry and brittle, and just touching it made more breaks. I had seen a fabric woven chair seat recently online and I thought I pinned it, because it was just my style. But alas, when I went to search my Pinterest boards, it wasn’t there. I googled it, too, and found nothing. If you know where I saw this idea, let me know in the comments because I’d love to give credit where credit is due! Here’s what I started with:

The first thing I did was remove the old weaving that formed the seat. It was so brittle that I didn’t take much effort. I’m lucky someone didn’t try to sit on it in that state!

Once that was done, I used homemade chalk paint {2 tablespoons unsanded grout, one cup of flat latex paint, plus water as needed} to paint the chair.

I distressed it, then gave it a coat of paste finishing wax. Picking out fabric scraps was the next step. I wanted an eclectic look, and I wanted to use up things I already had around here, so it worked out perfectly.

Next I ripped the fabric in strips. My strips were roughly three inches wide, but I completely eyeballed it, so they are not all exactly the same width. For the length, I just made sure that the strips were long enough to go from one side to the other on the chair, leaving enough room for some of the fabric to hang over the side.

To start the weaving, I tied two strips together {both strips were the same fabric} on one end, then placed it on the chair with one piece of fabric going above the wood, and one going below. See the pictures for more detail. I tied it on the other side. Then I did the same thing with alternating fabrics.

I covered the whole seat going across. For the actual weaving, I tied a couple of strips together just like I did for the first part, put the knot at the back of the seat and layered one strip above the wood dowel and one below. Then I brought the strips together and wove them over and under the strips that were already on the chair going across. Once I got to the front of the chair I left the ends hanging there.

If you try this, remember to alternate every other strip with over and under, so if one strip starts by going over, the strip next to it should start by going under.

Once all the weaving was done, I was able to adjust and scrunch things around to make it a little more even. Then I tied the front pieces in knots, just like the other fabric ends.

To finish it off, I trimmed the ends of the fabric to be a little more even. The last thing to do was sit in it, and guess what? It worked! I think I’ll use this in the craft/art room. If we need extra seating in the dining room, I’ll just bring Old Straightback down again. The one thing I wish I had done was paint the seat frame. When I painted the chair, I was thinking that the wood dowels around the seat would be covered by fabric, but as you can see, they are not completely covered. I like it enough that I’m going to leave it as is, but if I had it to do over, I would paint all of it. Darn shortcuts!

Linking up to some of these fabulous parties:

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Brian made this for dinner last weekend. My, oh my, was it good! It’s a recipe that he makes a little differently each time. It started out as the recipe from the Better Homes and Gardens New Cookbook, but has changed so much over the years that it’s completely different now. One of the great things about this recipe {and all soups} is that it’s a good way to use up leftovers, like chicken, sausage, seafood and veggies. We use as many fresh ingredients as we can find, but using canned or frozen works as well. We do the same with the spices. If we have fresh, we use fresh. If we don’t, we use dried spices. Brian came across some craw fish at the market, so he threw that in this time. This made a HUGE batch, so if you don’t love leftover gumbo for days, you should cut the recipe in half. I personally love leftovers because it means I don’t have to make/figure out what’s for dinner. With all the different veggies, meat and seafood, I think this has a good variety of micronutrients to help keep you healthy.

Ingredients:
2 tablespoon olive oil {or butter or bacon grease}
2 tablespoons butter {or olive oil or bacon grease}
1 large onion chopped
6 cloves chopped garlic
3 tablespoons almond flour
1 tablespoons coconut flour
4 strips bacon, cut into 1/4-inch strips or so, coated with 2 teaspoons olive oil {to prevent sticking}
1 can (28oz) diced tomatoes
1 chopped red bell pepper
1 cup chopped celery
4 carrots chopped
1 cup chopped Italian parsley
12 cups chicken broth
1 pound chopped okra (fresh or frozen)
2 sweet Italian sausages
1 chicken breast (1/2 of a whole chicken breast? There’s two, but I use one)
1 can whole oysters
1 can whole baby clams
2 cans chopped clams
1 can crab meat
1 pound shrimp, uncooked
8 ounces craw fish
salt & pepper to taste
Italian seasoning to taste
4 bay leaves
1 tablespoon oregano
1 tablespoon thyme

Directions:
In a large soup pot cook bacon until fatty parts start to crisp then add, onion, celery, red pepper and garlic until the mixture is tender. Set aside. In the same pot prepare the almond flour and coconut flour in 2 tablespoons of butter and stir constantly until flour is a light brown. Add the veggie/bacon mixture you already cooked back into the pot, coating and cooking for another minute or so. While preparing the vegetables, brown the sausage in a cast iron skillet with 1 tablespoon olive oil. Cut into discs or half discs and set aside. Season the chicken with salt, pepper and Italian seasoning, and brown in the cast iron skillet with 1 tablespoon olive oil. Chop the chicken into 1 inch or so squares and set aside. Open all cans of seafood, drain and set aside liquid. Add the seafood liquid, canned tomatoes, broth, carrots, Italian parsley, and spices and bring to a boil. Cover, reduce heat and simmer for 30 minutes. Add the okra, return to a boil and simmer for 5 minutes. Add seafood, chicken and sausage and return to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 5–10 minutes or until the raw shrimp is cooked.

It’s good served over rice, but I eat mine without rice and I don’t miss it at all. We make the rice separately and people who want it put a scoop into their bowl before adding the gumbo on top. I hope you enjoy this!

This is one of those dishes that tastes even better on day two.

Linking up to some of these fabulous parties:

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Vintage maps have been a theme of mine this year. I’ve made coasters, necklaces, and a decorated storage box. I’ve also been on a downsizing kick. Isn’t it perfect timing that about the time we start thinking about downsizing, our kids start needing to upsize? That’s the case with these do it yourself map dining chairs. Our oldest son is in college and moving into a place that has space for a dining table and chairs. We had the survivors from our first set of dining chairs scattered all over our house and garage. They have been painted, broken, fixed, glued, you name it. These chairs have been operating as individuals for the last decade or so, not as a set. Until now. I decided I’d try to clean them up and continue with the map theme, because our son is a huge fan of vintage maps. We have an old table from Ikea we are giving him, too, to go along with these salvaged Ikea chairs.

I am not an experienced furniture refinisher, so this project took me over 40 hours over the course of a week and a half. I spent a lot of time working in the garage, listening to Pandora. Is it a coincidence that lots of the songs reminded me of Andy? I think not. I heard everything from animated Disney of the nineties to Coldplay to Neil Diamond. I’m pretty sure I covered his musical lifetime during my time in the garage. I already had him on my mind while I was working on the project, but it felt like I kept getting these extra reminders with each song.

Here are the chairs I started with. Some had been painted, some had broken spots, and all had paint splatters on them.

This post is about how I did this project. I’m not a pro. This is just what worked for me. If you try it, be sure to follow any directions on the products you use. My first step was to disassemble, sand and glue the chairs back together. I decided to glue them even though they are the kind of chairs that aren’t supposed to need glue because they have been through a lot. We will not be taking these apart again. The wood glue added extra stability that I wanted them to have. I left the seats off for the entire process because I wanted to be able to work with them separately from the chairs. Here’s our garage as a chair hospital:

Once prepped, it was time to paint. I wanted to try chalk paint. I used this recipe for the chalk paint: 1 cup latex paint, 2 tablespoons unsanded grout, and water as needed. I had to keep adding water every now and then because it would get too thick to work well. I painted three coats of paint on the chairs.

After the paint had dried, I distressed the chairs. I had heard that one of the benefits of chalk paint was that it’s easy to distress. It was. Because these chairs were rough to start with, I knew I wanted a distressed look because they were going to look distressed even if I didn’t rough them up more. Once distressed, I gave the chairs a coat of wax and buffed it with an orbital sander.

Next came the map phase. I started with the vintage atlas and looked at the different styles and sizes of maps. I wanted just one sheet of paper for the seats, with no seams. My atlas pages were too small for this, so to make it work, I scanned the pages I wanted to use, then had my incredibly kind and talented husband do a little photo shop work to combine them in the places where the continents were split to two pages. So, I ended up turning eight pages into four pages. When it came time to see how the maps I chose would look on the chairs, we scanned the chair seat and made a template to test different looks on the computer. It ended up that I liked having a lot of ocean showing, so I used only two of the four images we created. I didn’t split them exactly in half, so it was nice to have the photoshop work done so I could choose whatever size I liked best for the images. I had the images printed from a wide format inkjet printer. It was really nice because Brian had sized them so they were a perfect fit for the chair seats. I cut them out with an xacto knife.

To attach the maps to the seats of the chairs, I used Mod Podge. I painted a coat on the seat and then pressed the map down on top. I used a roller to smooth out any bubbles.

Once the maps were stuck on the chairs, I used Mod Podge to coat the tops of the maps. I did four coats, in alternating directions, with each coat drying before the next coat was applied. After the first coat there were a couple of ripples on one of the chairs, so I used my fingers to push them down. It worked perfectly.

Mod Podge leaves ridges, and this project was no different. I like the texture. You can sort of see it in this photo.

After the Mod Podge had dried, I used polyurethane to seal the maps even more. I wanted to be sure these chairs could be used around food and drink and still survive. I did four coats, letting each coat dry for several hours before applying the next coat. I alternated between side to side and front to back.

When the seats were completely dry, I used the orbital sander with the buffing pad to dull the finish a little on the polyurethane, since it looks different than the flat finish I was going for with the rest of the chairs. You can tell that the finishes are different, but I think it still looks good and I’m confident that if someone spills a drink on the chair seat, the map won’t peel off. The last step was to screw the seats back on to the chair frames.

Here are the four chairs now:

And here they are with the hand-me-down table, too. I know there is a lot going on in these photos, but it was rainy when I was trying to get the photos so I set them up in the middle of our living room for the photo shoot.

I love how these turned out. If I hadn’t promised them to our son, I would definitely keep them.

Linking up to some of these fabulous parties:

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Silver Pennies

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Luckily, I had a sewing machine and ten minutes of time. I just cut a little strip off the bottom of the dress and hemmed it.

Now the dress feels more like me. Here’s how I wore it a few days ago.

I think there are a thousand more ways to style this versatile dress, so there’s a chance I will be wearing this every other day. One of the things I love about thrifting is that if the fit isn’t perfect, it’s okay to make alterations because even if you mess it up, you didn’t spend a ton of money in the first place. Giving yourself permission to mess up means giving it a try, and every time you give it a try, you learn something new that will help on your next project. Win-win.

Linking up to some of these fabulous parties:

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