A NEW PROJECT AND A LITTLE DILIGENCE

Over the past few weeks I have been feeling really bad about my lack of photo organization as well as being diligent to capture the girls and our family often enough. I am always looking through the lens at home decor, but I don't look often enough at my children and the precious years that are slipping through my fingers so quickly.

Diligence...this is a word that the Lord has been speaking into my spirit lately AND loudly. So loudly in fact that I have been looking up verses on diligence, recording them in a journal and mediating on them as often as I can. You will most likely hear more about this in the coming days but for now, I am working on diligence in chronicling my family's everyday life and getting them in some sort of album as well as on disk.

My friend Heather Durham who is an AMAZING photographer, and I really mean amazing, started this year, a project she calls the 365 project. She is trying to capture at least a picture a day of her family, as she documents their everyday lives. Brilliant. I have been so impressed watching her do this over the past couple of days that I decided to do it myself. I am saving each image on my hard drive as well as uploading them to my photo storage place online, SMUG MUG. This is where I store all of my decor photos as well as family photos and I use their lab to process my prints as well. I have been really happy with the quality thus far.

With diligence, I am going to try my best to capture something each day and maybe, just maybe, my photography skills might be sharpened in the process. If you are in the same rut I am, I challenge you to join me in this project. At the end of the year we will have so much to show for it!!

My 365 project from Friday.............
( still in edit mode for today's)

Baby girl was helping me paint in the garage. Actually, she was just keeping me company. I was taking some pictures of a chest of drawers and she wanted to be in the lens too! This is what I captured.

Proverbs 13:4

The soul of the sluggard craves and gets nothing, while the soul of the diligent is richly supplied.

RED BALLOON SALE AND HOMEWOOD PHOTOS

Today we headed out on this beautiful day to enjoy the crazy spring in January weather and to stop and see our friends at Homewood Antiques and Marketplace. This was my first balloon sale to participate in, and in hind sight, I sure wish that I had my booth full....The place was hoppin'! I brought my camera along to snap a few pictures of some of the booths for you to see.....excluding mine. I know, I am horrible!! It's still not worthy of being seen quite yet;) I'm getting there, I promise...... 

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I just had time for a few quick snaps....my girls were waiting on me outside to go to the creamery for some ice cream!!!

The sale ends tomorrow so if you get a chance, come on over and check out the deals!

RESTORED IT WEDNESDAY

Welcome to Restored It Wednesday! Thank you for all of the prayers for my city.....The weather was beautiful here today giving crews and families a great weather day to start digging through their rubble. Their road has just begun and it will be a hard one so please continue to pray.

Last week my heart was MELTED by this sweet little Picasso who painted a picture of his family. Katie Goldsworthy at Creatively Living shared how her son added to their family gallery wall using a 4.00 Good Will painting.

This priceless piece of art went from this.........................................






To this..........................................................................





To THIS!!!!!




What a fantastic way to get your children involved in the decorating all while making them feel special and appreciated. Thanks Katie! I am SO doing this!

So what have you been up to today? Inspire me I can't wait! Grab a button and link up something that you have made look better than it did before. Have fun!

TIRED EYES AND A SAD HEART

UPDATE- ALABAMA DISASTER RELIEF IS DONATING 25.00 TO THE CHRISTIAN SERVICE MISSION FOR EVERY BLOG POST WRITTEN  ABOUT OUR RECENT TORNADOES! THANK YOU FOR GIVING US BLOGGERS AN OPPORTUNITY TO DO SOMETHING FOR OUR STATE. IF YOU WANT TO BLOG AS WELL YOU CAN FIND THE LINK HERE FOR DIRECTIONS.

It is around 3:45PM and my eyes are stinging I am SO sleepy. I didn't sleep well. My mind was spinning out of control worrying about the approaching bad weather. I trust that the Lord has us in His hands but my flesh has a way of getting the best of me sometimes. I spent all day yesterday cleaning up in the basement making sure we had a safe and secure spot to flee too.  I knew it wasn't like the April  27th storms but when a PDS is issued now, after what we went through last spring, they have my complete attention! I gathered bike helmets, found a solid cherry dining table I was working on in the basement and made a little area for my kiddos underneath the table to ride out the storm. At 3:00 AM we were startled by the sirens and nervously scurried down the stairs to turn on James Spann and see where the storm was.  I was relieved to know it wasn't my neighborhood, but my friends and family 20 minutes north of me were bracing for another monster tornado, an EF3 that was on the ground, shredding everything in it's angry path. About a half a mile away from my family's furniture store, Barnette Furniture Direct, neighborhoods were leveled and lives were lost. The damage is horrific.  My heart goes out to all of you who are dealing with loss today. I am praying for God's supernatural peace to cover you and your family.  I am amazed at the severity of these storms and their frequency. I don't remember this AT ALL growing up here as a child. If this is any indication of what spring is going to be like, I am not ready.

I had plans to show you 1 of 3 projects I have going on downstairs. All three are furniture transformations, but I just think I am done for the day and I am about out of light to photograph anything. I will save them for another day. Please remember these families in your prayers. I know of one 16 year old girl who was killed as well as several others. The link to the Father's heartbreaking account of this event is here.

This is one picture from AL.COM. If you are interested in seeing any other ones, you can follow this link to a slide show........ SLIDE SHOW OF TORNADO DAMAGE.
Below this picture is also a video.

If you have trouble viewing the video here is the direct LINK.

MASTER BEDROOM DRESSER

A few days ago I started painting the dresser that we have had forEVER. It was a piece of junk when I bought it.... not all wood, you know....the kind I tell y'all not to pick up and paint. I have no money in the budget for new furniture now, especially after buying the gray chair that I couldn't pass up. I thought if I painted it, I would like it better, but UH UH.....didn't like it one bit. It's still broken, the drawers don't shut right and after the third coat, I just gave up. I had hubs help me move it into the kitchen until I could call Good Will. But of course, it sat there for a while and let me stare at it, telling me what to do to the poor thing to make it better. It was almost saying..."Please, Please, give me another chance! I can be something, I promise." UGH...why does furniture have to talk to me like that!? Y'all don't commit me, I promise I'm not crazy. Well...maybe a little in my own way. Anyhow, I brought my mom over to take a look at it and I do believe I am going to strip the drawers out and put shelves in the bottom. This will have to be a weekend project for my dad and I because I am no good with the table saw.
All of this to SAY.......................

I put something different in it's spot, and I LOVE it. Remember the blue chest I painted with the graphite top? It's been in my kitchen. It was a keeper for me, but I kind of thought it would play musical furniture until it found it's rightful home. It's the perfect size for my room and looks lovely with the colors I am using. I am still working on the rest of the room but this little baby is complete.

I am definitely going for a collected look in here. I love modern furnishings mixed with antiques and collected pieces. I thought of a new ways to display my ironstone collection by using it to store my jewelry and scarves. The new dresser doesn't have as much space in the drawers so I had to think outside the box.

I love having the scarves I wear the most often sitting pretty in my tureen.

You can see my little southern flair through the mirror. Nothing says southern like a good monogram.

If I can sell some furniture over the next month I may have some curtains and a rug soon. That is next on the agenda!

RESTORED IT WEDNESDAY

Well, my goodness. Time has FLOWN by this week. I feel like we were just here! Welcome to Restored It Wednesday, a place where you can link up your projects and find some inspiration too!

I cannot help but feature this piece by Freddie and Petunia this week. It obviously has some serious sweat equity involved.


This used to be just your run of the mill lingerie chest.
The drawers were removed, doors were made AND she ended up having to HAND PAINT the graphics on the front. This little girl has had a glorious transformation. Pop on over to her blog and find out the ins and outs of how she pulled this off. Great job miss Catherine! It is incredible!!

So what have you been up to this week? Please grab a button for you post and then link up a project that you have made look better than it did before. Have fun!

Oh....I also blogged about vintage bottles over at Homewood Antiques and Marketplace. I am blogging for their shop and would love for you to come on over and follow me there too! Thanks!

DISPLAY IDEAS

Market in one day is IMPOSSIBLE. We had a blast and I was there from open to close, but didn't scratch the surface of seeing what I needed to see! 

One of my main reason for going was to get ideas for display. I thought I would share with you some of the pictures that I snapped for myself. I hope you can draw some inspiration from them too!