Chains and Hidden Axles...

Had a couple of surprises yesterday. Remember when my paints arrived quite awhile ago? Well, I ordered some small chain at the same time and forgot all about it; it arrived yesterday.

Exactly what I wanted too! Sometimes it's hard to tell the size of something online. Rose saw the packaging in the trash and had to know what had arrived. "Oooo, now you can make me a chain belt to hold my key!" she exclaimed. She doesn't ask for much, unlike a certain skeleton who will remain nameless, so I set to work. Two pair of needle-nose pliers, flying jump rings, and standing Rose on her head to get this on her and we were done! Mr. Skellie kept sauntering by to see if he could get a peek at her petticoats, so I had to shoo him away. I told him he'd better watch out for the Captain so he went and hid in his drawer. This is what we ended up with and Rose is very happy with it.

This past Wednesday, I actually was able to shop inside Michael's! It was fun to look around at everything and I found some black artist's medium and some cool grassy stuff, 60% off too.

This makes great lawn around the minion houses but it does kind of shed for awhile. Remember that axle we were going to have to remake? Guess what I saw hiding amongst the colored pencils...

It must have fallen off a while back and I had the foresight to set it aside...then promptly forgot where I put it! LOL!

Mr. Skellie held one end and we set in in place

and set a clamp so it couldn't slide down.

I probably should have put a little bit of superglue with the wood glue, I always forget that until after something is already glued. While that was drying, I repainted the wood stove

and put the first coat on the big screen TV frame.

This artist's medium is not the same as my old stuff, it seems way too shiny to me. Someday when I find that box of old paint, I'll see what brand it is and if I can get more. I tried some spray matte finish on the stove this morning, but it's still a little shiny...I'll just have to say that I have a very fastidious cleaning lady and she likes a nice polished cast iron stove. Thanks for stopping by.

Tablet to TV...

Had a project opportunity pop up on Friday that I just couldn't resist. When I walked into my daughter's house to take my shower, I saw my new son-in-law putting something interesting into the trash. I peeked over his shoulder and asked what he was throwing away. The youngest grandchild had broken his tablet and he was getting rid of it. I claimed the parts and now Mr. Skellie can't wait to see a big screen TV for his drawer. Yeah, I said he had one the other day, but he was telling me a story. So this is what I started with.

I went in the garage to hunt up some cardboard and looked through my wood drawer for some strip wood. Mr. Skellie helped me cut the cardboard for the back

and we started the strip wood for the frame.

Once the first strip was clamped, we worked our way around. Those little multicolored clamps are handy but every time I set the piece down, the clamps would shoot off across the bench.

Mr. Skellie would run after them and we were just having a jolly time trying to keep those things on. I used a piece of railing for the bottom, but it just didn't look finished.

After thinking about it for awhile, I built a base for it and called it done.

While the glue was drying, I was thinking that the Summerhouse  might need a source of heat in case there's a cold snap somewhere while they are out traveling. I had a stove Christmas ornament that I ran across in the garage and thought it would look pretty tough with some rivets. I was so excited about how it was looking that I almost forgot to take a picture before I painted it all!

I wasn't really happy with the first coat of black paint but here it is for now.

I had a bottle of artist's medium that I used on the rest of the Summerhouse and it had a nice finish. So I will be looking for more of that to finish up the stove and the frame for the TV. I want to sand the frame to round the edges a bit, then the painting will begin. Thanks for stopping by and remember the fallen this weekend.

Rainy Day Projects...

Decided to fix the front bumper on the Summerhouse this morning, but before I could even think about it, it got accidentally bumped and the whole thing came unglued. Now there was a chip in it too...Got out the glue and glued the pieces back on

and then found some red paint in my new paint stash that happened to match exactly!

I love when that happens!As it was sitting on one end, I noticed two bare spots on the underside of the house.

After puzzling over that for a little while, it came to me...it's missing an axle! I found a piece of dowel in my wood drawer that is just the right size...

now I just need the Big Guy to drill a hole through the dinette so I can reach the outlet to plug in my chop saw. Since he's an essential guy, he's been at work every day and comes home pretty tired. I'll see if I can hit him up this weekend to drill me some big holes! I didn't feel like painting so pulled out a package of charms I found at Walmart.

I've made earrings out of a lot of these so pulled out my needle nose pliers and made some earrings, repaired some old ones

and put three charms on a bracelet that my daughter gave me awhile back.

One of my granddaughters has been waiting for me to fix a necklace for her too, so also got that done.

I was going to go back and put some wallpaper up in the Summerhouse but the glue on the front bumper wasn't dry yet and I knocked it loose again. Dang! "Just glue it and leave it alone Debra!" That was Mr. Skellie hollering at me from his drawer. Ever since he bought a big screen TV, he doesn't come out for anything and he wants me to stay 6 feet away from him! I told him to quit listening to the news and come out and have some fun. Maybe I'll have to shut off the internet....Thank-you for stopping by!

Mother's Day, Plants and Painting...

Wanted to show off my Mother's Day cards! My daughter and some of the girls had a whole art project going.

The words were heartfelt and made the day bright. Lots of hugs and well wishes from the boys and my heart was lifted. I am so grateful for these sweet children that I have the privilege to live near in my motorhome. I took the cards down today to set aside with the other things that I save. Didn't get a whole lot done this week, but after painting the walls the other day, I got to thinking that I probably should paint the underside of the roof parts too. So after putting all the pieces in place, I marked the areas with a pencil so I would know where to end the Suede color paint.

This is the first coat and I thought I might as well put a second coat on all the trim pieces too.

Also as proof that I am my own worst enemy sometimes, I was trying to shut the window shade and the Summerhouse lurched and I snapped loose some of the front bumper...sigh. Looks like I will need to fix that too.

And on a different note, I have been working on putting tomato plants in pots and putting up a new hummingbird feeder. I found a cute little hanging pot of petunias at Walmart (only 5 bucks) and now I have a whole little garden going on the side of the motorhome.

We still need more dirt there and have to have it smoothed and seeded, but for now I am enjoying my little plants. The weather was glorious here today...I hope that you were able to spend some time in the fresh air and dig in the dirt. Oh, I bought a big bag of organic potting soil and was diving in with both hands to fill the pots for the tomatoes. I was pretty dirty and while I rested after, I read the back of the empty bag....would you believe there was bat guano in it?! I'm sure it was sterilized, but I washed my hands REAL good after! LOL! Thanks for stopping by!

Bits and Pieces...

Woke up this morning with the urge to work on the Summerhouse. Breakfast can wait! I found some shutter holdbacks or shutter dogs. They were going to be used on another build that got left behind in one of our last moves so they were just floating around in a drawer in the garage. I was thinking that the Summerhouse should have a couple of these so that the shutters wouldn't clatter in the wind as the Captain and Rose are driving down the road. I dug out my small hammer and made short work of mounting them to the house.

Then I realized that the front door didn't have an interior knob...so I searched my bench drawer and found one that Rose approved of. A little glue, a couple of clamps

and that was done too. The stained glass was from a Christmas card.

I had chosen a very pretty blue for the upstairs walls but when I pulled out a piece of the verdigris roof pieces, it clashed pretty bad. I tried a few possibilities and settled on a color called Suede. It's the same color as all the trim will be on the first floor and I think it will work for what I have in mind. I used a piece of brown paper bag to sand the blue paint

and then painted a section to see if I liked it.

This will lighten up as it dries so I continued around the room with it.

While I had the paint out, I searched through my drawer of wood pieces and pulled out all the trim I thought I might need for the downstairs after the wallpaper goes up. Put the first coat on

and washed out my brush. It's evening now and it's quiet here in Motorhome Central as Mr. Skellie calls it. The Big Guy is snoring softly and I think I will go join him. Thanks for stopping by!

Success and Failure

It's a rainy day here in Tennessee so started to play around with some replacement window trim for the Summerhouse. The original pieces are all nice and painted and somewhere in a box in my daughter's garage so I thought it would be easy peasy to just make a couple of new ones out of cardboard. Well, I don't know if it was the full moon, my fingers, or my scissors but after several tries

I gave it up and went and played a computer game for awhile. It doesn't show in the picture, but they were pretty rough. So after thinking about it for awhile, decided to come at it from a different direction. So these are the first steps...

Set that aside to dry and want to tell you about a cool thing I saw online.

In fact, there were quite a few pictures of an octopus on a ship's wheel so I thought that might be cool to add to the Summerhouse.. After a delicious lunch INSIDE Chili's, went shopping IN Hobby Lobby! Wow did I miss that place! I found an octopus that I thought would work and brought him home with us. (He was also 50% off)

I used a small pair of nippers to cut the ring off the back. A few smears of 527 glue and a few clamps and we wait for the glue to dry!

Oooo! I am really liking this!

But Mr. Skellie has a few misgivings about having an octopus on board.

So as I was finishing up, he was having a long discussion with it about who the boss is around here...I have a feeling it's not me...next he'll want to drive the motorhome. So you know those cabinets up above the workbench? One of them is now craft storage! Woo! Hoo! So I found a place for all these things

and started getting the loose stuff off the bench to diminish what I need to put away when we want to go someplace.

So I will see you next time and I will sit here and watch paint dry! LOL!

A New Addition!

No, sorry guys, I am definitely not preggers...but my shop just got a brand new workbench! I thought I would hop on here real quick and give you a look see. We ordered this from Home Depot last week and called to make sure we could pick it up today. They said they weren't going to have any more! But...there were two in Kingsport so if we got there right quick, we could get one. The lady at Home Depot called them there and had them put our name on one of them. Bill dragged me out of bed by my ankles, threw some clothes at me and we were off! Things are starting to open up here in Tennessee so that made for a very cheerful ride also. Here's what it looks like...

with two nice drawers to stash more stuff out of sight. It also came with leveling feet, so we took off the casters and put those on. The casters will be stowed under our bed for future use. We also picked up some drawer liner at Harbor Freight so we won't hear tools crashing around in the drawers while we drive the motorhome along.

On the way home, we grabbed some breakfast at Dunkin' Donuts where we actually went IN! We drove down to the river to eat and saw a pair of Canada Geese with their babies. So nice to see all those goslings!

When we got home, Bill and Asher figured out how to get the workbench into the motorhome. After some careful turning, it was in! All of my wood strips fit in one drawer

and small tools fit in the other.

So here is a before and after of the craft area:

Those cabinets up above are looking more and more like room for craft stuff too....stay tuned!