Of course Randy and I made time for hanging in the craft room!
One of our go-tos is making crowns.
Lots of crowns!
Then we have fun playing with them, finding critters around the house and yard to wear the new creations.
Soooo much fun! We never have quite enough time for all the projects we want to get done, but we love the heck out of each we do.
We enjoy traveling with our dogs, and there is no better place to take them along than to the Guncles’ house in Jax. They get the full royal treatment there, complete with a throne to rest upon.
They aren't the only ones feeling queenly on this vacation. Randy and Kevin make us all feel special with their pampering.
See how they feed us? Deliciously beautiful! 
We’ve been crafting, touring the antique mall they have a spot in, drinking good wine, and playing with pups.
As well as being fed the best meal I think I’ve ever had. Honestly, the red snapper and rosemary honey carrots rank at the top of anything I’ve ever eaten.
The dinner was so perfect that we couldn’t think of erasing it from our taste buds by eating dessert. So, I’m considering having this tart for breakfast instead.
I’d brought fresh peaches from our tree and made this a little differently, with a tiny bit of brown sugar, spices, and some white wine drizzled over the fruit. I think it will be an appropriately decadent breakfast for Guncleland.
The girls are enjoying the trip as much as we are. They travelled well, stopping at dog parks along the way. All are freshly groomed to be their loveliest selves for the adventure, including Honey. We take the doodles into the groomer a couple times a year, with home trim ups as needed, and regular baths in the garden hose.
But not their mama dog, I didn’t even think about getting a haircut for a golden retriever, til I saw one being styled when I picked up the golden doodles from their appointment.
So Honey Bunny got the full treatment, including a furminator brushing. Worth every penny! On the drive here, no clouds of hair were wafting from the backseat and floating up my nose. Who knew you could avoid fluffs of fur like that? And doesn’t she look pretty for going to see the Guncles?
We are heading out to a cruise this weekend, and the dogs are staying behind in the lap of luxury here on Sweet Cherry Lane. I know they will love every minute of it. That’s how we all feel here.
Beth, Angie and I threw ourselves a party.
Their birthdays are only a week apart, while mine is a month earlier. But all are springtime, so meld together nicely as a reason to celebrate with each other.
While I don’t think you ever actually need an excuse to have a party, when I see one, I’ll nab it.
Any chance you get to have an afternoon with friends, especially if you also get wine and chocolate, you should take it.
Add in some cupcakes, lots of laughs, and who cares if it’s a birthday today, a month ago, or no where near one at all.
When I count my blessings, days that my buddies come out to spend an afternoon with me ant the cottage are way up there.
Last week, I went to another mosaic art opening.
This one also featured two of my pals, author and artist, Dr. Margie Carr and artist and teacher, Shanna Wagner.
Margie has been making her glass flags with meaningful quotes imbedded and Shan uses her lyrical skills with glass to lure you in with beauty then show you some ugly truths.
I am doubly impressed by both of them, that they create such lovely pieces with so much to say.
And I was impressed with myself for actually getting out of the house and going to not one, but two Art openings in a week. I tend to be a bit of a recluse of an evening. But when I have such talented friends with stunning work, of course I had to make the effort to haul myself out in public to see it.
I’m glad I got out to see the show. Great job, Shan and Margie!
Good Juju’s First Friday weekend falls upon the 4th of July holiday.
I have no idea what that will mean to us.
Will we get a bigger crowd Friday morning because people have the day off and want to come in before their festivities begin?
Will we have crowds on Saturday from everyone bringing out of town guests in for something to do?
Or will the walkways be silent because our shoppers are too busy shooting off cherry bombs at picnics to come and see us?
Well, I can guarantee you that we are ready for the big crowds, none of our dealers phoned it in, thinking we would be slow.
The shop is looking good, and we are ready to welcome our guests.
As we always are, each and every month. I’m continuously blown away by the efforts our dealers go to in making fabulous displays that change for each sale.
Only being open 24 days a year can make sales a crapshoot anyway. What if the weather is bad? What if there is a big event or holiday?
But then again, what if our guests say, “Gosh I’m really busy, but I just have to pop into Juju to see what’s new this month, I only have two days to get there!”
Whatever you spend your holiday doing, I wish you a happy 4th!
There might be prettier corners of my cottage, but right now, this “after” pic of our pantry redo is making me pretty dang happy.
This closet sits above the stairway to the basement and is original to the house, over 100 years old. This photo is after ripping out the shelves to mouse proof, bleach, and repaint.
Maybe once or twice a year, I’d get a mouse, take everything out, clean or toss items, set a trap and then restock after catching the culprit. But lately? The critters were nonstop! My theory is that with the foundation repairs we made, the cracks and crevices shifted, leaving more space for intruders to enter from the basement below.
Our solution? Tons of steel wool and expanding foam to seal the space up, then adding a metal cabinet that we got on Amazon.
After the box arrived, we were smart and stood the panels up in the room to make sure our measurements were correct and it would fit under the slanted ceiling. And it did, so we put it together, and brought it into our patched, cleaned, and freshly painted cubby that I’d had to twist and turn and crawl around in to reach the tight corners.
And while we’d made sure the height and width of the metal cabinet would be perfect once installed, we didn’t think about how those numbers would work getting it into the area. See that step Rich’s knee is on? The next one above it was the blockage that caused us to have no way to turn the piece forward.
We could (barely) slide the cabinet into the pantry, but then it was stuck.
So this happened. Rich had to rip out the step I’d spent so much time sealing up and painting, then we easily swung the cabinet around and set it into place. Once it fit, I went to work refilling gaps, and touching up the paint. A lot of the old wood was either dinged up, or had come apart at my perfectly patched seams when he used his crow bar to pull the step out.
But hey, I think the efforts will be worth it. The area is a clean, tidy fortress now.
My friend, Shanna, started sharing her mosaic studio and supplies with friends a few years back and it has grown into full fledged club with a large group of members who come together and chat while we create.
Typically, each does an individual project on their own, but sometimes there is a technique they learn together like this “flying carpet” type piece that Lynn has in the show.
I don’t go as much as I’d like, there are often other things going on and I don’t get to join in weekly. And when I do, I sometimes bring another sort of project and treat it as a craft day, since I’m not exactly a mosaic artist. I’ve done a few pieces, but didn’t really have anything I wanted to enter into the show. So I went to support the group and enjoy the art. They were kind to include me in the photos and speeches.
In a roundabout way, I was part of the show. Shan used my painting and Kim Brook’s ceramic flowers as part of a collaboration in this creation. I love the mix of textures with the broken plates, buttons, and glass.
This work from Melissa has an interesting mix too, with the millefiori glass and the idea of using the grout itself as a design element, not just a filler.
And Margie’s? She has incorporated that flying carpet trick to craft a waving flag and added a meaningful quote in alphabet beads. I just love all of her work.
After seeing pieces in various stages of completion, it was striking to see a roomful of finished, professional art on display. I often take the gatherings for granted, as just an opportunity to hang out with friends and get a few hours of creative time. But this group show reminds me of the talent I’m surrounded by and I was properly impressed by what they have all done.
The guest bath redo was pretty quickly done.
And pretty cheaply done, too. I moved stuff around from other rooms, shopped from my storage area, ordered some better curtain rods (I’d been using a tension rod, and switched to a set of swing bars for the over curtains) then repainted.
Although, paint is no longer the “cheap fix” it once was. Geez, the cost of a gallon has soared, hasn’t it? Honestly, I think I could’ve gotten by with a quart, it’s a small room. But I was erring on the side of caution. No one wants to get down to those last few drops in the can and not be quite finished.
The sink table was previously white, I brushed on and wiped off a dark umber glaze, then added some antique gold highlights to the detail. The large built in cabinet was white too. To change it up but not be too matchy with the vanity, I watered down some of the softer brown wall paint to do the same treatment. It’s a subtle difference.
The white iron piece was once black before I had painted it white in an earlier redo. For this new change, I used a spritz of gold spray paint over the metal, so it left a hint of color.
The center mirror was a lucky find at a garage sale, just the day before I had planned to start the project. I think its moodiness is exactly what the space needed. It wouldn’t have been the same without it.
My sister recently gave me our mom’s rose patterned mirror and it’s ideal here.
At first, I was going to repaint this mirror I’d redone years ago. Instead, I simply added a touch of gold to it. And the tiny cake stand? It was from a flea market and was already embellished with metallic paint.
Years ago, I used to paint a lot of ceiling tins with roses. This one’s faded tones matches the space nicely.
The shades are similar to this old postcard I put into this velvet frame.
This postcard is taped inside a glass lid that used to be on a box.
The pinks of this tiny painting I’ve done might be a little too bright but I still like it.
I really like all of it! And am so pleased by how quickly and smoothly it all went. I’m enjoying the big changes in this little room.
Rich turned 65 and we celebrated with some friends. He’d been out of town, and I hung a collection of banners up to greet him when he got home.
We have one more, possibly two, dinner parties coming up, so those festive banners are staying up a while. I’m enjoying having my morning coffee under them every day.
The last week of May and first one in June were hoppin around here. I started off touching up house paint where needed, then stopped myself and changed to power washing first. Why repaint it if it only needs washed off?
Two days of spraying cleared off most of the discoloration, but a lot of the house still needed some fresh paint. The entryway especially.
Earlier, I’d also simply touched up the black shutter paint. Afterwards, I saw that didn’t solve the problem, and went back to scrape off all loose paint and redid each shutter (at least on the first floor). It was worth the effort, knowing this will last further into the future. Typically I walk around the house every year or two and dab paint on bad spots.
But over time, that isn’t enough. A thorough washing and scraping before getting my brushes and buckets of paint out means I can hopefully skip a few seasons my usual redos.
This trick postpones the need for hiring a pro to repaint the entire home.
Speaking of home maintenance, this corner has been an issue for the twenty years we’ve had this addition. We’ve had a half dozen pros out to give advice and make changes, but still had water seepage into the breezeway.
Well, while power washing, I put a hole right through the wall! I knew the sprayer could strip paint, clear piles of mud the dogs had thrown onto the deck, and also zip the skin right off my shin.
But I didn’t realize it could decimate water rotted wood. 
Rich ripped out all the siding and wet guck, rebuilt and sided the wall. I siliconed and repainted. While having the wall opened up, we think we found the leaky area that contractors had missed, since we had a view to the inside that they hadn’t had access to.
Rich thinks it’s fixed now, and when we run the garden hose over it, we see no water pouring out the bottom into the breezeway. Still, we are going to add extra guttering to detour the rain away from that vulnerable spot we unearthed.
Stopping the river that ran through the breezeway inspired me to take on two other run off issues. They didn’t hurt the house, but often left standing, muddy water on the gravel or patio. Rich and I dug out trenches to divert the rain away from this spots and filled them with larger stones.
In this area, the bricks were buried under so many years of mud, I forgot they existed. The power washer not only revealed them, it showed me the path the water took. Basically a huge puddle in this area, no movement at all. So we dug out two trenches, starting shallow and getting deeper further out.
(the pile of bricks are the ones we removed to dig the trench, I need to relocate them to a flower bed that could use an edging repair)
So far, the garden hose proves that our efforts worked, and after a big rain, all seems fine. Now, over time, mud will back up again, but it might take ten years or so. Maybe we will fix it with a French drain then, but for now, our dry river beds of rock will do the trick.
While we were in a rock hauling mood (ha, yeah, right, no one ever wants to haul rocks) we decided to freshen up the other gravel areas. Not redoing, just cosmetically tweaking them by using the sprinkle technique of Rich and Sugarwings walking around with an open bag and drifting more rocks over the existing ones while I followed with a rake.
Of course while it would be better to spread a truckload, these bags of river rock from Home Depot were helpful, if not perfect.
Although in this spot, I needed to use a full bag, these stones had washed away, or sunk into the ground pretty bad here.
While the weather kept giving me perfect springtime days, I figured I might as well keep working outside before summer heat hits. So, next up was water proofing these stairs and the deck flooring Rich had replaced last month. The original framing was dark, but I went with a honey tone for the new areas, because I liked the contrast.
It was a surprise for him on his birthday, and a gift he much preferred over something from a store. We also had a sit down dinner for a dozen or so friends to celebrate his day too, and will be having another party to follow this week.
Next up? Well I just repainted the guest bathroom and need to finish the decor. And something needs to be done about my flower pots. Many of the plantings look like this. I dusted with diatomaceous earth, and hope that helps. If the flowers don’t make it, I’ll need to replant.
I’ll have pics of the new bathroom when it’s done. Looks like I’ve run out of steam for now, after two days of sales at Good Juju, I simply could not make myself finish the job yet.
