An evening in Papas garden

My dad has had an amazing garden going for the past couple years and the other night we decided to go take a gander with him while he was watering. I was thinking about how I wont be able to do that soon.....just "wander" out to the garden. Its so peaceful to be outside enjoying North Idaho. Heres a peak at some of its goodness.....Good Job on all the goods papa and Chuchie!

Beautiful right?? Now go eat your veggies and enjoy some outdoors!

Chuchalina (#8)

Here is a story about a weekend in my life. A silly, silly weekend. I can only laugh about all my mishaps, or I might go crazy. There are a lot of pictures so I will make it short and sweet.

Got a table at the free pile.

Papa carried it home on his bike.

He gave it to our friend Alina.

They asked me to refinish it.

It was a little trashed:

I sanded it.....

and sanded it and sanded it.

And then sanded it a little more.

I thought I had hit the jackpot with this nice new surface I uncovered....

And then I saw this:

No, you didnt. Partical board under like a millionth of an inch of beautiful wood?!?! Who does this? Not cool. Not cool at all. So....I decided I was going to go with it anyway and brought out the stain....

An ebony black stain....it had some promise. And then I wiped off the first coat to see this:

All these sander marks! I think the pad on my sander is a little shabby.

I could not get rid of these no matter how much I resanded..sad.

There was also the issue of the crappy wood underneath not staining evenly.

Sad again.

So I decided to paint it black instead, and I think it worked out lovingly

Here she is after some craziness.

I think she looked so good I didnt even shabby her! Can you believe it? This is the first piece I have left as is after painting. I spray painted the handles too.

I think Alina is going to love her!(Chuchalina to the girls)

Then, because my friend Trish had sent me a video on how to make these easy peasy cutesy flowers, I decided I had to end the weekend by making some for some shirts. Pictures of the girls' to come soon, but heres mine: I love.

So there was my weekend in a nutshell. Another coffee table, another set of mistakes lessons learned the hard way.

A long day of coffee tables (#7)

Here is what I did ALL day . ANd I mean ALL day :)

I sanded the living daylights out of this coffee table for my good friend Alina. I was hoping to have it stained and painted today, but I had a few issues to say the least. This seems to be a recuring story for me. I guess that's what I get for learning all I know from google and no actual people or lessons.

In my head I have this amazing finished project, so hopefully sooner than later I will be able to post it. . I have been out there since it was burning hot and finally forced myself in when the bugs were eating me alive. Tomorrows another day.

Now for my finished bench and I am so excited about. My dad got this coffee table at the "Colburn wal mart" with two matching end tables. The minute I saw them I knew they were perfect for these benches I've wanted to try. I made the coffee table first for my room and am going to do the end tables next, maybe for entry way benches or at the foot of a bed to sell. Here it is before:

And here she is now. I have named her Chloe. Doesn't yellow make you think of a Chloe??

Now I just have to decide...a window bench or a foot of the bed bench??

bed?

or window?

I love it. Love, Love Love it. Not to toot my own horn or anything:) I have seen these on many a blog, so I will not take all the credit. And you know I had to shabby it a little...

Is still have to attach the top. I will screw it on from the bottom. I also have to seal it still. I am thinking of trying my hand at a wax I have read so much about instead of my standard poly.

 There are so many different styles, colors and fabrics out there. I think they could be great for so many different things. Something to spruce up a room, a seat for putting on your shoes, a bench in your bathroom, dressing room, closet. If you are interested in purchasing one please feel free to email me.

After a day full of sanding.....Im ready for another one tomorrow. I hope to get two more pieces done before the end of my time off (36 hours:( )

 Here is a peek at a project Macie and I are working on for her new room in Vegas.

Linking up to these parties:

Redoux Link Up Party,

Miss Mustard Seeds Furniture Friday and

DIY by Design

A cushion for the tush!!

Another busy day at the Lyttons. Gotta love vacations. With the hunny gone on work I have plenty of time to craft and get some furniture done before the move! I have a feeling I(and the hubs for sure) will have a hard time sticking fugly furniture in the moving truck to move across 2 states. So Im on a marathon to see how much I can get redone in 37 days while working 28 hours a week..plus the hardest work we do....the babes.

Today I redid an end table that Im not in love with, but was a free gift from a woman I love:) So I decided to atleast make it tie in with the coffee table. It didnt turn out how I'd hoped, but it's good enough to hitch a ride in the truck to Vegas:)

I also  finally transformed a coffee table into a bench!!! I am in loooove with it! Im finally getting that punch of yellow I needed in my room, Check back tomorrow for the big reveals!

I also went a little crazy on the pin cushions and made 10 for my friends etsy shop. Check em out! What a great little surprise gift for the crafter in your life!

 

Theyll be up there in a few days once I get the stats and pictures to her. Only $5 made with these adorable Amy Butler fabrics!

http://www.etsy.com/people/TrendyNChicBoutique
Also, BIG NEWS this week....I gained 4 new followers this week!!! Woo Hoo! Im up to the big 1-0. Oh ya, I know you are all super jealous and super super impressed. wink .wink. I'm on my way though. You gotta start somewhere right? My linky partys are working! Thank you so much everyone who became a follower...and to the rest of you: read the sign. It really is ok to be a follower in this case:)
And one more random tidbit to make you laugh.
My daughters have some 'bedtime issues'. They get up a few (ok like 43) times with excuses and reasons they need to come talk to me. It gets better, but then daddy leaves for work again and we start back at square one. If I dont have to work the next morning the girls get to watch a movie in their beds. So tonight, at 11 mind you, I went in to do my nightly OCD cover up(I cant stop) I saw the funniest sight. Emma, our three year old was standing on her floor in front of the tv dancing around to the.....get this.....credits. She loves when the credits play with a good song. But to make it even funnier she was holding up a plastic golf club in each hand waving them around in the air dancing and singing as her 5 year old sister is snoring nearby. Oh, those crazy kids. It was a sight to see. Not laughing? Maybe it was one of those 'had to be there' things:)
Night!

Mermaids, Blondes and Pin cushions

Today was a busy day. But a fun busy day. We set off to the beach and ended up soaking up 6 hours of that lovely North Idaho sun. We even found some mermaids on the beach!

Aren't they cute?! I decided to take a couple of the blond ones home:)

On a quick side note I got two phone calls today regarding people interested in taking our third blond when we move next month. I am so thankful! The fact that there is interest restores my hope in pet lovers:) I am so glad there is interest from some peeps that I know would give him a great home. And also somewhere where we could visit him when we are up. The girls are starting to realize that we have to find him a home and got a little teary eyed tonight. I feel blessed by the mere interest.

We got home and I got a little itch to go spend a little time at the sewing machine. While I was cutting I decided to whip up a couple of these:

Arent these cute for a little 2 minute project? Little Emma wants to have "hair like sissy" so we are trying the treacherous task of growing out the bangs. These will come in handy:)

I got some cute Amy Butler fabric squares and decided I wanted to whip a bunch of these little wrist pin cushions up. I think they would be a great gift for all those sewers and diy girlies out there. Im thinking I will sell them for $5 on Etsy and here on my blog. What do you all think? Worth it?

Would you pay $5 for one of my little hand made cuties?

The Lyttons are moving to Vegas!

Yep, you read it right. We are moving to Las Vegas on September 23rd. The plane tickets are bought, so its really official. Really, Really for reals.

 

Ok, so really its Henderson, but same diff:) We don't actually have our living arrangements pinned down, so maybe it will be actual Vegas:)

My amazingly providing husband has worked out of town, out of state, across another country at times(Alaska:) for the past 4 years. His dad has offered for him to work with him for years and it is finally time we take him up on it. Its almost hard to believe, my husband will actually be home every night! I cannot believe it, but its going to be!

I am going to be his step mom, Marys assistant at a property managment company. I talked to her today and it sounds like there will be a lot of flexibility and evening and weekend work so I may not even have to send Emmy to daycare! I can finally spend more time at home while still working enough to contribute to the bread winning. My hope is to have more time to work on my blog and furniture and hopefully in the near future make some money at it.

The move will be sad, leaving most of our loved ones behind, but we expect lots of visitors to this city of fun!!

We also will have to say good bye to our adorable, loveable, cute Drake. Drakey McDrakerson, The Drakesters......I mean look at his face......Do you have a good home for him?? We are doing adoption interviews...



please take me and care for me and love me! I love to fetch and to swim. I am great with children...and did I mention I am a full breed?? That means super cute, super cool and really rad:)

So, there it is...a sad, exciting new chapter of The Lytton Life!

Gettin Groovy with Michael Franti

My husband and I got to go to the Festival at Sandpoint to see Michael Franti last night, and had soooo much fun! My little brother watched the babes so we could have a mommy and daddy date night.
 Holla at cha Uncle Beebee. Thank you!!
They had a campout in the back yard while we boogied away at the festival.

We got there early, got a great spot on the lawn and popped open our homeade watermelon wine. Yummy! We met a very nice couple next to us from Spokane that were so sweet. I love the atmosphere there. You lay out your blanket, get to bring your own food and drinks or have amazing food from the vendors, and just relax while listening to amazing music. And let me tell you, Michael Franti was AMAZING! His lyrics are so positive and inspirational. And his upbeat, fun raggae was just so fun to get a little jiggy to. Everyone who knows me knows I cant bust much of a move, but I can raise my arms, and jump up and down with the best of them. It was a blast!

We had some delicious dinner, yummy drinks and great quality time together!

Heres a few shots of the fun: (our silly phones have no flash, so please excuse the bad quality:)



My cutie hubby and I settling in

Loving the Franti!



Rock out baby!!

We also got to go last weekend to the kids special festival. It was the Spokane Youth Orchestra doing a night of disney. The girls LOOVED it! There was face painting, a petting zoo, clowns making balloon animals, a bouncy castle and lots of dancing by our little girls. My childhood friend Sarah was also in town so she took her girls and we all got to hang.



Daddy and Macie





Emma, Macie, Sarah and her beautiful Emma and Eva



The ballarinas

Emma and her goat

I also did a little crafting this week. I tried my hand at my first burlap pillow. What do you think?

It will definatly be a decor pillow(for my new bench thats in the making) , not a lay on pillow. Its rough and gruff and the paint is stiff and hard. Cute though, dont you think?

A little rough around the edges, but I think cute for my first try.

 I also brought a little of my decorating obsession into my workplace:) We sit on these stools all week and my boney bum just couldn't take it anymore. So I unscrewed the top, brought it home and cushioned and prettied her up.

before



Ahhhhh, thats better

Now I really hope this is just a small town thing, somebody tell me please! I went to get the foam padding for this and for my bench at our local craft store and it was $10.99 a FOOT...... a FOOT!

 Whaaa?!?

 I think not. I have to take my hubby to the airport tomorrow, so I will be looking in Coeurd Alene, hoping and praying that there is not a crazy-foam-price epidemic. I, instead used 8 layers of batting I had at home:)

Expanding my blog

I have finally decided to start jumping into this blogging world a little more heavily. Having such a busy life with a hubby, 2 small kiddos and a job, Im not able to complete my furniture projects as quickly as I would hope to, but I still want to be blogging more often. With lots feedback from friends and family I've decided to incorporate our little familys life and more of my interests into it. I will keep my address, but change the title, description and content.
 For those of you who know me or follow my facebook, you know that I am also a huge foodie. I couldn't live without food. (Well, duh, who could? but you know what I mean:) If I know we are going out of town the first thing that pops into my  mind is "Where can we eat? What kind of new foods can we try? How many meals will there be?" I get so excited about the new foods where we are going. We live in a small town with not much to choose from, so when we get the opportunity for new restaurants, I cant pass it up. I have been trying more and more things at home with the little time I have and thought I could share some of that on my blog also.
 With a chance of an upcoming move for our family, I also want to be able to share more family events and happenings for family and friends to follow.
So, bear with me in the next few weeks as I ease into more of my life, WHILE completing my furniture goal.
Heres a sneak peak at where my next project is coming from: So excited to finally use these fabrics I've been dying to work with!

#6, Surprise Ween!!!

I am breathing a sigh of relief today. My project from H-E-double-hockey-sticks is complete! Done! Finished! Termine! J'ai fini!
Now, let me clafiry. This is the project that I recently referred to as 'close to my heart'. I loove love love the recipient, but have had a hard time with this particular piece. I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that this is the first thing I have made that has been a gift. Not just any gift, but a baby gift for my BFF. I made this for my best friend since the eighth grade, who I have always lovingly called WEEN. She calls me this too and our children actually call each of us "aunt ween". People who were around us in high school still call us that 10 years later. We don't even mean to say it, it has just kind of stuck.
 Anyway, Ween is having her second child in October and has been telling me shes looking for a dresser for the new baby. Her and her hubby are waiting to find out the sex of this little bundle until the baby is born. I think its an awesome surprise for them, but it did pose some trouble as to colors for me:)
I found this dresser/changing table at a Hospice rummage sale and instantly saw potential. I would like to point out that this was months ago now and since then I have learned A LOT about what details to look at before purchasing:) The table was a sort of light lime green, with big wood painted knobs. Here is the long and treacherous road to a baby gift:
Here she is when I bought her: (Ive named her Helga because it just sounds like a troublesome lady:)

My first plan was to stain the whole thing a dark almost black ebony stain. Then paint the front of the drawers white and shabby them up. (the crib is white) That way it could easily work for a girl or a boy.

So, I sanded, and sanded, and sanded, and sanded..............

It was then that I realized that the sides of the dresser were fake, lame, horrible, no-way-in-heck-you-are-staining-me wood.(if you can even call it wood.) I was crushed. I felt like the dresser didn't have enough detail to it for the whole thing to be painted white, so I had to come up with another plan.

I decided I would try the opposite of my old plan. I would paint the whole thing white, and stain the drawers that beautiful ebony I had been dreaming about. The result?  Not cool. Not cool at all:) Heres how it looked:

Not what I was thinking. Now, my husband, B works out of town, so with two little ones I have a hard time finding the time I want to do my furniture. My dad decided to clear out a spot in his shop for me where the girls could have a little area to craft while I work.

 This is very helpful, but they still manage to find trouble. On this specific day while staining, and waiting and waiting, and staining again(it just never got to the ebony:) this is what my little Emma surprised me with....:)

Cute, isn't she? Blue? Blue! Thats it, I'll use my favorite blue. I decided that I'd paint the drawers blue. And paint the rest white, with blue underneath that I would shabby down to peak through.(like a mirror I had just finished). I think blue works for a boy or girl.
My dad had to cut a new piece for the bottom that was broken when I bought it..thanks dad!

I'm not totally in love with it, but I think its a little of the fear and pressure of it being a gift. And an important one at that. My bestie is horrible with surprises, I mean HORRIBLE. She can't keep them secret and she can't let you keep them a secret from her.  I've been trying to plan this dresser with her husband, who I might add( I love ya Jake) but hes not the best advice giver on colors or themes (unless ween really has not told him any ideas for the new nursery) He was sweet and reassured me that whatever I do, she will love and they will plan the room around it. I think I got more nervous when she told me last week that if the baby is a girl, they will move their daughter Addison to the other bedroom and put the new baby in the already painted nursery. Already painted pink and brown! Oh, dear...I've either changed the plans for a room, or I'll be doing some more painting on Helga soon:) Anwyway, I'm convinced she knows. She was acting awfully suspicious last weekend as we lay on a raft at the bay. She was asking if I had seen any dressers on my garage saleing adventures. She gave me the i-know grin and then I started grinning and couldnt hide it....it was awkard:)
I found some great big chunky glass knobs at Anthropologie and think they work perfect on these oversized drawers. I also made a changing pad and a cover for it to match. Once baby Oliver is born I will make more covers accordingly:) Here she is again before and now finished and ready to be delivered.

 

Enjoy Olivers and please remember...I can help you decorate or repaint:) Cant wait to meet the new addition!!

.....going to surprise her now

Linking up to:

Primp your stuff Wednesday

and

 Blue Cricket Designs Show and Tell Party