Cherries and Christmas Drinks!

I know it's August, and still a little too early to be thinking about Christmas but sometimes you just have to plan ahead! It's toward the end of cherry season, so I stocked up on a couple of pounds and made my Grandma Shirley's "Christmas Drink."

I removed the stems and rinsed the cherries (they have one of the highest percentages of pesticides and chemicals on them). I had about 7 pounds. 2 large (about a gallon each) containers held 3ish pounds each, then one half gallon to hold the rest.

Once divided up into their respective containers, I covered the cherries with 2 cups of white granulated sugar (1 cup for the smaller jug). I could eat them all just like this....

Then.....fill up with a liquor of your choice! I chose brandy because the sweetness of it will lend well to the drink. Stir to dissolve sugar and seal it up!

And now......we wait.......about 3 months or so. I continually stir the mixture to make sure the sugar is dissolved. My Grandma called it her "Christmas Drink" because that's when it was ready to be enjoyed!!

Out in the garden

 There is something so satisfying about having a garden. Hard work is involved; hoeing, tilling, weeding, digging, planing, mulching, watering. Repeat. But the results are bountiful. The obvious vegetables and flowers, yes. But something so much more rewarding when a day's work is done, to sit back with ice water and admire your work. To be outside and feel the sun on your skin, the dirt in your nails, the sweat even! I sleep so much sounder after the days in the garden.

I love the fresh air, being outside and doing something. I feel like it's my form of meditation. My moment to feel and observe. I find myself lost in watching birds play in the water, squirrels chase each other, and hearing the children play outside at the daycare near by. I could spend all day outside.

 Small, but wonderful

Fall for Cotton: Picking Fabric and Pattern

I am soooo excited to be doing the Fall for Cotton vintage sewing challenge! I've been following Tasha at by gum, by golly for a while now, and when I saw this, I knew I had to join. I've never done a sew a long, but this one really seemed like that best place to start.  The idea is to fall in love with cotton and all it's versatility. That being said, the fabrics chosen should be 100% cotton (or as absolutely close as possible). The pattern should be vintage or vintage inspired. You can see why this all spoke to me.

The biggest challenge, thus far, is determining whether or not the fabric is 100% cotton or a cotton blend.... :/ I've followed some advice and tutorials on assisting in figuring this out, but to be honest...I'm still confused. I did burn tests and all I got from it was a pile of ashes, haha! But I will persevere! I will do this!

In the Garden

I'm getting so excited for our garden! In this aspect, time cannot go fast enough. We planted our garden a little late in the season, I believe it was after Memorial Day. Initially, I was a bit worried but because of our procrastination, we missed a late frost! Our garden was saved and after planting it has been a waiting game.....

....I'm not good with waiting games.

We knew we wanted tomatoes and bell peppers because we eat them all the time. I also wanted plants that I could preserve for enjoyment later in the year. The watermelon was the Man's idea, a "why not" purchase. The onions were an after thought, they looked dried up and dead and I had no idea what they required. I must be doing something right, they seem to be thriving.

Ripen already!

There are 4 variety of tomatoes: Celebrity, Heinz Heirloom, Black....um....something-or-other, and one other kind (I'm embarrassed I can't remember at the moment....). I have many plans for *hopefully* the bounty. Salsa, marinara, ketchup, fried green tomatoes at the end of the season.

The Bell Peppers are slow to get going, and I'm hesitant about what we are going to yield. There are 3 types: Early, Yellow and Red.

And then of course, the herbs! From my experience, Basil and Oregano are the easiest to grow. They are prolific and very little tending. I just keep pinching the tops off and they keep spreading!

My little garden helper :)

Quick Project

 As usual on my Saturday shift break, I decided to go-a-thrifting. I normally don't go looking for anything in particular. Rather, I just try to look at everything and bide by time. Holy-Moley! I got lucky and came away with a big haul. I found a 1950's Zenith tabletop radio, a set of gold bar glasses and THIS beauty. As you can tell, it doesn't look pretty. I imagined that some grandmother tried to "refashinon" it to make it cool for their grandchild, and it ended up in the thrift store :(  The top cushion was covered with blue knitting and the rest was unlovingly doused in baby blue spray paint.

First things first, I cut off the web of yarn, and found a white pleather/vinyl material. It's not in the best condition. It's stained by age and/or smoke that left a yellow tinge behind. Around the buttons, it has begun to tear. All I ended up doing is scrubbing it with bleach.

Now to the nitty gritty: CHEMICALS! The Man and I went to the local hardware store and picked up an aerosol chemical paint stripper. I generally like chemical strippers because it does a lot of the elbow work for you. My only beef with this one is the way it sprayed. The nozzle only has one setting and it sprays in a stream, making it slightly more difficult to be precise. I also felt like a lot of product was wasted because of that. That being said, it helped removing the paint with minimal effort on my part. I scraped it off with a plastic noodle measurer (sorry, honey :/ ) but I would recommend an actual tool,  or an old credit/debit/I.D. card. Then attacked it all with 000 (very fine) steel wool. What didn't come off then, got a second coating of the stripper.

Under the baby blue spray paint, the legs had a thick ugly varnish. Although that would have been the original finish, I prefer to see wood grain. I think it's pretty. The brass tips needed very little TLC, I just stripped the paint and polished with the steel wool. I stained the wood legs with 2 coats of Minwax Polyshade in Olde Maple Satin.

 

I should say that I tore this thing apart. Any piece that could be unscrewed or just plain ol' pulled off like an animal was. After the brass binding was separated, I treated it just like the tips-just a polishing with steel wool. Then, I spray painted the top with one of my favorite colors: Krylon Indoor Outdoor in Satin Pistachio. I, personally, think that it compliments the brass fittings and the natural wood quite well. With the Rust-Oleum American Accents Bright Metallics in Gold, I painted the mounting plates and the "handles." They were rather tarnished.

Overall, I'm rather happy with the results. I may, eventually, do something with the cushion, but for under $25, I can't complain.

Footstool/Bench: $5.00

Paint Stripper: $9.00

Pistachio Paint: $3.75

Steel Wool: In Inventory

Gold Paint: In Inventory

Stain: In Inventory

IT'S ALIIIIIIVE!!

Since the man and I are all about vintage electronics, it would only be fitting for us to have a working record player. Well, easier said than done.  We lived on a limited budget which makes our search even more difficult. Of course we can just buy a fully working, refurnished/refurbished vintage record player.......for upwards of our life savings!! But, we are thrifters and every where we go we keep our eyes peeled for a record player. On one of our most recent trips to Racine, we picked up this beauty.

(I wish I had the forethought to take "before" pictures *d'oh*)

It was sitting, lonely and dusty, in the 'Clearance Corner.' There was some other objects sitting on top of it, but I was sure it was a record player! We opened the top and lo and behold, a radio and record player with a little homemade label marked "1967." We quickly moved it toward an outlet, crossing our fingers. At this point we attracted some attention from other customers, who were more than happy to share their thoughts on the subject of record players. It's funny how people are so eager to share their stories about "the good old days," and how "you young kids probably don't even know what this is!" We get a good laugh out of this. We are 34 and 29, respectively, and dress like we walked out of the 50's, with a working knowledge of record players, hehe. But, we indulge them. Annnnnyyy way....I digress. It was marked $60 originally, reduced to $20. We plugged it in and it lit up, the table turned begrudgingly, and we knew it was ours.

Here's where I really wish I took before pics.  The top was full of water stains, some of the varnish and stain had worn off. The legs were wobbly, we didn't know if the radio or speakers worked, much less the actual record player. We debated about whether to keep it wood toned (which I am almost always a proponent of) or to paint it a funky color and whether to keep it a record player/radio or gut it and turn it into storage.

Here it sat in our "second living room" with all of the other projects.

 Well, our questions were answered when we plugged it in at home. The radio worked, along with the speakers. The turn-table still turned slowwww, but it moves, so we're taking that as a good thing.  No gutting. I assumed the piece was mostly solid wood. I assumed wrong. I got to sanding the troubled spots only to find that it is in fact a veneer. Nevertheless, we are still going to sand and stain it.

The Man in action!

The legs and the front speaker cover, mid-process.

 I never thought sanding off old varnish would take soooo much work :/ Lots of literal sweat is going into this project since we are working on this in the humid Wisconsin summer.