The Painted Suitcase

Ah...Christmas break! I love the week after Christmas, when no one has any responsibilities and you can just let down. It's such a fun, relaxing time! I've been spending the first few days of my break working on some projects. The major one I'm working on is something I started months ago, and ran into a number of snags with. Hopefully I'll be sharing that with you by the end of this week/beginning of next week, but I can't make any promises on that.

The other smaller project I did some work on is an old suitcase that's been sitting in our basement for a couple years. We got it from my grandma's house after she passed away. I like the sense of history it has, but as it was it wasn't very interesting.

I had seen lots of others around blogland who had painted their suitcases and made them look fantastic, so I thought I'd try my hand at it. Below is the result.

I'm pretty happy with the finished product.

Unfortunately the paint didn't stick to the suitcase that well, so when I transported it to take these pictures some of the paint rubbed off the handle. I've got some sealer that I'm going to spray the entire thing with though, which should solve that problem. :)

That's all for now! Hopefully I'll be sharing again with you soon!


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R.I.P Shaina

Today we put our dog of 12 years down. We got Shaina when she was just 4 years old from some friends of friends who no longer wanted her; they even gave her to us for free. We had no idea how fortunate we were at the time. I still can't believe we got a dog like her for free. She was so incredibly well behaved, and wasn't rowdy or messy or stinky, but she was still SO fun. She was also fluffy, VERY fluffy and she had wonderful floppy, soft ears. I was also personally very fond of her nose, because it was really fuzzy and snuggly. Just about a week ago, Shaina started going to the bathroom inside, and wandering around like she couldn't figure out where she was. She seemed confused and would get stuck back in corners, not realizing that she merely needed to back up to get out. We looked up her symptoms online and discovered she had doggy dementia. It's not something they get over. There are medicines for it, but they're very expensive, and they still wont ever completely heal the dog. So we decided Sunday night that it would be best to put her down before Christmas.

Today Shaina rests peacefully in the ground, but she's very much alive in my mind.

On a side note: I've been doing some work on a piece of furniture, which I THINK is almost finished, so check back for that. :)

Thank you all for reading, and caring!

Christmas Decor

It's Christmas time again! My favorite time of year! Nothing beats the burning candles, the dancing snowflakes, or the piny fragrances. Cuddling up with a warm blanket and a hot cup of coffee while a blizzard rages outside? I'm there!

Our holiday decorating took longer than usual this year. Normally me and my mom finish it in one day, but it took us two, plus a few more hours, this year. We didn't really do any more than we usually do, but we WERE exhausted when we did it. Having just tackle decorating my Grandma's house for her the day before, and tackling thanksgiving the day before that, by the time we got to our decorating we were pooped. Don't get me wrong, we had loads of fun but, as I said, it did take us quite awhile, and I had a couple overly-stressed-out-this-isn't-coming-together-at-all moments. Thankfully my mom was there to keep things in perspective. :)

Anyways, you probably all would rather see my decorations than hear me ramble on about them, so I'll go ahead and show you them. :)

This is me and my mom's coffee to keep us awake while we decorated. It was sooo good!


My mom's old ice skates now hang on the wall to give the sense of winter's past.


This old desk is one of the first pieces of furniture I ever refinished. The branches I literally gathered from my yard, the greenery is actually branches from our old Christmas tree (I find they are incredibly handy to have around!) and the chair I found in my Grandparent's barn a year or so back.

P.S. Please ignore the fact that the room is BLUE, BLUE, BLUE! I'm working on fixing that. ;)



This is my interpretation of something I saw on the BHG website. There's looked much better, but, I must say, I still quite like the simplisity of mine.




Some candles and an air freshener to add holiday scent and ambiance.

Again, try not to be overwhelmed by the blue. ;)


The entryway decorations.


Nothing too complicated here, but I think it works nicely. :)

Now on to the family room.


The stockings were hung from the bookshelf with care...

I've always wanted to be able to hang stockings on the fireplace, but we never had one, so this is my solution.


These little guys were made by me, my brother and my sister years ago in art class. They were super fun and relatively easy to make.



This is an old toolbox I found in my grandparents barn, I stained it walnut and then threw in all sorts of greenery, berries, pine cones, ornaments, etc.



Another idea which sprouted from BHG. The brown packages are wrapped in old grocery sacks, and the two smaller colored ones are wrapped in old polo shirts. The big one I had to buy wrapping paper for, because I didn't have any cloth/paper big enough to cover it. I added a few touches of greenery, some pine cones, an ornament and two candles on each side, and it makes for quite a nice display, if I do say so myself, which I do. :P


So there you are, my Christmas decorations! Nothing too special or fancy, just some simple touches and memorable items that fill the whole house with holiday spirit. :)


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