A Little of This, A Little of That

Late last night I was sitting at our computer. Our ugly bulletin board caught my eye and decided it needed a change. I decided to work on it right then because I knew I wouldn't be heading to bed for a couple more hours anyway. This is what it looked like before:

Well, it actually started like this:

It started out painted a bright yellow. This past school year I needed something to hang my school info sheets on, so I pulled it out of the closet. I didn't really want to put a big yellow board in a room that is decorated in deep jewel tones, so I quickly covered it with a pillowcase and hung it on the wall. And that's the way it stayed for quite a few months. It really started to bug me last night so I decided it was time to do something with it. I dug out all the paint I had in deep red colors and mixed them together. I painted the cork with the red color then painted the frame in black. I finished it today by finding a cute flower silhouette on the internet and making part of a stencil out of it. I hand painted in the parts that I didn't want to cut out for the stencil. This is the result:

This looks so much better hanging on our wall than it did before!

I also did a little shopping today. I needed a nice bowl to put a salad in this weekend so I decided to head downtown and look through the antique shops. I've never been in an antique shop before today. I used to think antiques were completely pointless. But, I walked past these at an antique booth at arts in the park a couple weekends ago and wanted them for the top of my cupboards.
Sorry about the quality of the picture. I didn't feel like hauling a chair out to the kitchen and climbing onto it to take a picture. Anyway, they are cute little milk bottles. I don't know why they caught my attention, but they did. I just couldn't decide whether or not to buy them, so I decided to look around the booths while I thought it out. I found so many cute antique kitchen items! Many reminded me of pieces that my grandmothers used to use. Well, I walked off without buying the bottles. I told Dave "I'll think about longer because we can always stop back on our way out of the park." We then went to the food booths to find some treats. Dave went off to make his selection while I saved our seats at a picnic table. He came back a few minutes later with no food, but had a sack in his hands. He handed it to me, and in it were the two milk bottles. I was really excited! And now I am hooked on antiques. I guess I really am my father's daughter :o)

So, I visited 2 of the 3 antique shops here in town. I found this bowl at one store and thought it'd be perfect for my salad.
The bowl is on the second shelf from the top. I like it's shape and that it has a story. Now, I have no idea what that story is but I'm sure it has been well used. I also visited a second hand store while downtown and found this beautiful piece:

Yes, I know it is pretty hideous. It's painted a country blue and has little movable pots filled with dried flowers that are falling apart on the shelf inside. I can't wait to work on this and will show it to you when I'm finished.

We are off to Yankton this weekend for my sister-in-law's wedding reception. Hope everyone has a fun weekend!