Time to enter the 1st “Christmas in July” Giveaway. (Plus…silverware for the Guest House!)

Welcome to the first OFFICIAL “Christmas in July” giveaway.

If you didn’t read the previous post, I have been making ornaments for over 15 years, and my #1 seller every year is my Gingerbread Family Ornament.

If you win, I will personalize one just for your family, (or for you to give as a gift to another lucky family, if you’d like!)

There are several ways to enter:

1) Leave a comment on this post, and you will be entered for today’s giveaway which expires at midnight Wednesday.

2) Become a follower, and you will be entered in all FIVE of my giveaways. Yes, I am giving away this ornament EVERY Wednesday in July. (If you are already a follower, you will automatically be entered in all of the drawings! Thanks for following!)

3) Add my button to your blog and give me a “shout out” and you will be entered AGAIN in all five of the drawings. Just let me know when you leave a comment, so I can stop by and visit your blog.

For a more detailed explanation of the giveaway and my ornaments, click on my “Christmas in July” button in my side bar!

NOW FOR MY POST….

I just wanted to share with you a great little find my mom got at a yard sale. She found a bag of old silverware at a yard sale for $5.00, so she scooped it up!

Now, I know nothing about old silverware, and I have no idea if this is silver or silver plated. Maybe one of you “smarties” could let me know.

But this is what it says on the back…

“1847 Rogers Bros”

I got online and found out that Rogers Bros started making silverware around 1847, but even pieces that were made in the 1900’s also said “1847 Rogers Bros.” So I have no idea how to find out how old these are.

Anyway, this is what they looked like before I polished them.

I used TARN-X to clean them, and boy, did it STINK! Seriously, it stunk the whole house up! And that’s a whole lot of stink to bother a mom of four boys!

If you ever use this stuff, you might seriously want to consider investing in a gas mask!

But it did the job!

See the difference?

Now the cool part is that they are monogrammed with an “H”!

The initial of my last name!

So I thought these cute little things would be perfect for our guest house.

See the cute little “H”?

And here’s the whole cute little crew…

What do ya think? Didn’t my mom do great?!

I would appreciate any info from you experts on silverware.

I will be using these babies in my tablescape for Tablescape Thursday. Here’s a peek…

I will announce the winner for my first “Christmas in July” Giveaway on Friday!

Blessings,

Traci

Old furniture-New look

*This post has been edited to add to Furniture Feature Friday at Mustard Seed Creations. This is a wonderful blog with many inspiring ideas, so go check it out!

When I graduated college and got my first teaching job, I decided to buy something with my big fat teacher’s paychecks. ;)

My mom suggested that I buy a bedroom suite with my money. She said it would be a good investment and I could use it for many years.

So taking her advice, like I usually do, I made my first big purchase and bought a bedroom suite. It had three pieces, a queen-sized bed, dresser, and armoire.

I used it until I got married…. after I got married….. and I am using it now. Thanks mom, you were right…again!

Here’s what it looked like in our guest bedroom at our last house five years ago. (I actually made the bed skirt and pillow shams!)

You may have noticed that the dresser was missing. That’s because I painted it red and used it in my boys’ room.

This piece is now in my son, Adam’s room.

Then, when we moved into my current house over four years ago, the other two pieces went into storage because we didn’t have a guest room.

But now that we’ve built our guest house, it was time to get them back out. We couldn’t afford new furniture, so I was going to try to be creative.

I didn’t like the look of the furniture as it was. And I wanted to give it more of a cottage-y feel.

So I bought some white paint, sand paper, and some Valspar mocha glaze.

First, I painted everything white. It took about two or three coats. I would like to say that I waited to full amount of time needed for the paint to dry real good, but that would be a complete lie, so I won’t say it.

I think it’s looking better already!

Then I sanded down all the edges and roughed it up a little bit. It felt a little weird to start sanding off all the paint that took me so long to put on in the first place! I also wasn’t sure if it would give me the “look” I wanted since I had never tried this before!

I thought it was turning out good, but the furniture still didn’t have that “old” look that I was looking for. I had heard about people using a “glaze” on their furniture or kitchen cabinets, but I had no idea what it was or how to use it.

But after a few days of looking at my furniture, I knew I had try it.

I bought some Valspar mocha glaze at Lowe’s. (Doesn’t that just sound delicious?)

I really had no idea how to “glaze”, but I sort of remembered reading a post about someone glazing their kitchen cabinets. And I remembered they said they used a lot of paper towels.

So I started applying the glaze with a sponge brush, and then wiping it off with paper towels. And I was liking it…

It was a subtle difference, but it was definitely what I was looking for. My husband was even impressed!

Now, I am still not finished with the bedding, but I wanted to share it with you anyway. I need to get a bed skirt, probably white. (That’s why I didn’t take a picture of the bottom of the bed…hee, hee.) And I think I want to get a big “puffy” white comforter to fold up on the bottom of the bed instead of the matelasse. And of course, some more pillows…maybe some tan linen or burlap, oh, I don’t know! I’ll know it when I see it! :)

Like I said, the glaze on the white paint is very subtle, but that is exactly what I wanted. It just “toned down” the white.

I am not at ALL done with decorating the top of the armoire, but for these pictures I just put a cute little antique fan that I got at a yard sale for $2.00, an antique Hershey Kisses tin from GW, and a sign from Hobby Lobby that I want to use somewhere in this room. I love the scripture on the sign!

If you would like to see more pictures of our guest house that we have been working on, you can click on my “guest house” posts in my sidebar.

NOW I will officially end my “longest post ever”!!!!!

Blessings to you all,

Traci

“Christmas in July” Giveaways!

I am excited to announce that I will be having 5 giveaways in July! The giveaways will take place every Wednesday in the month of July.

So what are the giveaways, you ask?…

Personalized Gingerbread Family Ornaments!

I have been making ornaments for over 15 years and selling them at craft shows and on Ebay, and I have recently added them to Etsy as well.

These Gingerbread Family Ornaments are my best sellers every year! They are hand-made and hand-painted by ME. The boy gingerbread ornaments have cute little green polka-dot bow ties, and the girls have adorable little red polka-dot bows atop their heads. They are tied together with jute string.

These ornaments can hang on a Christmas tree, a wreath, garland, or anywhere else you creative people can come up with.

They can also be any size. If you have a family of 10, I can make it! Actually, the longer…the cuter, I think! :)

A family of 4 would cost $14.00, plus shipping and handling on Etsy, but if you win, it’s yours for free! If you have a family of 6 like me, it would be a $20.00 value for free!

If you win, all you have to do is email me the names of the family members you want on your ornament, and I will make you this adorable creation.

You can make it for your own family, or as a gift for someone else. They make an adorable gift for grandparents with all the grandchildren in the middle!

Here’s how you can win:

1) Stop by my blog each Wednesday in July and leave a comment, and you will be entered to win that week’s giveaway.

2) Become a follower and your name will be entered in EVERY Wednesday thereafter for the giveaway.

3) Add my “Christmas in July” Giveaways button to your sidebar linking back to my blog, and you will be entered EVERY Wednesday thereafter for the giveaway. (Just let me know that it is on your blog when you leave a comment.) That’s up to five more chances!

The winner will be announced each Friday. If you do not have a blog address, be sure to give me your email address in your comment. Thanks!

If you have any questions, just let me know!

MERRY CHRISTMAS IN JULY!

Traci

Quick Family Trip

We had hoped to go on a week long summer vacation this year, but it didn’t work out.

So we decided to take a couple of fun “day trips” as a family this summer.

Yesterday, we went to Kings Island in Mason, OH. I went there a lot of times as a kid, usually with my church youth groups, and I was looking forward to going again to see how much it had changed.

Unfortunately, I was a little under the weather, but I took some medicine and “sucked it up” for my boys! I couldn’t let them down!

Here are a few pictures from our little excursion.

We arrived at the park when it first opened, and the boys were ready to go!

Here’s Eli on his first ride. We couldn’t tell if he was scared to death, or just REAL serious about driving his race car.

Of course, we had to get a picture in the Mystery Machine!

We spent a lot of the afternoon at the water park.

Here’s Jonathan and Luke coming down a water slide.

(Jonathan’s on the left, and Luke’s under the water on the right!)

Adam sums up the day…

And Eli lets us know that it is time to go home! (He started getting a little cranky.) Sweet boy.

“Thank you, Lord, for a safe trip and a wonderful day with my family. And for the sweet memories that I will cherish forever! Amen.”

Traci

My Marshall’s Find

I am sharing with you a cute, little, lime green pitcher I got at Marshalls, so I can be entered in a gift card giveaway at http://frillsfluffandtrucks.blogspot.com/. 

This sweet blogger is giving away TWO, yes I said TWO, $25.00 gift cards to TJ Maxx and Marshall’s.  And you know me…I had to try to win this one!  Go check out her adorable blog!

It matches my outdoor patio decor, so I can use it to serve sweet tea when we have company.

But I also like to fill it with flowers for a centerpiece.

And the best thing was it was only $7.99!

And to make me even more excited about my purchase, I saw this same pitcher in the kitchen cabinets of one of the Southern Living giveaway homes!

Check it out here, but look closely or you’ll miss it!

Carolina Jessamine Cottage - Callaway Gardens, GA

Blessings,

Traci

Cookbook holder

I have been looking for things to decorate the countertops in our guest house with.

I found this plate holder at Goodwill for $2.50.

The color is okay, but I was looking for black accents in the guest house kitchen, so I got out my trusty can of black spray paint and went to town.

When my husband heard me shaking the paint can he said, “Uh oh, what are you going to paint now?”

The joke in our family is that if something stands still long enough in our house, my husband will “caulk it” and I’ll “spray paint it black”! (My husband is quite the handyman!)

I placed one of my favorite recipe books in the holder. It was a gift from my mom and is full of Kentucky recipes.

I know the book is a little bit bigger than the holder, but I like it and it gets the job done!

I also LOVE the colors of this cookbook. I am trying to decorate with these colors in the guest house. I love the combo of blue, tan, green, red, and black.

I also wanted to share that I FINALLY found some baskets that fit in the cabinets that my husband made.

I lost track of how many sets of baskets I bought before I finally found these! Some were too wide, some were too short, some were too contemporary, some were the wrong colors, and some were just plain u-g-l-y!

I found these at Homegoods on my 128th visit, and I think they will work just fine.

Sorry for the glare in the picture, the sun was shining extra bright today!

AND, I have started filling my black cabinets with some white dishes. I’ll share more pictures and details in a future post. Not quite finished…

Thanks for stopping by!

Traci