My Birthday Boy

My sweet little Trav turned 2 last week, and we finally had a free evening to get together with some family members to celebrate. 

This picture so appropriately captures Trav- one hand shoved in his mouth full of cupcake, the other hand cruising his truck over the remnants of his cupcake.  He is all BOY

We enjoyed some yummy Greek chicken pitas and Elmo Cupcakes (strawberry short cake for us grown ups) for food. Fortunately, Betty Crocker came to my rescue last minute for the cupcakes.  The ones I made from scratch the night before completely flopped and I still don't know why!  If you missed that ever so lengthy post, head on over HERE for a chuckle or two.

After birthday presents, we headed out to my sweets work for the kids to take a ride on our locomotive train. 

Trav got a darling little conductor outfit from his Grandma, Miss Rose and fit the part perfectly for his outing.

I feel so blessed to be his momma.

I love you, Trav.

xoxo

~PW

Mile-long To Do

Hello, friends!  If you haven't entered the Annie Sloan Chalk Paint and Wax giveaway yet, please do so now HERE!  You have till Monday to submit your entries before the winner is announced.

Where has the time gone?  Has it really been almost 2 weeks since my list post?  YIKES!

Here's a quick update on what's been going on in my life of chaos:

I've been working like a maniac to finish my dining room set I told you about months ago.  It's almost done.  Really.

Seriously, how does Marian finish her amazing dining room sets so blasted fast???

I've been in charge of handling all of our admin work at the dance studio while my boss has been out of town for a surgery.  There is no picture to show how fun this has been, but imagine emails, auditions, placement classes, difficult parents, and scheduling going on till the wee hours of each morning for that past few weeks and that's your picture.

This = Me

 I spent a day helping my sister tackle a project of hers that sat in her garage for over a year.  Ahem, yes a year.  Don't worry friends- YOU ARE NOT ALONE.  We all have our never ending projects.

This hutch turned out DARLING and I am so proud of her for adding the finishing touches on her own.  Wait till I show you the end result.  Amanda, that means you need to add your hardware!  :)

I have stripped two of these cute little chairs for a new client and friend of mine:

 I couldn't resist showing my special helper...

These babies are waiting for their fabric to come in, and will be finished soon.  Can't wait to show you this transformation.

I have been making salsa and canning tomatoes by the dozens.  I guess planting 20 tomato plants this year wasn't the brightest idea without time to can everything...

This is the average crop size I bring in ever other day.  No joke, folks.

And just because I don' have enough going on, I decided to hit up the City Street cleanup in my mom's neighborhood last weekend looking for some goods.  One man's trash is another man's treasures, and treasures I found!  Here are a few of my faves:

I also collected some matching night stands, an old window, and a garden hose holder.  FREE,  peeps!  Be on the lookout for your neighborhood's street cleanup, but don't come steal the good stuff by me, deal???

Here's a scary peak at what's now hiding in my basement.  Oh please, don't judge!

 My little Trav is such a rockstar with his safety glasses on in this bomb area.  Try not to sneak at the dining set in the background, k?

So there you have it.  I've been busy, overwhelmed in fact.  I realize that this post serves no real purpose in teaching any of you how to sew cording, or even how to can your tomatoes because the fact of the matter is, I just felt like venting about how I've been too busy to share any great projects with you because, well, gosh darn it, I just haven't finished any of them yet!  Can all the strings please pull together on all these loose ends?  Now?

Thanks for listening, folks.

Please remember to enter the Annie Sloan Chalk Paint giveaway HERE if you haven't already!  The winner will be announced this Monday!!!

xoxo,

A very tired PW

Lake Powell

Hello friends.  I just spent one of the most fabulous weeks in Lake Powell with my family, and am just now ready to face real life again.  My sister and her husband have a house boat there and were so generous to invite us to join their family for a week long vacation.  I spent many years as a child vacationing with my family in Lake Powell, so this was like a dream come true for me to be able to go back after missing it for so many years.  My sweets hadn't ever been before, so being there with him for his first was so exciting for me.  We were crazy enough to take Trav with us and though he was indeed challenging at times, he had so much fun and was a water animal! He couldn't get enough of jumping off the edge of the boat into the water, and swimming around by the "beach" all by himself with his life jacket on and momma very close by of course.

We parked the house boat up Rock Creek Canyon, but decided that it should be called Boy Scout Canyon (see if you can figure out why....)

*** Please excuse the fabulous hair after about 50 runs down the water slide and jumping off the house boat***

Travis was convinced that he was the captain and took it upon himself to steer the "car" every chance he could.

The men folk spent a good portion of the first day building their 100 foot water slide, which was an absolute riot to watch their guinea pig runs down the first few times.  It got much faster and less rocky of a landing as they worked on it more over the days. Please excuse my annoying voice in the background and terrible videography skills or lack thereof and enjoy the humor that we all enjoyed for the first run.  Hang in there till the end of the video for a great chuckle.

Since I'm roasting the men in this video, it's only fair that I show you my roasting video also.  Here I am surfing behind the boat showing off without the rope, and finally wiping out during my attempt to finish up the run on the back of the boat.   Smooth move.

So there you have it!  After a fabulous week long vacation I am ready to get back into my projects and preparing choreography for my August intensives.  How has your summer been?  Any fun vacations or projects?  Do tell.

~PW

Progress on dining room set and Trade, anyone?

I had the best day yesterday.  My sweets took Trav to a local truck show, and left me in peace to work on my projects.

Cotton candy, anyone?

I was amazed at how much I was able to accomplish in those 4 hours alone with a little Diet Coke and Pandora playing on my phone in the background.  I sewed my third pillow for the outdoor bench I mentioned HERE,

I stitched on ties to the back of my Euro sham to give it a more snug fit,

and best of all painted 4 of my dining room chairs on the set I shared with you all way back HERE.

The table is almost completely finished and is absolutely gorgeous.  I actually can't believe myself how beautifully it turned out.  Is it normal to drool over furniture?  I know I do.

Last night, I started working on the first slipcover for one of the chairs, and hope to finish it today.  Here's  a little sneak peak...

I can't wait for this project to be finished!  I love it when I'm on a roll...

Now, on to business matters.  I am quite aware that my blog's front page is far from exciting or eye appealing.  I am also more than willing to admit that I am not very good at the "techy" aspects of blogging.  Can't I just be creative with my hands and some paint or great food ingredients?  That being said, I realize the value of an eye catching website (or blog as the case may be) and easy accessibility to tutorials and other important information.  So, fabulous readers, I am looking for a web designer/ graphic designer to help me spice up my blog.  I would like someone who can help me design a header and logo, a few buttons, and different tabs from the main page.  Since Penny Wenny is not made of moolah however, I would love to work with someone who is interested in a trade.  I can offer furniture refinishing/ updating, reupholstery, or anything along those lines. 

If you are interested or can refer me to anyone who might be, please send me an email to Littlemisspennywenny@gmail.com

Last but not least, I wanted to share a fabulous deal going on through Groupon today to my local Utah readers.  Kwal Paint is offering $30 worth of paint supplies for $15.  This is a fabulous deal!  I stocked up on two, and plan on buying some new Purdy brushes with the coupon.  Go and grab yours today before the deal is up.  And hey, if you use my personal referral link, you'll be adding some $ to my Groupon bank. :)

Thanks friends!  I hope that you all enjoy this beautiful Sunday afternoon.  I will be stitching away to my hearts content.

Xoxo

PW

Tiny Hands and a Sneak Peak

Happy Mother's Day!

I had a fabulous and very relaxing day today with my amazing little family.  My sweets made breakfast for me and gave me some pretty tulips and a nice card.  My little Trav made this adorable thing in Nursery at church today.

It melted my heart.  I know that I have many years ahead of me with lots of little notes and crafts like this coming my way, but this was the first one I really got from him and it just warms my soul.  I love this little stinker so much and I need to remember that having messes in my house is okay!  I will work on enjoying the little finger prints while I have them..

How was your Mother's Day?  I hope you felt special and appreciated!

I wanted to also share with you a quick sneak peak of the AMAZING hardware that will be adorning my sister in law's dresser...

My heart skipped a beat when I first saw the pull.  I will share with you soon where they can be purchased.  Also, remember the paint I was stripping off the top the other day?

You will die when you see the beauty that was hiding underneath...

Rookie Needs Help! "Pease" and "Juh- Joo"

Oh my gosh.  Just when I think I'm starting to get the hang of this blogging business, I realize what an idiot I am and how much I still don't know! I am kind of embarrassed to divulge my stupid moments with you but I know you are all so much smarter than me and can help me catch up on the tech issues... I swear I used to "get" technology but must have lost it back in college somewhere.  If you find where I left it, could you please drop it off on my front porch?  MMMkay, thanks.

So, I decided to log into my blog email account (LittleMissPennyWenny[@]gmail.com) to send my winner an email, and I discover unread emails from 3 months back.  Uh, hello.  I thought I had set up my blog email address so that everything would automatically forward to my personal email address but apparently I thought wrong.  I am so sorry to all of the kind emails and inquiries that I have not responded to!  I will do my best to catch up on those tonight.  That issue I think I can figure out.  If not, you better believe I will be back to ask how from you smarty pants readers.

Here's the real moment of stupidity.  I have oodles of responses to comments I have left on other blogs, written as emails, and I have no idea how that works!  I always thought that if you had a question or comment to leave that it just had to be done in the comment section.  Obviously not!  So how on earth do I send responses this way?  Does everyone do this by just replying to their emails that were sent from a comment being left?  I don't see how you can do it from blogger directly.  I spent quite some time researching how to respond to comments in blogger and read that you have to download different programs (one mentioned disqus) or change your html to allow you to respond.  I did that, but it still doesn't allow you to respond directly to that person's comment.  Help!!!

P.S.  I have a week off of teaching for our county's spring break, and my sweet mom let us spend the last few days at her condo in Park City.  My sweet little Trav was in HEAVEN playing with some of his big cousins and enjoying his first experience as a real big kid playing in a pool, or "baf" (bath) as he calls it.

He has also been such a polite little man using his "Pease" and "Juh- joo" for everything.  Here he is thanking grandma for his treat from the Rocky Mountain Factory.

Juh-joo everyone!  I need all the help I can get...

Sometimes you just can't say no

It's true. Although I have several other projects waiting to be finished in my basement right now and I set a New Years resolution to finish something before I start something new, some rules were simply meant to be broken. When you see a deal like this on KSL, you just can't say no.

Over the weekend, I came across this steal of a deal:

A Thomasville solid wood hutch with a separate base and top (glass shelves, interior lighting), a Thomasville solid wood dining table with 2 leaves, and 6 solid wood upholstered dining chairs for....

$250!

For realsys.  Please try your very hardest to look past the tragic walk down memory lane of the early 90's with the forest green painted top and sponge painted everything else and see the real beauty that will soon be revealed.

The lady who sold it to me was one of the sweetest people I've ever met, and she wanted to make sure this set went to a nice family.  I didn't have the heart to tell her the truth about us.... I think we're nice enough, anyhow.

I have been wanting a new dining room table and chairs for, well, ever and finally have my chance at one that I absolutely love!  Here's what we have in our kitchen now.  This was a hand me down from my sister and we have been so grateful to have used it since we were married, but we are so due for a new one.

This is definitely going to be a time consuming process however and a true labor of love.  I started stripping the paint so optimistically yesterday morning,

 and here is the progress now (almost 24 hours later). 

 It might look like I'm actually getting somewhere with it, but please bear in mind that this is after my scraping for about 2 hours. No Joke.  I applied another coat of the Citrustrip and have let it soak in overnight, so hopefully it's ready to work a little bit easier for me. 

 Can you hardly stand how fabulous that wood is hiding underneath there?  EEEK!

Does anyone have any fabulous tips for stripping paint for me?  Do you love/ hate any particular brands?  So far I haven't been all that ecstatic about this citrustrip I bought, so I just picked up some KleanStrip that I will be trying as soon as I log off here.


As a side note/ tip for the day, don't ever leave your little boy unattended in the kitchen while you "quickly" log in to check your stats (you crazy obsessive bloggers...)


Here's my little Trav coming in the office saying "Pease?"  for more candy from the drawer he opened and helped himself to for breakfast.  

Check out that bed head.  Gosh, I love this little stinker.


xoxox


~PW