fancy flea

Greetings from the Sunshine State!

Jasper's Cottage is all boxed up and in storage for a while as we settle in for some time in sunny Florida. Sunny and warm - just the way it's supposed to be.

Mr. French is busy working during the week but we've been trying to have new adventures on the weekends by visiting places we've never been before. Not too long ago we went to a fantastic vintage market called The Fancy Flea which is held a couple of times a year. I actually planned my arrival so that I wouldn't miss it this year and I'm so glad I did! 

Doesn't it look awesome? As you can see, it was full of all sorts of pretty treasures but the best part of the day was getting to meet up with a friend from the blogging world. I was so excited when she said she and her husband were driving up for the show. I don't know how we found each other in the crowd but it was great to meet in person and walk around together. She has great advice about how to navigate this DIY world that I'm so new at. Thanks, Victoria, for hanging out with us! I hope we can do it again sometime.

Being surrounded by so many beautiful things, it was hard to pick just a couple of treasures to tote home. Right away we saw a cute sign which was perfect for our French-inspired living room but after wandering around for a couple of hours, I hadn't found anything else that spoke to me until, there it was on a table in front of a booth I'd walked past at least 20-hundred times. How had I missed this diamond in the rough?

Isn't the sign cute? As for the shutter, I admit, it doesn't look like much now and I really didn't like the color but in my mind I instantly saw the perfect jewelry organizer for my dresser...once I got out the magic paintbrush and worked a little DIY magic, of course.

But that's a story for next time.

beyond the garden gate

Have I ever told you about where I work? I don't think I have. 

If you follow me on Instagram you would know that I work in one of the most beautiful places on the face of the Earth - Tor House. I post way too many pictures of this enchanted spot but it's hard to stop because every corner brings inspiration and the views are fantabulous.

Normally you have to pay for a guided tour but follow along with me as we go beyond the garden gate for a little peek.

The courtyard is magical in any kind of weather. It's not always sunny at Tor House, frequently the fog rolls in and surrounds us.

Abalone shells line the pathways to the cottage. Usually they sit in an orderly fashion but this particular day they were all scattered but there were no animal tracks so I can only conclude that the ghosts were having a wild party before I got there. Oh, did I not mention that Tor House is haunted? I haven't run into anybody but the TV show Ghost Adventures thinks they did. I will say that I have heard  noises that defy explanation.

Told you it was a beautiful place!

The quail are frequent and very welcome visitors in our courtyard.

There are many benches where you can rest and reflect.

This is the far end of the courtyard, looking out to the sea. What lies beyond?

More beauty than you can even imagine. We've recently begun a project to bring back the natural wildflowers that would have been there in Jeffers' time.

Would you like to see inside the cottage? Let me go find the key (yes, this is the actual key that I have to use each time I go in there) and we can go inside the next time you visit.

See you soon!

instagram me

Did you know that I'm on Instagram? Well I am...on Instagram. I am.

Sorry, I got caught up in a loop there. 

I'd love to have you follow me on Instagram though. I try to post at least one picture a day of something pretty. I do hope you'll join me over there.

what I love

A couple of times a week I drive from my office to the post office in town to pick up the mail. I have to do this because I work in a town that has no mail delivery. I think it's unique, we might be the only town in the US without mail delivery and it's an interesting story but I'll save that for another time. The point of today's story is what I see on my drive into town.

Isn't she beautiful?

I pass this amazing truck every couple of days and I drool over it every dang time. One day I just had to pull over, get out and snap a few pictures. I love the shape, the color, the era appropriate trunk in the back...I love it all!

The truck...I've nicknamed her Ethel...is a Studebaker which is a blast from the past kind of name for me. When I was a little whippersnapper my mother drove a Studebaker. I don't actually remember the car, I was too young, but I remember hearing my parents talk about it and I always thought the name was funny.

 

Look at those whitewall tires, isn't that just too cool? Why did those things ever go out of style? I totally want a car with whitewalls one day. Yeah, yeah, I know they're a pain to keep clean and all that but just look at them!

Ethel makes me smile. Sometimes I have to take a different route into town, because of the eternal construction going on around town, and I feel a pang when I realize that I missed out on a chance to hang with Ethel. She's one of the things I love.

painting...again

The other day I was rummaging around at work and I found a wooden coaster in the back of a rarely used cabinet. Of course my first thought was "I can paint this!"  Yep, I may only have one skill in the crafting world but I'm going to keep at it until my fingers fall off.

 That's the back of the coaster...forgot to take a picture before I started painting. You can see that it was just a basic, light-colored wood.

I painted 2 coats of light pink to serve as primer and undercoat. It was really pretty and I almost left it right there but I had another idea in mind.

I used a dry brush technique to paint a very, very light coat of Caribbean Blue so that a lot of the pink would show through. I got exactly the look I wanted, it kind of reminds me of faded blue jeans.

Since I'm new to this painting world, however, I do have a question. If I'm going to use it as a coaster, would it be best to paint some sort of clear coat on top to keep out moisture? Is there even such a thing?

in conclusion

I'm sure you've been asking yourself all week "what else did Jonni do to spruce up her little front stoop?" Ok, humor me and pretend that has been your first waking thought each morning. 

Here's a reminder of the way my front stoop looked originally.






















Then I added some fencing

What was I going to do next? I painted something, of course. 

Yeah, yeah, I know that to some of you crafters out there, just slapping a coat (or four) of paint on something isn't anything to get all excited about but for me, it's a pretty big deal. I don't have endless amounts of artistic creativity and most projects I've tried end up in the garbage so the idea that I can take something rather useless and make it pretty once again, well that's pretty darned exciting in my book. 

Enter the mini bench.

This had been buried in our backyard for years and was looking pretty drab after spending so much time out in the elements. I still had a whole lot of that blue paint leftover from my first painting project and it was just going to waste so I decided, why not?

Plus I had a "new" toy to play with because we'd uncovered the mouse sander in a box in our garage. I was just itching to sand something!

So I gathered up all my favorite supplies and got to work sanding and painting. 

This was a fairly quick job, pretty easy because I didn't prime anything and used a mostly dry brush technique to keep some of the original wood showing through. All too soon the fun was over and I had a much improved little bench on my hands.

And then it was time to put all the pieces together.

Keep in mind that I would dearly love to get rid of the water-stained green rug but that's not my call. Besides that, I think the whole effect is pretty cute and welcoming.

I really get a kick out of walking up to my front door now and the best part is that I can take all the pieces with me to the next Jasper's Cottage and recreate the look.

picket fences

I've always loved the idea of a sweet cottage surrounded by a white picket fence so you can imagine my joy when I moved into my own little picket-fence cottage a few years ago. It was like having a dream come true.

But I've never been particularly fond of our front entrance, it just needed a little something to spice it up. Inspired by my love of picket fences, I came up with a brilliant plan at the beginning of summer - I wanted to attach a miniature picket fence to the wall right outside the front door. The man of the place took a little convincing but soon enough we were off to the local home renovation store and found the perfect little edging fences. There was a large selection to choose from but eventually we chose the real wood ones even though they might need maintenance from time to time, mostly because they were the perfect price - all the materials we needed for under $10.

Before we got a chance to attached the fencing to the wall, we learned that it wouldn't be in our best interest to make any alterations to the house so my project was on hold. Every day I'd go in and out of the front door and think how empty that space looked.

Then, one day, I got another brilliant idea - I am just full of it brilliance, I tell ya! Why couldn't we nail the fencing to a narrow piece of wood that could stand on its own right next to the exterior wall? That would serve 2 purposes, no walls would be harmed AND we could take it with us when we left. Perfect.

 

We found a perfect board out behind a shed in the backyard and the man of the place got right to work sanding it. We measured the front and, low and behold, it fit perfectly in that space. A nail here and there and, voila, my little picket fence was ready!

Isn't that exactly what the space needed? 

But wait, there's more!

Operation Porch wasn't finished quite yet, Check back next week!

watch this space!

So this was my front "porch" at the beginning of the summer. 


Boring, right?

I had a whole bunch of plans to transform it based on ideas I'd gotten while reading some of my favorite blogs. After all, this was going to be my forever cottage so I wanted to really fix it up cute and put my own mark on it.

And then, in a stunning blow, we learned that this won't be our forever place after all. Oh, we're not moving out right away but by this time next year I wouldn't be surprised if Jasper's Cottage had a brand new address. It's taken me a couple of months to be able to think these thoughts without a few tears but I'm ok with it now.

But even though it was now impractical to make any changes to the actual exterior of the house, I still wanted to un-bore-ify this front entrance...without spending any money or making holes in the walls or make any changes that couldn't be put back to the original immediately. Sigh.

Does that pique your interest? (I had to look that up to make sure I was using the correct word )

Tune in tomorrow (same cottage time, same cottage channel) to see if I was up to the challenge!

Clothespins - not just for laundry anymore

Don't everyone fall over in surprise but I've been creating and crafting lately and I've actually enjoyed it. Believe me, it shocks me too!

I've fallen in love with the idea of painting things. I love to take something old or merely functional and with a little bit of paint and embellishment, make it pretty as well as practical.

That was the idea behind my recent clothespin project. Really it all began when I couldn't find any plastic clips for my potato chip bag. I had some extra clothespins around but I wanted something with a little more flair so an idea was born.

All I needed was a quick trip to the craft store for some supplies and I was off and running.

Note the very sophisticated drying rack, nothing but the best for me!

I finally found a use for scrapbook paper!

Once the scrapbook paper is cut to the right size, I Mod Podge the heck out of it...covers a multitude of sins, love that stuff.

and voila - the finished product ready to adorn a chip bag near you. Put a magnet strip on the back and they're great on the refrigerator for holding notes or pictures. I'm kind of in love with them.

The Bench, part 2

My lovely bench was all ready for color but what color would I choose? Originally I had wanted to paint it a soft pink and stencil something on top (yay, a future project) but then I saw a turquoise bench on a favorite blog and I knew how I was going to proceed. I adore the finished product!