WIP Wednesday-More Of The Rocking Chair History Book

As many of you know, I'm refinishing my childhood rocking chair for my granddaughter who has her first birthday on October 27th.

For those of you that haven't previously seen them, these are the first three pages of the book that I posted last week.  I scanned all of the pages I have done, so if there are some weird shadows it's from my scanner.

 

 This is the rocking chair before I started to strip it down. The next page will be a picture of the chair after it's all done, which it isn't yet, so that will come  later.

The rest of the pictures are pretty self explanatory so I'll just post them so you can see them.

I have more pages done but don't have them scanned yet to add to my blog. I'll try to get them scanned and posted soon, otherwise, that will be my update again next week.

I'm still fighting with bronchitis, the antibiotics weren't doing much for me so the Dr. put me on some steroids on Monday and I have to go back to see her on Friday so she can see how I'm doing. The steroids are starting to kick in after 2 days so I AM starting to feel better. Still coughing my head off and still kinda "snottified" and congested, but not as bad as I was. Going into my third week of this, getting old :) Can't go see my granddaughter while I have this, don't want her to get it, so that is irritating me more than anything I think.

In the meantime, I'll keep on working on her book and the chair as I feel like it.

I've never done any scrap booking before so I've been learning as I go, but it's been a lot of fun.

That's my WIP this week, what are you working on?

Click the link below and you can see what some of the other ladies in our WIP Wednesdays are doing.

WIP Wednesday-Rocking Chair History Book

Still fighting bronchitis but determined to get some work done on the rocking chair history book before Peyton's birthday gets here!
Since I've never really done any "scrap booking" before, I decided to do some surfing on the web for ideas and some other scrapbook paper I could print for free.I wanted some more variety than what I had and money IS an issue right now. So, free is VERY good, lol.
One place that I got a LOT of really nice scrapbook papers and ideas is called Scrapbook Scrapbook.com
Their link is: Scrapbook Scrapbook . 
I also went looking for tutorials on how to cover a three ring binder. Found a few good ones so that is the option I am going to go with to put the pages in. I attempted to cover foam board with some really heavy pretty fabric, but it gave me all kinds of fits and I gave up on that idea pretty quick. Plus figuring out how to get grommets in the cover and back so I could use rings to put it all together just had me very frustrated.

  After digging through the craft room I found this three ring binder. I went through some of my fabric stash and decided I'm going to use this pretty sage green flowery print to make the cover, then use fabric glue to add the darker sage green braid for trim along the top and bottom of the cover.
I wanted to make the cover kind of old fashioned since this is a "history" and I think this fabric and trim will work just fine.
Sorry if some of the pics aren't as clear as they should be, or if the color is a bit "off". It was the operator, not the camera.
 Should have taken the pictures when it was sunny out, not at night. I'll get the hang of it one of these days :)

This is the first page that's going to be in the book. Isn't it cute? I found it at the Canon Creative Park website. Their link is: Canon Creative Park Scrap booking 
I printed the teddy bear paper out then ran it back through the printer to add the writing. I added pretty white loopy braid around the heart. Tacky Glue works great for adding braid and laces I found out.

This will be page two. It's kind of hard to tell, but the paper is different sizes of pink dots. I had some cute daisy trim with pink centers so I used that to make a frame around the writing.

Here is page three. It tells about me and the 58 year old rocking chair. The paper is a lighter yellow basket weave. The lace trim on the top is left over from a gift card hat box I made for my daughter's wedding reception 5 years ago. Then I used some teardrop shaped pearls to fancy up the lace some more. Those were recycled from an old wedding dress that I had used the satin on for something else. 

Here's a close up of the trim. Hopefully you can see it better. 

I have some of the other pages printed out but don't have them "fancied up" yet so this is all I have ready to show you for now.

Many more pages to go, hope I can get it all done in time. You watch, with my luck I'll be burning the midnight oil the night before the birthday party to finish it!
Out of necessity I have been digging through my stash in the craft room to create this book. It has actually been a lot of fun to do that! I keep finding more ideas I want to use and finding trims that make me says "oh, I used that to make this" and "gosh I bought that to make such and such". 
It's been fun to be involved in the WIP Wednesday group. Makes me concentrate more on some of my projects, that's for sure. You should go check out what the other ladies are doing. Just click on the picture below.

 

WIP Wednesday-Sorry, Not This Week

To all my great followers, I'm sorry to say I don't have a WIP to report on this week.
Right now I am fighting a bout of bronchitis and just haven't felt much like working on anything.
Much of last week I spend a few days at my daughter's because we had a garage sale on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Forgot how much WORK it is to have one.That's probably where I caught this bug I've got.
I did take my crocheting with me and worked on a few projects during lulls in customers, but didn't get as much done as I would have liked.
When I have felt like doing anything, I've been on the computer working on Peyton's book for the rocking chair I'm refinishing for her. This is a picture of the cover that my daughter helped me design (she's awesome at graphics). Not totally sure this is exactly what I want for the cover, but it's a good start. I do have most of the rest of the inside layout figured out and laid out. Got the pictures for it uploaded online last night so I can get them ordered. So I guess you could say I DO have a WIP this week.

Two Years Ago Today

Two years ago today I suddenly and unexpectedly lost my only sibling to a cerebral hemorrhage.He was only 56 years old.I miss you every day Bobby.  Rest in peace big brother.

10th Anniversary

Today is mine and Dan's 10th wedding anniversary.

Here is our wedding picture. Obviously this is not the first marriage for both of us. We each have two children from previous marriages.
Dan and I are seated.
Behind us are my son Frank, my daughter Mindy, who was my maid of honor, Dan's daughter Shawn, and Dan's son Shannon, who was his best man.

Here we are 5 years ago at my daughter's wedding reception. 

Our kids, Frank, Shannon, Shawn and Mindy.









And last but not least, our three grandchildren.

Chase

Landon

And little Miss Peyton.

WIP Wednesday - Crocheted Bunny

I mentioned in a previous post that I wanted to make a crocheted bunny for my granddaughter Peyton to have to sit in the rocking chair I am refinishing for her first birthday. Well, he is ALMOST done! The only thing I have left to do is make a big old bow and tie it on. I think he turned out pretty cute.

I used a pattern from a Leisure Arts booklet called Toys For Tykes. It was published in 1994 so I'm pretty sure it is no longer in publication. But I watched Ebay for a long long time and finally won an auction for it a few years ago. Paid way more for it than I should have, but the critters in it are so cute! And they are way easy to make. Lots of parts and sewing together but well worth all the effort. I've made all of the animals in the book, and each one turned out just awesome.

Here's a picture of the booklet in case you want to haunt Ebay like I did and try to find one for yourself.














 

WIP Wednesday - Peyton's Rocking Chair

,Earlier this month I posted about refinishing my old childhood rocking chair for my granddaughter Peyton's first birthday. Link to post is here if you want to read about it:

http://mamasu55.blogspot.com/2010/08/this-and-that.html

Here is a picture of what the poor old well loved 58 year old chair looked like before I started to refinish it.
I decided I wanted to do all the restoration by hand, no power tools. This is a labor of love for Peyton, and I want it to be just right.
I feel like I have more control on how it all goes doing it by hand. Granted, it's taking me longer than it would if I used power tools, but I just feel better about doing this way.

Here are some pictures from different angles of how it is looking at this point of restoration.





I'm finding it is taking me much longer than I had originally anticipated.

It looks pretty straightforward and simple, right?



WRONG!

 Because it is child sized, it is presenting itself to be more of a challenge.


Some of the challenges:


It looks to be pretty smooth, etc. with simple scraping. Not so. There are lots of little nooks, crannies and crevasses that are giving me fits to try and remove the old finish from.
So far I have used a plastic scraper, an old toothbrush, a small flathead screwdriver, toothpicks, one of those skinny turkey skewers that you use to lace together the turkey after you stuff it, q-tips, and a stiff brush. Gotta get creative you know!

Then there are the round pieces. They don't scrape very easily with a flat scraper. So, I scrape as much as I can with the scraper, then take the old toothbrush to the round parts. Of course, that pushes the gunk into the crevasses where other pieces fit into the round pieces. Out comes all my other creative "pick it out" tools, lol.
After all that, I wipe the section I'm working on down with mineral spirits so I can see better what is left behind to still remove. 

I'm finding it's better to do one section at a time. Don't even try to do the whole thing at once. And maybe because it's been awhile for me to strip anything, I need to do a second coat of stripper to get off the rest of what I missed. (Couldn't be my old eyes could it?!?!)

 
This is the stripper I am using. I really like it a lot. It has a lot of super good things going on for it. First off, it smells like citrus, very low odor, and you aren't gasping for breath while you are using it :)
Since it's a gel, it's super easy to put it on whatever you are stripping and it doesn't run off. I've been using an old paint brush and that works really well.
It doesn't take much to do the job. Even after applying it twice to everything, I have only used about a third of the jug. It's 32 ounces ( or a half of a gallon, U.S. measurement).
You can clean it off in as little as 30 minutes or up to 24 hours. I have found that 30-45 minutes is usually long enough. 
If you don't think you are going to be able to get back to clean it off in a short period of time, slather the stuff on thick! Because if you only put on a thin layer and don't get back to it shortly, this stuff dries like cement and is a whole lot of fun to try and scrape it off, lol. ( I found out the hard way). If it does dry on you, I found the easiest way to get it off is to just recoat it with the stripper, wait 20-30 minutes, then you can proceed as you should have done :) This is the only downside I have experienced with this stripper.
Price and availability in the U.S. is great. I got mine at my local WalMart and paid something like $10.97 for it.
Don't forget to buy a bottle of mineral spirits to wipe any residue off as you go along. I bought the odorless stuff, what a difference. Got that at Walmart too. The odorless is a bit more expensive than the regular stuff, but you can BREATH while you are working and it's worth every penny.
Looks like I got pretty windy on this post, so I'll quit for now and keep you updated.