Take Me Out to the Deli

When my friends Tom and Mary host a Friday Lunch Club geocaching event, it's always a good time.  But their annual Lunch Club Saturday event at Jason's Deli is by far my favorite.  Jason's Deli has such good food and it's always fun when geocaching and good food are combined.

We picked up my parents and decided to hit a couple of geocaches on our way to the event.  It was definitely a tree climbing day and I reached some good heights in my quest to grab the caches.  Can you see the cache?

Louie always gets nervous when I'm climbing trees and tends to wander away so he doesn't have to watch!

We also searched low for a couple of caches....

And found a couple of cleverly hidden geocaches.  Care to guess what the caches are?

By the time we got to the event, we were starving....

Our hosts and 2 of the nicest people you will ever meet - Tom and Mary...

Mary and I getting our traditional event photograph...

Tom and Mary are proud new grandparents and she is showing off baby photos to Glenn...

Lots of smiling faces at these events....

 Me photo bombing.....

"Ans" is a geocaching friend who lives over seas - HI ANS!!

After visiting and then eating some excellent soup and a corned beef sandwich, we left.  We stopped and grabbed a few more caches on the way home.  Thanks Tom and Mary for another great event!

(some photos courtesy of Mary Muchowicz.  Do not reproduce without permission)

Repurposed Tray

I had this old wooden tray kicking around and I decided I needed some place for my husband to throw his wallet, change and receipts in when we were at the lake.  Usually his stuff lands on the dining room table, which drives me nuts.

I took this tray that was originally painted a dark blue and had butterflies decoupaged onto the bottom.  Sorry, but I forgot to take pictures of how ugly it was.  I sanded down the decoupage to rough it up a little.  Then I quick painted 2 coats of light blue paint on all the edges and the bottom of the tray.

Once it dried, I distressed it a little.  Then I grabbed some old paint stirrers that I found on the shelf in the laundry room.  I cut them down to size, squirted a little liquid nail on the back of them and stuck them to the bottom of the tray.  I left them in their natural state - I didn't stain them or anything.  I liked that they have the Walmart and Home Depot advertising on them.

Not super fancy, but guess what?  Hubby is using it, all his stuff is off the dining room table and I'm happy!

Wood Burning Wooden Spoons

For Mothers Day my daughter got me a new wood burning tool.  The one I had was over 30 years old, so I think I was due for a new one.  This one has interchangeable tips, which is very cool.

I like to look for nice wooden spoons at estate sales.  I bring them home, clean them up really good, give them a good sanding and then burn them with the wood burner.

The last set is my favorite.  The spoons are made out of some kind of heavy wood in a beautiful color.  I'm going to be watching for more like these in the future.

FTF - Tanks for the Memories

A couple of weeks ago I got a notice that a new geocache had been placed and nobody had found it yet.  The First to Find (FTF) hounds in our area are super quick.  It's hard to beat them to a cache and be the first one to find it.  The usual suspects must have been out of town, at work or napping.  But I was feeling lucky and fortunately my husband was in the mood to drop everything and run out the door.  We called my mom and dad from the car and asked if they wanted to join us.  They were standing on the doorstep when we arrived 10 minutes later, and off we went.

We pulled up to the cache location (GC52YMG) and discovered another car already sitting there.  We were pleasantly surprised to see the cache owner (Toppercat) sitting in the car.  He was checking up on the cache and he recognized us as we practically knocked him out of our way piled out of the car.  After a quick hello, he stood back and let us have at it.  The cache is located someplace on this tank....

We were all over that thing and with a difficulty rating of 5, we knew we weren't going to walk up and immediately find it.  The presence of the cache owner made us more determined to find the geocache.  We were not giving up and Toppercat was not giving any hints.  He strolled away and tried very hard to ignore us.  Toppercat is notorious in our circle as having good, creative hides.  Based on that, and having found several of his geocaches already, we knew to look for something a little different and well-crafted.  Finally I heard my dad yell "Hootie" and laugh, and we knew he had found the cache. Sorry but I can't show it to you here.  I don't want to give anything away.  But here's a shot of the pristine log sheet with our proud signatures....

Mom and dad with cache owner extraordinaire and sneaky hide genius - Toppercat....

Chablis and I just happy that the cache was in hand and we were part of the FTF team.  Nice going dad!

Lake House Kitchen Redo - REVEAL

If you've been following along, you will know that Chablis and I have been hard at work repainting the kitchen at the lake house.  Get caught up here and here if you missed the progress posts.

Here's a couple quick pictures of what we started with - ugly 1970's wallpaper border and dark wooden cabinets.  The whole kitchen was dark and dingy. 

We removed all the cabinet doors and drawers.  Everything got scrubbed down with soft scrub and sanded.  Then everything got 3 coats of paint, with plenty of sanding between coats.  I did not paint the inside of any of the cabinets or drawers.  Everything was lightly distressed to give it a slight shabby chic look....

So here we are - the finished kitchen.  New white ceiling, taupe on the fascia where the wall paper border was and Windy Sea Breeze on the cabinets. 

We added that shelf over the stove.  Brilliant idea by Chablis!

We added a couple of new items for accents.  Chablis made the signs saying campfires and s'mores, fish fry and mess hall. 

I found this circa 1960's water skiing photo online and then bought a frame at an estate sale that I painted and distressed....

I found the vintage, red handled rolling pin at an estate sale for a dollar and I got the funny wooden fish cut out at an estate sale for a quarter....

I couldn't figure out why in the world anyone would make a wooden fish cut out that said finger fish on it.  But it was quirky and different so I decided to buy it.  Co-incidentally, it was the same estate sale where I bought the aforementioned picture frame.  When I was cleaning up the picture frame, the owners name was written on the back of the frame.  His last name was Finger   Honestly, you can't make these things up.  LOL!

I also picked up the rooster tray for cheap at a yard sale.  It's in mint condition.  I like the little pops of red in the kitchen.

We also whipped up this tin can utensil holder.  I did a post about that here if you're interested in how I made it.

And finally Chablis did a little stenciling for me.  Since the kids call me Bird, she stenciled a bird on one of the cabinets and another bird on one of the drawers.  Aren't they sweet?

And we had this huge side of the cabinet that faces the deck, so she stenciled that as well.  It looks cute when you're walking in from the back deck....

 

 

One more detail was the repurposed cutting boards I made.  I did a post about that here.

 

 

Honestly, I kept putting off starting this project.  I knew it was going to be a lot of work and time consuming.  If it wasn't for Chablis prodding me along, it probably still wouldn't be done.  But now that it's finished, I couldn't be happier.  Woo hoo!  The last thing I want to do is get the ancient TV off the counter.  We have a small flat screen TV at home that I want to bring down and hang on the end of the cabinet.  That will free up some more space on the counter too.

 

So, what do ya'll think?

 

Linking up with

 Craft Frenzy

My Repurposed Life

From the Farm Hop





Tin Can Utensil Holder

In between painting the cabinets in the kitchen, Chablis and I also worked on some new items to decorate the kitchen with as well.  I saw this tin can idea from a guest post over at A Repurposed Life and thought it was so cute.  I made mine a little differently, but it's basically the same thing.

I had made chili the night before, so I kept these 2 cans because I liked the size of them.  I washed them with some dish soap, let them dry overnight and then coated the outside of both cans with 2 coats of clear polycrylic....

I grabbed an old board out of the garage and painted it with a coat of white paint and then a coat of blue paint and gave it a light distressing after it dried.  I drilled a small hole in the top of the board and threaded some twine through it to hang it up.  And finally I used small zip screws to screw the cans onto the board.  I attached the screws from the inside of the cans onto the board and they were small enough that the screws don't stick out the back of the board.  Then I just hung it up on the end of one of the cabinets....

Cute huh?  Did you notice how I gave you just a little glimpse of my kitchen?  You have to come back tomorrow for the full reveal!

 

Yesterday I just happened to run across a post by the original blogger over at Knick of Time and I wanted to give credit where credit was due.  Go over and visit if you have time.

 

Linking up with:

Beyond the Picket Fence

Craft Dictator

My Repurposed Life

Funky Junk Interiors