I know it's Friday and we post the Inspiration Cafe on Mondays, but we've each posted for round one and before we begin round two, we wanted to thank you for coming and make sure you didn't miss any of the fun!  We hope you're enjoying the Cafe and we certainly hope you are inspired by something you find here.  

We're also interested in a little feedback, so if there is anything that particularly inspired you, or if there is something you'd like to see more of (or less of) or maybe even added to the Cafe, please let us know by leaving a comment. We're tough, we can take it....good or bad!  We really do want this to be something you can benefit from!

Here's a wrap up just in case you missed anything:

Beach Inspired Bracelet 
from Natalie at Northshore Days

Banana Apple Mini Muffins

from Mary at Sweet Little Bluebird

Quilting for the Non-Committal

from Heather at The Beating Hearth

Quick Wall Banner

from Danni at Silo Hill Farm

Nook Typography

from Sherry at Pondered Primed Perfected {P3}

Round Two of the Cafe begins next Monday and we're excited, so come back then, order something tall and cool.....relax and stay awhile!  Remember, we're open late!

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Wanda Wonders

Isn't this painting beautiful?  It takes me away to someplace with salty sea air and warm sand between my toes.  I love it! This gorgeous ocean scene is called 'Waves Gone Wild', and it is comprised of 2 24x36 paintings on gallery wrap canvas done by

the artist Wanda Pépin.

I thought it would be fun to introduce her to you.  

Meet Wanda. 

She's my cousin, but more importantly she is a wife, mother, and professional artist.  Wanda has a quick, genuine smile and a very warm heart to go along with all of her amazing talent and creativity.  I wish we lived a bit closer so I could soak up some of that creativity.  :)

A little bio about Wanda and her art:

Wanda Pépin is a professional internationally collected artist who paints primarily with a palette knife. She lives and works from her studio in Southern Oregon and Northern NY state. She is primarily a self-taught artist with an extensive background in graphic arts and marketing. Although considered a self-taught artist, she really credits the many interactions she's had with other artists who have inspired, mentored and befriended her throughout her career.

Wanda has enjoyed art her whole life. She works as a professional artist doing commissioned paintings, gallery shows, private exhibitions, and selling her work online. Many of her paintings are held in private collections around the world, such as Cyprus, Australia, England, Canada, Mexico, etc.

Her newest piece, 'Kaleidoscope Trees', is an 8x24 painting: 

Such beautiful colors!!

You can also read about the group of students in the UK who chose Wanda as their artist of choice to study for their class project: http://wandawonders.com/artpages/newsandevents.html

Wanda has many gorgeous works of art in her online Portfolio. 

Pop on over to see what she has going on at:

http://www.wandawonders.com 

She also has an art and fashion blog called Timeless Fashion and Art that you must check out:

I feel so inspired after looking at her art.  I'm going to have to get past my own artist's block and put paintbrush to canvas very very soon....

Sherry

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Summer's Bounty

I love summer and all that it brings.  Sunshine and BBQ's.  Water fights.  Laying in the pool on floaties.  Fresh produce and so much green!

Remember our little raised garden bed?  You can read about it's origins HERE.

Just a tiny little piece of real estate to contain a few vegetable plants and satisfy that need I felt to grow a garden.  I've been watering it faithfully and watching expectantly...

 
It has been fun watching it grow and expand.  We got a nice little crop of radishes early on and now we are waiting for some string beans, tomatoes, peppers (sweet and hot), zuchini, onions and carrots to mature!  I  could not keep my little lemon cucumber going unfortunately.  :(

It's really taken off lately...

The string beans could probably use another 4 or 5 feet of climbing net!  The tomatoes have filled in their little quarter section nicely, and the zuchini is ready to branch out and explore the surrounding areas...lol.  The kiddos and I munched on a couple of "baby" carrots today.  Yum.  :)

 And finally, I have caught glimpses of tiny little green tomatoes!  And I look forward to the day when I will be able to pull a big, sweet and juicy tomato from the vine and slice it for fresh-from-the-garden tomato sandwiches with fresh ground pepper.  I might even have to try some of the olive oil mayo on my fresh tomato sammy! 

I have a columnal apple flanking the door on the back deck...along with a fig on the opposite side.

Say HI to Sadie!!!

After years of babying this little lady, she has finally offered up her first apple.  Seriously.  It took years.  I was starting to worry that I would never see an apple from this sweet little tree.  Perhaps she doesn't like being confined to a pot so much...but here is my little prized beauty:

Do you think it will be sweet?

And, of course, we have plenty of baby figs!!!  What on earth will we do with figs???  Any great recipes or ideas for fresh figs that you want to share?  I would love to try them.  :)

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Inspiration Cafe ~ Metal Look Typography

Hi!  I'm Sherry from Pondered Primed Perfected.  We are so excited to be a part of Inspiration Cafe and we hope you've been enjoying the creative projects of my fellow Cafe Mates!

We are very privileged to be finishing up this first round of Inspiration Cafe!  Thanks so much for joining us!!!

My Handyman, Scott and Me, Sherry 

We love to work on projects around here.  Big Projects.  Little Projects.  Quick Projects.  Long Projects.  Easy Projects.  Difficult Projects.  Copycat Projects.  Unique Projects.  Alone Projects.  Together Projects.  Some projects are finished and scrapped and started over again.  But the end result is that we are improving our space and having fun.  Many times we are recycling unwanted and discarded items into new and useful objects for our home.

One of our big projects is the upstairs nook.  It's not a finished space.  There are tons of little details left to do.  And all of that will be revealed when we are done.  But for now here's what I'm up to....all of those little details...

I found these cardboard letters on sale at the Joann's Fabric & Crafts for .99 cents each.  I wanted to put some typography into our upstairs nook and these would work great but they needed to be something a little more special and dramatic than cardboard.

I like these zinc letters from Restoration Hardware:

But we don't have a Restoration Hardware kind of budget!

 So I grabbed some Metallic spray paint in a silver tone and gave them a quick coating in silver.

Fronts and backs 'cause I'm all about the details!

 Once the first coat was dry I added a little bit of oil rubbed bronze.

Looking Better!

Hmmm, maybe a little more oil rubbed bronze...

...and some more metallic silver.

Sand them a little...

Add stain for some "patina"...

Whatever suits you and how you want them to look.

Lay them in the sunshine to get a nice reflective picture!!

What do you think?  I absolutely love them!!!

Here they are in the actual NOOK:

Oooooh....I cannot wait to show you our little nook when it is all finished!

Seriously, it's all in the details.

Thanks for joining us at Inspiration Cafe!!!  Have a fantastic week.

Come by Pondered Primed Perfected anytime and check out some of our Mini Projects and Big Projects

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Come visit me at DIY by Design

Happy Tuesday!

I'm excited to be doing my very first guest post today over at DIY by Design.  Yep, while Judy is out enjoying a Disney World vacation and Cruise I get to help hold down the fort!  So come on by and say HI over at Judy's!!!

http://diybydesign.blogspot.com/2012/07/guest-post-pondered-primed-perfected.html

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Meet Danni from Silo Hill Farm ~ Inspiration Cafe #5

Hey!  Thanks for stopping by Inspiration Cafe!  Today you will be meeting Danni from Silo Hill Farm.  Danni is a girl after my own heart, I tell ya.  She is a Crafter who has a hard time throwing things out because she might find a use for them...eventually!  Boy, have I heard myself saying that a time or two.  :)


Grab a cup, sit back and check out what Danni has been up to lately:


I'm Danni from Silo Hill Farm and this is my first post for the Inspiration Cafe!  I'm excited and a little nervous, because the ladies who posted prior to me have set the bar so high! 

I really do live on a farm.  We grow corn and pumpkins.  Lots of pumpkins!  Every fall we open our farm to the public for a Fall Festival, complete with Corn Mazes, Pick Your Own Pumpkins, Horse-drawn Hayrides and tons of activities for kids.  But when I'm not busy farming, I'm a crafter and that's what I'm here to do today!

This Wall Banner is a really quick and inexpensive project that can be made in under an hour and can be easily adjusted to suit any decor style. (This just happens to be mine...for now...in this room.)

One of the biggest problems I have with being a crafter is I tend to save things I don't really use anymore because I think I can make something out of them.  This project is just such an example.  I found a single placemat underneath my towels in my linen closet.  I hadn't used these placemats in years, and I didn't save the whole set...just this one.  (I guess I can show some restraint, since I didn't save them all!)  Although I don't remember even saving it, as soon as I "found" it, I knew what I wanted to do with it.  

Here's the story morning glory:

I grabbed some craft paint, some buttons, a small dowel rod, a foam stamp and a make-up wedge/sponge/thing, which is great for putting craft paint on a foam stamp.  I have no idea how it is for putting makeup on.

I laid everything out on the placemat the way I thought I might like it to look and then I stamped the center. 

I sewed the buttons on the sides.  (You could glue them on, but every now and then I think I should sew a little something so I don't lose that barely acquired skill.)

For the dowel rod in the back, I took the easy route, as I so often do. 

I just made 3 pairs of slits in just one layer of the fabric on the back side and slid the tiny dowel rod through.  Then I tied a ribbon on to both ends of it.

 Now you could skip the whole dowel rod thing and just sew or glue the ribbon on.  I just had it in my head that the mini dowel rod would help it lay flat and straight.  By the way, that mini dowel rod came from Hobby Lobby a long time ago, and isn't much bigger than one of those little bamboo skewers, which would also work.

 There ya go!  A cute little piece of wall art made out of something that might have been thrown away.......and still can be, when I'm tired of it.  (But, I'll take the buttons off first, in case I want to use them for something else, some other day.)

If you enjoyed this post, it's simplicity, renewability, and it's versatility, please check out some of my other posts on my blog, because most of them fall into these categories.

Thanks for coming to the Inspiration Cafe today!

Don't forget to come back next Monday and see who's bringing their fabulous talent to the Cafe next!

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End Table Makeover with Spray Paint

I've been changing things up and adding some color to our home and lives lately:

New paint on the walls,

New pillow coverings,

And this weekend I threw a bunch of stuff outside for a yard sale, then it rained...

Yep, we live in Oregon!

I even worked on a new attitude (Okay, so I'm always working on a new attitude :)

Here's our latest colorful addition:  

It's a darling little end table with a pull out top, for beverages I assume, and a built in magazine rack.  Woohoo!!!  (Perfect for my decor magazine addiction...shhhhh...)

We found this scratched-up, beat-up, too-short, seen-better-days-beauty abandoned on the side of the rode in Portland.  

Uh jackpot, our lucky day!  (Yeah, I'm saying this now, but each time the hubby brings home another roadkill rescue piece, I give him that "Seriously?  Another project to take up space until we can find the time to work on it?"  look.  He knows what look I'm talking about!

We recently kicked our own end tables to the curb ~  because they were too big for our room and everything was feeling a bit crowded.  I am finding that I like our rooms to have a little bit of breathing space, instead of filling each and every inch with furniture and stuff.  So I have been trying to "streamline" and meet our needs with smaller pieces that will make a bigger impact.  Plus I'm here in this house ALL THE TIME so it's nice to change things up now and then.  :)   Hey, I get bored easily.  

  

It has darling little brass knobs and a pull out top with a no-slip, easily wiped down pad on it.  

Did I mention the built in magazine rack???  Oh yeah, I did...

But, it was too short!  That just wouldn't do.

When we set it next to our sofa it was about five inches shorter than the arm of the sofa.  
That makes it difficult to set anything down...

But Scott conveniently has all that scrap wood out there in his shop area...just waiting to be used for some awesome projects, right!  He measured and cut some "legs" out of 2x2's.  They got nailed into the bottom with his pneumatic nail gun and that whole short issue was HISTORY!  

HE IS SO HANDY...and HANDSOME!

We sanded the top to smooth out all the rough cracks and scratches and removed some of the sheen before painting.  I gave it several coats of Krylon, True Blue Gloss spray paint.  

"Long, light, even strokes with the paint", Scott likes to tell me.  (I get a little impatient with the paint and he feels the need to remind me of this each and every time.  This may never change.)

 The cute little brass knobs went back on and now it fits perfectly beside the sofa:

Just waiting for my cup, my laptop, and the next installment of Inspiration Cafe!

And now for the grand finale side-by-side comparison:

Perfect!!!

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