Air Dancers

Labor Day weekend my husband and I went to the Baltimore Grand Prix. This is a street race and it is held in the middle of the city of Baltimore.  They close off a large section of the downtown area and have a big party for this race.  We had a great time and the weather was blistering hot, but they had the paddock (garages) in the convention center where it was air conditioned. It was so nice to be able to get out of the heat and into the paddock area to cool off and to see the Indy cars and their drivers.
 Also in the convention center was an area for kids that had entertainment, go carts, those bouncy buildings and so on. Unfortunately the only way to get into the Paddock, that was closest to our hotel, was through the kid section, and that door was guarded by Air Dancers. Who in heavens name thought up this crazy device. I was dodging those silly things every day, three or four times a day.

 They look innocent enough until you try to walk past them and out of the blue they would lose air, drop down and slap you in the head or the face. While I enjoyed watching other people getting hit and thought it was funny, I was scared to walk past them and it was like trying to walk through a gauntlet everyday.

I honesty think my husband got a bigger kick out of me walking through the Air Dancers than seeing the race cars. OK, maybe that`s a stretch, but he did enjoy it a little too much.

The Bridal Bouquet

                                                                                                                                             
 I had always had the dream that one day my daughter would wear my wedding gown. This is not a unique dream, after all TLC has a series based on the notion called, "Something Borrowed". My daughter was a sport about it and tried it on, but lets face it, long sleeves and a high neck line is not what this modern bride was looking for.
 If we had thought about it early enough we could have had the dress altered for her rehearsal dress, but that idea came way too late in the process. So, I decided that we would just have to incorporate parts of my dress into the wedding.

 As you can see from this picture (Oh, we were so young) I had beautiful cuffs on my gown. I though if I could remove one it would look lovely covering the stems of my daughters bouquet. After 28 years of marriage (now 30) this dress was a symbol of "marriage success" to me, and taking scissors to it was extremely  hard.
 First, I cut one cuff off and left it  in the tube shape with the snaps left on to keep it closed.  We took it to the florist and asked them to add it to the bouquet.  Beautiful!  

 We also took a piece of lace from my gown and sewed it to the inside seam of my daughter's gown.  This way she would have a piece of my gown with her all through her special day.

 Who knows what the next step for my wedding dress will be? Maybe a Christening gown for my grand kids. You never know! 

Bar Stool Covers

   I have been getting furniture together for our Son's first off campus apartment. We had two bar stools that we picked up at Bed, Bath and Beyond to use in our new house, before we had our furniture moved. They had dark brown legs and a vinyl brown seat. The colors for our Son's living room and dinning room are red, black, and gray. I took the seat off the legs and spray painted the legs gray. (Thanks Debbie for turning me on to the art of stray painted furniture.) After three coats of gray, I put two coats of polyurethane spray on them. Beautiful!
   My dilemma was what to do with the seats. Leaving them brown was not an option.

 First I thought I would reupholster them with a red vinyl, but that would be way too much work, because they have buttons on them. If I reupholstered them with vinyl or cloth I would have to take the old cover off, repad them, and then try to cover them keeping the shape and strong structure .Plus they have such a small boarder under the seat to staple, there was just not enough room. After talking to my daughter about it she suggested a drawstring cover. SOLD!
  I took the seat, laid it on the same fabric I am using for the couch cushions and marked it by adding 7 inches on all four sides. I cut out the rectangle, ironed about one half inch hem, then folded it about one to one and a half inches all around to make a casing. I took a ribbon from one corner, laid it in the fold, pinned it so it would stay toward the fold, and then sewed the casing along the edge being careful not to stitch the ribbon. I tacked the ribbon down on one end and left a long piece out the other end for tying. I hate stringing ties through casing, so this took that step out of the process. When I was finished two opposite corners had the ribbon tacked down and two opposite corners had the ties coming out each side.

Next, in the middle of each long side I tacked down a thicker black ribbon, making sure not to sew the ribbon in the casing. These ribbons are used to tie the sides together under the seat.

Now it is ready to go on the bar stool.  Just lay it on top, pull the draw string on the opposite corners and tie in a bow.  Then I tucked the strings up under the cover to hide them. Tie the ribbons in the middle under the seat to keep the sides tight and not droopy.

DONE!  Love how they turned out and great for a college student because you can take them off and throw them in the washer.

New Name,New Address and New Look

Well I tried the anagram as a title and no one got it, so now I am changing the title to Busy Geemaw. When my daughter was pregnant with our grandson, my boys said I should go with being called Meemaw. Their love of the "The Big Band Theory" was the guiding force in that decision.  So, my older son and I decided to take the Gigi and turn it into Geemaw. Now all we have to do is to see if it works for the baby when he starts talking. I have a while to wait for that.
Just like the title I have been very busy.  Our youngest son transferred to a new college this year, and I have been busy refinishing furniture for his new apartment.  I will try to keep you updated on all the progress and ideas I have to make this kid a nice apartment on a shoestring budget. It`s what I do!

Painting our Front Door

The new home that we moved into in Northern Virginia has the ugliest front door. The whole street has this dark brown weathered dull front door on all the houses. The HOA has a rule about color and your choices are Black, brown or dark green. So we decided to be the first in the neighborhood to have a green door. So, our first step was to pick a color, our choice was "Fig Leaf" from Home Depot.

The next step was to submit approval from the HOA to paint the door. This would include paperwork, sample of the color and the approval of the neighbors on both sides of us. Yes, you heard me right, my neighbors had to approval the color. We received the OK and I went to work.

The outside was not all that difficult, just some cleaning with mineral spirits and three coats of paint. The inside was more difficult because of the gloss paint used on it. Here are the steps we took to paint the inside of our front door.

First we took the hardware off the door and sanded it with a fine sanding sponge. After sanding the whole inside of the door I washed it down with mineral spirits. I waited for the mineral spirits to dry and then used a damp washcloth and wiped the door down again. When dry, I put on the first coat of paint. The paint I bought was an exterior paint with a primer in it. The paint has a satin finish. I was also assisted by my husband to remove and replace the hardware. By assisted I mean he did all the work!

To apply the paint I used a one inch foam brush for the cutout panels and a 6 inch foam roller for the flat parts of the door. I taped the hinges with painters tape as I had to leave the door up to paint it because we painted in January. Three coats were also required for the inside of the door.
I waited four hours between coats.

We purchased black hardware to match the iron rail on the porch. Love it!