Furniture fun!

It has been intermittently pouring down rain or sun shining bright. But it seems that when I do any gardening that the sun shines, however the moment I put down the shovel and pick up my sander to work on furniture, the rain comes and runs me off the deck. In the past few days though, I have managed to finish a few pieces so that they can go in to one of the shops that sells my furniture for me.


This first piece is a wonderful colonial style dry sink that I did in black and white.





This next piece is made out of half a door and a bed footboard with a seat made out of rough pine. Then it really gets to looking like a garden chair when the tanglevine wreath and garland are added. This chair was done in green on black so it probably didn't help to take the picture of it with the lawn as a backdrop!





This is the second of four secretaries that I have done. The first one was a very, very primitive style. This one had been used by a gentleman for his fishing flies that he enjoyed making. Now it will have a new life in someone else's home.

More Rock Creek Park

Here are some more of the pictures I took at Rock Creek just a few days ago. If I were to go back and take the same pictures now, it would be hard to believe how much change has resulted since the trees have really popped out with their spring finery.








I am just posting them randomly so that you can get a sort of feel about the variety of landscape at this park. I'm excited to see what the city of Twin Falls is going to do to improve this park. They've built a handicapped accessible fishing dock. I used to bring a foster child and his friends down here to fish but in the past few years, there have been intermittent problems with water quality. I don't care how many fish they might stock for fishing, if the water hasn't got a great clean bill of health, I'll catch mine at the local fish market!











Last year, when I was 80 pounds heavier, I could hardly make it to the end of this path. In fact, I don't think I actually went to the end. There are five benches along the path for resting, and I would stop at each one, lol. Now I am able to walk the length and back and have done so as many as three times without pausing for a rest. Wow, who would have thought that losing 80 pounds would make so much of a difference. Now if I can just take off another 50-60 pounds!











I hope you enjoyed seeing a part of my world. These are just a few of the one hundred pictures or so that I took on this one walk. Thanks for looking!

Walk for Loss (weight)

I've lost 80 pounds through better portion control (including what those portions consist of) and through exercise. One of my favorite places to walk is at Rock Creek Park. The city of Twin Falls, Idaho, has put a lot of effort and time in to making this a very friendly family park. It used to be overgrown with shrubs and trees and to be honest, you needed to be prepared for anything you might encounter as you would walk through the brush. It always amazed me how many people would get naked out there where the extreme possibility of those of us who went walking might chance upon these daylight trysts. But since the city has cleaned up all the brush and opened the park up, you don't have to wear blinders while walking. We have large family picnics here and go walking on the trails after eating.

I recently went walking there again at about 9:30 am and the way the light and shadows played against each other inspired me to snap dozens and dozens of photos. I've selected several that I'll post here and hope you enjoy them as much as I did.








You can see how overgrown the far side of the bank is. That is how the side I am on taking pictures used to be. It was full of Russian Olive trees that had pretty much run amok. They took out a lot of the Russion Olives and replaced them with native trees and shrubs.


Rock Creek meanders through a "canyon", both sides of the canyon being made of volcanic rock. What is amazing to me is how that trees and shrubs and grasses have managed to root among those rocks and crevices and grow.











This used to all be overgrown. See how they've opened it up and how inviting it looks.











I have many more pictures from this one walk. It seemed that every time I turned around, that what I had just taken a picture of would look so different from another angle. I'll post more pictures later.

More Centennial Park Pictures

Here are some more pictures from our Mother's Day picnic at Centennial Park.



Jaedan is a photo maniac. He loves to have his picture taken and wanted to find every nook and cranny to crawl in to for possible photo opportunities.







Of course, sister had to try to do everything that big brother did, much to his chagrin!









One of the local civic clubs has put a lot of time and effort into creating a very nice river side park. There is a boat ramp and something the kids think every park should have, a playground area.





And a few more of the random shots I took that day:

More furniture

Chairs continue to sell well. And now I get to put furniture in two shops in town, both having different clientèle so it increases the number of potential buyers. Check out The Black Sheep Gallery and Simpler Times Village if you live in the area. Here are some of the most recent chairs I've done.



The first one in a baby high chair done in black and white.







This next one was purchased at an estate auction. There were a dozen singularly individual antique chairs but this was the only one that sold within range of my checkbook. It is done in Mustard and Black with a wreath and garland that has mustard pip berries and burgundy tin stars.







People are beginning to bring me pieces to have them primmed and antiqued. I just finished a corner two piece hutch for a lady who brought this next chair as part of the payment for redoing her hutch. I plan to put the word "WELCOME" across the top in vinyl lettering, probably in burgundy to match the fruit in the heart shaped wreath. I think it would look great in some foyer to welcome guests into a home.







In addition to chairs being very popular (I've done over 40 chairs in the past year), another oft requested piece of furniture are smaller end tables such as this black and white table. This won't last long at the The Black Sheep Gallery.

Mother's Day

It has certainly been a blessing that the primitive furniture has been doing as well as it has. The economy has certainly played havoc with soap sales. Since our niche seems to be strongest in the tourist industry in Idaho, and our wholesale accounts are holding out to see what kind of tourism will occur in Idaho this year, we have not been nearly as busy as in years past.

On the flip side, it has allowed us to spend some quality time with our grandchildren and that has been very good.

We went to a local park down on the Snake River just below the Perrine Bridge. for a picnic for Mother's Day. Nancy has never been a "wine 'em, dine 'em" type of girl, doesn't care for the box of chocolates or the fancy wine. Just give her a picnic with family and she is good!

The park is right on the bank of the Snake River.







The walls of the canyon are volcanic rock as you can clearly see in the pictures that follow:















I remember as a kid, climbing these walls up and down the canyon. Looking back, I now realize how dangerous this was because many of the rocks are unstable and loose, easily dislodged if you're not careful. My guardian angels must have been working overtime back then.















We had a great time, going for a short hike around the area. The kids had their bikes so the helmets did double duty for both riding and hiking.







I won't mention any names but someone just took advantage of the time to catch up some 'zzzzz's.







Anyway, Nancy got a gift certificate so she'll get to go shopping for herself and a "smart shopper" gadget that allows her to just speak her shopping list into the gadget and then print the list. She is a great wife and the greatest Mom and now, the bestest greatest Nana!

Candlesticks

I had some fun creating these. Whenever I have any thing that I don't have an immediate idea for, I set it aside and let it percolate in my brain for a while. Over the past few months I'd accumulated some small stools that were not good candidates for prim furniture but I hate to waste anything.

Eventually the idea came to me to remove the legs and using some other things I had on hand, made these 10-11 inch tall "candlesticks". Here are the latest candlesticks currently available.







A prim lumpy bumpy candle would look great in the bowl at the top of the candlestick as well as some bowl fillers, rosehips, potpourri or other needful things.















This final candlestick has a small "milk pan" metal container instead of a bowl at the top. Perfect size for a votive of some sort.