Slow Day

Painting goodies from our nature swap!

School Table Free-do

As you saw in my last Slow Day post, I painted our school table! I've never liked the color/finish but it was just one of those things that I couldn't decide what I wanted to do with it. And, then it started really bothering me to look from the kitchen towards the living room and see about a dozen chairs. I was having chair spindle overload and it looked busy. So I was looking for a way to quiet that space.

Around that time, a friend came over and mentioned that gray would look good and would help define the two spaces separately from one another {school/dining}. Well, you know how I feel about gray! {loooove!}

In typical-to-me fashion, I grabbed all the leftover paint from my kitchen cabinets and poured them into a jar from my recycling bin, then I filled the jar up with black chalkboard paint and shook/stirred it reeeealllly good! Used what I had, boom, this color was born! This is why I say this re-do was free, because I used what I had!!!

It was also pretty spontaneous. As in, I woke up one morning and decided that was a good day to work on it. I mixed up the paint and laid paper out on the floor before my littles woke up :) Then I announced once they were up that for school that day, we were going to learn how to paint a table! Ha! Rachel gushed over and over about how that was the best school day! She likes projects like her mama apparently ...

What I love about chalk paint {ASCP} is that you do not need to prime or sand. Glory. Hallelujah. Those two things {priming and sanding} can quickly take all the fun out of a re-do project. My cabinets have held up great so I was ready to go for it and tackle the table.

This is simply one coat of my homemade concoction of chalk paints. For inquiring minds, it was an old coconut oil jar and it had about 1/3 ASCP Old White, about 1/3 ASCP Old Ochre and about 1/3 black chalkboard paint from Lowe's. After letting that dry, I did Minwax Clear Polyurethane top coat. This is the same thing I did on our kitchen cabinets and on our dining room table when I refinished it years ago. With the chalk paint, you can use wax for the top coat, but I feel a little hesitant about that working for high traffic pieces or areas {like a kitchen or school table!} so I use the poly top coat to give it a more durable finish.

And, by the way, see how when you are looking from the kitchen, it just sort of vanishes and doesn't pop out as much anymore?!

Because I seem to work in and love layers, just painting it wasn't quite the finishing touch for me. It took one full morning until lunch time to paint five chairs and the table. I wanted it to look a little aged which is why I only did one coat, so the bottom finish would show through a bit. A second coat would probably take care of that if that did not suit your taste.

That afternoon, I was walking by and instantly remembered a magazine article I'd seen in Life: Beautiful where they had stenciled "give thanks" on the back of the chairs around Thanksgiving time. This was considerably less thought-out, I just grabbed a Sharpie and in five minutes, they all had words on them:

The words I chose were: Wisdom, Knowledge, Understanding, Truth and Goodness. If I'd needed one more - I would've done Beauty for the last one.

By the way, these words were added before the poly top-coat. Then, in my layer-thinking mind, I was mulling over how a light colored table and three energetic children may not be a great combo for their school workspace. And, then remembered a friend having some chalkboard placemats. Bingo! That was the ticket.

I spent $10 on a set of four hard placemats with the cork on the back at TJ Maxx. I painted them with black chalkboard paint and ended up putting a layer of clear poly on them because they were looking like they were going to chip. The verdict is still out on these though I really wanted them more for hard workspace than for chalkboard. And I do love how they look.

The last piece of this project was to make pillows. In observing our school habits, I've noticed when we sit at this table, we are more productive and things go more smoothly. However, the chairs are hard and we were showing tendencies of gravitating to the couch more often than not. So, pillows were a definite must to help make this a more workable space.

I have eyed grain sacks for years! And, wanted to make pillows from a grain sack. When my CC mamas gave me Etsy and Amazon gift cards at our End of Year Celebration, I treated myself to four pillow inserts and a big grain sack. This grain sack stated it was from 1907 and was in really good shape. It was almost as tall as me {five feet} so it was a big piece to work with. I made all four pillows with no room to spare, but love how they look!!!

The pillows were not technically free, but they were a gift to me from sweet mama friends which I will enjoy remembering when I enjoy seeing/using these pillows! The grain sack came all the way from Germany and has amazing color and texture, much better than I even expected from the photos on Etsy.

I'm so happy with how it turned out! It reminds me of when I painted our kitchen cabinets and wondered why I waited so long!

April Family Night

Had a picnic lunch in our yard and our neighbor girl wandered over, we were doing the Resurrection Eggs and story and were glad to include her!

Planted our garden! Definitely serves our family!

Picked up trash at an Easter event at our church while we were enjoying the fun.

Took carts back to the store on our way in.

My littles cleaned out all the CC bins after bringing them home from our last Community Day! Sharpened pencils, cleaned maps, tested markers, pulled out broken crayons, etc...

Took cookies to some new neighbors!And took strawberries to neighbors across the street.

This month, I feel like we did less *planned* service, but still looked for lots of opportunities to help and serve those around us. Emily served her family by making breakfast, we helped friends, we shared baked goodies when we went to others' homes, etc...

This sorta reminded me of when I was working and had come to a point where I could choose between a couple of different jobs within the same place. I spent a lot of time praying and soul-searching to see what would be a good fit and I landed on this thought:

I like to make others' lives easier.

I still find this true and think of this often lately, jumping in there and doing hard stuff is just what I do, going to extra trouble and making things look pretty even if it takes extra time is just what I do, I like hard work and like to feel productive.

Even if you only find one thing to do this next month, what can you do to make someone else's life easier or run more smoothly even if only for a moment? 

Rustic Crust

I recently received a review request from Rustic Crust pizza crusts and sauces who wanted to send me ingredients to host a Pizza Party in exchange for a review. Yes please! Sounded fun!

When my box arrived, there were three large crusts in it and a package with three sauce pouches. I immediately noticed that the ingredients were all normal things that I could easily pronounce like tomatoes, garlic, onion, flour, water, butter, etc...

Rustic Crust uses non-GMO ingredients and no artificial preservatives so that was nice too! And, I think their name is really fun!

One day that week, we were helping friends pack up their house to move and I brought the crusts and sauce with me to make lunch for all of us! We made pepperoni and cheese, ham and cheese and an olive oil, grilled chicken, italian cheese one also!

First thing I noticed was that one of our crusts had a little bit of mold on one edge, I cut it off and used it anyway. If you were buying in the store you'd probably notice that but since mine came in the mail I couldn't choose what I got.

All six kids gobbled the pizza up, of course! My friend and I were trying to really think about taste and texture and things so I could give this an honest review.

The crust was a great texture actually, it was chewy but not doughy at all. It truly is more of a flat bread than a dough crust. It baked really nicely and did not get too crispy. We tried three variations of crust and all were really tasty. The chewy texture actually made it very hard for Emily to eat with two palate expanders and braces in her mouth right now!

But we both especially noticed the great flavor of the sauce! It was so tasty! The pouch looked a little small but it was very well measured and turned out to be the perfect amount for our pizzas.

None of my photos turned out very well {hurry, feeding six kiddos, packing, etc!} but here you go anyway:

Overall, I was pleased with the opportunity to review these products. I think they are definitely worth a try, though I confess I don't really know about if it is a good price/value as they are not available in my area.

Thanks, Rustic Crust, for the free pizza party to share with friends! I received these crusts and sauces at no charge in exchange for sharing my own opinion with you.

On Oak Trees and Roots

This verse. I've been really enjoying Isaiah 61 lately and clearly had read this verse before. This was one of those times that it jumped out at me and lodged in my heart and mind though. I've been thinking about it a lot.

So when the chalkboard was recently bare, I decided this needed a feature there for a while. A day or two later, I sat down during my Quiet Time to really mull this over - here are a few thoughts that emerged:

- oak trees, especially here in the south, are massive, mighty, strong, old, BIG
- oak trees begin from such a tiny seed: the acorn
- the acorn is still visible after the tree has sprouted and begun to grow
- oak trees provide amazing beauty
- with limbs outstretched and up-stretched, they have a far reaching influence
- the one in our yard is a Live Oak {or Water Oak} which stays green year round
- they provide lots of cool shade and are life-giving
- they produce acorns and the gift of life
- consider the root system - the place where the tree receives nourishment and support

Having a large oak tree in our front yard, we are quite familiar with the sounds of acorns dropping, hitting our roof and skylights. It is a heaven for little squirrels and birds who have months worth of food over all these little gifts dropping from the tree.

A woodpecker was having a hey-day recently pecking at a dead branch sticking off one arm. There are frequently birds and squirrels in the tree. It is a place of life.

Because of all these acorns falling, we have baby oak trees all over. They are actually quite a nemesis as they are very difficult to pull out. Weeds will usually just pull out of the ground, but not baby oak trees. Even if you catch them "early" they are very difficult to pull and the larger it has grown the harder to pull.

But frequently when you do manage to pull one out, the acorn is still visible, you can see that it has split open and has a root growing down out of it and a miniature trunk growing up out of it.

When considering an oak tree and the beautiful picture there of raising my children to be strong, deeply rooted, with far reaching branches, life-giving, a planting of the Lord and for His glory and splendor is so, so inspiring and a lovely goal. This can only happen THROUGH Him and His strength!

So it dawns on me as another day begins that I am a gardener appointed by my Heavenly Father to tend and care for these tender shoots. To nurture this planting of the Lord, to cultivate, pull weeds, etc... 

And, I think of these verses also ~

Jeremiah 17:8, "He will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit."

Colossians 2:6-7, "So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness."

Ezekiel 31:7, "It was majestic in beauty, with its spreading boughs, for its roots went down to abundant waters."

Psalm 128:3, "Your wife will be like a fruitful vine within your house; your sons will be like olive shoots around your table."

May the Lord raise up mighty souls useful to His Kingdom during our daily tasks of tending these young plants He has entrusted into our homes.