Sea Spray

A few weeks ago, I saw a blog post about a paint additive called Sea Spray and thought I would like to try it out.

I could not find a distributor in my area so I got brave and emailed Dixie Belle Paint Company and asked them if they would send me some Sea Spray to try out.

Not only did they offer to send me the Sea Spray,

they told me to select 2 colors of paint to use with the Sea Spray.

That sounded like an easy task until I looked at all the fun colors on their website.

 I chose Barn Red and Fluff with this old bench in mind.

One of the benefits of the Dixie Belle paints is that you don't need to prep the surface of what you're painting so all I did was wipe down the bench.

I poured a bit of the red paint in a can and mixed in a bit of the powder until I thought I had the right consistency.

Tutorial 

I determined the right consistency by watching this YouTube video.

The first coat of paint, with the additive is "gloppy".

The old me would stop right here with the red bench, but I'm leaning toward white with color accents these days so, this is just the bench after the Sea Spray and paint combo.

You can see here that the bench is still gloppy after the second coat is applied.

I used our electric palm sander to bring out the color of the under coat.

And here's the finished bench sitting in the garden.

So, what's my verdict about Dixie Belle Paint and Sea Spray?

The paint and the additive were easy to mix & apply, the clean up was quick and there are lots of fun colors - I will definitely use the products again.

But next time, I will use white as the undercoat like I did on this table and the stool below which were painted with a different paint and additive.

Thanks Dixie Belle Paint Company for exposing me to your fun products.

Check out Dixie Belle Paint Company here.

Check out #dixiebellepaint to see projects people have shared on Instagram.

Back on Track

I feel like I have been absent from the blog world for ages.

For 14 months, I worked on my 50th high school reunion and finally, last weekend, we met up in San Clemente.

One of my classmates lives in a gated community next to the spot where President Nixon had his Western White House.

We called it a "Grass Roots Reunion" because we did not hire a reunion company, but instead a large committee created a magical weekend.

One of our classmates collects vintage cars so he and his wife drove 2 of them to the reunion as part of the "decorations" - designing the 66 logos was one of my tasks.

Another classmates is a professional artist (if you live in the Omaha area, he owns and operates the Haunted House) and he did caricatures throughout the 3 days of the reunion- my co-chair and I posed for him at the Friday night party

on the deck of the home of another classmate.

I won't bore you with the hundreds of photos that are posted on our class Facebook page, but I wanted to show you this group photo.

That's me in the blue sweater standing behind 3 of our former teachers - the man on the left started teaching at our high school the year we were born!

This isn't the best shot of me, but it epitomizes the weekend - lots of laughter, a few tears and so many fun memories evoked.

We are back at home and I am busy with a few fall projects

and changing vignettes all around the house.

There are no more banners to make, emails to read or phone calls to make so I have time to move things around the house.

It's good to be back on track!

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Join me at Poofing the Pillows for Thoughts of Home Thursday

I'm Sorry

From the lyrics made famous by Brenda Lee,

For the past 13 months, I have been working on my 50th high school reunion - it's just 3 days away - and for weeks I have neglected all my blogging friends and have not even had time to reply to comments.

Rather than playing on the beach, I have been printing and cutting out banners, making name tags for 2 different events, fielding phone calls - tonight my high school chemistry teacher called to say he is coming and bring two more teachers.

On Friday, Steve and I head to San Clemente to stay in this cute little inn (my crew of friends and I have rooms lined up next to each other) and I promise that when we return home, I will be a good blogging friend.

The Last Days of Summer

I'm enjoying these last days of summer,

but there is just not enough time in the day for all the things I want to do.

The decorations for my high school reunion, just one week away, have been getting most of my attention lately,

but I carve out time each day for playing house.

The cosmos in the garden are particularly lovely right now

so I snipped a few to use in vignettes around the house.

Asparagus fern is taking over the garden

 and instead of pruning and then tossing the greenery in the trash

I created a simple bouquet on the dining room table.

On Tuesday our new windows were installed (the painter can't start for another week) 

and that left me with our old windows for a project (or two).

I want to turn the windows into a headboard for the guest room, but the question is, should the blue side of the windows face out

or should the headboard be white?

 Then there is the question of whether the headboard should have the windows vertically - using both windows

or horizontally which would require only 1 window.

Lulu cast her vote for horizontal white,

but Steve is leaning toward blue so that's the way it will stay - until after the reunion.

Actually, Lulu and Steve don't care at all and they just want me to join them on the beach for the last days of summer.