Window Project

I love projects. I love turning old into new. I see beauty in the old, shabby & rusty. If I had my way, I'd work on projects like this everyday.

I have a friend, her name is Dori and I envy her greatly. She has my dream job. She also has a website. Check out The Junk Refunkery. I will be going to her first sale of the year June 26th and I simply can NOT wait! It'll be my first time going.

I had the pleasure of finding a large pile of old windows on the curbside one morning before trash pick-up. I had no idea what I was going to do with these windows but I could NOT just leave them there to be tossed away, as if they were no longer needed....or beautiful. I stopped my van and loaded them all in. I can't tell you how pleased my husband was when I returned home with them.

I can't tell you because he wasn't exactly pleased. Oh well.

Sadly, however, time & energy were not on my side. Motivation, creativity and space were not on my side either and the pile of windows were left mostly forgotten in our storage unit. Until now...

Now, I have a garage sale coming up and while, yes, I suppose I could easily just dump the pile of windows in the nearest garbage dumpster in town, I just....I just....*sniff*....well, I just CAN'T!

They are beautiful and I'm just sure others coming to my garage sale will see their beauty as well. At least I hope. But hope doesn't sell old, used windows so I needed to do something to give the creativity and inspiration of my garage sale'ers a little push.

This is what I came up with:

I uploaded a few pictures of the kids to Walgreens.com and order four 8 x 10 black & whites. Cost: $11.00. Then, using scrapbooking clear glue dots, I adhered the pictures on the backside of the glass.

I then found a roll of vinyl lettering used for decor treatments on your walls at home. I paid $20.00 for this particular phrase. I was not particularly thrilled with this price but it was immediately available and the size I needed so I went with it.

The stuff was amazingly easy to use and I love how it turned out. Please forgive the shadow of the lettering. I have yet to really figure out how to use my camera without the flash. Someday.

Before I placed the pictures and lettering, however, I top coated the window frame with two coats of decoupage to seal it. I did not sand the window frame or repaint it at all. I love the old, shabby look to it. There's beauty there that didn't need improving.

I love the 'as is' look to the window. I hope my plan works and I sell out of the windows. I have about 12 that I need to sell. I'm hoping to get $10 each for them. We'll see.

The good news is, after all is said and done, I get to keep at least one of them. :)

52 Weeks to Better Health

Week 8 - Drink Green Tea

I love green tea. That is to say I love the Arizona brand diet green tea. Zero calories. Which means it's sweetened with aspartame. I don't love aspartame. In one's quest to get healthier, one should probably leave out consuming large amounts of aspartame. So really, week eight is about drinking green tea without the artificial sweetener. Oh, but wait, I'm supposed to be cutting down on my sugar intake, too! Okay, so during week eight I tried unsweetened green tea.

Um...yeah, that didn't go over so well. Unsweetened green tea....well....it kinda reminded me of grass. Not that I have ever eaten grass but should I one day find myself trying grass, I can imagine what it will taste like.

So week eight was kind of a bust but I have not given up. I'm going to continue to try green tea in a variety of forms until I fall upon a taste combo I enjoy. Currently I'm loving the Arnold Palmer. This is a drink made up of half iced-tea and half lemonade. It is a DREAM!

Yes, I know, lemonade requires sugar and I need to cut back on my sugar. I'm getting there. I am. What I would like to do, but probably won't until I'm home in Arizona, is brew my own green tea and make my own home-made lemonade. That way, I'll have more control over the amount of sugar in my drink while enjoying the fact that I've made something fresh and natural, from scratch, in my own home.

You'll have to come over and we'll enjoy a glass or two by the pool. I just need to get a pool first.

Week 9 - Exercise

Well, let's just say that week 9 was a bust. I purchased two Jillian Michael's workout videos and fully intended on starting my new workout regime in week nine but that just flat-out didn't happen. Can I get a do-over? I can? Good! Here we go with week 10!

Week 10 - Start my Jillian Michael's Workouts!

It's Friday and I have yet to crack those babies open. LOL! Yeah, I know! I know! But, hey, the week's not over so I'm still good to go. My hubby even said he'd do them with me. Oh, I don't think it's a show of support, really. No, I think it's more of the fact that I spent 20 bucks and he doesn't want them just collecting dust.

So, with that, I'll be getting off the computer now and popping one of those dvds into the system and get this butt moving!

Just let me finish this Arnold Palmer first.