Rainbow Wooden Slats for Entrance - GIVEAWAY

You know the kind that is used as the base support for single beds? And you know how one or two pieces of slats sometimes break so people throw the whole thing away? And you know how you are driving by mindingyourownbusiness when you see a thrown-away one leaning-by-a- lamp-post-at-the-corner-of-a-street-in-case-a-certain-little-lady-comes-by-oh-me-oh-my...I mean, waiting for Alam Flora to pick it up? Yah, that one.



1. Pick it up and slide it into your car.

2. Pry off the nails and remove the broken slat.

3. Cut the whole piece to the size you want - in this case I wanted it 7-slats wide. So four slats were cut off.


4. Place 'extra' slat in between the original piece as you don't want the gap too big.

5. Find out the gap is too small and the slat can't fit in which is why you are an amateur DIY-er.


6. Which means more work. Enlist husband (he made me say that). Remove all slats in the centre, leaving only a frame.


7. Now space out all the loose slats with the size of gap you wanted in between. Nail them down.

8. Paint each slat tillkingdomcome when you really only wanted the whole thing one colour, because above-mentioned-beloved-husband one day some time ago remarked we have too many things painted in white.

9. Lacquer-finish it.

10. Look for cute shoes to model for you (knowing that at this point Rhoda and 12 others are going to get completely distracted by above-mentioned-shoes and not get the point)














11. Find out you just can't live with it cos it's just.

not.

you.

All that colour! Feels like it belongs at the entrance of a nursery or somethin'.

Late that night
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beloved-creative-son-whose-opinion-matters-a-lot-to-you comes home, points at it and says,

"Nice, Mum.


Are you opening a nursery now?"



That's it! I knew it! I'm giving it away. If you can give me a good reason why I should give it to you, please do so and I will. Like if you are running a nursery or somethin'.



Oh, and don't bother if your answer is, "Because you love me." Maybe you can consider that line on above-mentioned-beloved-husband who doesn't know about this yet.

Deadline for answers: June 20th, 2011

Royalty and Commoner

I think I have pretty good resistance when I go shopping. Very rarely do I find something that I have to have. Today was one of the rare occasions I succumbed.
How pretty is this set? A darling teapot with a matching cup. Only 10 ringgit. The last set.
(or I would've bought you one, right? Righhhhhttt...)

See the details?


So I brewed some tea for it (tea is such an English thing, don't you think?)

Then it had to be placed on my cupboard, Lady Victoria. (You can read about Lady Victoria when you click on the purple)



Now that's royalty. English tea with a Lady.

Now set the stage:

1. One ladder picked up off a roadside, where it was dumped with other scrap pieces of wood and junk. Yes, I should get a job with Alam Flora.Dry-brushed the ladder a little here and there with white emulsion paint to make it (me) happier. (shown in later picture)

2. One antique-looking clock, bought at Mydin (Mydin! Yes, that massive wholesale place where you can sometimes actually find something interesting.)


3. One metal teapot, bought at a used-thingy place for a miserable 3 ringgit! (US$1 something).
Planted an ivy in it.






























4. One scruffy, badly-painted-in-green hurricane lamp rescued from mother-in-law's (who is moving house soon). Repainted it with black streaks and a pop of red.



5. One crochet piece made by a Thai dentist friend (miss you, Moh Toom!)


6. One wooden crate found by roadside probably used for mandarin oranges during Chinese New Year.
Now using it, as is, for magazines...






















Now put that together...



7. Two leftover scraps of laminate flooring. Hammered together, then painted it red and black, with a white bird design.





























Now put it all together under the stairs.



There.

Royalty and Commoner make a beautiful sight.

And yes, happy for you too, Prince William and Katherine.


Oh, oh. Look at the words on the teapot....




Hope that every time you have tea together, you'll remember to be thankful for each other. I know that'll sure help keep one royal couple together. Ummm...that'll help keep any couple together, royal or not. Don't you think?






* love all the comments that have been coming in and I've tried to reply nearly all of them! Please put your comment at the bottom of the page. Also sign up as a follower (top, right) - I think you will then be notified each time there is an update.

My baby does things behind my back!

She's turning 17 today! WHA-??

Quick, sound the alarm! Call the Fire Brigade! Call the Ambulance! Call the Police! Somebody has to stop this!

Growing up so quickly should not be allowed!

It should be.. it should be...made illegal if you ask me!

She was just sweet 16, just! Now it seems like she is vrooming into adulthood. What's the hurry I'm askin' you, what's the hurry, huh? Speed kills!

I don't wanna think about it, I don't wanna talk about it, I don't wanna blog about it.

Oh, waydeminit, I have to blog about it cos my memory is going and sometimes I'm not even sure who is who in the photos. Tammy (Tamara Jayne) sometimes looks SO like her older sister, Joni..
(Tammy on left, Joni on right)
(Joni on left, Tammy on..no, Tammy on left...wait.....Jo...)


One day you're a weelittlecutiechickenpie (like the one Sin Yee's aunt makes)...


and the next, you've suddenly blossomed!


One day you're just a little pig-tailed girlie...



And the next you've suddenly shot up!



Even overtaking your sister, 9 years your senior!

(sister, Joni, is sitting on Tammy's lap)



At 17, you've already been to Thailand, Indonesia, Singapore and India

And soon you'll be going to New Zealand...

aaaah....New Zealand.......
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(Ok, so Tony Willis isn't exactly New Zealand but gimme a break man, he's all I got. It was either him or a bunch o' sheep. And who'd rather have a picture of a bunch o' sheep? Ok, don't answer that. I don't know why I invite trouble like this)


At 17 you can speak Thai, you can sing well, you can write poetry...


As a Malaysian Chindian* (*a coined word meaning Chinese+Indian - of mixed parental heritage) you've sometimes gone Chinese...
sometimes Indian...

and sometimes (just thrown in for good measure) even Punjabi...
(I hope it isn't any indication of an identity crisis)


At 17, you've just been an MC for a wedding dinner with 700 guests!

At 17, you've just been a Maid of Honour...


Someday you're gonna meet your own Prince (and I'm gonna come to pieces) who may not look like anything you envisage now...
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wait..
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coming...
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hold your heart..
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but you know how the story can go....


On this your 17th birthday, I, your Mommy, want you to know that regardless of your roots

meaning, regardless of the fact that sometimes your Dad is a little...umm...strange


and your Mom doesn't always show you the kind of affection you may want


if ever you find yourself all alone..
abandoned..
drowning....


your family will always be there for you.

Even if you find it difficult to believe it sometimes.


Cos blood runs thicker than water.

Love you heaps, Tam.

Sandpapered Vintage Beauty - and I'm not talking about me.

I've been reading all the DIY blogs to figure out how to vintagify the cupboard I wrote about it in my last blog post. You can read about it here. And still I did so many things wrong.

First, lemme tell you it was hard work! You have to do a lot of little things like

- tape over the hinges so you don't paint them
- cover the glass doors with newspaper so you don't paint over them

As you can see in the picture above, I painted one coat in grey - that was a totally unnecessary step unless you wanted the cupboard to be grey with touches of white. But I made the mistake of using too much paint for the 2nd coat of white. So the cupboard is now white with a little grey showing through. Sigh.


I also painted the inside white (again unnecessary - who's gonna look inside?) and as you can see one coat of white is not enough.
Bear in mind you have to wait for the sun to dry each coat of paint...and you don't wanna do this during the rainy season. Each time it threatened to rain, I had to call for help so somebody would carry the heavy lady inside with me....(altogether now..sighhhhhhhh)

Husband also helped me to re-hinge the two glass doors that the carpenter did a shoddy job of - they didn't even meet at the right point, at first.

After painting the whole cupboard white, here are the curvy legs mentioned earlier, with no character.


Then I used sandpaper to distress it. See how they look more vintage now? Oo la la...


Then I painted wood wax over the cupboard in strategic places while wiping it off immediately with a cloth (just like the DIY bloggers told me to - such obedience)
So much more character now! However, this was the tricky part. Overdo the wax thing and your cupboard will only look - dirty. Which it did. I had to sandpaper several spots where I thought it looked dirty instead of vintage.

Whichever way, my Mum is gonna say, "Why would you strip paint off the cupboard that was old and dirty and re-paint it to look old and dirty?"

It's ok. She's 78.


More work. The original knobs were missing. I didn't like the colour of the hardware knobs I'd bought (they looked too 'new'), so I just stained them with the same wood stain I had...(right pic is after staining)



Look at the beautiful knobs now...
Since I knew I'd be using it for my daughter's homeschool books, I wanted the inside of the glass doors covered with a curtain. Cos I didn't want the books seen. Really, all those pics you see of gorgeous bookshelves with books displayed on them? Now c'mon, does anybody really have collections of books that come in almost the same colours so that it matches with everything else? Look. Here's my point.





















Or have all books in almost the same if not the same size?



















It's just not real. So I wanted to cover the glass with curtains cos I didn't want the books to be seen.

Here's the before and after.




The terrible BEFORE






The Terrific AFTER!



I was so pleased with it, that I kept turning to admire it during every commercial break while watching American Idol (and trust me, nobody gets my attention when I'm watching American Idol)

BEFORE - One-eyed Jack.

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AFTER - Lady Victoria (yes, I named her cos I get personal like that)


And yes, my husband will be very pleased to hear me say he was right to bring the before home.

What do you think about my sandpapered vintage beauty? and I'm not talking about me.