Finally Some Good News and A Mini Reveal.

 Mama in Nashville a couple weeks ago...isn't she beautiful?!

After being given a prognosis of 3-6 months, my mama started an oral chemo drug.  She tried it for six weeks, went back for scans to see if it was working, and on Thursday we leaned the drug IS WORKING! 

The tumors in her liver, lungs and ribs are "frozen".  Hooray!  She'll continue on this drug for as long as it works, and many people using it are living 2 or more years.  It's the same drug Elizabeth Edwards was using. It has terrible side effects....they found blood clots in Mom's lungs which she's treating with a blood thinner via a nasty shot in the belly each night, and raw skin on her palms and the soles of her feet.  But we are so thankful the chemo is holding the cancer growth at bay for now.  

THANK YOU for all your thoughts, prayers, and kind words as we live with this terminal disease.  

 And now for the mini-reveal.....here's what one does to this (which I hear tell are old playpen rails....)

You take it apart, 

then go to town with some liquid sander, spray paint, sandpaper and a drill bit or two.

And a lot of wee hooks.

Oh, and the thinnest dowel rod you can find.

A hottie hubby helps things along too.  Just sayin'.

And it becomes this:

 A nice way to display the plethora of jewelry you've accumulated since beginning to Dress your Truth.

And you hang it above your gramma's ancient sewing cabinet-turned-jewelry and accessory holder.  

'Cause you painted it to match.

You hide old high school buttons of yourself, and sentimental stuff in the drawers below.

And for the stuff that doesn't fit on your new handy-dandy jewelry holder, 

you just swag them over your vanity mirror like so.

It's awesome to sit at my vanity and see all my goodies at once.  

I can try stuff on and easily switch stuff out.

So what do ya think?  I'll show you the whole area once it's done.  

I still have some work to do on the vanity and bench.
But my squirrel brain is already onto the school room....

And that's that.  One project down.  

And a Mama who's alive!

Found a bit of my decorating mojo.

Believe it or not, it was stuffed under 65 million wooden frames in the back of the garage.  

Who'd a thunk?

Whilst purging many beloved materials for projects I had great inspiration for, I repeated the phrase "It's ok, breathe, there's more junk where this came from when I have the time and energy."  

And of course I mean junk in the nicest way possible.  

Watching friends carry off yards of yummy fabric that were to become dandy throw pillows, a cottagey duvet cover, or luxurious curtain panels....or candles or frames or craft supplies or SPRAY PAINT (Omg...I gave away SPRAY PAINT people!) or perfectly patina'ed scraps of this and that.....I had to keep reminding myself that getting rid of it was the lesser of the two evils I faced.  

The greater evil was actually holding onto so much stuff I didn't even know what I had anymore, even though it  weighed as mental clutter on my overtaxed brain-o. My energy is better spent on projects I can handle NOW, that make me feel I've accomplished at least a little thing or two (or four).  Is it wrong, though, to grieve candlestick holders as they traipsed their way down the driveway in someone else's mitts? *sigh*  

May they live long and prosper on another's mantle.

Anyway, under and behind the plethora of projects in larvae stage that have languished for months on end, I found a few things I could actually tackle.  I'm currently doing a bit of a refresh on the master bedroom, and these are the projects that made the cut.

Behold.

Please don't ask me what this is, cause I have no freakin' clue, but it's kinda nifty, eh?  

I came up with a new-fangled use for it, and hubs hung it up tonight.  Curious?

An old mirror I picked up at the ReStore eons ago.  

Got a new paint treatment and is gracing it's new spot over my antique dresser in sheer perfection.  

My gramma's old sewing cabinet.  

Finally broke down and made the old girl over. The cabinet, not my gramma.

As you can see, I use it for jewelry....

And, my friends, hubs actually took me out to a secondhand furniture shop and bought me this beauty:

Please imagine it sprayed a deep textured brown, as that is how it was reincarnated into a thing of extreme awesomeness.  Makes me happy just thinking about it.

Oh, and we happened to pick up this little number at the shop too...my first real vanity.  

Tragically it had that splendiferous orange oak stain, so I bathed her in Heirloom White.

Still contemplating either shabby-fiying it, or perhaps doing a wipe-on/wipe-off stain dealio.

So what I'd like you to remember is that when you purge all the projects you had high hopes for, it leaves room for finishing the really important projects....and room for buying yet new projects.  *shrug*  

At least I got these finished within 48 hours of purchasing them :)  

New rule for the cottage chick:  no buying any project paraphenalia unless it can be finished and used/sold within 4 weeks.  Wish me luck on that one folks.  I already hit the ReStore a couple days ago and walked away with 3 more potential projects.  The clock is ticking, 3 weeks till they get Goodwilled.

I've got some sewing to do, but I'll show y'all how the pieces look in their new home in the next few days.

(Yep, the room's still blue and brown, just decided to tweak a bit.)