Stuff and Things

When Mike and Laura came to see Kevin last month, Laura and I had a very successful shopping trip at our favorite new place, Wizard of Odds. We found too much good stuff there and couldn’t get all of it, but what we got was pretty cool. I don’t have pictures of everything yet, but here is one thing I bought with my birthday money:

It’s a gorgeous corner unit made out of an old door. You can see the old hardware in this close-up:

I had to use my flash to take the picture, since it’s in a dark corner, so you can’t see the pretty blue color. Staging things is not one of my natural talents, so I will be asking Laura to help me figure out what to put on this the next time she visits.
In the close-up, you can see the really cool lab flask she got me for my birthday.
I also bought this sign at Hobby Lobby that weekend:

Laura and I have also taken to working on projects whenever we get together, rather than just buying more. The weekend of their visit, we made chalkboards. Here’s the before of mine:
 
I loved the old barn wood frame, but the brass corner pieces were pretty awful, as was the too glossy picture which had a clock in it. We forgot to take before pictures, so this is not the picture that was in my frame, but it’s close.
Here’s my after:

I used an old scrabble letter holder to hold chalk. I like it a lot. Making chalkboards is pretty easy and I think I’ll be making lots more of them, since I have plenty of paint left.

Edited to Add: I'm trying a linky party for the first time, so hopefully this will show up on Metamorphosis Monday at Between Naps on the Porch. Be sure to click over there and see lots of great befores and afters. Now let's hope this works . . . .