Hiding Furniture Scratches

When I go to places like the Salvation Army thrift store I almost never bother to look at the art because most of it is terrible. There is a reason that the person that donated it no longer wanted it in their home and it's usually pretty obvious. But my mom was with me that day and when I went over to that section of the store to get her I noticed this mirror. It was gorgeous. I picked it up and it was very heavy, almost like picking up the Doodlebug.

The wood frame was real, but it had some nicks and scratches on it. And it was half off. That made it $7.50. For a gorgeous wooden frame with mirror.

The next thing I know, I'm in line with it tucked under my arm. Hmm, how did that happen?

I think a lot of pieces look better with a distressed look. But when my hubby suggested trying to touch up the scratches and dings with shoe polish my ears perked up. How could shoe polish fix a wooden mirror frame?

Well, it turns out that shoe polish is basically dye mixed into some wax. That sounds like it could work, so we got out the shoe polish and tried it.



Less than five minutes later the scratches were almost invisible. Amazing!



I loved this quick and easy fix to spruce up my thrift store mirror. Doesn't it look great in it's new home?



For more great tips check out Works for Me Wednesdays on Kristen's blog.

Pumpkins are a Mean Vegtable

A while back my blog friend Heather mentioned that her family grows a couple of pumpkins every year so they don't have to buy them for Halloween. I thought this was a most excellent idea so I stole it.

When we carved our pumpkin last year we saved out about 8 seeds. I dried them on the windowsill a while and then put them away until spring.

When I planted our garden this spring I dropped in a few of the seeds. I think I planted six in total and to my amazement, four actually grew! For the next week or so I had the cutest little pumpkin plants. Then I had some bigger pumpkin plants. By the time we came back from vacation the pumpkins had run amuck. They completely grew over the marigolds totally hiding them from sight, started to choke out the squash and were running vines out into the yard.

Then God intervened.

It's been in the high 90's all week and not a rain drop in sight. When I went out to pull some weeds tonight it was obvious that one of the pumpkin vines had perished from heat exhaustion and lack of water.

Oops.

So I pulled it out.

If you ever find yourself in a similar situation I highly recommend that you wear gloves. Did you know that pumpkins have thorns? And prickers? And they are not widely spaced apart like rose. Oh no, they are packed in tight. And since I was not wearing gloves I felt the fury of the pumpkins wrath.

Thirsty pumpkins are mean pumpkins. After all, this is the pumpkin that the seeds came from.



And just so you know that I am not a total pumpkin hater I am adding on a picture of a very cute and sweet pumpkin. This one has no thorns and is very cute indeed.

Quick Fix for Well Loved Clothes

Doodlebug wears mostly secondhand clothes. Some I buy at the local consignment shop, others at church consignment sales and a few at garage sales. Garage sales are hit and miss but they are usually the best bargains. When I find clothing for less than a dollar I'm willing to take some chances on being able to clean it up when I get home.

A couple weeks ago I found a yard stuff with boy clothes in the next size up for Doodlebug. They were priced at $.50 each so I dug around and found a couple of cute things. There was a cute little Winnie the Pooh fleece pullover. At first I put it back because Pooh looked dirty, but when I looked closer I realized he was just covered in fuzz balls. I decided it was cute enough to take a chance on and put it in my pile. This is what it looked like.



When I got home I got out my old sweater shaver. Actually, if you look closely it's really called the Magik Fuzz Buster. I forgot where I got mine from but I've seen them for sale in fabric stores.



I spent about five minutes going over Pooh and shaving off the fuzz balls. My guess was that once he was cleaned up the whole jacket would look a lot better.



It's amazing what a few minutes of restoration work can do to a piece of clothing. I don't hesitate to buy sweaters, shirts or other clothing that looks a little pilly because I know that I can clean it up quickly at home.

Cutting Hair at Home

I started cutting Doodlebug’s hair when he was about 6 months old. He had this little patch on the top of his head that was about 3 inches long. It was very cute until he got fitted for his helmet. It stuck out and he looked like a rooster, and not in a flattering way. So we went to Target, bought a mustache trimmer and started trimming.



I bought a mustache trimmer instead of a hair clipper because it was smaller and I wanted to have more control over it. It turned out to be the perfect size.

Since Doodlebug was not yet sitting up on his own I stripped him to his diaper, put him in his Bumbo and started clipping away. He did great, never even flinched. Not that he was still, he squirmed away but never even noticed what I was doing with his hair.



I started with the longest setting on the trimmer and for this haircut that was all I needed. Now that he has more hair to work with, I leave it a little longer on top and trim the sides a little bit shorter. And just a helpful tip, if you put the trimmer down during the haircut always make sure that the guard is still on the setting you thought it was. I don’t know this from experience. And especially not the experience of moving the guard from the longest setting to the shortest one without noticing the day before his first birthday. Because I would never do that. Oh no, I would never do anything like that.

Now when I get ready to cut his hair I put an Elmo DVD in and sit him on a large towel in the family room. It works great. He is mesmerized by Elmo and I just buzz around him trimming him up.

I am linking up to We are THAT Family and the Works for me Wednesday posts.