Exciting milestones and lessons learned...

Exciting Milestones:
My cute Allie, only three months away from four, is determined to ride a two wheeler!  It's funny because Tate was about the same age when he learned to ride without training wheels too.  Allie has only been going without training wheels for two days and she's really good on the straight aways...its just those turns that she can't get!  By the end of the afternoon she was more black than purple :)

If you've been following my Facebook then you'll already know that Miah has started walking!  She only does it when coaxed, but she can go 5 to 8 steps like a pro!  My baby is going to turn ONE in three days!  I'm not sure yet how I feel about this ; /

Lessons Learned:

So recently I've had an overwhelming urge to rearrange, repaint, reupholster and overall REDECORATE!  Alex and I bought most of our furniture after we'd been married for about a year so basically I have the seven year itch with my furniture.

 I got the before and after pictures in the wrong order but I'm sure you can tell.  My kitchen chairs had seen better days and were coming apart.  So together with Alex's muscles and my ingenuity we're reupholstering them.  This time we're covering them with a clear plastic so they'll hopefully last a little longer  and we won't have to worry about the stains and shredding fabric!

 And my seemingly ongoing "wall" project.  I finally have all the frames I want painted and in place now I just need to finish  by putting the picture in.  I've gotten some very good feedback on this so thank you...I love it too!

Now here is the "lessons learned" part.  Feeling confident I looked at my little Target table sitting lonely and forgotten in the corner...

So I drug it outside and with high expectations decided to go with a look I'd seen a lot at Tia Pan Trading.  Black with tiny cracks of a mustard yellow.  Very subtle, but very cute.  So I got my yellow and black paint and my crackle coat kit ready and....

 Oops! Memo to me - always use primer first.

Much better!  And now time for the fun part...yellow!

Whoa! Okay, it's fine...very yellow...but fine.  No problem.  I'll just add the crackle coat, wait 30 minutes  and then put on the black.  You'll hardly see the yellow...

Oh my gosh!!!

My thoughts exactly Tate.  Although Tate did say he liked it after the initial exclamation of "what is that?"  Yes, it's hideous! Did I feel sorry for myself?  Did I curl up in a ball and hide my face in shame?  Did I want to chuck in the trash?  Absolutely! But I resolved to salvage it.  Apparently I'd done it backwards and should have started with black and done yellow after the crackle.  Good to know.  But I was sure I could just let it dry and do a few more coats of black to make it work.  Needless to say I didn't feel the need to take pictures.

So that means the next step is to...  

start sanding. Well if we didn't have some failures we couldn't ever really succeed, right?