Turtles and Tails

I revisited a couple of past projects this week.

One was the gumball machine-style candy dishes I posted about in the fall. Go here and here for a step-by-step tutorial. I had one glass bowl left over so I stopped by the dollar store to pick up a flower pot & some ribbon. The flower pots come in sets of two so now I have a pot left over. It never ends.

We are participating in a neighbourhood-wide garage sale on Saturday and I thought I could offer this one along with the black one I made before.

I went with yellow paint this time because it was so cheery and the baby blue ribbon is also sweet. And I found some Dubble Bubble gum in colours to match. I'm really loving this one. I won't be sad if no one buys it.

The black one is filled with individual caramels. I think the blue ribbon lightens it up from the burgundy ribbon that I had attached before. Doesn't it look like a little man with a top hat and bow tie?

The second project was Oreo Dirt Cake for people at my office. They are shutting down our location in less than 2 weeks so I thought we all needed a treat. This is such a simple recipe - it takes less than an hour to make and can be eaten right away. Here is the list of ingredients and directions from the last time I made it.

Don't they look good? I'm trying very hard not to eat them all myself.

I hope all of my Canadian readers had a fantastic long weekend, and I'm sure my American readers are gearing up for theirs. Our long weekend flew by in a haze of projects, yard sale prep, and just plain enjoying the weather. It was an absolutely beautiful weekend and that doesn't happen often here in Ontario in the middle of May.

One of the projects that is finished - FINISHED! - is the main floor powder room. Are you tired of hearing about it yet? Well, you may have to look away because I'm going to jabber some more.

This weekend we installed a new faucet, new lighting, and hung some art. I also painted the vanity a few weeks ago but haven't shown it off yet.

This is the old faucet. Pretty basic. Something you'd see in just about any home. We decided after framing in the mirror and painting the vanity that the sink needed some new bling too.

This is the new faucet. It's a pretty "Tuscan bronze" colour. I love the two handles instead of the single knob. They're much easier to turn when your hands are slippery.

And the spout itself is higher, making it easier to get your hands under or to fill a container if you needed to. The installation was simple - Tom's done quite a few of them - so I just left him to it and waited for the final results.

I've always thought the lights in this bathroom were too large for the room. Do you see how the light is pressed right up against the wall on the left? When I painted the walls I also sprayed the light fixture oil rubbed bronze, but that was just a temporary fix.

There was a smaller fixture at Lowe's that I've been wanting for a while, so this week we bought it. We also bought seeded glass shades for the bulbs. I wanted something that would virtually disappear in the room since it's so small.

But I was wrong about these. First, the base for the light bulb with its safety sticker is visible and ugly. Next, unless you're up close, the glass doesn't look seeded, it just looks water-spotted. I was ready to paint the bases brown and live with the water spots but Tom convinced me to go back to the store and look at the other choices. Since the lights are mix and match, you can choose whichever shades you like.

There was a whole lot of pouty-face when I couldn't find anything I liked. We picked out some tulip-shaped frosted shades that weren't great but I was willing to give them a try. What's another trip from one end of town to the other, right? But these ones, they looked good. (Sorry, no shot with them turned off.)

The white offsets all of the browns in the room and ties in to the sink and toilet colour. And I like the clear glass rim at the bottom instead of just a plain frosted edge.

The cabinet is painted Behr's "Espresso Brown". Before it was an awful beigey-pink colour. The cabinet surface is laminate so there wasn't much we could do with it in terms of refinishing. I don't usually like painting furniture but it works here. The vanity top has swirls of brown, and a green that matches the colour of the walls. Like it was planned or something. :-)

Lastly, we hung some artwork. Originally I had put up two smaller pieces that looked like weathered wood siding with large rusted door knockers (sounds weird but they're really cool.) I moved them up and down, putting multiple holes in the wall. Nothing was right and I realized it was because they were too small. I dug out some large pictures we've had packed away since we moved. There are three of them and they each have a single water-colour flower on a white background. The blue flower is the one we decided on. It's just the perfect size to fill the space and again lightening up the small room that can easily look gloomy.