Sewing Cupboard Transformation!

Is it just me or do you also have bits of furniture in your house that make you genuinely happy every time you look at them? This pile of wood, nails and glass makes me so happy it's quite absurd but I can't help it.

Perhaps it's the lengths I went to to retrieve it. I found it on Facebook Market Place. It has no shelves and was a sad dark brown colour. The owner said it had a few chips but was otherwise in good condition. I looked up their location and saw it was just a couple of miles from me. Easy, I thought. Oh how foolish I was!

The night of the pick up arrived and the weather was what can only be described as 'driving rain'. Not as in 'nice rain to go driving in' more 'terrifying rivers of rain water coming right at you'. This house, which looked so tantalizingly close, was actually down a very dark country road. 

There were no house signs visible, particularly in the 'driving rain' and I was pretty sure I has passed the house. My sat nav made sad pleas for me to 'turn around where possible' but it was a fast road without a single safe turning place. I feared I would soon be in another county. God received a lot of badgering to rescue me that evening.

Eventually I managed to turn around and head back the way I had come. After a desperate phone call to the cabinet owner I managed to find the house where she was waiting in the rain, waving frantically. I hate driving in front of people and so parked completely haphazardly in her drive before going in to see the cabinet. Dramatic, huh!

But you know what IT WAS TOTALLY WORTH IT. By the time I got the cabinet home the vision was already fully formed. I would paint it in Annie Sloan's Provence paint. I would add three shelves and it would be the perfect home for all my sewing bits and pieces, far more beautiful than anything I can afford to buy. 

And oh my, what a beauty it was destined to become. After I painted it, using masking tape for the lovely fine woodwork on the door, I waxed it using Annie Sloan wax. A call to my Dad enquiring about left over wood at his place sorted me out with these shelves and I lined the back of the cabinet with some wrapping paper that I saved, it was far to pretty to throw away.

I really do love this. Had you picked that up yet?! There is nothing like upcycling for producing something that you would go to such lengths for or for filling your house with things that you will never, never, never give away.

Fancy Another Cup?

It's amazing to me that this blog still receives many views every day even though I haven't popped up here for three years now. Three years! Where has the time gone? Well, I know where it has gone actually, it's been caught up in the whirlwind of work and motherhood. A new job, a new home, a new life really.

But, so much is still the same. I still love cooking and baking. I'm still crafting up a storm. I'm still on a one woman mission to make faith and spirituality something that you don't need a PhD (or a lifetime in Church) to get on board with. That has been expressed in many ways over the past three years. I've been doing a lot, writing a bit less. Still the same me, though.

Recent events have freed up a bit of time for me (funny that!) and they probably have for you too. We're all in this strange boat together, aren't we! On the one hand with days consumed with challenges, with our minds constantly whirring, and on the other with these pockets of time opening up. I don't know about you but it's given me time to think about those things that matter to me. What I'm for, I suppose.

And so my thoughts turned back to this space. This little world that I created such a long time ago and I started experimenting. I've recorded the first two episode of Vicar's Tea Party - The Podcast (more on that to come, the jingle alone makes it worth a listen!!) I've found myself daydreaming about posts, things I've been upcycling and crafting that I'd really love to share.

And you know what, at the end of the day I though, why not?! Let's jump back on there and see if my lovely readers fancy another cup? I'm really excited to be here with old friends and new.