Lots of great giveaways in blogland!

 

Hi Friends,

Check out all the great giveaways going on in blogland right now. Head on over to the website’s listed below to enter to win!

(Don’t worry… you have a pretty good chance! I never win anything! )

http://paintingthymeneedfuls.blogspot.com

http://thekrazykraftlady.blogspot.com/

http://rosepetalsandrustprimitives.blogspot.com/

http://auntmannys.blogspot.com/

http://roosterinnprims.blogspot.com/

Have a great day!

Carmen

Happy Fall !

Happy Autumn to all my wonderful friends in blogland!

 

 

 



Sorry this isn’t my pottery yet… I haven’t had time to finish composing that post yet but I had to wish everyone a Happy Fall!

Carmen

Pfaltzgraff Stoneware & Pottery

As we all have experienced our homes evolve and change over time and Primcats House is no exception. I am always tweaking things and changing up the decor. Sometimes I don’t even realize how much I tweak because I do it everyday without much thought to it. A little move here, a knick-knack there, I rarely even think about it. Lately though I have had a lot of conscious changes taking place.

A few weeks ago, as I admired every ones beautiful Pfaltzgraff Folk Art collections I really fell in love with the look and I decided it was time for a change in my own dishes and serving pieces. I have always been a HUGE Pfaltzgraff Collector and admire the pottery’s quality greatly. My Pfaltzgraff collections include Naturewood, Grapevine, Merlot, and in the past Tea Rose. Naturewood as the “good” china, Merlot as the everyday wear and tear, and Grapevine when we feel like it.
Naturewood is by far the largest collection in this house though. We have collected Naturewood for the past 10 years, it was our choice of china for our wedding registry. The collection is large and extensive and has influenced the decor of the dining room for years. I love our Naturewood… but as I said in the beginning of this post our home has evolved and it’s time to move with that evolution.
For a very long time a beautiful collection of Moss Rose China has graced the Kitchen Hutch. I used to be huge into Shabby Chic and Teacups. And even though my style has changed… the Moss Rose stayed and outlived all the other changes. When I ran across that Folk Art Pitcher and Bowl at the Thrift Store… I knew it was time to say good bye to my fine china.

I decided to pack up the Moss Rose to make room to move in the Naturewood collection so I could have the dining room Hutch for Folk Art. (Mind you at this point I only had one piece of Folk Art… but I had a plan!) Bye bye to the pretty Moss Rose!

Now it was time to move the Naturewood from the Dining room to the kitchen hutch. It was here in the Dining room…

(Note the green walls inspired by the Naturewood! Pretty before… not so matchy now!)

And I moved it to here…


Better!

Now… back to the point of these two major changes!
Folk Art!
I had looked on Craigslist and by sheer chance guess what I found?!?! Two… count them… two… complete sets. The first a 138 piece set and the second a 76 piece set. I made an offer for both. The first lady called me within five minutes and we worked out a deal! After a 3.5 hour round trip drive with hubby in tow, we picked it up the next day. Woot! I was on my way! The second lady really tried to stick it to me (I can’t blame her!)… but I held firm to my original offer throughout 10 emails and almost 2 weeks and in the end it worked out for me. She finally gave it up at the price I was willing to pay. So I am now the proud owner of a phenomenally beautiful collection of Folk Art Pottery! And the best part… I have enough for both display and we are using it as our everyday dishes too! I love it!
So kind friends and fellow Folk Art lovers… let me leave you with the promise that the next post I share will be of my Folk Art so make sure you come back soon!
Until we meet again…
Carmen

It’s a giveaway…

 

Not my giveaway… I’m not ready yet… but worth getting in on!

Just look at this beautiful Bowl and Pin Rack being given away by Firecracker Kid !

Head on over to Firecracker Kid’s blog and leave a comment to enter!

 

 

What is it?

 

I found this piece a few years ago at the Goodwill. I’m pretty sure I only paid $2.00 for it I really like the thing… but I have no idea what it really is. It stands a little over a foot tall.

Is it something specific? Or just a box built with no purpose?

Do you know?

The Primcats…

As I was messing with my blog layout last week I realized that this is Primcats house and I have failed to formally introduce any of our Primcats. For shame for shame. It’s way past time! The kitties would have my head if they knew I had spent more time talking home decor’ than talking cats!!


Today I added Poofie’s picture as the official “temporary” Primcats House mascot. I say temporary because I’ll probably change the picture form time to time as not to leave anyone out.


Without further ado… here she is!


Meet Miss Poofie.





Also known as Poof-a-rella and bad, bad kitteh. She’s a beautiful chinchilla coated dilute tortoiseshell. Poofie is part of a litter of 6 tort’s that came to live here at Primcats House as foster kitties. All our cats are of course rescues who landed in the lap of feline luxury!


The Poof is one of a whole litter of tortoiseshells. 2 of that litter are dilutes of grey, cream and peach in color. The other 4 sisters are full black, red (orange), and cream (white).  Tri colors (Torties and Calicos) are (almost) always female.


Any way… don’t let me get sidetracked on genetics…





Poofie came to us with her sisters and her mother as fosters that we took in from our local Humane Society during Hurricane Katrina. They had cages upon cages of animals stacked high that had been brought up here and they were desperately in need of foster homes for the animals at the shelter already. I got the call and even though we already had 7 permanent rescued babies and had long ago stopped fostering for them… I couldn’t say no. Not at a time like that. I said yes I would foster… and I went and picked them and their mother up. They were 3 weeks old.




Long, long story short… er… shorter… when the kittens were weaned I returned mama cat Sheba for adoption… and that was the day I knew my heart could not let the kittens go. My heart ached for Sheba (even though she was going to her forever home after spaying) and I cried and cried and I knew…  the kittens had already found their forever home and would not be returning to the Shelter.


Poofie is one of the lucky cats that get to call Primcats House home.  Along with her littermates Ebby, Gizzy, Punky, Chen and of course… Katrina… in honor of the reason they are here with us.  The kittens are known as the mini’s around here… and the others the biggies. They are Fefe’ Le’ Purr, Baby Bear, Dottie, Phat Boy, Smokey, Rascal, Tracy and Pierre. Tracy isn’t really a biggie… she is a story all in herself… and we will get to that. Eventually you will get to “meet” everyone, all 14 of our babies… but for now…


Miss Poofie






Until we meet again…
Carmen

Whatcha’ Workin’ on Wednesday?

 

Hello Prim Friends!

I totally missed last weeks WWOW! Darn! So I wanted to show ya real quick what I’ve been working on!

Remember before…

Now… 4 coats of flat black paint…

It’s coming along. I’m trying to decide how I want to finish it. It think I’m going to put a finish sanding on it to smooth it out… then either

a) Stain it with Dark Walnut

b) Seal it with wax

c) Top coat it with clear polyurethane.

I’m leaning towards A but I’ve never stained such a large painted piece that wasn’t distressed and I’m a little scared! lol!

Thoughts? Suggestions? 

Also… here’s a peek at the new coffee table I also painted. I’m going to distress this piece and stain it with walnut. I think I’ll start on this piece to get a feel for what the staining will look like and then maybe I can make a decision about the buffet finish.

 

Until we meet again… have a primtastic day!

Carmen

The Seraph, thrifting and progress…

Hello Friends!

Hope the week is going well for you so far!

Last weekend was a super busy weekend around here!

Saturday my friend Tammy and I went shopping. She met me at my house, we had coffee, planned our trip and even drew a “map” if you want to call it that to get the best route for our time! We planned out a whole day to shop 4 different Goodwills, 2 Ohio Thrift Stores and one Village Discount Thrift in our area. We had a blast!!! And we found some amazing finds along the way! I think we are going to start doing that at least once a month. What is better than good friends mixed with good finds? Not much! It was a lot of fun!

I also took her for the first time ever to The Seraph. She drooled! =) Have you ever been to The Seraph? If not and you are ever in the area… take the time to stop there! It’s amazing! I would take everything in that store in a heart beat! Even though most all the seating furniture sold there is uncomfortable and impractical… it’s still beautiful and I love spending time in there wishing I would win the lottery so I could buy everything they have. LOL!

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Sunday was spent working on the buffet from last weeks Whatcha’ Workin’ on Wednesday. I’m kind of a lucky lady because hubby has a large shop out back where he works on cars and in that shop is a huge air compressor and lots of fun air tools. Big tools that make sanding relatively easy. Don’t get me wrong… it’s still a lot of work and I ached yesterday like I had run a marathon or something… but it would have been a lot harder if I had to have sanded it all by hand.

Hubby and I really went at it. It’s 99.5% done. We sanded it down fully to the bare wood and as I went through the coats of paint I made it down to he original stain and realized that in the beginning this piece was stained a beautiful barn red. What a shame that someone destroyed it with a globbed on drippy, messy paint job of red and grey. I would have been lucky to own this piece originally… I hope I can do it right as it’s current owner though. Only a few minor details need done and then I can start the repainting process. I’m going with black… to compliment my newly developing colonial prim dining room. Will for sure compliment my new Pfaltzgraff Folk Art obsession.

Mr. Primcat and I also worked on another large piece of furniture. A coffee table that I picked up Saturday while Tammie and I were shopping. It was only $30.00 and I couldn’t pass it up. It spoke to me! It’s big and chunky with fat turned legs. It’s been years since we had a coffee table… so I’m looking forward to seeing how it looks in there! I imagine it will just become a cat lounging area that I can’t even set anything on… but alas… I’m going to try it!

Hope to get some pics up tomorrow of the naked buffet and coffee table for WWW. And if I’m lucky and can find 5 minutes of free time I’ll get some Thrift Store Thursday pics posted. You can bet I have a boat load of great finds to share!

Carmen