Completely Charming: One Giant Post To Bring You Up To Speed!

I have been very absent on this blog lately, but I have had good reason...life has completely taken over and I'm meeting myself coming and going these days! But, this frantic pace I have been keeping is not without results. And, that means I have LOTS to share today! :)

Besides, being in town for only one weekend during the last month, I have...been to two out of town weddings and one out of town weekend visit, painted and distressed this antique chest of drawers, finished decorating and putting together my craft room (aka: the Martha Room), took one very successful trip to Ikea, been around town researching and scouting out some craft fairs to consider for next year, finished making a wonderful and fun anniversary gift for my husband (our 1 year anniversary is on Sunday), been to several estate and garage sales, finished planting 3 kinds of tomatoes, 7 kinds of herbs and a few flowers in my garden, had our house appraised, made the cutest burp cloth diaper cake for a baby shower (that I couldn't attend because I was out of town), and have been busily working away on a very exciting project that I will share with you all later. ;) Whew! The sad thing is I know that's not the half of it...just what I can remember doing!

So, seeing as how I am so behind on posting about all the fun stuff I just mentioned, I decided to do one giant post today incorporating a month's worth of highlights! :) I hope you'll read on...

Here goes....

Remember that amazing estate sale I was telling you about a few weeks ago? Well, here is a round-up of the fun things I found at it!

This was probably my favorite find of the day! I just love this old beat up wooden box...and it just happened to be the perfect shade of turquoise for my room. It was my most expensive find of the day at $18, but given its great condition and perfect coloring I went ahead and splurged on it...and I am so glad I did, I would have been kicking myself had I left this gem behind!

This old plant iron stand was the perfect thing to hold all my herb pots. It was only $9 and after giving it a fresh coat of black spray paint when I got home it was the perfect addition to our patio!

This old heavy ceramic canister and small pitcher were dirt cheap ($7 for the two) and will be the perfect containers to hold pretty flowers. Both items were originally a cream color so I decided to give them both a few coats of white lacquer spray paint to achieve the look I was going for.

I love these small old jars...they will be perfect for storing beads or other small items in my craft room. The teal book and small old wooden box also came from the estate sale. I think the jars and book were $1 each and the small wooden box cost $5.

When I originally purchased this container for $4 I had no idea what it was intended to be used for. It was rather large in size and had several small holes in the bottom (funnel) part, which I thought would allow it to be the perfect planter! After adding flowers and dirt I love the way it turned out! This past weekend while shopping at a flea market with a friend of mine, I stumbled across another one of these (that had some additional parts included) and discovered that is actually an antique cream stainer (or umbrella cover for an antique milk can?)...anyhoo, it makes a pretty fine flower pot if you ask me. :)

And, last but not least...I purchased this old sewing machine drawer to hold Ball jars full of thread and sewing supplies for $5.

It was a very successful estate sale, full of many other treasures that I didn't take home. I wanted to leave some money in my wallet for the upcoming weekend visit to my mom's house. AND, I'm glad I did because....

The weekend after finding that wonderful estate sale, I went to my mom's house for a visit and we picked up even more fun things for my office at local garage sales and flea markets.....

I scored a TON of cool frames...all for free from my mom and grandma. I love them all and have a lot of ideas for what to do with them.

Another cool Ball jar...I think it was $2 and is the perfect size to hold white chalk for my chalkboard!

As you may have noticed, I have a slight thing for old (amazing) wooden boxes! These all just had to come home with me. :) The large Hercules box on the bottom was found at a flea market for $15.

These are my very favorite and were given to me by my mom. They were actually my great grandmother's sewing machine drawers. I love them so much and have plans to store more sewing supplies in them.

This old wooden letter holder looks like it was made of reclaimed wood and matches another wooden tray I got a few weeks ago perfectly! It was $5 and will be the perfect place to store the "need to read" issues of my favorite magazines.

I could hardly believe it when I found the small cake stand (shown on the top of this one I found at a thrift store a few weeks ago) at a flea market for only $3! It has a pretty scalloped edge which is kind of hard to see in this picture, and compliments my other cake stand perfectly.

I found this cooper pot for $6 and knew right away (with the addition of a few small holes) that it would make the perfect planter! I also found the plants shown in the container while visiting my mom. We stopped at a local plant sale and I couldn't resist picking a 6 pack of these up. They are called Summer Poinsettia and I thought their coloring was just beautiful!

I also picked up this lovely antique chest of drawers on my visit. My mom gave this to me and it actually belonged to her when she was a little girl, so that makes it extra special to me. :) After I got home I got to work transforming it right away. Here are some before and after photos of the piece.

I really distressed this piece a lot more than the other pieces in the room. I wanted it to stand out, and that it does!

I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the caster wheels on this piece! They really add to its charm. :)

In an effort to keep the hardware on all the pieces in the room the same, I opted to go with the Amerock Weathered Nickel knobs for this piece. I think the look of weathered nickel adds to that distressed look I was going for.

Now, onto my weekend visit to my mom's house....My mom and step dad have one of THE most inspiring back yards...really more like outdoor living spaces...I have ever had the pleasure of hanging out in. Everytime we are there we feel like we are on vacation because we spend so much time outside soaking up the sun, cool breeze and beautiful surroundings. Their backyard is honestly an inspiration to my husband and I. It is so serene and realxing there. Here are some of the lovely things you will run across while roaming around their yard....

The weekend was amazing and was full of good times, good food and good treasures! :)

The next weekend we were off to another out of town wedding. This time, a little trip to Ikea was thrown into the mix! (I'm not sure if a trip to Ikea can ever really be little though?) It was my husband's first time to the giant store and he loved it as much as I do! We decided that we would come back another time in the future with our shopping lists in hand and go to town! However, given my shopping list for that trip, there wasn't any room in our SUV for anything else. :)

So, I was going with a chair and ottoman (among other things) in mind, but when I got there they didn't have any ottomans left in stock! But, as it turns out this was a blessing in disguise because we wouldn't have had room to bring it back OR to fit in the room afterall. I am learning some things really do work out for the best.

I will show you some pictures of the entire room makeover (including my Ikea finds) tomorrow, so I hope you'll be back to check it out! :)

I am wrapping this post up, I promise...but before I do I will leave you with some pictures of randomness from the past few weeks!