Picnic, Anyone?

When my car's outside temperature thingy says it is this ROASTING BLAZING GOSH-AWFUL I REALLY HATE SUMMER hot outside...  

{{{Digression spoiler}}} Actual photo taken inside my lil' ol' Jeep Thursday. This photo has not been retouched or PhotoShopped in any way. I am serious, it was that hot out there. In fact, as I snapped the picture the temperature changed from 100 to 99. At least it was cooling off. GAG. I. HATE.SUMMER. {{{end digression}}}

...I don't want to picnic or do ANYTHING that involves leaving air conditioned comfort of home, but... the Hub and I embarked on another junk circuit adventure. We found a few things I can work with. One is this sweet little vintage picnic basket, nicely woven and with metal banding and handles, nothing to write home about on the inside (but I can change that):

You can see I snapped the picture after I'd already begun painting on the ModPodge. lol. This little project took me about an hour total, including cleanup and drying time. And it turned out pretty good. I was THIS CLOSE (holding up almost touching thumb and forefinger) to buying a set of 8 lime green melamine 3-piece place settings but I passed on that (BLAST!) because I thought I only need the picnic basket to display my papered clipboards. So here is how the basket turned out, sans plates, cups, and bowls:

And in my booth at the Buford Queen of Hearts Antiques Mall filled with clipboards:

Speaking of my lil' ol' booth.Here's what it looks like now:

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Remember those 3 fugly wall sconces that I mentioned before? 

Here they are now, painted glossy black, with two SUWEET little metallic ceramic lamps on them. Vintage fabric aprons hang from teapot garden hooks, and I found the cream iron garden planter/hangers in my garage. I think they kinda sorta resemble owls so I really like them cuz I'm going through an owl thing ever since the last time I obsessively casually clicked my way through Etsy on an inspirational tour.

Here's a problem. I HAD to figure out an el cheapo way of doing a curtain rod. Since my booth is 10' wide and a real curtain rod of that length would be expensive, here is what I did. (because it is SO incredibly obvious that I HAD to have curtains hanging on the front of my booth). 

I got a 10' long 3/4" PVC pipe at Home Depot for about $2.50. Then, ya know how I like to get thrift store linens, especially flat sheets, to use the fabric to make stuff like window treatments and the like... Well I just KNEW that one of these days I'd find a use for the folded part of flat sheets and pillow cases, and here it was. All I did was cut that part off and slip it right onto the pipe, bunching it as I went. Then I was left with holes on the ends of the pipe so I HAD to stick some flowers in there (I mean, what ELSE could be done?) ;-)  I know, there are other options, but flowers were calling to me. Trip to HobLob and $4 later...

The Chris Madden crushed and burned-out velvet curtain panels ($5 for 4 panels- squeal!) are hung by garden hooks I found on clearance for $1.70 each. No open-ended pipes here! Not sure I'd want this in my HOME unless it were in a Boho-style bedroom or something, but in this case, it is really cute, and who am I kidding. I would totally do that in my home, peeps, although I have not (yet). :-)  PVC can be covered with fabric, paint, rope/twine, etc, and finials can be used on the ends instead of flowers, and one could use a MYRIAD of things to drop the pipe onto to hold it on the wall. Anything that will keep the pipe from falling off, basically. Just remember... make it pretty, or cute, or at the very least makes you happy just by looking at it.

So here I am awake at 12:36 a.m. "WHY, Sherri?" one might ask, "are you awake at such an ungodly time when you KNOW you'll be up for the day at 4:45am." The answer is that I got a phone call from a person of the male persuasion who decided that 11:15pm was a great time to return my 3 phone calls, 5 emails, and 2 text messages asking him to please give me a time to pick up the china cabinet I was supposed to get from him tomorrow morning. Not only was he waking me to answer all my communications, but also to tell me he had SOLD the china cabinet I was supposed to pick up tomorrow, and that he sold it to someone else "since I never heard from you about it." I was/am not a happy camper with this Person of the Male Persuasion. Sigh. Cut. Print. Moving On. There shall be other china cabinets I can traumatize distress, paper, and sell. However, the particular china cabinet pictured above in  my lil' ol' booth SOLD today so I must replace it with SOMETHING quickly; thus my multiple methods of communications to Mr. Man. What will replace it I now do not know. One thing I DO know is that rudeness and meanness does not go unpunished, Mr. Man. What comes around, goes around; and I have a feeling that a glue gun will be involved in some unpleasant way, and believe me, they can inflict actual real PAIN!  

HARUMPH!