An Update on my Pregnant Projects

The weather here in East Tennessee has been hot, hot, HOT! It's not just the fact that we've been in the 90's all week with more of the same predicted for next week. It's the fact that the humidity has also been in the high 90's. In fact, in recent days we've had 100% humidity ~ and it wasn't raining! So what does this mean for an antiques person/trash to treasure enthusiast/folk artist individual such as myself? It means stay inside, where it's air conditioned. It means get the stuff that you can do indoors done. It means work on your pregnant projects. Also, to a person who has a propensity to start new, fresh and perhaps more fun projects instead of finishing those already started, it means start new, fresh projects that will probably be more fun. And that's mostly what I've been doing these last few days. Here's something that I really enjoy making: A spindle candle holder. You'll need a chubby chair leg/spindle or a porch baluster for this one. You can use a skinny one, of course, but my preference is to use larger ones. You'll need something you can use for a base (I used a side from a wood ~ not laminate or flimsy plywood ~ drawer that I cut to size), something with sides to hold a candle (I used an old metal torte pan for this one), some screws, paint and whatever you might have handy to use for embellishment. Let me insert here that these candleholders was not my original idea. I really don't know who came up with idea for the first one. I only know I first saw the idea on the AB4B (Age Before Beauty) Ebay group board and thought it was just the cutest thing ever. The girl who posted the picture (Sorry, I can't even remember which member that was) used strips of homespun fabric and rusty metal stars to decorate hers. I decided I would use items such as pipberries, old jewelry, dried or silk florals, ribbons and the like on the one shown here. After attaching the spindle and the base with screws and covering them with a fossil green paint, I attached some pink diaphanous ribbons and allowed them to freely twist and flow to the base where I secured them. Moss, some jewelry pieces and florals was added before I attached the torte pan to the top. The area directly beneath the pan looked unattractive to me so I added a string of beads (per this closeup). I happened to have an old single earring with colors that matched the florals and tucked it into the moss, along with some other similar pieces of jewelry. Here's a closeup of the base:

...Remember that old chair my hubby found on one of his dumpster diving expeditions? As a reminder, here's the back of it again, along with a broken wood drawer that would become its shelves.

I fastened sturdy wood strips to the chair back and screwed the shelves to them. A coat of paint and a light sanding to distress the piece, and I had: Well, whaddya think? And that vanity I was working on the other day now has a new paint job. The mirror that was on it cracked so we ended up using another mirror for it that we had in storage; the "new" mirror isn't attached as the original. It will hang on the wall instead. It also has a matching stool that I completely forgot about. I'll paint and recover it some time this weekend. Meanwhile, here's what the vanity now looks like: I'll post another pic of the entire set later. We did manage to take several items to the shops yesterday. And what does that mean? We now have room in our basement for more projects!