Finally, the Entry--

This is our entry hall that we've been working on.

First of all, this entry hall seems big to me for the size of our house.

It seemed like a lot of wasted space so I really wanted to make it as usable as possible.

I had wanted a church pew for a few years so we finally broke down and bought one at

Morris Antiques in Keo, AR.  

I scoured the internet and Craig's List for a long time but

never found what we wanted.

Well, I did find a few but they were in states far away and it would have cost an arm 

and a leg to have it shipped.

My husband and a friend built the board and batten.

The knobs and H*O*M*E* letters were purchased at Hobby Lobby.

The hat is one I've had for many, many years and the scarf tied around it was batiked

for me by an artist friend in Tulsa.  Thank you, Angie.

The platters came from Tuesday Morning and I almost didn't spot them.

They were on a very bottom shelf at the very back.

So glad I found them.  I love how they look.  

This is a fairly large wall and they

are very substantial.  

I had regular-sized plates on there at first and they were

just not big enough.

The pillows were bought at At Home.

One thing I would like for you to notice is the tall doorways.

Why on earth they were built this tall (it doesn't help that they are skinny), I will never know.

We thought of putting transoms in, but that was way too cost prohibitive.

A year or so back, I bought some teal wood and metal wall plaques at Hobby Lobby.

They still stock them by the way.

One day I had the idea to turn them horizontally and see if they would fit at the top of the doorway.  

They were a perfect fit.

I painted them with Annie Sloan Old White--gave it a good sanding--and my husband hung them by chandelier chains.

I didn't get a very good picture showing them but they really worked out well.

On one knob hangs a sweet little chain of hearts that I've had for many, many years.

The pottery and faux lavender I bought recently at Mid-Town Antiques here in Little Rock.

I had to feel of the lavender to see if it were real or not.  

It is the prettiest faux I've ever seen.

I hope they have some more when I go back.

This was all they had when I was there.

The small oval table belonged to my husband's mother.  

I believe the purchase date on it was 1935.

The chair--well, it came out of someone's trash pile.  

Yea, I was just driving along one day on the street I live on about a mile away and lo and behold.

I couldn't believe it.  The chair was sturdy as could be--the cushion was rotting and falling apart but that's all that was wrong with it.

I painted it with AS Old White and another good sanding.

We covered the cushion with beige and white toile and voila--I love it!

The lamp needed some height so we placed an old, thick Bible, given to my mother-in-law by my husband's father in 1941, under it.

I've had this Bible calligraphy for many years.  

It was done by a former calligraphy teacher of mine, Marj Miller who worked for Carpentree at that time.  

I bet if you look on the back of some of your pieces, that many of you own Carpentree pieces.  

They were located in Tulsa and I got some awesome buys there at sales they would have once or twice a year at the factory place.

Okay, that's it for today.  I will show you the other side tomorrow and a little closer look at the top of the doorway.

Happy, happy Wednesday to you,

All my love,

Dianne

Want to Tithe but Think You Can't?

Not everyone believes the Bible teaches tithing in the New Testament and not everyone believes tithing to be 10%, but if you do, you might be interested in what is on my heart to share.

 It's really not my favorite thing to share posts about giving or tithing but I can't seem to shake this from my mind so I am going to follow what I believe is God's nudging.

Many years ago, almost 30 to be exact (and we had been married for 20 at that point in time), we really became convicted about our lack of paying to God faithfully what we owed Him.  And for sure it was rare that we ever offered a gift or an offering.

We were in the middle of raising three sons--big sons who ate a lot and wore out blue jeans and tennis shoes like they were made of silk--and well, you know, there just didn't seem to be any money left over at the end of the month to pay our tithes.

We had not figured out that tithes are supposed to be firstfruits.

Honor the Lord with your wealth
    and with the firstfruits of all your produce;
10 then your barns will be filled with plenty,
    and your vats will be bursting with wine. Proverbs 3:9,10

One other thing along this line:  About this point in time, I asked our pastor if tithing was 10% of the gross or 10% of the net--His reply was, "Do you want to be blessed on the gross or the net?"  He got his point across and so we tithe on our gross income.

"Should people cheat God? Yet you have cheated me! "But you ask, 'What do you mean? When did we ever cheat you?' "You have cheated me of the tithes and offerings due to me.  

Malachi 3:8  NLB

Now I understood what God meant and I truly believed it BUT I also knew that God is

*slow to anger
*not hard-hearted
*looks for ways to encourage us
*long suffering
*and so many other qualities too numerous to name that would fit this particular situation.

So, because of those reasons, I talked to my husband and asked him if we could purpose in our hearts to pay 1% to God, faithfully, without question and no matter what.

He deliberated in his mind and with me--wondering if that was a good thing--at first did not want to do it but decided to.

We started faithfully paying the 1% and very soon it was up to 2%.  Friend, I cannot tell you how fast this amount zoomed to 10% and soon after we were blessed to not only be able to PAY but to GIVE.

I personally don't believe we have given anything to God until after we have paid Him what we owe Him.

He has been so faithful to provide for us--to bless us with not only what we have needed but some of our wants also.  Some of our biggest gifts and blessings have nothing to do with material possessions but are blessings of the heart, soul, and mind.

I write about this to encourage someone I hope--not to brag--I really don't think we have anything to brag about--any goodness or faithfulness that comes from us is ALL by the grace of God.

So if you or someone you know is having trouble getting started tithing, I pray that this might be a way to get you started.

I think it is very important that our hearts and minds are fixed on a goal that we feel God has established for us.  After all, He knows our hearts.

Have a great week my friend--
Love,
Dianne

Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this," says the LORD Almighty, "and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be room enough to store it.  Malachi 3:10

© ALL ART, PHOTOGRAPHS AND TEXT PROPERTY OF ELIZABETH DIANNE UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTED, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, 2008-2014

Country French? Annie Sloan, Tulips & Sunflowers

I admit it. I have no clue what to entitle this post and you will understand as it gets underway.  In my early years of homemaking, French Country was called Country French and call it old and set in my ways or whatever but I think French Country sounds way more hoite toite (the spelling is wrong because I am getting red lines--but anyway you get the gist I hope) to me.

Anyway, the results of this kitchen redecorating has much to do with me wanting a "Country French" flair.  Don't know if I've accomplished it yet or not but I'm still heading that way.

A year or so ago, I jumped on the bandwagon with lots of other people and painted my kitchen gray.  I bought between 5 and 10 samples and still got it wrong.  It looked blue to me--a baby boy blue--and nothing against baby boys--I had three of them myself--but I did not want a baby blue kitchen.

So, my husband indulged me and repainted the kitchen--I went with a soft buttery yellow--Ivoire by Sherwin Williams.  You can see it in the background in the above picture.

I have black and white (basically) speckled Corian countertops.  They are very unattractive to me but I could not justify taking out Corian countertops that were in great condition so I opted to work with it--thus, the black and white kitchen cabinets--tops are white and bottoms are black.

I love sunflowers and tulips so that had to be part of the decor--this is about everything you love, right?

And we painted the top of the table with Annie Sloan graphite.  It is not a true black but when waxed with the dark wax, it is a beautiful, almost black color.  We left the chairs the original maple color--our floors are that color so they blend well.

Her paints are amazing by the way--expensive but so worth it.  You do not get that factory finished look.  There is no way to describe the finish if you've never seen it.  Maybe hand-rubbed, aged, gleaming might be a start.

Back in december my husband and I were watching a cheesy Christmas movie.  The plot included a young interior decorator and her young handsome male client.  While she was working there she found a picture of him when he was a little boy.  His beloved dog was in the picture.  At the end of the movie when the interior redo was revealed, she had enlarged the photo really big and worked the whole room around that.  When my husband saw that, he said, "I wish I had my dog picture enlarged like that."

I moved heaven and earth to get that picture done for him--it's a long story and I won't go in to all it entailed BUT everything came out perfect--from altering the pic, to uploading it to an online company, to getting it in time for framing--everything turned out perfect.  I did not mean that to sound like bragging.  To me, it was a God thing.  I was praying every step of the way.

In the picture, it is early morning and my husband is in his bathrobe, pajamas and slippers.  On this beautiful, spring morning he went out to play before he got dressed for the day.  He is on his tricycle playing with his dog.

So some more black and white!

But I wanted some color so I chose to add this watercolor I painted some years ago--sunflowers, pottery, basket, plums, pears and bananas--very kitcheny, right?

It added the touch of red I needed to get a red theme going--

My cookbooks had all been in a cabinet out of sight for a couple of years but I was missing them.  I love books and especially very colorful, kitchen ones.  These are all colors, especially reds and blues.

Ah, a good reason to add the blue I had been wanting to add with some of my blue willow plates, etc.  

The white bowls are from Target and the greenery was jerked out of an old arrangement.

The box that the bowls are on is very old and turned upside down.

It is an old seed box from the late 1930's.  When you ordered seeds from a plant company, they came in boxes made of real, beautiful wood.  The top is crushed so we turned it upside down.  It belonged to my husband's mother.

Oh, I love coppery looking items, baskets and pottery so on top of the cabinets we included those items  along with some birdhouses (love them too) and a black and white platter.

Some more red and blue and the lamp is black and white.

Some more of my blue and white and some of my red and white transferware.

Hope this gives you a little idea of what we've been doing the past couple of months.  I will show you the upper cabinets and the room as a whole another day.

Have a great, great weekend!

© ALL ART, PHOTOGRAPHS AND TEXT PROPERTY OF ELIZABETH DIANNE UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTED, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, 2008-2014

Happy 4th Y'all!

As I have been promising for so long now, I am sharing a little taste of our entry hall redo. My husband and a friend of ours did the board and batten. The room is not fully decorated yet so I'm just showing one wall basically.

I've decorated with two 3' by 5' flags and some stalks of cotton.  I can't think of summer in Arkansas without thinking of cotton.

My dad's WWII picture is hung with one of the flags and his WWII medal is hung on the other.  My dad's dad was a share cropper here in Arkansas and the crop was of course, cotton.

We also decorated the front porch with two hanging flags.

You will probably notice that our address is done in architectural calligraphy--yes, I did that about 6 or 7 years ago and it is holding up pretty well--and no, I did NOT climb up there to paint it--it is on a single board that is screwed into the wood siding.

The board and batten is pure white--not sure of the name of it--maybe extra white from Sherwin Williams.  And the wall color is Navajo White from SW.  I will be showing more of it in a couple of weeks when the room is finished.

The top of the board and batten has a very narrow plate ledge.  My husband put a groove in it so I could stand plates up there, maybe a few pictures.

Basically, I am going to leave the top of that so that it can be decorated seasonally.

I will have Blue Willow plates up there the majority of the time though because that is one of the constants in our home.

We will have some blue in each room.

Giving credit where credit is due--my husband has worked almost all day every day for the past couple of months--we have painted furniture, painted almost the whole house inside, built the board and batten wall--and that's not counting all his regular chores keeping the yard and much of that time I have not been able to do a lot so he has had to do everything that I normally do too.

I am so much better.  I would say that I am pretty much back to my normal which is a new normal for me but a fairly active one.

I can go shopping now, go to the grocery store, do quite a bit of housework.

Thank you ever so much for all your prayers.

I am anxious to get back to blogging about our wonderful Lord.

The house is fun but there is nothing that satisfies like studying God's Word and drawing close to Him.

I have been studying the book of Ruth and now am studying the Sermon on the Mount with SheReadsTruth.

They have wonderful studies but to me there is nothing like digging in, studying it for yourself first of all and then reading what other people have to say.

I want revelation from God first of all--and He is faithful if we seek Him with our whole heart.

I hope you all have a wonderful and safe 4th.

Love,
Dianne

© ALL ART, PHOTOGRAPHS AND TEXT PROPERTY OF ELIZABETH DIANNE UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTED, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, 2008-2014

Missing All of You

Yea, so I am really missing all of you and missing writing, photography and blogging.

 I am doing so much better physically. Have quit going to PT but trying to do it here at home.

Was doing really good until the last couple of days.

 I've got to be better disciplined in that area again so I will not lose all the gains I have made.

 They are certainly a gift from God.

Today is my husband's birthday--one of the things I have added to our home (during this redecorating etc.) is a chalkboard.

Hopefully, I will get a picture of his happy birthday chalkboard posted in the next day or two.

The chalkboard is not nearly as big as I had originally intended but I do think it is more practical.

I can handle taking it off the wall to design on it and I wouldn't be able to with a larger one.

We have ordered some furniture which has not arrived--8 weeks and counting--I did not want getting rid of the old furniture and receiving the new to overlap so we went ahead and got rid of the old--BUT, I am tired of not having a sofa to sit on--we (or I) take so many of these daily blessings so for granted.

My dining room is turning out beautiful. I can hardly wait for you to see it.

We did get a new buffet but the rest of it is stuff we already had--we painted the table and chairs Annie Sloan old white and I am loving it.

We decorated walls with some of the blue china I already had and a couple of old, old pieces that my mother-in-law left me. 

We attended a God and Country service at Immanuel Baptist Church today.

We've attended several other times but this one topped them all. There was a full choir and orchestra, people representing every branch of the military, flags, great sermon on what it will take for God to heal our land and lots and lots of great music. My favorite part is when they play the theme song for each branch of the service and the men and women who served in that particular branch stand up as their song is played and sung.

 Of course the choir was standing up already but there was one older gentleman (singing in the choir) who started waving a small American flag when his branch's song was played.

It just seemed as if the service today gave everyone (especially me) new hope for our country.

I'm glad you're here reading and hopefully I will get to start reading yours more faithfully.

Hope you have a wonderful 4th.  I will be back to post a picture of my July 4th chalkboard later in a couple of days--still trying to work out a design.

© ALL ART, PHOTOGRAPHS AND TEXT PROPERTY OF ELIZABETH DIANNE UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTED, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, 2008-2014