FUN things!!!

I got a brilliant idea today!!
I still have that wooden box I bought from Goodwill a couple of weeks ago, and I've been wanting to cover it with wallpaper and "age" it, but I haven't been able to find the right wallpaper pattern that I want to use.....I WAS thinking of stopping at a few wallpaper stores, to grab some discontinued books (they are always happy to give those away!  Just FYI!), but I thought I could look for something at Hobby Lobby in the scrapbook section first......

LOOK at all those papers to choose from!!! :-D

I found three patterns that I think would look perfect.....

 ....here's a closer picture......

And here are some I bought for inside the box.....

Some antique boxes I've seen had old newsprint or sheet music in them!  So I picked papers that looked as much like that as possible.....check out the paper on the bottom right, it is SO neat!.....

.....can you see what that print is?  It's writing on burlap!  I loved it - you can't get anymore primitive than that! :-D  I've GOT to use it on something!!

So I went into my craft room, because I wanted to find the box I was going to use (from the thrift store), and while in there, I found MORE boxes that I forgot were in there.....

Lookie, lookie!!  The biggest box is the one I found at the thrift store, too, but the other two unfinished wood boxes we bought a few years ago for the kids, and when they got older (and bored of them) they gave me back those boxes.  I think I even pulled one of them out of the trash on a cleaning day....you don't throw those kinds of things away, unless they are broken!  Sheesh!!
So, I'm going to be able to have some "old" painted and wallpapered boxes stacked up, just like I love in all those gorgeous colonial homes I drool over!  What fun!! :-D

And, while walking around Hobby Lobby, I saw this......

WOW!!!  I so much want to buy this!  All I can think of is how great that would look this fall in my front yard!!!!  But, sadly, it is too much money for me to spend....it's $97.... :-(  Boohoo!!  You can see it's good-sized, and I'm not thinking the price is unfair, I just do NOT have that kind of money to buy anything (except maybe half of the electric bill :-P)  Maybe it won't sell, and I can grab it in a few months, if our finances loosen up....that's what I'm hoping....in the meantime, I just keep staring at that picture.....*SIGH!*

Now for one final thing.....tell me if this makes any sense at all -- I am an avid stenciler, I love to stencil, and I've been doing it for a long time.  I always use the bristle stencil brushes.  Recently, I read a comment from someone online who stencils, and she said the little sticks with foam on the end were her favorite thing to use for stenciling, and I was so curious to try them!  I figured, they had to be cheaper than brushes, since they are just sticks and foam.....I was wrong.....

This is at Walmart, mind you -- can you believe that??  That is total price gouging, because there is NO reason for them to cost that much!  It probably cost them 20 cents to make them!!  Look at these.....

.....they are bigger, with more material used to make them, and they cost a fraction of what the stencil foams cost!  I couldn't believe it!! :-P  There's NO WAY I am going to pay that for sticks and foam.  I'm just going to have to make my own!  I have a huge bag of these foam brushes in the bottom picture, I got them from a discount store for one dollar (for about 12 of them, all different sizes).....I guess I'll just cut off the pointy tip and try using it like that. 

I'm pretty excited about the papers!  I can't wait to get started on the boxes - I'm going to have to find that tutorial on them....I know how to cover them with the paper, but I'm not sure how to distress them so that they look really old.  I'll be sure to take pictures when I get going on it!! ^-^