Kammy's Korner: January 2020

Sunday, January 19, 2020

Repurposed Vintage Roller Skates and Skating Back In The Day

Cheers to the people out there who don't see the potential in old crap!

Cheers to the friends who give junkers like me their old crap!

Cheers to the people who will buy my repurposed old crap!

Cheers to my mom who will probably

chastise me for using the word crap too much on my blog.

A friend down the road asked if I wanted some old skates.

Sure, why not? Holy rust. He gave me some ice-skates too which are way worse in the rust department than this pair of roller skates so I'm not sure what I'll do with those yet. But these wheels wouldn't budge. I thought about WD40ing the daylights out of them to see if I could get the wheels to spin, but prior experiences said my time would be better spent trying to figure out my Instant Pot. I've been scared of it for a whole year now.

But back to skates, do you have ANY IDEA HOW MUCH I LOVED TO SKATE GROWING UP??

One of our friend-moms was awesome at capturing our fun on camera and her daughter Heidi has been digitizing some oldies but goodies and was a sweetie and shared them with me. Judging from our amazing wardrobes, can anyone guess about what year these were taken?? Hint, my jeans are tight rolled! (Yes, that's me on the right in that gnarly pink sweater with my two friends Dixie and Mindy in the back who are are actually my age, and then my little sister Karly and her pal Diane in front).

Rollerskating in Waterloo, Iowa, probably about the same year as the pic above!

We tore that rink up on the rare occasion we got to go to the roller rink. Usually we did our rollerskating in our big machine shed behind the house that had a smooth cement floor.

I still love to skate, actually. But now I like to put on the rollerblades and do twenty miles as fast as I can down the Falling Waters trail. It's really hard to find a partner to do that with, so it doesn't happen as often as I'd like.

Shall we get back to crafting? Just to show you what it's like while I'm crafting, I'm never "just" doing one project as you can see. There is a skate ready to get "stuffed", coffee table getting worked on, cleaning out my craft room, an arrangement in a tea pot, and who knows what all going on next to me that you can't see.

I got these faux succulents on a square grid on super clearance at Joann's. I think I bought all the store had, and I've used them for lots of crafts! This just might be one of my favorites so far!

I hot glued faux moss from the Dollar Tree on a Styrofoam ball and then added the succulents and stuffed it into the skate. I tied the tongue down with jute so you could still read the "Sprints" tag.

And the other look,

the one my kids think looks "sooooo much better than the other one, Mom"...

Whatever, I think I like the succulent one the best. Got a preference, readers?

Like it? Pin it!

If you would love one for yourself but don't have skates for crafting, these are both for sale in booth #93 at the

And just for fun.... how about some more skating pics from the early 90's (late 80's?) ??

I'm pretty sure I spy someone straight outta Napoleon Dynamite in that third shot!

Anyone recognize this young McCandless and his beauty queen??

If you know Diane VanMill, I bet what you DIDN'T know about her, was she could tear up the skating floor better than anyone else out there! She wasn't out to impress, but SHE IMPRESSED!

Michelle is not the Napoleon Dynamite character, but the dude behind her might be...

What? My Dad? I didn't even know he could skate. But there he is, killing it with that rad button up.

Mindy and Christina, princess wavin' at the onlookers

Anyone else miss the eighties and nineties like I do???

Okay, maybe not the clothes so much.... 🤣🤣

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Library Coffee Table And A Barn Kitty

For all the people I get fed up with, there are even more amazing ones out there. (Okay honestly, I usually just love on people, but having PMS on New Years Eve and all my friends being gone or busy made for a crappy last couple days and I may or may not have been having a little pity party for myself while hubby watched nine hours straight of football. Haha.). Back to the subject at hand - my friend texted me a picture of this beauty asking if I wanted it or his friend was putting it on the curb. Ohhhhh yes, that should be a given! He even delivered it - SO NICE! It was a library table that looked like it had been shortened into a coffee table. Aside from the rough paint finish it was in awesome shape - heavy, sturdy, easy sliding drawer!

I wanted to bring the top back to it's original wood beauty. And yes, just the top, because the thought of stripping round legs and nooks and crannies makes me want to go to a remote island and never come back. Oh man, I used some paint stripper I had and for those of you who ask me for advice and I tell you "every project is an experiment and I'm not an expert" is totally true! Under the black paint was white paint. And it seemed like the stripper made the white seep deep into every little bit of wood grain and to get it all out I would have had to dig it out with a needle. And perhaps I'd finish in 2023. I threw up my hands and decided the bits of white added character. (Isn't that the favorite line of all DIYers??)

Okay, so here you can see how the bits of white paint are ingrained in the wood. However, this is a close up and the stain actually made it blend in even better than I could have hoped... but it sure ain't perfect. I used a clean, dry rag to apply this Minwax Gel Stain. After a few coats of the gel stain, I gave it a few coats of poly.

I liked the bottom black, so gave it a couple fresh coats of homemade black chalk paint and she was finished! I didn't get a great picture, sorry, but I had it finished in time to sell at my barn sale in November and the weekend before the sale, I had some guests in Gidley Station, our Airbnb, who walked through the barn, spotted it (along with a few other things), and just had to have it! :) They also wanted to buy my precious little barn kitty. And they weren't kidding!

My fluffy little Muffin is a hit with every single person who walks into my barn. Cat person or not. And if you're scoffing at that, well you just come meet him yourself! Here's little Muffin getting loved on by the six hundred and eighth person - and this littler person is even cuter than the kitty, which is saying a lot!

He's growing crazy FAST and the fluffy little mane around his neck is getting thicker and thicker. Here's me and my little ball of fluff. Yes I know, SWEET vintage flowered barn couch, yeah??

This is the second time I've gotten off subject.

Anyone wanting to see the finished coffee table??

Oh yeah, I'm not quite finished with the barn kitty subject.... it's not all roses.... LOOK WHAT SHE DID TO MY CHAIR!!!!! I can't believe it. Good thing I got it free.... but still. 😭