Alien table gets a new life

Last year, we bought the most adorable little table from the Recycling Centre. However, while it's general structure was undeniably cute, the top, unfortunately, had seen much better days. So, this past weekend, I decided to try my hand at refinishing it.

The first few scrapes with the sandpaper were truly horrible - what if I'd made a terrible mistake?! But fortunately the varnish came off incredibly easily.

Both kittens were very excited to have a new place to sit, so I spent a rather pleasant Sunday afternoon painting coats of varnish and guarding the table.

And, behold, it was all worth it.

I was worried about sanding off the lovely veneer, so the table ended up looking pleasantly antique-y, I think.

Most importantly, it's much better protected....and looks considerably less like it's just been brought home from the dump - alien table success!

Garden update, August edition

I'm sure you're desperate to know what the status of our garden is.

I'm happy to report, it remains productive, with an explosion of both growth....

And (finally) tomatoes:

...peppers (L. is particularly pleased about these):

...strawberries:

....and the ever-growing pears:

We had a major problem with a white mildew that took over the courgettes, so drastic pruning was necessary.

It seems to have stopped the spread and has had the additional benefits of spurring the plants to create even more courgettes....and to encourage the newly-uncovered pumpkins to ripen.

With no less than four pumpkins in the making, I'm already having visions of delicious pumpkin pie in the fall.

A blanket finished

I'm pleased that I managed to finish the blanket before our friends' baby arrived.

The final product:

In the end, I opted to sew the backing to it inside out, which made for a nice, simple edge.

The back was made with the left overs from the front.

This was a great project - simple, easy, relatively cheap (1/2 metre fleece, 3 fat quarters of cute fabric, a little bit of ribbon, some white scraps from another project). The hardest part was cutting and pressing all the little flags (not such a big task, really). Other friends with babies on the way, be warned!