Ladder Love

I (Mrs Owl) have an addiction. Ok ok I have MANY addictions, doilies, owls, turkish delight chocolate, that little bit of froth in the bottom of the coffee cup, throw cushions, sarcasm (pretty sure that counts as an addiction) and many more but today... today's addiction is brought to you by the letter AWESOME and is all about these.....

The ever lovely never outdated wooden ladder! Infact I am SO in love we have a Pinterest board dedicated to them!


When I first met Mrs Elephant I told her of my ladder love (hey nothing to be ashamed of - ladder lovers unite!!) and how desperately I wanted one to put in my loungeroom  and she told me about this gorgeous wooden ladder her mum used to have. Her mum gave it to her (so much better than any other form of love!) and get this - when Elephant demolished her house SHE LEFT IT BEHIND!!!!  Like a little abandoned puppy, void of love, out in the cold. Her father-in-law went and got it (love a man with heart) then 6 years later when they moved THEY left it behind at their old house aswell!! What is with these people?? Ladders have feelings too!!  I was GUTTED!

Fast forward to a couple of months ago. The Elephant clan decided to do a drive by of the inlaws old house on the way to school and guess what was out for roadside pick up (hard rubbish, garbage collection whatevs!! Elephant laughs at me when I call it hard rubbish - is that an eastern-stater thing??) MY LADDER!!! Well... their unloved ladder... NOW its MY ladder!!

It was waaaaay too tall to stand up in my loungeroom so needed the bottom chopped off. Mr Owl was away (which is always the best time to raid his power tools) but I could not for the life of me work out how to use the damn power saw. Reverting to the good ol fashion hand saw I got so excited I actually set the ladder on fire. True story. Gave up and called on my hire a hubby (Mr Elephant) to come and finish the job and well... look at it now!!!!

*sigh* Archibald my Owl ladder LOVES his new home. How great does he look? All he needed was a lil love..... don't we all???


Thought of the moment is brought to you by the fact I am one of those weird people who gets songs stuck in their head constantly triggered by a single word!:

All you need is love.... do do do do do

Sweet Dreams | Shabby Chic Bedhead

Ever since buying our new ensemble bed almost a year ago I have been searching high and low for the "perfect" bedhead, one that suited my "style" and was not going to cost me an arm and a leg.
After months of frustration I turned to Pinterest. Why on earth did I not do that sooner? I dont need to hunt down a bedhead - I can make one!! (with a little bit of help from Mr Owl!)
I am so in love with it! Made with repurposed recycled wood, white washed and laquered and shabbied within an inch of its life, I love how rustic it is! Heck i just plain LOVE it!! Everytime I walk past my bedroom with its perfectly arranged throw cushions (an ocd habit I learnt off Mrs Elephant) I cannot help but *sigh* its just so damn lubly..... So tell me - what do you think?

If you love it as much as we do - we would love to make you one! Stay tuned to our website as we will be listing them for sale very soon.

Thought of the moment:

Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn't matter to me. Going to bed at night saying we've done something wonderful, that's what matters to me.

Steve Jobs

What does an Owl make an Elephant for Christmas?

Josie The Owl is one of those 'awesome present givers'...you know, the type that spends ages thinking about the perfect present for someone? No gift vouchers, socks or chocolates from that gal...she takes present giving very seriously!

So what did The Owl make for The Elephant this Christmas? Something she was bursting out of her skin to show me and tell me about days before Christmas...that's what!!

NOW I know why she was asking me what my favourite scripture was...I couldn't pinpoint one so she had to stalk me on Pinterest and see which ones I had been pinning!

Seen here with Earl the Elephant, yet another awesome gift from The Owl, made by the ever so talented Robyn at Focus on Art

We love doilies here at The Owl & the Elephant, and are busy pinning LOADS of projects to captivate their frilly goodness! Have you seen any good doily repurposing?

And if you like the look of this one, be sure to check out Josie's hand-made rustic wooden signs made from repurposed palettes on our website. She custom makes a fantastic We Are Family sign which incorporates all your family names in a scrabble board style format. Or do you have your own favourite inspirational quote you would like? Contact us for a quote.

This is another of our favourites: 

Available on our website

Stay tuned to see what The Elephant made The Owl for Christmas!!

Thought of the moment:

Gifts must affect the receiver to the point of shock.
Walter Benjamin

Mama told me there'd be days like this.....

So you know those days, the one's where you peer out the curtains and it LOOKS nice and sunny and happy and then something happens and you realise that the nice sunny happy day has lured you into a false sense of security and BAM - the day may have gone better if you had just stayed in bed.

Well my day was kinda a eeny teeny bit like that. It got better but boy did it start out super special!

Max the youngest owl is one of those kids that wakes up super happy, and stays super happy as long as you feed him ASAP once he is up, as in get him out of cot, run to kitchen, throw food at him until he bursts and then continue on with the day.

So today I got him out of his cot, ran down to the kitchen, put him in his why did I not know about these 8 years ago IKEA highchair and went about getting his breaky. No milk - ok so what? no cereal today he can have toast. No bread - ahhhhh crap!!!  I was totally not intending to put my bra on nor brush my hair for AT LEAST another 3 hours.

Get the four kids dressed, pack them in the car (which I have had back for only a few weeks after the last "incident") get the milk, bread and other various non-essential items (mind you those choc chip muffins rreeeeaaaallly came in handy later on down the track!) pack the kids back in the car, reverse out, head to exit BANG car is on two wheels, moment of panic, what have I done??? Car back on four wheels, park it again thinking I have hit a parked car again but NO!! IT WASN"T MY FAULT!!!! WOHOOOO!!! (I know, I know, not REALLY a cause to celebrate but if you read back a couple of blog posts you will understand) feling very shaken I hope out of the car and inspect the damage. Having felt like it all morning, I have just - quite literally, been hit by a truck. Just when I thought my day couldn't get any worse having had to drag four kids out of the house before 8am...IT DID.

At home a strong coffee and a couple *cough* of chocolate muffins later I felt a little better. * sigh* its just a car, we are all ok and its insured. Stuff happens,stressed spelled backwards is desserts and if all else fails... smile!!!

Now to Nat's day..... now lets all be honest here... how many (let alone those of us trying to run an online business) could live without the net nowdays? This is the predicament facing the lovely Mrs Elephant today - no net till Tuesday!!! She was reduced to reading a book!! Looking stuff up the old fashioned way and having to go without Pinterest - cold turkey!!! Its just not right..... It has however made her come up with the newest Owl and the Elephant" clause. We solemly swear, no matter how big we get. We will NEVER send your phonecalls offshore. Ever. So my car may be written off, but no internet? Like none? No Pinterest, no facebook, no online shopping? Nat wins.WHat did we do without the net?

Something that makes our bad days better? The days a little sunnier and our smiles a little bigger? Our new repurposed, shabby chic, bus roll inspired, rustic wooden signs. We hope you love them as much as we do!! head over to our website for full details on owning one of these babies or on requesting a custom design!!

Thought of the moment:

Give a person a fish and you feed them for a day; teach that person to use the Internet and they won't bother you for weeks.  ~Author Unknown

refurbished man cave rubbish

So yesterday Mr Owl flew out to a new job. He has always done FIFO but has been at home for a while so today, I found myself home, alone ( well with the kids) without a man sitting on the couch, asking the tough questions like "what's for dinner" and generally getting under my feet (NB: I DO love Mr Owl dearly but you know what they say - abscence makes the heart grow fonder!)

Unsure exactly what I was supposed to do now I had one less child to entertain I busied myself with the housework ( how does one man make so much mess?) played with the kids, got dinner ready and rearranged some furniture. Something was still missing - I could feel it in my bones, this little tingle that I havent felt for oh so long! I felt the urge to be creative!!! So I did what all handcrafters with time on their hands do... I hit Pinterest!!!

Amongst the pictures of biscuit dunkers and Owls in awkward positions all I felt was even more inspired to "do" something.  So off I went and raided Hubby's man cave, with all the bits and bobs I found this is what I came up with:

My very own recycled, refurbished, re-used busroll/word art! What do you think?

Thought of the moment:

A day without sunshine is like, you know, night.
Steve Martin 

Rocking Chair Reveal!!

So yesterday we started off with a pink fairy girls rocking chair, today The Owl & the Elephant have transformed it into a super funky, Sock Monkey Rocking Chair!!

Remember the "before" shot:

And here is the finished masterpiece:

 So what do you think? Please don't be shy.....leave a comment!!

Thought of the moment:
"Worrying is like a rocking chair, it gives you something to do, but it gets you nowhere." ~Glenn Turner

What a rockin' rocking chair!

So our devoted Facebook followers will know that Josie is on holidays at the moment in her hometown of Sydney...and that leaves 'her baby', aka The Blog a little neglected as we all know she is the one who has a 'way with words' and not moi!!

But, I couldn't leave you all waiting for our next post....so here is a little glimpse into our latest project.

A friend of mine kindly donated a little girls rocking chair to me recently, sweet baby pink with delightful fairies on it. Now those of you who know me...or know Miss Elephant, know that fairies "aren't my bag, baby"...so we had to do away with those and give them a little touch of The Owl & the Elephant of course!

Here are some before shots:

So this morning, a fine blustery Perth winter day...made me feel like tackling a project. Now Mr Elephant is on his last day of holidays today, so Mrs Elephant being ever so crafty (in the evil sense of the word!) only had to utter the words "Honey, I 'wonder' if this rocking chair seat would come apart with a screwdriver?". Of course my Mr Fixit jumped at the chance to whip out the tool box and got to work disassembling the chair for me.

The as you can see in this photo below, there was a nasty crack and bulge in the seat area which had to be sanded...a few more words from the Elephant and he was onto that too!

My oldest Elephant, almost 4 just loves Monkeys, and you may have seen this Sock Monkey Light Switch Cover we made for her some time back (available to purchase here), so I thought it would match perfectly to use that fabric on the renovated rocking chair which will sit in her bedroom. So I got to work....here are some 'during' shots...

Now it should be dry some time today, tomorrow I will finish off trimming it all up and then reassemble it and post the 'after' shots!!

Please leave a comment below and let us know what you think so far. Also if you are in Perth and have a piece of furniture you would like us to add The Owl & the Elephant touch to, contact us here. We love a challenge! 


There is a sample of our current furniture pieces on our website.

Voila!!

We started with this (well, after a little sanding!):

Knew we HAD to have this fabric:

The Owl worked her magic "shabby chic'ing" up Alice and making her look all rustic and beautiful...then came the next step - fusing the fabric onto the dresser...a difficult task!

Measuring it all up before we start

The very painstaking task of getting the fabric fused perfectly to the top of Alice

The Elephant being 'pedantic' about smoothing out every single bubble or imperfection

All smoothed out waiting to dry

Just about dry....time to trim off the excess fabric (stay tuned for what we do with that)

Little Miss Elephant HAD to have a closer look...its JUST her size!

Now all we are waiting on are these beautiful drawer knobs we searched high and low for and eventually found in a store in New York

We think they will be just the finishing touch for Alice! Now please pray they arrive THIS WEEK!!

and here she is completed...

WHAT DO YOU THINK??

If you have fallen in love with Alice, register your interest by comment below or email us at theowlandtheelephant@yahoo.com.au

curiouser and curiouser....

So the dolls house continues slowly, slowly but is rather large and rather time consuming so we have decided to get started on a SECOND piece of furniture (as if we are not busy enough already)! This piece will combine our love of beautiful furniture, stunning fabrics AND timeless childhood favourites as we begin the creation of "Alice". Recipe for an Alice? Simple!  Take one small and incredibly cute dresser ( which comes with a stunning elongated oval mirror currently unattached for refurbishing purposes!!) : and one piece of BEAUTIFUL Alice themed fabric from one of our fav places Spoonflower.... Add one clever Owl and an equally clever Elephant then simply sit back and watch the magic unfold! We cant WAIT to show you the finished product and all going well you won't have to wait for to much longer! Thought of the moment: "You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me."                                          - C.S Lewis -