Saturday Spotlight: Life Behind the Blogger Series

Saturday Spotlight: Life Behind the Blogger is a feature done each Saturday that introduces you to a blogger you may already know or a new blogger for you to get to know. This feature gives you a peak into the personal life of the blogger.  Getting to know the special person behind the beautiful blog.

There is so much talent and inspiration in blogland so enjoy getting to know these talented bloggers each Saturday.

Shane from Roses, Lace and Brocante

I have a beautiful and sweet blogger from New Zealand with a French heart to introduce you to.

It is Shane from Roses, Lace and Brocante.  Please read and get to know Shane and then hop over and visit her pretty blog you will not be disappointed.  Shane is as sweet and kind and open as her beautiful blog.  Enjoy.

Thank you so much dear Kris 

for inviting me to take part today.

I am delighted to have the opportunity

to meet and get to know more bloggers

via your

Saturday Spotlight!

Hello and welcome to everyone reading this post!

My name is Shane and I blog at

Roses, Lace and Brocante

where I often post about things french.

My love affair with 
France 
begins with

my daughter and three granddaughters

who all live there.

We travel to France as often as possible and

we will be there again in June this year!
I'm counting the days, hours and minutes
until I step off the aeroplane
and I can hug my favourite girls!

One year we hired a canal boat for a week
with four friends from home and had such a great time.
We cycled up to a village every morning to
buy a baguette, ham, fresh salad, fruit and delicious
patisseries

Much as I enjoy travelling...

home 
is where my heart is
and I love
decorating, painting old furniture with Annie Sloan paint
and styling with collections of
books, vintage pieces and pretty things...
flowers and candles bring ambiance to a room
they give that certain
je ne sais quoi

my garden 
is developing year by year
it's filled with old fashioned roses
hydrangeas,perennials and herbs
all growing happily together
though the dry conditions this summer are a challenge!

With my love of

vintage 

lace, linen, buttons 

I search the village brocantes when I'm in France

and come home laden with gorgeous pieces.

With these I make collage pieces and fabric books.

I dream 

in french but I'm very much a

Nouvelle-Zélandais

(New Zealander)

and I live in Auckland.

Since I started blogging five years ago, 

my camera or iPhone are always by my side

photography

has become an absorbing interest - I photograph everything!

Our family love messing about in

boats 

and my dear husband is restoring an old classic launch

which will be in the water for next Summer - Yea!

I'm looking forward to visiting your blogs

and I do hope you will pop over and say hello/bonjour

to me!

thank you

sweet Kris for hosting 

Saturday Spotlight - Life behind the Blogger!

I know my followers will enjoy popping over

to meet you and your followers too!

Merci 

take care and

be kind to one another

Shane

Thank you Shane for sharing your beautiful family with all of us today.  It is so great to get to know you better.

Have a wonderful Week End everyone.

Kris

:)

Happy Friday and Happy Week End

Wishing all of you a wonderful week end.

We are suppose to start to warm up starting this week end.  Hoping this is a sign Spring is on it's way.  It will feel good to start to thaw.

Oh remembering this from last summer.  My happy place to lounge and read in the sunshine.  Ohhhhhh hope to see this again soon.

Have a great week end.  We may hit 50 next week.  Wooooo Hoooo!
Kris
:)

Faux Brick Wall Living Room

I thought I would share with you another faux brick wall we did in the living room.  You can see the faux brick wall tutorial we did on the kitchen wall here.

This time we did it a little different than we did in the kitchen to get another look to the brick.

Here is the grandma's basement faux brick panels from Menards.  They come in 4X8 panels for around $22.  This  half wall took 3 panels.

First step was to put a cream base on this wall.  I used paint I already had.  It was Behr Ultra with a satin finish.

 Just rolled the paint onto the brick panels with a paint roller and let it dry.

The next step and the messy step is to put grout on the wall. I used the bright white grout I had left over from the kitchen wall project.  We put the grout on pretty heavy to cover all the grout lines and bricks for texture.  You can see the mess it leaves on the floor.  That is why I showed on the kitchen faux wall tutorial how we used these inexpensive plastic drop cloths and used painter's tape to attach them  to the wall and spread it out on the floor.  This way clean up is easy and it protects the wall and floor from the grout dropping all over when applying to the wall.  To see how we put the grout onto the faux brick check out the kitchen tutorial here.

 Next step on this faux brick in the living room we used some Rustoleum Cabinet Glaze we had in the garage.  Terry got a cloth wet and then added some of the glaze to the cloth and wiped it onto the bricks.  I went along behind him with another wet and dry cloth and rubbed out the glaze to get the look I wanted on the bricks.  I used the wet rag to rub off more of the glaze on some bricks and the dry cloth to not take off as much on other bricks.  This is where you chose how much color you want in the bricks.  I wanted a soft weathered look to the bricks so we did not do a heavy glazing to the bricks.  We decided to try the glaze instead of a paint technique like we did on the kitchen wall.  Since we had the glaze all ready we thought we would see what kind of look we could get using the glaze.  I liked the weathered exposed look the glaze gave to the brick.

This is the end result we got.  It gave me the weather faded brick look.

This is the up close picture of some of the bricks after the glazing so you could see how it makes the bricks look old and weathered with lots of texture to make them look real.

Ok while Terry was applying the glaze and I was rubbing away at the faux brick to get the brick looking just right,  I turned around to see my little decor assistant fast asleep on the couch.  Terry and I both shook our heads and said Oh Libby must be so tired from watching us work all day on the wall! I guess Libby is in the decor union that allows for naps on the job!So that is a peak at the wall in the living room.  I am working on getting Pottery Barn and Cottage to mix in this room.  This room has been a fun challenge for me.  I am getting a new look using everything I already had and spending zero dollars for this make over.  Hope to have the whole reveal soon.
Have a great rest of the week.
Kris
:)



Parties:
Share your Cup Thursday
Treasure Hunt Thursday

Start of Living Room Decor Change Up

I am starting a new decor project in the living room.   I took everything down off the walls.  Here is the wall before shot and hopefully soon will have the after picture of what we do to this wall and the new decor change ups for my living room.

We got a new leather sectional not too long ago after I sold my pretty white slipcovered sectional so that is starting a whole decor change up in this room!  Hopefully Pottery Barn meets Cottage will be achieved in this room soon.

I have to really watch the budget while Terry is trying to find another position in the fire service so I am going to do all these changes with supplies and decor pieces I have.  I love a challenge and have a "captive helper" that has tools so it is all good! 

 Have a great start to the new week.
Kris
:)