Weekend Project: Welcome Mat

How was your weekend!??! Mine was relaxing despite my never ending battle with this respiratory infection.  It's been about 2 or 3 weeks now, and it will just not go away.  I went to the doctor's on Friday and she put me on an inhaler to help me breathe and clear some "residual" mucus. If it doesn't clear in a week I might just ask for an antibiotic, cuz this is just ridiculous :-( 

I'm exhausted, haven't been sleeping at night, every time I fall asleep, I wake myself up choking and gasping for air. It's horrible, and I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy :-( 

Anyway, to kind of brighten my spirits, my mom said she had a project for me to do on Saturday...

She has had this welcome mat that had faded horribly from years of outdoor use in the dirt and sun... 

She asked me if I would paint it really colorful for her, so I was excited to do an arts n crafts project! 

I started applying the paint, but the fuzziness of the rug was absorbing the paint too much , and I wasn't getting the vibrant colors that I wanted right off the bat.  

So I decided then to add a coat of modge podge gloss on first in order for the paint to glide nicely across the surface and have the pigment dry nice and bright.

SUCCESS!

I also added some metallic paint to give some details a nice magical sheen to it! 

My dragonfly came out so beautifully, I am so happy with it! 

I also had some green glitter paint that I added as well...

It's going to sparkle so nicely in the sun! 

This is my progress so far, it was ALOT more work than I had thought it would be, so on Saturday I only got done as much as you see in this picture above... 

Because soon it was dinner time!! 

I had to clean up the table because we were dining Al Fresco tonight!

My dad had made a crockpot of Veal Stew which was 

DELICIOUS!!!

I must get this recipe from him!

Have some bread to soak up the broth!

That was yummy!

So today I managed to work a little bit on the welcome mat, but not much because I had set up shop outside but then it had started to rain :-( 

I cleaned up quickly so I didn't take any progress pics today....

But I WILL show you what we had for dinner today...

Sunday in my house is always pasta and sauce day...

Every Sunday my dad puts different things in the sauce, sometimes pork or beef chunks, sometimes meatballs, but today it was garden eggplant!!

It was so delicious...

After dinner I just took it easy...

I started watching Game of Thrones, 

Avi has been raving about the show, 

so I am trying to catch up to him so then we can start watching it together.

After an episode, I took a nap, tried to get used to my new inhaler, and then we watched Breaking Bad.

We are TV junkies, I must say.

Totally Guilty! 

Well that is all for now... I will post more on the welcome mat when I make some more progress!!

Ta ta for now!