Feed N Wax

Welcome back from Christmas break! Did you get your batteries recharged? I did.  I had a blast spending time with my family last week and am always very grateful for the break from the daily grind.

But moving on to more DIY things, this is a project I actually finished before Christmas but didn’t get around to blogging about until now.  The table I have in my dining room was in my grandfather’s office for a really long time and has seen better days.  It has water rings and unknown stains all over the top; you can see them pretty clearly here and here.  So when I took all of my fall décor off, I decided it was time to try to make it look a little bit nicer.   Check out that damage:

table1

I had seen a Pinterest tip about ironing with a dry cloth to try to remove water rings, and decided I had nothing to lose. But apparently I had nothing to gain either.  That little trick did NADA to my (probably decades old) water stains.  So next I busted out my favorite wood restoration product, Howard’s Feed N Wax.  Although I have had a ton of luck using this stuff on other pieces of wood (see this link) I didn’t have high hopes for this table… it was in BAD shape.  And I wasn’t sure the Feed N Wax would be able to take care of the water rings.

table3

This stuff is so simple to use (and it smells deliciously citrus-y): wipe it onto the table in the direction of the wood grain, wait 20 minutes, buff out with a dry cloth and wipe off any excess.  One coat of that and a little bit of elbow grease and here’s how she was looking afterwards:

table2

It is still far from perfect (and you can tell that the two leaves weren’t used for many of the years), but it looks SO MUCH BETTER.  I can’t even express how much of a difference it made for this table… even my twin brother noticed… and he isn’t the most observant of people!

table6 It makes me want to use this on every piece of wood furniture I own!!  I’m definitely not paid or perked to say anything about this product, but I love it so much.  I’ve had the same bottle for a couple of years and used it on some pretty substantial pieces and still have a ton leftover. You can find it by the stains/wood conditioners in any of your hardware/big box stores.  This is one of those easy fixes that every time I do I think… why didn’t I do this sooner?! It is so easy and makes a ton of difference!  And just for fun, a couple more before and afters:

Table-before-and-After

remove-water-rings

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to you all!! I am spending lots of quality time with my family this week, so I’ll be a little MIA around here.  I hope you all enjoyed wonderful Christmas Eve services last night and get to spend time with people you love today!

christmas-card-2013-5-by-7- I’ll see all of you guys next week!

A Swedish Christmas

Have you been enjoying the week of posts about mom’s house at Christmas? If you are just joining us here’s what you missed: the best of her nativity collection, the most bizarre nativities and her two Christmas trees!

And for the final post of the week I’m showing off her Swedish Christmas decor!  I mentioned earlier in the week that she hosts a multitude of people every year at Christmas at three separate Christmas parties all in one weekend.  Over the last few years she has picked a theme for her parties and this year it was a Swedish Christmas.  I am not mostly Swedish by percent, but as far as the heritage that has been celebrated in my life, the Swedes have been the strongest.  My great-grandfather was full blood Swede and my extended family all settled into a small Swedish community in Kansas.  So my mom and all her sisters grew up in a very Swedish community full of Larsons, Johnsons, and Isaacsons.  And so the Swedish traditions have stuck around a bit, we have tea ring (a breakfast roll) at many family gatherings and several members of my family decorate with the Dala Horse and straw decorations that permeate traditional Swedish decor.

So for her parties my mom collected some of my family’s decorations to supplement her own and we lucked out and found the little straw goats at Ikea for (you guessed it) super cheap.  Here they are all packed up in her suitcase like a miniature goat army:

swedishchristmas8

 

She bought one of those little goats for each person at her party for favors and used them as napkin rings on her plates.  (I wish I had a good picture of it because it looked really cool with all of them lining the tables, but alas, her guests actually took their party favors home, so I didn’t get a photo of them).  She served at two tables, the first is in the living room:

swedishchristmas7

The centerpiece of each table was a candle tree surrounded by greenery and goats. And those cute trees with the red berries might just make their way to my house sometime soon…

swedishchristmas5

 

And look she even has nativities hanging on her candle trees:

swedishchristmas4

 

These cute wooden ornaments are very Swedish and I love the little St. Lucia ones.

swedishchristmas3

 

Her kitchen table looks very similar to the dining room table but has a little bit more blue on the candle tree:

swedishchristmas1

And here you can see how she used the goats as napkin ring holders:

swedishchristmas6

 

And last but not least she had the three goats guarding her drink station:

swedishchristmas2

 

And that’s how you decorate for A Swedish Christmas! Mom served Swedish Meatballs, Tea Ring, dill potatoes, Potatis Skorv (a type of potato sausage dish) and ostakaka with She also served a non alcoholic glogg to drink.

I love the Swedish Christmas tradition of St. Lucia and as a kid always wanted to walk around with candles on my head, but unfortunately my parents thought maybe that was a disaster waiting to happen.

swedishchristmas10