Exciting News!!!!

I can't believe it's been a month since my last post. Where does the time go? Since my last post I have some very exciting news to share. My daughter was accepted into ASU and she also received a Presidential Scholarship. We are so very proud of her.

Now if you remember I was prepping our Armoire for a make-over, needless to say it still looks the same. I am wanting to paint it a grey color as to resemble a piece of Swedish furniture, but trying to find the right shade of grey that is not too blue, or green but a true grey is proving to be difficult.

What is one to do when they can't find the perfect shade of paint, move onto another project of course.

With Christmas around the corner, I decided to make ornaments for ornament exchange parties I attend every year.

The first ornament I made started with an ornament for the Dollar Store. You gotta L-O-V-E the Dollar store. I then went and dug a book out of the donation pile and grabbed my hot glue gun.

I cut the book pages into 1" squares.

Wrap paper square around the end on an un-sharpened pencil

Add a dab of hot glue

Attach to Plain Christmas Ornament (starting at bottom)
I actually sat the ornament on a glass while attaching paper squares.

Once the ornament was completely covered in paper squares, I cut out a cardboard star, painted it green, then smeared Elmer's glue on it and covered it in green glitter.



The finishing touch was the banner and brushing the tips of paper in glue and rolling in glitter.

This is the other ornament I made, which I can provide a tutorial for if you would like.

May you all have a very blessed Christmas

Armoire Makeover

I am so so sorry I haven't posted anything new in quite awhile. I have been very busy going to my two daughters marching band competitions and their half time shows at the football games.

I am happy to report that their band took 1st place in the super state championship yesterday. We are so proud of all the kids in the band. Their hard work really paid off. Congratulations!!!


Now on to the makeover of the armoire. I have to say when we bought it twelve years ago I did have a love of somethings southwestern. Fast foward to today and my decor style has changed.

I still love the lines of the armoire just not the carving on top that screamed southwest. What is one to do? Get a chisel and hammer of course.

Here it is post chisel, hammer, sander, and wood fill.

I also changed out the knobs. The one on the left is the old one.

Now I need to find new drawer pulls.

I will keep you updated on the progress. I promise.

Picture Frame

I had a girlfriend call me this week and ask if I could donate a frame for her son's schools silent auction. What a win win situation, I get to do another project and get to help someone out in the process.

She wanted a frame that would not be gender specific.

I immediately thought school colors, but then I found out what they were. I just couldn't bring myself to use them. Forest Green and Vegas Gold. Sorry Kids

Off to the scrapbook store I went in search of the perfect papers.

I struck gold.

I hope she and the bidders like it.

Before

After


These are a few others I have done for gifts.


Linking To:
http://decormamma.blogspot.com
http://romantichome.blogspot.com
http://lbratina.blogspot.com
http://www.justagirlblog.com

Farmhouse Table

As I sat here this morning thinking about what to blog about, I looked over and admired our newly refinished farmhouse table.

Ding! That's it! I will share my Craigslist farmhouse table find.

The guy I purchased it from bought it back in Pennsylvania. He was told it dated back to the 1890's.

I ended up picking up this baby for a mere $200. I know it is way more than I would have liked to spend, but it was solid oak.


The first step in the refinishing process started with sanding. I started with a course sand paper and worked my way down to a fine grade sand paper.

Once the sanding was to my liking then came the Watco Rejuvenating Oil.


I decided to seal and protect the table with some polyurethane. I had never applied poly to anything before, what a pain in the patootie. I swear nats are drawn to wet poly.

I put a total of three coats of poly on and sanded in between each coat with fine grade steel wool.

I also forgot to mention I had to rebuild the bottom of one of the drawers because it was warped due to water damage. No pictures of that. Sorry


Here she is in all her glory, and with new dining chairs to boot.

Powder Room Makeover

My bathroom makeover began after seeing pictures of faux board and batten on http://thriftydecorchick.blogspot.com/2010/04/how-to-install-board-and-batten.html and http://www.decorchick.com/paint/multipurpose-room-progress-board-and-batten/.

Now mind you there are many makeovers I would love to do to my home but just haven't gotten around to doing them, but for whatever reason this one I had to do immediately.

I headed to Home Depot and had all my lattice strips cut to 54" and my casing cut to a straight 65". I figured I would do the miter cutting at home.

The first thing I did was decide how far apart I wanted the lattice strips. 14" was going to work perfectly, I would miss the outlets and the pipes to the sink and toliet.

To make things go faster I cut an extra lattice strip 14" to use as a spacer. I made sure the lattice strips were straight using my level and then attached them with liquid nails and finishing nails.

Now came the harder part. I had to miter cut the casing. After trial and error and two trips to Home Depot, the casing joints were cut and fit just right. Little secret here, I used my dremel to cope out the back. Why didn't I use a coping saw you ask, I did in the beginning and decided it was too hard to use and I didn't care for the fit.

I then chalked the joints of the casing and the edges of all my lattice strips, and filled in all the counter sunk nails with white wood fill.

Now I was ready to paint. I used Polar Bear by Behr on the board and batten treatment and Grey Owl by BM on the top.

I replaced the builder mirror with a mirror from Kirkland's that I painted with the same white paint I used for the walls.

Only thing left to do is to find the perfect light fixture and I think I have.

Linking to

my romantic home


funkyjunkinteriors

Lamps made out of Candlesticks

The project I am going to share today is one that I did several months ago, and it all came about from a pair of candlesticks I purchased at a garage sale for $8.00.

When I bought them, I had no idea they would later become lamps. The candlestick in the foreground is the before and the one in back is in the process of being transformed into a lamp.

Light kit , threaded lamp rod, lamp shade, and a little hard work and WALLA!!!!

New lamps for my living room!

My First Post

I finally took the plunge and started my own blog today. I have let fear get in the way of beginning this journey, but that all ends as of this day.

I want to share my dining room chairs makeover I finished as of yesterday. Okay, I still need to hem two of them.

First off, my husband was not keen on the idea of me painting the chairs so my options were limited. I decided to look on some of my favorite blogs to see if I could find some inspiration. Hurray!!! There it was. Layla from The Lettered Cottage had done a design consultation for someones dining room. I instantly fell in LOVE ;).



I decided for the chairs at the head of the table, I would use Layla's idea plus reupholster the front side of the chairs. I have to say it was a real pain removing all the nail heads. Then for the other chairs, I decided to make slipcovers, mind you, I don't know how to sew. I didn't let that stop me, so after many days of sewing and using my seam ripper, I'm finally finished. I feel such a sense of accomplishment.

Linking to:

pinkandpolkadot