A gift for my Sissy...

Recently my baby sister, who by the way is definitely not a baby any more which makes me feel sad and old,  sent me a picture of a necklace she liked to get my opinion. So I thought I would suprise her while she was out of town and replicate it for her for half the price :) See what ya think...

The Original...

My Replica...

Cost Break-Down:

Fabric for Rosettes (1/4 yard).............................................$1.50

Chain for Necklace (still plenty left for more creations) ..............$4.00

Clasps for necklace (pack of 90 pieces)...................................$4.00

Buttons for embellishment..................................................$5.00

Hot Glue gun + glue sticks...................................................free; already had

Total ...........................................................................$14.50

Not too shabby, especially considering I still have enough supplies to make a minimum of 5 more necklaces. All I would need are more embellishments! I pretty much love how it turned out!

Hope you LOVE it Annie Bananie!!

P.S. We need to remedy the fact that this is the only "recent" picture I have of you, and it's been over a year since this was taken :(

The New Girl In Town...

So it's done! Complete! Terminado! Hallelujah! My gently used brand new china hutch is in the house, painted, stocked with goodies, and I. Am. So. Relieved... and so in love. This was probably my most ambitious undertaking to date, which was only compounded by the fact that I absolutely, positively, HAD to have it complete before Christmas!! (sorry for the late posting, I've been a little lazy) This was a Craig's List find, and it definitely started a little rough...

Ugly oak, broken glass, and a busted back....but it was a GREAT deal, and my thrifty self knew it could be transformed. I guess beauty really is in the eye of the beholder :) 

After A LOT of sanding, priming, and about 10 cans of spray paint, she's a new woman!

I painted the inside of the cabinets a beautiful shade of blue to highlight all of my white dishes. I also removed the side glass doors and replaced it with chicken wire that was spray painted oil rubbed bronze along with the original hardware. Then with some light distressing and some glaze, she took on a whole new life. 

So what do you all think? I am so happy to have a place to store all of my beautiful wedding presents! Here is one last view in the now completed (well, minus the horrendous light fixture) dining room!

Close-up of the tablescape...

And this little cutie hiding in the corner. Not really sure what I'm going to do with her, but I luhv her!!

I'll share more on the updated curtains soon! Have a fabulous hump day!

Linking to Cassie at Primitive and Proper!!

The Headboard Tutorial

So I ran out of time to post the tutorial for our headboard yesterday, so without further ado, the painstaking tale of really how not to create a headboard/learn as you go building! We made lots of mistakes which I will highlight for you as to avoid our pain troubles. 

Supply List:

• 1 piece of 1/2 inch plywood cut to your desired length. For a king we did 78 inches
• 3, 4 foot boards (for the legs)
• Enough foam to cover the plywood (can be pieced together)
• 1 sheet of batting long enough and wide enough to cover your board
• Fabric of your choosing (with about 6 inches to spare on each side)
• Nail head trim if you choose
• 3, 1x4 boards (1/2 thick) if you choose to do trim
• Staple Gun
• Screws and Drill
• Hammer

Process:

{1} Attach your legs (4 inch boards) to your plywood using screws. We screwed through the front of the board so if there was any excess we could hammer them flat to the back and the front surface would remain flat. We attached ours right at the edge of the board to line up with our bed frame, and also because we were not worried about seeing the legs as we have 2 night side tables on either side of our bed that will be there permanently to hoard our junk and the hubby's fighter pilot mask.

{2} Cover your plywood with foam. I used cheap 1 inch foam from Wal-mart. Trust me, this stuff can get expensive, so you wanna try to use a coupon. Don't worry if you can't find foam wide enough (most likely you won't be able too), it can be pieced together and never seen. Using spray adhesive, just work in pieces until your entire piece is covered. You can also use hot glue on the edges if they won't stay down.

{3} Attempt to hammer in 1 decorative nail head to see if it will stay.
{4} Find out that it will not stay, and devise plan B.
{5} Cut out approximately 4 inches of the foam around the top and sides and drill in 1/4 boards to create a "border" that will allow the nail head trim to be hammered into.

Here it is with the "cut outs"

Here it is with the attached boards.

{6} Cover the whole thing with high rise batting by simply stapling to the back side of the board. Make sure you actually read the package and buy a piece that is wide enough to fit your enormous headboard. Otherwise you will become very frustrated, have a minor breakdown to your husband, and then devise a plan to piece it together and hot glue the seam together. It actually turned out not to matter at all, but I was very worried you would see the seam down the middle.

 

{7}Yell at your dog for constantly sleeping, drooling, stepping on your headboard project. 

 

{8} Cover your headboard with the fabric of your choosing. We chose a velvety gray fabric that was on sale at JoAnne's, but anything will work. Just make sure it's "sturdy" enough to be able to pull tight. I recommend stapling the very center of each side first, then continue pulling tight and go around the edges. Since we opted to attach our headboard directly to our bed frame instead of the wall (which would be impossible as our bed is front of a window, but we also didn't want to leave huge holes in the wall) you will have to sort of cut slits in the bottom of the fabric to go around the legs. Don't worry, this doesn't have to be perfect...No one will ever see it, it's behind your mattress. 

{9} Start nailing individual nail heads to your "raised" wood border in a pattern you like. Get about 1 foot done and realize that it will be absolutely impossible to keep them in a straight line even with precise measuring. Pitch another fit because "you went through all this work and it won't even work now", pout, etc. Then devise plan C. 

{10} Get online and order a roll of nail head trim that only requires nailing every 5th hole and wait patiently for it to arrive. 

{11} Decide on a pattern and begin nailing into the wood. You will want to use a mallet (a regular hammer covered in a sock) so as to not damage your nail head trim.

{12} Slice your fingers open multiple times by stupidly not wearing work gloves while dealing with a roll of METAL!!

{13} Apply work gloves and finish your project. 

{14} Admire your hard work! After it all it did take sweat, tears, and even blood!!

I chose a double row of nail head trim spaced exactly 3 inches apart

{15} Wait for your husband to get home to bolt your head board through the holes in the bed frame. We simply pre-drilled holes into the legs, stuck a long screw through it and tightened a nut from the other side. It is incredibly sturdy.

{16} Fall in love with your new head board and enjoy many nights without neck cramping while trying to enjoy your evening t.v. line-up!

Please let me know if you have any questions and send pics if you attempt this yourself! It's so worth all the work, and really I have walked before you, so should be easy breezy!!

Have a happy weekend!! Up next a Birthday calendar, a Craigslist score, and some hair beutification!!

The Pile

Really this title should be the "pile of crap". That is the pile of mildly important papers and small items that seem to expand at an exponential rate on my kitchen island. Without fail, every single day, there will be a pile. Most of the time said pile originates with me toting in all the junk important things from my car when I arrive home from work. The pile then grows further when the hubs brings in the mail and his pile of stuff from his car resulting in a very junky and majorly disruptive to my OCD self kitchen island.

I was determined to find a solution. Nothing fancy. Just practical. I needed some system to organize this pile into meaningful other piles (sounds redundant huh?) that could be sorted at a more convenient time (read, when I actually feel like doing such boring stuff). My solution, yet another craft!

Doesn't it just blow your mind??!! Ha. Simple, I know, but works for me!

I took a square basket that we got as a wedding gift that unfortunately wouldn't fit in my craft cubby organizer, cut down some file folders, attached some scrap book paper to half sized index cards, wrote a label and voila...a junk pile organizer on a dime. Here's a close-up of my ever so clever filing system he he!

Total Cost = $0.00
Mental Sanity Gained = priceless!!


So do you have a pile too??

Sew What ya Think?

     God I love a corny title :) It's my guilty pleasure. I manage to spend a crazy small amount of time dreaming up such titles just for your reading pleasure. Today I bring to you a labor of love, my antique sewing table redo. I found this little beauty at a local yard sale a few Fridays ago. Must be a Florida thing, but people actually start yard sales on Friday here?!? Anyway, I saw it and decided I absolutely could not live without it, despite having NO idea where it would live in my house. But with a price tag of $4.00, I simply couldn't resist. I guess beauty is in the eye of the beholder because here is the horribly frightening before shot...

Not so bad from afar, but take a look at the up-close and personal shots...

Chipping front cabinet door = pain in the butt

An even worse rear-end!!

     Well I rolled up my sleeves and got to work. I started by sanding the entire piece with my birthday sander :) Then I filled in the missing parts with wood filler. Let that dry and sanded the whole thing again. VERY time consuming, but it was looking better already.

     I unfortunately forgot to take any during pictures, but picture, primer (I used killz in the spray can) and then 1 coats of Bejamin Moore's Caliente which I painted on with a high quality brush.  I think used Benjamin Moore's paint extender/ miracle in a bottle mixed with the red paint for the final coat = no brush marks and really smooth finish.
     I really liked the color, but it still needed a little something more. I was going for the old barn look, so I decided to distress some of the edges with 220 grit sand paper, then applied a dark brown glaze which I brushed on with a foam brush and wiped off with an old t-shirt.
     I absolutely love how it turned out. Cue major picture overload! I loved it so much, I couldn't resist taking a million few pictures to show you all...

 And one last look at my cute little rustic table...

P.S. that's my twin sister and I hugging when we were about 4 years old! Cute huh?

     It is now sitting in my guest bedroom and functioning as a little nook to hold a lamp and pictures. After I finished, I decided to do a little research on my sewing machine. Turns out it was built in 1936, right before World War II. Pretty amazing for 4 smackaroos!! Oh, and it still works, just needs a new power cord! Overall I am rather pleased with myself for completing my second ever furniture renovation!

Hope you're having a glorious hump day!!

I'm linking to Primitive and Proper!

"Hey Jute"

     Please forgive the corny title, I simply can't resist a song title turned blog post, especially when it's so very applicable!! Plus who doesn't love the Beatles?

Back to the Jute! I have yet another obsession. Jute Rope. You saw me use it earlier on my first lamp shade redo, and I loved it so much that I decided I would create an entire lampshade out of this beautiful rope! Crazy, I know, but bare with me.

First, the dilemma was we needed a lamp for the office/craft room/Adam's man cave. This is the one designated area in our home that was supposed to be solely for Adam. And it was for a while, including a beautiful curio cabinet full of miniature tractors, and even a Mississippi State Bulldog wallpaper border. Yes wallpaper :( Though this wouldn't exactly be my idea of high fashion, it was his space, that is until I ran out of room in the other 7 rooms of the house. I mean a girl's gotta craft right? So needless to say the office decor remains the same, it's just now stuffed to brim full of crafting supplies as well.

I digress. We needed a lamp for the desk that would match the above mentioned decor (aka country comes to town). Since I heart a theme, and there was no turning back on this one now, I decided to just make my hubby a farm meets Mississippi State lamp. How you might ask? Well with a little maroon spray paint and a WHOLE LOT of jute!

No before shot of the lamp base can be found...but it was pretty simple. Already a red ceramic lamp that just needed a slight change in shade of red to match the bulldogs (should i say HIS bulldogs). The shade started like this...

Just your basic white pleated lamp shade. Not my cup of tea. I then removed all of the previous fabric and started my adventure with the hot glue gun and a WHOLE lot of rope. It literally took something like 200 feet of rope and an eternity to wrap, but still ended up being cheaper than purchasing a new lamp. And it's customized for my country cowboy, so it was definitely worth it. Here's the final product...

Doesn't it look cool with the little flickers of light poking out between the layers of rope? I just think it turned out as good as anyone could have hoped for considering my criteria was 1. country, 2. Maroon, 3. match current not-so-wonderful decor, 4. Please the husband who could care less about decorating!

Here's a view in the room (well what I will show you of our disaster area)...

 Nana nana boo boo...my diploma is bigger than Adam's :) he he! And just to add salt to the wound, I remind him daily occasionally that I still have a WHOLE other diploma still in the tube. That's right...2 degrees from a much superior university! Glory Glory to Ole Georgia, and Go Dawgs (the real ones)! Can you tell that I am a little competitive? It is a really good thing we didn't end up getting married on September 25th as we originally planned. It wouldn't have made for a very happy bride with regards to football. Enough Said!

It's a Boo-tiful Wednesday...

     I decided to Halloweenify my house just a tad for the upcoming fantastic holiday known as Halloween. I not only ADORE any excuse to eat excessive amounts of miniature candy without feeling guilty, but it just so happens to be the night I met my wonderful husband (more to come on that later), and thus holds a special place in my heart. I really still wish I could dress up and go trick-or-treating with all the neighborhood kids. I guess I'll have to resort to dressing up our pup. What ya think about this...

image credit

Adam would definitely go for this....

image credit

No, this is definitely the winner for our ridiculously, worthlessly lazy pampered pooch...

image credit

      With that being said, I am not so much into the scary Halloween motif, as the cutesy orange and black fall-like theme. Also I have a budget of around zero for such non-essential home beautification. So with that in mind, I went to the DIY haven known as the Dollar General! The town I teach in has 3, I repeat three different dollar stores for my shopping pleasure! Can you believe this? Only two stop lights, two whole restaurants, 1 grocery store, but THREE dollar stores! Needless to say I bought way more than I actually needed. See a complete shopping list below....

3 black frames
5 spools of wire ribbon
2 glass candles sticks
1 tub of candy corn
1 Christmas plate (can you believe they already have Christmas stuff?)
1 bag of Caramel apple suckers (I adore these!!)

I used the black frames, candy corn, a hot glue gun, and some downloaded scrap book paper from Crystal Wilkerson to create these little cuties for our den...

In case anyone was wondering, downloadable scrap book paper might be the best invention EVER!! I found these lovely backgrounds here. And you don't even need Photo Shop. I simply created a textbox in Microsoft Word, set the scrapbook paper jpg file as the background added the letters, and Voila!! I then decided they needed a little flair and got to work hot gluing the candy corn to the outside of the frames! I love how they turned out. Here's a close-up shot...

 I then decided it would be a shame to waste the rest of the candy corn, so I poured them into a flower vase, tied a little black and white striped bow around the top, and created ANOTHER dollar store decoration...

Secret Confession: I didn't have enough candy corn to fill the jar to the rim, and it just didn't look right. So what did I do? Placed an empty pepper shaker inside the vase and poured the candy corn around it! Genius huh? Thanks. I thought so! This is one of those things that I'm still not sure is considered real decorating, but I thought I'd share it anyway. So do you love Halloween as much as I do?

Just Another Manic Monday

     Confession...I seriously used to think the words to this song went something like this..."Just another man-eating Monday, wish it were Sunday, etc." I guess that sheds some light on why I am not a fan of Mondays. I'm especially not a fan of Mondays without coffee. Or Mondays without my required 10 hours of sleep. Believe it or not, my body still thinks it is a growing teenager, and thus requires LOTS of sleep to function. When this doesn't happen, it then makes for an unhappy Monday for the hubby who has to drag beg me to get out of bed. All around not a happy morning :(

     Now, onto things that do make me happy!! Somehow in my blogging madness, I forgot to post pictures of my guest bedroom "nook." This was not only my very first table make-over, but also my very first lamp re-do as well. Unfortunately I do not have a before picture of this table, but picture light wood, very plain, used to live in my yard sale pile before I got brave. I painted her a beautiful shade of off-white, distressed her A-Lot and here's the final result...

She looks a little yellow in the picture...guess it's time for a new camera?

And the details of her pretty little legs....

 
     I think I'll call her Lola! Well Lola now sits beside our guest bed and serves as a perfect little night side table. But she was missing something. Bring on the first ever lamp redo. I purchased this little beauty at the Goodwill for $2.99...

     Isn't it cool with all the curves? Very retro in my opinion and a major steal!  With a little spray paint, I had it looking brand new...

     Then I just re-wired it with a lamp kit from Home Depot, added a Walmart lamp shade, placed it on Lola in our guest bedroom, and thus a perfect nook was born! Here are the complete after shots...

And a close- up...

I just love how it turned out! So cozy and shabby chic don't ya think? And i just love the photo! It's of my B-E-A-U-tiful grandmother, affectionately known as Pegasus (after all she is just as wonderful and amazing as the mystical winged horse) at her high school prom. Take a close-up look at this knock-out!...

Don't kill me Grandmother!! I just couldn't resist!!

Here's to hoping you all had a better Monday morning than I did!

P.S. I'm beginning to think that I'm writing into the magical world of the internet/talking to myself. So please give this girl and ego-boost and leave a comment if you're reading :)