never a dull day...

Redono Re-do

2012-02-28T17:40:00.000-08:00

I blinked and it was February. Did that happen to anyone else?

January seriously flew by. I’ve been working on fun stuff left & right!!

This lovely little dresser, another Craigslist find (of course)

I picked up the first week of January.

I had been hunting high and low for months for something JUST like it to paint for the school “Redono” auction! I was beyond excited when I found it.

It had great character. It had nice lines. It was the perfect size for lots of uses – dresser, buffet, foyer statement piece….. Of course it needed some love.

The top was in about 4 pieces and it was allll wonky! Wonky in this case is defined as needing a wall to lean on or it quite possibly would fall down. True story.

A few new corner blocks inside and a lotta glue and it was back upright and ready for paint!

Right after finding the dresser on Craigslist I started fabric shopping.

I picked up this fabric by Braemore on sale! Score!!

image VIA Online Fabric Store

After the typical prep work came my FAVORITE part. Sketching designs!!

I like to sketch a little on paper. Then make a practice board to see how the sketch translates when it’s in color.

Then in this case I cut out the flowers I sketched and laid them out in different combinations on the dresser til I couldn’t think about it anymore….

Then I started painting!

After it was primed I decided the drawers needed more wood fill. Which means more sanding. And more priming. But eventually I got to the base coat.

Because of all the layers of paint there was a lot of waiting for paint to dry….

Obviously you can’t paint a color on top of another color til the bottom color is dry.

Slows everything down which is nice if you have things to do in between painting.

BAD if you are in a hurry!! But GOOD if you like to text friends non-stop while painting.

The flowers imitate the fabric. Sorta. I had done some sketches before I even found a dresser or fabric and came up with a flower I wanted to use. So I did. Even though technically it’s nowhere on the fabric!

I painted the drawer sides with a coordinating blue.

Sidenote: for the first time EVER I used ALLLLL matching Pulls! WHOA! How about that!

Slapped a glaze on it.

And called it done. 4 days after I started. 24 hours before the auction.

Just call me Queen of Procrastination.

Someday my tendency to procrastinate will most likely end badly.

But boy O boy I hope I’m wrong!

Vivacious Victoria's Vanity

2011-12-11T19:08:00.000-08:00

I was super excited to be commissioned to find and create a vanity for
my beautiful niece Victoria’s Christmas present.
She is every bit the definition of Vivacious – a lively spirit thru and thru!

After I found the perfect medium on Craigslist (of course!)
at an unbelievably reasonable price,
I had to figure out how to capture a little bit of
Victoria's spunk in a piece of furniture.

Miss V is quite the glamorous girly girl.
Her bedroom at home is a combination of several, super bright colors.

But for her vanity, I wanted something that would grow with her
and hopefully last thru a few different bedroom personalities!
Something neutral, and METALLIC!!

The first step however was to get a new foot made to imitate the other three.

A round, turned foot. With little grooves up and down it.

Simple to make right?? NOT REALLY!

Thankfully we have some outstanding craftsmen in our area and

Mr. Eli whipped out two in a few weeks for me for next to nothing.

(No I did not mistype, there’s a reason I needed two,
I’ll share the other reason after it’s delivered!)

So I began Miss V’s vanity with the usual TLC
old furniture such as this requires:

patching missing veneer, regluing loose veneer,
repairing drawer slides, and sanding.

And sanding. And sanding.

I do have to admit that the sanding this time was completely enjoyable for the first time EVER!

I recently bought myself a new fancy orbital sander and it is amazing!!

See, can you see how nice it sanded??

Then I installed the perfectly made new foot and did a giant sigh of relief.
The "shoe" fit! :)

Relief lasted for about 30 seconds.

Then I calculated that I had exactly two days to finish the thing.

I was instantly un-relieved!!

All primed out Miss V’s vanity looked like an entirely new piece of furniture.

The white covered up all the “life lessons” the furniture
had experienced and what I was left with was so exciting!

The waterfall edges were totally gorgeous!!

Next I fell in love with it again when it was a super great shade of gray.

But the fun hadn’t even started yet!!

I opened the can of “Razzle Dazzle” and had to giggle.
My plans included painting the insides and outsides of the drawers hot pink.
It took four coats of pink but finally they were PINKALICIOUS!

Which was exactly what I had in mind for my "Pink-A-Boo" drawers.
Totally inspired by my 2 year olds favorite book "Pinkalicious".
And lack of sleep.

I love seeing the drawer left slightly open against the pretty metallic finish!!

Work was nowhere near complete...
when I suddenly realized I had forgotten the gorgeous,
giant round mirror WITH A WOOD BASE completely!!!
FACEPALM moment!!

After a mad dash to the garage to retrieve it I started wood prep, again.

And went to bed a little concerned with my schedule.

Thursday I only had about 7 hours I could spend on the vanity

(2 at nap, 1 maybeeee after dinner, and 4 after kiddos bedtime).

In that time I somehow managed to put final coats of the gray on.
And get the mirror caught up to the rest of the vanity.

AND start making that vanity shine, literally!

Many coats of silver metallic had me wondering if I had hit shine overload.

Friday morning after having a brief “it might be too shiny discussion”
with the BFF we decided I should
live on the edge and knock the beautiful shine down a bit.

After a little mixing I closed my eyes...
and layered on some black metallic glaze.

I was instantly smitten. Suddenly things were allll gooooood.

I hand painted a “V” monogram in the center part.
And started applying the finish.

When the finish coats were finished I was tickled pink! ;)
(Reading "Pinkalicious" may help some of this post make sense)

But of course I wasn’t done……

First, my father-in-law had to cut down the beautiful pinkalicious pulls,

because they were almost a mile toooo long.

Then the Hubby helped install the pulls,

because my nerves were totally shot!!
And I admit, I was scared to drill into the metallic shine!

I zebra lined the drawers with some fabric……because Miss V loves zebra!

And went to bed. STILL NOT DONE!! (this was a recurring theme!)

The next morning I had to figure out how to:
fix/replace/FIND two missing roller feet!
Nothing like cutting it to the wire.
*Sigh*
T minus 3 hours til Miss Victoria's arrival and counting.

Long story short I figured out that I needed new rollers,
raided the father-in-laws handy-dandy wheel stash,
threw a shiny bow on the vanity and decided to wrap up business....
AFTER letting Miss V see the final vanity BUT before she left town. :)

Miss Victoria’s Vanity is every bit of fabulous.
Pictures were challenging (for me) with all that shine….

The Pink-A-Boo drawers are a perfect surprise.

The Zebra lined drawers are a wild bit of whimsy.

The Pinkalicious Pulls shine like jewels.

And the monogram “V” claims it as Miss Victoria’s for a long time.

This Vivacious Vanity will hopefully be something she can love at least through the rest of her teens.

I’m of course missing the vanity’s coolness!

And prepping for another paint project that I need to start in…..
Ooooo…. 16 hours.

P.S. Yes, she is in love with it!

Preston's Woodsy Nursery

2011-08-02T06:30:00.000-07:00

So I must have taken a little beginning of summer siesta….. and woke up at the END of summer!! Sorry. I promise I have been busy. I took a break from furniture painting (my garage was about 140 degrees) and spent the summer with the kiddos at the pool. I’m now very tan and trying to get back into the swing of everything and hoping to start showing off some of the stuff I did over the summer very soon.

I'll start with my most recent project, by recent I mean I completed it 2 days ago. The Woodsy Nursery Furniture for my soon-to-be-born, newest nephew Preston…. He’s due to arrive around the first of November. And his parents have picked out the cutest woodsy, owl themed bedding.

image via skip hop

Now, I was planning on doing just this plain old white changing table.

But sitting in the garage I also had this plain old white matching 4 drawer chest....

My parents were visiting and planning on hauling the changing table to my brother in 5 days. They had plenty of room in their giant RV for the chest too. That meant Preston needed two pieces of furniture and so began my 5 day painting marathon.

After filling holes, doing minor repairs and lightly sanding everything down. I painted both pieces a really nice, neutral, stone color that matched the bedding.

Then I sketched some tall trees that wrapped around and over all the nooks and crannies of the furniture. (you'll have to look very closely... pencil didn't show up very well!)

And painted the trees a soft oatmeal color.

After the trees were complete I added leaves. LOTS of leaves. In 4 colors and 2 patterns just to make it more challenging because my FIVE DAY deadline for completion wasn’t nearly overwhelming enough.

Of course, no tree is complete without some sort of flying bird, right? My trees were no different. I perched an Owl on each tree. One on the side of the changing table and the other on the front of the chest so little Preston didn’t grow up feeling like he was being stared at constantly by Owls!

After 4 days and 20+ hours of painting all that woodsy-goodness I did something that almost caused my Mother instant heart failure. I pulled out my trusty fine tipped sharpie and added a little visual interest. Think of it as contrast stitching…. I outlined leaves and owls and trees.

Then to make it just a little more heart wrenching for my mom, I added a little stippling. My Mom thought the heat must have gone to my head, and people it was getting HOT in the garage. After several comments about “adding work for yourself” I think she got it! Which was good, because once I started it’s not like I could really go back. :)

On the evening of the fourth day, my Mom made dinner and I glazed furniture.

I woke in a panic on the fifth day hoping the glaze had dried enough for the finish coats and hardware. Because my parents were scheduled to load it up and haul the freshly painted furniture to my brother in Minneapolis that very day!!!! Seriously THAT very same afternoon.

Somehow I finished. The finish coats dried. The insanely cute, perfectly rustic, twiggy hardware was on. The pictures were taken. And the giant RV was loaded. I informed my dad that once it left my zip code it was no longer under warranty… so drive carefully!! And raced to get my new kindergartener from school all the while wondering how long it would be before I got to see the woodsy furniture again…. and wondering what in the world Preston's parents were going to think of the furniture they knew nothing about!

How cute are they sitting together?!?!

After 32 hours of painting in 5 days I’m now totally exhausted. But it was totally worth it!!

Linking up at: Design Dazzle, Chic on a Shoestring, Miss Mustard Seed, My Repurposed Life, The Shabby Nest, Creations by Kara, Whipper Berry, Tatertots and Jello, 504 Main, On Sutton Place, Thrifty Decorating, Remodelaholic, Altar'd, Be Different Act Normal, Sisters of the Wild West, Under the Table and Dreaming, nifty thrifty things, the diy showoff, Flamingo Toes, I heart nap time, The Girl Creative, it's so very cheri, Tip Junkie, Sweet Little Gals, Home Stories A to Z, Primitive & Proper, Not Just a Housewife, The Lettered Cottage, Sew Much Ado, The Southern Institute

Hello May!

2011-05-06T12:52:00.000-07:00

WOW! It’s already Friday!

I’m gearing up for Couples Golf tonight and me and my hubs are SO excited!!

We haven’t golfed since last summer and of course an evening sans child sounds amazing.

Now, yes we did have an evening last weekend without the small ones but who’s counting? ;)

As usual, my week has been hectic!

But there was variety to the crazy-ness so that makes it fun.

To recap my week, I took some senior pictures (no I'm not a photographer).

I took some First Communion pictures & family pictures.

Again, I'm not a photographer, but I am a cheap hire.

I’m still working on this.

But the little people seem to interrupt a lot! ;)

Plus it's been COLD and RAINY and I decided I needed to fill the drawers AGAIN.

So progress has been slow....

I’ve rid my house of my cute bunny bunting inspired by Jenn at Clean & Scentsible,

You can read about it here

I hung them on the doorways to the little peoples rooms and in the kitchen across the french doors.

They were a hit with the little people!

I redistributed my toilet paper roll "flowers" around the house.

Some landed in these sunflower “centerpieces” I threw together for spring.

I’m still loving them. Especially with the added purple "flowers".

So for now they are staying as we move from "spring" decorating into “summer”!

They were easy to do,

I wrapped and tied twine around a glass vase that was filled with nuts (leftover from winter).

I stuck a fake flower “bouquet” inside (nuts are basically hidden but anchor "bouquet".

And ta-daaaa! A centerpiece. Quick, easy, totally painless decorating!

Since the husband is making me brunch on Sunday,

I did some prep work today for Mother’s Day to make things easier for him.

His mom and step dad are joining us for Brunch Sunday,

so I thought a little help would be appreciated.

I got to plan the menu so we’re having

my Blue Cheese & Bacon quiche and French Bread French Toast. YUMMY!!

Yesterday I scored some day old bread from Wally World. So I sliced it up.

And bagged it for the freezer! In case anyone out there didn’t know – bread freezes amazingly!! (At thanksgiving I stock up on herbed focaccia breads to use for my stuffing!)

This will make it easy for the other half to whip up some of this for me Sunday!

And today I’m baking the bacon for the quiche. O ya you heard me correctly.

An awesome tip from Rachel Ray – bake the bacon!

About 25 minutes at 425.

Kitchen will smell like bacon but only the oven will have grease splatters!

Of course I couldn’t wait to start on a couple other pieces.

I scored this cheap-o shelf at Goodwill for my kitchen.

And this lovely item from my in-laws trash pile.

Seriously from the trash.

I know, can you believe they were throwing it away?

I have a lot of ideas for it….. but I haven’t narrowed down what it should be yet!

I’ve been giving it a lot of thought tho, in my free time, when I’m watching paint dry!!

Can't wait to show you what this is turning into!! Any guesses?? ;)

Two Hands Are Better Than One

2011-04-28T16:31:00.000-07:00

I’m trying to make a commitment to posting once a week. My goal was to blog about a project I completed the previous week. I knew that was going to be a challenge because honestly I don’t know if I can complete a project every week – but I love to try! This would be the week where I did a lot but didn’t paint anything! Or create anything for myself, which is cool because it’s more fulfilling to do things for others anyway.

The key to success (in my opinion) when you are a SAHM such as myself is having awesome friends around who lend a hand. Sometimes you lend the hand, sometimes they lend you one. But weekly there are opportunities to lend and receive!

So this week I focused on catching up on household chores that had been put aside during our 2 week stomach virus. And helping a friend. And I ended up being helped by a friend!

It’s First Communion Season in our parts so a top priority this week was to make a veil for G, a daughter of a SAHM Miss N. No, I am not in the veil making business and No I have never made a veil. I am, a complete cheap skate and can’t stand to pay ridiculous amounts of money for small pieces of tulle. (My MIL actually made my veil and I glued rhinestones on it the morning of my wedding) Since I also don’t like my friends to pay for over priced tulle I decided I should try veil construction myself. Here is my pile of very expensive veil making supplies

That's about $6 worth of stuff! Totally high dollar!! ;)

I don’t actually own a serger so I headed to my MIL’s and had her serge the seams of a rectangle of tulle, came home and folded it like this.

Then I ran a long-ish running stitch down the fold and gathered. I'm sure this is done typically with a sewing maching. I wasn't in the mood to argue with my sewing machine so I did it by hand. For some reason I can sew pretty much anything by hand!

I had discussed with G’s mom options for the veil – headband or comb? Flowers or plain? So I had one of G’s headbands to play with. I wrapped it in ribbon and sewed and heat sealed the ends to secure it to the head band. Yes, I sewed the ends because I didn’t want globs of glue that might rub behind her ears.

I had a brief “meeting” with G and her momma and we decided to pitch the headband, go with the comb, and add a few silk flowers. End result:

Total cost of this First Communion veil: $2 for the silk flowers my MIL already had the tulle leftover from wedding decorations). The ribbon was an additional $2 on sale. But since we didn’t use the ribbon wrapped headband I don’t know if we should apply that $2 to the veil cost?? Even if we did the veil would still only cost a whopping $4. The cheapest veil kit at Michaels was $9.99 and you didn’t get flowers! And most First Communion Veils start at $35!!! $35 vs. $2…… I think the hour I spent was worth it! I saved my friend from spending quite a bit of cash!

What do you think?

This week on my to do list was making laundry soap - just another way I try to stick to my budget! Yes, I initially thought this was CRAZY talk. But after using 10 gallons of laundry soap that only cost me $7 for supplies (and having enough supplies for minimum of 20 additional gallons for no additional money!) I’ve decided that I will never BUY laundry soap again!! On my to do list this week was making more laundry soap…. This is the recipe I use that another SAHM, Miss CJP gave me.

Laundry Detergent Concentrate

INGREDIENTS:

Borax

Washing Soda

Ivory Soap (bar)

5gal bucket

1. Grate one bar of Ivory soap

2. Combine grated soap & 4c. hot tap water in a sauce pan

3. Cook over med/low heat until soap melts

4. Fill 5gal bucket ½ full (2.5gal) with hot tap water

5. Add soap mixture, 1c. Washing Soda, ½ c. Borax to bucket & stir until dissolved

6. Fill bucket with hot tap water (2.5gal) & stir

7. Cover & allow to sit overnight

NOTE: THIS IS CONCENTRATE!

• Dispense concentrate into an old detergent container until ½ full, fill remainder of container with hot tap water

• Shake and repeat before each use

• Top Loading Machines- ½ c.

• Front Loading Machines-1/3 c.

• HE Machines-1/3c.

CJP also lended me a hand by gifting me 5 gallons of laundry soap she had made from a new recipe. SWEEEEET! Not that making laundry soap is difficult AT ALL but not having to make it is a giant bonus!!! Thank you CJP for knocking an item off my to-do list!

Here’s the low down on homemade laundry soap – you don’t want it too sudsy for HE machines. Too many suds burns up the motor on those fancy beasts. CJP was worried that the new recipe and her month old HE machines weren’t going to jive so she gifted over the yellow gel-ish mixture to me. Maybe today I should in turn mix her up some of our Original Recipe soap?!?

Final opportunity to help N popped up unexpectedly when we were reviewing veil options and hair styles for G. Last week I was completely inspired by these super cute butterfly chocolates I saw here Did you guys see them too?? Go now! Her pics are way better than my phone pics! Not to mention her butterflies look perfect-o!

Which meant for Easter at the In-law’s I had to make some!! The Butterflies were so easy and so cute that I made Bunnies and Bunny Ears! And of course a couple monograms for the kids….

After telling N about my fun with chocolate I volunteered to make some cuteness for G’s birthday cupcakes because I was having way too much fun with candy melt!!

After a little thought I decided to throw in an offer no SAHM mom could possibly refuse when they are crazy busy – I would also bake the cupcakes and she could pick up “naked” cupcakes to ice and decorate! My goal was also to save her from a little work while she got her house ready for weekend guests coming to celebrate First Communion and honestly I just like to bake.

Ready for pick up!

How cute did they turn out??

The weeks almost over and I don't have any helpful things to do for my friends at the moment and we’re finally heading outside to play because I see SUNSHINE!! I thought we might have gotten blown west to Seattle – I swear rain and clouds have been hanging around for a month straight! I'm so sick of rain that I honestly don't care if I see any "May Flowers"!

Nice weather is also going to hopefully let me make some progress on this diamond in the rough! Check back soon to see if I get paint slapped on it!

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Baby Girl's Room: A Spring Clean & A Tour

2011-04-21T06:05:00.000-07:00

We've reached a turning point around our house, at least I'm hoping we have. It's potty training season and things haven't been going so smoothly! A bout with the stomach flu last week pretty much did us in but I'm trying to rebound this week. Part of the rebound was a little reorganizing and (My FAVORITE) furniture scooting.

Please don't judge the first picture, Baby Girl's room was a complete TuTu, doll house mess.

I was actually at a loss as to how to organize this mess. I went in her room with the plan of clearing out clothes for a garage sale and to possibly get rid of the diaper supplies......

So after a general clean out I had a small disaster in my room!

Then to organize.... I shuffled items a few times actually before I decided that the bottom drawer of the changing table would make a good spot for storing dress up items if it was divided.

Since I had literally an hour before I had to pick up Big Brother from Kindegarten Round-up there really wasn't much time for ANYTHING! This is my temporary drawer divider solution. To either someday be reinforced, made prettier, or completely pitched for something better.

Hello cardboard..... it's been awhile. Missed ya!

So I sliced up a box and after ~~careful measuring~~ no use of real measuring tools I folded it into "U" shapes to later be secured, somehow to the drawer itself. Then sorted dress up supplies into 3 categories, shoes, tutu's and bling/ accessories. This seems to actually work really well. We will see how long it takes my dainty 2 year old destructor to dismantle it!

So after a little furniture shuffling and a quick vac her room is looking back to normal!

Would you like a peak at the rest of the room?

I'm still loving the furniture my mom and I painted for her while I was preggo.

This still holds baby blankets but I've been planning on installing a hinge to prevent finger squishing when the time was right so it could be used as a toy box. I think the time is right!!

The dress Baby Girl wore to my sisters wedding just happened to match perfectly.... it's been hanging on display waiting for another fancy occasion for over a year. Hmmmmm that means it's probably too small now huh??

So do you like the furniture? Wondering what it looked like before?? OK.... I can show you that too!

O yea.... it's the basic girls gold and white french provincial and actually it was all mine! I loved being able to re-create my little girl furniture for her! After a light sand, we applied a turquoise glaze and then antiqued to tone down the turquoise. Finished with a spray poly.

So, did you even notice the "flaw" on the tall dresser? Look closely....

I don't think anyone besides my mom and myself has ever even noticed!

So a small Design Summary for anyone who is interested:

Walls are a large horizontal stripe (18" to be exact) of Sherwin Williams Solaria and white.
CB2 styrofoam flower wall art is "sprinkled" around the room.
Bedding: Customized Wendy Bellissimo (it's a long story). I deconstructed the B-R-Us pink, black & white set and added my own yellow ticking and hand sewed on the turquoise satin trim. It was a process. I was full-on nesting like crazy is my only excuse!
Curtain panels: Walmart, I added the black pom pom trim.
Furniture: my vintage french provincial circa 1978 by Bassett
Hanging lamp: vintage 1973 from who knows where! (first thing my parents bought themselves after they were married..... interesting purchase, huh??)
Americana Boy & Girl pictures, Vintage from my great-aunt. I actually slept in her guest room where they hung at her house!
Coat rack, Vintage from my Paw-Paw, I think from a Masonic lodge that closed?

Girls rooms, aren't they just the most fun?!?

Spring Fever is here! We’re cleaning, organizing, painting and staining EVERYWHERE!

2011-04-14T13:17:00.000-07:00

Our house is currently being attacked from all sides and I couldn’t be happier about it! My husband and I have the spring fever itch to clean and organize. It all started with a major Craigslist score of some insanely cheap and even delivered used cabinets. Now this put a complete halt to my ability to paint any furniture which yes is a bummer since there are 5 naked pieces lined up in the garage and at least 3 stowed away in the basement…. But I can deal because soon my workshop a.k.a. paint studio will be FABULOUS!!

(see hubby hard at work? unfortunately - hanging cabinets I can't seem to do without him!)

Since I can’t get at the furniture til the mess is organized I’ve had a chance to focus on other items that were desparately needing attention – like the deck. I think on the very last beautiful day in October we decided to power wash the deck and attempt to get it re-stained. Let’s just say Mother Nature won and our deck sat completely unprotected for the entire winter. Bad us. But at nap time this week you could find me speed staining like a super freak. I stained as fast as humanly possible!!

Poor unprotected deck!!

The expensive deck cleaner and power washing done in the fall unfortunately didn't remove all the old red cedar stain....

Our stain color test a.k.a. "what color stain did we actually buy?!?!?!"

How I began: First I hauled the ridiculously heavy 5 gallon buckets of stain up from the basement where they had been living and down into the yard for mixing.

We scored both of these last fall for about half the cost of one 5 gallon bucket (which was why we spontaneously decided we should refinish the deck, in 6 hours, on a Sunday, with rain in the forecast). They were both miss-tints and while I was not in LOVE with either of the colors at that price the bargain shopper in me really couldn’t argue about the “perfect” color with my husband.

I made a super speedy run with the kids despite them both having a stomach bug to purchase an additional 5 gallon bucket and began mixing. Half of color A into the empty bucket followed by half of color B. Then the remaining half of color A I poured back into color B’s bucket. I repeated this pouring process (with some additional stirring and shaking) until both buckets looked like the same shade of cocoa stain. Sidenote: my arms got quite the workout, 5 gallons is heavy!! I then poured a small amount into my favorite paint container, empty plastic coffee “cans”!

Mixing was MESSY. Be proud, I even wore gloves! It was so messy that there are no pictures of mixing... sorry!

After a new "sample" was painted I got to it!

I seriously stained like a nut. I didn’t know my paintbrush could move that fast. I remembered about half way thru the process that my mom recommended mopping the stain on – that might actually have been faster but I really wasn’t in the mood to stop!

Today is the last day before the nasty cold weather moves in so this morning with it being finally dry enough to walk on I lugged the furniture back up onto the deck and grabbed a couple of pictures. We are sooooo not done out here, so don’t judge the design just yet! In the near future I will update my deck with some Mary Poppins inspired umbrellas, a custom made deck box AND some flag art that I’ve been crushing on. I have a GREAT idea for a custom coffee table but I’m not even going to cross my fingers on getting that done before fall!

I know, I know. Little Tikes plastic totally lacks any design edge.... but the kids love it!

Yesterday during nap time since I couldn’t move furniture to the deck I decided it was time to finish sprucing up my porch flower pots. I have 4 total that I normally attempt to grow flowers in and they were shades of beige and gold. They had suffered a little in the move from the Okie state and were showing a little damage. Perfect canvases for paint! Right before I left town to deliver the Argyle Changing Table to my sister I had put some red on the 2 urn style but I wasn’t in love with them.

After reviewing the paint options and not finding a way to mix up a great shade of eggplant like I had in mind I went back to red, dug out some espresso, and a little beige. I had also played on the beige pots with some black so yes, I had to re-beige the beige!  But I used a better beige so it’s ok!

Then on I taped off for some stripes on the big pots....

Painted the entire large pot the espresso color & added espresso "rings" to my 2 urn style pots.

I threw a little stain on them to distress them (don't laugh - just cause they're flower pots doesn't mean you can't stain them people!) Waited for them to dry about, Oooo 5 minutes and moved them to the porch!

I like how they coordinate with the fountain just enough....

And for this week at least, the porch is complete! Cause I am almost out of nap time!! ;)

An Argyle Changing Table for Baby Gabe

2011-04-07T07:19:00.000-07:00

I've been up to a lot over the past year but I haven't found time to blog about any of it! I'm regrouping though and ready to share some of my projects!! Here's the first (of hopefully many) blogs!

My sisters JUST had a baby boy. It took a long time to come up with the perfect baby gift but somehow without me really giving it much thought I came with what I feel is the perfect gift for my new nephew! I found a dresser for CHEAP that I thought would make a great changing table - nice height, nice size and nice details! My sister lives 400+ miles South West of me and I wasn't going to back for a visit til the baby was born so I decided I should just paint it for her. That's where the fun began!

Before paint - you needed quite a bit of imagination to see the potential. My husband definitely didn't see potential, except if I was planning on using it for fire wood!

But after a LOT of paint - taaaa daaaa!

Now I'm not going to pretend that this process was quick and easy. I had never painted argyle on anything. I'm not even sure where or when I decided that I should paint argyle.... but somehow the idea came to me and I had to do it. It took a lot of prep work just to be able to start painting. For instance the front of the drawers resembled a wave pool at Big Splash(White Water, etc!)!

Eeeek! Talk about a veneer mess! The craigslist photo didn't really show all the problems with this dresser.

So after patching veneer, using a ton of wood fill, re-gluing all the wavy veneer and giving the entire thing a light sand I had something that wasn't a whole lot prettier! But I was still focused on the potential, not my husbands head shaking!

Once I felt I could do nothing more to help the state of the veneer I primed, put a base coat of red on the drawer fronts and started trying to figure out how exactly to paint argyle.... there was a lot of sketching before I finally started cutting up my church bulletins into diamond shapes and using them as the pattern. Why use new paper when you can up-cycle your church bulletin?!?

I finally liked the size and location of my diamonds so I started painting.... I added 2 colors of diamonds that matched my sisters nursery fabrics. Side note: I taped the drawers together on the side after my 2 small children ran thru the kitchen and everything was bumped out of place resulting in some paint touch up!

Then it was time to try to decide what kind of accent line/dash to put on top of all those diamonds. I ran out of bulletins and yarn seemed more practical for imitating lines anyway. I would like to say I measured exactly where the lines should be painted.... but I didn't. I eyeballed it and put a couple of marks under my yarn line. Then used a ruler to draw the line I needed to paint.

After the chocolate brown line was dry I decided the drawers needed one more thing.... tiny orange diamonds at the intersections. Because I HAD to have an odd number of colors for my sanity's sake.

I had already decided that the top drawer should not have argyle, and I knew I wanted to put a monogram on it somehow but it took me cutting out the paper "G" to decide that the chocolate lines should carry over to the top drawer even thought the argyle didn't. And since my sister waited til the last SECOND to decide on a middle name the dresser only got one letter of his monogram!

You might have noticed that I was painting all these drawers in the middle of my kitchen. Not really a planned thing but it was about 17 in my garage even though it was February and I could not stand the cold! We were getting new floors anyway so I wasn't tooo concerned about floor protection! BUT I couldn't get the rest of the dresser in by myself so I had to wait a week for it to warm up so I could finish!! But I did test out how the drawers would look..... AFTER I finished building a backsplash for the dresser top.

Once the top was primed & painted I distressed the entire thing added some pulls (2 different styles of course) and then shellac'd and shellac'd and shellac'd. I've used poly in the past on furniture I've painted and never really liked the finish durability or the amount of dry time. Whole different story with shellac!! LOVE that stuff!! 4+ stars for shellac!!

And the end result was this:

After a 400 mile journey to T-town, baby Gabe's new changing table was delivered safely to his new nursery to await his arrival!!

Linking up!

Entirely toooo busy!

2010-01-28T08:46:00.000-08:00

i must begin by apologizing. i've been completely slacking on this blog! but believe me it's not because i've been hangin out on the couch eating bon bons. the days have seriously flown by. so here's a recap of everything i've been accomplishing!

ps i've got about 6 drafts of blogs that just never got posted over all this stuff... i just decided i should consolidate! :)

Snow Day!

the excitement of the snow day actually got to me too! i decided we should celebrate by making some paper snowflakes....

then i hung them from the ceiling with thumbtacks and my husbands fishing line (shhhhh don't tell!) so it would look like snow if falling on him while he napped. ahhhh so peaceful, huh? it gave us happy nap times for all of 3 days.

Hair Goodies

lately i've broken all my rules and become somewhat obsessed with girl hair accessories. i swore off bows and fluffy pink stuff while i was preggo with the crawler, but man i've become a sucker for the cuteness on my baby girl! so me and the scissors have been whipping out felties and ribbon bows non-stop. it was like i was preparing for an army of babies hair!

the feltie shown here was inspired by a super cute outfit sent by my sister.... and it just HAD to have the perfect flower for her hair!

Hand Print Wreaths

nothings cuter than tiny hands! and nothings cuter to me then comparing my 3 year old and my crawlers hands to each other. so we decided that the hand print turkeys we made at thanksgiving had to of course be followed by hand print wreaths!! and it kept the 3 year old entertained with a glue stick for a good 2 hours.... he did the gluing allllll by himself. i'm so proud.

Like a Fabric "Head Board", but totally not!

i have been wanting a fabric head board for EVER. literrally ever. but i never seem to have the right space for it. this house is even more irritating because when the furniture is oriented how i feel it should be there is a window completely not centered on the wall behind the bed. and of course the window is not centered over the bed either! and of course my husband won't let me just build a ginormous headboard to cover the problem. see below, window is a problem!!

what to do right?? well i decided i need a big cornice and a giant white flowing fabric panel below it. so i got started trying to figure out whether or not i'll love or hate it. what do you guys think?

i'm liking the direction... now to find time to build the cornice!

Initial Gift Tags

now, i don't know about your 3 year olds, but mine can't completely read his name yet. if it starts with an "h" he thinks it's him. honey, it's not. so i decided to get my tired scissors out again and make some initial gift tags to put on the kiddos presents. you know to hopefully clarify which one he should be opening. cause the crawler LOVES to rip open presents!!

we also decided to wrap santa, just so they could enjoy the ripping! i didn't think about how the tags were going to spell "Sssshhhhhh" i thought they were pretty cute, and actually the hubby did too. but at first of course he thought i was being a nut. but it did work! 3 year old easily identified which present was his, and his sisters!

gave mommy warm and fuzzy feelings! :)

Fabulous Flea Market & Valentine Decorations

i decided to completely go out on a limb here and put some of my hair accessory stock up for sale at a flea market the tiny town is having this weekend. it's their first. i'm used to a much larger scale f.m. in t-town, but this has a whopping 40 booths! and side note, only 16 have sold.... but i'm staying positive and hoping for some fun!

so i've been getting the goods gathered! and the tablescape planned. and my shutterfly site revamped. and business cards printed. and hair goodie tags made. and crafts galore finished.

a preview of my madness below!

Shew!!!

see there's a reason i haven't been typing so much!!! but i'm back on the wagon. with a way late resolution to keep up with this blog! so don't give up on my yet! i've got a bunch of healthy recipes to throw at you soon too! i'm on a weight loss mission right now!

ya'll do me a favor, check out my shutterfly site and give me some feedback, in your spare time of course!

http://designsbymeg.shutterfly.com/

"Home"

2009-12-03T13:25:00.000-08:00

This is dedicated to the house I'm missing...

with its shiny, but completely uncomfortable to lay on floors.

and it's stripe-y, happy foyer.

you've come a long, long way since we scraped you clean of your popcorn ceilings and 70's spindles...

you didn't even whine when we bared your studs, widened your doorways and yanked out your cedar beams!

however the hubby didn't really appreciate the fall thru the ceiling when all he was doing was wiring for new cans....

we had one joyous christmas triking around and thru ur new studs and over bare concrete

and one where the ride was much smoother.

we enjoyed making you more beautiful house!

I got the Blues…. Holiday Blues no less!

2009-12-03T12:27:00.000-08:00

I’m seriously walking on new territory here and I’m not just talking about my zip code!

Never, ever, ever in my entire life have I suffered from Holiday Depression! Now maybe there was a moment in my teen years when I didn’t think “Santa” was going to bring me a shiny new cd player or something, but nothing of this caliber! For the first time EVER I actually cried while opening Christmas boxes… it was completely tragic.

I typically dig out all 20+ (who’s counting) tubs of decorations joyously on Black Friday while some crazies are out shopping. I have Christmas music blaring and a fully lighted and decorated house by Saturday. This year I was missing “home”, friends, family, and decorating was oddly depressing!

This would also be why it’s taken me so long to suck it up, finish decorating my house, and find a few happy words to write about how I survived…

So now that I’m sorta satisfied with the overall decking of my halls, I thought I’d bounce back and share some pictures….

We use a pre-lit tree and I currently own way to many color combinations and sizes of glass balls to decorate with… this year I’m extra proud of myself because the only new Christmas decoration I purchased was a stocking for our newest family addition, the Crawler. Yes, this is completely A-typical. I normally acquire way too many new things every year which is how I end up with all those tubs…

See, cute pink trimmed snowman stocking, huh? Another complaint with our new house is no fireplace, which also meant no good spot for stockings! This year the only thing I could come up with to hang them on was a coat rack, its working. I haven't decided if I love this spot but it is functional.

I read somewhere (and I’m full of regret that I can’t remember which blog it was on about clustering ornaments) I tried this in 2 different combinations, bronze, champagne, blue and red and silver. Love the effect!!

Tiffany blue and red is my prominent color story in the living room… so I carried it around to anything looking un-cheery. It’s somewhat ironic to me that while suffering from the Holiday Blues, I came up with a blue inspired theme that started my decorating. Sidenote: If you look closely you can also see that I haven’t dusted yet… Good one Megan!

I think I was unknowingly trying to decorate all my accessories that I loved in our old house. So my screen got holiday-ified too! (No, holiday-ified probably isn't a word but if I only used real words I would be very limited.)

But soon I started running low on blue decorations and I opened two tubs of holiday dishes… so I started breaking all my decorating rules and modified the color story to red and GREEN in the kitchen… I know I live on the edge! :)

Yes, I did empty my hutch of most of my pottery collection to make it work with the rest of the business in the room. (Pottery is now hidden away in every available spot in the entire house!)

Notice anything about these candle holders?? I started turning them upside down. I like the way the “foot” cradles the candle holder. Didn’t remember that I had done it until my hubby questioned why they were this way. Because, hubby, that's why!

This year both the kiddos got a tree in their room basically because I have a strict ornament policy on the big tree: They must match, They must be orderly, They can only be whatever I choose them to be. SO that takes a lot of fun out of ornament hanging for my son. His tree is exactly what a 3 year old boy’s tree should look like – a fiber optic mess! The Crawlers tree is fitting for an 8 month old girl who’s mommy hung her ornaments, so that’s the one that got photo’d.

So I finished off the day by hanging some of my dominos that I painted after reading the shanty2chic’s blog… I have been scooting them around the house singing Van Morrison’s Domino, unsure of where I needed a domino. I finally decided around the Vegas poster art! DUH Megan!

I’m pretty sure that I’ve beaten my Blues since the house is now cleared of tubs that are still really full of decorating goodies. But all main living spaces including, of course, the main bathroom, are feeling festive! Now, this being said I'm happy with my results but not completely celebrating them... but given my frame of mind its better than the decorations remaining in the tubs!

I also called all four Mommies that I know in this town (yes, sadly that's it)and scheduled a Girl’s Night without husbands and children. And I threw out all the leftover yummies from Thanksgiving so no one got food poisoning and I would stop eating them!! I think the key to this holiday survival was in part due to my tasty stuffing leftovers that I stuffed myself with. AND a good amount of bourbon in my holiday glass didn't hurt either.

Here Turkey, Turkey Day.....

2009-11-24T12:54:00.000-08:00

There's a lot of things I need to be doing today and blogging didn't even make my "To Do List". But hey, this year things are going a little differently around the house! In order to accomplish ANYTHING I had to trap the crawler for a bit...

Typical Thanksgiving celebrations in the past have included me dreaming up menu items for a minimum of a month before hand, planning on how to seat 20-40 people in my house at a table (everyone MUST sit at a table which is decorated beautifully) and then I slave away at cooking for a 24-96 hours... But I think I mentioned this before - we went low key. We are not traveling somewhere to celebrate with friends and family. And we didn't invite anyone over to celebrate with us, truthfully there weren't many invite options....

But the hubby still insists on cooking, not eating out (YES I did actually suggest that). So today was a prep day, here's my progress and my menu so far....

Great Grandma's Noodles

I started making grandma's noodles around the age of 12 because I love to eat the dough. I do, I admit it. Noodles in my family are the end all tradition. My grandma slaved for days to make her grandma's recipe, enough to feed all 30+ kids, spouses, cousins, aunts/uncles and grandchildren. They are made of 5 ingredients, seriously. But its all about the rolling, and rolling, and rolling to make them super thin. Make sure you free up all available kitchen real estate before starting, noodles take up a lot of space!

Then patiently waiting for them to dry enough to slice, super thin again.

But your not out of the woods until you get someone to stand by the noodle pot and stir, patiently, continuously, the entire time they cook so they don't burn. If you master it they are delicious!
Want the recipe? I will share...

Great Grandma's Noodles
4 cups all purpose flour
4 eggs, slightly beaten
1/2 cup milk
1 tsp (ish) salt
1 tsp yellow food color

Beat the eggs in a large bowl, add salt, milk, and food coloring. Add flour 1 cup at a time and mix after each addition. Turn out onto floured surface and roll and roll and roll. Let dry until they don't stick together but they are still bendable. Roll up and slice and let dry some more. Freeze or cook when dry.

Buttermilk Chive biscuits

This is a trial run recipe I found on the smittenkitchen, and adapted slightly. (I'll share the adapted recipe once I bake if anyone out theres interested!) Now, biscuits don't really seem appropriate to me, but the recipe sounds delicous so we will see! I mixed and shaped and froze them this morning so they are ready to go....

Turkey Brine

I admit now, I am traditionally a turkey brine snob. I brine, I must brine, and there's only one kind of brine for me the great W.S. apple spice brine.... But what do you do when there's not a gourmet food store in your zip code and this years budget isn't showing $16 extra dollars for fancy bottled brine.... well I made my own! Hubby's idea, he was completely on board with me gambling with the safety of his bird! I won't share the contents of this latest kitchen madness until after I have tried it out... but it is making my kitchen smell amazing! When will the internet have smell-o-vision?

So thats my work for the day.... tomorrow I tackle stuffing (not from a bag, or a box) and pies....

Hope your all having a fun & peaceful time in your kitchen!

It once was a hall, its now a family portrait Gallery!

2009-11-23T08:49:00.000-08:00

I already feel that I'm behind on my blogging... funny how quickly THAT happened!

It's been a busy weekend, turkey day's right around the corner, and even though we're going super low-key this year I'm trying to get the house in order. Yes, yes I do LOVE a project!

So this weekend I entertained myself but most likely not my unbelieveably understanding husband by painting "frames" to frame my portraits in the hallway... I'd been avoiding hanging them until I got this idea out of my head and ONTO the wall! :)

I really like how it turned out...

In my haste to accomplish this latest idea obsession, I didn't take a single "in progress" picture.... sorry about that! When you get an hour of kid-free time you make the most of it. To make my use of time most effective, I had a prepped a lovely holiday turkey project for the boys to work on and the baby to watch. And of course I also blocked the hall with chairs as back-up to keep the kid, crawler and hubby away!! That's how I got one entire, peace filled hour to accomplish this!

But it didn't hurt that I had already made a supply list in my head and all needed items were in my house:

SW Tree Branch Paint
SW Metallic Glaze
4' level
Paint tape
Whatever paint brushes aren't currently "stored" with paint
Pencil (I actually found one!)
and last but not least, something round to make my corner details... this ended up being a nifty paper plate holder

After a little pencil marking: 18" down from ceiling, 22" from ends of wall, 30" up from base board.... and using the level to make the "box", I dug out the paper plate holder (all my bowl lids were too small) and made corners. I put tick marks (in pencil, it washes off) on the plate holder to make sure I got in the same spot each time.

I masked everything off with paint tape, except the corners, it was free hand - don't be scared! And seriously minutes later PRESTO there was a frame and the Hubby was shaking his head at what I'd just done to the wall. :)

After yanking the tape I decided YES it does need a metallic glaze. This is the point where the Hubby starts telling me to STOP he likes it, he likes it. But I didn't listen. I was going for the look of an architectural panel with some texture on the wall. It's all about the texture.... so I glazed away! Striae here we come!! He still isn't big on the metallic but he says truthfully he really really likes it. AND so do I!

But I do admit (only to myself of course) that the metallic glaze was entirely unnecessary, and made the tight space with its fancy low-voltage lighting even more difficult to photograph.... *sigh*

Linking up!
Remodelaholic

It WAS the great pumpkin... its now my soup!

2009-11-17T11:40:00.000-08:00

Its cold, its rainy, and its a completely ridiculous idea to go anywhere besides the kitchen in this kind of weather, so it is definitely a good day for testing out ideas!

I have a theory lately that I can heat the entire house just by using my oven. Today I decided to prove the theory! So at 9 am on a Tuesday, after consulting the bff, I start roasting pumpkins. No fall decoration pumpkin was safe, unless that is, it was made of foam or clay! No, I don't have something against pumpkins - I actually LOVE them. But I also think I'm ready for the next big holiday decorating, so knocking them off one by one seemed like a tasty plan.

After chopping and scraping 2 of those babies and filling 3 baking dishes I reconsidered exactly how much roasted pumpkin was NECESSARY in my freezer and took a break. Only to crank the oven back up and roast some chicken breasts just to conserve electricity (it was already preheated, you know). But chicken is not the point of this story!

Pumpkin, roasted pumpkin and the soup that was created is actually the point!

So anyone who knows me probably also knows that I read too much and probably too quickly. It may sound sad but I even read recipe books and blogs, only 20 or so daily. In between I watch the food network whenever I can sit still. So somewhere in my head I had this thought of a Pumpkin Curry Soup recipe existed... I searched EVERYWHERE thru all my piles of printed recipes, books on the shelves, blogs, you name it, I was there.

OK, I may have exaggerated, I only looked for like 5 minutes before I realized the problem. My blog hero's recipe was actually for Squash and Carrot soup with Curry.... OOPS! What now?? What to do when your OCD brain is set on one thing - PUMPKIN! Pumpkin Soup. Pumpkin Soup with Curry. Well I decided it was time to make pumpkin soup! Isn't a pumpkin technically a squash? I might add the results were freaking good.

Yes, yes, I will share the recipe. Please be amused at my first attempt at a blog in general... I was so excited I decided today was as good as any to start one!

Roasted Pumpkin Soup with Curry

1 onion diced
2 stalks celery diced
1 tbl minced garlic
3 tbl unsalted butter
2 tbl olive oil
4 cups roasted pumpkin
4 cups chicken broth
1 cup cauliflower florets, small pieces
Curry powder
Salt & pepper

Sauté onions, celery, and garlic in butter and olive oil until translucent and add salt and good amount of pepper. Add pumpkin and heat thru, don’t boil, it can and will burn. Add chicken broth and cauliflower and cook until cauliflower is tender. Puree with immersion blender. Add curry powder to taste.

Garnish with chives and sour cream.

Side note - the cauliflower was added only because I needed to use it. I thought to myself, why not, its not like your paying attention to any recipe anyway! And it did end up adding a nice texture and flavor. This recipe has not yet been "tweaked". But you can bet that it will be! I have enough pumpkin ready to go from this mornings efforts to make about 4 more versions! Typically I don't write any recipe that comes out of my head down nor do I try to guesstimate what amounts of ingredients I just used.... I'm trying something new today, besides a pumpkin soup!