Shoestring Pavilion

Beachy/Parisian lamp

2012-01-27T19:00:00.002-06:00

This lamp of mine took a tumble. The kids were rocking the little side table the lamp stands on and it fell on one of the kids.

The kid was fine. The lamp shade wasn't.

The old, brittle fabric had a big dent in it. (To see how I altered this thrifted lamp last time around, click here). So something needed to be done, preferably on the cheap :)

The shade got stripped to the bones.

And then I dug up a snipped of white sheet from a previous project. Cut it to fit the shade with a few inches extra top and bottom. The extra fabric was sewn into channels.

And then the short sides were sewn together to form the cylinder. Once on the shade I ran string through the top and bottom channel, pulled tight and tied a knot.

Ok. Not bad, but too plain.

Some bling was in order. Two bags, from Dollar Tree, I think. $2 total.

Simply stitched on by hand.

Hmmm. Better. Would be perfectly fine in a blander room, but needs something else in here.

Whip out your saved pistachio shells and a drill. Drill little holes in the shells, top and bottom, for hours on end.

Then more stitching in a jumbo chevron pattern.

We're getting there. Still too bland, though.

A stencil and some blue craft paint, slightly diluted with water for a softer effect.

And that's as far as I've gotten.

I'm sorely tempted to fill in the top and bottom chevron band with more of that blue craft paint to give it more of a presence. Still looks a little anemic to me. But not bad for $2 worth of supplies since I had most things on hand.

It looks like a combo of Parisian flair mixed with a beachy vibe right now. What do you guys think - leave as is or add more blue?

Thumb tack tables

2012-01-16T14:59:00.001-06:00

I decided it was time to get rid of our old coffee table that the kids had abused and gunked up for too long. And I wanted something fresh and sparkly in it's place. Something easier to keep clean.

A little eye batting convinced the husband that making a trip to Ikea just a few days before Christmas was an excellent way to spend his time off :) As it turned out it was an excellent time to go to Ikea. All the malls around Ikea were teeming with people, lines to even get into the parking lots. Ikea though was eerily quiet, lots of room in the parking lot and I've never seen that store as empty of people as this time.

I only had two things I needed to get and had promised the husband to not prolong his suffering by looking at everything else while we were in there. So we were in and out in about 30 minutes, can you believe it?

My loot was two Lack tables, the cheapest ones, for $7.99 a piece.

Here they are set up in our living room. It looks fresher already.

After lots and lots of hammering the bling was finally added.

It's thumb tacks, of course. It only cost me $3 extra for that lovely detail to the tables but to me they make all the difference. They play well with all the other brass and gold details I have going on in here.

Let me start by saying that this is by no means a new idea in the blog world. Before I started I got some info from these (here and here) two tutorials. Then I got 3 boxes of 300 tacks from the Dollar Tree and I would say I used about 800 tacks for this design.

The trick to get it even and uniform is to make a template. I have no pics of this part so I'll try to walk you through it. First I taped some copy paper together to cover one side of a table and cut out the exact shape of the side. The mouth of a baby food jar had the right size circle to fit nicely within the height of the side space. I spaced my 5 circles evenly across the width of the side and drew lines to connect the circles.

Since the tacks measure about 1/2 inch or 1 centimeter across I made marks every centimeter across the template. To make sure I liked the look I also went ahead and pierced all the holes with a tack at this point and inserted tacks into the paper for a test run. Looked great and got the husband approval so I took all the tacks out again and moved on to the tables.

Three snippets of scotch tape held my template in place on the table while I used that kind of push pin with a plastic head to make starter holes on my table. It was just easier to grip with my fingers while I was hammering away and the pin part was about the size of my gold thumb tacks. Then the template was removed unharmed and put aside while I went over this side of the table again, this time inserting the gold thumb tacks into the starter holes. You'll need some help from a hammer from time to time.

Repeat this process 7 more times. Finally done!

We now have two stylish coffee tables for the humble price of about $9.50 each which isn't bad at all. And they're so much easier to keep clean, the kids play, eat and whatever else kids do all over these tables daily. So far everything has wiped off without any problem at all. Mommy happy :)

Dresser transformation

2012-01-07T19:06:00.000-06:00

Um, I think I got it together now. I think. :)

Finally recovered the camera from the in-laws (where we had forgotten it over Xmas for those of you who weren't paying attention in class :)) and I had the best intentions to post earlier this week. At least I finally made it to actually writing the post this week.

I'm still on a creative frenzy over here. Like right before starting this post I had yet another project I was itching to get my hands on but my mature self had to talk my creative self into being responsible and show you this dresser I re-did a few weeks ago, the pics have been prepped and ready for a few days so there really isn't anything to it.

Here's the after. I know the kitty scratch post isn't that esthetically pleasing but I haven't found a better place for it yet. Bear with me, ok? :)

And this is how it's been looking for the better part of last year.

This dresser was a curb-side find and when I found it it was completely missing the two top drawers. So the top two was something I nicked from an old dresser sitting in our garage. The width is wrong but the height was about right, at least right enough to work here. In the before pic you can also see the 1/4 inch plywood I had cut at Lowe's to fit in here to make sure these drawers didn't fall down into the drawer space underneath it.

This dresser lives in our tiny kitchen. I've always liked the idea of a free-standing kitchen (i.e. instead of cabinets being attached to the wall the kitchen is made up of counter-like furniture that are free standing) so I'm sure this thing with a dresser in the kitchen stems from that. Ideally this dresser would have been cut down a couple of inches in height to match the counter tops in here but after some pondering I decided against it. I wasn't sure if I could do a good job of it and the extra work didn't seem all that tempting at the moment.

I took very few pics of the process so I'll talk you through it. The first thing I did with the dresser was take all the drawers out and screw the plywood in place, into the dresser frame. And then I played with the configuration of the top drawers a little before settling on the offset design you see in the after pics. Having them centered would have been more symmetrical but then the cubbies wouldn't have been as useful. And it would have meant more plywood, more L-brackets etc. More work and a higher cost, essentially :)

These small "sidewalls" I cut myself from the leftovers of my sheet of plywood. I didn't know what their measurements were going to be before the bottom plywood was in place so I decided against the Lowe's dudes doing it for me. They're attached with L-brackets at the top (not visible in this pic) and bottom out front and also one bracket on the bottom in the very back (very hard to see here) and are there to keep the drawer in it's place and create this little cubby of open storage. I did this for both of the top drawers.

Any gaps or holes in the construction were then filled with wood putty as you can see in the pic above and then it was time to sand. Mostly the rougher plywood but I also went over the whole dresser so my black paint would adhere better.

The painting was tedious, I won't lie. Two coats of black house paint I had on hand and two coats of polycrylic. The lovely knobs I found at Hobby Lobby for half off = two for $3.99.

The afters again.

This dresser is set on sliders so if I should need some extra counter space while working in here it can easily be slid closer to the counters on the other side of the kitchen and work as an island of sorts. Normally it lives up against this wall, though. And it provides wonderful extra storage in this tiny kitchen.

The L-brackets are visible if you look closely. But I've noticed that black paint covers a multitude of sins and I use those forgiving abilities to their fullest extent.

I love this dresser's simple and classic look now.

I had so much fun with my husband's first reaction to the transformation. It's like he was really impressed with what I'd been able to do with what he basically considered a heap of trash :) I knew all along that it could look great after some work but it's always fun when those who didn't have my vision before finally see it for what it could truly be.

Oh, and I do realize that the kitty scratch post will have to find another place eventually. When my kitchen is fully transformed I won't want it in here anyway. It just is what it is right now.

Wouldn't you say that it's a great dresser transformation, though? Paint surely does work magic.

Ps. Linking up with
Someday Crafts
Blue Cricket Design
Domestically Speaking

Sage winter advice, random

2011-12-28T13:31:00.000-06:00

So I'm painfully aware that I dropped the blogging ball on you. I didn't mean to, it just kind of happened.

It was for mostly happy reasons, though. I've been in a most unusual creative frenzy for most of December and I have gotten quite a few things done around the house (must be the nice weather we've been having). One glorious victory then fueled another project and so on. I promise I will show you when I get my act together.

And then the last week of school my oldest got sick which ate up an unexpected amount of time and then Christmas kind of overtook me. Now I have no more excuses so here I am :)

Actually, one more excuse. My dear husband forgot our camera at the in-laws' over Christmas so there were a few pics on there that I won't be able to show you until we get it back. So this will be a pretty random winter post with advice that you may or may not be interested in. Be forewarned :)

You guys know we live in an older house. Old houses have lousy insulation and such, especially here in the South where we're supposed to just ignore winter because it's so short. I find the cold very hard to ignore even if it's only around for a few months.

During the day I can walk around with layers and layers of clothing and blankets and stay comfortable. At night the comforter keeps me warm. But the transition between clothes and bed can be a nightmare. If I hop into bed already cold it can take me a long time to get the body heat back up. For years my solution has been a hot water bottle to cuddle in bed. It's an old fashioned solution to an age old problem :) And it works! I've even converted my husband to liking it :)

This year as the weather was turning colder I decided to give every family member their own bottle, and to make them cute.

After purchasing the bottles at Walmart (they're hidden in the medicine part of the store packaged in a box. The reason for this is that people apparently use these for unimaginable nasty things which I won't go into here, I'm sure these procedures bring some relief for those who need it but I can assure you we use these for nothing but to heat us up in winter time) I also purchased four 1/4 yards of flannel in cute patterns to match the recipient. The flannel pieces were the perfect size for the bottles.

As you can see in the above picture I folded the strip in half right sides together and then folded the top down as well. Then I traced the shape of the bottle and marked the drawstring channel at the bottle neck. I have no pictures of the rest of the process but it involves sowing along all the marked lines, cutting off excess fabric and turning the pouch right side out and using scraps to make a drawstring closure.

And the result.

From left to right; daddy, mommy, daughter, son. Now they're cute and a lot cozier to cuddle up with at night. And easy to remove and wash if need be.

They're also wonderful to put under your feet as you waste time in front of the computer, to use on your belly during that time of the month or whenever you need some extra warmth in your life.

We heat the water on the stove (not quite to boiling, when the bubbles start rising to the surface it's about right) and then fill the bottles to about 2/3 of the way up. Gently squeeze the air out of the bottle and put the stopper in, tighten securely because you don't want half-boiling water all over you. Place in bed and add cold feet = wonderful!

Another thing I have a problem with during winter is keeping my skin hydrated. I know all the commercials make it out to be such a treat to step out of the shower and meticulously slather lotion all over yourself. I find it a complete hassle and a huge mess. It takes forever to put on and by the end of it I'm chilled to the bones. Then the lotion takes forever to be absorbed by the skin so you find yourself feeling oily for a long time afterwards. Needless to say it rarely got done which caused major itch.

When we had kids I discovered the wonders of baby oil and it wasn't long before I decided that what works for baby works perfectly for adults as well (I just use the non-scented variety). If you take baths this will be as easy as adding some baby oil to your water and you're done. I take showers and at the end of my shower I just sprinkle a liberal amount on a shower puff and rub all over. That's it! Since the water is still going I stay warm and by the time I'm toweled off and ready to dress my skin is silky smooth and itch free and stays that way until my next shower. An extra minute in the shower is nothing compared to the hassle free and mess free hydrated skin you get in return.

I know this is a great idea because my husband likes this one too :) Many men find it unmanly to put body lotion on. Adding baby oil to your bath may not qualify as manly either but at least it's quick and painless :) Add a rubber ducky and bubbles for hours of fun! :)

I will do my best to put together a proper post and get back to you with some of my fun projects of the past month. Happy New Year's in the mean time!

Ps. Linking up with
Someday Crafts

Fancy-pants trays

2011-12-07T14:49:00.001-06:00

I've been making some trays. Stylish, glossy black trays of the modern school.

And why would I be making trays when it's so much easier to just go out and buy one or a couple?

Because of this.

Our tiny kitchen has - like many older homes - the washer and dryer in there, hogging space. If you - like us - have the cheapo top loading variety you're pretty much out of luck for putting a countertop on there to make the space more functional (and to make the machines just go away. More on the going way part in a later post but the start of a shelf above the machines is part of this plan).

Unless you're handy and have a Lowe's or a Home Depot close by so you can make custom trays :)

This handy girl got a Lowe's employee to cut up a 1/4 plywood sheet (cost me just under $20) into chunks corresponding to the measurement of the washer and dryer tops minus about 1/2 inch on each side for wiggle room (the rest of the sheet was cut up into pieces that I'll be using for other projects). While I was there I also grabbed a few 1x2s for about $2 a piece.

Since I'm not a master woodworker and also kind of short on patience I decided to make the construction as easy (fast) as possible.

Cut the long sides first and then the short sides to fit in between the long ones.

No mitered corners here, figured it wouldn't really matter and this way it's faster and easier.

The markings on the bottom are made about 1/2 inch in from the edge to correspond to the middle of the 1x2s. Pre-drilled all my holes and assembled it all with screws and some wood glue here and there. Here and there only because I forgot to apply it everywhere :)

If you have more patience than I do here's where you should fill all the little imperfections with either wood filler or caulk. I did minimal prep by only sanding off the rough spots and then jumping right into painting. Two coats of a black house paint I had on hand. Since I didn't prime it almost looked like a black stain when it was dry because the wood soaked it all up. Pretty cool look. However, I needed these to be wipeable when done so I coated them in polycrylic. And added the cabinet pulls found at Walmart for about $3 a pair. Oh, and the felt furniture paws underneath so as to not scratch the machines.

And voili-daddily-da!

Sure, you see the imperfections when the light shines on them just right. Where they're situated not much light will hit at this angle, though :) It's all about faking perfection. What people don't see and don't know about won't hurt them (this goes only for decorating, pretty much everywhere else in life this philosophy will mess you up, ok? Just making that clear :)).

These turned out quite sturdy, I'm happy to report. Since they're big I just have to be careful not to overload them or I might not be able to carry it all. I'm positive the trays would hold up but I'm not sure I would :)

Now I have a light duty "countertop" with an elegant look. This formerly useless space has turned into usable space, either for decorative or practical purposes. They clean up easily. In fact, I can just pick them up and empty any debris into the trash or outside. Not to mention I can use them as trays in other places of our home, if needed.

And the best part? When I need to do laundry they stack easily one ontop of the other to give me easy access to the top loading washer, and whatever I might have sitting in the tray easily travels with it!

Now I'll just keep working on making the machines "go away". I have a plan but I'm not telling yet :) I'll keep you posted as I make progress as usual so stay tuned!

Ps. Linking up with
Someday Crafts
C.R.A.F.T.

Faux moss skeleton key

2011-11-28T14:45:00.001-06:00

Don't you just love skeleton keys and the old fashioned times they represent? How about moss and the lush courtyard gardens where it might grow? I do and so why not combine the two, right? :) Cheaply and cool-ly, of course.

And this is the story of how I got myself into a very time consuming project yet again.

I found a pic of a skeleton key design that I liked and blew it up using PosteRazor (how is described a little more detailed in this post). Then I copied it over to foam core board twice, cut out with a sharp knife (this step is a pain, takes forever so be forewarned) and sandwiched the two foam core copies ontop of each other with the help of hot glue. For dimension.

Looked like this on the wall.

Although I loved the white against the brown wall the foam board in itself isn't all that attractive. I wanted a moss look with lots of texture without the hassle of dealing with the real thing.

So, using felt instead of paper I followed the same technique as I used in this post. I actually don't like the look of felt, it looks cheap to me. But when I can only see the textural edges of the fabric I actually like it fine. I couldn't find the exact moss color I was looking for and had to settle for kelly green. Still looks mossy, just a little darker than I had imagined it.

I made hundreds of little "flowers" and attached them to the foam board with hot glue. I wanted this to look like one uniform surface so the flowers got scrunched really close together, thus causing myself lots more work. Days later I was finally done. All in all I ended up using about 1 and 1/8 of a yard of fabric so not bad on the cost.

I added an oversize vintage-looking tag made out of a cereal box and twine, the key looked a little "empty" without anything at all.

The after parade.

And where it currently lives in the darkest corner of our dining room (next to the granny lanterns :)). I feel the need to come up with some white or at least light colored backdrop for the key so it can contrast better with the background. I have an idea I want to try so I'll show you when I can get to it. When the lanterns are up and running it should also be a lot brighter in this corner.

I think this could look absolutely adorable as a wreath substitute on a door or layered over a mirror, especially hung with a colorful ribbon. Just be warned that it will take you forever to make one :) I went the neutral route with my key since there will be a lot going on in this room when I'm finished. But if I feel like it's still too dark and drab in this corner I might try the ribbon idea down the road

I'm really happy with the result and I just love all the yummy texture it brings. Now if I could only get the lighting situation in this room figured out I'd be even happier.

Ps. Linking up with
C.R.A.F.T.
Someday Crafts

Moroccan/Granny lanterns

2011-11-18T21:44:00.001-06:00

Our dining room is a luscious brown, but not well lit enough. So in a dark corner I had made up my mind to have a few lanterns shining a light on things. I wanted them to have a Moroccan twist of some sort. You know how I am :)

This is what I started out with.

* Two (only one pictured) large recycled glass jars
* Two (only one pictured) wooden craft finials from Lowe's
* One decorative perforated scrapbook paper from Joann's (bought last year. They didn't have this specific kind when I checked the other day, but they had a few other perforated designs).
* White spray paint
* White lace trim (not pictured)
* Wire and wire hangers for hanging (not pictured)

I had everything but the finials on hand and I bought them at Lowe's for about $3 for the pair.

The first thing I did was figure out how much paper I wanted on each lantern. I only had one 12x12 inch decorative paper and there wasn't enough to fully cover both jars. With a little trial and error I came up with a design that worked for me. The paper wasn't long enough to wrap around the jar in one piece so I had to piece things together a bit. Above is one of those places where I had to join two pieces.

Next I glued the paper to the jar with Mod Podge and covered the paper with a generous coat of podge as well. The glass will be coated with podge too and will give a frosted effect when dry. You can certainly use a spray adhesive instead if you don't want the frosted look but I wanted my paper to be as protected as possible. As you can see above the join in the paper isn't that visible.

I have no idea what the official name is for this device but I call it a candle elevator. I made it from a piece of wire hanger and looped the bottom around a baby jar lid. You stick your tea light on here, light it, and then you can safely lower your light into your lantern. Make sure the lid fits through your jar opening before going through the trouble of making one :) I only have one of these because I made it last year when I started this project and I only had one jar at the time.

If you like this version well enough you can stop here and save yourself some time and money. This could probably work really well for a budget wedding center piece. Or just another wintry lantern.

Since I had planned on having my lanterns hang from the ceiling I wanted to add finials on the bottom to hopefully look more exotic. The finials were spray painted white and glued to the bottom of each jar with E6000.

I messed things up a bit by putting them in what I thought was a safe place to dry. On a shelf above the stove where the kids can't get to them and my husband would be unlikely to knock them over. But the husband was cooking himself a pizza in the oven and when I came to check on the lanterns after a while I noticed to my horror that the finials had developed warts all over from the heat of the oven. I guess some chemical thing from the sap or moisture in the wood and not yet dry paint? I don't know but I flattened the warts as best I could. If you look closely in the after pics you can see them. They're not that noticeable in person so I think I'll leave them as is.

This is what they looked like after drying overnight. One has less "clothes" on than the other as you can see. I also made some hangers from wire wrapped around the neck of the jar and hung them on wire hanger s-hooks from a chain from the ceiling.

I kept staring at them and could not bring myself to liking what I saw. They didn't look Moroccan and it was clearly visible that they were jars with a finial glued to them. I remembered that I had some lace trim in my stash that might work.

Some snipping and E6000 glue later.

Aaah, much better! So they may still not look Moroccan, more like something Granny would have. In a pinch maybe the granny would be a Moroccan granny :) But they strike me as kind of vintage looking and certainly unusual enough. And at first glance you may not notice that they're made out of jars.

The idea is for these to be wired (when I can get to it) and cast swirly patterns on the wall and lots of light up towards the ceiling. For now they're powered by one lonely tea candle.

A variation on these lanterns could be using lace fabric instead of paper and I personally think several rows of lace trim or eyelet trim would be adorable and yield a more froufrou and feminine end result. I'm happy with my only slightly feminine granny style, though :) (Pretty please, make it a Moroccan granny :)).

Details of the two lanterns.

See the warts above? Mmm, not pretty. But a lot less visible in person, thankfully.

And some afters.

Now I just have to wire them and cover said wire with lush cream colored cord covers. Why do I have a feeling it's going to be a while before I can get to it?

That's the one major drawback to decorating on a shoestring - it takes for.ev.er... Grr. In the mean time I'll be over here perfecting my patience :) As granny-like as I can be. Minus the knitting. I don't knit.

Happy weekend everyone!

Ps. Linking up with
C.R.A.F.T.
Blue Cricket Design
Domestically Speaking
Etcetorize
Someday Crafts

Morocco meets beach

2011-11-08T22:03:00.000-06:00

Living in an older house we had this nostalgic little nook in our tiny little hallway that the people in previous times used to keep the family phone in. I guess it was supposed to be centrally placed and all.

It didn't make sense to us to have any of our phones here, though, so we haven't really used it for anything. That little shelf underneath has held our phone books but that's about it. I liked this little nook but being white on white it was just kind of blah and a pass through. And the arch was too low to really house anything larger here. Being in the center of the house with no direct light no plants would survive here. Actually, lucky bamboo might have worked now that I think about it. But I went another route.

I found this little silver colored shell at the thrift store and had an idea.

What if I reshaped the nook's arch into a classic Moroccan silhouette, painted the nook jet black, spray painted the shell white, hand painted black stripes on it and gave it a home in said nook?

The edges look sloppy, I know. I could afford to cheat because these walls will be re-painted eventually.

The nook is now a real destination with lots of presence. An art installation of sorts. Classic and exotic in one. The shell and the arch marries our kids' room with it's beachy/underwater theme (the kid's room is just to the left of this nook) with the rest of the the house that leans Moroccan/Indian in style.

This little hallway (also seen here) is slowly being turned into a floor to ceiling ancestry gallery (my husband is into genealogy) and will eventually be painted with horizontal stripes in off white and a light beige. The impact of this black nook combined with future plans to paint the light fixture in here black will create a nice pop against the mellow background.

It looks great in my head and I can't wait to see it fully materialized :) Anybody want to come by and help me paint all these rooms I haven't gotten to yet? :)

Ps. Linking up with
Someday Crafts
Domestically Speaking
C.R.A.F.T.

Foiled and shoepolished secretary

2011-11-04T18:45:00.000-05:00

One of my bigger projects of late got done during my blogging hiatus. It was a pain to do but I like the results (even though our bedroom is looking more and more like a 17 year old girl's hangout with all the pinks. It should be temporary since lots of bright oranges and reds will be going in here as well as some blacks and whites to tone things down a bit. It's all a work in progress and hopefully we'll all like it a lot when it's done).

Blurry before

Before

This is what the secretary has looked like for quite a while, I've been using it as a bedside table. It's not a true before because when I got it it had no feet and the knob was transparent red with beans in it (?). The secretary was a gift from my parents-in-law (intended for the kids but stolen by me since I had a better plan for the kids' room - remember the desk from a few weeks back?). My husband carved his name into the desk surface as a kid, that's how far back it goes.

The feet are post finials from the fence section of Home Depot, they were just a few dollars each. I believe the pull is from Hobby Lobby but don't take my word for it.

I've wanted to redo this piece of furniture forever. I wanted some silver in here to be reminiscent of Indian silver furniture but of course it had to be done on the cheap. I had toyed with the idea of using tin foil even before I saw Vintage Revival's night stand last year but with her amazing results I knew I had to do it. It just takes me an insane amount of time to get around to doing something this time consuming :)

The main supplies were cheapity-cheapo tin foil from the Dollar tree (can you believe one roll was enough to cover the whole thing?), a black shoe polish which I've had forever but I think it came from the Dollar tree as well. Oh, and that frame came from the Dollar tree too :) I guess the secret of where I shop is out... But the Mod Podge is from the craft store at least.

I got a couple of those frames sometime last year solely because of the plastic scrolly ornaments on it. I popped them off the frame and filled them with wood filler to make them a little sturdier. They were pretty sturdy already but furniture get knocked around quite a bit and I didn't want them to crack somewhere down the road.

You can see that the inside of the secretary was painted green. Green is my favorite color but this shade didn't sit well with me for some reason. Instead the insides got painted a hot pink, more on this further down.

The first part of the refinishing process was gluing the ornaments on with E6000. (Actually, I painted the inside a hot pink first but you'll see pics of that further down). Then came the foiling.

As mentioned before it was a pain to put on. Mostly because I'm impatient and can't wait for the podge to dry. But I also tried to use as big pieces of foil as possible to speed up the application and it took some careful eyeing to place it all even with edges and corners and whatnot. It's a very forgiving material to work with though, especially since I wanted this secretary to look old and worn and therefore not especially worried about perfection. I wanted the look of something you'd have inherited from some great-great-grandfather but that had also spent some time in your father's workshop with all the abuse that entails.

Mandi at Vintage Revival scrunched her foil up before applying but I tried to keep mine as flat as possible. Since I was working with the thinnest cheapest kind of foil it naturally crinkled here and there, lending the surface a weathered imperfect look. For curved parts, like the legs and the ornaments, I used smaller torn-off pieces of foil and molded them around the shapes as best I could.

The general process I used started with slathering Mod podge over the area I was working on, then applying the foil and smoothing it out with hands and a plastic card. If any excess podge was oozing out I wiped it up with baby wipes right away. And when it was dry I burnished the surface with some hard plastic to make it smoother and less reminiscent of tin foil.

The peeling foil in the above pic is due to my impatience. I originally had planned to sand the foil to further age the look but since I started sanding before it was all dry it didn't work so well. I abandoned the sanding idea for the hope of finishing faster instead. I left the peeling foil thinking it would still look OK once I was done. (With two coats of polycrylic on top it's not going anywhere).

Plenty of imperfections here.

Welcome to the future where everything is chrome :) This is after the foil is on and it's admittedly pretty bright at this point. This is where the black shoe polish enters the stage.

This is the polish I use to age most of my projects. It was only $1 and I've had it forever as I mentioned before. Very easy to work with.

Douse a section, let dry for a few seconds and wipe and/or dab it off to your liking with a rag or paper towel. If you took too much off you just add some more and if the polish is on too thick it comes off easily with a baby wipe or a moist paper towel.

Your hands will look like you've been moonlighting as a car mechanic :) Luckily this washes off with only soap and water.

And when you're done it leaves a nicely aged finish. The feet haven't been polished yet in the above pic but I did them too. Not too bad, huh?

I should mention that I sealed the whole thing with a few coats of polycrylic. The shoe polish will rub off if it's not sealed and I wanted maximum durability for all that work I put into it.

I neglected to get any pics of the painting of the inside of the secretary but it was just a quick sand-down followed by a few coats of hot pink craft paint and finished off with a couple of coats of polycrylic. And voila!

Magazine collection halved, but still not pretty to look at. The walls will be a light grayish purple and the bed will be black.

A tension curtain rod and a curtain panel hides the storage. Since I'm not sure if this particular curtain panel stays I decided not to chop it off but just tuck the excess under the secretary for now.

The painted inside. Very hot pink. Remember the oranges and reds that are going to balance things out in this room. And hopefully turn the whole thing into a colorful exotic space :)

And the ornamented front with the semi-old pull.

So much work but I'm very happy with it. It looks kind of old stainless steel in person. My plan was to refinish the husband's bedside table the same way to unify the space. But I'm dragging my feet about it now that I know firsthand just how much work it's going to be.

Do you like the look and should I do the husband's table as well? I value your crafty input. Disclaimer wise I have to mention that I can't promise to follow your advice, though :)

I hope you'll have a wonderful weekend!

Ps. Linking up with
C.R.A.F.T.
Someday Crafts

Cascading flowers mobile

2011-10-25T11:47:00.002-05:00

Our friends' baby Hannah should be entering the world any day now. And I felt like I wanted to make something for her and her parents (partly because I had no idea what to get if I were to buy something). I don't normally give handmade items as gifts because handmade items tend to be quirky and not of professional quality and thus not everybody's cup of tea. Somehow it seems a little different with babies.

It's as if the general emotional turmoil of having a baby mixed with the complete adorableness of the baby itself makes it easier to get away with giving something quirky. The baby can't protest the gift at the time it's given and by the time the kid is old enough to have an opinion the gift has been long buried under the masses of other gifts, toys and clothes. It's kind of a time limited gift of sorts and at least the parents may appreciate the time and effort that went into the gift to their precious little baby.

Since the color theme for Hannah's room is brown/white/pink I decided to go neutral with brown and white. It's classic and classy and will work with anything.

These are the supplies I started out with. A large metal circle from the craft store, a wire hanger or two, brown ribbon, thin wire and vellum paper. I also used fishing line but it isn't pictured here. I ended up not using the flower shape thingy and the swabs in my final product.

I started by building the structure for the mobile by shaping the wire hanger into a swirl and attaching it with the thinner wire to the large circle shape.

This is my first version with the little daisy flower shapes alternated with swab "beads" (the cotton part of the swabs cut off). I started this weeks and weeks before I had planned to have it ready. It was slow going and I just couldn't bring myself to liking the look of it. Too busy and regimented somehow.

So the day before the gift was supposed to be delivered I scrapped this first version altogether and started over. In the above pic you can see the lone strand of lily flowers I hung to see if I liked it better than the daisies. And it was exactly what I wanted. Graceful, soothing and organic. Needless to say I spent that whole day and most of the next frantically working to make little lilies and threading them on fishing line. I never quite had the time necessary to think it all the way through to perfection but I ended up with something I felt OK with gifting.

I do apologize in advance for some of the following pics that are blurry and I didn't get as many good after pics because of time constraints. And I can't retake them since I don't have the mobile here anymore :) It turned out cool enough that I still wanted to share with you, though.

How to make the flowers

I experimented with card stock beforehand to determine what size and shape my paper cutouts needed to be. And each vellum paper (A4 format) was folded 4 times and cut into 16 little rectangles.

For each little rectangle I rounded off two opposite corners into kind of an eye shape.

From one side of the eye shape I free handed 5 "fingers", or petals. It won't matter that they're different shapes and sizes, it'll just look more organic.

The two outer petals were joined together and the whole "hand" was shaped into a cone and secured with a snippet of matte scotch tape. I made the hole at the narrow end of the cone as tiny as possible but still able to let the fishing line through.

Each little petal was then shaped by hand into this cute lily shape (my hands are green because I was dyeing bathroom towels yesterday). You can shape them over a pencil. I have my own little thing where I just kind of pinch the petal back gently while pulling on it. It's hard to explain and of course I don't have a video but the pencil will work too :)

And then I just tied a length of fishing line to my metal structure, strung one flower on, tied a simple knot on the line for the flower to rest on, strung another flower and so on. I did two tiers even though it's hard to see in the finished pics because of the wispy nature of the fishing line. I think I used 8 flowers per strand on the outer tier and 10 or 12 for the inner tier. In the very middle I strung a plastic jewel as the finishing touch. Baby Hannah needed some bling :)

Before I started the flower stringing I used the brown ribbon to make a hanging device. And when all the flowers were in place I used the same ribbon to cover the outer metal circle of the structure (using hot glue for this). This is the part where I felt like I could have come up with a better way of doing it so it would have looked more professional. And if I had had the time the little swirl of the structure would have been covered as well. But, oh well. I didn't and my time was up.

Here's the finished result. It was hard to get good pics of this too but you'll hopefully get the idea.

I had it hanging from a clothes hanger while I was putting it all together. Not the most glamorous, but it worked :)

Baby's perspective.

It ended up being too long to hang safely over a crib for very long. But it should be perfect in a corner hung from the ceiling for quite a while. The strands of flowers are lightweight enough to sway gently in the breeze from a window or the AC and should be quite soothing to look at.

So, I'm dying to know. Would you guys have felt OK getting a gift like this for your firstborn daughter?

Ps. Linking up with
Someday Crafts
C.R.A.F.T.

New beginnings (I know, a little dramatic, but it is what it is)

2011-10-18T23:10:00.000-05:00

So. I'm back, surprisingly refreshed after my bloggy vacation :) You guys are super for hanging in there while I was gone!

It's funny. Every time I take a little bloggy break my following numbers go up. It almost makes me wonder if you're rewarding me for being gone or I'm just noticing it more because I'm not expecting anyone to click that little button when I'm not here to entertain you :) Either way I'm very grateful for every one of you.

With the emotional stuff out of the way I'll confess right away that I didn't get to the cleaning or the organizing part of my to do list for the hiatus. But I have been pretty productive in the creative department and so today I'll be showing you this little vanity turned kid's desk that I rescued from the curb sometime last year and have been meaning to fix up for. like. ever. It's been sitting patiently in the kids' room looking like a pile of junk, and only I knew it was a hidden beauty waiting for a makeover.

This is how she started out (don't you just love the look of our "lawn"? It's greened up a bit in the last month after we actually had some of that wet stuff falling from the sky since this pic was taken about a month ago). A beat-up particleboard former vanity. Particleboard isn't my first choice but it was free and sturdy so I worked with it. The petite size fits well in our kids' room.

The top had bubbled with moisture and had lots of nicks everywhere.

And although I like the look of the two bottom pulls there were only two of those. And I'd found the most adorable seahorse pulls at our local Habitat store for 10 cents a piece or something ridiculous like that that I thought would go so well with the contact paper seahorse blinds already in their beachy/underwater room.

When I first got this desk I imagined it in a peppy turquoise. But I stumbled upon some spray paint cans at the Habitat store for $2 a piece (on a separate trip, mind you), a brand I'd never heard of and can't for the life of me remember anymore, in a shade called Wedgewood blue. It looked kind of like turquoise with a lot of gray in it so I figured it was close enough. And for the price I thought it could work.

I needed to sand the top to make it flat and just lightly scuffed up the rest and then put on a few coats of the paint, sanding the worst spots in between coats. Oil paint on sanded particle board is not pretty, let me tell you. It makes the grain stand on end in the worst possible way. I just did what I could without taking off the paint too much. I only had three cans of paint and I used them all.

I was a good girl and removed the old pulls before I painted :) I filled the old hole in the top drawer and drilled two new ones so all drawers were identical. I admit to cheating with the filling. I was going to use some wood filler but I couldn't find it so I ended up using some Dap. Hopefully no-one will be prodding the filling too much.

I always try to cram as much of my work into one day as I can. Didn't quite make it with this desk so I had to bring it back in to dry overnight. This is the desk after the paint is on but before I put a couple of coats of polycrylic on. And I couldn't wait to try on the cute seahorse pulls as well, just to get a feel for how things would look. If you look closely in the above pic you can see the finish is uneven because of the sanding I did before painting. The polycrylic evened things out when it came on.

And here's a closeup of the finished result. I decided to add some thumb tacks to give it that little extra. The tacks on the desk match the tacks on the fabric pinboards in here to tie things together nicely.

And the finished result! Kind of cutesy and blingy but can still pass for a boys desk (I'm aiming for a unisex look in here since our kids share). I found the chair at the thrift store for $10 and thought the color was perfect.

It was definitely a more time consuming project than I normally manage to take on, and more involved since I had to carry things in and out. But I did it and I'm quite happy with the result. Hope you guys liked it, will be back next week with more of the bloggy vacation crop of crafts :)

Ps. Linking up with
Someday Crafts
Blue Cricket Design
Domestically Speaking

Fall wreath and a pause

2011-09-15T09:31:00.000-05:00

Fall is here.

There's a chill in the air in the mornings now that has definitely not been present in a long time. The leaves on the trees are long gone already because of the drought and we're just now leaving our long bout of 100 degree days behind.

Spring and summer are my favorite times of year so the minute the temperature turns and that chill returns a sense of loss hits me. More this year than normal because we've been cooped up in the house all summer (playing outside in 100 degree heat on a crisp yellow lawn is less than desirable). I think having to get up before the sun rises to get a kindergartner ready reinforces that sense of loss of summer.

The early risings remind me of cold winter mornings in Sweden where I used to rise before dawn, bundle up as best I could and venture out in the snow and cold to get to work. Around 3pm the darkness returned and I had to get home in the dark. Just a few precious hours of daylight in between, experienced through a window at work. No wonder I love the Texas heat so much :) Just not 100-degrees-all-summer's worth of it, maybe :) But daylight is abundant in spring and summer and that's one of the things that make them my favorite time of year.

We're still trying to find a routine here when it comes to school and speech lessons and the daily grind of things. And on top of that we've just decided it was time to change churches after 7 years. Lots of changes going on, some really exciting and others harder to adjust to.

In the midst of this I have a serious case of can'tgetanythingdone-itis. I have new ideas of cool decor projects pop into my head every day. Just can't seem to find the time and the energy to start anything. At least not the bigger and more spectacular things I know you guys want to see :)

So I've decided to give myself a month off from blogging. Try to find a routine, get some much needed cleaning and organizing done and freeing up space in my head for recharging. Hopefully that one less thing on my to do list will inspire some more creative endeavors and I will be back in time for Halloween. Since we didn't really get any vacation this summer I guess this will be it :)

I leave you with a couple of pics of the fall wreath that I just put out in front. The twig wreath form was purchased at the thrift store, 2 fake leaf garlands were found at Habitat for humanity along with the purple flower clip. The ribbon I had on hand. Leaves and acorns were just hot glued to the form, the ribbon tied on at the bottom and the flower clipped on the ribbon. I used the plastic vine part of the garlands to make a hanger for the wreath, attached with wire to the back. Enjoy, happy fall and I'll be back soon!

Bible/book cover, semi-homemade

2011-09-02T18:03:00.000-05:00

So starting kindergarten has proved a little more traumatic than expected, for the kindergartner as well as the doting parents. But after a few days of tears (yes, I was crying too) I think we're over the hump and the kindergartner reports that she's not sad anymore. Which immediately makes me feel better as well :)

Despite the drama I managed to create a little something. A semi-homemade personalized Bible cover, but it could just as well be used as a book cover for you non-church people.

Because have you noticed that the specialty stores will charge you an arm and a leg for a Bible cover, and that's after you payed a fortune for the Bible itself? And the thrift store has quite a few of these plain monthly/weekly planner covers just laying around. So a little thought formed in my head - why not convert one of the planner covers? For $2 it could be worth a shot.

This is what I started out with.

A plain black fake leather planner with a nice zipper closure and no real blemishes, very sturdy. Which is good when you carry around a heavy book. And no logos either. It must have been my lucky day :)

The inside had your standard binder spine. The binder hardware had to go in order for it to function as a Bible cover. I have no pics of the surgical procedure it took to remove it but it involved some heavy duty pliers and lots of violence to remove the majority of the metal parts. The hardware had been attached to the spine of the cover with some industrial strength brads and I couldn't get them to budge no matter how much I went at it with tin snips, screw drivers and hammers so I had to cut the brads out of the spine, carefully, with an exacto knife. I made sure not to pierce the spine through to the outside, though.

That left me with two craters on the inside spine. I mended any scuffs in the fabric with nail polish and glued (E6000) some ornamental metal plates over the craters.

You can see a little of the red nail polish near the top metal plate. I got lazy and just used the first polish I found instead of keeping on looking for a clear one. But I intend to just dab a little black over there and it'll be virtually invisible. I'm also thinking of stringing a pretty ribbon or some sparkly beads between the two plates since they come with holes. Haven't done it yet, though.

A vertical pocket on the right side was perfect for sliding my covers into to keep my Bible from sliding around.

Although it's sadly missing in this pic I later equipped the horizontal pockets on the left side with a legal pad for handy note taking and a pen in the pen holder. Function - check.

The outside was still pretty bland, though. The internet to the rescue! One pretty picture of lotus mehndi was promptly found and printed out in the size I wanted.

I scotch-taped it to the front and traced the outline with the help of a toothpick dipped in white craft paint. Then the template was removed and the rest of the pattern filled in in the same manner, loosely following my inspiration in an eyeballing fashion and adjusting where needed. The beauty with mehndi/henna is that you really can't do anything "wrong", you just invent as you go.

The toothpick and craft paint method is time consuming but it gives fairly detailed results and the craft paint is durable even on this fake leather material.

When compared to the original you can see that I took liberties with the pattern, the general feel is the same though. Style - check.

A quicker alternative for those of you who don't do hand painting. A pretty image or paper and some decoupage medium will give you the same personalized feel and durable finish without all the work.

I branded my newly crafted Bible cover with my initials lest somebody would run off with it. Because everybody knows church people are known to commit theft when they covet their neighbor's Bible cover :)

And that's how I can now tote my Bible in style. Or at least in my own style. For $2 (I had everything but the cover itself on hand). I considered adding more pattern to the front as it still looks a little lonely but the paint won't come off once it's on so I'll ponder it for a while and see what happens. Sometimes less is more and this could be one of those times.

Ps. Linking up with
C.R.A.F.T.
Someday Crafts
Blue Cricket Design
Domestically Speaking

Birthday party

2011-08-23T11:59:00.000-05:00

A few weeks ago we had a birthday party for our oldest who's growing up fast. I'm not one to go overboard with birthday decorations but I wanted to make it special for her. So with a little ingenuity and a few dollars I spruced up our dining room for the day.

First I needed some pretty stands to display cupcakes on the table.

The glass plate from a microwave oven that died on us and a glass candle stick from the thrift store...

... got a good scrubbing with soapy water and a few coats of white spray paint...

... before being glued together with E6000 glue. The top is only sprayed on the underside to make it food safe.

A thrift store cheese dome and a Dollar tree candle stick met with a similar fate.

But only the wooden part got a light sanding and a few coats of black craft paint.

So simple to do and such a great result. I feel the urge to have more cupcakes around now :)

Around that same time I also got this vase at the thrift store. Hideous color but great shape.

Same procedure as above.

And it found a new home in the dining room. A single fake leaf tops it off (found at Habitat for $1).

A helium balloon for your birthday is a must.

It had to hang out in the car for a little bit while I got some more birthday party shopping done and the heat de-plumped it really fast. Still hanging in there, though :)

One double pack of yellow crepe streamers from the Dollar tree went a long way towards partying up the dining room.

Pink tissue paper on the table under the plastic table cloth sets the girly pink theme.

Cupcakes...

... more cupcakes, guests and an ice cream cake make for a very happy birthday girl!

Another year under the belt!

Beautiful things

2011-08-11T18:02:00.000-05:00

School starts in a week. I'm running a little behind on my posting so I'll throw in my collected beautiful images for now.

Shoestring Pavilion

Beachy/Parisian lamp

Thumb tack tables

Dresser transformation

Sage winter advice, random

Fancy-pants trays

Faux moss skeleton key

Moroccan/Granny lanterns

Morocco meets beach

Foiled and shoepolished secretary

Cascading flowers mobile

New beginnings (I know, a little dramatic, but it is what it is)

Fall wreath and a pause

Bible/book cover, semi-homemade

Birthday party

Beautiful things

Whimsical duct tape bed

Landfill decorating

Fail to ethnic chic in 2 hours

Question - kooky or kool?

Place mat lampshade

Trying to keep my nose above water...

Doubloon storage boxes and kids' room guided tour

Shell specimen frames (kid friendly)

Bathroom floor cloth and randomness

Inspiration again