Sad Chair / Happy Chair
Sad Toddler Rocking Chair:
Happy Toddler Shark Chair:
With the hand-painted details and appropriate sanding for a vintage look:
with imperfections and personality:
A tip for painting something like this that has lots of nooks, crannies, and joints: use spray paint. It’s nearly impossible to hide brush strokes, and it’ll cut your painting time by over half.
A tip for achieving a vintage look: use desaturated colors, and use a different base color if you plan on doing some sanding. It’ll make those “wear marks” look more authentic.
$1 Toy Box Makeover
I couldn’t pass it up: a toybox crying for help. Somehow I was able to take this great little toybox home for a dollar.
I girl’d it up for someone special that has her first birthday coming up. My favorite spray paint, 1/2 yard of this great fabric, grossgrain ribbon trim and lots of Mod Podge created this:
Hope she likes it!
{and sidenote, after fabric and mod podge is dry, you can easily remove the fabric and it won’t damage the wood.}
Baby Gate Makeover
I have a stack of beautiful new Waverly fabric that I wanted to put to use. Just a few inches from my stack of fabric is my baby gate I’ve told you all about. Then it occurred to me that it wouldn’t be *too* terribly obnoxious to spruce up my baby gate, would it?
Here’s the before:
And here’s the after:
The width of the fabric was the perfect for the height of the gate. I cut 1″ notches along the width of the fabric and ripped strips off, then wove them through the gate with a little knot at the top and bottom. Other ideas I had along the way include spray painting the gate something a little more vibrant using spray paint for plastic, or hanging baby toys on it. I know you’re not supposed to help the gate stand out, but, HELLO?! How can you not see it already?
Fabric used: “Sweet Spot” and “Ring Toss” brand new fabrics from Waverly.
Loving Dresser Vanities
Via Google Image Search {click pictures for links}
…on my bucket list of “in my someday house”
Goodwill Party Pleasers
Needing to get out of the house the other day, I sent an “S.O.S” to my mom to meet me for lunch. Some mexican food and diet coke killed an hour, but I wasn’t ready to go back home, so baby and I stopped by Goodwill. I always hesitate when I go there because it’s such a hit or miss. Some days I leave with treasures, and some days I leave with fleas and ringworm. Despite getting the heebies, I found a couple great finds for a Valentine’s Day party I’m throwing next month.
This straight-out-of-the-seventies ceramic owl planter {$6.99} met my can of white spray paint {free} for a fun favor holder:
And this wooden tray got slightly less country and a little more Valentine-y when it met a fun pink spray paint {$4} and spray glitter {$3} and piece of scrapbook paper + mod podge. I wish you could see better, it is COATED in glitter!
A Makeover and a Giveaway!
It sounds impossible, but painting straight lines is easy to do. I helped my friend update her master bedroom with a few straight lines and a strie paint technique. This only took about three hours of work and a thirty minute trip to TJ Maxx for Accessories.
The secret to a great line when you’re painting is getting the right tape! Scotch’s Blue Painter’s Tape with Edge-Lock will give you great results each time if you do this secret extra step. Check out my little video on how I tape off lines (please disregard the fact that I think my hair is long enough to wear a pony-tail when it’s not). The really dimply wall texture Shannon had put this tape to the test, but we had almost no touch up to do!
Here are the before pics:
Here are the after pics:
The stripe behind the low bed draws your eye up, making the room look bigger. The natural look of the strie ties in the shells on the lamps and the other browns in the room. It helps give the room dimension.
We mirrored the stripe on the opposite wall behind the dresser.
Close-Up of the Strie:
Here’s a quick look video at the before and after.
Now for the Giveaway!
Scotch is giving away a FREE ROLL OF Blue Painter’s Tape with Edge Lock to 16 READERS! Leave a comment below for your chance to win!
Comments will close at midnight PST on Wednesday Jan. 26 2011. Good Luck!
Immortalized T-Shirt Strikes Again
I bought a bunch of these silly T-shirts back when I was painting on the reg for David Bromstad’s show on HGTV. Why I bought a medium, I’ll never know. One load later it was a tube top.
But I still dig it, so I hung it in my office above my computer. I’m not sugar-coating the status of my desk – here it is, in the raw, my home base for my business. Looks like I need to stop fiddling with T-shirts and fix this up a bit.
{See more immortalized T-shirts here}
Before and After: Freebie Cabinet
I came across this cute little cabinet on Craigslist for free about a month back. Did I have a *NEED* for a new cabinet? No. Could I leave it helpless on someone’s curb? Hell no. Ha! Okay, maybe it wasn’t that serious, but I’m a furniture nurse and this little lady had a long road to recovery with no health insurance. I couldn’t sit idly by!
Luckily for me, the previous owner did most of the stripping/sanding; there was very little left to do! I think this used to be some kind of mid-century built-in cabinet because it had some oddities. For one thing, the top only had an overhang on one side, and not on the other. It also had a notch cut out on one side. I bought a new top and got a fancy little trim to hide the old edge.
Since I didn’t have a *NEED* for this cabinet, I painted it a neutral black hoping that it could be used in different places until I settled on the right spot. Doesn’t mean it can’t be a little fun on the inside! I used my favorite Rust-Oleum Ultracover2x spray paint {with comfort nozzle}, and in retrospect wished I painted the inside yellow. Oh well.
I tend to move my furniture around a lot – so I added casters so it would move more easily, and because who doesn’t love casters?
Made a little brass cleaner with household items to shine up the ultra-cool lion-head pulls.
Primed with my new favorite Zinsser primer {seriously heavy-duty primer!}, and painted with Glidden’s Satin Black.
So, remember the before?
Here she is, discharged and thriving:
An Apartment-Sized Christmas and My Little Bug
Affectionately named “Booger Bean”. He’s got Santa fooled. {Hat from Tippy Toppers}
Photoshop Brushes
In order to make time AWAY from the computer, I use shortcuts. Free Photoshop Brushes online helped me create a few Halloween party details in record timing…
This Creepy Trees brush set for a Halloween party poster…
This Graveyard Brush set and Toxic Brush set to make “Spooky Juice” and “Toxic Water” labels.
To use Photoshop Brushes
- Download .ABR file from any photoshop brush site, and save it to your desktop.
- Open Photoshop
- Open the Brushes palette via the “Window” menu item at the top
- In the Brushes palette, there’s a small arrow at the top right. Under the flyout menu there’s an option to “load brushes”.
- Navigate to your downloaded .ABR file and select.
Free Halloween Party Decorations
Cover up your existing pictures with images from the internet. I did several Google searches to find my subjects; spider anatomy, skeletons, and brains. I printed them out, mounted them on mat board (you could use construction paper or skip this step), and mounted with earthquake gum. Oh, and I used a gold ink pad to make the paper look a little dirty.
Free and unexpected Halloween decor. Booya.
Outdoor Globe String Lights
{photo taken at wedding #2}
We had two weddings to attend this weekend, one of which had strings of globe lights for their outdoor wedding. I couldn’t help but watch them, envying a large backyard so I could have these too! With Owen nearly on the crawl, I’m already feeling squished in my 1200-square-foot condo, and dreaming of a large backyard to set him free has been on the forefront of my mind lately. Please tell me these aren’t a fad, and that they’re here to stay!
{Image via Lanterns and Lights}
{Image via Lanterns and Lights}
At $35 per string and up, globe lights are only a small fortune away… but I’ve gotta work on getting that big backyard first.
Wicker Chair Makeover
My mom did a chair makeover this weekend, and she sent over some before/afters. Because my mom has a self-proclaimed passion for “topstitching and piping,” her sewing always turns out completely tailored. Check out how she matched the fabrics to keep the tulips moving in the same direction. She said had she done curtains, the tulips would have faced up, but since it was a chair, tulips facing up would have given you a view of the stems. Not quite as pretty! She always has the patience and vision in the details, something I severely need to work on.
And of course, check out the chair topped with one of her infamous pillows!
Drool… Beautiful Furniture on Etsy
Stumbled on this original furniture somehow on Etsy, I don’t have the money for it, but I love it. The “distressed” doors are painted using oils. Beautiful! Find them Wheelers Studio.
Halloween Jars
After collecting jars for the “Cute as a Button” baby shower I threw, I wasn’t sure if I needed to keep them… and then I saw this from Chica and Joe {via Google Image search}. Looks like I have an easy Halloween project ahead of me. So cute!
