Weak

Whats "weak" mean you ask?  Well I will tell you--- "weak" is the word I would use for not posting in an ENTIRE WEEK!  Gasp!  I know.  

So what has been keeping me busy?  I'll tell you... I got a temporary grill on Friday (not a Foreman or Weber..we are talking about teeth people), spent the weekend complaining about my mouth hurting, visited with a bunch of high school friends Saturday night, coupon shopped and ran by the thrift store on Sunday and I have been insanely busy at work this week which means no time to blog at night (luckily I LOVE my job:)).  

I'll post about my most amazingly fantastic thrift store find from this weekend soon-- this one is E-X-C-I-T-I-N-G- for real!

Chat soon!

Carolyn 

Pillows a-la IKEA!

So... judge all you want but this girl is a big fan of IKEA!  I ran over there this past Sunday and was pretty excited about my uber cheap purchases.  Wanna see?  Bet you do.... 

So before hitting up the "Last Chance" corner which is full of their sale and clearance stuff I ran through the store real quick and found these great black and white "frankenstein-ish" pillows.  So the pillows have nothing to do with Frankenstein but the design on it reminds me of the big knob things that come out of his neck.  Anyways... back to the point.  I decided that even though I am quite the sewer and can make my own pillows that I liked these enough to pick up two.  At $12.95/piece they were fairly inexpensive.  THEN... I made my way to the sale corner- MY FAVE!  Low and behold what did I find there?  Two black and white pillow shells (i.e. the outside of the pillow with no stuffing in them) they were- get this- only $2.99 a piece.  I couldn't find anything wrong with them so in my cart they went!  I also found  a really thick piece of white fabric for $1.00 so I picked that up to and stitched up a new pillow when I got home.  Here are my newbies...

Pillow cover stuffed with some batting

Pillow cover, Frankenstein pillow, green pillows I made a while back, new white
pillow, and another Frankenstein pillow :) 

Love me some good cheap finds!

Carolyn 

how'd they get so smart?

So I am OBSESSED (seriously) with searching for and reading blogs.  I truly cant help it-- its a addiction.  Luckily this is one of those addictions that isn't really frowned upon.

Anywho-- I was doing my normal nightly blog search and found the most clever idea... kitchen cabinet's fancied into a kitchen bench..who'd a thunk it?  Well, I'll tell you who... Aubrey and Lindsay did.  Check out there project...

Credit: Aubrey and Lindsay at Blogspot.  There project in the works. 



Credit: Aubrey and Lindsay at Blogspot.  Final Product.

You can check out all the details on their blog at http://aubreyandlindsay.blogspot.com/2009/11/making-seating-bench-in-kitchen.html.  So  I have been walking around my house all night trying to figure out where I could put some make-shift-kitchen-cabinet-turned-benches.... there doesn't seem to be an obvious spot in my house... hmmm....

Carolyn

Cornice headboard

I am not sure if I am committing a major style crime but I have to confess that I do not have 1 set of window treatments up in this house... I know, crazy, right?  It's not that I am against them...cause I'm not, it's just that I think it is equally as pretty with out them.  There is a point here, I promise....

I went thrifting this weekend with my mom, sister, and niece and found a cornice for dirt cheap...$5.00!  I wasn't 100% sold because like I said, I don't have any window treatments up in my house and there was only 1-single window cornice.  Realistically there was only 1 room it could go in- the room my sweet little niece sleeps in when she stays over since that is the only room in the house with 1 single window.  I decided to take the plunge and see how it turned out... I'm crazy like that...

Here she is.. nice but a little too ornate for my taste.

I got out my staple gun and some fabric that I purchased a few months back on a MAJOR clearance.  They were selling a yard for $2.99 so I purchased all of the fabric they had.... 5 yards.  I wasn't sure what I was going to do with it but I knew a project would come along:) 

Ripped all the fabric off... there were a TON of staples!

Here she is naked as a jaybird!

I laid the fabric out on my island and cut around the cornice..enough fabric to make sure the entire thing was covered.  The rest was pretty easy!  Just pulled the fabric tight and started stapling on the inside.  Here is one of the corners.  Neatness clearly does not count:) 

        

           

Here she is ALL finished!

So this is the not so fantastic part of the story... I was super proud of my work...showed my husband and explained to him about 15 times what a cornice is  (he still doesn't get it) and then ran it upstairs to put her on the wall above the window.  When I got up there I realized that it is about two inches too narrow and it doesn't fit around the window frame. UGH!!!!! Way to go smarty pants... would have been MUCH smarter to check that before spending an hour on this project.  It's OK though.. this girl has got a plan B.  I think we are getting a twin bed for our second guest room and if we do- this pretty little thing will be the headboard:) Until then she will sit all by herself in an empty bedroom.  

I have about 4 more yards of this fabric...what else should I do with it???

Carolyn 

November GOALS!

Since I JUST posted about my late September and October goals I figured I should set some goals for November.   Here are some things I hope to accomplish...


1.  Paint the kitchen!  This is a HUGE job that will take some mullah for paint and supplies... SO, if I cant finagle it this month then I will scale down my goal and paint the downstairs bath instead!


2.  Continue collecting plates for my plate wall.  I have 7 now... need about 7 or 8 more  before they can go up.


3.  Make a picture wall in my family room... I'm thinking something like these...  just not sure if I should go with all 1 color frame like black or white OR if I should mix it up and use black, white, silver, gold... what do you all think? 

Source: Nuestra Vida Dulce

Source: Young House Love

That's it!  I think November is going to be a uber busy month with family and shopping and cooking so I am keeping my goals to a minimum. 

What are your goals for November? 

Carolyn

Goal Update!

First of all-- HAPPY HALLOWEEN everyone!

K..now that the formalities are out of the way lets get to business.  Time to figure out if I was successful in meeting my September/October goals or if I fell flat on my face and failed miserably.  Lets take a look shall we?

Here were the goals that I set on September 20th... i.e. 6 weeks ago. 

1. Find a table to go between these living room chairs... 

2. Fall up my front stoop

3. Revive my coffee table that looked like this...

4.  Maintain my weight loss

5.  Make some art- a la Young House Love.

Here is the low down on how I did...

1.  GOAL: Find a table to go between my living room chairs. How did I do?  Well I will tell you... I FAILED miserably.  Lets be real though people, if the thrift store doesn't have anything then I am out of luck.  Still on the search.

2.  GOAL:  Fall up my front stoop.  Well you all know that I was successful here!  Look at my pretty after:  

3.  GOAL:  Revive my coffee table.  MAJOR success!  Take a look at the before pic above and at the after below...  I am a smitten kitten. 

4.  GOAL: Maintain weight loss.  Not sure after this Halloween weekend but as of a few days ago I had maintained!

5.  GOAL: Make some art like Young House Love did.  Massive Fail.  I promise it wasn't based on my effort... I tried to follow the directions but I could never get the cute little cut out "T" large enough to fill more than a 3x5 frame.  For some reason me and directions do not mix at all! 

So basically out of 5 goals I was successful in 3 of them and I failed miserably at two of them..

BUT to look at the much brighter side here are ALL the other things I accomplished during those 6 weeks...

1.  Updated a dresser

2.  Made a new little jewelry holder from a $2.00 thrift store find

3.  Painted my front door!

4.  Updated my Mantel for Halloween

5.  Made some art

Hope you all had a BUSY and productive month!

Carolyn

copy-cat dresser

I tend to like the word borrowed more than stole... but to be perfectly honest I flat out stole this idea from one of my FAVORITE Blogs, Young House Love!

Let me back up a wee bit... remember how incredibly excited I was to find this thrift store dresser a few weeks back for 10 tiny dollars??

Well, I was!  I knew I wanted to do something special with her but wasn't really sure what that would be...so I took to my computer and started to get ideas from some of my favorite blogs.  That's when I found Sherry and Jon's re-make of "almost" the same dresser.  Here is their after pic...

NOT MINE:)  Inspiration from Young House Love!

I probably shouldn't have posted that picture cause lets be honest, mine is not even close to that good... so go ahead and lower your standards a little bit.  A little bit more.  K.  Here is my re-make...

So after looking over my cheap-o dresser I decided that the veneer was too thin to sand and paint...so I had to move to option 2: spray paint.  I love me some spray paint but lets be real...espresso is a hard color to grasp from paint.  Regardless, I picked up some Rustoleum spray paint in espresso and got to work.  After sanding and a few coats this is what I ended up with:

Shiny, huh?  So, is it the same as the inspiration piece?  Not exactly...but the brown is close--just missing the pretty wood grain.  Once it dried I moved onto the white top.  Here it is after three coats:

Sorry for the odd yellow-ish pictures... I cant decide if its my camera or if it is because I am taking pictures at night and using lamps for light (KATE--- a little advice please).  

So... what do you think?  Not spot on but a close replica right?!?  :) For about $20.00 total this was a makeover that was def worth it to me! 

She is currently sitting in our guest bedroom, which is in need of some TLC.  With the dresser done I am ready to tackle the rest....moving onto a fun comforter, some wall art, and some accessories.  Stay tuned:) 

Carolyn

a place for my jewels

Look at what I found last week at the thrift store... this ugly little thing...
I am guessing it is a "catch-all" or jewelry holder---at least that is what I am going to use it for!

It was only $2.00 so I figured I would take it home and add a little spray paint action to it.   LOVE it!  Now I have another spot to put the jewelry that I wear on a somewhat regular basis... She's pretty right? 

Love a 5 minute project that costs nearly nothing AND helps to organize things:) 


Carolyn