Valentine Necklaces

Valentine pendants I made for a fundraiser at school. Chipboard, paint, scrap paper, mod podge, sanding block, ribbon, buttons, E6000 glue, and a little bling. The green one above is my favorite, I think.

A New Project: Refinishing Furniture

I'm working on refinishing a small wooden piece that goes in our bedroom. The AFTER pics are coming soon. Here's the BEFORE (minus the drawers).

A little sand paper and a lot of elbow grease. I'm showing off my dust mask. (Hot, I know. I don't think I had even brushed my hair at this point in the day and yesterday's mascara is running down my face).

After sanding and vacuuming all the dust; I added some primer. I'm really impressed with this primer.

And then it must dry overnight. Or at least I'm making it dry overnight b/c I'm too tired to add the final touches. I originally bought some linen colored paint to finish it off but now I'm leaning towards black. What do you think?

Decorating with Numbers

I'm loving the look of decorating with numbers. I used my vinyl machine to cut numbers to embellish the front of an Antique dresser in my foyer.

Feel free to use these numbers here for your own project (just click to enlarge, then right click, save as):

I also added some vinyl art to my front door (inside and out). I'm probably overdoing it with the vinyl. But I'm having fun in the meantime. :)

Simple and Sweet Baby Shower Ideas

I hosted a baby shower for my cousin and his wife today. It was simple and sweet. Little Maleigha made off with lots of goodies.

We served three flavors of cupcakes that we made ourselves (vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry). Topped them with some sugary sparkles and a personalized cupcake topper. Stacked them on tiered servers.

Served this slushy punch. Nice and tart, if you like tart. Ingredients: Country time lemonade, pineapple juice, water, Sprite

Made these crackers to off set the sugar. A little spicy (ok, a lot spicy for some of us). Ingredients: Whole grain saltine crackers, vegetable oil, ranch dressing powder mix, garlic powder, crushed red peppers. You cover the crackers with the mixture, shake them up until evenly coated, and toss in the oven for a few minutes. There are lots of different takes on this recipe that you can find online. Just search for saltine cracker recipes. There is even a taco flavored recipe.

We decorated with floral fabric for the table runner and girly doll clothes to hang with clothespins. Bright and colorful, a step away from the traditional pastels. 

Cupcake Toppers - Make your own

 

To dress up your cupcakes, make your own cupcake toppers.

1.trim scrapbook paper (I used double sided thick scrapbook paper) to 8.5 x 11 or to fit your printer

2. design the topper in microsoft word or photoshop elements (I sized them 1.5 x 1.5 inches each)

3. copy and paste the designed topper to fill the page

4. print and cut

5. glue the toppers on a toothpick using a small dot of white elmer's glue

Antique Brick Backsplash - Before and After

Before:

This is an old project, but I thought I would go ahead and post the How-to, in case anyone is interested.

We wanted our backsplash in our kitchen to be be unique and have an old-world look to it.

We purchased antique brick called "Texas Antique" from Metro Brick and Stone. We had a masonry worker slice off the face of the brick (about one half inch thick). Antique brick is reclaimed from old buildings and streets.

We used a trowel to apply ceramic tile adhesive to the wall and using very precise, highly sophisticated tools we spaced out the bricks. Those "highly sophisticated" tools we used for spacers are called markers and pencils. We just jabbed them in the gaps. Then, we ran out of those and found a bucket of wire nuts that worked just fine. You don't want it to look perfectly even, even if you are married to a Type A perfectionist like someone else I know. 

  

After it dried, we grouted the brick using tile grout in a color that matched the mortar on the outside of our house. We like the old-world messy mortar look so we smeared it a bit. Then we sealed it all with a stone/tile sealer for protection. 

After:

Cost: It ended up costing about $10 a square foot b/c of having to purchase the brick and then hiring someone with a masonry saw to do the cuts for us. We have a cozy kitchen, so we didn't have that much wall to cover; it was not that pricey of a project for our space. Tile (ceramic or natural stone) would have been more economical. All-in-all, we are pleased with the look and feel of the old brick.

Posted on The Thrifty Chick's Before-and-After: 

Trash to Treasure? I have a vision for these dirty ugly chairs.

I'm going to make a home for these grungy chairs that I found at the junk store today. The best part? $10 each. Yep. My husband was with me when I spotted these. He was waiting in the car and didn't know I was going to actually buy them. I gave the man a check incognito and had my brother go pick them up later and take them to my parent's house. Sometimes a girl has to be sneaky like that (especially when she has a vision).

So, here's my vision: give them a bath, paint them black, sand and distress, and cover the cushions in burlap or painter's drop cloth (thanks to shanty2chic for that idea). :) I'll post a before and after someday.

I can just see them now...all frenchy and cute in a little sitting area with a table in between. 

Go ahead. Click on the picture to enlarge to see just how dirty they really are. I swear these were out in the barn with the cows. Do cows stay in a barn?

Wall Art: Redo w. Burlap

Since the new colors of my bedroom makeover do not include red, the red pictures had to go! Here's the before:

Here's what I did:

I took the pictures apart removing the backing the print and the mat.

Spray painted the frame a matte black.

Covered the picture mat in burlap using a hot glue gun.

Designed a small print for the center of the frame using Photoshop Elements; printed at Kinko's on laser paper.

Put it all back together (carefully).

Love the new look and glad I didn't go spend more money on new wall art. What do you think?

I added this before-and-after to the Thrifty Decor Chick's site. Check it out for more re-do's. 

Master Bedroom Redo coming soon

So, I get bored easily with the same-o-same-o. We got an itchin to flip our master bedroom, furniture and all. Then we went shopping and picked out two different furniture sets that we liked (ok loved). One, Paula Deen set from Dillard's. Just gorgeous like your grandmother's antiques. The other, a dark, rich Bernhardt grouping from Stacy's. After drooling over them both, we came home to think about it. Is it smart to dip into your savings in this economy for bedroom pretties? Is it financially responsible to spend $5-6K on bedroom furniture!?! After much thought, we have decided to keep what we have (did I mention it's a mod  hodge podge (yes, I initally put "mod" podge. Ha! I do loves me some mod podge) of this-and-that, a combination of hand-me-downs and garage sale finds?). So, on a budget of $xxx, we're attempting to completely change our room. Before and after pics coming soon. But for now, here are two things that I've purchased.

Bedding from Bed, Bath & Beyond in aqua. I cannot believe I chose something in the blue family. That's just not me but that's a whole other post.

And the side table (2) from JCPenney (on clearance for $119).