I Will Not Be Foiled Again!

My little title cracks me up!

I had a drama teacher in junior high that used to say (constantly to a couple boys in class) that the worst comedian is the one who laughs at his own jokes first.  Every time I laugh at myself first I think of him....

Ok back on point here.

We ended yesterday with this fiasco

After I failed at my first attempt (you can read about it here), I decided to go a more fail proof method.  SPRAY PAINT.  Like I said yesterday, I do not believe my first failure is due to the tutorial I followed. Problem was I didn't FOLLOW her tutorial.  I took her instructions as mere suggestions.  Yeah, not good.  Follow instructions people!

After laughing at my final product (well almost final, never actually finished), I pulled all the foil off and scrubbed the modge podge off as best as I could.  The next morning, I lightly sanded and prepared to start over.

I used this pin on Pinterest as my final inspiration.

Photo and Tutorial from The Homeless Finch

Using Rustoleum Metallic spray paint, I painted the entire nightstand.  The coverage was awesome.  Not even a whole can (I was prepared with 2 cans!).  Once the table was dry, I took a rag and wiped a Minwax Special Walnut stain I had on hand and wiped it all lightly with the stain.  I let the stain sit for just a couple of minutes and then with a clean rag, I wiped it off lightly.  I LOVE the final product and it was exactly as I originally hoped for!

In a pleasant turn of events, the original failure turned out to be a bit of success!!!  The modge podge left behind a slight texture that gave the stain somewhere to stick for a more antiqued finish.  Even failures can be successes.

Still have a lot left to do in the new room of J's:

1. Bedding
2. Throw pillows
3. Paint focal wall behind bed
4. Paint remaining 4 walls a soft gray
5. Nightstand redo
6. Cover lampshade for her Goodwill revamped lamp
7. DIY upholstered and tufted headboard (SO EXCITED about this project!)
8. Curtains
9. Refinish Vanity
10. Throw rug
11. Chandelier/New light fixture
12. Refinish her cabinet
13. LARGE bulletin board
14. Art work/Pictures up on the walls

This is turning out to be a very slow redo but I am sure we will LOVE it once it is finished!

I am playing along with some of bloggings best!

Linking up with 

Young House Love

Bower Power

Decor and The Dog

The Remodeled Life

Laundry Service Not Included

With only 2 rooms left in our house "builder cream" we set out to knock one of those off our my list.

Our laundry room started out like this:

Now, don't be jealous of my HUGE laundry room. I know you are.  It's tough being this cool sometimes.  Don't hate.

After pinning some major inspiration pictures like this from Living with Lindsay's amazing blog:

 

Seriously people, this room makes we want to start another project RIGHT NOW!  This farmhouse bed just might be on my to do list.  

Ok, back to the laundry room.  

I then pinned this blog for inspiration from Amy at Eat. Sleep. Decorate on the organizational side of the laundry room.

 

She gives a link on her blog for free label printables from BHG.  Printed them from home, used laminating sheets purchased from Walmart and clipped them with clothespins onto bins from Walmart.

I debated for a long time about whether or not I wanted grey and white or my brownish-tan neutral that is used throughout my downstairs.  (There is no name because years ago we ordered a certain shade and it was TERRIBLE but we had 5 gallons purchased so we asked Kwal paint to fix it based on what we described that we wanted.  They came up with this and we LOVE it).  In the end we ruled out a grey simply because I still had a good amount left of this color.  Free paint won in the end.

My husband, after coordinating his shirt to match the tape and stripes, went to town deciding on a method to measure off the zig zags.  I was introduced to this chalk and string thingy.  And, yes, that is the technical name.  By far the coolest tool ever.  I have 3 other rooms in my house with stripes.  Any idea how easy they would have been to do if I had known about this tool?!?!  Consider my life changed.

Now here is a very UNPROFESSIONAL illustration of how to get clean lines when striping a wall.  Works wonders.

Final product:

And, since I love a good side by side comparison:

Not bad for 24 hours work!

I am (for the first time :) participating in the Pinterest Challenge with some of my very favorite blogs!

Bower Power

Young House Love

Ten June

Centsational Girl

I am also linking up to Kristen's Creations

I joining in on the fun with

And if you are reading this post (as of February 6, 2013) from Pinterest because you Pinterest people are AMAZING, PLEASE click on the Creating with the Stars button, scroll down to link #112 in that post and click back to this post!  It helps me out in their competition.  Me, my blog and my house will love you forever :)

I've Got Sunshine....

I mentioned back during our Memorial Day trip to the lake, that Amanda and I began some pinterest inspired DIY projects.  Here are the final two projects!

Using the same old fence panels Rusty and I used to build a small kids computer desk and a console table for behind our sectional, we built a wood sign for Amanda.  Free wood, a little stain she already had, a cricut cut contact paper stencil, and acrylic paint....a huge piece of FREE art.

Here is the pinterest inspiration:

Source: shanty-2-chic.com via Amanda on Pinterest

Here is our completed version:

I would have much preferred a picture of her sign hung up, but she moves slow :)  She has it hung, just hasn't emailed me the photo yet.

The next project was another reclaimed wood sign that I pinned on pinterest.  I thought this was an adorable idea that would look GREAT in our alphabet wall playroom.  Here are the inspiration pictures:

Source: lemontreecreations.blogspot.com via Alicia on Pinterest

Source: lh3.ggpht.com via Alicia on Pinterest

Using the same contact paper stencil method from the Behave art, I stenciled this:

The green I choose didn't pop as much as it should have, but oh well.  Still lovin' it!

It has been so fun working on these.  I can't wait to find my next craft inspiration.  I guess off to pinterest I go....

Behave, Be & Have

Possibly one of my favorite Pinterest's inspired projects to date.  While camping over Memorial weekend, Amanda and I tackled a few projects.  They are done now!

Here is the inspiration:

Source: etsy.com via Alicia on Pinterest

I have wanted to do some type of family rule board for a little while.  This particular one caught my eye because it has the same colors that we decorated our family room in.

We, by we I mean Rusty, cut a piece of plywood.  He has allowed me to do a lot as far as my little DIY projects go, but power tools are not one those things.  We appreciate me having 2 hands and all 10 fingers.

I planned on using my cricut to cut vinyl for a stencil for the words.  Enter dear ole' Amanda and her save a $1 plans.  She suggests we use cardstock since we both had more than enough on hand and it is so cheap.  Cardstock was a FLOP!  I had to start all over because the paint bled under the paper so badly.  Her idea did lead me to think outside the vinyl box.  I tried some old clear contact paper I had on hand, and it worked great!  

Not only is it a favorite craft project, it also has proven to be the most time consuming.  Worth it though!  

We are loving how it looks in our family room in our ever growing fun photo wall!  

Another Installment of Alicia's Copy Cat Crafts!

We can just call me the Crafty Copy Cat.  I am always first to admit that most of my craft attempts are copycats of something I have seen. 

Recently I repinned this sphere on Pinterest.  First off, I LOVE her blog title!  Hill Country Homebody.  So cute.  Back to the sphere.

I saw these on Pinterest, and when I realized how darn easy they are, I made a trip to Hobby Lobby!  For $2 I purchased (2) 6" embroidery hoops.  Honestly, $1.60.  I am such a cheap-o that I used my mobile 40% off coupon on a $.99 item.  Yep, that cheap.

To get the gray color, I mixed a black and white acrylic paint that I already had.  Again, spending 99 more cents on gray acrylic paint was out of the question.

Love how it came out and so easy!  I plan to make a larger one to sit beside it, just haven't done it yet. Thanks again Pinterest!  And, Hill Country Homebody!

DIY Camera Bag

I said I wanted to share my craft/diy projects here.  I realized during this project that I was also going to have to share what a FLOP they could turn out to be.  This was almost one.

http://jototes.com/handbags/rose-black

 Having seen these camera bags that look like purses I knew that I wanted one!  Rusty and I share an illness that requires us to try to DIY anything before we buy it.  Well, at $89 I wasn't really in the market to buy this bag anyway.  Like all things just search Pinterest for it!  I found this tutorial over at vanillaandlace.blogspot.com. 



vanillaandlace bag

I am not going into how to make it (just see her tutorial).  No, instead I am going to tell you the couple of things I did wrong.

First off, I didn't read the instructions.  I have a bad habit of having too much confidence in my abilities.  Particulary, those abilities that require a sewing machine. 

Second, and this wasn't my choice.  The tutorial calls for foam padding to be between 1/2'' - 3/4'' thick.  All I could find in Hobby Lobby was 1" thick foam.  I had to use a sharp knife to slice through it so that my sides would not be too thick.  Not easy my friends.

Third, I bought fabric without deciding which purse I was going to use.  Great fabric.  Only problem is I ended up deciding to go with a brown purse that I had that was a perfect size.  Brown and black wouldn't have been my first choice, but the color combo is very trendy right now.  This turned out to be a happy accident.


The turqouise is an accent color for another camera project

Fourth, I did not read instructions.  Yes, I said that already.  But it needed to be repeated.  I got to measuring, cutting, and sewing.  Got all 4 sides almost attached for the base.  Then read instructions and realized that I did not need 4 sides just 2 long ones.  I was thankful for this mistake because one of my sides was too long anyway. And, it didn't fit into the purse either.  Oh boy.  Easy enough fix.  Just remove the 2 small ends that were unneccessary. 

All in all, after all mistakes were corrected, it turned out great!



Lots of room for my camera and lenses.  And plenty of room for the new lens that I want....hint, hint, hubby ;)

You can see a little bit of the camera strap I made to coordinate with the bag.  Very happy with it all!  I am making a promise to myself to save time and fabric in the future by reading instructions though.

I am sharing over at Kristens Creations

Pinterest Playroom

Blah.  This is how I would describe our playroom.  With 7 years of just little girls, this room has always been feminine.  Now that both girls are in school all day, Colton is spending more and more time in here.  It was time to gender neutralize it!  I needed this room to not only be an attractive space for my daughters (9 & 7) and son (2 ½), but also be age appropriate for all 3.  This was not easy!

I forgot to take the picture before the dark purple sheers came down from the window and the VERY GIRLY art came down behind the bed, but here is the ugly and embarrassingly boring before:



Then I found this picture.  This became my starting point. 

Alphabet wall inspiration

Shortly after deciding on the alphabet wall (not yet knowing where all my letters would come from), I found these 3 fabrics from Hobby Lobby.  I also purchased a large US map and poster frame for the room.

Now began the task of tracking down all of my letters.  Some were easy- the O is a decorative life preserver, the T a cross made of horseshoes, and the I a metal traffic light (all 3 from HL).  My incredibly handy hubby cut me the A & Z out of scrap MDF we had out in our garage.  As for the rest, they were either unfinished wood from HL that I used acrylic paint on or I DIY’d them from other materials I had lying around (lots of scrapbook paper, old frames, metal wire, old wood artwork, vinyl etc).

The wall color is Silver Aluminum by Kwal and I adore the paint color so it stayed.  Although, if you don’t know this, I do have a paint addiction and am very willing to repaint anything and everything at anytime! 

I sewed new pillowcases and recovered existing throw pillows with my fabric. 

I then put the incredibly talented hubby back to the saw again for arched cornices.  Just for fun I have thrown in a pic of our redneck way of drawing the arch.

Funny thing is, I was convinced it was uneven.  I measured it (you know, to prove my point to Rusty) and what do you know- it was even!

Next up was covering the cornices.  NOT FUN!  I used spray adhesive for the batting.  That was easy.  Wrapping fabric around the arch, NOT SO EASY. 

Really happy with how it all turned out though! 

I plan to do something above the television with large pictures of each individual kiddo (either canvas or framed poster size prints).

Maybe next time I am bored I will pretty up this disaster (the closet)….

I am sharing over at Kristen's Creations, Savvy Southern Style, and Home Stories A to Z