Table lamp re-do

Last week Friday I had the pleasure of guest posting over at Mammy Made.

Adele is the cute hip mom behind the blog. Hope you had a chance to check her out and her blog. I wanted to share with you guys (FINALLY) the project I shared on her blog.

So, the long awaited lamp project.... dun, dun, dun...

Here is the post!

Today I want to share my long awaited lamp re-do project.

I always see these great lamp projects all over blogland and of course I had to do one myself.

I had searched the thrift stores for a while before finding the shape that I liked.

I found this one a while back and it's been on my project to do list since.

I decided to do a light yellow, and for the life of me I can't figure what motivated me, but I like the color. Breaks up all the black and grey in my livingroom.

I lightly sanded the lamp base and sprayed it with about 3 coats of spray paint.

After searching and searching, I found a shade I liked from Target. Bleh, I had to pay shipping and it costs almost as much as the 2 oz shade!

When I saw my package I got excited all over again, and my fabric arrived at the same time!

And time to get bummed again.... the shade was totally damaged!

I debated returning it but for the hassle and the price I paid I decided to just pop it back into shape as best as I could. I'd be covering it anyway so hopefully it would cover up the damage.

It looked ok when I poped it back into shape and there was only one tiny hole.

I cut out a rough patter to cover the shade, that kinda sucked to be totally honest.

It was kind of intimidated to do this project, not sure why.

I think it had something to do with trying to cover the shade with that kind of shape. I was hoping to find a drum style that was even all the way around with no taper, but no such luck.

Once I got started though it wasn't so bad. I used craft/fabric glue and just glued the fabric to the inside just below the black trim. I used clothes pins to hold it in place as the glue dried.

Yes, this process took a while, here I am working into the night.

When it was all done, I was both relieved and so excited to finally finish it.

The fabric and the paint matched perfectly!

Sorry for the dark pictures, I kept forgetting to take daytime photos.

I used the same color yellow to spray paint a letter M for the wall as well.

This is the table that sits in our entryway.

The look of it keeps evolving.

I'm not done yet, but it's slowly getting there.

Before:

Well, thanks for having me and joining me for my lamp re-do project.

Come by and visit sometime, I'd be happy to have you!

Aloha!

DIY Soap Scum Killer

About a month ago, Jennifer from Life, Crafts and Whatever posted a miracle recipe.

She called it the Soap Scum Killa.

Ok, so its not really a Miracle but it sure does work like a dream.

I have white shower stalls and no doors just a shower curtain so me taking pictures of that is just pointless. But me sharing this recipe will be life changing.... ok maybe I'm being a tad overly dramatic but you'll love it.

First take two regular household items. Dawn liquid soap and vinegar, equal parts.

Put the vinegar in the microwave for about 1 minute and then add it to the Dawn.

Mix it well together.

It won't smell all that great.

Let it cool slightly before pouring into your spray bottle.

Otherwise you get this....

Yea, it melted, lesson learned.

All you have to do it spray it on let it sit for a bit and then scrub off.

I could never see my soap scum and I scrub my shower once a week.

When I used this concoction I noticed the water bead off the shower stall as if I had just polished it. I also used it on my bathroom sinks and my kitchen sink.

Loved it!

It's a cheap (free if you already have the stuff at home) and you know exactly what's going in it.

I'll be linking up at the parties at the bottom of my page, hope you guys try it out too!!



Let there be light...

I'm slowly chipping away at my list of Projects for 2012 and one being updating the lighting in my kitchen.

My kitchen has horrible lighting, infact when we moved in there was just a hole above the sink and no light fixture at all.

I picked up these lights on clearance for $7 for a pack of two. We have it in our kitchen, entryway, hallway and bathrooms. It was cheap and served its purpose.

Problem is, the light is really really dark, it doesnt give off enough light.

I always get frustrated washing dishes at night, or prepping food or even just taking blog photos.

I took to the internet for inspiration of course.

Over at the House of Smiths I found a post about her changing her kitchen light.

I loved it, the right look and the right price too.

So I went searching and found this pennant light on Ikea's website and unfortunately they do not sell it online and surprize surprize, we dont have an Ikea here.

Thankfully I found something similar over at Home Depot for $27.99.

And even better the hubby gladly installed it in less than 2 days of sitting on the kitchen counter! Yay!

I love it!! The light is just the right size and it is soooo much brighter in my kitchen now.

I think it was the perfect little project to start with.

It was cheap, fast and easy to do.

Makes me motivated to keep going with my projects, don't you like projects like that?

Lucky I didnt start with my cabinets...



I love my bloggy friends!!!

Here is just one more reason that I just love this blogging community.

It's kinda a my mother's cousin's brothers girlfriend's aunt who work with her uncle's grandma's classmate from grammar school kind of story.

It begins like this...

The CSI Project has it's weekly challenges.



This week's challenge was Window Treatments.

I have been having the hardest time to figure out what kind of window treatment to do in my kitchen. As you know I am determined to redo my kitchen this year as part of my projects for 2012.

A while back I book marked {this} post from Domestically Speaking who got the idea from Little Green Notebook. Love, love the idea and I still might do it yet.

Well, I thought, especially where I live, if I glue the fabric to the blinds how am I gonna take them off to wash, cause EVERYTHING gets dusty here. So I put that project to the side.
I brainstormed different ideas for curtians for the window above my kitchen sink. I kept going back to the idea of roman shades.

Today, I came across the most amazing idea yet and there are a ton of amazing ideas out there! Ok, maybe not the most amazing one but it was totally what I was looking for!

 So I was checking out the CSI Project for some window treatment inspiration and I came accross this Faux Roman Shades by Sam over at The Junk House
who got the idea from Tatertots and Jello from her post on Faux Roman Shades who got the idea from Faux Roman shade tutorial from Imparting Grace.

Are you guys still with me??

Well... can you guess what I'll be doing as soon as I order my fabric??

I'm so excited to tackle this project!

Projects for the New Year

Last year, I was just getting used to doing my own home projects.

This year, I'd like to really go for it!

Starting with this project.

We have only ONE water spicket in our front yard.

Its such a pain to drag the hose all the way to the side of the yard, either side of the yard to water the grass or plants that I used to have there. I say used to because they have since dried up and died from lack of watering!

Our plan is to tie into the one existing water spicket and run a  water pipe along the slab of our house and make another water spicket on the other side.

See below:

In theory, it all sounds simple... but we'll see.

This second project has been on my wish list since we moved in.

We have a fenced in backyard which is perfect for my son to run around and play and I dont have to worry about him going too far. Problem is, our backyard faces west and in the afternoon it is soooooo hot that I can't stand to be out there. When we have friends come over to BBQ we sweat so bad and its so uncomfortable. We need a pergola or some sort of shade above our back patio.

This is a big project for us, we need to watch out for our roof line and cannot permanently tie into the house or we'll have to get permits and drawings and inspections, blah, blah... all stuff that is just too much trouble for a little shade.

Our backyard also used to be home to my hubby's little crabbing boat. It took up a good portion of our already small backyard and the spot where it sat wont grow grass.

I want to reclaim that space in our backyard and put the boat somewhere else.

Luckily right now, it is at our friends house down the road taking up temporary residence since they use it more than we do.

(I offered permanent residence to which my hubby was not pleased about! LOL)

We want to take down this portion of the fence below and push it back approx 8 -10 feet and create a little parking space for it here.

 

This past year we tackled our garage project and put up a partial wall. Well now the corner to our backyard is super dark. I would like to put a light up on this side wall so that we can light up that area.

This project feels like something I can only dream of doing.

Our kitchen needs so much work, I pray each time I go into Home Depot that I run into the crew from Kitchen Crashers.

I would like to replace the light fixtures, change out our flooring and the BIG one, paint the cabinets.

BTW, my kitchen isnt always this messy. I took this picture during New Year's Day cleaning.

 

This room is SCARY!

It's our spare room and right now is being used as storage for just about everything.

My mom will be moving into a smaller house in the near future (I will explain in a future post) and so in order to get rid of some of her things, I convinced her to do a garage sale.

(my mother is a HOARDER!!)

The catch, I have to store everything and have it at my house.

I would like to make this my son's big boy room. If you follow me on pinterest, I've been posting ideas for the room there.

If I can pull it off, I think it will be pretty darn cool!

He'll be a lucky kid.

For the simple projects, I picked up these palets a while back with the intention to make rustic looking planter boxes for my backyard.

Also I scored some really nice pavers from a demo job my boss guys did a while back and we need to put those down as well. I was thinking a walk path from the side of the garage to the backyard since we cannot grow grass. I dont know but grass just wont grow.

Last but not least, I scored this lamp at the Salvation Army for $5.

I liked the shape of it even though it didnt have a shade $5 was a steal.

I actually was holding it checking it out and a man came from out of nowhere and told me if I didnt get it he was gonna. Oh that settled it, it was mine.

So theres a run down of the projects I'd like to tackle this year. Keep posted on my progress or stick around and stay on me to keep going!

cheap Christmas in a vase

I know I'm super late on getting with the Christmas decorating.

I just havent gotten into it this year, time is just flying by too fast.

We did get our tree up the weekend after Thanksgiving.

So, here is my super fast and super cheap project I did last night.

About a week or so ago I went to Kmart since they had jar candles on sale for $3.99 SUPER CHEAP! But alas when I got there, the shelves were completely wiped out.

But I did find these two vases for $6 and candle stick holders for 99 cents.

(running total under $14)

I had been putting off buying the fabulous E-6000 glue since this sucker is expensive.

I saw a picture on a blog somewhere with a price tag on the tube, it said $3-something.

Woah, our craft store sells it for oh $7.99.

I had a 40% off coupon good for this past weekend, plus a $5 gift card.

I got the glue and a candy bar for 81 cents, chee hoo!

(total now $14.81)

I applied some glue to the candle stick holder and then placed the vase on top.

Man that is some messy glue to work with!

Be careful and have a nice area to work in and some petroleum jelly close by.

After letting it dry here they are...

A while ago we went up to Kokee and picked up pine cones so they were FREE.

I threw a bunch of them in the jar.

I also added some left over glitter ornaments from several years ago, again FREE.

I put them on the entryway table. It still looks bare but, its a start.

I still have 12 days left, right?

Total cost of project under $15!

Plus I got a candy bar too.

I'm linking to the parties at the bottom of my page go check out the other great projects!

Today's Creative Blog

the nursing cover

**First of all I need to appologize for the photos in this post. I have been practicing with picnik resizing my images and putting a watermark and I dont know what I did, but half the photos ended up flipped when I uploaded them. I tried my best to fix it, but at 10:15 at night all I can think about is sizing up my pillow ;-)**

So a few times I teased you talking about the fab fabric I got and that I'd worked on some baby shower gifts, finally here it is. Well atleast one of them.

When I became a mother, I realized a lot of things people dont tell you, one of them, when you have to breastfeed.... you have to feed! It dont matter where you are.

There were times when I was shopping at Costco and when your baby wants to eat they want to eat.

From the begining I was determined to have this baby as a part of our lives and not dictate our lives so if that meant whipping my boob out in the middle of my grocery shopping at Costco then so be it.
What made it oh so much easier?
My handy dandy nursing cover!

I just loved, loved mine and so I can't think of a more perfect gift for a new nursing mother.

The first time I made one I used the one I found at Blisstree but I have since made a few adjustments here and there. I think it just depends how big or small you want the nursing cover.

I got two coordinating pieces of fabric and cut the main body at about 24" wide X 32" long and then one at 24" wide X 4" or so long for the bottom trim.
Also cut from the coordinating trim 2 more pieces about 3" wide or so and one at 10" long and one at 20" long for the straps that go around your neck.

Sew the straps together wrong side out so that when you flip them to the right side out, you'll have a nice trim edge. Then sew the trim fabric to the bottom on the large body fabric.

Press the straps nicely and also press the hem on the trim down.

Fold each side in twice and sew a straight stitch and then do the same with the bottom hem as well.

Now with the neck line, you are going to have to get a piece of plastic corset boning. I cut mine at about 15" - 17" long. Fold the hem in once and press. Then place the boning in the center of your nursing cover and fold over again and press. As you can see you made a pocket for your boning to go in.

Pin right next to the sides of the boning so it doesnt move around. You are going to take your two straps and tuck one side under the hem you just pressed right next to each side of your boning.  Straight stitch right along the edge all the way across.

You can see the boning is sewn right in there and wont move.

Go back to the straps and I sew a little square to hold it in place firmly.

At the end of the short strap I put on 2 D rings and then fold over the raw edge once and then once again to tuck it under and hide it. Then sew straight across atleast twice.

And tada!

There you go, super stylish and super convenient.

A life saver in fact!

This one I almost wanted to keep and have another one case it was too cute!

Please dont mind the mess behind me in the pix!

(always keeping it real)

Another update... here is the pix! thanks for waiting!

I'm linking up with the parties listed at the bottom of my page.
Go check them out!

**UPDATE**

Oops sorry I just realized I forgot to upload the final picture!!

Please be patient, it will be up later this evening.

today's creative blog

Chair redo for craft desk

Thanks for being patient when I catch up around here!

So without further ado... here is one of the projects Ive been wanting to share.

A while ago I got this entryway table from craigslist that came with a couple of chairs.

Just like the table they were pretty beaten up.

I got the table and chairs for $40 so pretty good deal I would say.

I took the dirty cushion off and found another old one under it! I took that one off as well and sanded the chair down.

(please excuse the crooked pix, I just cant for the life of me fix it)

Apparently I forgot to take pictures of the sanding and spray painting process, but I'm sure you guys can imagine it.

Sand - dust - spray paint

Then I took some left over fabric from a sewing project you must stay tunned for...

I layed the cushion I removed on the fabric and just cut around it.

Then I stapled it to the foam and board.

Ok, I didnt staple it, the wood was just tooooo hard!

Even my hubby couldnt get the staples through!

See!

My friend's hubby came from up the road to my rescue!

He's a big strong guy.

He got the staples in finally and even he had some issues!

Then I screwed the seat back on the chair and tada!!

(singing)

Isnt she lovely, isnt she wonderful....

So... after all of this and I put it together, THEN I realized I didnt check to see how I linned up the fabric on the seat cushion!

DUH!

Oh well, I still really like it!

Here is a view from the hallway, see how the colors flow all the way to the front door?

And the print kinda matches my welcome mat too!

Ok, I'm being real here... this is what this desk has been looking like for some time. Getting the chair done has finally put my butt in gear to clean it up.

Now I finally have my little space to work!

And as you can see, I was just getting ready to do some sewing in my spot!

Got a nice view right outside my window and ready to tackle my projects!



I'll be linking to the parties at the bottom of my page and found {HERE} as well.

today's creative blog