Ikea kids table

My nephew is seriously the cutest bugger around. One look at that handsome face and huge lips, you will fall for him too. Let's just say I love being "Auntie Squeesh".

Aside from the obvious cute factor--he is the funniest kid. Right now he is going through a phase where he feels like he needs to sit on everything-like a grown-up. He's obsessed with chairs and will try out every chair in the room. 

I came across a small kids table and chair set at Ikea the week before Christmas and figured with his new obsession that it would be a perfect gift for him! And *BONUS POINTS* it was cheap, only $20!

I just spray primed the wood and spray painted the natural wood with "Ivy Leaf" green spray paint from Krylon. The top of the desk I made into a chalkboard (using spray chalk paint), and painted the top of the seats black with black spray paint. Sealed everything with a spray paint sealer (semi-gloss) making it super fast and easy! 

Before:

Ikea Children's Desk

After:

Hope Chest Re-do

Hope Chest DIY

Found this beauty for $30 on KSL. It's a vintage Lane hope chest from the 50's. This thing is HUGE and perfect for our lack of storage. I finished it off and it currently holds all of our extra blankets, and acts as dual purpose as a bench for extra seating in our front room.

I used a cool technique to transfer letters on to the chest without having to use an overhead projector. You print off the word on regular paper and flip it over. Rub chalk all over the back of the paper, making sure to cover all the letters. Tape that on to your furniture and trace with a ball point pen. When you take the paper off, it has a perfect outline of the word. I used a paint marker to go over the word and to fill in. 

The chalk easily wipes off. I then sanded the piece (including over the word) to make it look more aged, then sealed.

Finished!

Ruffle Pillow

My mom always is so thoughtful and always gives the most amazing, meaningful gifts that pull right at the heartstrings. She is the most giving person and will do everything she can to put a smile on someone's face. About a year ago, she remembered me saying that I really wanted to learn how to sew and be able to make the cute things I always remember her making throughout my whole life. I mean, the lady has some serious talent. She was even crowned "Miss Wool" in her high school days for making an entire outfit (and the best at that) out of WOOL. Sounds comfortable, right?

Well anyways, my mom bought me a SEWING MACHINE for my BIRTHDAY this year! Which is by FAR too extravagant of a gift but she claims that it makes her day to know that I love handmade stuff as much as she does, and that I have the want to learn. She says that it also helps that she nabbed it on an amazing discount. Which I can't argue with her on that one!

So my sewing skills are mediocre to say the least. I decided my first project would be pillows! They seem pretty easy yeah? I pinned an amazing tutorial that I found on Pinterest on how to create this ruffle pillow found on Jones Design Company blog. I used this same tutorial and made my two black pillows and the same idea for the ruffle on the white patterned pillow as well. She does an amazing job of giving a play-by-play on sewing ruffle pillows. 

If I can do it, you can do it! It turned out to be pretty easy! And they didn't cost me anything. I ended up using my old black curtain panels from Target and made pillows out them- and bonus! It's a thick, durable fabric, perfect for pillows that get a lot of use. I love upcycling!

Chevron Secretary Desk

I found this cute little desk at a yard sale right outside of my neighborhood. It is rare that you can find a great deal on a cute desk like this for a good price. I was obligated to snag it, right? I mean, this desk has two essential things. Its an ever-popular secretary AND just needed a little fixer up in a trendy gray and beige chevron print. What's not to love in that combo?

This didn't just come at such a great price by happenstance. It definitely needed some work done. I'm never one to shy away from a little elbow grease, and a girl always likes to get a little work done! The bottom drawer on this desk was cracked and had to be repaired with some wood glue. Also the tracks were off on every single drawer. The lid of the desk had some deep scratches that took a lot of buffing out but here is the result after 6 long hours, multiple trips to Hobby Lobby and Lowe's, and an internal battle when I finally decided to sell it to a great friend and sorority sister of mine, Rachelle.

Gossip Bench Re-do

This bench was my first attempt at Chalk Paint. I will never paint with any other technique ever again! (Okay, okay, I still love my spray paint) but there is no other way to hand paint. You don't have to sand or prime your furniture. All it requires is a little patience, two coats of paint (color of your choice), a brush, and this mixture that I found at the creative cute mind at SNAP blog! :) 

Here is the bench (BEFORE), this cute gossip bench only cost me $20! :)

Here's after the first coat of paint...

Second coat with a little bit of sanding...

And finally, DRIED and sealed! It's amazing how the color can really change in between coats, but I'm sure pictures taken at different times in the day doesn't help either!

This bench could not be complete without a cute bench cushion. I had never made a bench cushion before but found this tutorial very helpful at the CSI project! What a crafty lady! Mine is nowhere near as cute as hers, but she has some great directions to follow to make is easy to keep up!

I bought this foam at Hobby Lobby with my trusty 40% off coupon! Only cost me $3.00!

Cut it to size...I used plain old scissors but if you have one of those 

electronic-kitchen-knife-cutter-majigs 

(I'm obviously not a cook) than you might be better off for a cleaner cut. 

This crazy cute fabric was actually left over from an Tucker's first dog bed. The little butthead had ripped it up (among with many other unmentionables) while he was still a pup and I salvaged and washed the remaining fabric. It was WAY too cute to not recycle!

Stenciled Bathroom Wall

This is what friends and family fondly refer to as the "awkward" bathroom. It's not-so-conveniently placed right between the kitchen and front room, so it doesn't feel all that private. It's a small bathroom that doesn't get much love-so I figured I'd try to dress it up a little with a cute stencil from cuttingedge stencils. This one is the "Marrakech Trellis Stencil". This exact stencil can be found  here.

 

The above is my unsuccessful attempt at adding a little "bathroom humor" straight from the lyrical stylings of OutKast. To see how to make this bathroom sign, just click the link! 

Here is the bathroom (before). To the right (behind the open door) is our kitchen, and to the left of the bathroom is our front/living room.

  Cute and quaint, but just too BLAH.

I measured out the middle of the wall and marked this with a pencil. I started stenciling at the bottom of the wall in the middle. I moved the stencil from the middle, to the right, and then to the far left to avoid smudging anything that hadn't dried yet. 

You can either use stencil adhesive spray or painters tape to readjust your stencil.  I prefer to use painters tape for transitioning the stencil. Less clean up, and no gunk on the walls :) I waited to do the edges (as shown below) so I could keep my flow. 

You can either use a small roller brush or a stipple brush to lay on the paint on the stencil. I first tried using the mini roller I bought from Hobby Lobby (specifically made for stencils) and felt that it was too messy. I decided on a round foam brush and used it like I would with a stipple brush and dabbed over, over, and OVER again. I think this probably took more time, but feel like the lines looked much more crisp.

It's important to remember to have a small level with you. Even though the stencils can interlock in design and flow from one panel to the next, its easy to drop a corner without a level. 

But feel free to drop it like it's hot-

you're going to need some good tunes to get you through the next 5 hOuRs!

Time for the corners. I did my best to line up with the next stencil (while using my trusty level) and bend the stencil as tight as I could around the corners. I taped in place and began stenciling.

I started this project on a Thursday night after work around 6:30. I finished at 12:00 (with clean up time). It took a lot longer than I had expected but I LOVE the results. Just wished I hadn't started this project on a work night! 

All in all, I really loved the quality of the stencil from cutting edge stencils and felt that it was easy to clean off the stencil when finished. They include one full stencil piece and two corner pieces (one horizontal and one vertical) to help with the hard to paint edges. I wish I could order another one but I just might go stencil CRAZY!

A smart clean up stencil trick is found here at the stencil cleaning and storage at the cuttingedge stencil website. Placing the stencil on a flat cookie sheet was GENIUS and helped me a TON to cut down on cleaning frustration! 

Anthropologie-esque lampshades

Anthropologie-esque lampshades

I saw some lampshades made by my friend Andi (she is crazy amazing) and I wanted to try to mimic them because I loved them so much! Mine didn't turn out quite as awesome, but they were fun and I still liked how they turned out.

 *I wish she had a blog I could direct you to--ANDI, GET ON IT*

These lamps are now in the master bedroom and I love the softer light they put off now. 

I redid some lampshades that I already had (I think these ones were originally bought from WalMart for $7 each)...

I used a natural burlap and LOTS of glue sticks! It also helps to have a rotary blade and mat because you end up cutting out a lot of strips. 

My strips were 18" long, and 1 1/2" wide. I probably used a yard and a half of burlap.

Here is a great tutorial on how to make the rosettes using the same idea as the CSI Project--burlap rosettes

 

UofU Trike Re-do

Found this vintage Radio Flyer at the D.I. for $5.00 with my friend Bridgette. I knew immediately that I would want to fix it up for my nephew, Cale. It was in need of some serious TLC, it had rust spots, dents and even a cobweb or two. 

But too cute to pass up, right?!

 I ain't afraid of a little elbow grease!

Supplies: Originally I thought that I would be doing the same colors and pattern as on the original bike. But as I got going, I decided I didn't love the look of the silver paint and got some black paint (made specifically for metal) instead.

The bike license plate and frame were found at Walmart for $1.50 each.

The white paint is primer made for metal. It goes on so well that I used it by itself for everywhere the color was white on the bike (and didn't need to cover with a white paint on top of the primer).

Sander/sand block to buff out the rust (wear a mask!) and standard tools to take apart the bike and put back together.

I also ended up making my own stencil for the "U" logo made out of paper. Used my Cricut to center the "utes" wording in the middle of a page and used that on top of the logo once it dried.

I first had to dismantle the bike, and wipe off the dirt and cobwebs. I sanded out the rust spots and pushed out a few dents.

*Remember to take plenty of pics of the bike when you are taking it apart so you can put it back together!

I've found that its easier to control paint overspray when you spray an item within a box. I first primed everything with the white spray paint and then once that dried, went back with painters "Frog Tape" and taped off the designs to spray paint with another color.

I originally taped off the main body of the trike to be alternating in white and red. Seemed like it might look like a candy cane-so I decided to add black to every other non taped area. This is where I suggest having a "plan" for a project before starting it--I'm sure I would've saved myself a lot of hours and frustration.

Once all the painting was done, I had to find replacement handles for the Trike. 

I looked everywhere. 

Online, Walmart, specialty bike stores, etc. 

This was easily the most frustrating part of the process. Any stores that did carry replacement handles, only carried adult ones for upwards of $10 that would have to be cut down anyways! The Radio Flyer ones could only be found online direct from manufacturer.

I decided to go to the Dollar Store to see if we could find a jumprope handle that would work. The jumpropes were too small, but we found these plastic golf clubs instead. We had the one (that had been chewed up by dogs) to bring as a match. It seemed as if it would be a match. We bought two golf clubs and cut off the handles to each. 

Perfect fit! 

Primed, painted, and super glued on. Voila! 

And here is the final product!

 Happy 1st Birthday to my little studly nephew! Obviously, I have no idea about kids and age ranges for toys (his feet don't even come close to touching the pedals!) But in six months-I'm sure he'll be a speed demon! And if you haven't already noticed, he's already been spoken for. 

GO UTES!  

Thrifty Finds!

This space is reserved to show off all my thrifty finds found at yard sales, garage sales and antique stores in their original beauty! 

These planter boxes I found at a Yard Sale for $5.00 each. I made a sad attempt at growing flowers in them (after they were fixed up of course) but didn't work out as well as I hoped. FAIL.

This cute iron rod bird bath was found at a Antique Store in American Fork.

I found this chair at my community yard sale for only $5.00! Click the link to see the before and after.

Thrift chair DIY-before and after

My sister and mom were with me when I found this cute vintage blue fan at the same community yard sale as the $5 thrifted chair. I paid $15.00 for it, my mom and sis swear that I got ripped off! I tell them that you can't put a price on love!

Always remember--when thrifting, it is important to bring a best bud with you. My nephew Cale made a great Yard Sale buddy!