Knock, Knock! Take Me Home!

Last week as I was taking Allison to school, I saw this beauty leaning on a dumpster at an apartment complex nearby. She was gorgeous! I fell in love instantly! . . . or maybe it was lust!

Anyway. As I was driving by her, I heard this ever so faint little voice saying, "Take me home. You know you want to. Curtis won't mind."  I shook my head and continued to drive.

I dropped Allison off at school and went to pick up some groceries. I'm in the freezer section of the grocery store minding my own business and I hear: "You want me. Take me home. I can make you happy. You'll regret it if you don't." I slowly turned my head to look around for the softly spoken woman's voice. Hmm, strangely enough there was no one there. And the last time I checked neither Ben or Jerry had a softly spoken woman's voice! Could it have been that beauty I saw earlier in the morning? Nah, I wasn't any where near her!

So. I paid for my groceries, loaded them in the car and headed home. Funny thing though, the voice got stronger and louder and SASSIER! It was not a sweet voice any longer. It now said, "TAKE! ME! HOME!"

So I did.

And here she is . . . . . . isn't she just lovely????     

Yay, Curtis thought so too. Well, maybe not but he humored me!

She's needs a little work to make her really pretty. However, I'm afraid she's going to have to wait until spring. We do not have a garage and I don't want her outside in the elements while I give her a makeover.

She's going to hang out with us in the family room when I am done making her pretty. I can't wait! I'll be sure to share it with you when she's all dolled up!  But for now, here are some door makeovers for you to see. I found them all on Pinterest. I've attached the link to those that have them and noted that below the pictures.

Click on photo above for link.

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This link has amazing door ideas!

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 There isn't a link for the above photo but I LOVE this one!

Time will tell what I do with my beauty! Stay tuned!

Have Fun!

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A Pretty Board Just for Me!

I have this bulletin board on a very small wall in my kitchen. I used to have a pretty picture there but soon found I needed somewhere to keep track of Allison's school stuff. I know...it's not pretty but no one can really see it but me...unless of course you are cooking or doing dishes in my kitchen. So...like I said, no one can really see it but me.

However. Although it's proven itself to be very functional, I just can stand it's ugliness any longer!

So! Enter a can of spray paint, a piece of fabric, spray adhesive, trim, a glue gun and

VOILA!

A pretty board just for ME!

This is the beginning of changing my kitchen. I just love the colors...except I'll be picking a new shade of green for the walls!

I'm linking this post up with Gina at The Shabby Chic Cottage for her Transformation Thursday blog party. Stop by her place to see other fun transformations!

Have Fun!

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A Reading Chair Redo!

If you read my blog a couple of days ago, I talked about being inspired by Gina at The Shabby Chic Cottage to complete 10 Tasks in 10 Days. If you missed it, you can click here so you won't be lost.

Well. So far I have completed 2 tasks and started 3 others. I'm pretty happy with that so far. I am a little worried though because tomorrow is my last day of nice weather for the next 4 days and I have more painting to do! Oh, I can't think about this now! I'll go crazy if I do! I'll think about it tomorrow. After all, tomorrow is another day. Oops! Sorry! I got carried away there!

Anyway. Here is the first completed task/project of my 10 Tasks in 10 Days challenge. I'm linking up with Gina for her Transformation Thursday so after you are done here, head on over there to see what other creative souls have transformed and while you are there grab yourself some inspiration too!

Edited to add: One of my favorite furniture re-doers is having her first linky party. She's a real furniture artist so I'm linking up with her too! Be sure to check her out at Miss Mustard Seed!

Edited Again to add: Another one of my favorite furniture re-doers is having a Before and After Party too so I'm linking up to Jen at Sanctuary Arts at Home too. When you are over there, take the time to look around. She does some amazing stuff!

Oh, and I'm also linking up for DIY Day at Kimba's A Soft Place to Land. There's lots of fun to be had over there but be warned...you'll get sucked in to all the inspiration and wonder where your day went!

Okay, let's get started here. This is the before of the chair. I picked her up at a resale shop that just opened a few months ago. She was asking $30 but considering I had to redo the whole thing, I offered less and we settled on $23. It's a very solid chair so I felt it was a fair price. Isn't she lovely????

Here. Let me give you a close-up! See. She's in sad, sad shape! The pink paint didn't cover the green paint underneath it, the fabric was hot glued down with a few staples and the gimp trim was lifting up. She needed some TLC!

Yum! Red vinyl under all of that!

After sanding and sanding and sanding, I painted her wood the lovely color of Rustoleum's Key Lime Green! Don't judge me here! This chair is for my 8 year old! What do you call and 8 year old? Is she considered a "tween" yet?

Let me take you in for a closer look but you better get your sunglasses on!

Next I put a layer of batting on stapling it every couple of inches to tack it down.

Then I trimmed the batting.

I didn't take pictures of the steps here but I followed the same steps as the batting. Actually, I just lied to you. I used a spray adhesive on top of the batting to help hold the fabric in place. I was afraid that if I didn't stick it to the batting then it would slide every time Allison sat on it and put pressure on the fabric at the staples. I didn't want it to tear because as you can see, this is not upholstering fabric. I took a chance here but I wanted this fabric because it was the perfect color and softer than you can imagine. I used a bazillion staples to make sure this fabric isn't going to move!

Here are the steps for covering the seat. It's basically what I did with the back.

Sprayed a light layer of adhesive on the seat.

I placed the batting on top of the seat. After it was secure on the top, sides and corners, I trimmed the bottom flush with the lines of the seat.

Then I sprayed the batting with adhesive and added the fabric. Again, I used a bazillion staples to be sure the fabric wasn't going to move!

Ta Da! Wait! It's not done yet!

What am I going to do about all these staples???? Wait! I know! I'll cover them with twisted cording in the third color of Allison's room! Grape!

Oh no! No one local sells it in grape and I'm too impatient to wait for it to come in the mail from an online source. So. What's a girl to do? Dye her own! I found this really awesome dye that I used for the first time. I LOVE it! It's made by Dylon and you can use it on cotton/polyester. The color is amazing! I used "intense violet" and it came out exactly how I wanted it to!

Now isn't this much better?

Here she is done! This is in full sunlight so she's a little bright.

Here she is in Allison's room. She doesn't look so good in this pic because she is a HARD color to photograph! The Key Lime comes out NEON! This pic was taken with a flash and the pic at the top of this entry was taken without one. I like the top one better. It's more realistic.

Thanks Gina for your inspiration! I didn't think I was going to get this done until spring. It's because of you that I threw caution to the wind and got my hiney in gear!

Now I've got to run and get moving on another task!

Have Fun!

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What's for Dinner, Mom?

I know making your own chalkboard has been done and overdone in blogland but I finally got around to making one.

I have this space on the end of my cupboard which is the first thing you see when you walk into my kitchen. It's boring. I've changed what I've had there many times...never being satisfied. I can't have anything too thick because you could hit it with your shoulder if you walk to close to the cupboard.

So while perusing the Goodwill store, I found this picture. Isn't it pretty? Well. I'm sure it was at one time but now it is quite faded. However. It is the exact size I was looking for and the frame has a low profile. Yes! It's perfect for what I had in mind! Score! I paid my $2.99 and went on my merry way!

I took it apart, sanded the frame a little and then spray painted it bright red with a $1.00 can of spray paint from Wal-Mart. Yes. I know I dislike Wal-Mart but it beats paying three plus dollars for a can of spray paint at some other places. I painted the frame with 3 coats of spray paint and after it dried, I sanded it lightly with 120 grit sandpaper. After wiping away the sanded dust, I took basic acrylic black craft paint and watered it down. I painted over the sanded frame with a sponge brush and then wiped it off immediately to obtain a streaked look.

I also spray painted the glass with chalkboard paint...four coats. For those of you who don't know, you can get the chalkboard paint in spray or liquid and use a brush to apply it.

I'm planning on repainting my kitchen and changing it up a bit. I wanted to introduce a red/burgundy color as an accent color. This frame came out exactly how I had imagined it and I'm very pleased with the results.

Here is my cupboard before...
...and here it is after.
My plan is to write my week's menu plan on it but I only have sidewalk chalk right now and the lines are too thick. As soon as I get to the store for smaller chalk, I'll post our weekly menu for the family. This will help me too because right now, I have to run to the computer and pull up my blog to see what I'm making for dinner! Oh, the memory is going!

*I'm linking up with Kimba at A Soft Place to Land for her DIY day.

Have Fun!

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A Booty Bench to a Pet Pedestal!

Welcome to all my new friends that are visting from Miss Mustard Seed!

I hope you enjoy this makeover. It's another one I did for my daughter's bright tween room. It goes along with the chair I shared last week. If you missed it, you can see it here.

A year ago I took Allison to my sister's house for her annual 5 day visit and spoilfest. She lives 2 counties away from us. I dropped Allison off and set out to do some antiquing and thrifting in a new territory. I stumbled upon this huge run down store that looked like it was going to be a score of a stop. Well...as I was walking in I saw this bench thing sitting outside. It was amongst a whole bunch of seat-like items. There was an older gentleman sitting on one of the items. I looked this bench over and asked "how much?" He shrugged his shoulders and said $5.00. I said "sold!" I had seen one previously in another store for sale for $20 so $5 made me happy. What a great deal! I couldn't wait to get inside the store. Well. Although the store had beautiful antiques and other items that were unwanted by their previous owners, I felt the store was WAY over priced! I'm no expert on pricing but I've been around enough to know about some antiques and they were asking way too much! It was crazy!

Anyway! I did manage to find a couple of small items, paid and went to collect my bench. As I walked outside I realized the bench was not originally for sale. It was a booty bench for all of the old friends of the store owner! While I was shopping in the store, I guess they had gotten off of work and started to gather outstide. I scooped up my bench, they had a little laugh at the Mom who bought "that old thing" and I went on my way!

I had planned on using it my entrance way to sit on while putting on shoes but then when I got it home, I didn't like that I idea. So it sat for a year until last weekend when I was redoing Allison's room. I was faced with the dilema of where to put the 10 gallon crabitat. Yes. Allison has hermit crabs...thanks Aunt Susan, Stephanie and Uncle Brian! The only flat surface big enough was her dresser. Well. That was not going to work for me! It didn't fit into the image I had in my head for her pretty new tween room! After stressing for a little bit about this, it hit me on Friday night! I would redo the bench and make it a pedestal for the crabitat!

Well. Whose laughing now?

A piece of foam rubber, some batting, a can of spray paint and a piece of fabric and TAH DAH!

We have ourselves a home for the crabs that is worthy of a tween room!

As you can see, the crabitat fits perfectly! I thought that it would slide but it doesn't at all. However, I am going to put some non-skid stuff on the bottom just in case.

Have Fun!

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