Painted/Stained Desk

Remember this desk from a post a while back? A cute find! The perfect size for our little one.
As you can see, it was red and need a little bit of TLC.

So my handy, handsome husband removed the top, he had the fantastic idea of removing the top and replacing it with wood we could stain to the shade of our choice. The top was a mess.

After my husband removed the top, I sanded the desk and began to paint. I had to paint about 4 coats of paint to get the dark color that I wanted. My original plan was to use spray paint but I knew that it would take alot of cans so I bought a quart of paint instead. I thought the color was going to be darker but overall the color has grown on me.

I bought a piece of stain grade wood at our local hardware store and they cut it to the size I needed, my husband stained the wood, added a coat of polyurethane and he put the top on the desk and we were finished!

The knobs on the drawers are not my first choice and I will be on the look out for what I have in mind, but until then, these work just fine. The chair was purchased at a local antique shop, it is an old school wooded chair that was spray painted gloss black. (I love gloss black!)

Here is a look at the top of the desk, it turned out so well!



I like how the desk looks with the contrasting top and our little one loves his new desk!

One more look, shall we?

Painting furniture is one way to instantly change the way your piece looks and it is so simple! We have painted several pieces in our home, but my first color choice is always, gloss black! So you can say that I am changing things up a bit and trying a little color!

Linking up to Liz Marie Blog.

Fall Wreath

 

 

This fall wreath turned out so cute! I am excited about cooler temps and pumpkins and even though it is still about 90 degrees here, I just could not resist hanging this on our door.

 

 

I started with a few items that I picked up at Hobby Lobby. (Love Hobby Lobby!)



When shopping, I just picked up a few things that I liked, still not sure exactly how I was going to put my wreath together. When I got home I had some left over burlap and I used it to cover the straw wreath. I cut strips and wrapped them around the wreath and hot glued the strips.

Then I started just placing items on the wreath. I decided not to use the pumpkins/gourds and just used the ribbon and leaves.

I made 2 bows out of the ribbon(just like you would make a bow to put on a Christmas gift)and I used the string from the pumpkin package to tie my bows together. Wanting to use more ribbon, I cut strips and stacked them together and then spread them out, like I was making a star. Then added some triangle burlap pieces to the top of the star in a random pattern to my liking and then finished it off with a P. I hot glued all the bows to the wreath and added my leaves and I was finished!

 

One more look at the finished product!

 

Link up to:

Tatertots and Jello

 

Itsy Bitsy Paper

 

 

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DIY Wall Art-Boy Bedroom

For a while now, I have had the urge to redo R's room. On one wall, there is a large map and the color of his room is navy blue. It was not hard to come up with a theme--travel, adventure, water. I was not really wanting to go all nautical, but more like pieces that could be about more than one idea.

So I began looking for wall art for the area above the bed. I wanted something sorta big but not too overwhelming. I was not able to find anything that I liked so I thought that I could just come up with something on my own. I bought 2 16 x 20 canvas and went to work.

My first thought was that I would just make the canvas a solid color and have one word across the canvas.
This is what it looked like (sorry the photo is so dark, this is where all things messy with paint happen in our home and the lighting is not good).

 

And I HATED it! I used oil based red paint to paint the letters on and I was like  "what am I going to do now?". So it sat, for like a couple of weeks till I finally thought of something! Since the theme is travel, adventure; I thought about a map art with a twist. :)

 



I picked up a map at Target and found a quote online that I loved and thought that the combination would be perfect for his room.

As a test to see if the quote would fit on my canvas I cut out the letters in plain cardstock with my Cricut and laid them out to see how it would look.

Awesome! They all fit and my vision of the finished product rocked in my head so I kept going!

I had to paint over the word DISCOVER (and that word was not a good choice in the beginning because my husband too one look at it and said "Disc Over". I was not able to get that out of my head and to be honest that was the first thing I thought when I looked at it too!) Anyway 2 coats of Kilz later and this is what it looked like

As you can see the red was still visible. So I had to come up with a background first and so I used a color that we had left over from another room so I thought that I would use it instead of buying more paint. I painted the canvas with 2 coats of the leftover light brown paint.  And let it dry.

In the meantime, I got my map and cut out sections that I wanted to use and with my Cricut, I cut out each letter. Again.

After all the letters were cut and the paint was dried, the letters were arranged in order on the canvas, it looked like this

Side Note: I used old picture frames (from an idea that I have not tackled yet) under my canvas to elevate it so it would not be laying directly on my table and allowed the paint and later the glue to dry on the sides.
After all the letters were arranged to my liking, I glued all the letters down one by one with Mod Podge (LOVE that stuff!). Then when all the letters were glued down I went back over both with another layer of Mod Podge, it gave it a glossy look which I love!

And the finished product:

What do you think? 

Although it took a while to figure out what I was going to do, but when I did, it all came together nicely!

Mountain Getaway

One little trip we wanted to take before school started was a trip to the mountains. With boys it is a must to go to a theme park with a train therefore, we decided on Tweetsie. 

 

 

 

And of course the train stopped for a little gun fight with a little humor involved.

 

 

 

They have lots of activities for kids of all ages.

 





The activities most enjoyed were: go carts, gem/gold mining, carnival rides and the chair lifts.
In the nearby town of Boone, NC you find lots of unique shops and antique stores and some great restaurants. The ones we tried were, The Dan'l Boone Inn and Our Daily Bread. Both are good. If you are looking for country cooking, family style, Dan'l Boone is the way you should go. If you prefer organic, fresh food, variety of beers and very good atmosphere Our Daily Bread is the way to go. Enjoyed both, however I liked Our Daily Bread better because I left feeling comfortable with myself and knowing I consumed a healthy meal. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed Dan'l Boone too but when I left, I felt like I had eaten till I could not put another thing in my mouth and I had that feeling like my belly stuck out like a pregnant lady!

Riding in back roads of the country where we came upon this

Calming and not another person around, which gave us a little time to explore

Blowing Rock, NC also has charm that just makes you want to walk the streets and visit every store you pass. Great shops, antique stores, and great restaurants.

While riding the back roads we came across a country store and bought this

I am so excited to get this painted, it will be perfect for our little man. I will show you the finished product once we get it completed. I am off to get paint samples tomorrow, ready to get going on this one!

It was a good trip minus the whining, complaining and constant talking from our kids. But, I guess that all falls into the category of parenthood.

New Pillow Covers

We had been given some furniture by our family members when they updated their space. The couch is red and the large comfy chair is white with a small blue strip pattern. The pillows that were on the couch looked like this

The pillows are still in perfect condition so I thought I would just make a new pillow cover to change the look of the pillow. I went to my local Hobby Lobby and found a cute fabric, it is more feminine than I wanted originally but I thought it would go with colors we had in that area of our home.

I found this website and I knew instantly that there was a chance that I could accomplish this task! I am so glad that I came across this site because I already know that I will use their tutorials for other items later. To be honest, after getting this done, I cannot wait to start on another sewing project! Which gives me another reason to look for more cute fabric! Ok, back to the pillow....I followed the tutorial, I did not use binding or zippers for my pillow cover.

Here is how the first one turned out....



Cute isn't it?! To be honest, I was so dang excited after I put the pillow in the cover and that it fit and that it still looked like a pillow!

Then I finished the other one....

They look cute on the couch with two other pillows we picked up at Ikea. Although, I am not sure if I will leave them there or move them somewhere else in the house, but at least that is one more task completed off my list!

Pinterest Favorites

There are alot of ideas on Pinterest, it is the one place I go when I need an idea or how to do a craft project, so many ideas/photos/topics in one spot and I love that. Here are just a few things that have caught my eye this week....





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This cake looks sooo good and I must try this one!




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Cute idea for leftover pumpkins after Halloween and Thanksgiving.





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Been looking for wreath ideas, really time for a new one on my front door and I really like this one.






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I just like this photo, the wallpaper design.


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Love this color.




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Cute and would look good in any family room.




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Love the skirt.




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Love this too! Rich tones.





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French Bulldogs.  So cute, one day maybe....

Lemonade Stand

To keep the boys occupied during our community yard sale(see that concrete mold, boxes and huge ugly suitcase!), we suggested a lemonade stand. The boys loved the idea!

Then we had to decide how to set up this lovely stand and what color combo would be.

Pallets were used to make the stand, a large one on top and two smaller pallets used for the legs of the stand. I spray painted the outside of the legs black and left the top pallet its natural color. For the banner, I used yellow scrapbook card stock and cut into triangles then strung twine through the eyelets, I punched in using my Crop-A-Dile, in each corner of the triangle. Then used my Cricut to cut out the letters and then glued onto the triangles.

There were a few old jars hanging around so I painted a small rectangle on each using chalkboard paint, wrapped twine around the top of each jar and used one as the money jar and the other as a vase.

Since I was painting with chalkboard paint, I thought why not make another sign? So I found a piece of particleboard that had a smooth covering and painted it. Then my awesome husband cut the frame for me and glued it to the chalkboard, then I was able to paint it red. I think I love this piece the most! It now sits in my craft area and I just love looking at it!

I did give the boys plastic pitchers for the lemonade instead of glass because the concrete would be bad news for my glass pitchers and honestly, it would have been to heavy for those little hands anyway. Sometimes you just have to use common sense instead of worrying about how you want things to look!

The boys had a great time and were sold proud that they sold all their lemonade, except for what they drank, it was a hot day after all! So what did they get themselves with their hard earned money, you ask? Lego's of course!