More hand crafted nursery art

I love the feeling of creating something from nothing and instantly having art for a wall.  Kids grow up so fast and will probably start decorating their rooms by themselves and want no input from their Moms.  But until then, I'll fill their rooms with cheap instant art, because I know someday soon it will come down and be filed away with their other baby items.

Here I've created two unique pieces using styrofoam squares from the craft store. These are 2" thick and about a 6" square.  Like I did with my plywood art, I wrapped them in pretty fabric.  Next I found images from the internet. Don't you like the internet? I'm so addicted, I seriously need an intervention. For this swan print, I placed it on top of a circle cut out from scrap paper. It looks a little bit wrinkled in this picture, so that tells me I need to re glue it, or do it over.

For this one, I got a little more creative and cut out a flower from this really bold floral print. Then I used silk gold leaves and placed them over the fabric leaves for a 3-D effect. I glued little gold balls on the center of the flower to give it a similar 3-D effect. I love how these turned out and they were super easy to make.

Hope you have fun crafting your own art for your little one.

xo

Cathleen

Inspiration: Bean Bag Chair fabric

I'm so stinking excited because my wonderful Mom is making my kids big Poufs/Bean Bags for our living room! I sent her this image seen here on Pinterest and she was more than happy to make them for their upcoming April/May birthdays. Aren't they adorable?

So the search began for some cute fabric. My Mom is going to make two of the large ones.  All of these fabrics are contenders from http://fabric.com/.



I can't wait to pick two that coordinate. Whatever fabric I choose I'll keep you posted.  Can't wait to see them in our living room. Oh and she is sewing an inner liner that I will have to stuff and close with a velcro liner. Then the outer fabric will be a slipcover with a zipper closure.

xo
Cathleen

Wall Papered Computer Armoire

This is what happens when I'm bored, broke, and looking for something fun to do.  I take random furniture in my house and try to make it better (or other things for that matter.)  With two young children who nap throughout the day and a child in school sometimes I'm just stuck inside.  I have time to kill. House is clean, laundry is done, blah blah, so I just get bored.  Here is our little computer armoire that houses our computer, printer, and other miscellaneous office supplies. At first I sanded the doors and tried painting them. I first tried white, then teal, then whoops all the paint started peeling off. So here is sat looking kind of sad for a while.  

So I decided to wallpaper the doors instead.  I busted out the "Ceiling Tiles" wallpaper by Allen and Roth from Lowes I used for my China Hutch project.  I measured the door insets with a tape measure and then carefully cut out two long strips of my wallpaper using a long metal ruler and scissors.

I applied the wallpaper according to the instructions. Dipping it in water for about 5 seconds and then applying it to the doors making sure there were no bubbles.  Then I let it dry overnight.

Once it was dry I painted it with some left over paint from my son's room called Polar Star by Valspar.  After it dried, I applied Martha Stewart's silver Metallic Glaze from Home Depot over the top with a brush. It gave it a sort of shiny feel.

For now we're going to leave it as is, but the whole cabinet is going to relocate to another spot in the living room once we redo our floors in two weeks. It will probably stay this black color on the edges, unless I get bored on a another day and decide to give it a color, which I'm thinking that may happen. I have some plans for the inside of the cabinet as well. Maybe some chalkboard paint on the inside to write messages?

Happy Monday everyone!  

xo

Cathleen

P.S. We've picked our Living Room Wall color and hopefully we can get started painting this weekend. 

Kitchen Makeover

Our kitchen is finally up to speed, sort of. We didn't document the process so far, since it took us several years to complete and this little blog is new. We still have a few things we want to do to it, like add a tile backsplash and caulk around the crown molding, but it's looking a lot better so far.

Here is what our kitchen looked like the day we toured our home.  This is probably the only photo I have from early on. It wasn't that bad. We lived with it for a several years before we decided to change it.  The cabinets were sort of a light green. The counters were beige laminate. It was at least nice that the trim was painted white. But that was about the only redeeming quality.

One of the very first things we did to our kitchen was replace our existing appliances. Here is our bisque circa 1987 dishwasher.

We got a stainless steel dishwasher from Lowes for around $300 that Joe installed himself. Talk about the man. 

Here is our bisque and black oven/range. I wish I had gotten a photo of the range hood. It was also bisque with edges that we were constantly bumping our heads into.

Oh here's a picture of our range hood. See those corners? Yikes. Many a bump have occurred on the head because of these. Our new oven/range is black with stainless steel look. Much easier to clean. This was also from Lowes for around $500.

And remember our old white refrigerator with faux wood paneling? The ice maker was broken, the insides were rusted and there were frozen dead ants in the freezer. Talk about appetizing!  So many reasons to upgrade our appliances.

Our new refrigerator is also a stainless steel "look" finish. It's so easy to maintain and doesn't show all the kid fingerprints, but still looks very modern.

This is a view of our kitchen very early on when we had moved in, but not much had happened in there.

Here's the same view when it was finished.

Here are the changes that we made and the budget breakdown:
1) Installed all new appliances, including range hood from Lowes -$1,600
2) Installed new laminate counter tops from Lowes called Flint Crystal by Formica. $600
3) Purchased new Sink from Lowes - $100
4) Installed new faucet and sprayer from Overstock for $60
5) Painted all cabinets with glossy white paint - $25 for paint
6) Added pendant lights above sink and remove wood overhang. Light fixture from Home Depot $45
6) Added fluorescent light fixture to replace old plain fixture purchased from Lighting.com for $100. This was caulked and painted white, since the color was looking a bit off white.
7) Added under counter lighting purchased from Amazon.com- $25
8) Bought two Parson chairs for the bowling ball table from Allmodern.com for $100

Total for kitchen Makeover - $2,655
We saved Buco bucks doing all the work ourselves. The counter tops alone for installation would have cost $2,000. We saved a lot of money and think these upgrades will generally be appreciated by future tenants, if we ever decide to sell.

Hopefully we can tackle a tile back splash one of these days. I think I see some caulking in our near future.

xo
Cathleen

Gray curtains for closet doors

Here's how things were looking in the bedroom, after I thought I was "done" with the bedroom. But once the gray and white headboard was made, it started feeling like I had to eliminate the browns and replace them with grays.  So down came these beautiful silk Pottery Barn curtains...

And up went dupoini silk gray curtains. I got these for a steal at TJ Maxx for just $19.99 for two. I figured that as much cheaper than me buying 5 years of fabric and making my won, which would have been at least $40 for a $7.99 fabric, which is hard to come by.

Our closet is already small, so curtains just made much more sense in terms of saving space. The door is now in our attic in case future owners want to add it back.  Here's what our closet looks like without curtains or a door.

We love the new color and it really goes with the new headboard and big gray mirror. Oh, and we hung a cafe curtain rod on the inside of the closet which we think makes for a much cleaner look than hanging it on the outside. To read more about the how to hang the rod, see this original post.

Little things like this make me so happy. They are easy and really help tie together the whole look. Has anyone else made a change like this to save space?

xo

Cathleen

Instant Art!

I couldn't help but replicate this when I saw it on BHG's website:

Why you ask? Because The Wizard of Oz is my all time favorite movie and who doesn't love an easy craft that makes instant art for you wall.   I found this old picture frame at the Goodwill and have plans for what's inside.  But I used the frame for this project.

It was easy to replicate the words by using Microsoft Word and picking similar fonts and colors for the wording. I printed it on my home computer.

Then I found some pretty fabric with similar colors to use as the backing. I painted the frame with one coat of spray primer and two coats of white spray paint, after sanding of course. And here is the finished product.

Here is where I decided to hang it. I love that it has yellow, gold, gray, and aqua's that really go well in our bedroom. It's also something I see when I wake up and is a perfect sentiment to begin my day (and to end my day for that matter.)

Oh and while we're on the subject of quick and easy art, I also did this frame while I was at it. I just used gray paisley fabric and found an image of a bee's nest to cut out and glue on top. :) 

Hope this inspires you to make some quick and easy art.

xo

Cathleen