A Little Christmas for One and All

As we get ready to celebrate another Christmas I had to share one last quick but much loved project. I have Christmas wrapped and under the tree for my daughter Cassie. There's one more member of the family that we always make sure enjoys the holidays. It's Trey, our 4 year old Bicha-poo. He is a sweetheart. He has so much personality that after a bath and comb out today, I thought he needed something festive for Christmas. So wasn't I surprised to read the latest post over at Don't Disturb this Groove Blog, written by my friend Brandi. She had the cutest post on making no sew bow ties for her fur family. So, I made Trey a bow. Here he is:

                                   My bow is a little larger, but I think it's so Trey.

 Trey is such an important part of our family that he has his own ornament on the tree.

  In fact, he has more than one ornament.

This ornament was originally $5.97 but was on sale for $1.47 this week!!

So, if Trey has a new red collar and a bow, plus ornaments on the tree, he has to have gifts too.

We bought him a peanut butter flavored raw hide wreath to chew & his favorite Wild berry treats.

Next, my daughter wanted to buy a couple of stuffed animals for Trey. Now if you have a dog of any size, you know that a stuffed toy doesn't last long. Well, there is no way that I'm spending $5-$15

on a stuffed animal that looks like this in a couple of days.

 This was once a fiber filled dog!

 Dogs love the crunch sound they make when they bite into an empty plastic water bottle. You can buy stuffed animal toys that have an empty water bottle inside of them. Better yet, you can make your own for $1.07 each. We went to the Goodwill and bought 4 stuffed animals ( 2 of them brand new with the tags still on them). After running them through the washer and dryer, I ripped them on one of the seams and removed all the fiberfill from the body. Next I  inserted an empty water bottle and whip stitched them closed. That's $4.28 for 4 stuffed toys instead $20-$60. 

Here are two of the toys.

                                                 

                                                     I really like the one eared puppy !

I'm sure Trey will love his gifts and have a very, 

Merry Christmas. 

I wish all of you a Merry Christmas !!

The Christmas Coverup

I have two pictures in my dining room that I love 10  months out of the year, but sadly this Christmas they just didn't fit in. This year I went old school and used a tree theme that I haven't used in about 5 years. Wanting something different this year and not wanting to buy a lot of new stuff I went a little more traditional, red and white.  I know, I'm usually not at all traditional in my Christmas decor, but this year, why not!! I have a wonderful collection of hand painted Santas and Angels, just waiting to be used again.

So, the turquoise and orange pictures were definitely clashing with the red and white I was using. So, what to do, and what to do that would be easy and cheap.

There are a pair of these on the wall in my dining room.

 

 

 

 

 One option was to warp the pictures in wrapping paper and adding a bow. Nah, wasn't really what I wanted . Then I came up with an idea, now I don't think this is an original idea, but it's a good one.

I bought 3 pieces of  foam board and cut them to make 2- 23.5 in squares. I had to piece them together as the boards at the dollar store are 20x30. I cut the boards so that they would fit nice and snug inside the frame. Next, I used Christmas scrapbook paper and created 4 squares. Using chipboard letters from the $1-1.50 section at Michaels I spelled out Noel and Hope.  The letters were spray painted gold and embellished with gold glitter.

 

The letters are glued onto small pieces of cork to create a 3D look.

A couple of my hand painted Santas sit on the table under the "cover up" art.

To make sure the boards stay inside the frames with the added weight of the letters, I added 1- 3M Command strip to each. So far so good. My total cost for this quick cover-up was approx. $13.00 for both. I used every coupon available and caught the paper on sale too. I already had the paint  and the Command Strips.  After the holiday these can be stored away for the next time I want to use them.

So, what do you think ? Do you see a quick cover up in your future?

Call me The Transformer: Guest Room into Craft Room

--In previous posts I shared the changes taking place in what has been known in my house as "the other bedroom", the guest room and Brandon's room. It is my pleasure to introduce the room as" My Craft Room", Yea me.

Previous posts showed the wall paper choice, the creation of my work table and the encore for the bookcases and my desk. The final components include my newly purchased Vittsjo shelves, hand painted rug and accessories.

Here are the Vittsjo shelves before :

 

Ikea Vittsjo Shelf

I wasn't going for an industrial look so, I  followed a lot of others before me spray painted mine gold.

I painted the top and bottom shelves white while the others were glass.

Have you seen the wonderful painted rugs all over the internet? I've been really wanting to paint one, so a $5.00 find at the Goodwill was the perfect choice. I mean if  it didn't turn out so great it wouldn't break the bank!

I didn't want my rug to be hard or crunchy, so I mixed latex flat paint with fabric medium in a 2:1 ratio. A couple of tape measures and a roll of painters tape and...   It worked great.

Once the rug was dry, I felt like my room had finally come together.

 I was so excited to get started that I didn't take many ( or good) pics of the room before. Here's a before pic of the room...

And here it is after...

The chair will eventually get another encore, but right now, it's good. I took the cheap mini blind and made a no sew roman shade. Caught a neutral beige cotton on sale at JoAnn's  for about $4.00 (total!), I think I'm going to stencil a design on the valance with the leftover paint from the rug.

 

The bulletin board frame was from a vintage mirror that I bought at The Longest Yard Sale a year ago. I color matched the paint in the wall cover and painted the cork then added a white trim. The shelves allowed me to display my elephant collection that goes back some years. I also made the "M " and the "B" bookends. Watch for more like them in my Etsy shop soon.

Don't know what you think but, I LOVE it. Let me know what you think!!

Encore for Desk and Bookcases

The next projects on the way to finishing my craft room were my desk and bookcases.

Here's my desk before it's encore:

    Actually, I had started the encore before I took a "Before" picture. So imagine it with two holes in the front.

 I guessed it was the wonky leg that led to this desk being on the curb. All it took was an allen wrench and it was fixed! The 2 small drawers were missing and I had planned to make new ones, but never got around to it. After 4 years I decided to just cover the holes instead of making drawers. I bought a paint can grid at Home Depot for less than $4.00.

I used tin snips to cut the frame off and cut this grid down the middle. With the addition of some wood trim I "finished" these holes.

Next I gave the desk a quick sanding and then primed and painted the desk .

Still have to hide those cords!

In addition to the desk,  the short bookcases got an encore as well..

After a quick sanding..

Primed and painted. On to the 2nd one.

I also made a new bulletin board. I used a vintage frame that I bought at the Longest Yard Sale a couple of years ago. I matched the aqua in the wall covering and painted the cork board. To dress it up a little I added a white ribbon trim.

There's more to come as I totally transform this room. 

 

A Double Hack - Ikea and West Elm !!

Hi everybody,

It's been awhile , but I've been so busy with work (don't you hate it when work gets in the way.) and redesigning my 3rd bedroom  into an everyday craft room.

I've given my desk an encore as well as some bookcases, more about that coming up.

My next project, I know this is way out of order but...

I decided to complete a Double Hack, an Ikea hack and a West Elm hack!!
The inspiration for this hack was found at  West Elm. It's their 2 x 2 Console Desk. Pictured below.

When I looked at this desk, I saw 4 Ikea Lack tables and an Ikea table top!!
So, off I went to Ikea to get the Lack tables and a white table top.
                           

Ikea Linnom table top

Ikea Lack table

                                                               

Here are the Lack tables. 

The underside of the tables had to be painted as they would be visible.

I used these to attach the 2 tables to each other.

Here she is. Can't you just see yourself using all this wonderful work space. Ignore the mess on the floor, this room is under construction!!

 I  decided to trim 1" off all of the legs. I wanted my work table to be tall enough to use as a cutting table for sewing too, so I decided on a finished height of 35". 

Here she is.  The West Elm desk is currently on sale , it was $349 and is now $199.

It's 60w x18d x 30h. Not a bad deal right?

My table is 48w x 25d x 35h for a total of $69.00. 

Finished look

I decided to use 2 different size plastic containers. I didn't want to have to dig around in 4 large containers that were just "buckets" so I used some smaller ones too. To help organize the items in my containers, I used foam board from the dollar store and made dividers for the smaller containers. I was able to choose the size of the compartments within each container. Ones has 16 sections for lots of smaller common items!

Foam board dividers in the making.

When fully packed this container will hold the zillions of bottles of acrylic paint, organized by color!!

Stay tuned for the next installment on As the Room Turns ( into something useful and beautiful).

Quick,Inexpensive wall covering option- You'll love it!!

Now that I have finished my headboard I'm ready to move to another room and my "office/craft room/guest room" is next. Just the fact that the room has to serve all those needs tells you that this will be a challenge. And to top it off. it's not that large a room, its only 12 x 10.5 '. It currently just has a desk and 2 small bookcases in it. Oh, and a left over chest of drawers that is on it's way to the basement. One of the walls in this room loses about 3.5' due to a closet that "sticks" out of one corner

I'm kinda over this animal print look. After all, it's followed me through 3 different houses. I think I've had enough. I want a lighter more feminine looking workspace.

                                                                via 
These  pics speak to the general look ( remember I said general, no way will I have the budget or space to do all this) that I want. I like the light airy look of the first pic but I also want a bold accent wall.
                                                    

Not sure if I'm this bold, but I think I like it!

Very daring and I LOVE it!

I wanted to start with the walls. The paint in this room is in good shape, the room hasn't seen too much use so I don't have to paint. The walls are a very pale soft grey that only looks grey when you notice the white trim. The one wall that always catches my eye and whispers "accent wall, accent wall" is where I started. This wall  has white bead board half way up.  I wanted to really make the top half of the wall pop with color. After deciding that I didn't want a solid wall, I started looking for some fabric to apply to the wall. But then...

I spotted this wrapping paper in Marshalls and I fell in love with it,  What's not to love? It's a stylized chevron pattern using two of my favorite colors, turquoise and pink. This paper is really cool because it isn't paper. Nope, it's not vinyl either. This paper is called Stone Wrap by Loft 213, it's made from limestone!

The price was right, $2.99 a roll and because it's so wide, 30" I only need 2 rolls for the top half of my accent wall. That's less  than $6.00. You can't buy a quart of good paint for $6.00!  Next, I had to figure out how to get the paper ( sorry, don't know what else to call this stuff) to stay on the walls without damaging the walls. If you are renting or leasing ( or just live with someone who hates glue, paste, etc on the walls) you understand. Well, here's what I found and it really gets the job done. 3M Command Poster Strips work perfectly. They are so thin that they aren't noticiable at all. I used the small strips. A package of 12 for $3.00 at Targets.

Here's why you should not lie to yourself, you know you can't see that tiny print. Go get your readers.!! I put the first 4 Command strips on wrong. But, so far so good.

Each piece of my paper is approx. 46" x 30", so to make sure they stay put I put a strip at least corner and one on each side mid way down. That means I'll need 18 strips total. That's $6.00 for Command strips for a total cost of approx. $12.00.

Just 3 other prints, there are even more available.

 

 This paper comes in so many cute patterns that I'm going to head back to Marshalls for more of it so that I can change this accent wall if I want. I saw two other patterns that would so work with the colors I plan to use in this room.

Here is the wall.

First sheet up, no problems!

Wall's all done!

If you plan to try this with other wrapping paper, go for it. My only word of caution is to look at your paper carefully before you cut it. I did discover a flaw in my second roll and had  to go back for more. But at $2.99 a roll, I'm  not too mad about it. I took the paper back and explained that I didn't see the flaw before I cut it, and they gladly exchanged it for another roll and apologized for the inconvenience. Way to go Marshalls!

This project took less than 40 minutes. I measured twice before cutting and spent time matching the pattern. I plan to paint my desk and bookcases white and will add a large chalkboard that I spied at Marshalls on this patterned wall. I also will be painting a 5x7 area rug that I got for $4.95 at a local thrift store. There's lots to be done in this room. Stay tuned, I plan to share it all with you.

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