Dots Azules

New Carseat Cover

2011-10-12T10:23:00.000-07:00

I've seen people sell these and show them on blogs and I've been meaning to do it for OVER 5 MONTHS NOW! (notice Chloe is 5 months...)..oh well...better late than never...

I love it, it's cutesie but not pink...
And it was SUPER quick because I just recovered the old seat cover so I didn't have to re-pad it or anything :)

Baby Skeletons

2011-10-12T10:12:00.000-07:00

I'm sure everyone has seen those shirts where there's a baby skeleton in the mom's belly...well I made one with my neighbor Megan since she's pregnant and it's perfect timing to announce it! IT was alot of fun! We printed some examples and of course I have plenty of fabric...and my mom left some iron-on witchery here from the last time she visited :)

Here's how it went :)

Our boys LOVE playing together, it's so great to have friends so close :)

And here it is! Turned out great I think :)

Halloween 2011

2011-10-12T10:06:00.000-07:00

For Halloween I painted some old ceramic jars orange...

Made some plaster skulls with Cheryl...

Covered my boxes with Halloween fabric...

Put up these awesome witches' hats from Uncles!

yeah for Halloween!

Hair stuff for Chloe...

2011-10-12T09:40:00.000-07:00

I got these awesome elastic headbands from teh dallar store so I pulled out some cutesy ribbon I had and made a couple of headbands for her...so fun!

I also had some old zippers, and I had seen this on a couple of blogs, so I made a zipper on too...

wall of fish!

2011-10-12T09:38:00.000-07:00

So I got some glass bricks from my uncles that they used to use for plants ect...and as soon as I saw them I thought "FISH"!!! So I got some fish rocks and some fish and tried it out...so cute!

Painted Barbie Horses

2011-10-12T09:36:00.000-07:00

I saw this cool idea on pinterest for using toy horses for decor...and I kept thinking, what a genius idea! That way if Alvin does get his hands on them it's not some porcelain thing that's going to break...they're toys...so I got two at a garage sale a few weeks ago and painted them :)

wall panels

2011-10-12T09:31:00.000-07:00

I found this cool discarded wood that had these designed carved into them, and I thought, with some 1x3 studs I could make these nice wall panels for above the bed...so Tay cut them to matching heights (there were originally three longer ones...) and I backed them with some 1x3 pieces to give them some depth and primed and painted them :)

Cute DIY bench

2011-10-12T09:29:00.001-07:00

Taylor saw this idea on the DIY network (he loves those shows!) and we decided it woul be fun to do. As you can see Alvin staying in the middle of the project the ENTIRE time...dumping out screws and walking off with tools, but we love him being a part of what we do :)

The first step was building the bench's frame into the wall, finding the studs and making sure the bench will be strong and stable :)

Then we used MDF to cover the sides , and made the top...

It'll give us plenty of storage space :) VERY exciting! and then we talked about painting it or getting something nice to cover it...and I remembered the left over blinds (I've been using them on multiple projects...I'm actually sad that they're all used now :(

We used liquid nails (my new adhesive of choice) and put them on, staggered...

Very nice if I do say so myself :)

Then we cut the wood fo rthe lid, layered it with padding, covered it with some fun material...

So look at my hair...you can tell months later we finally finished the lid/pad and got it all put together, but I think it looks great.

Put on the lid, put up the drapes and cute pillows :)

All done!

New Headboard...Wooden door

2011-10-12T09:29:00.000-07:00

So someone threw out a perfectly good wooden door which I thought...I could make a headboard that I won't have to worry about breaking :) Or my son breaking...since he figured out my old one was made of Styrofoam and tape he has made it a game to bend it and pull the tape off as much as possible when I"m busy feeding Chloe...not cool Alvin!

So Taylor made some nice legs for it, nice and sturdy...and I started looking at thing to decorate it with...I had these "points" of wood, but decided that made it looked like a castle...weird...so we went with a sunburst theme...I'd still like to add some molding at the top...but that'll come later :)

SO I glued on a variety of dowels and painted it black...I love it!

Star Mirror

2011-10-12T09:26:00.000-07:00

I had these wooden spikes that I had to use somewhere...and I had an extra oval mirror that needed a home...SOOOO...I made a sunburst-type mirror...using "Liquid Nails" which I love...

We put it up in our entryway...big and different...

New Kitchen??

2011-10-12T09:24:00.000-07:00

New Cabinets? Nope...but it sure feels that way! Taylor and Spencer had talked about this idea of moving the over cabinets over the sink and putting the microwave over the oven (the over the range kind). Cheryl and Spencer did it and I really like it...but still I figured we'd just do it "someday" well like two days after they did theirs our microwave bit the dust...it started sparking and buzzing...crazy!

So I spread the word to my awesome mother and sister-in-laws that we needed a new microwave and Syd found us this great over the range white one for $15 at D.I.!!!! SWEET! We've just had it on the counter waiting for a time to install it...since we still had to So the other day Mutual got cancelled and Tay was watching a baseball game and I guess he got the urge to just do it...so he did, he took down the old range hood, I helped with the cabinet...he moved the light over the sink so it wouldn't be covered by the new cabinet going there....all in a couple hours...it's amazing the difference it makes! I'm so excited!!!

Random Flower

2011-09-01T10:24:00.000-07:00

So I must have been really bored when I did this...but a neighbor threw out an old brass lamp that I thought "I could do something with that...so I grabbed it.

A week before I had bought some random cute flowers at a garage sale...so I took the top of the lamp off, attached the flower and the moss and made a kind of little topiary/single flower bouquet :) I like it. it's different...

Living Room: back to Turquoise and then back to Yellow...

2011-09-01T10:17:00.000-07:00

I can't seem to make up my mind between yellow and turquoise in the living room area...I keep going back and forth...my visiting teacher thinks it's amazing that my curtains keep switching :)

It just makes me happy to switch things up....

Brown Bathroom with a topiary

2011-09-01T09:16:00.000-07:00

I'm thinking about redoing the bathroom and realized I never posted about this...just lots of craziness going on....This was last November...HA!

I wanted a topiary in this bathroom...so I cut a piece of styrofoam that I had...( HATE the idea of buying craft styrofoam...SO expensive!!!

I covered it with some mossy twig stuff I had...

Put it on a stand someone was going to throw away...it had another piece on top that was broken...

And painted it...I think sometime I switch ti to a more fuzzy type topiary :) fun!

On the opposite wall in the bathroom, are some awesome asian hats form my uncles, some of the coolest stuff I have is from teh uncles :)
So since i"m getting ready to re-do the bathroom I passed some of the hats alot to my cousin Amber to enjoy :) ENJOY!

Old Office Fabric Mosaic: Poppies

2011-09-01T08:48:00.000-07:00

I realized when I posted the pics about my new office I never posted about a Fabric Mosaic I made for my old office...

For a while my office was Red with some dark blue...

So I decided I wanted to make something on my big empty wall...
So I made a wooden frame and an old sheet for the base....

Then I cut out the fabric and glued it on similar to a picture I found on the internet of some poppies in a field...

I wish I had ironed all the fabric first...but I'm always in too much of a hurry for little details...which I regret later...but oh well. I enjoyed having this in my office for a while. It's gone now of course, sold it at my garage sale...I just made a new one I'll show you later ;)

PS. something that I always tell people and I wanted to note...all this stuff I do...it's with things I HAVE...I hate it when I go do to a craft with someone and we have to buy stuff for it, fabric, paint, wood...it's depressing...crafting should be fun and freeing, not just another weight on your pocket book.... since rarely we do crafty stuff because of actual need then I think we should try harder to reuse things, enjoy what we've got.
That's my soapbox for the day...

Yellow decor...New Office!

2011-09-01T08:34:00.000-07:00

I decided to finally jump on the yellow bandwagon...it is a great color isn't it :) So I took some old decor items that hardly had any use left...and painted them yellow :)

I spend so much time in my office it should be a place that makes me happy and these colors are SO happy :)

old headboard: canvas

2011-09-01T08:00:00.000-07:00

I realized I never posted about this headboard...we had been using it for about two years when I decided it was time for an upgrade (aka I found a door by the trash I could make a new one out of ....). So here is what our old headboard was, it was a wooden frame with canvas pulled and stapled around it, some styrofoam in the back, then I had planned to paint some kind of black design on it, but for the interim had put some black paint along the edges...and then never got to painting...then when Alvin started to peal the tape was when I realized it was time to upgrade to something more permanent...am I one of the three little pigs...maybe the next headboard will be made out of bricks :) hehehe...

File Cabinet to Dresser refinish!

2011-09-01T07:51:00.000-07:00

I know...file cabinet?? Well Tay and I have too many clothes...ok, not Tay, I...but also, in our condo we try to conserve space so I insist on sharing a dresser...which means we both share a closet and a dresser...we used to each have our own closet and our own dresser!
SO yeah...we needed a big dresser, our old one was the silver one I painted...I loved it but it started falling apart (bottom drawer) so I sold it for cheap and bought myself a metal filing cabinet. I had been looking for a huge dresser and the two I found that would work in the 3 months time I was looking were expensive and gone immediately...before I could get them, or convince the seller to go lower.

So I got this, a six drawer file cabinet. My neighbors had only known us for a couple of months at the time, and I'm sure they thought I was CRAZY...I know I am, but it was fun...

First I spray painted it...

Then I was going to use contact paper on the drawers but I couldn't find some I liked, so I used spray adhesive and some cute wrapping paper I got at the DOLLAR section in Target :)

I don't have a great picture of it yet, but here's a snapshot of it in my messy room, I love it!

And it is HUGE!! Lots of space!

(Oh, and in teh snapshot of messiness is our new FAN from the Fowers! We love it...we were at their place one day and they were talking about getting a new ceiling fan and I interupted and said "What are you going to do with that one??" everyone started laughing...I am so like that...all about getting hand-me-downs to enjoy :)

I say "Recycle, reuse, reduce and REPAINT :)

Padded Bench - white and yellow

2011-09-01T07:39:00.000-07:00

I got this cute coffee table off of freecycle.com (love it)...it was nice and sturdy and had some nice legs on it...so I painted it, padded it, and covered it :)

Alvin wanted to help with the staple gun...I know...it makes noises and mommy calls it her "gun"! Of course he wants it!

I love doing these benches, they're a fun project, I can enjoy them for a while and then sell them :)

Purse Make-over

2011-09-01T07:34:00.000-07:00

I found this cute purple tote bag at a garage sale and decided to dress it up a bit :)

First I gathers some lavender fabric that I had...then I layered it and glued it one...

And while I had the stuff out I dressed up some shoes too :)

Leaf wreath (from last year)

2011-06-09T10:37:00.000-07:00

So I never posted about this, and I wish I had more pics, but I wanted to document that I tried it...

I wanted a nice fall leaf wreath, but I wanted to make it, I heard of course that if I used real leaves they would dry and crack and it would be a mess, but I also read on Martha Stewart's blog that if the leaves were soaked in glycerin then they would stay soft indefinitely (let's be clear "indefinitely" was not the word they used, and it's not true either). It worked well, except I had expected the glycerin to help them keep their color too...instead over the next few months they continued to dry and to all change color to the same yellow/brown that all leaves eventually reach. The glycerin slowed down this process...but didn't halt it which is what I had expected.

I stapled the leaves onto a thin wooden frame, it worked well for a while, these pics are after some months had passed and the color had changed (I started out with beautiful reds and yellows...).
I also didn't get a pic of when I painted this wreath green, I was trying to use it as a spring wreath but the green didn't stick well and didn't get me the shade I wanted...and I decided that now that the leaves were cracking it was time to say good bye...

So much for that experiment.

Girly headbands and flowers

2011-06-09T10:04:00.000-07:00

There has been so much going on! New baby, new big brother...mommy of TWO kids! I'm so grateful!

And now that I have a little girl I've been having fun doing the GIRLY stuff now!

While my mom was here visiting we got busy making some cute bows and flowers for Chloe to wear...

Painted white bench!

2011-02-21T09:12:00.000-08:00

So, like I mentioned last time...it's a horrible habit...but it's free and I have fun being creative...and since that's not part of my job, or my calling, or on the short list of things Alvin likes to do together I've got to get it out of my system somehow...

So, on the way to work about two weeks ago I saw this wooden bench by the "special place of disposal" lets call it "SPOD"...and I did my best to get it into my Honda CRV, to have Taylor carry it up for me later...but even thoguth it was only about 5 ft long it wouldn't fit...so I "rolled" it up the stairs to our apartment and then went to work.

When Tay got home I asked him to bring it in so I could get working on refinishing it...he was not happy when he picked it up (it's solid wood, so it's kinda heavy) so he made me promise not to lift stuff like that from now on...but in my defense I ROLLED IT! I didn't lift it...except when I was trying to put it in the car :)

So I sand it, gave it about three coats of primer and some nice glossy white top coat...

Made some nice cushions for it...and put it in the computer room (which it happens to match wonderfully).

It's only here temporarily...but Alvin and Tay are enjoying it in the mean time..

PS. Alvin is a great photo-baby! We taught him to smile huge on the count of three when we've got the camera...SO cute :)

corner shelf

2011-02-18T11:40:00.000-08:00

Have have this habit...when I pass thos big dumpsters...I always take a glance to see if someone has thrown away doors, furniture...large things...things I can paint and have fun with. Someday I'll have money and just buy it all...but for now I keep an eye out for "hand-me-downs" as I call them.

So one day I noticed someone had gotten rid of some of those folding closet doors, and I had seen on a blog how you can use these to make a cute corner shelf...so we did!

Cute...Taylor wasn't too happy when he found out we weren't keeping it, but I realized it was NOT sturdy enough for alvin, within the short time we had it he pulled it down onto himself...and it was scary!

That's why all our bookshelves are screwed into the wall...I guess we could have done the same with this...but I imagined putting deocrative things on it, and that bottom shelf Alvin had already claimed as his spot...so it would have had to remain empty...Oh well.

Benches and Good-bye Valentine's Day...

2011-02-18T11:02:00.000-08:00

So I'm always on the look out for old benchs or sturdy coffee tables...Why? because padded bench's are a very popular, decorative, piece of furniture right now :)
So I take a free coffee table someone was getting rid of....paint it, or refinish it...make a nice cushion pad for the top...and WALLA! I have something beautiful...and cute.

So this one was one someone got rid of off of Craigslist...

Not so great...but it had potential :)

So I cleaned it off, painted it black, made a pad...covered it with some nice upholstry material...

Glued that to the top...

The zebra bench below we did and sold last summer, and the black and white long one with the cabinet I did before christmas and just sold...have to make room for the summer projects!

And, goodbye to black and red valentines stuff...time for spring :)

Valentines Day!

2011-02-14T08:48:00.000-08:00

So being pregnant I haven't been getting as much done lately, but over the past 5 months since my post I have done THINGS!
I'll post later about the remodeling we did in November, it was awesome, and we were VERY proud of ourselves :)

For Valentines day I pulled out the red and black spray paint and cloth I had and did my best to make things fun without being "silly valentinezy"..

So among the painting of frames and printing of cute pictures to fill them with I made a few things...this was a topiary I had been meaning to make for a while...I got a bunch of wiffle balls at the dollar store ( I can't believe people pay so much $$ for styrofoam balls at craft stores, here I used these cheap balls I got 6 for $1 and then later I used some old softballs taylor got for 25 cents each! Compared to $2.50 for a styrofoam ball! Silly :)

I rolled up crepe paper and glued it on...made the stand using some box styrofoam (the free white stuff) and some green moss I had around :)

CUTE!

A while back I had taylor cut a 10 ft 4x4 into blocks for me for craft projects, and I still hadn't used them so I pulled some out and made a set of blocks with different letters on each side spelling our last name...I just tapes them for now, I'll modge podge them later...or paint them...I'm so fickle when it comes to decor stuff it's hard to do somethign permanent cause I know I'm going to change it soon :)

(behind those blocks are some of the grames I painted and got some prints for them (off the internet, FOR FREE).

Here we covered some softballs for some decor balls on the wall...

We're going to take some better wide shots of the whole room tonight before i start changing it all for "spring". I have some other projects I"ve been meaning to post so I'll get those up soon!

Halloween 2010

2010-11-05T08:05:00.000-07:00

I have a friend...who is my Halloween Hero, she makes Halloween beautiful and awesome :) I love seeing her decorations and the fun things she does. So I've tried to enjoy Halloween better myself. Here were some things I did this Halloween:

Made some stuffed pumpkins with Halloween cloth.

Painted candle stands to match.

Put the pumpkins on them....

Put up some decor (bought on sale last year!)

Inside we put back up the vinyl white spiderwebs Cheryl made us last year on the cabinets.

She also donated a garland of felt bats that we hung from the ceiling and a Chinese lantern ghost that Alvin loved pulling down (ignore the mess I beg you)!

I also did a little display on some of the shelves on my wall too :)

The skulls and the spiders were cheap left overs from Walgreens last year, I painted them black and then added some silver. The candle sticks were brass...painted with my FAVORITE "oil-rubbed bronze" Krylon spray paint. And the candle themselves were PINK! Painted silver :)

It was a fun Halloween in my opinion :)

Making a purse bigger

2010-08-09T08:22:00.000-07:00

These days with Alvin I need TONS of purse space, otherwise I have to have another bag...of which I am not a fan...so I had this medium size turquoise leather purse...(what you see in the middle here...sorry no "before pics"). Using some cream and brown upholstery fabric I added large pockets on either wide with gathers on the bottom and added small matching pockets on the the front and back...

So, now that it's plenty big I use it all the time :)

New stand up Mirror

2010-07-29T14:39:00.000-07:00

My sister-in-law Irina found me this great plain rectangle mirror...so I grabbed it (for FREE...I won't tell you from where..) and made a frame for it, some cheap 1x6 inch boards from Home Depot. Glued and stapled...

A piece of pegboard added to the back to secure the mirror to the frame and add some more stability since it's a big one I want to leave leaning against the wall..

And Painted it black. Love it...it looks kinda small here but it's about 4.5 ft tall...

PS. I painted my room purple...in case you wondered where the mirror was...

Necklaces

2010-07-26T09:55:00.000-07:00

My mom and I made a bunch of cute necklaces when she was here but I never posted them.
Here they are:

My mom got these awesome crimping beads that you put on the end and use some pliers to tighten them.

Joane's had these big discs for necklaces that we loved...and they had some simple metal chokers...for a quick and simple (but lovely) necklace...

I'm Back! Inspiration for later

2010-07-21T14:43:00.000-07:00

SO some ideas, fun things I'd like to do sometime..you know...when days get longer and I don't have other things that need to be done first (which will never come, but I can dream right?)

A cool shelf...one that's kinda like one my brother daniel made...which we should take pics of and post Daniel!! It's awesome!

A felt Wall map for kids...

A set of Alphabet Crayons (available on Etsy...someday we'll make our own...)

AND FOR FOOD...

Slice some cinnamon rolls horizontally and make french toast out of them...YUMMM!

Make yourself a cookie cup instead of using bowls every time for ice cream :)

Curry Puffs

2010-05-11T08:49:00.000-07:00

Sunday, for mother's day, my mom and I spent about 9 hours making Curry Puffs...a wonderful treat, like an indian empanada...but MAN DO THEY TAKE FOREVER!!

You make the filling (first, after, or during the dough...whatever...but it does cook for a while to get the potatoes nice and smooshy (technical term).

There are two different kinds of dough. One is flour and margarine pretty much and the other flour and egg.
You make balls of each kind, ping-pong/golf ball size...

You roll out the egg dough and put the ball of margarine dough inside it...

Then you enclose the second inside the first...

Then you flatten the now-tennis-ball of dough from the center so you spread out the inner ball as well...

Then you roll it out...

Then you roll it up...

Then you use the rolling-pin again to roll the "roll" flat...

And you do that three times...

Then the final roll you slice one inch wide parts and roll that flat...

what it creates is a BEAUTIFUL layered look in the dough

You fill that with the curry filling and fry

And then you have yumminess all evening long!

Mouse-pads

2010-04-15T07:47:00.000-07:00

Recovered my mouse-pad for work and Chantel's too :-)

Just used some cloth I had and a sheet of appliqué stuff. So I just cut it all to fit and ironed it on.

Online they suggested you modge-podge the edges...I didn't...so we'll see how they stick over time...

PineCone Wreath

2010-04-14T07:39:00.000-07:00

Here is it finished.

I started out with some styrofoam sheets from Lowes and made a square.

Then I glued on various PineCones...

Then I painted it all black and then gave it a mist of silver on top...

And hung it up outside :-) Wahoo!

ps. since i took this pic I had Taylor put another screw in the wall so it would be centered under the light.

Flower headbands

2010-04-09T11:04:00.000-07:00

Last weekend I made some flower headbands for fun...

I started out by cutting off the think plastic part of the fake flower (so it would sit flat on the headband)...

Then I glued the layers together so they'd stay put...

Glued them onto the headband...

Added a cute button for the middle...

And...ALL DONE!

Changing Pad Cover

2010-04-08T07:38:00.000-07:00

This is my second cover I've made (it's easy to change your mind about colors when all it takes is a towel :-)

I took a dark blue towel (to go with Alvin's room) and the changing pad.

measured where and how deep the corners needs to be to cover the pad and hold the towel in place.

Sewed them together...

And no for the new cover!

I like the dark blue with the green, it tones it down a bit (since it is ghost buster green!!

Swimsuit Adjustments

2010-04-07T07:26:00.000-07:00

I got this swimsuit but it doesn't fit right on top...I'd like a bit more "coverage"...so...

The bottom of the swimsuit happened to have these two ties on either side,

I took one off and sewed it along the neckline of the swimsuit

And now have a swimsuit that I'll enjoy wearing this summer...now if it would just STOP SNOWING!

making a necklace smaller

2010-04-06T07:18:00.000-07:00

I got this cute necklace at Walmart...but made the mistake of not trying it on...I held it up, but I didn't look to see how high it would be on my neck...well...it hung down too low, so I'd either have to wear it over my shirts or with a swimsuit because my shirts don't come down THAT low...but I really loved it...

so I took a look at how it was made. The strand were plastic and the ends were melted together and secures with a metal wrapped wire. So I pushed the wire back...

I cut off the extra that I didn't need...or want

And used the burner on my stove to re-melt the end and then pushed the metal wrapping back up...

And now it fits PERFECTLY!!!

Easter Touchups

2010-04-05T08:29:00.000-07:00

I had some old Easter decorations that didn't match my other stuff...sooo..

I gave them a white base-coat...

Repainted their details using green so they'd all match...

And Viola!

Luv for cuz part 6 (BabyRoom)

2010-03-26T07:29:00.000-07:00

The last room we did at my cousin's was the baby room. It was nice, very neutral...but not fun and really geared towards the baby.

So we started talking about color...I had seen some really cute mistinted orange...but that was kind of drastic for her...last summer i got some cute baby blocks that were Periwinkle Blue and dark Brown and had given them to her...she decided that color scheme would work for her, and it turned out BEAUTIFUL!

The blocks had vertical lines on them, and I thought that would be really fun and different in the room. And not even lines, but a couple of varied ones.

So, she got the blue and a brown. We painted the blue (in our matching shirts!!)

But when we got to the brown we decided it was too dark, almost black, but we already had some Tan paint left from the last time she painted, so we mixed some of that in to get it the chocolate color we wanted.

(if you do try mixing, but forewarned it doesn't always work, test out small amounts first...AND make sure the paints are the same finish/type.

For the lines we measured out how far apart we wanted them and put up the tape. When doing this move the tape as many times as you need to get things where you want them, that may seem like a pain, but it'll be harder to move the lines :-)

Here are some of the lines after we painted while we waited for it to dry...

I think it turned out great! To go with the new colors Genn made some more sunburst mirrors and painted some of them brown and some white. She also repainted some old frames to match the new colors. She had brown curtains in another room that we switched out as well as a brown rocking chair, but since the one footstool she had was the wrong color I made a quick brown cover for it.

Really simple, just a cube/slip cover :)

I think it turned out darling!

Here are the blocks that were inspiration...

Alvin thinks it turned out nicely too :-)

She worked so fast getting things done each evening I was always impressed by how much was done since the last time I was there :-)

WAHOO! Fun new rooms, quick, and CHEAP!

Luv for Cuz Part 5 (Cork Board)

2010-03-25T07:01:00.000-07:00

In the "after" pic of the kitchen you'll see a corkboard...Uncle Micheal had it, painted teh thin frame aroudn it black, but we wanted something thicker.
So I went to Lowes clearance wood section, they had some 1x3 and 2x4 but they were in larger bundles than I wanted...so I just went and got two new pieces...at only $2 a piece still well within budget.

First I measured around the outside fo the cork board's black frame, marked the new wood...and then cut.

I always seem to pull out the saw at like 8pm at night...SORRY NEIGHBORS!!!

Then I stapled together the corners and added some wood glue for extra strength.

Then I primed it...since it was pretty fresh pine (some of the pieces I did NOT buy had sap leaking out of them...

Then painted it white and attached it to the corkboards thin black frame to give it a nice finished look!

You can buy these corkboards pretty cheap and then dress them up like this, give them a thicker frame...add color ect. Very fun!

Cline

2010-03-24T12:52:00.000-07:00

Check out this site to create your own :-)

or

Love for Cuz part 4 (Kitchen)

2010-03-24T07:10:00.000-07:00

My mom's favorite color is red. Because of that I think I grew up with a prejudice against that color...but now I've given in...I love red!
So when my cousin and I were talking about colors I asked about red...her mom does NOT like red on walls so it was a big step (but even her mom agrees now it looks great :-)

Kitchen before (very cute I think...just time for a change and some color)...

So we started painting the red she got at "Restore"...red always takes more coats to cover well in my experience. We asked the guy at the paint store and he sad that the red dye is made differently than the other colors and that's why...

Hahahaha YEAH RED!

The boys plays while we painted...

Tada! BEAUTIFUL!

I LOVE the arched doorways in her house, and I think the color helps accentuate them!

She repainted some things and redecorated to put red throughout the rest of the room.
She made this clock the same way we had done the sunburst mirrors earlier :-)

Over the sinks our Uncle Micheal added some accents to the white cabinets.
I suggested (since again red paint can be a pain) that she cut out some matching red paper to put it in some of the shelves on the sides...and I gave her some mugs to add some color above one sink, and I had these three glass jars hanging around my house FOREVER now...so we emptied them out...and she ALREADY HAD some red sand that she used to fill them :-)

It's amazing what we already have around to keep the budgets small!

INTRODUCING: Fern and Lola

2010-03-23T12:51:00.000-07:00

Have you checked out Fern and Lola yet? There's a button to the right for their blog!

They are amazing, their blog not only gives updates and shows their products but also shares other fun project ideas and things they're working on!

You can also see them on Esty!

As they put it "We create beautiful hand painted linens for your home. Each item is done completely by hand and no two are alike. They are as unique and individual as the stripes on a zebra, snowflakes or even your own fingerprints."

Leith, one of the creators, is not only a good friend, but SUPER creative and has great taste!

Love for Cuz part 3 (Living Room)

2010-03-23T08:34:00.000-07:00

So, here are the pics from the fun changes we made to my cousin's place. I love the colors she usually uses...greens and browns, very soothing

Here is her living room BEFORE (notice her cute kids sofa set we re-covered earlier).

Besides adding some colors she wanted to put in some long shelves...we used tape to mark where she liked them, then a carpenter friend of hers used MDF (my favorite...but it is a bit expensive) to put them up.

He did these and more in her house all in one day! VERY quick and nice work!!

Something that I never would have thought of, and NOW I HAVE TO...is she had an old ceiling fan in her living room, she got new glass light covers from the bulb part and removed just the blades so she could paint them and then put them back up!! GENIUS! Now it looks like a totally new fan!

We painted a blue accent wall with some awesome paint from Benjamin Moore (bought at a quarter of the price!)

She painted the shelves white and we pulled some things I wasn't using at my house (vases ect) and frames from heres and painted them blue and white to bring the blue across...(on the couch are the pillows I showed yesterday).

More coming! She redid 3 rooms in her house all in ten days! AMAZING!

I'm glad she let me help, I love it!

Love for Cuz Part 2 (Pillows)

2010-03-22T09:34:00.000-07:00

So, I have YARDS and YARDS of this beautiful off-white cloth from my grandmother...

In the course of re-decorating my cousin's place we decided some different pillows to help carry the blue-color she picked for her living room from the front wall to the back wall would be nice, but we wanted to use what we had. I didn't have the right color blue cloth, so we took this white cloth, and a stencil that she liked, and used extra wall paint and painted the cloth.

When using a stencil on something like this be sure to measure it out so that the design will be straight and even. I used a pencil to mark the correct spots for starting and stopping...

I think it turned out very nice, we did a row on the top and bottom of each side...

Then I found some blue braided piping that was close enough in color that it would give a nice outline to the pillows.

I hadn't used piping that thick before...and it was hard to keep in in the right place as I sewed the seams, even with pins trying to hold it in place!

All in all though, I think they turned out nicely! It will be fun to see them on Genn's couch with her new room!

candlesticks

2010-03-18T14:12:00.000-07:00

My friend Annette gave me some old brass candlesticks she was getting rid of last weeks, but i didn't have a place for them as they were...sooooo I spray painted them with my oil-rubbed-bronze paint for my bedroom.

Then I also had these beautiful tall candles from my grandmother...I had kept them because they were gold, and I thought they were so pretty and unique. But When I pulled them out of the box I noticed they were scratched and there was pink underneath...I took a closer look and figured out that MY GRANDMOTHER HAD PAINTED THEM GOLD!!

It runs in the family I guess...so I painted them silver :-)

Turned out lovely with my silver dresser.

Toilet Accessories

2010-03-16T09:35:00.000-07:00

My favorite things :-)

So I had my spray paint out from another project and went to the bathroom to wash my hands and noticed my old pale blue toilet brush sitting in my cute pink and black bathroom..."this does not go" I thought.

Easily fixed. I cleaned off the brush and the plunger and used my "nickel" spray paint to make them match the other accessories in the bathroom. Yeah for spray paint!

Recycled Cabinet

2010-03-15T09:00:00.000-07:00

I got this cabinet from a friend in my ward (Thank you Annette!) and I decided to use it to make my bathroom less cluttery. There's not alot of space in this half-bath and the metal and glass shelf we had over the toilet tending to collect all kinds of things since it was easy to pile onto :-)

Here's what it looking like...of course, this was one of it's better days when it wasn't COVERED with jewerly, hair stuff, and towels...

So this is what the cabinet looked like when I got it...

So we took off the top railing-like-thing, I primed it, and painted it white. I removed the knobs and used my new "brushed nickel" spray paint, then reattached them.

And put it on the wall :-)

Actually Brady and Justin put it up, THANK YOU!

Much more tidy looking!

Luv for Cuz Part 1 (picking paint colors)

2010-03-12T08:14:00.000-08:00

I just finished helping my cousin redecorate some rooms in her home...and her husband agrees it LOOKS GREAT!!

For the next while I'll be sharing some of the things that we did. To get started we walked around her house and talked about what she wanted to change. The last time she painted any rooms in her house was when she moved in almost 6 years ago. I loved her home how it was, she has very neutral colors and a classic style.

She wanted to add some color, but not too much. She loves green but wanted to go outside of that...so we talked about some options, in her kitchen we wanted to do a red wall and then use red accents in the rest of the room.

In her living room we talked about a dark blue, almost a dark denim color.

Then in her baby's room we talked about really having some fun. We talked about orange and blue...blue and brown...and vertical lines! A friend of mine has varied vertical stripes in her little boy's room and I love it!

So my cousin went to the "Restore" place I've mentioned before. She found a perfect red and then a possible dark turquoise and a light blue.

Once we looked at them though I had serious concerns about how old the dark TURQUOISE was...it was rusty inside and had dried chips of the rust and paint mixed in the paint.

So we painted the Red, which took 5 coats but looks great!! (it was older...and being RED it did not want to cover well...).

Then the next day we went to look at the Benjamin Moore paint store to see what mistints they had.

Benjamin Moore has AMAZING paint...and their mistints they sell for less than 25% of the normal cost!! it's CRAZY!.

So we looked at paint chips, picked a blue she liked, and then looked at the mistints for one that had a dark base (if you want a dark color you have to start from the right base paint) as well as a mistint that didn't have opposing colors to what we wanted. We found a medium blue with a Deep Base. We took it to the guy at the tinting station, he looked it up and said he could re-color the mistint and get it SUPER close for us.

For some places there is a small fee for re-tinting mistints...but it is STILL MUCH cheaper!

So we got a perfect blue for the living room tinted.

Then my Cuz went and found a mistint area in WALMART!!! Sweet! She got some dark brown for the vertical stripes and a happy light blue for the baby's room!

It looks awesome! Stay tuned for the before and after shots and for all the decor items we re-vamped or made to go with her new color schemes :-)

Spring has Sprung!

2010-03-11T11:05:00.000-08:00

Wanna see something hilarious?!?! Remember my post about the red branches from work? http://dotsazules.blogspot.com/2010/02/red-branches.html

Well, the groundscrew told me that the branches were getting ready to bud and if I put them in water they would leaf and bud...I didn't want them to though...I just wanted to stick them in a pot to look pretty just how they were...BUT I stuck them in a pot of dirt...

BEFORE I go on can I remind all of you...I KILL PLANTS! Plants have to be pretty strong and self reliant about pulling their own water out of the air to live in my house...

So these branches, that I did not plan to have grow, or bud, or ever give water too...did just that! I put them in a pot of dirt (just to hold them upright, did NOT plant them...and they must have taken that as a sign that I wanted tehm to grow and form their own forest...because...

THEY ARE BUDDING!

They pulled water out of the air and and sprouting leaves!

Of course once I saw this I decided my own little red forest would be fun...and if these things are stubborn enough to sprout on their own...I could help. So now I'm watering my forest. We'll see how it goes :-)

Lime-Honey Chicken Enchiladas

2010-03-10T09:03:00.000-08:00

My cousin Jayne made these for my mom a while back and they are my new favorite for dinner! (ask Tay and Justin, I make them once a week!!) See Your Home Based Mom for the original recipe (mine is changed just a bit).

THESE ARE SOOOO GOOD!
They are easy, too! If you dont' have tiem to let the chicken stand in the marinade, no worries, it works even if you cook it right away...just not as strong a flavor :-)

3 boneless chicken breasts, cooked and shredded
1 can+ green enchilada sauce
flour tortillas

Mix and pour over shredded chicken:
5 T honey
5 T lime juice
1/2 T. chili powder
1 tsp. garlic pdr. (or minced garlic)

Let stand at least 30 min. or overnight.
To make enchiladas spread 1/2 c. green enchilada sauce over bottom of 9" x 13" pan.
Roll up flour tortillas with chicken, sour cream, mozzarella cheese and 1 T. green sauce.

Drizzle remaining sauce over all and sprinkle with a little cheese.

Bake at 350 degrees until lightly browned - abt. 30 min.

Serve with Black Beans and pico de gallo.

ENJOY!

PS.
If you want some variety at dinner you can also whip up some quick shredded beef enchiladas using the cans of roast beef from cosco. I shred teh beef a bit, mix with taco seasoning, roll up in the tortillas with red enchilada sauce and Mozzarella cheese, then cover with what's left and bake.

BLOGSWAP DAY!

2010-03-09T09:24:00.000-08:00

Today, my new friend Shannon and I are swapping blogs. My post for today is on her blog and hers is on mine. I love how detailed Shannon is with her instructions and her ideas, it makes her crafts very easy to follow and understand! Thank you Shannon!
______________________________________________________________________________________________

Hello fellow crafty ladys and mew friends! My name is Shannon from One Crafty Mommy and I am so excited to be doing my first blog swap with Stina! Today I will show you how to make an adorable Rag Tie Snuggle Blanket for your kids!
Instead of doing a traditional blanket, I decided to make one similar to the one I made my daughter while my husband was deployed. I bought iron on sheets and printed pictures of him. For this blanket I printed pictures of our entire family (35 people) and ironed them onto the cotton fabric.

Supplies:

-1/2 yard snuggle flannel (can adjust size depending on blanket size)
-1/2 yard cotton/polyester blend coordinating fabric (the blend makes it easier to tie)
-4 x 6 iron on transfers (as many as you would like)
-craft scissors

Print out your pictures onto the iron-on transfer paper using your home computer. (You can print plain pictures or use photoshop like I did to add names, graphics, etc.)

Peel the protective backing off the transfers and iron onto the cotton blend fabric with the directions from the package.

Once all your pictures have been ironed, place the two peices of fabric together. Cut out a 4 x 4 inch square on all four corners. This is done easily if you make a cardstock template ahead of time which can be used for your next blanket.

On all four sides, cut 4 inch long by 1 inch wide strips along the border. Make sure you cute through both pieces of fabric.

Tie the two pieces together into a double knot. (This ensures that the blaket will stay together if you need to throw it in the washing machine from time to time). Repeat this step along all four sides of the blanket.

Now you have an adorable rag tie snuggle blanket that was easy to make and will be a long-lasting keepsake for someone you love!

Thanks for having me today Stina!

A Place for Everything and Everything in it's Place

2010-03-08T06:32:00.000-08:00

One of my New Year Resolutions was to have a place for everything and everything in it's place (typically I'm more of a "pile" type of cleaner...but that doesn't work in a small condo).

Organizing things with the end goal being that there is always a place for that item from now on is really nice. I've made alot of progress (and gotten rid of alot of unnecessary things).

I used to keep rolls of tape in a drawer which was a mess...but then I got this great mini-post that screws into the wall...it's got enough of an end on it that the tape doesn't fall off, but it's small enough that even the smaller rolls can fit on it, and now I can always find the tape I need!

Button, Button, Who's got a button!

2010-03-05T10:58:00.001-08:00

button
Originally uploaded by stinadot

Here's my new button (HTML available to the right). Take it and share it. Thanks for visiting!

Featured...

2010-03-05T07:26:00.000-08:00

I'm so excited! This week I've been featured on three other blogs (buttons to the right). Today I'm on the Sidebar spotlight on Somewhat Simple.

Thank you Steph! SO FUN!

Storage boxes

2010-03-04T07:56:00.000-08:00

We got this cute 9-cube shelf from some neighbors that were getting rid of it (we LOVE hand-me-downs).

It came with no storage boxes or anything and since we already had some book shelves I really wanted some drawer space in it...so I started looking everywhere for boxes that would fit, but the cheap ones were all the wrong size and the ones that fit were expensive...at one point I just decided to buy some boxes from Ikea...but then realized that to get 9 of them I'd be spending $100 for drawers in a shelf that I didn't even pick for myself ...and that seemed silly.

SO....I got some cardboard and made these collapsible storage bins from some cute cloth I had :-)

I cute the cloth and took it to the sewing machine to get it to the right shape, glued in the cardboard, cut the handle holes and glued around there...and Voilà!

Now I can store my out of season decor right in the room where it goes :-)

Sunburst Mirrors!

2010-03-03T10:56:00.000-08:00

Last week I got together with some of my old roomates and after we had dinner together we all made some sun burst mirrors!

A while back we bought some faux wood blinds from JC Penny... they were just a standard size and since our windows are rather short we had TONS of the individual blinds left over...

So...I kept them being the pack rat I am (thank you Tay for not letting it be worse) and I finally put them to use this week!

We cut them up...

And glue them to the back of small round mirrors (thank you Genn for letting us use them!).

Here you see that not only did I use stuff I had but it turned out that I didn't ever need big tools for cutting the blinds, the faux wood cut with scissors!! We used hot glue, and spray paint for a variety of colors.

Also, another type that we made that night were ones using skewers poked into styrofoam.

Some we painted silver...

And this one I left the natural color, I like it.

Each mirror hardly took anytime at all and They add so much to a wall...with square and rectangle frames being the norm having a round shape up there adds some variety :-)

Rate My Space

2010-03-02T11:33:00.000-08:00

Check out my space :-)

http://www.athomewith.com/community/DotsAzules/portfolio.esi?userid=40932616

To Do list

2010-03-02T10:45:00.000-08:00

We all have our To-DO lists...I have a little notebook with pictures of things I want to do...

I also keep notes on my phone, in my calendar...all over the place...it's a wonder I ever get anything with so many different lists :-)

Old Brass Lighting Fixtures??

2010-03-01T07:19:00.000-08:00

Do you have old Brass Lighting Fixtures??

I did...but then my mother-in-law suggested that I spray paint the brass part on some of them last year...I used to think there were rules about things you can't spary paint...I've since learned that you can TRY to spray paint anything...and you'd be surprised how much works :-)

So, last week, after putting in the canned lights we went to put back in the main light into the office room, and then I remembered, we have another light fixture in the closet that I would rather paint and put in than putting the old cluster-track-lighting fixture (below on the left) back up. So I got it and painted it. I paint mine white. Our ceilings are so low I don't want to put anything above our heads to make it feel lower...but if you prefer oil-rubbed bronze or nickle take a look at the Kryon spray paint at Walmart...half the price of Lowes and they look GREAT!

If you paint your fixture just be sure to cover up the wire/bulb parts of the fixture (I just taped a piece of paper over the top).

Diaper Wreath...for a baby shower

2010-02-26T09:11:00.000-08:00

I missed the Shower last night! but I had a cute gift all ready to go! Blast my post-baby memory!!!

Taylor and Justin kept looking at me like I was crazy while I was making this, but it turned out darling I say!

I had seen them online and thought "I can totally make that!

So I did...I made a cardboard frame to attach everything too, tied on groups of diapers to the frame, inserted some fun extra things (baby lotion ect), tied on ribbon to secure everything and Voilà! (that's how you spell "walla"!...you know....like "Ta-Da").

More lights

2010-02-25T09:39:00.000-08:00

Have you ever put in a can light??
It is SO easy...and it adds SOOOO much to your space. Our apartment only has four windows (one of those being a sliding glass door)...my wonderful in-laws added two sky-lights (which I love!)...but there were rooms that were still quite dark...and I love things bright (as you know from the colors I choose for my house :-)

So, a while back we copied our good friends Spencer and Cheryl and put in recessed can lights. We put four in our living room and one in the kitchen above the sink.
We used a simple dry wall knife/saw, cut the hole, ran Romex (power cabling) to get power from the existing lights in the house, pushed the light up into the hole, added the cover, and put the bulb it...(of course there were issues getting the cable from the existing lights to the hole for the new ones in a few cases...but it worked out.

So Tay decided this week to add three more canned lights to our house (as a sneaky way of putting a cable hookup in our back room...also copying Spencer and Cheryl.
This time Tay used our Jig Saw (thank you jake and meghan!) and Justin helped run the wire.

Yeah for more lighting!

Ties, Ties, and More Ties

2010-02-24T09:13:00.000-08:00

A couple of years ago my Uncles were cleaning out their neck-tie collection...and being the person I am I volunteered to help them clean-out :-)

So I went home that day with 20-30 ties. I had a friend in high school taht had a tie skirt that I thought was SO cool. So I decided to make one. I laid out a bunch of the ties and arranged them next to ones taht looked good together, I pulled out the seam in the back of each on and began sewing them together from the bottom. I was going to just make it a skirt and put in the waist , but once I tried it on I realized they were plenty long enough to make a dress! So I pull four of them up and made straps and hemmed the rest!

That was about four years ago...after making the dress and realizing that ties could make so many fun things I jumped at the chance to buy a box of 400 TIES off of Craigslist (about three years ago)...

since then I have made another dress for my sister-in-law from blue ties, started a dress for my sister from grey ties.

I made myself a scripture case...

...and a laptop case (which I don't have anymore sorry!)

And a black and grey skirt...

and most recently we just finished making a vest from ties for my brother-in-law Justin (loves vests)...it was supposed to be for his birthday but I didn't have the right cloth for the back of the vest once I started making it and so I decided it woudl be easier (and cheaper) to just by an old vest with a black back that fit Justin and replace the front, rather than buy the cloth and make the entire vest...and I WAS RIGHT! I know...I'm cheap and lazy...oh well :-)

The amazing things ties can make...next up? I think I'll make one of those tie pillows...

Recovered Bumper pads

2010-02-23T11:21:00.000-08:00

I mentioned before that I was going to recover my baby bumpers...to match the new room...

So I finally did...but it's just for show since Alvin likes looking around his room in bed (and besides people say bumpers are just another pillow in the way...)

I used the blue cloth from Grammy Lyon and some green satin I had...

And I think it looks nice with the green walls and white crib...his room is coming along...I also made a matching crib skirt to cover up all the boxes I stuff under there :-)

On a side note I think I need to stop changing his room around for a while...with adding solids and changing his schedule...I think he's getting aggravating with me constantly changing things on him. Poor guy!

Silver Dresser!

2010-02-22T08:50:00.000-08:00

In an earlier post I said I wanted to refinish a dresser silver...WELL I DID IT!!

That's right, this isnt' one of those...talk about it forever, but never do it kind of things...

I got this dresser off KSL...which in looking at it I think you will either hate or love already cause it is unique :-)

and I got some silver spray paint from walmart (also got some "Nickle" spray paint for my doorknobs later...and some "Oil Rubbed Bronze" paint for the knobs on the dresser...)

Since the silver was a bit more expensive I started out with cheap white spray paint, did a couple of coats of that (which used THREE cans of white...) and then use a can and a half of silver...

I LOVE IT!

Also, the mirror above the dresser (we'll attach it to the wall later) was just a simple oval beveled mirror I got for Annette (thank you Annette!). I wanted to give it a frame of some sort, so I painted of fake flowers I had black and glue them on...close up you can still see the color on them, but even standing in front of the mirror and looking in they just look black...and it looks GREAT!

PS I was going to try the aluminum leafing that "LittleGreenNotebook" did...but I think with all the grooves and different shapes on this dresser that leafing it would have been REALLY hard...and I think it turned out nice anyways :-)

Add some fun to your towels!

2010-02-18T12:54:00.000-08:00

I know my girly pink bathroom probably didn't need anymore girliness...but i had some scraps left of this cute pink cloth so i added a strip of it to each end of the hand towels in my bathroom...soo fun!

15 minutesd later and the towels look like i bought them to match!

Old Robes...New throw Rug!

2010-02-17T08:41:00.000-08:00

SO I had a couple of old bath robes, that were still in great condition...but no one wears them so I decided to put them to use...and since Alvin's new room is evolving into a dark blue and bright green space I proceeded to cute up the two robes that fit that color scheme.

I had been holding onto them because I knew there was plenty of cloth in there for me to re-use to made something...so I cut off the top of each just below the armpits and had about two yards of each.

I cut the green one into strips to put a border around the blue and added some pockets after for fun. When Alvin starts playing around he can put little toys and whatnot in there...because it's nice and soft it made just start out as a throw in his nursery and later maybe i'll add a quilt backing and make it a blanket for him.

You can also see here one of the pillows I made out of the sleeves that i didn't use from the blue one.

Like my Title Graphic?

2010-02-16T09:08:00.000-08:00

I am SO proud of my new title graphic!

I MADE it :-) I had this cute tray which I filled with little crafty things... things I use ALL the time...then I cut out the letters for my title out of magazines, put them on top....FUN, FREE, and CUTE! My three favorite things! Other than my Husband and baby of course :-)

Busy Weekend!

2010-02-16T08:53:00.000-08:00

Now that I have a cute new craft closet I decided this last weekend that I needed to empty out my To-Do box of sewing projects. So here is one of them that I've had cut out for over a year! Just a cute little black skirt...it'll be good for Sundays! It was shorter than I wanted so I added a frilly black cloth on the bottom.

Also finished is my pillowcase scarf! I had two silk pillowcases with a lace edging from my grandmother that I cut into strips and put them together as two scarfs. VERY easy and cute!

Putting up a valance box

2010-02-16T08:47:00.000-08:00

I'd planned on using cardboard to do this but then I got the idea from the LittleGreenNotebook to use Styrofoam boards from Lowes. They were pretty cheap and the wood -cutting guys sliced them up for me!

So I put a seam in the cloth I had to make it into a sleeve to just fit over the Styrofoam and slipped it on (with Ildy's help! Thank you!)

Then I attached it to the window rod (the next one I make I'll make it more of a box to sit on top of the curtain rod instead of having to attach it...

Chocolate for V-day

2010-02-16T08:37:00.000-08:00

We had our own chocolate party...got the idea from The Party Dress!

I made a layer Crepe Cake...I pulled a recipe for Marth Stewart's website but it was ridiculously hard (wanted me to spend 2 hours just making the crepes!). So I pulled out my mom's crepe recipe, added chocolate power to the mix, Taylor made the crepes while I made a rasperry creme and some almond whipped cream. Then I layered the two kinds of creme with the crepes and put Martha's chocolate sauce on top.

It was definitely a hit!

Ashton and Genn made some awesome treats too, and Uncles brought some decadent chocolate and french chocolate for hot cocoa. I think this definitely needs to be a family tradition!

Inspiration: Floating Buffet

2010-02-12T09:41:00.001-08:00

Isn't this amazing by NestingNewbies.com

I know how I'd do the frame to hang the food on...but where to get goblets like that...maybe I'd just put little dishes on it...

Painting Tips

2010-02-12T08:47:00.000-08:00

Painting is the cheapest, biggest change you can make to a room...but it can be even CHEAPER!! A gallon of paint at Lowes is between $15-30..here in the area we have a "Habitat for Humanity HOme Improvement Thrift Store"...it is AWESOME! When people have extra supplies from painting, molding, tiling...any Home Improvement time stuff they can donate it there and we can buy it SUPER cheap! So a gallon of paint is $5!!!!!
Sherwin Williams and some other paint stores donate their mistints as well.

Since the Habitat store does have a limited amount of colors (and I love color) I also go to other paint stores and look at their mistints since those are usually 1/2 the price of the same paint un-tinted. Some places will even re-tint it for you...which won't be exact but as long as you get someone with experience they can get it close... The key is getting a similar color to what you want that just needs a bit more color added. You cannot take away colors (of course)...and you can rarely make paint lighter...so if you want a leaf green and there's a pastel green you could have them add more green and possible some blue...but if you want sky blue and all there is is turquois you won't be able to get it...make sense :-)

If you need tips on how to paint check out Sherwin Williams instructions.

Arranging fake flowers

2010-02-12T07:26:00.000-08:00

In the pictures of the pink bathroom you might of noticed the cute black shelf on the toilet. It was from a friend, the back had popped off and the paint was chipping all over the edges. I took the back the rest of the way off, sanded ]the chipped paint, glued it back together, and re-painted (with spray paint of course).
Then I needed something to put in all those cute little shelves...I got a BUCKET of these pink, wooden fake roses (yep, not plastic, they're made of wood shavings!). So I put some in a vase on the wall..

..And then cute off the stems of the rest all at the same length, then I took some floral foam that I had (you could also use normal Styrofoam or an egg carton) and I poked the stems into to hold them in place and put a group of roses in each shelf.

It's not permanent of course so when I get tired of the pink I can use the shelf for something else...but for now I think it's very cute.

Alvin's Jungle Room 1

2010-02-11T08:58:00.000-08:00

When I redecorate rooms it's all about reusing what I have, otherwise I can't get away with doing it so often :)

It's like shoes, if I got really expensive shoes then I couldn't justify have a TON of pairs...but if I get them cheap then having nearly 100 pairs isn't as horrible as it would be...right?? Oh well!

So here's some of the things we've done so far in Alvin's room...

I had this big white frame that used to have a pattern matching my old bedroom, so I switch that cloth for some from my mom for his "jungle room"...

Uncle Micheal gave us this cute lion lamp when Alvin was born, so now we finally get to use it!

AND THEN...I'm going to make a throw rug out of some old bathrobes I have (blues and greens) but I haven't been able to decide the design yet...should it be an animal, a tree, just some circles or squares...? What do you think?

Also, I'm going to recover his crib bumper to match the monkey quilt Grammy made him...and make a new bed skirt to cover up all the boxes I stuck under his bed....

Red Branches

2010-02-10T07:27:00.001-08:00

Ever since I came back to work I've been looking at these BEAUTIFUL red branches on the bush in front of my window!
I kept thinking, these are so red, and shiny, they'd look great in a pot in my house...

Then last Friday the BYU grounds crew showed up and started pulling weeds and pruning the bushes and trees!!
I went out, asked him if I could have some of the branches (I thought he'd look at me like I was crazy, but apparently I was not the first weird-cheap-decor minded woman that he had run into as a groundskeepers...so he smiled, gave me a pair of clippers to cut the branches and I got started. I got a big bunch (as some people from work walked in past me...giving me funny looks)...then I went inside (Taylor had the car so I had to put them in my office for the time-being).
My friend and co-worker Chantel captured some of this on her cell phone (thank you Chantel :D).

Then this weekend I used a large pot I already had (again...it's all about the cheap decor!) and put teh branches in it, I think it looks lovely and just a bit rustic.

My Old Room

2010-02-08T09:29:00.000-08:00

Sadly I don't have a picture of what my bedroom looked like when Tay and I first got married, but I'll describe it for you, it had dark forest green and cream walls with some striped wallpaper of the same color. Not horrible, but not for me...So when we got married we painted it this burgundy color and decorated it...

Then I got into my "fresh" phase where I wanted everything in bright colors with white and blacks...no more Americana... Victorian...so I decided I wanted the bedroom "Celery green"...it turned out more "Ghost-buster green"...but it's still been fun!

when we sold our queen bed we didn't get a new headboard...for a while I used a room divider as a headboard...and then found this shelf at a garage sale, painted it white...and made the empty frames to put on it out of molding.
I like the way the red and green accent each other...it would seem Christmas-sy if it wasn't such a bright green I think...

Back when I was changing the colors in my house all to bright colors with white molding I was looking for a new bedspread when I found this on Craigslist! I LOVE it! A simple white quilt with palms stitched into it. It'll go well with the next color and look great with the old! I used some green Hawaiian cloth I had to make a bed skirt and an extra pillow on the bed as well as a matching wall hanging.

Now of course it's a mess again since we're turning it into Alvin's room

New Closet!!!

2010-02-08T09:10:00.000-08:00

We did alot of rearranging this week, switched my room with Alvin's...and so we moved my craft closet (it was a birthday present a few years ago...Tay organized all my stuff into drawers and we used one of our big closet's as my craft area.

The new closet is even better!!
I already had alot of cute red things that I've been wanting to use...boxes, a bamboo floor mat, ect.

I had this vintage vanity chair from my grandmother that I painted and gave it a new seat cover. I also painted the lids that went to some of my storage bins and jar Red to match the room.

I got these hanging lights back when I first came to college...I have teh cords and fixture part of them too...so maybe when Taylor puts an outlet in teh closet for me then I'll plug them in. The frame was a small magnet board I had and painted to go with the decor.

We HATE wallpaper, so I told Taylor that I'd use some grey and white and red wrapping paper from uncles for a design on the top to break up the red (thank you Uncle Micheal!)

Isn't it cute! I love the paisley design!!

And now I have a beautiful place to sew and work on my crafts...and so much more room than the other closet...it'll fill up quickly, but with such cute walls I'll be more motivated to keep it organized!

BEFORE...

Now...

Suits for fun

2010-02-08T08:12:00.000-08:00

I used to have to dress up for work everyday...now I DON'T! But because I did I collected quite a variety of skirts and suits...

This Red one was my first suit outfit...I like the jackets more than the outfit altogether, but it worked..

I thought a purple satin suit would be fun, but the skirt needed something more so I tried the white fringe to add something.

This purple suit I liked, I added some beaded fringe on it for fun...but I found that it was impossible to sneak up on anyone when I was wearing it since I sounded like a...like...like something made lots of noise when it walked.

The green suit was my favorite, it was so different, and fun colors. I had the cloth forever before I finally made the outfit. A few months after I made the jacket and skirt I made a knit dress to also wear with the jacket...I had a bright pink belt that went with the dress but I couldn't find it for the pictures...sorry :-)

Refinshed Piano bench

2010-02-05T11:53:00.000-08:00

In our complex alot of people place old furniture by the dumpster so that if there is someone interested in it they don't have to actually pull it out...my husband give me a hard time...but I have gotten alot fo great stuff from people being too lazy to actualy pick the stuff up and make the final toss into the heap...

The one I got was darker and scratched up quite a bit...

Got a dresser a few weeks ago, some molding I used to make some frames, lamps, end tables...some thigns I fix up, some things I pass on...this one was similar to the picture below (not exact...) when I got it from teh dumpster. I sanded off the dark stain, added some white and padded and covered the seat.

Ta-da! Presenting a cute bench...sold it on craigslist to a photographer for her studio.

Ildy's Place

2010-02-05T07:55:00.000-08:00

A few weeks ago we re-painted and decorated my sister-in-law's place...she picked some great paint colors and we got to work.

I love how much of a difference painting makes in a room...it's so quick, and if you get paint where we do its SUPER cheap too!

Everyone helped! I think we should go into remodeling/decorating business together!!! As long as us girls get to choose the colors and the guys do all the hard work :-)

As well as painting in the bathroom we also thought the lace window curtain and ocean/whale shower curtain didn't really go, and I had some cute cloth from a garage sale that went great with the new colors so we made matching curtains using strips of the cloth...I think it turned out great, and Ildy likes it too! (which is the MOST important!)

Most of the rooms were this lovely pink before...and this one small bedroom was a light turquios...

Ildy picked a sage green and terra cotta orange...the look great!! And with all the great finds she's been getting at DI lately and the cute decor stuff we got this summer garage sale shopping it was easy to decorate!
Even the paint didn't hurt the checkbook...here in the area we have a "Habitat for Humanity HOme Improvement Thrift Store"...it is AWESOME! When people have extra supplies from painting, molding, tiling...any Home Improvement time stuff they can donate it there and we can buy it SUPER cheap! So a gallon of paint is $5!!!!!
Sherwin Williams and some other paint stores donate their mistints as well.

Since the Habitat store does have a limited amount of colors (and I love color) I also go to other paint stores and look at their mistints since those are usually 1/2 the price of the same paint un-tinted. Some places will even re-tint it for you...which won't be exact but as long as you get someone with experience they can get it close... The key is getting a similar color to what you want that just needs a bit more color added. You cannot take away colors (of course)...and you can rarely make paint lighter...so if you want a leaf green and there's a pastel green you could have them add more green and possible some blue...but if you want sky blue and all there is is turquois you won't be able to get it...make sense :-)

If you need tips on how to paint check out Sherwin Williams instructions.

They're in a basement apartment and the furnace/water heater for the house was right int eh middle of the apartment...and it was hard to look past teh mess of pipes and whatnot to enjoy the rest of the apartment...and since we weren't really in teh mood for putting up a wall...I painted an old curtain rod I had silver, bent it to curve around the water-heater, hung it from the ceiling with some wire and put some matching green curtains up. Quick, easy, FREE (since we had it all)...

I LOVE her new living room...the cabinets going along the back were pink like the walls...so having those white and the walls nicely painted really brings the place together.

The Kitchen looks great too I think...

These Chairs are SOO cool, they look really nice, come from Ross...THEY FOLD UP! Amazing huh! I love my folding chairs but these are SOO cute, the color of the finish and the leather cushions make them look much more formal than normal folding chairs (for an apartment with limited space things that can compact are NICE).

On this wall there had been just a green chalkboard...Ildy had this cute clock and Iron Rod hanging that look great with the terracotta.

To open up more space for food stage Syd and bruce helped Brady and Ildy make this pot/pan hanging shelf. They looked at ones at a couple of stores and then decided to put make their own...got the supplies and put to together...it works great and looks great!

There's this awesome fireplace too! I love the little green stove coming out of it...and the chair next to it is another thing Ildy and I er-covered a while back, she got it for a great price at a garage sale but it had this old black cover on it, so we used some curtains to make this sweet cover...AND you can't tell fromt eh pic, but it's a folding chair, it lays back into a single bed!! Very nice!

After we were all done everyone was tired but happy with the outcome...

Eclair Bars

2010-02-04T10:28:00.000-08:00

AMAZING RECIPE! Everyone loves Eclairs, but they take time to make, filling them and icing them to they're all pretty...how about making them all in one tray :-)

I love these, and they are easy to make, and fairly quick (besides how long they have to cook).

Ingredients
•1 cup water
•1/4 cup butter
•1 cup flour
•4 eggs
•8 ounces cream cheese, softened
•1 (6 ounce) box vanilla instant pudding mix
•2 2/3 cups milk
•8 ounces Cool Whip
•12 ounces chocolate fudge topping, Hersheys

Directions

Boil water and butter for 1 minute. Add flour.
Beat in eggs, one at a time with electric mixer.4
Pour and spread into a greased 9x13 pan.5
Bake at 400 degrees for 30 minutes.6
Cool.

Topping:
Mix cream cheese, pudding and milk all together until smooth.9
Spread on cooled crust. Spread on cool whip. Chill.
When serving drizzle Hershey's chocolate topping on each piece.
Keep refrigerated.

-Thank you Jolene for giving me the recipe! I love it!

Sweet and Sour Chicken Wings

2010-02-04T10:23:00.000-08:00

PERFECT for this weekend!!

(picture not of my chicken but close enough...)

Taylor loves this chicken, we made it for his family in Hawaii and Syd agreed they have a GREAT Sweet and Sour sauce :-)

My mom always made these for us, she's have to make two or three cookie trays full since we would eat them so fast, I think Joseph once ate 14 all at one sitting!!!

Sweet ‘n Sour chicken
½ c flour
½ c cornstarch
½ tsp garlic salt (powder mixed w/ salt)
2 eggs beaten
Sauce: ¾ c sugar, ½ c water w/ chicken boullion, ¼ c ketchup, 1 tbsp soy sauce, ¼ tsp salt, 1 tsp cornstarch, Heat all and mix
Combine and dip chicken in dry mixture and then eggs. Then fry until lightly brown. Put in tinfoil in baking pan, and pour sauce over and bake for 1 hr at 350 (turnover after ½ hour).

Inspiration: Rugs, Silver, and blinds..

2010-02-04T08:46:00.000-08:00

That's right...if I can paint some shoes...why not a rug :-)
I've got some to try it on too :-) YEAH!!!

Check out this tutorial.

Also need to redo some blinds!!

Alvin's room still has those ugly mini-blinds so i love this idea of using them to make something special and unique!

And let's silver-leaf some furniture while we're at it!!!

My Uncle Micheal is always gold-leafing things, i love this idea of using silver to refinish an old piece!

Ottoman's

2010-02-03T13:51:00.000-08:00

I love ottoman's! I was obsessed with looking at all different kinds for a while, but now that i finally have my dream-storage-ottoman-that-matches-my-new-couch I've tried to stop looking (since I don't need more than one..)
But then I stumbled across this tutorial on how to make an ottoman from a coffee table!!

Check out this tutorial!

old coffee table transformed into.....sweet ottoman!

Now I want to make one!!!
Brady/Justin-since i already ruined that black coffee table trying to paint it...can I make it an ottoman???

Pistachio Pie

2010-02-02T12:37:00.000-08:00

It came in the Costco cookbook if you want the recipe...it was pretty much pecan pie but with pistachios and almonds instead...and you make it thin in a tart pan, not a pie pan...and then drizzle chocolate on top...AMAZING!

p.s. Isn't Alvin's little tie cute!!

This was another new recipe we tried "Cheesy Cali-Flower", really easy and I thought it was VERY yummy (although Tay still ate it last as he usually does with veggies he doesn't like...if he ever eats some veggies first I will KNOW that it's going to be popular...this one I will make again for me at least...

Thank you for the pics Cheryl :-)

Inspiration: Sun Burst Mirrors

2010-02-02T09:11:00.000-08:00

I know everyone already has them, but I'm going to make a sunburst mirror (and Genn too if she wants one...) so I'm trying to decide what kind...

Maybe something skinny but big...or something more chunky..

Inspiration: Room decor and changes

2010-02-02T08:46:00.000-08:00

Some things I LOVE...and some day may incorporate in my home...or someone else's :-)

Painted chairs: Ikea has these simple chairs that I think it would be fun to get a set and repaint them fun and crazy...these designs remind me of my polish pottery collection...ahhh good things!

I first saw this idea at Ikea, I'm sure it's been around forever though...they have panels you can buy...although as cheap as Ikea is I'm partial to my $1 yard Walmart fabric...whenever I go to walmart I take a stroll through the fabrics to see if there's anything I like...although I've done it so often and now have such a collection the fabric has to really be AMAZING for me to be convinced to buy it, even at a $1 a yard :-)

I'm thinking next Christmas since Alvin will be mobile and grabbing at everything that perhaps we'll have something like this instead of the traditional Christmas tree..I can make it smaller and put it on top of a shelf...nice!

Why is zebra cool all of a sudden (probably has been for a while, but fashion and style gets here later than the rest of the world...I had a zebra blanket, but it moved out with my old white couch...now I am WISHING I had kept it to make myself this ottoman!!

We've have plans to make ourselves a new entertainment center built into our wall...something like this...someday I'll post the sketching Tay put together...ours will have some big drawers on the bottom...cabinets in the middle, and shelves on top..I'm SO excited for the storage!!!

Inspiration: Cardboard shapes for Beds and Frames

2010-02-01T14:20:00.000-08:00

I saw this in Family Fun magazine last month...they just used cardboard as the shape for headboard re-designs in kid's rooms...so I was thinking...Could I cover cardboard shapes to make a cool frame like this for a mirror I have....

or a head board for us...currently using a shelf above my bed...

and How about for putting a cute box-valance around the top of some of my curtains :-)

Now to find some cardboard!

Spray Painting Shoes??

2010-02-01T08:03:00.000-08:00

Have you ever looked at a pair and shoes and thought "if only I could change the color on those..I'd wear them alot more!" Well, I did what I've all thought about (or maybe it was just me...) I spray painted my shoes...and they looked AWESOME...until I wore them.
They were black, I painted them a "brushed nickle" paint that I LOVE (need to get some more of it by the way...)!

I wore them today for the first time and the paint is cracking where the shoe bends (unbelievable right!) well...my next try will be to put a design into the shoe since the brushed nickle and black have an interesting contrast already...we'll see how it goes :-)

Pink Bathroom

2010-02-01T07:53:00.000-08:00

When I was pregnant with Alvin Tay and I made a deal...if it was girl her room would be pink (I was never allowed a pink room growing up...purple, blue...but not pink or yellow...my mom read that those colors would made me bounce off the walls!).

So, her room would be pink and the bathroom next to it would be green...or if it was a boy his room would be a sports room and the bathroom would be pink.
So when it was announced Alvin was a boy we got the paint!

It had been an okay bathroom...but now...it's a LADY'S ROOM!!

We painted the cabinets white (that made a HUGE difference). If you want to do this make sure you get a really good primer and paint made for bathrooms and kitchens to hold up against the moisture...

I made a shower curtain with some cute fabric I got for $1 a yard at Walmart (used a plastic shower lining from the dollar store, had this cute black bamboo mat..and Voila!!!

Decorating Jill's place

2010-02-01T07:48:00.000-08:00

My sister-in-law Jill moved in to a new apartment this weekend so Irina and Ildy and I went and helped her (the guys moved the stuff and we had some fun decorating it)!!!

Thank you Jill for letting us!

I got her a dresser (someone in our complex was throwing it away!! granted it's missing the bottom drawer, but I think it was a cute dresser...so I grabbed it).
Irina had this dark brown fabric ready as a curtain and I had the green and brown that we made into a valance. Since we were trying to minimize the holes put into the wall we didn't put up an actual curtain rod (cause that would need a drill, holes in the wall, and BUYING a curtain rod), instead we ran some wire attached to thumb tacks in the wall and strung some cute curtain loop/clips on it to hold the curtain (Irina's idea!!).
I think it looks really cute!

Shoes are the Best

2010-01-26T12:53:00.000-08:00

I've always loved cute shoes...and now I know why!

It's not my fault childhood fairy tales instilled in me a need to have the perfect shoes!

Add a Window to your kitchen!

2010-01-26T11:58:00.000-08:00

We had painted our kitchen cabinets black...which was an improvement...but didn't really "lighten" the place up...

"IF ONLY I COULD PUNCH A WHOLE IN THE WALL AND ADD A WINDOW" I thought...

My mother-in-law had put up a mirror in our kitchen above the sink (which I loved) so we made a fake window frame for it, painted it black to match the cabinets and wahla!

To make the frame we used our miter saw to form a rectangle from some molding we bought at Lowes, then we cut the inside pieces to fit out of some really cheap edging (also at Lowes). We used wood glue to attach everything and a staple gun to secure the corners.

I love it!

Macey's class: Marzipan Cookies (2006 flashback)

2010-01-25T13:43:00.000-08:00

If from the title you thought these cookies were literally made from Marzipan (Almond paste) they aren't...these are almond flavored cookies that are like playdough, they form VERY well and are easy to make.

Our local grocery store (Macey's) offers free cooking and craft classes (for which teh teachers are reimbursed and PAID for thier time...so I've done quite a few)!
Since I Alvin was born I haven't taught any but this was one of my first.

The class had fun, you can dye this dough all kinds of colors and it holds it's shape well even when cooked.

recipe (from Betty Crockers cookbook):

Marazipan Cookies
1 cup butter
1/2 cup sugar
2 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp almond extract
food coloring (optional)

Cream butter and sugar. Add flour and flavoring. Form cookies. chill 1/2 hour. Bake 30 minutes at 300 degress.

Thank you Tam for taking the pics for me!

Office decorating

2010-01-25T12:39:00.001-08:00

This was my office when I moved in...well not literally...there were papers and things ALL over, so this is after I moved in and cleaned.

Since I'm in my office alot...40 hours a week...soI needed to make it more condusive to me...being there :-)
Decorating at Work...that's better than Work at Work!! (see ESPN commercial)

This wall-shelf courtesy Uncle Micheal (it's it beautiful)!!!

This candle is awesome, once I start burning it (haven't started yet) it will just go down the inside and leave the outside carving in place and shine through it, has a beautiful effect. shelf: courtesy of an orem garage sale.

This shelf was covered with out-of-date reference manuals so now they house my decor-left-over (a known symptom for constantly "garage sailing").

The cameras here are inherited from my Grandfather's amazing camera collection, they are beautiful and so unique!

This iron/rod...THING...I love. Got it at a garage sale and the lady told me she used to fill it with things to fit the holiday/season...eggs for easter, shells for summer ect. I love it!

Noah's Ark

2010-01-25T12:16:00.000-08:00

Also posted on my other blog...but here I also show how I've displayed it with other scraps of matching fabric and a white dove ceramic piece...
This is a cool "quilt-by-number" (I call it...) project. You buy a Styrofoam backing and they give you color-coordinated fabric scraps and you tucker the edges into the Styrofoam for a cool-quilted look!

-Courtesy of Uncle Micheal at last year's quilting show

onesie bouquet

2010-01-25T12:13:00.000-08:00

You've possibly already seen this on the family blog but since this is where it belongs I'm re-posting.

I saw these in the Schwartz Toy store in New York (Martha Stewart also showed how to make them on her show...) and I think it's such a cute and fun baby shower gift!
And instead of spending $30 on an outfit the baby may never actually wear (since they grow SUPER fast) spend $5 on some onsies and floral tape and get some leaves and flowers from the thrift store...
So here is my pink and white bouquet.

Space saving

2010-01-25T12:01:00.000-08:00

I mentioned before that I'm trying to think more carefully about the space I use up in the condo with furniture. Here I have my table (inspired by Genn) that I love cause it folds all up and even the chairs go inside (IKEA has one like this but the chairs don't go inside, there are drawers instead).

And here is my AWESOME couch that I love, it's got storage not just in the ottoman but also under both seats! And I'm excited to make a temporary cover for it (that's part of why I got this design cause it will be easy to recover whenever I feel like it...which will be often judging from how often I change everything else...).