Two before and afters and a new piece of junk!

I've been a very bad blogger - and it was totally unintentional! I kept thinking of posts to write, I have TONS of stuff to show you, I just never managed to actually sit down and do it. That doesn't mean I haven't been on the computer, just not using my time wisely (as I've been known to do on more than one occasion). So, I apologize, and I'll try to be better :)

The first thing I am going to show you is the before and after of my mantle. I have a large mantle - and two story ceilings. My mantle spent the better part of two years being a holding ground for toys that were taken away. I actually had to try to find a place to put said toys every year at Christmas. Sad, I know. My house is on the lease market now and potential leasees (leasors, leasers, what is the word?!?) don't find toy decorating particularly attractive. So, new mantle decor, here I come.

I wish I had a picture of the mantle with the toys all over it. It was a sight! Anyways, here it was the first go round:


As time went on (time = a couple months) I added different things in to it (no, don't ask, I don't have a picture - I WILL be better, promise!) but the major pieces stayed the same. White mirror, oval mirror (craigslist find), vintage red vase (handblown - gift from sister about, oh, 14 years ago), the green recycled glass tumblers turned tea light holders, and the orchids. I added in my grandmothers music box (can be seen in the next photo), some handmade dollar store candlesticks, and a clear ball jar with a bail I found in an 'antique' ie. junk store.

So, where is this going, you wonder? Last week my housekeeper accidentally dumped basically the entire mantle arrangement on the floor. The oval mirror (not the wood part), tea light holders, and handmade dollar candlesticks didn't make it. Everything else did! The music box (most important) and red vase (second most important) didn't even move! I was very thankful for those two things - both of those items are pretty special to me.

After all that was cleaned up I went on a mission to redecorate the mantle - WITHOUT spending a penny! Not such a big deal for me I have tons of crap neat stuff laying around. Here's the NEW mantle! While most people decorate for the seasons I really don't. Christmas - that's about it for me. I will change things up when I get tired of looking at them, but for the most part it stays the same for a long time. I'm cool like that ;)


There you go, before and after! I've hidden put the red vase in a safe place. From now on I'll be doing all the cleaning on the mantle. After all, nothing up there is attached to the wall other than the big square mirror.

Quick furniture before and after. Tacky white faux wicker craigslist find. This one was a beaut (ie. a LITTLE bit scary inside). And, it had fancy brass pulls and square corner thingeys too!

Now, it's good as new (and yes, that's fabric on top and braided fabric pulls):



Painted with chalk paint, waxed and topped with fabric (for the life of me I can't remember the name of the designer) and furniture modge podge. It's ready for a new home!


Last but not least, my newest trash pile find. Can anyone guess what it is? Tomorrow (ok, by Friday) I'll post new pictures of it and what exactly it is! Here's a hint: it's BIG. About 3-3.5 feet across and wooden.


Have a great day!



linking to:

Brass candlestick before and after

Aren't these candlesticks beautiful? (don't mind the fantastically focused phone pictures :)

The brass is glorious. Antiqued and shiny and...who am I kidding? I don't like brass all that much - especially not brass candlesticks that are about, oh, 15 inches tall. I found these beauties at the local goodwill and though to self, "Self, these would be fantastic lamps!" On the same trip (at the same goodwill) I found two perfect not so perfect silk, in need of updating, drum shades as well. Nothing a little time and creativity couldn't remedy.

So, after some spray primer and paint, a little burlap and trim - not to mention new lamp kits (and drilling a hole in the base of the candlestick) this is what I came up with:


Simple, understated, beautiful lamps.



The matching pair is now available for sale - contact me if you're interested in purchasing them They're about 20" tall and have a really long cord (just in case you want to put them somewhere a LONG ways from an outlet - AND want them to actually turn on :)




linking to HOH #51

End tables with spunk

In an earlier post I promised to show the end tables that went with the damask coffee table.

Here they are:

And here they are in all their glorious beforeness (is that a word? I don't think so but we'll just pretend :)


Here's the hidden spunk. A nice pull out shelf in glorious hot pink! The table bases were painted in Annie Sloan's graphite and the tops were whitewashed with a mix of old white and water, then graphite and water to tone it down just a little. I thought the hot pink (Rustoleum) would add just a nice splash of color without being too in your face.


Unless, of course, you pull them out :)


Add some color to your life and enjoy!

Ottoman reveal

Here's the ottoman - finished!


In case you've forgotten, here's what it looked like before:


Let's be honest. I didn't really like this ottoman/bench thing. I knew I could recover it, but that didn't help much. It wasn't balanced for me. The legs were too long and the upholstered top too small. It sat in my garage. For almost three months. Then one day while I was working on slipcovering a sofa it occurred to me I should slipcover the ottoman as well!

About an hour later (I had the piping already made) I had this (including paint time):



I painted the legs Rustoleum Annodized Bronze. Slipcovered the top with canvas drop cloth, added a generous ruffle and called it good. Don't mind the fact that it needs to be ironed - it will be a while before that actually happens :) Love it now! It will be going in my shop soon!

Enjoy!




Linking to:

ottoman sneak peek

THIS is how it started:


(come back tomorrow to see how it ends!)

Coffee table makeover

Traditional coffee table makeover. From drab (and booooring) to fab!

Here's the fantastic before. The coffee table is in the center - I redid the end tables too, but I am saving that for another post :)

And the fantastically colorful after:


The base is painted with Annie Sloan's Chalk Paint in Antibes green and distressed and waxed with clear wax. Chalk paint is the best paint ever! No sanding, no priming, just wipe the dirt off and paint it :) I was lucky with this table because the original color was hunter green so it worked well under the Antibes green.

The top was painted with a half and half mix of old white and water. Slop it on and quickly wipe it off. If too much comes off, repeat. If it's too white, wipe harder. It's simple but you have to work it fast.

I made the damask stencil. I used damask dings and found the one I thought would work. Then I saved it as a .jpg and found this place online where it would blow up my image as big as I wanted and I could save it as a .pdf on my computer and print it out. I printed it out on plain printer paper and taped the image together and lined it up on my table to make sure it was the right size. Then I did something super intelligent (aka. stupid) and used an exacto on TOP of the table to cut it out. About half way through I realized what a not so great idea that was, but decided I could probably line it all up when I was done and spray paint it and make it go away (it didn't actually happen that way).

So, when I was done with my super intelligent cutting, on TOP of the table, I used my trusty Elmer's spray adhesive to make my copy paper a stencil. I knew I would be quick so I figured the paper would work. After I sprayed on the adhesive, I let it dry for a while so the paper wouldn't stick permanently to the top of the table. I stuck it down where I wanted (I made sure to line up the dot in the middle and then went from there).

When it was all done I used my trusty spray paint in hot pink (same hot pink from the last post )


I sprayed on two light coats - but I had to be careful because when the paper got wet it wanted to lift and I had to push it back down. I forgot to do this in one part and got some overspray on the table, but decided it was ok.

When the second coat was on I pulled off the make shift stencil. Then I really could see the cut marks in the table and I was not pleased at all. I stood there for a while unhappy and then remembered I had bought some chalk ink markers for a different project and I could trace the cut lines with the chalk ink markers and call it intentional!


I think it turned out beautiful. What do you think?

sunburst mirror

Spoontastic mirror!

Here's a preview of the finished product:

2 packages of dollar store plastic spoons (48 or so per pack) = $2

1 round 7 inch mirror from Hobbidy - $2.99
1 round 7 inch embroidery hoop from Hobbidy - (inside circle only) - $1.99 (i think)

Cut a circle from cardboard bigger than your mirror. I used some fancy measuring. I put the mirror down, traced it, then used some lids from pots that I have (which are clear glass) and traced them as well for a line to use as a guide.

Don't follow my direction here - take my word for it and put the glue down and the spoons on top. It looks much better after it's painted. I had laid out a bunch of spoons and got them all nice and neat and didn't want to move them to glue. I wish I had. Putting the glue down and laying the spoons in them worked much better.

Here she is, all glued ready to paint!

Oops - forgot to get fancy spray paint for plastic while I was at the store. Hm, I have self etching primer (Rustoleum) that's supposed to be for metal. Sounds like it might work - I did a test run (see the spoon outline in the upper right corner?) Can't even scratch the paint off. Bingo! Paint front and back with primer

Final coat - glossy pink (not sure of the name of it) HOT pink. Painted the embroidery hoop as well. Used E6000 to glue hoop to mirror and mirror to cardboard. Before I glued the mirror on I used a piece of wire and poked it through the back of the cardboard to make a hook to hang it. I forgot to take a picture of this, but since the spoons are so light I figured it would work just fine. It does. Use fancy weights to weigh down hoop and mirror while it's dry, ie. cast iron skillet balanced top.



Stand back and enjoy! And yes, I cleaned off the fingerprints!


This is very close to the true color:

Here's that price run down again:
Spoons - $2
Mirror - $3
Hoop - $2

glue - already had it
paint - had that too
cardboard and wire - yup

Not bad for $7 and an hour of your time huh (not counting dry time)? Enjoy!