We Went To the House!

HI!!!!!!!
This weekend was The Husband's birthday weekend so we partied a lot! He has been working so hard over the past several months so we felt he could let loose a little for the weekend.
On Saturday we FINALLY went to the house to get some measurements and take pictures of the inside. HE says the pictures are for us, but let's be real -- I took them to share with you =)

 

The living room is HUGE and has a giant plant shelf...I haven't figured out how to decorate the shelf. The Husband suggested just dry-walling it and make it just one big wall but then I have a ginormous wall to decorate lol! Any suggestions?

SO the three extra bedrooms all have this plant shelf above the closet. I am not really a fake plant kind of girl -- any suggestions on decorating??

 

AND we have a massive backyard for the pup to run around in =) I'm so happy!

 

So these are all the 'before' pictures. it is going to be a little while before you see any after pictures but I will do my best to show you some progress. =)
This weekend we are heading out to Home Goods to check out their decor -- we need pretty stuff on the cheap lol. We will be installing new floors throughout and then painting EVERY wall. if you look really close at the pictures - you can see it looks like they STARTED to repaint but didn't go any higher than they could reach without a ladder. It is very strange but it doesn't matter since we want a completely different color anyhow! We are also debating on 5" baseboards...the 3" are nice BUT they are small on those giant walls. We haven't figured out whether or not we will go that route or maybe do a 'faux' baseboard. We'll see how tired we are when we get to that point lol!
This weekend we are also going to be getting into some DIY projects, so I will be sharing those with you really soon =)
I hope you are having a great week so far!

Happy Friday!!!!

Hey Everyone!! I don't have any projects to share with you =(

I will after the weekend though =) I'm excited!!

Today is my sweet husband's birthday so I have taken a half day off at work and won't really be around much today to chat with y'all.

 I hope you have an amazing weekend =)

I Saw Red

"I saw Re-ed. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah!"

We interrupt the regularly scheduled program to bring you good tidings of great joy....

OK OK, just kidding BUT I am not sharing a project today. I am showing you my new (to me) car!!!

I LOVE it!!!! I can't believe how quickly I was able to get into a new car. My accident was 2 weeks ago, yesterday. The insurance company had the money deposited into my bank account by last Friday and I bought this little beauty yesterday! =) I am in love!!!

I hope everyone enjoys their Friday-Eve!!

Lamp Re-do

Good Wednesday to you all!!! How is everyone??
Thank you for all the sweet comments on the dresser re-finish from yesterday.  I am really happy with it and I hope some of you were inspired to try your hand at a similar project!

I had this black lamp...

Sorry about the fuzzy cell phone pic =/

I bought it a couple years ago, 5 to be exact, to go on my piano. Well I no longer wanted them to be black and I thought - HEY! I need new side table lamps for the spare room. Maybe I should customize the ones I have instead of buying new ones.

I went to the store to look for the perfect color spray paint. I ended up at Lowe's because they were who had the color I wanted and was close to work at lunch lol!

I got home and took my lamp apart outside

I used tape and a plastic grocery bag to protect the lighting part of the lamp so that it will still work.

Prepared to paint:

So at this point I got so caught up in what I was doing, I didn't take any more pictures until the project was finished. I told you I forget to keep taking pictures! haha!
Here is the end product!

 

Before this project I was a little, OK A LOT intimidated by spray paint. I have always been under the impression that it was messy and hard to work with. boy was I wrong! I can't wait to paint the other one and show you how it looks in the finished room. But that will take a few more weeks!

Is spray paint your friend or enemy??

Dresser Re-Finished

Hey Y'all!!!

You may remember when I showed you THIS piece of furniture.

  

It is a MESS...well it WAS a mess. I picked it up for FREE! I plan on using it in my craft room at the new house...we will have our closing date really REALLY soon!! Check out yesterday's post here!!

The VERY first thing I did to this piece was CLEAN it! I used a magic eraser to get most of the icky off. Once it was as clean as it was going to get, I knew it was time to prime.

Alright - so I did some research because I really really didn't want to go to town on this piece of painted furniture with a sander.  I found that Zissner 1-2-3 paint primer is magical. It will adhere to any surface and then you just paint over it! WOO! Talk about a TIME saver!

I DID sand the entire piece..nothing hard core but when I started with a hot mess, I felt sanding was a safe option. I just used a little $2 sanding block that was fine grit - some of the original paint was chipping and some of the edges were terribly rough.

After the sanding was complete, I used a paint brush to prime. That primer covered so well! I was impressed. I left the piece to dry overnight - for two reasons: I needed to let it sit for at least a couple hours before painting over it AND my hand was tired!

  

After I primed, I picked out the perfect white shade...can you believe how many shades of white are sold in the paint department?! I bought Toasted Marshmallow by Behr. For the accent color, which was originally gold on the piece, I used the light aqua color that will be used as an accent color for the stencil on the walls in the craft room.

Using a fine paint brush, I added the accent color. This part was definitely time consuming. Thankfully most of the spots I wanted to paint with the accent were on a routed accent.

Because the accent spots were more of an 'indent' and not raised, I was able to use a small foam roller to roll over it with the white. This didn't mess up the accent parts and helped me to clean up the 'overage' I left behind.

While all the paint dried, I knew i wanted to change the drawer pulls. They had been painted with the original pale yellow and then the gold swiped on for accent. I decided to get some Krylon brushed silver spray paint and just have at it.

Put it all together after the pulls dried and .....

VIOLA! My piece is complete.

         

It isn't in use yet because I am slowly working on packing everything now that we know a closing date is near =)

Have you ever refinished a piece of furniture?

If you have or if you do in the future, I would LOVE to see your completed project!

Fast Paced Life

Goodness gracious!! Can y'all belive it is ALREADY September?! There are 111 days until CHRISTMAS!!! WOW! Where has this year gone already!?

Alright - so here is an update. 

My car has been totaled out. It is kind of a bummer but in all reality - I didn't really want to drive a car again that I had wrecked. Our friend, Marc, has a car for me all ready to buy. SO as soon as I get the money transferred to my account, I will be purchasing another car. That will hopefully be before the end of the week. It really IS inconvenient to have only one vehicle for our household.

Now comes the AWESOME news:

Our realtor emailed us and said we will be receiving an approval letter along with a closing date in less than 30 days!!!!!!  I am so so excited!! 30 days is NOTHING. That is going to go by so so quickly!

In light of this wonderful news, this blog may be geared more towards DIY/re-finishing and decorating ideas for a bit. I have lots of projects that I want to have finished BEFORE we get into the house. I can't wait to start sharing!

Then you will get to go on the moving journey with me!! =)

OH and I have been moved into an actual office at work! YAY!

Thank you so much again to those of you who haven't given up on me, haven't stopped being a fan and have continued to check in on this little 'ol blog =) I have been so so busy with all sorts of craziness going on in our lives and now it is going to increase with us preparing to move! =) Thank you for all the prayers and well wishes as we have impatiently waited for the amazing news of an approval letter and closing date!

I hope y'all are having a wonderful long weekend!!

{Tutorial} DIY Makeup Brush Case

Before I share this tutorial with you -- this is my 300th post! =) WOO!! Ok, now that's out of the way...


I saw this tutorial a couple months ago and I have been really wanting to try to make one. I normally just throw my brushes into a makeup case with the rest of my makeup products that I was using at the time or into a makeup drawer/container. I don't like to buy something that I feel I can make so I thought this would be a quick project to tackle. AND it would be 100% customized!  Oh and something you should know, I get these grand ideas of sharing tutorials WITH pictures and then I get so caught up in the process that I forget to keep taking the pictures.  OK so here goes -- the tutorial =)

{SUPPLIES}

Fabric

Sewing Basics (machine, scissors, thread, etc)

Batting

Ribbon

{DIRECTIONS}

*For your fabric, I used two different: one for the case and a different for the pocket panel on the inside of the roll. It is up to you what you use.  I also lack a ton of brushes, so I didn't need to make mine too big.  I made the actual roll part 18X10.

-Cut 2 pieces of fabric for the outside of the roll; each piece should be the same size. Cut a piece of batting to match the size of your fabric pieces.

- Cut out one piece of fabric that is the same dimensions as the body of the roll.  fold that piece in half

*This is the last picture until I finished haha! OOPS!*

-Pin the panel (piece that be the pocket for the brushes) to the right side of one of the fabric pieces for the body of the case.

-Sew vertical lines either the length of the case or just the length of the pocket fabric. You can make them as wide or narrow as you want. These are going to make the individual pockets for your brushes and/or any other accessories you want to stick in your roll-up case.

-Lay flat and pin your big pieces of fabric (for the body) together, right sides facing one another. Pin your batting to the fabric as well.

-Sew your panels and batting together, leaving an opening on one side to turn our case right-side-out.

-Turn the case right side out, through the opening you left.

-Turn edges in and pin your ribbon ends in between the pieces of fabric at the opening. These will be your ties to keep the case rolled up.

-Sew opening shut.  You can either use an invisible (hand) stitch OR you can start at the opening and sew all the way around the edge of the case for a more finished look.

Ta Da! You have successfully created your make-up brush roll-up case! =)

 

Embellish as you desire. i didn't add any embellishments since I used a 'loud' fabric =)

Have you made anything lately?

If you make this case, I would LOVE to see how yours turned out =)