Noel

I have been busy this past week making various Christmas decorations.  I am willing to give a sneak peak, however I cannot reveal the final product until a certain very special package arrives.  

So today, I was noticing I had a fairly empty spot on one of my shelves.  I checked out PB for some inspiration and came across this:

It is fairly old and I remember admiring it last year, but it was a perfect project for me to do today.  Now I know there are probably many amazing DIY ways to do this project, but the goal for me was for it to be completely free (a.k.a. I already have the supplies on hand).

So I started with a large piece of tag board that was hiding in my closet.  I originally planned on printing out letters, but could not get them large enough so I had to draw the letters by hand.

I then took some brown acrylic paint that I had on hand and painted the letters, that process looked something like this.

After I finished painting, it looked more like this.

And then thankfully, it dried without a shine.  I hung the tag board with some command stripes because I had them on hand (are you seeing the theme here?).

Two hours and zero dollars later, I ended up with this.

It looks pretty good for not spending a dime!  After showing to Cody he responded with, "oh I'll just trace that on a thin piece of wood for you and cut it out so it isn't flimsy".  Well okay, as long as you have all the supplies on hand :).

A Fine Place to Dine

Our kitchen table was a hand-me-down from the in-laws (Cody has eaten MANY meals at that table).

The table was a very classic piece with a light wood color.  I really wanted a darker stain to match the rest of the furniture and the floors.  This was actually quite a process, especially since it was the first piece of furniture I have stained.  The first stain I bought ended up being too black.  I had to sand the whole table down again, which is not fun!

Here is a tip if you are ever staining anything...buy little samples of stain because each type of wood will stain a little differently.  I bought four different samples from Menards for 25 cents each.  I ended up choosing a color that I would have never thought I liked, so I am very glad I used samples!

The chairs were also a lighter color.

I was too lazy busy to stain the chairs, so I just painted them white.

I am thrilled about how the table looks in the kitchen, especially with my new granite counter tops!

Button, Buttons

I'm sure you have all seen many different crafts that have been done with buttons.  When I think of buttons, the first thing that comes to mind is my former nanny.  She has a Christmas tree made out of buttons that lights up.  She has had it for years, and I always looked forward to seeing it when I went over to her home.  

I decided to make a more updated version of her Christmas tree since it means so much to me.

I bought a whole bag of old, white buttons at an antique store for $4.  I was very excited that they were all presorted since I knew I wanted to use white.  I also bought some burlap for the background so it would go with my rustic Christmas theme for these year.  I made two trees, one for me and one for my sister.  

I also wanted to make some button art for my mom, and I knew the perfect thing...

She loves her snowmen!  This is a very simple project, all you need are some buttons, hot glue, and any fabric or paper you have laying around the house.

Now go make some button art!

P.S. I have joined a link party, you can check it out here!

Everything but the Kitchen Sink

I will now be interrupting my holiday decorating to introduce you to my kitchen.

We did a lot of projects to the house when we moved in.  The kitchen got the most changes.  I really wish I had before pictures of the house, but most of the renovations were done before we even moved here.  The kitchen cabinets were a darker wood with white counters.

We painted the cabinets white and replaced the hardware right away, but we planned on leaving the countertops since they were in fine condition and we didn't have a lot of money.

That was until we saw the best deal ever at Menards.  They had slabs of granite for SUPER cheap, but they only came in two colors.  They went on sale ($200 off the already low price), so we knew we had to do it.

We also put in a dishwasher.  When we moved in, there was a cabinet here.  We decided to give up our precious cabinet space (and I mean precious) so we could have a dishwasher.  I do not regret this decision.

So I guess my title was misleading.  We also replaced the kitchen sink.  It was very shallow and the faucet was so low that it was nearly impossible to wash any large pots in.

I love love love my new faucet, but I wouldn't have minded a farmhouse sink :).  Someday.

We also refinished our table, but I will leave that for another post.

The color of granite we chose was a black/brown color.  Normally I would be drawn to a lighter color, but I do really love the contrast of the dark and white and how well they go with our floors.

Well, that's all...back to Michael Buble's Christmas CD and more Christmas crafts!  Happy Holidays!

I Love Mustard (The Color That Is)

Oh hello there.  It is just me, sportin' my new scarf.  I never thought I would finish, but it ended up going a lot quicker than I thought.  I was even able to wear it for Thanksgiving!  So happy to now have another article of clothing in my current favorite color.  I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving and didn't spend too much money this morning!

P.S.  I wanna give a little shout out to Annie and her amazingly flattering dedication.  Check it out here :)

DIY Chalkboard

Chalkboard paint has become incredibly popular in the DIY world.  From walls, to frames, to jars, nothing is left out.  I have also fallen into this trap and decided to share it with you.  I actually made the chalkboard for my wedding menu from a spray painted Goodwill frame and a jar of chalkboard paint.  To be honest, I was actually really stressed out at the time (due to the large amount of wedding tasks), so when I saw "I", I actually mean my dad.

After the wedding, I was able to use it in my home for a free decoration.  I hung it up with some silhouettes of silverware printed on scrapbook paper.  It was a very inexpensive project and it's a great place for Bible verses!

So what have you guys all painted with chalkboard paint?

Skol Vikings!

Yesterday, we took my dad to a Vikings game as part of his extremely late Fathers Day/birthday present.

 The Vikings lost, but there were plenty of other highlights from the day:


1.  Face planting on the stairs only to look up and see my husband about 30 steps in front of me not even bothering to notice his missing wife. I then had to choose between laughing at myself for the 547 people watching or just run away really fast. I ran away.

2.   Literally being lifted off my feet by a gust of air as I exited the dome. Time seemed to slow down as I was in midair, hoping I would be able to make a graceful landing.  I nailed it.

3.  The home made hot cocoa at Hell's Kitchen. Seriously it was so good.

So happy belated birthday/Father's Day dad. I hope you had a fully entertaining day, considering you have been entertaining me greatly with your lack of humor for the past 22 years.  Love you!

Snow Day

This morning we woke up to the first substantial snowfall of the year, hello Minnesota!

Boston got to have his first experience with snow, and he was lovin' it!

So C, B, and me are hanging out at home...

Drinking some hot chocolate and watching movies doing homework.

Enjoy the snow, I'm sure we won't have enough of it in the next 4 months!

House Tour-Nicole's Apartment

In one of my previous posts, I mentioned that my sister recently downsized.  She has graciously been allowing me to crash at her place when I have to travel to Minneapolis for school, so I thought it would be fun to take a few pictures of her apartment.

When she moved, she roped me into helping her paint her bedroom.  She really wanted stripes, but wanted them to be subtle.  We decided that using the same color paint with different sheens would be the best option.  We also decided that horizontal stripes were a must.

We ended up painting her room before she moved in.  There were no lights in her bedroom, so we had to finish in the dark.  We could definitely tell the next day!  I ended up marking off the stripes with a yardstick (she had no measuring tape), a pencil, and some tape.  It actually went pretty smoothly!  We used Anonymous by Behr in flat for the base coat and covered the entire wall.  She then went over the stripes later with Anonymous in high gloss.

As you can see, the stripes are very subtle but they look great with the lights shining on them.

Would you like to see more of her place?

I spy a kitty in the next picture :)

I hope you enjoyed your house tour.  Has anyone else tried painting sheen stripes?

"A" for Artistic

I am currently going for my Master's in Occupational Therapy.  Although the majority of my homework involves papers and discussions and typical school stuff, some of it also includes crafts.  Right now, I am learning how to do a double whip stitch for leather lacing.  Yes, I am graded on how well I can lace a piece of leather.  This is actually used by some OTs to test cognitive functioning.  Based on how long it took me to learn the stitch, I'm guessing I wouldn't score too high! 

But the leather lacing was NOTHING compared to the copper tooling project.  Basically, this project involves a thin piece of copper (or other metal) and a mold.  My mold was of the Liberty Bell (obviously I was the last person to choose their mold).  It started out pretty nicely and wasn't looking too bad.

One of the grading criteria was making sure all the little details showed up.  I spent close to an hour trying to make sure you could read "Pass and Stow", only to notice I completely wore the words off the mold.  So I took off my copper and flipped it over to the other side of the mold where the details were not worn off.  This just made the entire piece of copper look warped and sloppy, but you could read the words!

When I turned my project in, I mentioned to the professor all the work I went through to make sure the words showed up.  Her response:  "Oh my, in all these years I have NEVER noticed the words on finished products!"  Insert angry face.

On a brighter note, our next project includes stitchery of some sort (way more my style).  So I finally get to show off my new knitting skills that I learned this fall!

  

And even better yet, every time I put off my papers to do a little knitting, I can always use the excuse, "but I'm doing homework"!  Two thumbs up for OT school!

A Sophisticated Study Space

This summer, I decided to transform our spare bedroom into an office where I could do my schoolwork.  I had the best intentions, I really did.

My sister downsized and no longer had room for her desk, so she gifted it to me.  All I needed was a chair.  I found a lovely lounger for $6 at Goodwill.  And boy, I sure wish you all could have been there to witness that adventure!  I happened to purchase this chair the same day I purchased my nightstands, and somehow thought they would all fit just fine in my average size car.  My friend Kari and I spent about 20 minutes loading then unloading, then loading the car again trying to get it all in there (I was 2 hours from home and I was NOT about to make two trips).  Somehow, we managed to stuff everything in the car (including ourselves) and make it to a bridal shower.  Sure we arrived late and sweaty, but we arrived!

 After the hassle, I completely forgot to take a before picture.  I did take a picture of the seat cushion, though.

I'm sure you can tell that it really was lovely.  I painted the entire frame an off-white color and purchased some new fabric for the cushion.

Now please, try to ignore the messy and unfinished room as you admire my beautiful chair in its new home.  I really wish I could say I use it all the time.  Unfortunately, I spent the last 17 years of my life doing my homework on a bed or a couch, so I'm not really sure why I thought I would change now.

At least I have a spot in case I ever change my mind!

322 Days....

The number of days we have been living in our house.  And ironically, also the number of days that I have been looking for a buffet to fill this wall....

Ignore the flash about brown, apparently it is the ONLY picture I took of the empty wall in those 322 days.

Anyway, I spent months trying to find the perfect buffet.  I looked everywhere I could think of.  Then I came across this pretty little guy....

It was beautiful, but it was out of my price range.  So I kept looking, and looking, and looking.  Until one day the hubby politely said, "with all the money you are spending driving around to look for buffets, you could have bought that expensive one by now".  Words of wisdom.  It had been there for six months, and I decided I shall go back to the store the very next day and claim my belonging.

The very next day, it was gone.  Moral of the story....do not wait 6 months to buy a piece of used furniture.  Well I guess that really isn't the moral of the story since my story is not finished yet.

So, you can imagine how upset I was.  I was so upset I drove right home, sat down with the computer, and vowed that I would not stop looking until I found a buffet.  And then I found it.

It was at a little occasional store in Dassel called Anne's.  I drove straight there to pick it up.

So I guess the real moral of the story is to have patience (yuck).  Not only did I find a perfect buffet, but I also came home with a cute little scale....

and a dresser that was already painted white (the next item on my list).

The drawers were a little nasty, and I knew the hubs would NOT appreciate having to put his clothes in there.

I lined the drawers with some extra fabric I had from my old headboard and they looked good as new!

So there you have it, 322 days of patience.  A new personal record.