So I found a way to make these cute little Easter Baskets here.  I made them this week and they didn't take too much time or effort.  Probably an hour for the first one, and less for the second.  I had Westen do a practice Easter Egg hunt to model the Easter Basket.  Plus, I thought he could use a little practice:)

I love the lining in this one.  Cute little birds - very springy.

And I liked the Navy/Yellow combo for this one.  This one's Baron's.  Anyway, the tutorial I mentioned calls for 1/4 yard fabric, which I didn't think was enough.  I had to make some extra cuts to get mine to work and they're still a little smaller than the ones in the tutorial are.  Next time, I'd go ahead and buy 1/2 yard for each.  I'm thinking of adding their names to the plain fabric at the bottom... or maybe a little cutout of a bunny rabbit.  But, they're cute the way they are and I kinda worry I'd mess them up by doing anything else.  Whattya think??

Next week I'll be tackling another Easter project that I'm super excited about.  I just hope they turn out.  Have a great weekend!

Linking up to

So for this Friday's project, I'll share with you my first attempts at subway art and modpodging (spelling??).  I've seen both all over the internet and other blogs.  It seemed pretty simple, so I thought I'd try it for a little spring decor.  First, I got on picnik to create my subway art.  If you've never tried picnik before it's pretty cool.  You should check it out for sure (great for invitations, post cards, any kind of prints).  So I created my subway art design on there and printed it out on regular printer paper.  Then I had a 1x12 piece of pine board left in the garage from this project that I knew I could use so I laid the print down on the board and measured it to make equal distances from the paper to the edge of the board all the way around to make like a frame (follow?). 

Then, I cut my board and mixed these two paints for my wood.  I put on two coats.  Below is just after the first coat.

Next came the mod podge.  I used a foam brush to spread one layer of mod podge over the entire surface of the board (my mod podge has a satin finish so I wanted the entire board to have that shine, not just the printed art).  Then, I centered and laid my subway art onto the board while still wet.  And finally, I added another layer of mod podge over the print.  It goes on white but dries clear.  Here's the subway art.

Okay, but it didn't blow my mind or anything.  I roughed it up a bit by trying to smooth out some bubbles.  Rookie mistake, I guess.  Since I'm clearly a novice at this, I'll advise you to go to this website
 to answer any modpodge questions.  And since this little project took me only minutes to make (not counting drying times), I decided to use a different print and try again.  Using the same steps from above, I tried a more simple look with this springtime graphic.

Only to realize after it printed that I was running low on colored ink.  Ugggghhhh!  Well, I wasn't going for a third time, so I have to decide this or the other side of subway art.  Whattaya think?  Of course, I could hammer in a sawtooth hook on the back to hang this up if I want.  But right now, while I'm undecided as to which print I like better, I think I'll leave it laying up against the wall next to those sweet tulips:)

And, by the way, I've been having a thing lately for having fresh flowers in the house.  You know... just picking up a bundle of $5 flowers at the grocery every once in awhile.  This is the first time I've bought tulips and I LOVE them.  So simple and pretty.  And these white ones put in this yellow ceramic pot (from JoAnne's on sale for $6), it's shouting SPRING to me.  I love it!

So, I had bought this plain polo from target awhile back for about $3.  I decided to make Westen a Wildcat shirt (GO UK!!).  I saw a similar shirt on Gap's online store.  It said Pacific and had a different number.  Because I don't have a Silhouette machine (which I'm dying to have), I freezer paper stenciled the words and number on.  Click here for the how-to on that.  I used fabric paint I already had on hand, thus the reason it's not true blue UK colors.

I like how it turned out, but I wanted the letters to pop a little more.  I decided to outline them using a black Tee Juice fabric pen, which I also already had.

Like I said, I think this made the letters and number stand out a little more.

And that's it!  Voila!  I, of course, heat set it before washing it.  Westen wore it to preschool today and is all ready to cheer the wildcats on tonight!  Go Big Blue!!

Have a great weekend!  I'm linking up to Cheri's party, here.

Well, I was planning to post a couple little shirts I made for Westen this week, but I'm not quite finished with them. Sooooo... these are some pillow covers I made this winter.  Here's another look.

We had these blue and brown striped pillows that we bought when we moved in here.  They were... okay, but not great.  Plus, they couldn't be washed really.  Who knows what we'd spilled on them, how many times they'd been dropped on the floor, stepped on, etc.  I decided instead of buying new pillows entirely, I'd just make new covers for the ones I had.  This was obviously going to be less expensive AND I can take the covers off and throw them in the wash!  DOUBLE SWEET!

I first measured my pillows.  I'm not sure how much fabric I needed for just the pillows because I had this fabric left over from my stockings.  It's Osnaburg - like a grain sack.  After getting the actual pillow measurement, I added 2 inches to the length and 2 inches to the width.  Osnaburg doesn't stretch very well so I wanted to make sure I had a little to work with.  I figured I'd probably make mistakes along the way because I've never done this before.  Next, I added the lines (or whatever graphics you want) on the fabric.  I just wanted stripes for most of them.  So, I just used Frog Tape to mark off my straight lines and used Tulip fabric paint to fill it in.  I mixed a little black and white fabric paint to get a charcoal or dark gray color.

You'll notice one pillow isn't just stripes, but has a FL oranges grain sack look to it.  I freezer paper stenciled this on.  Check out this post to get directions on how to do that.  It definitely takes more time than the stripes, but it's Austin's favorite so it was worth it.

Anyway, after painting the stripes on and heat setting the paint, I put right sides together and sewed a straight stitch all the around but for one side (the bottom).  On the short horizontal pillows, I added a zipper.  I didn't know what I was doing and they didn't turn out perfect, but they're on the bottom where no one can see.  I'm not going to share my method for this because I know it's wrong.  Google it if you want to try it.

For the bigger pillows, I sewed a straight stitch around 3 sides too, but this time left a side open (as opposed to the bottom).  I then cut long strips of fabric out.  For one of my big pillows, I wanted 4 ties, so I had to cut 8 strips out (2 for each tie).  Mine were about 4 inches wide and I think 15 inches long.  I did the same with these by putting right sides together and sewing a straight stitch around leaving the bottom open.  Then I turned them right side out.  For the unfinished edge I had on the side of that big pillow, I folded it towards the inside (and ironed it to help keep it there).  Then I pinned my strips accordingly onto that folded edge and sewed a straight line around the entire pillow.  So the folded part was now the edge and I had 2 strips that matched up evenly 4 times around the pillow.  Here's a closer look at those ties.

Here's another final look.  And I got this idea from seeing pillows like this in a Pottery Barn catalog which you can see here and also on Miss Mustard Seed's blog.

Have a great weekend!

Sorry for the poor lighting, but this is hung in the closet.  It's the best I can do.  So, I started with a piece of pegboard I had left over from this project.

I primed it using spray primer that I had on hand.  Then I painted it red using a paint brush (also red paint I had on hand).

Next, I bought some stretcher bars.  I forgot to take a picture of these before I painted them.  They're original purpose is for art canvases but, it's basically 4 pieces of wood already cut (corners mitered) to make a frame.  You just choose the sizes you want (they come in plenty, so I actually  bought 4 pieces of wood - one for each side - mine were 2 that were 14 inches and 2 that were 24 inches) and they just fit together to make the frame.  I think I spent $6 or $7 total on these.  You can buy them at a craft store (Michael's or Hobby Lobby - my personal fave).

I, obviously, chose to paint these white.  And on both the frame and pegboard, I used a spray sealer after the paint was dried.  Here's a closer look at the corners.

Not perfect, but I'm not into perfection, here.  Next I used Gorilla Glue to assemble everything.  So I first put the frame, front side down, dampened both the back of the frame and the front of the pegboard, then applied the gorilla glue to the back of the frame and centered the pegboard on it.

Next, because I'll be hanging this on the wall, I needed to put spacers on the back of the pegboard so there'd be space between it and the wall.  Otherwise, I wouldn't be able to put the pegboard hooks in.  You'll see what I mean.  So, for this I just used two pieces of scrap wood that were laying around in our garage. I just used the gorilla glue again. I'll let you know how this holds up.

I laid some heavy objects on top of everything for a couple hours while the glue dried.  Then, I hammered these little sawtooth hooks into those small pieces of wood on the back.

Then I just used a pencil, measuring tape, nails, a hammer, and a level to hang this baby up on the wall in my closet right above the chest of drawers I refinished last week.  Here's a look.

See why I bought those red knobs??  And yes, I know it's off center.  I plan to put a little something up on the other side too.  I'm thinking a little oval or round mirror right at my height, so I can use it to see how that jewelry looks!  And also, yes to I know you can see spackle marks on the wall.  Not professional looking, I know. But listen, right now - I guess I just feel like if I'm going to purchase paint for something in our home, it's not going to be for our closet!  The color on our closet walls is the color that covered every wall in our house when we moved in.  And there's no touch up paint that I've found.  Soooo..., I figured if I'm not going to paint the closet walls right now (which I'm not), then spackle marks look better than the giant holes that were left behind from the shelf we took down.  In the words of Ryan Day... Sorry Babe!!

I'm not sure why these pictures didn't turn out a little clearer, but you get the idea, right??  The last thing I did was hang pegboard hooks and then start displaying my jewelry.  I've been wanting to tackle this project for awhile now.  And really...it was so simple.  It took about an hour of time, total (not counting drying times for primer, paint, and sealer).  And I only spent the $6 or $7 on the stretcher bars.  Everything else I had at home.  For that cost - I LOVE IT!!  Cute, huh?  I do have a sweet jewelry box that I've housed my things in before, and I do still have some sentimental pieces of jewelry in there.  But these necklaces definitely didn't all fit.  They were just kinda everywhere.  And honestly, this could be bad because I rarely buy costume jewelry because I've never had a place to put it, so it would just take up wasted space, but now...  Guess we'll see.

Have a great weekend!  Check back tonight or tomorrow for Baron's 5 Month Update.  And I'm also going to try to take a few pics of tomorrow night where Westen and I will be having a date night, so look for that too!  Later:)

Continuing with my closet makeover (yes, I realize it's taking FOR-EV-ER!), this week I tackled the project of refinishing a chest of drawers.  This has been sitting in our garage for the past 3 years.  It was left behind by the previous owners.  It housed a few odds and ends of Austin's, but wasn't being used to its potential.  And having decided I want this closet makeover to cost me next to nothing, I decided to give this little girl a little makeup using things I had on hand.  This is the before.

I had read on this blog about using a white wash finish and then a dry brush technique to create a time worn look.  I had what I needed to do this and thought I'd try my hand out at it on this free piece of furniture we inherited.  After pulling this baby out of its home of 3 years, I saw that it wasn't in as great of condition as I thought it was.  Oh, well.  Free, right?  Anyway, first things first.  I sanded her down.  I did this by hand, but I'm sure it'd go quicker if you used any kind of sanding tool. 

Here's a couple more before shots.  You'll notice I took the hardware off.

After sanding, I used the long tube thingy from my vacuum to clean up excess dust, then wiped her down using a dry lint free cloth.  Next... the fun part.  Like I said, this was my first try at white washing.  You can get the instructions I used from here, but it's basically watered down white paint.  I brushed it on in long strokes, then used a dry lint free cloth to really rub it into the wood.  Here's a couple looks.

After letting the white wash dry, I then dry brushed the same white paint (not watered down) around the areas where this chest of drawers would get normal wear and tear.  It's like distressing the furniture with paint.  I got the instructions for dry brushing as the same place I did for white washing - here.  And here's the after...

A couple things... No this is not in my closet.  I need to take down one shelf before I can put this in there, so I just put her up against the wall to take these pics.  And two - you may be wondering about the red knobs on top.  Well, since I paid nothing for this dresser makeover, I decided to splurge $6 on a couple knobs.  Why red, you ask??  

Well, there will be hints of red here and there in the closet.  I thought I'd try something a little quirky for the top drawer on this.  I'm not sure if I love it.  I may wait until I finish next week's project and put it all together to see if they're going to stay or not (so stay tuned for next week).
You can see in the pictures below the dry brushed white paint.  I especially like how it looks on top and where that curvy detail of the dresser is.  

I'm sure I could've done a better job.  I learned a little from this first round of white washing and dry brushing, but overall I think it turned out pretty good.  It was fun to experiment.  I like it.  And by the way, this is without a finishing coat - like sealer, or finishing wax.  I haven't put that on yet and am not sure that I will.  This is going in our closet after all.  So, finally, another before...and after.

Have a great weekend!

So, you may have read my post 2 weeks ago about wanting to makeover our closet.  I had to stall a bit with our trip last weekend and, honestly, I was having second thoughts about what I wanted to do.  My plan was to build part of a closet storage system (you know... inspired by none other than California Closets, but not so perfect because it's a DIY).   Spend $100+ on our closet???  Well, certainly cheaper than California Closets, but I  wasn't confident that our closet was the place that I wanted to spend $100 in our house.  Not with so many other things I could do with $100:)  Feeling hesitant, I decided to take a step back and reanalyze.  I was thinking, what do we already have that I could use for this closet makeover?  I have some things in mind, but first things first.  Continue the organization process.

Before, there was a lot of wasted space on Austin's side of the closet (and yes, I realize the top shelf still looks a mess - patience, please:).  I decided to reorganize where our clothes are hanging. I moved his shirts and pants to one side and added my shirts, pants, and skirts to the other.  And it fit!  Who knew??

I moved any long garments (dresses) and infrequently used garments (Austin's suit coats) to the other side together.  Did you catch that glimpse of today's project?

Yep!  Shoe Storage!!  I know I still need to prime and paint that sucker, but I kinda don't even mind the natural pine look.

I bought 2 - 1x12x6s and 1 - 1x6x4 this morning at Lowes.  I had those guys cut the 1x12s so they'd be easier to fit in the car (since I have two massive carseats).  I had them cut 38 inch pieces from both (which left 2 - 34 inch pieces left which I could use to make two smaller shoe storage pieces if I wanted, but I wanted these 38s for a reason).  Then when I got home, I measured the width of the 1x12s (because lumber is never actually what they say it is - these were 11.25inches).  Then, I cut the 1x6 to that length four times.

You see?  The 1x6 pieces are like the feet of this shoe shelf.  The rest honestly took me about 10 minutes per unit.  I just used wood glue and put 3 nails into each end.  That's it!

I know this shoe storage isn't big enough to hold a whole wardrobe's shoes, but we don't have enough room in our closet to display all of our shoes like this.  We'll use this for the shoes we wear most.  Our everyday shoes, if you will.  The rest... well, boots will be put away since I rarely wear them here, flip flops will have their own cubby or basket (because if you live in FL, you always have way too many of these), and although I put my pretty heels on top to take this picture, they'll probably end up on one of the high shelves in the closet because I don't wear those everyday either.  Another look...

I will probably paint these, but I'm going to hold off.  I have some other things in mind for this closet makeover, and I'm still working on some of the details, so color coordinates will come in time.  Having said that, stay tuned and have a good weekend!

Well, I expected to be continuing my post from last Friday about my closet makeover. You can see that post here.  But.... I was busy this week preparing for our short weekend trip to KY this weekend.  And the only day I had to go get lumber from Lowes, they were out of some of the particle board I needed.  Soooooo, no progress on our closet:(  Too bad.  Instead, I thought I'd share a project Austin and I worked on a couple weeks ago that was pretty simple.

Wall hanging bookshelves - I bought the wood for this project from Lowes.  I brought it home to cut, although Lowes would probably have done it (I just wanted to use my tools:).  Then, Austin helped me assemble these babies which was super simple.

I primed and painted them.  Then we put framing hooks on the back, although they'd look better if you just found a stud and drilled these directly into your wall.  With the framing hooks they lean forward away from the wall a bit, but we learned that the hard way.

They're not perfect.  I don't cut perfect, so you can probably see some gaps between the wood or even some crooked lines. But I like them.  And they were less than $10 each.  We made two for the playroom and they're great space savers.  Now we can use the bins for toys instead of books.  I've thought about making more for Westen and Baron's room.  You can get the plans for this project here at Ana White's website.  Have a great weekend!  While Austin and I will be attending a wedding tomorrow night (Congratulations Kendra and Brandon!), Westen and Baron will be spending some quality time with their peeps from KY.  Good Times!

So, I've got pretty pictures and ugly pictures today:)  The pretty ones first...

Westen's Valentines!  Yeah, I think they're cute.  If you missed Monday's post, I got the idea from Cheri's post here.  Here's a couple more looks...

All his little classmates will get these Monday;)  So that was an easy project this week.  I'm sure I'll post pictures of Westen on Valentine's Day in his cute Valentine shirt (I bought from Target) and his sweet Valentines, so stay tuned.  On to the ugly pics.  I've decided to makeover our closet.  We've been overstuffing it for too long.  I had clothes in there from before I even had Westen that I'm not sure I'll ever (maybe even want to...) wear again.  Plus, I just needed to PURGE.  And one other thing - we have no linen closet for our master bathroom, so our closet is for that too.  Now, in just a tiny bit of defense... I've had intentions to tackle this project at the beginning of this year since well before the holidays, so I have to say, I kinda just let things go this past month, knowing I'd be cleaning up soon.  With no further ado, here's the befores...YIKES!

Could you see our linens and towels on the top shelf of that second pic??  Terrible, I know.  I'll spare you the floor which was a pile of shoes in one corner, luggage in another, dry cleaner bags in another...  Yeah, it's pretty bad.  Does anyone else's closet look like that.  Say yes and make me feel better.  Anyhoo, since this is just part one of this closet redo (I can only do a little at a time, so this may take a couple weeks), here's what I did this week:  I went through my clothes and sorted them into piles.

I had a pile of clothes to give to my niece, Hailey, a pile of clothes to keep, a pile to donate, and a pile to recycle.

Excuse the Cous:)  I think as I go through this process, I will probably get rid of more.  But unfortunately, I can't do this all in one day.  My next step in this process is buying some lumber to build some cubbies to organize.  That's on my to-do for next week.  We'll see how that goes.  Stay tuned and I can't believe I shared our disaster with you.  I'd understand if you refuse to look at any more photos on this site;)

So above are my refinished barstools.  This is my first hand at trying distressing on furniture and using glaze.  Here's how they looked before.

Austin and I bought these babies at an estate sale probably 5 or 6 years ago when we lived in our first house.  We got them for about 50 cents a piece.  We used them as they were in that house and maybe the next house (I can't remember), but I'm pretty sure they've been sitting in our garage taking up precious space while serving no purpose while we've been in this house (almost 3 years!!).  You know I'm not lying...look at the dust!

So, first things first... I removed the seat cushion by ripping the faux leather off the barstool from the bottom.  I didn't have the patience to work every staple out, so I just used scissors and made sure I got all the fabric out and left the staples in.

Here's what we had after taking it off - a round foam cushion and the cover.

Here's the naked barstools.

So, I had some leftover white paint from another project (that I'll also share soon), so I used that to paint the legs of these guys white.  I just used a foam brush.

This was a project I worked on over a few days time.  I put a coat of white paint on, let it dry over night, put a second coat of paint on, let it dry over night, and that's how the project went.  I did one thing once a day.  So after 2 coats of paint, I sanded down areas of the stools' legs that would get natural wear and tear on them.  I wanted them to have a distressed well worn look.  This was really easy.  I just used a sandpaper sponge.

Next I used Vlaspar Mocha Glaze to cover every inch of the barstools to give that antiqued look.  I used a foam brush for this too, but used very little glaze, then used a dry cotton rag to rub most of what I put on off.  It's almost like you're rubbing the glaze in to cover the entire piece.  Instead of a sharp white, you get this.

Unfortunately, I didn't have time to take pictures of the reupholstering.  I just used the same foam cushions.  I wanted to use a natural color and fabric, so chose to use burlap.  This part was really easy too.  I just laid the round cushions on the burlap and cut around it.  Then, I laid the barstool upside down on top of the cushion that's on top of the burlap, pulled the burlap up onto the under side of the stool and stapled it on. I used a staple gun for this.

So again, the before and the after.  What do you think??  I like them so much better.  They flow with the rest of our decor.  And now that we've been using and storing our new computer on the counter all the time, it gives us a place to sit. Perfect!