My Inexpensive Bedside Tables

We recently had the flooring redone on our second floor.  We LOVE how it turned out.  We had horrible forest green carpet (except for a couple of rooms) throughout the house when we bought it.  We removed it from the first floor almost right away, but the second floor just wasn't in the financial cards.  There aren't a lot of colors to use to decorate when you have dark green floors.  Our master bedroom had been decorated with a maroonish-red since we bought the house in '04.  Now if you know me, you also know that I like CHANGE!  I was SO excited to change the color in our room.  I asked my mom if she and dad would get us new bedding for Christmas...they got us an area rug too.

I wanted knew bedside tables, but didn't really want to spend too much money.  One day while visiting my parents last fall, mom and I hit a resale shop.  I found a cute little solid oak drop-leaf end table for $22.  It's nice and heavy.  We bought it and took it home to Dad.  Now if you know my Dad, he is a traditionalist when it comes to furniture.  The thought of painting what he considers to be a nice piece of furniture might just put him over the edge...lol.  Did I mention that my Dad refinished furniture???  He even taught himself to hand cane chairs. 

I wasn't quite to sure what my Dad would say when I asked him to saw a perfectly good table in half.  LOL!  He just looked and me and said...OK.  He did a beautiful job!!!  He even commented that if I ever wanted it put back together again it wouldn't be too hard because it was such a clean cut.

So...here are our matching bedside tables...

I bought a couple of L-brackets to mount the now two-legged
tables to the wall.  Yes, I am lying on the floor to get
this photo.  LOL

And just because I think it's TOTALLY AWESOME...
our new ceiling fan.  We got it at Lowes.

Valentine's Day Gifts

I got my craft on for fun little Valentine's Day gifts for Lily's teachers and aide.  I think they turned out kind of cute.

I saw some Hershey's kiss "long-stem roses" somewhere on the internet.  They seemed easy enough to make and kind of fun.  I used Valentine's Day pencils instead of wooden skewers, but this tutorial should give you an idea of how to make the flowers.  I bought the cute little buckets at Target...in the $1 bins.  Love, love, love Target's dollar bins.  I used some floral foam in the buckets.

Charity's Fundraiser

We interrupt my usual craftiness to bring you this post...

Many of you may remember when I was helping a friend of mine raise money for their adoption, about a year ago.  Rob and Deanna brought Lucy home last summer.  She's flourishing in her new home!!!

Lucy Maria

This past Christmas, Rob and Deanna decided to answer God's call once again.  They hope to bring home their second adopted daughter this summer.  Sweet Charity is such a doll!!!

"Charity"

The Sader family needs to raise another $16,000 in order to ransom Charity.  It's so sad that it costs so much to save a child, but it's a fact.  It costs approximately $25,000 to adopt from the country where Charity is.

The Saders have an awesome fundraiser going on right now.  You can visit Deanna's blog to read all about it.  But here's a hint...VACATION!!!!

Incidently, I'm helping Deanna keep track of the donators.  So if you aren't one to comment on blogs, you can let me know how much you donated and I can enter you in the giveaway.  You can email me at scrapbookercathy@yahoo.com.

Oh...and if you don't want to use Paypal, you can send a check to Reece's Rainbow.  Be sure to include Sader/Charity Adoption on the memo line!!!

The address is:

Reece's Rainbow
PO Box 4024
Gaithersburg, MD 20885

This happy family of 4 will soon be a family of 5!!!!

More of Lily's Room

Just a few more pictures of stuff I've done in Lily's room...

I made the wall hanging from a canvas I already had, an "L" that used to hang in Lily's nursery, some wrapping paper I bought at Michael's, and some leftover fabric I had from making some pillows for Lily's room.  The wicker chair...which I LOVE...was a consignment store find. (Incidentally...if my mom and I lived closer together, I would be dragging her all over the place to thrift stores and resale shops.  However...it's just not as fun by myself.).  And that storage bin...well, that was a fail on my part.  Don't get me wrong...I think it looks cute with Lily's toys in it.  Lily has one of those 3-shelf IKEA book shelves in her room.  The top shelf has board books on it which she is allowed to look at on her own since they are fairly indestructible.  The bottom two shelves have fabric bins in them.  I bought the bins at Target.  They are made for Target's shelving system and are a bit too small for the IKEA shelves.  So...when I redid Lily's room, the pink bins needed to go.  I stopped at IKEA on the way home from Lily's ENT appointment.  I bought white fabric bins...just a couple of bucks.  I decided that I wanted to stencil something on them to follow the theme of Lily's room.  Guess what...stenciling 4 sides takes a while.  When they were finally done, I brought them up to Lily's room.  I emptied the pink bins into them...and I TRIED to shove them in the shelving unit.  They were TOO BIG!!!  Hello!!!!  Shouldn't IKEA's bins fit in THEIR units????  So...I bought 2 black bins from Target to replace the pink ones (I might, at some point, stencil white on them.).  The white bins still are being put to good use!

OK...back to the wall hanging.  I had the canvas.  I don't remember what's on it, but there's something under there.  LOL!  I used a spray adhesive to glue the paper to the canvas.  I then "wrapped" the sides of the canvas similar to wrapping a gift.  I originally bought the L at Hobby Lobby.  I removed the paper that I had decorated it with and gave it a quick shot of black spray paint.  The flowers are super simple.  Here's a link for instructions if you are interested in making some.

Flower close-up

Grandma bought this awesome mirror for Lily's new room.  Just thought I would show it.  I couldn't find any reasonable priced switchplate/outlet covers for Lily's room.  So...I took the cheapy ones that were already in her room and decoupaged some of the leftover fabric from the pillows and cushions I made.  I think they turned out cute.

 I wish the switches were white instead of beige*ish*.  They aren't...so I deal.

So ends our tour of Lily's recently redecorated room.  I'm guessing this is the last time I'll get to do what I want.  I'm sure the next time we redecorate, Little Miss Independent will have some opinions.  As long as it isn't Justin Beiber...

Cheap Wall "Art"

I recently redecorated Lily's room.  I have a little of my mom in me and get bored easily when it comes to decorating and love to change things up.  Unfortunately, I can't do it as often as I would like to now that I'm a stay-at-home mom on a very limited budget.

I was ready to get rid of Lily's nursery and give her a "big girl" room...well, at least a bigger girl room.  I chose to decorate her room in Tiffany blue, black, and white.  Paint is cheap.  However, all new wall decor wasn't really in the budget.

I repurposed Lily's name plaques that were in her nursery.  I bought 4 sheets of scrapbook paper and decoupaged the paper to the letters.  Easy peasy...they turned out cute, but I just wasn't satisfied with how they looked hanging over Lily's bed.  I think maybe they are just too small.

I was on a mission to find something larger, yet relatively inexpensive to hang there.  I found this garland on Pinterest and decided I could adapt this to make a canvas.  I went into Hobby Lobby with expectations of buying a large canvas.  Holy cow are they ever expensive!!!!!  I almost gave up on my idea until I spied a two-pack of smaller canvases for $7.99.  Hmmmmmm...hang two canvases side by side!

I gathered my supplies including:  canvases, spray paint (even though they are white, I still chose to paint the canvases for a brighter white), sprapbook paper, flower punch, string, large needle, glue gun, and a pencil.

After painting the canvases, I marked off every two inches on the back, top and bottom.  The marks were where I would be hot gluing the strings down. I then glued down the first string (actually...two strings...just my choice for some reason).

I threaded 3 paper flowers on each string and then pulled the string taut and hot glued it to the back.  BTW...the back isn't very pretty...lol.

The flowers can be positioned however you want.  I chose to scatter them all over the canvas.

The finished project.

Right after I hung them, I decided to take them back down and bend
the petals up abit to give it a more dimensional look.
 I'm not sure if it was the rightchoice or not, but it's done.

The total cost of this project was about $9.  All I had to buy was the paper (I used four 8 1/2 by 11 sheets) and the canvases.  I had the rest of the supplies already on hand.

II think this would be really cute with the canvases painted some bright color too.  However, the only other color in Lily's room is black.  I didn't want to use black.

I don't know if these will hang here forever (heck...I know they won't).  For now, they are an inexpensive option...and I like them.

A couple more Lily's room projects in the next couple days...

What's in a Name??

I think I've made it clear that I love Pinterest.  I was even motivated to make a couple of Christmas presents this year from an idea I found on Pinterest.  I truly believe that the 3 families I gave these "homemade" gifts to, actually liked them.  :)

Here's a link to the site where I got the idea for my "name signs".  

On the website I referenced, the blogger mentioned using a 1 x 10 if you want to hang this on the wall.  I couldn't find such a thing.  I used 2 x 10s.  Although I haven't put ours up yet, my Dad put up the one I made for my brother and his family.  He just drilled completely through the boards with long screws, directly into studs.

The only trouble I ran into (and it was silly on my part because I should have seen this) was that I didn't crop and resize the photos I found on the Flickr site.  The first batch of photos I ordered where flops.  I quickly figured out my mistake and hit up Wal-Greens photo service again.

I really LOVE how this project turned out.  I can't wait to hang this above the pocket doors leading into our family room.  The only reason it's not already up is because I haven't made the time to repaint the kitchen yet.  Yep...another project!

I know this is a bathroom, but here's the color inspiration for my soon-to-be-redecorated kitchen...

And yes...this inspiration came
from Pinterest too!

Gallery Wall, Part 2

When thinking about my gallery wall, I knew that I wanted to include some things that weren't photographs.  Lily's room was our guest room prior to being a nursery.  The decor was white on white/shabby chic.  I still have fond memories of that room and hope to recreate it someday.  Most of the stuff is tucked away in our attic.  Once Ethan goes away to college in a few years, his room might be taken over by his decorating stepmom...don't tell him.  Anyway...a lot of the stuff that used to hang on the walls in that room have been painted black and are now used on the new gallery wall.

Here's the wall again...in case you forgot.  That spot on the ceiling still
isn't fixed.  I chose to nap instead of patch.

This is one of the things I purchased.  I found it on Etsy.  I'll include
a link to the seller at the end of this post.  This is my first attempt
at applying vinyl.  It was easy peasy to do!

I made this little 5x7 canvas with a bunch of stuff
I had around the house.  The canvas used to hang
in the master bath.  I first painted it white and then
Mod Podged a piece of black and white
scrapbook paper to the front of it.  I decided that
the white part of the paper was just too white, so
I used a little more Mod Podge tinted with instant
coffee to "antique" it.  I wrapped black velvet
ribbon around the canvas and made a little
loopy bow for the top.  The singed edged flower
is another little fun thing I make.  I'll provide a link
on how to make these at the end of this post.
I was happy with how it turned out...and it
was basically FREE!

I LOVE how this turned out.  I really like the texture of burlap.
I found this frame in the basement.  I might have "inherited" it
with the marriage...not sure where it came from.  It was white.
Gotta love spray paint.  I bought the big T at Michael's.
I used spray adhesive to glue the burlap to a piece of cardboard
I cut to use as a backing.  The T is hot glued to the burlap.

I found this cute little frame with matte at
Wal-Mart for $3!!!!  Perfect for Lily's
teeny tiny baby foot and handprints.

I love this!  I bought a frame that holds three 4X6 photos.  I think I got
it at Target.  I found the numbers on a photographer's Flickr site.
He also has great letters!  I'll post pictures of what I made with
those in a few days.  Oh...and by the way, the 6-5-4 stands for
our anniversary, June 5, 2004.

This is a family picture we had taken was Lily was 6 months old.
(I think it's time for a new one!!!)  The original is in color.  I just plopped
it on my printer and made a black and white copy of it.  I use matte finish
photo paper but I think cardstock would work too.

This photo is of my precious daughter, taken just after her open heart
surgery.  I asked Mark if it was weird to put it on the wall.  We know that she
is a MIRACLE...so on the wall it went!

Click here to visit the Etsy shop where I found the vinyl saying.  FYI...this company was GREAT to work with, but while looking to find it for this post, I found the same vinyl for $2 less.

For how to make singed flowers, click here.  I have a hard time using a candle, so I use a lighter.  I also hand sew all my flowers rather than glue.

Not that you really need a tutorial for this, but here's where I got the idea for the T in the oval frame.

And finally...that Flickr page I got the photos from...click here for the photographer's collection.

My Gallery Wall

I recently repainted our foyer and decided that the wall by the stairs going up to the second floor would be a great place for a gallery wall.  Once again...Pinterest inspired.

I'm an eye-baller.  Some of the pins on Pinterest showed putting brown paper frame templates to tape up first to lay out the wall.  Ya...I'm not one of those kind of people.

Despite the fact that I found this to be VERY difficult to photograph, here's my wall:

Ugh!!!  Please ignore that spot on the ceiling where I knocked off a hunk of drywall with the ladder while painting.  Note to self...dig out patching plaster while Lily sleeps.

I chose to use all black frames.  I purchased some of them, but most were frames I already had.  If they weren't already black, they were after I got a hold of a can of spray paint!  I also chose to use all black and white photos.  I love the effect.  If the photo I wanted to use was in color, I just copied it on my printer in black and white.

I'll share some of the items (up close and personal) over the next couple of days.

Thanks for stopping by!!

I'm dusting off this old blog

Pinterest has super-inspired me lately.  I mean really, really inspired me.  I have been trying out lots of new recipes.  I have been crafting...oh how I've missed crafting.  I've been decorating.  I decided to share some of my projects here on this poor little neglected blog that hasn't been touched in two years.

Between Lily's tonsillectomy/adenoidectomy in early December and her recovery and some remodeling of our second floor in late November, I never put up any Christmas decorations in 2011.  I was so tired from everything that was going on that it didn't bother me...in the least!!  However, now that Valentine's Day is drawing near, I've been inspired to put up a few decorations.

My first project was a very simple wreath, inspired by this blog.  I only had one deck of playing cards to use so I added some scrapbooking paper hearts too.  Oh...and I have a new-found love of burlap, so I included a burlap bow.

I purchased a few heart ornaments from Michael's and I snagged a few branches from a tree outside to create this Valentine's Day "tree".

I have a couple more Valentine's Day projects in the works.  Stay tuned...