I know, I know

The last few weeks have been so busy.  Last week especially.  I planned 2 events, helped with 1, gave two talks, 2 public comments...by the time Saturday came and went, I was in bed by 8PM.  I am not usually in bed by then.  Which leads me to why part 2 of the office refinish isn't finished yet.

opps! no real before picture.  Don't mind the messy background.

So, last post I told you about my desk.  This post I will talk about the refinishing.  When my mother called me to ask me if I wanted the old credenza from my grandpa's old office, I was of course jumping and saying YES!!  So, now I had two furniture pieces for my office.

I found a couple tutorials on refinishing without sanding, because I didn't want to sand all of that surface area.     Now I can't for the life of me find the pin.  I was pretty sure I pinned it.  Isn't that always how it goes?
Anyway, a few of them recommended a product by Rustoleum, Furniture Transformations, I did the glazed charcoal.  It was fairly easy, the instructions spell it out for you.  You use the step one cleaning, step 2 the basecoat, step three the glaze, step 4 the sealer.  Everything but the brush come in the little kit.  You have to have it tinted at the store, so don't leave without doing that first.  I think I was a little confused on that one.  I did buy some cheap plastic cups to put the paint in for ease.

I realized the coverage for the product was off from the surfaces I had to paint, but not enough to purchase 2 @ $40 each.  Which, isn't bad to not have to sand.  I after stressing much deliberation.  I decided I could mod podge the paper onto the desk drawers and save me some paint, as, I mentioned before.  I was going to use wall paper somewhere in my original idea for the desk anyway.  That made it so I had enough paint for both projects.



I am pleased with the finished product.

Now, to show the whole office.  Just need to finish the curtains...

     About a year ago we moved into a new house.  We have been busy over the last year making it our home.  The latest project is the office redo.  I promised a few people I would post pictures of my desk project.  I have been putting it off long enough.  So here is the desk project.  As soon as I have a few other small projects completed, I will show the entire office reveal as well as some things we have been doing around the rest of the house.

      I have to tell you that I came across this desk by accident.  I went with the husband to pick up an item at his uncle's auction for his mom.  They had been having a surplus auction of all of the things that the county was no longer using.  It was sitting on the law waiting with about 15 other desks to be loaded onto a truck to be taken where ever desks go when they are not wanted.  The hubs aunt and cousin saw me eyeing it and told me I should just offer the dude like $20.  So, I did.  He accepted, and she came home to live with us.
Before the refinishing.

 Desk drawers.  The handles were glued on so I had to hammer them off to finish them.  I was going to replace them anyway, lets face it.

I will tell you more about the painting later when I show you the matching credenza, but the story goes, I didn't have enough paint to do both pieces, so I decided to cover the drawers in paper.  I purchased this lovely handmade paper with gold dust from Paper Source.  . It was love at first sight.  Using Mod Podge, I covered the drawer fronts.  Then I finished it off with handles that I purchased at Pick Your Plum, an advantage to local pick up, is you get to see fun things.  They weren't this color, and I'm not sure where the before picture went.  I spray painted them with Rust-Oleum's Sun Yellow and then because it was a little too bright for the project I glazed them with Martha Stewart finishes, I think coffee bean.  It has a metallic shimmer to it.  

And the final product

I love it.  Can't wait to show you the rest.

Projects

I have all these amazing projects I've been working on that I am loving how they are turning out.  I am dying to share them with you, but I need some better photos...and some finishing touches.  I am not sure that I have shared it here but I have recently moved into a new house.  It is a blank canvas awaiting my touch.  It is two years old and doesn't have a yard so unfortunately that has become the priority.  I will be posting the projects as soon as I get them completed and get time to post them.  Have a beautiful day.

Teacher Appreciation

Today was the last day of school.  My oldest has been bugging  asking me, since teacher appreciation a few weeks ago to do a gift for her teacher.  Well, the last couple weeks have been crazy.  I just haven't gotten to it. I meant to do it yesterday and then got coerced into  got asked if I could help with field day, which it was my good friend so of course I said yes I'd help.  It was divided up into two sessions so I thought for sure I'd have time to work on my project (if I could remember what I was going to do).  Well, turns out things came up for other volunteers, SO, I helped all day, and have the sun burn to prove it.  No problem right, I still have the rest of the night (what was I going to do?).  Well, then the guy who was trenching for our sprinklers came and I had to keep all small children off the sidewalk and make dinner.  And then husband wanted to plant some things in the garden and, well, when he's willing I take the help.
Fast forward to time for school this morning.  Now, I know, I saved an idea somewhere for what I was going to do, but I still don't remember what it was.  7:00 frantically searching online...7:30, just give up and go get a gift card or something, not everything has to be homemade (get over your neurosis), 8:00, I checked Pinterest and came across something I remember liking but wrong time of year for doing it cheaply.

Bummer, what am I going to do?  8:30, I've got it!   

I have an obsession with cupcakes, and while I don't have the supplies for this large cake I may have some for a cupcake.  Did I mention that school gets out at 12:30?  So, I ran around my house gathering supplies, which isn't easy as we are still in a bit of a mess from moving. 

I found a tube in my trash from my vinyl rolls, but you could use a yogurt container, or sour cream, or the bottom of a plastic bottle cut off.

I used a hacksaw to cut my tube into three pieces and I made a duct tape bottom for it, which if I were really intentional and cool I would have used patterned not just the silver.  You tube videos on making duct tape wallets really came in hand on this one.   

This was really using the trash I had on hand and making do.

I got a box of crayons 24 pack for each of the three I had to do, and an additional box to split between the three because 1 didn't quite do it.  You'll need to chance your number depending on your base container.

I lined the crayons up to look as nice as they could color wise.  There are not enough purples in a box, might I add.

After I had them lined up I taped the back with packing tape so they could use them if they wanted to. You will need to leave an inch and a half at both ends.

Then wrap the tape sticky side out around the tube and secure on itself making a ring that fits around the tube.  Then fill in the remaining sticky with the remaining crayons until it is surrounded.  You could just put double sided tape around the tube and then apply the crayons, or you could make it more secure by using hot glue but you wouldn't be able to use the supplies, which was my goal here.  And the tape trick made it so fast.

I then added some supplies to the middle, paper clips, book clips, treats, erasers, a glue stick.  

Because I didn't use heavier glue I wrapped it in a ribbon and tied a bow to the outside and wrapped in cello wrap for good measure.

After I filled it, it didn't look like a cupcake like I wanted it to, so I grabbed the tissue paper I had in my wrapping stash and folded it into a loose tube and wrapped in a coil gently crumpling it to the shape I needed and then I taped off the end on the bottom and taped it to the top of the stuff inside and squished it into the crayons carefully, so it would stay on top but could be taken off to see what was inside.  I did have to make a trip to the store for some goodies but I finished it at 11:40 and ran to the school. 

Valentines wreath

I had this brilliant idea for a wreath out of felt.  I wanted it to be heart shaped and I wanted to do it out of felt and have a variety of flowers.  I changed it up a bit from when I started. 

I wanted to make a wreath for Valentines day.  Whew, I got it done and still have a few days to show it off.  And now that I look at it I can see some things I would move.  Ha isn't that how it always goes.

So this is what I did:

I cut a billion 3" circles.  Well, ok maybe not a billion but more than one hundred.  I didn't really count them, sorry.  It was about a yard and a quarter worth of felt sold on a bold I'd say maybe a 72" wide.  Next, with the help of my 6 year old assistant, I folded them all in half and then in half again so I had a quarter circle.  Then we stuck a straight pin in the point and pinned them into a straw wreath.  You could use another kind but straw was cheaper.

I pinned them pretty close except for the last third I did loosely so that I could put the flowers on that side and it wouldn't stick up too far.  Next I made several different flowers out of red, light pink, and dark pink felt.  I also used some teal tulle too just to add some more interest.

I sewed the flowers but you could glue them with fabric glue or hot glue.  For this one, I had a middle that needed to cover my stitches and so I used a button for the middle.  I happen to have a large box of vintage buttons that belonged to my grandma.  Side note: This piece of information does not help the hoarder in me get rid of anything.  If you know much about me, you know that I really love my grandma and I got a lot of my crafting abilities from her.  Every time I look in the box I find little reminders of her and the legacy she left behind.  I love her.
After gluing the button to the middle.

Notice they were 25 cents, for more than one button.  That's just all that's left.

I hot glued all of the flowers onto the wreath

Yay!  I need to make the wreath hang lower, but I love how it turned out.

Home made presents

This is one of those posts to keep in mind for next Christmas...well, or there's always birthdays.  We have a family tradition, each year we make home made gifts for the name we draw.  It's funny that most years we all somehow end up on a theme.  This year everyone was different.  Except that my sister in law and I both did chalk boards.  I don't think I even took a picture but I just wanted to post a few of the gifts past that I made that I have pictures of.

This is one from this year.  A dollar store cookie sheet with die cut paper dolls put on with Mod Podge,  I put scrapbook paper on adhesive backed magnet sheets and cut out the clothes.  

Scarf, one day I'll post a tutorial.

I'll have to find more pictures...

HOME ALONE

I have been experiencing a bunch of new changes in my life in the last year or so.  My husband changed jobs, we are attempting to sell our house, and I am home alone ALL day long.  That's right, the kids are all in school full time, what's a girl to do?  With all this wonderful, uninterrupted time to do as she pleases there is so much to do and...

I find myself wandering around the house wondering where to start.

I have plenty to do I just don't know what to do first.  Do I sit down at the computer and check Facebook and other websites I am addicted to checking while no one is here to bug me?  Do I clean the house and do house work because it will stay that way for a couple hours?  Do I work on projects with no one to get into things?  I wander...and look...wander back...make bed...brush teeth...and...sit down at the computer....next thing I know the kids are home.  Ugh!
Well, I need to figure this schedule out, so I have set some goals for myself, you know that accountability of setting goals? that's what this is right here.  I am going to work on projects and creating one day a week, I am going to start a chore chart to enlist help in keeping up with the house.  And I am going to be better at keeping up a blog or at the very least doing projects that I can post to this blog.  I have a few that I need to find just one more perfect element to complete them.  Hopefully some of my not knowing what to do with myself is just coming because we are in such transition around here. I am hoping that the sale of our home is just around the corner so I can start some of those home design projects in my head.