What Have I Been Up To?

What have I been up to?  It's been a while since I finished a project start to finish, but rest assured the wheels have been turning over here.  Progress on finishing our basement is slow but steady, one of the results of doing nearly everything yourselves.  At this point, we are finished framing and ready to start the electrical and plumbing.  This does eat up a lot of our spare time (ha! what's that?), but I have been able to sneak in a little side home improvement project upstairs.  Remember this bathroom?

This is the main bathroom of our house.   It's right by the kids' bedrooms, but it is also right off the front room area, so it's the one that gets the most use.  Right now, I wouldn't say that this room is complete by any means, but we have made some real progress.  Ready to see?

Yep, we painted!  And did board and batten!  Well, you know, faux board and batten.  It was an easy, yet time-consuming and detail-oriented project, but this was a much needed transformation for this room.  It just had no heart, ya know?

We still need to frame that mirror, hang some hooks, and get some new decor going on in there.  The hair clip tree and hair clip frame, both fun and easy DIY tutorials if you need the storage, are both things I would like to hang onto in some form or another.

As far as decor goes, I'd like to add some river rock grey or toned-down cool hues to the room.  There isn't a defined theme for the room, but I'd like to have a New England lake house feel going on.  I have also considered spray painting some or all of the metal hardware in the room with oil rubbed bronze spray paint.  I'm not sure how those two ideas go together, though, so we'll see how this all plays out.  The shower curtain will probably have to go as well, although it still kind of matches.

What do you think?  Any ideas?  I'm glad to be back at blogging and excited to share some more fun things in the near future.

Wooden Easter Eggs

Easter is fast approaching, so with that in mind I bought these unfinished wooden egg cutouts from Wood Creations and gussied them up.  I am not always huge into wood crafts, but these were just too cute to pass up!  I also had a lot of fun with the design and method on these.

I got all my supplies at Hobby Lobby, which include the paint, ribbon in a scrap pack, scrapbook paper, and that awesome flocked glitter.  Isn't that just neat?  First, I painted each egg with about three coats of acrylic craft paint.  Once that was dry, I decoupaged the paper onto each egg.  Next, I did the flocked glitter.  I used a Martha Stewart ball point glue pen (best idea ever) and drew a line of glue along all the paper edges.  I spread the flocked glitter along the glue and kind of pressed it down to make sure it got glued evenly.

As a finishing touch, I tied lengths of ribbon around each egg.  On the two biggest eggs, I tied little extra pieces around the knot to give it a little bit more substance.

 

I just love how bright, fun, happy, etc. these little babies are.  Who else is super excited for Easter now?!?

Faux Weathered Metal Letters

As part of my master bedroom revival, I revamped my little A and C letters.  Here's what they looked like before:

I had painted the sides black and decoupaged cute black and white scrapbook paper on the front.  It was cute, but we were overdue on an update.  I was able to get most of the paper off, but some of the paper didn't come off.  Due to the nature of the letters, I could have just flipped them around and painted them.  Since I would be able to flip them over if I didn't like it, I decided to try an experiment and see if I liked it.  (Story of my life.)

 

Pin It

I sanded the rest of the paper off with low grit sandpaper (very coarse).  I sanded in the direction of the lines, meaning I sanded the direction that I would write the letter.

After I sanded the front of the letters, all I had to do was hit them with a few coats of Rust-Oleum's Hammered Metal spray paint in silver.  So easy!  I am in the process of hanging these with a new focal piece above the headboard, plus I have a couple of new spring projects to work on.  I also finished a couple more decorative pieces for the master bedroom that I am really excited about.

Linked up: The CSI Project

Play Kitchen Redo

Anybody recognize this?  I posted the before photo of this play kitchen way back last summer.  I put off redoing it for a while, because I knew that it would be a bit of work and I wasn't sure what I wanted to do with it yet.  About a month before Christmas, I decided that it would make a great gift for my young daughters, along with some play kitchen accessories.  I had some leftover paint from the green stripes in my daughter's bird bedroom, my mother-in-law gave us the neato spoon and rolling pin drawer pulls, and my parents provided the metal bowl "sink", copper "faucet", and other knobs.  I already had all the supplies for the vinyl burners and utensil decals.  The only money we spent was on the toys to go along!

Once again, this is what I started with:

It was really in pretty good shape, just a little boring.  The drawers and some of the doors were stuck together, and one of the handles was missing.  Also, I don't know if you noticed, but the handles on the top doors were installed on the top instead of the bottom.

My brother helped me install the sink, which is a metal bowl that we set in the counter top and secured with screws.  I painted the whole thing with an angle brush and a mini roller, which gave it a really nice finish.  We only had five of the cool drawer pulls, so we had to find a sort-of matching pull at Lowe's.  I used my Silhouette to cut out the purple vinyl decals.  I just did a bunch of circles for the the burners and found an image online for the kitchen utensils.  I also did an "H" and "C" for the knobs by the faucet.

I really love how this turned out!  Both of my daughters (1 and almost 3) love playing with it.  The kitchen toy sets from IKEA fit perfectly, plus they got some other fun kitchen toys from our families.

 Thanks to everyone who helped get this together in time for Christmas-- my brother Clark, parents on both sides, and mostly my awesome husband Chris.  I've got him working on an Ana White headboard now.  It just needs some stain and clear coat, then we'll be ready to install!  Also, I am working on a new look for the blog for the new year.  Check out the watermark on the photos in this post for a little preview.

Linked: Tatertots & Jello

Reindeer Welcome Sign

My mom gave me this reindeer welcome sign that had a much more traditional color scheme.  I can't believe I forgot to take a picture.  The outer wood frame and stake part were plain wood with an oak stain, and the parts that I painted silver were red with green accents.  I didn't hate it, but I wanted to try something new with it.

First, I spray-painted everything white, then I got some cool metallic paint in silver and did that part by hand.  I also found some glitter paint that I thought would be a fun accent.  I didn't expect it to be so clear, but I still like how it turned out.

I cut the "welcome" letters out in white vinyl on my Silhouette and put them on, and all-in-all this project really only took me an afternoon once I had it sprayed white.  My only problem now is that none of the rest of my decor matches, but I'll have to see what I can do about that with Christmas clearance sales!

DIY Big Wall Clock

It's finally here- the reveal of the surprise project I talked about in this post and the crackle glaze tutorial!  Turns out, all this time I was making a big clock to hang on the wall.

Yeah! Many of you know that a big clock can cost you an arm and a leg at somewhere like Pottery Barn or even Amazon.  Mine ended up costing me $13, which was what I paid for the actual clock movement.  Yes, it really tells the time!  Everything else was stuff I already had on-hand.  I am so pleased with how it turned out, although there were some unexpected difficulties, which we will get into later.  As a quick recap, here's what I started with:

First thing, I took the legs and the hardware used to attach them off.  Maybe they will reappear in a new project, but I didn't need them for this.  Then, I sanded the table top and did my crackle glaze technique on it.  After the crackle glaze, I was left with this:

At this point I should have done a clear coat to seal it.  I will say this one more time: DO A CLEAR COAT AFTER THE CRACKLE GLAZE.  This was the one thing that gave me trouble.  I didn't do a clear coat until after some of the next steps, and the paint I added over the top sort of reactivated the glaze.  After the crackle glaze, I did a little bit more weathering/distressing with a simple black acrylic paint.

First, I painted on the black, then took a paper towel and wiped it off until I got the look I wanted.  I kept the middle mostly the same and got progressively darker as I moved to the edges.  Once the paint was dry, I used my Silhouette to make vinyl stencils for the numbers.

The font I used is called Market Deco.  Lining the numbers up was a bit of work.  I used a T-square to find the center of the circle, then I used my quilting ruler to get all the numbers in the right places.

Before I peeled off the backing on the vinyl, I positioned them and temporarily held them in place with painter's tape.  When I was satisfied with where the numbers were, I put the vinyl on and filled in the stencils with the same black I used for the glazing.

If you look closely, you can see that I didn't completely paint the numbers in.  I left intentional horizontal brush strokes to add to the weathered look.  I pulled the vinyl off (had some trouble with the previously mentioned reactivated glaze) and finally sprayed on a clear coat.  At this point all I had to do was let the clear coat dry and install the clock mechanism.

To install the movement, I drilled a hole in the middle of the circle and used a Dremel tool to carve out a little bit of the back so the box would sit in a little bit more.  I also had a broken clock from Old Navy that had much bigger metal hands, so I used them instead of the ones that came in the kit, which was a big improvement for me.

I am still trying to decide how to hang it.  I am thinking of either drilling a hole in the back for a nail or putting on picture wire.  I'm leaning toward the picture wire, which seems more stable.  Your thoughts?

Linked up: Skip to my Lou

Crackle Glaze Tutorial

It's finally here!  This is the method I used for my birdcage redo and for my current secret project.  Here's what you will need:

• Something to glaze!  It must be painted, but it can be any type of paint you want.  If you need to paint your piece, you will need to let it cure for 24 hours before continuing on.
• Weathered Crackle Glaze
• Flat Finish Paint
• Paintbrush
• Disposable bowl or plate

Just as a reminder, here is what I started with:

Since I started with unfinished wood, I had to prime and paint it before I could get started on the glazing.

Then, I waited a full day before I did the glazing, as per the instructions on the glaze.  When you are ready to begin glazing, make sure you have a good 2-3 hour chunk of time.  First, apply the glaze on every surface where you want the paint to crack.  The thicker the glaze, the bigger the cracks will be.

Let the glaze dry for at least one hour but no more than four hours.  If you let it dry longer than this, the glaze won't work.  Now for the fun part!  Whip out your flat finish paint.  (Note: You must use flat finish paint for the top color in order for the glaze to work.)  I used Ivory Lace from Valspar.

Start brushing your paint on, taking care to cover everything in as few strokes as possible.  If you brush the paint around too much, the glaze will start to gum up.  The paint will start to crackle almost immediately.  Most of the cracks run along the brush stroke, with some bigger ones running perpendicular.  I'm glad I decided go around the circle instead of straight up-and-down.

As the paint continues to cure, more and more cracks will appear until the paint is dry.  You never quite know how it will turn out, but that is part of the fun of the look.

Once your paint is dry, you should seal it with a clear topcoat.  It's looking real nice.  I should have the other half of this project finished this week. 

Master Suite Sneak Peek

After two days of hard work and a lot of help from family, we finished painting the master bed and bath!  Whew.  It was a lot of work, but I am in total love with the final result.  The paint color is "Coastal Villa" by Valspar.  

Bear in mind that we haven't quite gotten everything back in order as you look through these photos.  Also, I don't have a headboard.  We're still working on that one.

 My new bedding set (Apt. 9 from Kohl's) is the reason I make the bed in the morning!  It's amazing what awesome bedding does for my mood.

 We got a ceiling fan 30% off at Lowe's, and my talented husband installed it for me in no time.

 We also took the same color into the bathroom, which is connected to the bedroom through a tall archway.  We did an eggshell finish in the bedroom and a semi-gloss in the bathroom.  Sorry, no photos of the bathroom until it's all done!  This is just a sneak peek, after all.  

What's that?  You wanted to see a close-up of the cutie on the end of the bed?  

Wish granted.

Linked up: tatertots & jello