New Tutorial...

I've got a project that I'm SUPER STOKED about. You don't even realize. I've had the stuff for this for like 8 months.

Ok. Not really 8 months, but I've been looking and preparing for this for a long time and I finally did it today! LOVE!!

I'll be posting it in the next couple days, but just know.... it's AWESOME.

Oh, and it's easy. And cheap. Which is a pretty great combination.

Stay tuned :)

Painted Nightstands!

Maila has been recently put on medication to treat a bunch of infections... kidney, bladder, and recurring UTI's... We FINALLY figured out why she's been such a diva!!! She's been in excruciating pain! But after running all these tests, and starting her medication, it's like I have a brand new baby!! She's happy, she eats, she sleeps, it almost makes me weep with joy. And NOT for my sake! But for the sake of my darling baby who is FINALLY feeling better, maybe even normal for the first time since she was born!! It's been such a change in my home.

With that said, my darling daughter has finally fallen into a routine... she naps, AND sleeps all night. Well, at least she's done that for the last two nights in a row!! It's amazing. That gives me some much needed time to let out my creative monster...

This is what I tackled yesterday...

Here's how you do it....

Take your nightstand outside, take it apart, and begin painting.... start from the inside and work your way out..

I should note, this nightstand was a laminate cover... I'm pretty sure. Now, I read all over the internet that you need to prime laminate furniture before you paint it or the paint won't stick, but I didn't experience that problem... I sanded it down pretty good and gave it two good thick coats. The first with a normal good quality paintbrush, and the second with a good quality roller so there wouldn't be any streaks from a paint brush.

After letting your paint dry...flip your nightstand or table or whatever over and paint the legs. Two thick coats again.. Make sure the paint dries completely in between coats.

And that's it. Wait for the paint to dry, and then reassemble your nightstand and enjoy your hard work!!

It looks AWESOME in my master bedroom!! Excited to finish up some other projects so I can show you how good that room looks!!

I love it.

DIY Painted Headboard Tutorial

What's happening?! I'll tell you. I am going to show you how to get your very own, SUPER cheap DIY Painted Headboard!! I LOVE it!! I've seen a lot of versions on pinterest, but not one quite like mine (that doesn't mean someone smarter than me already did it exactly the same way)... It was SUPER easy to do and only cost me a couple bucks as opposed to a couple hundred or thousand an actual headboard would cost.. and remember people, I'm all about decorating with a budget, or more accurately, NO money.

Check out these lovely painted headboards - there are SO many creative people out there!!

 polka dots - source

mountain - source

turquoise monogrammed - source

white oultine on gray - source

The last one is the most similar to mine, and I loved the idea of leaving my whole headboard dark..but that's a lot of dark in one room... In the above pictures, they have white walls as well so it's a little easier for their room to not look like a cave... like mine would...

To begin, you need tape - GOOD tape, not crappy tape, we don't want paint bleeding here people!! The less touch-ups you have to do, the better..you can spend all that extra time playing cars with your son!

So.. measure where you want your headboard to go on your wall - make SURE you are TOTALLY HAPPY with the placement as you are stuck with it once it's painted!! No rearranging allowed!!

 I have a king sized bed and I wanted this headboard to be wider than my bed... so mine measured 80 in wide... and about 6 1/2 feet tall. I wanted it to make a statement!

Now paint all around your tape with your background wall color...

Now, my headboard has two colors to it. The main color is white... and the border around my headboard is a light gray. If you want a border, tape that off.. I just added another tape row to my outline.. does that make sense??

Paint your main color, and then when that is dry peel the tape off, and re-tape around your border.. I should have taken a picture of that step, but you get it right??

Here it is totally painted.... Like I said, the main part is white, and the outline is a light gray. It makes for a smoother transition than just dark gray to white I think..

I don't know why these are uploading blurry... I lose. But you get the idea, just ignore my gross nightstands and mismatched lamps... It'll look much better once I get to tackle those... but for now... Here's what my room looks like!! I LOVE it!! Such an improvement!! Do you remember what is was before??

Ugly. That's what it was. And while some parts might still be ugly here, it's still an improvement.


Total Cost for my Painted Headboard:
White Paint = Free (got it from my apartment complex)
Light Gray Paint = $2.50 (used a sample paint jar from Home Depot, just had them make it in the color I wanted)
Painters Tape = Free (I already had a lot)
Paint Brushes = Free (already had those too)


Can't beat $2.50 for a headboard, I win!!!!

Master Bedroom Stage 2 - Painting

Holy cow. I never fully appreciated how large my room was until I went to tape it off and paint it. I mean, seriously people!! My arms feels like they're going to fall off!!

The master bedroom is the top right room on this layout ... it's pretty huge. Which is AWESOME! We have SO much space to work with, but at the same time, painting is a beast!!! I did *almost* all of it by myself (the hubs helped me at the end) and it took ALL day. Literally ALL day. From 9 am Saturday until about 8pm. I took my time because I wanted to make sure it looked good!! that doesn't even include the 3 hours I spent taping it on Friday night or the 3 hours I spent doing touch ups on Monday morning. But after all is said and done, I LOVE the paint! Seriously love. The color is SO cozy and I just want to spend all day in there...

As you can see from the picture right above me on the right - the paint underneath the tan color is NEON PINK!! Wha??! I love my bright colors and all, but that's a little much. It was all over the room too! That's a lot of pink for a huge room!!

To get my perfect paint lines with no bleeding - I ran a barely wet paintbrush over the tape that had the original color on it. That way - if any paint bled, it'd be the white of the trim and ceiling as opposed to the dark gray I was putting on the walls. It worked really well actually! I had NO bleeding on my ceiling and just a little on my trim - BUT this is an old apartment and the trim is not smooth, so I'm sure had it been a smooth surface, it would have been perfect.

Then you paint! Check out how dark it is! *swoon* I'm in love.

I'm taping off a secret project on the left - I'll show you that one later! (but keep in tune because it's delicious!!)

Make sure while painting you take a break to read a book with your babe.

 

Especially after he has a melt down about not being able to paint. And no, we're not mean parents who don't let him help. We did let him hold the roller and he got gray paint where it was not supposed to go...

It was a LONG, TEDIOUS process but it was well worth it and we both love the color!!!

Afterwards, enjoy a bath... you've earned it.
But if your house is anything like ours, your kids will be the ones with the nice relaxing bath and you'll be the ones covered in your clothes and water... but oh well... at least Max had fun!

P.S. I know it's kind of a bummer I don't have a picture on here with the finished product... but You have to wait until my secret painting project to see the finished reveal - but it will be worth it! Promise!

Oh yeah...

It's happening.

I'm so ready for this.

Wedding Canvas Art Tutorial

I've seen canvas art work ALL OVER pinterest lately - seems that you can put anything onto a canvas these days.. but what I'm really crushing on, is the word art. It's so beautiful and so personal!!

source

source

Aren't they just adorable??? I love how the one on the left is framing a bed! So I set off to make my own canvas word art!! It was simple, REALLY cheap, and the perfect personal touch for my bedroom.

Here's how you do it:

Supplies:

- Canvas (I used two, one for each side of my bed) - mine were from Hobby Lobby, 16x20, $8.00 for a 2-pack and I had a 40% off coupon
- Lyrics to first dance song, vows, or - in my case - his and her journal entries on what they remember about the day they got married (I made us do that a week after our wedding - SO glad I did!)
- Ruler (to outline where the words go)
- Sharpies
- Paint ( if you don't want the background white)






I just wanted a white canvas with black lettering - super simple. It's going up against a dark gray wall (eventually) so I really wanted it to stand out. If you don't want a white background, then the first thing you do is paint your canvas.

First thing I did was to figure out the spacing on my canvas. I wanted a clean beginning and ending and to be able to make sure that I could get all of my journal entry on the canvas ...

 

 My journal had 80 lines of writing - my canvas was 16 x 20 (which just happened to work out perfectly. To make sure it fitted, I needed 40 lines on my canvas. (What I could fit on one line of canvas would fit two lines from my journal - make sense??)

Lay out your ruler on the left side of the canvas and mark every half inch. You'll draw the lines later. Repeat that process for the middle of the canvas and the right side of the canvas.

 You should have three sets of marks a half inch apart all the length down your canvas on the left, middle, and right sides. Take your ruler and a PENCIL and draw a line connecting the dots horizontally. That's your guide for writing to make sure your lines are nice and straight.

If you don't care about straight lines, then don't worry about doing that step.

 Begin writing... make sure that you are a stickler for keeping to your guide!! It would really suck to finish writing and still have a blank space at the bottom of the canvas - especially if you're doing lyrics to a song or your vows or something you really can't add too. It's ok to be OCD about this part.

 Try not to be jealous of how good I look in that picture.

All done!!

As I mentioned before, I have two canvas'. One for my journal entry and one for the Hubs. I wrote mine, and the hubs is going to write his own. Just use the same guide to do both of them.

It was so nice to re-read our journal entries about the day we got married... as life goes on your forget the details about what happened! We haven't read them since we wrote them.. it was a nice way for me to reconnect with my hubs again, remind me how giddy I was that day. 

 Hang up and enjoy!! I'll show you how good it looks up against my dark gray wall, once I get it painted!

Let's summarize - for $4.80 I got a canvas for each side of my bed to remind me of my special day! That's a pretty good price for a constant reminder!!

Now get off your computer and go relive your special day!

Thrift Store Score - Bedroom Accessories!

When decorating on a budget (and even sometimes when you're not) thrift stores and garage sales are your best friends!! You can usually find really beautiful things for not a lot of money!

Today, I packed up my babies in the FREEZING Chicago weather and we headed on over to our local thrift store, Savers. I LOVE shopping here - partly because it's cheap - but also when I donate something, they give you coupons ... and who doesn't love to use coupons on items that are already cheap to begin with! Woo!!!

Now - since I've set myself a budget for my Master Bedroom overhaul, I've got to be REALLY creative about where and how I accessorize. Thrift stores are the perfect place for me to look and I did find some goodies!

First off - these three Mercury Glass Christmas ornaments - and they are LARGE!! I love them, they'll look so cute in a tray or one alone - and just because they're technically an ornament, doesn't mean that I can't use them year round - an ornament doesn't need to be an ornament, it can just be a pretty ball too.

I also found this heavy silver candlestick and a little glittery candle to go with it - who doesn't love bling??

Now, let's talk money -

Those mercury glass balls were originally $1.99 a peice, but since they were Christmas they were an additional 75% off - plus I had a 20% off coupon. They were basically free. Best. Decor. Ever. Minus what I paid for them, they're pretty similar to these ones (if you want to splurge):

source

The silver candlestick holder and candle were each $1.99 a piece too - I got 20% off of those so I think they were around $3.00 for both of them. Not as good as the balls, but not bad either.

But my MOST favorite thing that I bought today cost me a whopping $2.40. It is insanely adorable, and will make me and my baby boy happy lots and lots of times! It makes me happy just looking at it knowing how much I paid for it!

It's a vintage George Imports airplane music box that plays "Fly Me to the Moon". I'm in love with it.
It will be SO adorable in my kids room! Max LOVES airplanes, and I LOVE it.

So, for well under $10.00 - I got 6 things - 5 of which are for my bedroom. It was a very successful outing! Yay for thrift stores!!