Sweet Dreams

Perfect for my little princess.

Yes, it's a bench made from a bed...sort of.  I built this out of a full size bed frame but rather than constructing the standard bed-bench I decided to make it bigger.  I wanted something outdoors that was really comfortable.  What better than an big bench with a mattress and lots of throw pillows, right?

So much for my comfy outdoor bench.

My daughter confiscated it and turned it into a toddler bed for my little grand-princess.  

POLL QUESTION: 

 What color should it be painted?

Just in case you're wondering about the construction...

I built a frame and attached the headboard.  The foot board was cut down the middle and attached.  Then I attached left over IKEA bed slats and dropped in a $10 waterproof Craigslist crib mattress.

Total cost.  $35 for bed and mattress

Appx. $10 for wood and hardware.

Awwwwwwww!

Recycle, repurposed wearable art.

This tunic was a fun project.  It involved a lot of sitting and looking, standing and looking, pinning and looking, planning and looking.  It also involved the following:

Tablecloth

Drapery Samples

Shower Curtain

Scrap Ribbon

Scrap Lace

Scrap Button

Thread

(Note the repeatative use of "Scrap")

I love this top and I get so many wonderful comments when I wear it.  The base of the top was made from a fitted tablecloth with crocheted trim.  There were pleats that leanded themselves well to being incorporated into the design.

Crocheted Tablecloth

The project involved a lot of online photo research as I am not the seamstress my mother is, and I didn't have a pattern.  I found that a Mexican Peasant Blouse style is flexible and easy to sew.


The lace for the bodice was made by criss-crossing and top stitching lace drapery fabric samples my mother gave me.  Lace flowers are actually quite easy to make.  They are trimmed with a few pieces of ribbon scraps.

I covered the tunic part of the top with roughly finished scraps cut from a lace shower curtain. 

Split for comfort

Back View

I'm always buying linens that catch my eye based on the features and finishes.  I love how those pieces came together and I love wearing this comfortable top.

Oh, it's all machine washable, although I like to hand wash it to keep the lace looking pretty.

My 1st Chalk Paint Project

My 1st Chalk Paint Project

I love painting furniture with chalk paint!  I've tried plain house paint & spray paint and I've attempted multiple techniques for creating that just perfect aged effect.  Dish soap, Vaseline, bar soap, glaze, windex, bleach, Cleansers...  While I liked the results of some of these materials I had trouble getting a consistent outcome.

Next up, chalk paint.  The brand name paints were WAY out of my price range so I tried a homemade recipe found online.

1 cup latex house paint

2 1/2 tablespoons Plaster Of Paris

1 1/2 tablespoons cool water

But, first things first.  I found this bed at a yard sale for $15.  Yes, that's right.  The whole Queen sized frame for $15.  It needed a little something to give it that "shabby" look.  Using a plastic stencil and some spackling paste I added a 3-D feature to the headboard and foot board.

I used a wide plastic putty knife and slapped the spackling paste on...thicker than paint but not too substantial.  If the paste is too thick the formation of the stencil won't show the detail.

 

Once the paste is dry be sure to gently put a coat of basic house or craft paint over it before applying your chalk paint.  This way it will maintain it's shape through the more rugged swish-swash of the chalk painting process.

The bed frame was blue and gray originally.  I put on two coats of chalk paint with a brush, sanded a few spots to let a small amount of the gray show through, then finished with two coats of clear wax.

A pretty, bright white bed with that wonderful, shabby look I just love.

A Little Girl's Dream

Nothing is useless.  Even if parts are missing...even if a substantial part is missing.  When you are willing to look past what others might see as limitations or defects the possibilities become wonderful.

I am sure that this piece when it was in it's full form was quite pricey, but after all is said and done, when half of it became worthless the other half became almost as much so.  For $12.50 we picked this fancy Armoire top up at the local Goodwill store.  Ponder, ponder, ponder.  It was beautiful, but what could be done with only half of an armoire.

Confession time.  My daughter and son-in-law actual came up with the idea and the 3 of us pulled it off.  A little sanding, a few balled feet, some paint and a miraculous fabric find at another Goodwill and voile'.  We turned this left-over, half baked idea into something beautiful.

What little girl would not want this in her room.  I wish I was 8 again.

Look beyond the defects and let the child in you see the perfection.

My Useless Cabinet

I thought people were smaller in the 1950's.  To walk through some of the homes in my neighborhood you would think the same.  I mean, really, the house across the street has a Master Bath the size of a travel trailer.  My husband can't even get inside the shower stall.

So why was this cabinet in my kitchen so high?  Most of the top shelves in the rest of my cabinets hold all the stuff I only pull out once a year, like Christmas dishes.  This one above my sink was useless.  Who is going to use a cabinet that you have to have a ladder to reach and you have to hold the door up with one hand while to try to search for what you need with the other.

So a decorative shelf was born in my 1954 kitchen.  But a plain white shelf in my plain white cabinets was...well...boring.  For something a little different I lined the shelf with fabric.  I little spray glue did the trick.  (Hint: don't use striped fabric.  It's much harder to make it look good.)  I used hot glue and a little bit of black lace trim to cover all the corner seems.  Voile'.

P.S.  Everything on this shelf was found at a thrift store.  The bird was a cheap tacky resin figurine that I gave knew life.  See the post on that here.  The decorative "carving" on the face of the shelf was made using a stencil and spackling paste.

Don't let that hard to reach cabinet sit empty.  Have photos of your shelf project?  Share them on my Facebook page.

More Tacky Art Reborn

Ah, the 50's & 60's.  The era of cheap, tacky, green art.  Once again I found the perfect item to raise from the dead.  It's your grandma's art.  You know that stuff that you remember hanging on her wall from the time you were knee high to a pigs ear...or something like that.  After grandma passed on it was the first thing to end up in the "estate" sale pile. 

I love that word.  "Estate" sale, "Estate" sale.  Like saying it somehow makes all the really old plastic furniture worth a little more.  But, as usual, I digress.  If there were an ugly art contest, like those ever-so-sweet ugly pet competitions, this would win, hands down. 

The purchase had to be mulled over.  After all, what in the world was I going to do with this?  There was only one reason I couldn't pass it up.  It was a perfect match to one of the images on my recently purchased toile fabric for my kitchen.  And where there is one tacky piece of perfect art, there is always it's mate, and they both came home with me.

They sat in a drawer in my craft room for about 6 months and I decided to take them apart the other day to hopefully inspire my creative juices.  It worked!  And glory be!  All the other owners of tacky art would have taken their mildly hideous pieces home from the competition the minute I walked in with these ugly mutts.  What I found inside was a cheap piece of molded silver plastic so flimsy I could cut it with a pair of scissors.  So I did.

I trimmed the corners, just in case I find a use for the small corner border pieces then cut around the center frame with a ruler and my utility knife.  Did I say "thin piece of molded plastic" because it was a piece of cake to cut.  Each piece of art got a good coat of cream colored spray paint to cover up all the green.  After mere minutes in the Arizona sun these babies were ready for a coat of spray glue on the back and voile'.

I glued them to the inside cabinet on either side of my kitchen sink, let the spray glue dry overnight, then used paintable kitchen caulk around the edge of each picture to ensure the look of a cohesive piece.  When dry, I simple brushed a light coat of the same cabinet paint to give each piece a hint of wood grain. 

A completely new life has been created and I will challenge anyone (who hasn't read this little blurg) to suspect the humble beginnings of these beautiful, custom carvings.

If it weren't for grandma's in the 50's we would actually have to pay real money for real stuff like this.  Thank you grandma. 

Cheap Art Made Into Something Special

You know the stuff I'm talking about.  The Big Lots, K-mart, Walmart art that you bought for your first apartment.  Yes, the kind of art where the frame is worth more than the picture and that's not saying much.

I found such a piece at Goodwill a while back and while the art had no appeal to me I really liked the mat with the coordinating inner frame.  At the time, my brain was seriously lacking in ideas for this masterpiece and my sanity was a little in doubt as well.  But it all became clear after I returned home from my son's Army Basic Training graduation.

After 10 weeks of absence my first thought upon seeing him was "man, this must agree with you because you look great!"  I was trying to remember when I had ever seen him so happy.  During our visit I managed to snagged one really good photo that clearly emphasized this, and when I returned home I knew it needed a little something different.

My list of ingredients?   A camouflage bandanna, some little wooden stars, a small American flag, string, jewelry wire, scrapbook card stock, an antique angel button, a US ARMY die cut and some customized dog tags I ordered off of eBay.

The Angel button accents Psalm 91: 10-11 printed on card stock and framed is a coordinating decorator fabric that I fringed by pulling out some of the weave.  I made the barbed wire out of gold heavy gauge jewelry that I "dusted" with black spray paint.  The flag, string and die cut were too tidy so I aged them with Distress Ink.

So if you combine this little piece, with all the stickers and magnets on the back of my car, and my t-shirts I think I clearly qualify as going overboard on the Army mom thing.

Pvt G. Sean H., U.S.Army Medical Corps

I'm so very proud of you.

Throw Something!

That's right.  Throw things all you want.  Why not throw cheap things.  Then you can throw things and not feel guilty.  Of course, with this kind of throwing you won't feel bad anyway. 

Most of our furniture is either hand-me-down, yard sale, or thrift store purchased.  With all this mix and match one might think they can't have a nicely coordinated decor.  Ha!  If you have recycled furniture of any type, try throwing it. 



A Pretty New Corner



Two Goodwill blankets dressed this ugly recliner up so much that even my husband, who looks at furniture only as a means to watch football, made a positive comment after I had fancified it.  Each throw cost $3.  The pillow is a Christmas pillow that my mother made that I turned around after the holiday.  About 15 minutes after I very carefully put this little corner together, our cat, Booger, jumped up and initiated the "new" chair with a nap.



This is what the ugly chair really looks like.

So why not rethink buying new or coordinated furniture.  Pick up a few blankets and give your old junk a whole new look.

Post Script 1/17/10 
Um, some one needs to tell my cats it's the same stupid chair we have alway had.  They are fighting over it now.

Post Script 1/21/10
It has also become a play platform for Bryndal & Booger

The Gifts Have Been Given...Time To Share Them Now.

The Christmas gifts have been given, therefore, they can now safely be shared here.  I made altered book photo frames for my sisters, sisters-in-law and my mother.  All I need to do now is find a place to host a how-to class for this art.

These books can be opened and the photograph can be changed in the hard plastic sleeve inside.  I haven't seen this done before, the idea just popped into my noggin one day.

Donna's Book




Mom's Book




Liz's Book




Kathy's Book



Nici's Book

All these books were decorated with various thrift store finds.  Two have Prima flowers.  I love making them just to see what idea pops up next. 

This really did bring out the joy of giving for me this year.  They were greatly appreciated, admired and shared.

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year to you all.

Today's Thrift Store Re-purpose

Sometimes you run across a piece that you know is just perfect.  Even if you don't know what it is or where you will use it you just know that it's perfect.

An online search for "Maison de Provence" found several links referring to a shop with this name in New Orleans that specializes in French and Antique furnishings.   I think it is a tray for a planter but I was unable to find anything similar on their website.  Regardless, this $2.99 find at Goodwill was the perfect large piece for my kitchen shelf (a former kitchen cabinet).  It was a little grungy when I purchased it so I cleaned up the gooey stuff and was left with just enough distressing to make it simply beautiful.  P.S.  The solid marble candelabra next to it...also a Goodwill find.

These pieces will "pop" quite a bit when I have finished the inside of the shelf with fabric.  


I am becoming a Goodwill addict.  I must learn to control myself.

A Dollar Store Dress Up

The creative bug has taken serious hold of me.  That bumble bee has stung me too many times.

As I was going through a few old things while I was cleaning my office I started a thrift store donation box.  I tossed in a shoe I think my dog ate the mate to, some electronics cables that aren't compatible with any equipment that we have, (What exactly is a VCR, anyway?), an old cheap resin parakeet from the 99 cent store, then a...  Wait a minute.  I can do something with that ugly parakeet.

 I mean, really.  They don't come any cheaper than this, do they?  Tacky, tacky, tacky.

But my brain said "NO".  It does not have to stay tacky.  I can rebuild it, I have the technology!   By technology I really only mean the chemicals that make up a can of glazing medium, gesso, and acrylic paint.

So I took this pathetic little guy and covered him in two coats of artists Gesso.  Two more coats of white acrylic paint, and all of the color was thoroughly concealed.  With a whopping large mixture of a spoonful of glazing medium and a spoon of tan paint, I covered him with glaze doing small sections at a time.  I gently sponged most of the color off with a damp cloth.  Two light coats of a matte finish clear coat spray completed the job.

He is, as they say, a new man.  I am no longer ashamed to display this stunning "sculpture" in the public spaces of my home.  I believe he will fit in nicely with a more classic Country French decor.

Remember the old saying..."Don't judge a cheap resin figurine from china by the store you bought it in."   Ok, maybe that's not really how the saying goes but who says we all can't create our own new sayings.  I think this will be my tag line for a while.

Some times a little bit of vision can transform what is before you into a pretty addition to your surroundings.  Try looking at what you see without the color and then picture what you might be able to do with it. 





Bryndal....oh, never mind.

The Giganto, Humongous, Mondo, Uber Project Begins

My husband wants a new kitchen.  No! Seriously!  He hates our kitchen and he wants a new one.  Every day he has to walk through the kitchen to get to his precious Man-Cave so he is constantly reminded of how much he hates the kitchen.

1954 was a lovely year for kitchens

 But remodeling would be super costly, and we are too cheap.

So here is the goal...remodel my 1954 kitchen for as low a cost as possible, re-using as many of the current items as possible, while achieving a fine French Country finish deserving of a few "oooo's" and "ahhhhh's".

The cabinets are sight built and structurally bound to the universe.  They don't build them like that anymore.  They'll be staying put and receiving a fine treatment with fabric, recycled window blinds, paint, caulk and drywall mud.

The appliances all work just fine.  Olivia is the original 1954 gas cook top.  She works like a dream.  I'd like to find a way to re-finish her with a heat resistant enamel paint.  Carol (lovingly named after Carol Brady), the 23" gas wall over works just as well.  Even the built in timer functions flawlessy.

Dated but fully functional appliances

Ok, ok, ok.  So I have to throw in this story here.  This is the first house we have had with gas appliances.  Right after we moved in my husband, Dave was yelling from the kitchen that the oven wasn't working.  When I went into the kitchen to investigate he was repeatedly pushing a button above the oven door.  "It worked fine the last time I used it.  What did you do to it?"

"Nothing" he replied.  "But the 'light' button isn't working."

"The what button" I asked curiously?

"The 'light' button" he responded as he pressed his Schwarzenegger finger on the tiny little chrome knob over and over again.  I burst out laughing and he looked up at me with crooked, sheepish grin on his face, those blue eyes twinkling with confusion.

"Honey, dear", I mused.  "That's the button to turn the light on so you can see what's cooking.  You turn the oven on by turning the temperature dial."  I slipped my hand up the knob and turned it to 400 for pizza.

After a brief pause he huffed with embarrassment and said quietly, "Oh.  I thought it was like the stove and it had an ignition."

I love that guy.  Back to the project...

I took the door off of the horizontal cabinet above the sink.  No one but Dave can reach it anyway, so I will add a treatment to this "plant shelf" to tie it in with the cabinets.  I will also be shopping for a set of matching vintage light fixture to replace the ultra cheapo hardware store versions currently in place.

A plant shelf and new light fixtures are in the plans

 And last, but of course not least...the counter tops.  Those lovely Formica counter tops;  those UGLY Formica counter tops with their burn marks, scratches and permanent mold caulking around the sink.  I can't replace them without ruining the back splash, and that I actually like.  We will be tiling over the existing counter with new ceramic tile in black.  The current back splash is in perfect condition and has a sweeee-eet black accent that will tie the whole thing together.  You can see it better in the appliance picture.

Can you say "Yuk!"

I think this project will take several months, lots of man, um no wait-woman hours, and some minor expenses.  The project will be blogged as I proceed with the costs incurred and the techniques.  I will summarize all of the expenses and hours when I am finally able to post the photos of my completed Country French kitchen.

After that...  A vacation.  I don't think I'll be done before our pre-Army ship-out Disneyland trip with my son in March.  Hopefully when we return from his Basic Training graduation in May we will be coming home to our "magnifique cuisine".

Stay tuned...ask questions...make comments if you wish, and don't be surprised if an emergency room tale, or complaints about how old I am surface occasionally.




Where is Bryndal, anyway?