Quick and free

A friend at work admired the butteflies on the door to my office and I told her I would give her some. Well, I kept forgetting until this morning (and it’s only been a couple of months lol).
This is a frame from my stash

And this is what I made for her.

Now I won’t have to feel guilty every time I see her. I hope she likes it.

Drab to fab dresser update

I have this horrible habit of not taking before pictures. The only photo I have is the one from the ad…

I picked it up from kijiji for $20, brought it home and got to work right away.
I didn’t want to spend another dime updating it, so I used what I had at home.

I painted it with my free paint. It turns out that the colour is too blue for my living room, but looks gray on this.  I sprayed the handles with chrome paint, then used the all over glaze (mixed with burn umber) over the entire piece, leaving it to sit for a while. To me they look like little jewels.
For now it is in the hallway at the top of the stairs as I’m not sure where it will live yet.

The birds were inspired by Miss mustard seed but since I can’t draw/paint, I used black vinyl cut out on my cricut.

This is my first attempt at distressing and glazing a piece of furniture. I was a little apprehensive about going overboard and I think I found just the right amount for my taste.
I’m sharing this project at:

Silhouettes

My daughter loves to draw and has taught herself how to use Adobe Photoshop Elements, which she uses along with her drawing tablet. I asked her if she could make a silhouette from a photo, and she did it in about 3 minutes flat.  She’s only 12! I haven’t mastered Microsoft word yet :)


I’m going to cut them out with my Cricut. She did hers much better, I swear, my lips are not THAT thin.

A Cloche party

Marty at A Stroll Through Life is hosting a summer cloche party.  I absolutely love them but am not very creative when it comes to knowing what to put in mine.
I have a few, but my absolute favourite cloche is the large one that I picked up at a yard sale for $3.

I was out junkin’ this evening and found this adorable ceramic partridge for $2.99 with 30% off (woo hoo)
I knew that it would be wonderful in it’s new shiny home :)

baby info wood blocks

I have seen many variations of these made out of 2 x 4’s. This is my version. The font I used is Waterfalls.

I don’t have any embellishments, so I wrapped it in pink ribbon after I gorilla glued it together. A small touch, but it makes it look better (imho)

Fabric roses

So easy to make, I did it on my coffee break at work. I have emergency needle and thread at work so I sewed these one’s, but hot glue is just as easy.
Now I’m thinking of the possibilities.

These were made with white t-shirts, which I received from the cleaning lady at work.

Garage sale find

After going to several garage sales and about to call it a day, my BFF said that she saw a table on someone’s blvd. I did a U-turn and saw this chest with a note to inquire within.
I’m not good at negotiating, so I sent my BFF in.
I got this for $10.00! It’s not a reproduction, it’s genuinely old. I was hyperventilating all the way home :)




I'm linking up to the following parties:
Debbie Doo's Garage Salen party
Tales from Bloggeriaville's Thrifty Thursday
Mustard Seed Creations Furniture Feature Friday

A project weekend

Yesterday was a holiday and I took today off of work, so I’ve had some time to play :)
First I got out the spray paint and modified these two pieces

The tray was painted black and then I added a piece of snake skin like wallpaper

I started searching the house for hard cover books to cover with craft paper and could only find two. I read books and donate them back to the thrift store, the only two I could find were my daughters.
So back to the GW to find some books. I’m not a fan of displaying books just for the sake of display. They have to be something that is actually read, otherwise they go to the bookcase.
I found these three books which appeal to all of us.


The burlap bug has finally bit me and now I’m sorry that I didn’t catch on to it earlier. I’ve had an aversion to it because of it’s odour (it smells musty to me), but the $3.00 roll that I got at a garage sale last weekend, doesn’t smell bad :)
So, I recovered the ottoman/bench and hung it up as drapes.

I even cut out a stencil with my cricut and tried stencilling

I built a frame for the dead tree photo that I took a few weeks ago. My ex-hubby had it put on canvas for me (he’s in the industry, so it didn’t cost me anything). Problem is I can’t decide where to put it.

I’m  pretty sure that I’m doing all of these things in order to avoid the back breaking work that awaits me out back; putting in a new patio.

Butterflies and friends

Everything is closed here today for the holiday and I had run out of white spray paint. An emergency phone call went out to my BFF.  Thank goodness she had a can and I’ve just finished the final coat on a couple of items, I’ll show you later.
She had wanted to do the butterfly paper art for her bedroom. GW to the resuce, where she had found these two pictures for $4.00 a piece.

We removed the backing, kept the matting and (she) chose some paper from the wallpaper books I got from FreeCycle.  Using my Cricut, we cut out the butterflies, playing with the size until they were perfect.
They turned out beautifully and will look smashing in her room.


Her visit was a welcome respite from the drudgery known as my back yard make-over.

It's the 77th Metamorphosis (how appropriate) Monday at Between Naps on the Porch, you should go see all the wonderful changes being made this week.