Dining Room Makeover

I finally have found time to start updating our dining room, and boy am I glad!! My husband and I were given this table about 6 years ago from an older couple who had this set themselves for years before they decided to upgrade. I will always be grateful for all the people who wanted to help us out and donate furniture to us when we got our first apartment together. We were young with limited funds and were grateful people had stuff to give us :) 

 

Anyways, I had been searching all over the internet for a new dining set that I liked but I couldn't find any that were in my price point. The more I sat looking at the table the more love I began to have for the design of the table. I decided I couldn't part with the table because I began loving the lines, structure, and detailed wood work of the table legs. SO, I decided to paint over the table to update it. I first used a liquid deglosser to take the shine and protective coating off the table. It is actually really easy to use. Then I lightly hand sanded everything just to make sure that when I painted the table the paint would stick.

My in laws introduced me to a hotel liquidator warehouse store about a year ago and now anytime I am looking for some pieces to upgrade that is the first place I head to. The warehouse had just the chairs I was looking for! Just not in the design I wanted. EASY FIX :) Not to mention I just so happened to be in the store when they were having a blow out sale and got the chairs for cheap. Using some left over gift cards I headed over to hobby lobby and found the perfect fabric to reupholster the chairs with. Before I put the new fabric on the chairs I cheated a little by spray painting the legs of the chairs a dark brown to match the table color. I then sprayed on a clear protective coating to try and protect them from chipping. Each chair used a little less than 1 yard of fabric so if you go online and print off some coupons you can get the fabric for really cheap as well. I unscrewed the seat and just wrapped the fabric around the seat, stapled it on, and then screwed the seat back on. I decided I wanted to try upholstery tacks for the back of the chair. I think it turned out pretty good for my first time attempting them :)

We also upgraded to a different area rug since the last one was one that my grandmother had for years before giving it to us. Now all that is left is the little detailed stuff but just redoing the table and chairs has brought a whole new updated modern look to our dining area and our house as a whole. Pin It Now!

Stained Wood Projects

Once again this thing called life gets in the way and delays my ability to update you all on my recent completed projects. :) Recently I have had some fun with staining wood. I like the rustic look it brings out in the projects I have worked on. A few weeks ago I completed my rustic, farm house style coffee table that I got off Ana White's website. (I LOVE all things Ana White). I can safely say (since I forgot to write down and keep track of actual total) is that this beauty cost me under $50 to make.

And don't forget the entry table I made that also has a stained top to it. :)

 

And here is yet another project I just completed that also involves staining. When I was about 10 years old my mother got me this really cute toy box. As I grew older I obviously had no use for it and it went into storage. Now that I have my own little girl, who has so many toys and no where to store them, it seemed appropriate to pass it down to her. So I stole borrowed my dads engraving tool and etched her name into the wood. This is what it looked like before I stained the inside of the letters.

                           

And this is the after. A cute personalized, handed down toy box for Lilliana.

Also pictured is the beautiful time out chair I fixed up for my 21 month old. My father and I go once a month to a bunch of antique and thrift stores and try to find things to add to our always full crafting/idea list. So we ran across this beautiful, sturdy little chair and I ran with it. It cost me $10 to buy and all I did was use remnant fabric, foam, a little paint that I had around and turned it into a time out chair...a super cute, probably too comfortable to be a time out chair, chair. :)   

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Entry Table

I finally finished building my entry table!! It was not hard to make but it took me awhile because my daughter had been really sick and I couldn't really work on any projects. After two weeks of her being sick though she is finally coming around!! I have been searching for an entry table for probably 8 months now. I have a funny spot when you walk into my house that needed something done with it but with its wacky dimensions nothing was working. I saw this table online and really wanted it! Like I've said  hundreds of times though, why buy something when you can make it yourself. I surly was not going to spend over $200 on a table.

I got really, really lucky and randomly came across this awesome tutorial for an entry table here. I copied almost everything exactly as she explained because I loved it so much. It was very similar in looks to what I was searching for and was so glad I found it! The only thing I changed was the dimension of the table from what she gave to what would suit my needs for my little space.

This is what the table looked like when it was all put together and while I was waiting for the faux drawers to dry.

 

Once everything was nice and sturdy I stained the entire table. It is not necessary to stain the entire table but I wanted to rough it up a little after I painted it and wanted a darker color to come through instead of the bare pine color. You could totally get away with only staining the table top though.

 

 

And this is what it looked like before I put the knobs on. It fits perfectly in my entry way. I am so happy with how it turned out! Now all I have left to finish is decoration and putting up the final details to really make it into a real entry way.  :)

 

 

 

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Lilliana's 1st Birthday

 

Well, I officially only have 177 more days to figure out what I'm going to do for Lilliana's 2nd birthday party. :) As I was brainstorming ideas today I decided to look back at what I did for her first birthday. 

I threw her a pink and green polkadot theme party and wanted to share all the hard work I put into it. We have a lot of aunts and uncles and cousins and second and third cousins so I knew there was going to be a ton of people there, and when I mean a ton only counting family we were around 80 people already. So I rented out a beautiful building and actually set it up the night before her birthday party. I set up all the tables and covered them in a light pink table cloth. Then I found these awesome small rolls of green polkadot tulle at the craft store and used them as the table runners. They were sparkly and so cute and worked so well as table runners. I then for eye appeal alternated plates and napkins with polkadot plates and napkins and pink silverware. 

For the centerpiece I hand made these cute little tissue flowers that I stuffed with pink and green chocolates for everybody to take as their favors as well. I ordered a ton of pink and green polkadot balloons as well and used them for height on each of the tables as well. 

I handmade the cupcake stands to have pink and green polkadots too. That was just a matter of cutting out different sized pieces of think cardboard and then hot gluing polkadot ribbon around the outside. I then covered canned fruit in plain white paper to make the different heights or tiers of the stand. Of course the cupcake liners were theme appropriate too. 

 

I was very surprised when my dad walks in with a light up poster sign he handmade for the entrance of the party. It was awesome!

The food table was even all pink and green too. (well the food itself wasnt pink and green, just the desert and utensils) I made a strawberry lime punch and all the food was displayed in pink and green bowls. The straws were even ordered online to be pink and green! Instead of using the traditional rice krispies for rice krispie treats I used Trix instead for Trix Krispie Treats...they were a HUGE hit and delicious and matched so well :)

It was a lot of work setting it up and making everything by hand but all the fun we had was what really mattered. I love when all of the family can get together and I especially love when this little girl is happy :)

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Decorating a full length mirror

I have not yet finished decorating my daughters room yet but those of you that know me know I like to make things harder on myself. Halfway through my daughters room redecorating I decide I need to also start working on redoing my bedroom. Oh boy. I took the dresser from her room (the wallpapered one) and put it back in our room. My mom had an extra dresser at her house she said I could redo which is currently in my daughters room taking up less space.

              (the before and after of the current dresser in my daughters bedroom)

 

I sanded the above dresser all down because it was a very glossy white and then painted the entire dresser a very soft blue. I then stenciled the front of the dressers with white paint to make the entire stenciling very subtle. Now all I have to do is find a mirror to add to the dresser :)

 

Now, moving on to a little bit of my bedroom. I decided to add a full length mirror onto our closet door. The only issue with it was that you could tell it was one of those $5 plastic mirrors. I thought it looked too cheap and plain and decided I needed to decorate it. 

                                                                
                                                                          (before)

My husband and I will be celebrating our 3rd wedding anniversary in July so I decided to look through a couple of our wedding boxes we kept in the garage. I came across all the center pieces I made for our reception and decided I didn't want to decorate my mirror with just any old thing I wanted to use something from our wedding to make it more meaningful. That's where the centerpiece fillers come in. I used those decorative clear rock things (yes thats the technical term lol) that sort of look like marbles to fill all the vases that were sitting on the tables at the reception.

                                                            (after)

I brought in a bunch of the rocks and busted out one of my favorite craft tools, my hot glue gun, and simply glueed them on the frame of the mirror. I think it makes it look a little more glamorous and pretty than if I were to have just left it plain.


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Chalk Board Table

My daughter is joyfully obsessed with sidewalk chalk right now. She even decided to sneak some inside the house one day and draw all over the wall!! I decided to make her a chalkboard craft table that she is free to draw all over when she sneaks in her next batch of chalk. :)

Above is what the table looked like before I started. (and yes that is a shadow of me taking a picture of the table :)) I lightly sanded it and wiped it all down. The I spray painted the bottom shelf a bright pink just so it wasn't all black. I wanted it to pop! Then I covered the bottom after it dried (to make sure no black paint got on the pink) and applied 4 light coats of the black spray paint chalk board paint. I followed the back of the can's directions for the most part, but I did read reviews of people saying they needed to apply about 4 coats of paint for it to work better so I did 4 just to be safe. This is what it looks like now!! Lilliana's new craft table that she can draw all over!
                                                            

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Printing on Burlap

I read awhile ago about being able to print on burlap using your home printer so I decided to try it out. To print on burlap you need freezer paper, an iron, and an idea. And now I am obsessed with doing it! 

I love having wreaths on my front door. I made a wreath that goes up for Christmas, and Halloween, and Easter, and the 4th of July. But I didn't have a wreath that I kept up in between Holidays...until now! :) I went to my craft shop and picked up some burlap flowers, burlap fabric, and the wooden letter 'O' for Ortega. The first thing I did was snip the stems off the flowers and stick the flowers on one side of the wreath. I then spray painted the 'O' a really pretty blue (which I might spray the other side yellow for a more summery look) I didnt really like burlap plain so I printed a chevron pattern!

 

 



Heres how I did it. I cut my piece of freezer paper the exact same size as the printer paper. Then with the shiny side up and your iron on the hottest setting, iron your burlap to the freezer paper. I was a little skeptical and scared to try it too but trust me, its really cool. Then make sure you load the burlap in the printer the correct way (I tested mine out to make sure before I loaded in the burlap) and then I printed out a simple chevron design. I told you it was cute! :) 

 

Awhile ago I also made these picture frames with the same burlap chevron pattern that I did on the wreath but I used it to display some of our wedding pictures.

 

 (one of these days I will actually hang them up)

Heres how I did it the picture frames! I went to my dollar store and picked up 3 small picture frames for $3. I spray painted them white and then sanded them down a little to give it an antique/rustic look. I glued with spray adhesive the burlap onto a square piece of wood that I painted white and sanded down as well, and then glued the picture frame with the picture inside onto the board.

I used the exact same technique of printing on burlap to make my daughters wall decorations for her room. I cut out a bunch of square pieces of wood and glued the printed burlap onto the wood and hung it up!

 

 

Cute right?! I did a scrabble theme to it as well just to make it a little more interesting. (yes I know those are not the correct numbers on the letters, but Lilliana was all 1 score words so I improvised :) )

I love them all! I told you I was obsessed with printing on burlap :) Pin It Now!

Tire Ottoman

Sorry for the delay in posts! This latest project took more time than I thought! Not that it was hard to do but I couldn't find fabric that I loved! I am probably one of the worst decision makers in the universe, I tend to over think EVERYTHING. I took about a week and a half searching for fabric, then I found two I liked and took another few days deciding between the two. I finally just chose one and then came the dreaded shipping wait...I love online shopping (there are so many more options on the web) however, I am not the most patient person, so waiting 7-10 days for my fabric felt like an eternity!! Enough with my rant.... 

TIRE TURNED OTTOMAN........

8 years ago I went to a meet and greet of a Nascar driver to try and get an autographed picture, I ended up winning one of the door prizes instead!!........an autographed car tire that was driven on in one of the races. A little weird yes but I was still so excited that I won! Until it started collecting dust in the garage and taking up space. What was I going to do with an autographed tire? Most people might have put it up for sale or just dropped it off at the dump but I am a sentimental person and didn't want to just get rid of it. I saw a post about recycling a tire into an ottoman! Very unique! However, I wasnt a real fan of the look of it but it was a great building block for new ideas! So with some leftover wood in our garage I sent my husband out to cut me a top piece for the new ottoman.

Our house isnt a very big house so any way to conserve space is a must. I decided to try and make this into a storage ottoman to hide our extra throw pillows and blankets or better yet, another toy box for our daughter's endless amount of toys. My husband cut a thick piece of wood the same size as the tire for the top. To prevent the top from slipping around and to make a nice snug fitting top I had him cut another smaller piece that I attached to the bigger piece to make a fitted top.

                  

My husband really wanted an extra soft top to the ottoman to rest his feet on so I used some old seat cusions I had around the house and cut them to fit on the top. I then used quilt batting to cover the top wood pieces to soften it up just a little bit more and to keep the foam in place.

Once my fabric arrived I traced the top of the ottoman (allowing extra inches around the entire circle so that I could tuck and adhere it underneath) Then I cut 3 long strips of fabric that was wide enough to be tucked under and inside the tire. This part was tricky and took the longest because I had to keep going back and forth making sure each side was tight. And here it is....my ottoman that was made from a tire!

The picture on the left is the ottoman I really wanted for my house...except for the fact it was selling for $399.99. My top on my ottoman is extra thick and soft without the button, both per my husbands request of wanting his feet to sink into it and not have his heels resting on hard wood and a button. The only thing I might change to this is to add legs like the other one has but hey....I saved myself $375 by reusing this tire!!

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Wallpaper Dresser Update (Part 2)

My last post was showing how I turned my old brown outdated dresser into a new looking dresser for my daughters room by using wallpaper. After the dresser was done and had sat in her room for a week, I decided it washed out the colors in her room and seemed a little too boring for a little girls room. So I decided to bring out the hot pink aspect of her room and I painted the drawers a nice pink and spray painted the old knobs white. I think this is much more appropriate for a little girls room. 

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