Thrifting!

Over Thanksgiving when my family was in town, my mom and I stopped at a few thrift stores in search of the perfect chair for my desk. And we found it! It's a little wooden chair, originally made in Sweden. It was all of $7.

It needs a little love..

and wood glue, but it has the perfect rustic look I love.

We also picked up a fake flower arrangement

 But don't worry, the fake flowers were quickly tossed (much to Mom's dismay) and my remotes found the home they've been looking for (rather than between the couch cushions).

Frames Galore

 

The wall above the cabinet in my woman cave / living room (above) was inspired from this shot in a Pottery Barn catalog:

 

 I was originally thinking I would do something like this in our bedroom, so I've been on the search for mirrors and frames for some time now. It wasn't until I reorganized the cabinet so that I could stow all my crafts, that I realized I needed something on the wall above. And I then I thought the frames would look perfect there instead of the bedroom.

 

I'm still waiting for the perfect idea to put into these frames, for now they're empty.. yet I still love them!

I love love books. I made sure I carefully picked out a few of my favorite books and a few books that I feel describe me at the moment. Dreams, Lithuanian, Tuscany, Running, Marriage, the World...

And some knick knacks I picked up at the thrift store a while back.

 

I'm loving it all so much right now, it makes the living room so much more homey!

Thanksgiving Preparation

Along with crossing off my new [wo]man cave and Radiate Love sign off my list in preparation for Thanksgiving. There were a handful of other little changes our casa saw.

I tried to spice up the Dining Room table, which was previously empty. I picked up a wooden tray from T.J. Maxx some time ago, then some balls from Pier 1. 

I finally redecorated the mantle. More on that later, but here's a sneak peak. 

We hung the mirror that used to be on the mantle in our bedroom.

I tried to find ways to decorate the guest room man cave that I'm not allowed to decorate (that's not decorated). A yellow plant in a Jack Daniel's bottle did the trick (and the Mr. actually liked it!).

With the rest of those flowers I threw them in an old wine glass and put it in the bathroom. I covered it with burlap because I can't figure out how to get the label off.

Radiate Love

For Thanksgiving we had my family, my godparents & family, and my aunt & her husband over. Did I mention that we have a small 2 bedroom apartment? So I was running around like crazy trying to get the house all decorated and pretty before Thanksgiving. I did quite a bit, only I didn't have time to post everything. Here's one of the To-Do list things that I finished last week.

I knew the minute I saw this sign I had to make one myself. So I did. Here it is:

I picked up some wood from Lowe's. I cut 6 pieces of wood the same height. I had also picked up a skinny piece. I cut that in two and nailed each piece into the back. This held all the pieces together. I realize now that I didn't get a picture of the back.

I found this post on how to make old signs. But I couldn't decide on another color besides green. So I decided to only use green on top of white.

 I primed the wood, then painted it white. Then painted it green using acrylic paint. I spent too much time to tell you trying to make the perfect green, mixed with white and black. Only to get annoyed with my indecisiveness and pour the green directly on the wood from the bottle, without mixing.

Then I got a little nervous with how bright the green was. So I painted a layer of gray over top. Being impatient, the green wasn't fully dry. So it mixed in with the green rather than coating a layer on top of the green.

I let it dry. Then sanded. I initially went at it with the sander. Mistake. It went right to the bare wood, showing no sign of the white. Only when I lightly hand sanded did I actually get the distressed look I wanted with the under white layer showing through.

I picked up the wooden letters from A.C. Moore. Coated them with white paint and then sanded them a bit for the distressed look.

Then it took me forever to decide which way to put the letters. Once I decided, I glued the letters on with wood glue and let it dry for 2 days.

Originally, I was thinking this would go in the bedroom. But after finishing it, I decided that it didn't look right next to the monogram.  So this baby is now hanging in the staircase from the foyer to the apartment. So it's the first thing you see when you come, and the last thing you see when you leave :P 

Desk Redo

I had wanted my own Woman Cave for quite some time now, I just had to find a desk that fit in the little space I had. I finally found one that fit at the thrift store for $18.99! With a lot of love (and sanding, painting, staining and more sanding) it got a makeover!

Before:

After:

As you can see, it wasn't in very good shape. There were an endless amounts of dents and the left side actually broke as the thrift store guys put it in my car.

When I saw it, I knew instantly its future involved white and distressing. It was love at first sight.

First I gave it a good wipe down, it had all sorts of fun surprises inside -- Stickers, Spiders, Cobwebs, and Dust. Then I sanded. And sanded. And sanded some more.

Then added some wood glue and a few nails to fix the broken side. Being the newly into furniture renovator that I am I debated on whether or not to prime it. Decided to, so I primed it. Debated on whether or not to go to the store and buy wood filler for all the dents, but was too excited to have a finished desk. So painted it white. Twice.

To distress it, I sanded it again making sure I got all the edges just enough, and then probably too much. Then stained it with the stain I had from staining the nightstand. It turned out a lot darker than I was expecting. I guess I was expecting dark stain not to turn my white sanded wood dark? But after letting it sit for a few days, I started to love it. So i coated it with Miniwax Paste Finishing Wax, screwed on the flower hardware I found at World Market and the 3 other hardware pieces I picked up from Target and viola!

And for the new-turned-as-is picture:

Linking to -

Primitive & Proper's Piece of Work Wednesday Link Party!

My Woman Cave

Ever since we moved in to the new apartment, the hubs was slowly claiming more and more of our guest room. Our guest room was eventually renamed The Playboy Room. And then the hubs slowly became more and more territorial of his playboy room. I slowly lost more and more desk real estate until his playboy room became his man cave.  However, don't fret. I made my own woman cave in which there is an invisible line that the hubs is not allowed to cross. (Rant's over, I promise)

And here's a little [embarrassing] before of my soon to be woman cave!

Now I'm sure you're thinking, Come On.. no one keeps their house like this. Embarrassingly enough, we did. This is immediately when you walk up the stairs from the little entrance downstairs. So Tomas normally threw his gym bag right there and I'd toss my running shoes and equipment off there.  Plus, as you can see below this was where my filing cabinet / everything else that didn't have a home went. Including the yoga mat that I was no longer allowed to keep in the guest-room-turned-playboy-room. And that abs roller that Tomas swares he uses, that I have only seen him use once since he got it -- the first day he got it.

And now:

I am in love with how the wall turned out (another post on that coming). So why am I considering this part of my woman cave? Well, that trunk and the baskets in the cabinet are neatly organized with all of my crafts / art supplies / tools that I couldn't figure out where to put!  Along with my books that I wasn't allowed to put on the bookshelf in the guest room my hubby's playboy room.

 

I guilt-tripped him for turning my guest room into a playboy room sweetly convinced Tomas to hand over some closet real estate in the playboy room for the filing cabinet so that I can have my own desk and area.  And now, I have my own woman cave! Tomas is not allowed on the right side of the stairs!  

I picked up the desk from a thrift store and re-furnished it, more on that in another post as well!

Cheers!

How to Make your own Burlap Monogram

Just as promised, here's how I created our Burlap Monogram above our bed. I started with a little inspiration and how-to. I picked up a few yards of burlap at the fabric store. I ended up only using less than a yard.

I had an unused painting canvas at the house, but only one. So I headed out to the closest place,Walmart to pick up some more. Only they didn't have any in the size I wanted. Then I checked out their artwork for sale, to see if I could pick up any cheap artwork. Nothing for less than 15$ a piece. So I headed to Target only to find they didn't have any either. But then I stumbled on this pack of 4 cork tiles for about 5$ total and thought, hmm.. that could be perfect. I picked up a few decorative nails from Target as well.

I picked up some black and white acrylic paint at 2$ a bottle and a 3" sponge paint roller from A.C. Moore. When I was at World Market I found these hooks and fell in love.  I couldn't decide which color would be better being that the bedroom's main color is green, but the grey hooks were just so darn pretty. So I brought home 3 of both colors. (To be returned later..)  These were the most expensive, at $5.99 a pop. But soo worth it! And that's all the materials I had to buy.

 I had some ribbon at home, leftover from the wedding. When it came to stencils, I printed out letters in "Edwardian Script ITC" font. Then I pseudo - traced them onto a whole foods bag. I say pseudo because the letters I printed weren't actually large enough and I couldn't get them to print out any larger on one page. So I kind of 'winged in' and drew the letters on the bag larger than the prints. So I really didn't trace them.  Surprisingly, they turned out great.

After having all my materials, I got started. First, I cut the burlap about 1.5" larger on every side than the cork tile. Then just stapled the burlap to the cork. Initially, I had a hard time getting the staples to stick. Then I started stapling 'harder'. Then I got cocky and started going really fast. Then I slammed my finger under the stapler. Twice. Then I continued to staple hard, just less cocky, and slower.

After that was the real fun. I mixed the black and white paint to be a dark grey. Placed the 'stencil' on the burlap which was now stapled to the cork board, and rolled the paint over. Then I stuck decorative nails in the corners. Two on the left corners of the 'M', above and below the 'K' and two on the right corners of the 'T' to bring all three pieces together.

After quite a while attempting to tie a bow out of the wedding ribbon, I eventually gave up and went with a knot. I'm still not sure if I like this, but I don't have any better ideas at the moment. Then I stapled the other end of the ribbon to the back of the cork as well. Then I hung them up. Only to realize that cork weighs nothing and the hooks are pretty big, so the monograms kind of dangled and danced around in the air, not even touching the wall. Not pretty.

I happened to have some mounting strips in the house. So after putting a few strips on the back of each letter, we were in business!

And here's what it looks like now. Like I said, I'm still not crazy about the ribbon. I also can't decide if the 'K' being so skinny looks good or awkward. That was a stenciling mishap, but I think it separates itself more from the 'm' and 't', which I kind of like.

And a shot with a little bit of the bed (not made). I hope you enjoyed it!