A Shelter Dog RESCUED This Family

It's true. We adopted Brooke in 2008 from Last Chance Rescue, after her mom had died when she was only a couple weeks old. Mona, whom we adopted in 2010 from Last Day Dog Rescue, was slated to be euthanized because of her age (estimated to be 9, going on 10, by our vet) at a SE Michigan 'shelter'. Her foster mom, A, saved her from a certain death and even helped relieve her stress and her constant licking of her paws. Where most rescues would be leery of adopting out a dog to a family with a 1-year-old, A took a chance on our family, and we couldn't be more happy with our Mona-Litze. Our hope is to get her enrolled and complete therapy dog certification so she can become part of the Tail Waggin' Tutors at the local library. Tail Waggin' Tutors pairs children that have trouble reading with a dog for them to practice their reading. Dogs are excellent listeners :)

Anywho. Enough about the loves of my life!

I had Nic cut me a piece of scrap wood, and I just went to town painting. Here's what I came up with:

 

Total cost? 40 cents for a paintbrush :) Gotta love that.

DIY Headboard

Something we haven't had since we upgraded to a King mattress 3 years ago is a headboard. Doesn't a headboard just instantly jazz up your bed a little? Complete the look?

My stepdad is completely rebuilding his back deck, and he offered the old wood to us. Free lumber? Yes, please!! We can build a headboard out of reclaimed wood, and it'll be 'green', not to mention FREE. That's a big thing for my husband--he's Dutch, so he's cheap ;)

I looked around on the internet, checking out blogs and pinning things to my Pinterest boards (if you haven't checked out Pinterest yet, DO IT NOW). Here are some pictures that I got inspiration from.

Reclaimed wood headboard from AKA Design

 

Create and Delegate, using Ana White's plans.

Songbird

House*Tweaking

I loved the one from Ana White, but to buy the lumber new (you needed 1x3, 1x4, 1x6, etc., and the lumber we got from my stepdad was 2x10) would be between $80-$100. So that was a no go. I would like to stain the wood to match our floors, but the builder/seller didn't leave us any stain. Sidenote: they left tons of used paint and other stains in the garage, which I have been happy to use. I really liked all of them, but there were little things that bugged me--the banner was too girly, the boards didn't line up with the bed, they were too long/too short, etc.

Nic and I were just gonna have to wing it and hope that, along the way, we'd come up with a design we could agree on and like enough to fasten to our bedframe.

Nic's dad's table saw and the pile of lumber we got from my stepdad.

Sexy look :) I had welding gloves on too.

Brooke checking out the lumber. We decided to sand the wood inside because it was too darn hot out!

After assembly, 'love' written with our bedroom paint color, and a coat of satin polyurethane.

After it dried, it was the 'moment of truth'. We had to get it back in the house without destroying our walls or knocking things off the counter. Nic had a tough time getting it screwed to the bed frame--the screws kept stripping--but he got it done! Excuse the bad picture and my husband's flat-as-a-pancake pillow that makes the headboard look unlevel, but here it is.

Ta-da!

Next: I just need to sew up some more pillows and get started on some artwork for above the headboard.

Forgotten Pathway

I was beyond geeked today. Wait, let me back up.

When we moved into our house last fall, we had a bush in front of our deck when you walk into our backyard. Looks nice in the picture, but as the year went on, it got bigger and wider, and by May, you had to duck and walk around it so as not to brush up against it. Plus, I couldn't see out the kitchen window to the backyard to keep an eye on the dogs.

 

So a couple weeks ago, Nic chopped it down. It really opened up the space and made our yard look larger. But grass had grown over that beautiful paver path, the mulch was gone (I blame the dogs), and dirt was everywhere. It wasn't a neat little area anymore. 

Today, I went out during Lilia's naptime with the motivation to get all the dirt up and back behind the black garden border where it belongs. Much to my surprise, I unearthed all those pavers! I was so excited to see it again! I *completely* forgot it was there. Nic couldn't remember it being there, so he was even more excited.

My Aunt Deb has a beautiful garden. Her entire backyard is landscaped--by her! It is the ultimate in my mind of what a garden should look like. It's peaceful, and you just walk through it and feel calmer, surrounded by so much beauty. I called her this afternoon and asked if she has anything she was splitting that I could use for the area where the bush used to be. She, being the awesome Aunt she is, had a bunch of stuff she could split for me; all I had to do was come pick it up.

And here it is!

 

 

I'm not sure what to do with the other side of the path, since our dogs run out the back door as quickly as they can. In their haste, I'm sure they wouldn't keep to the path. So grass I guess it stays!  

Hope Chest makeover

The Hope Chest (which you can see in the picture above behind my little baldie) was my Grandma Millie's, then my mom's, and now it's mine. I'll pass it down to Lilia when she's older. Right now, it is in our living room and holds our blankets and board games.

My mom always wanted to do something with it, but couldn't ever decide what. I've been thinking about it since I got it a few years ago, and finally decided to just jump in and do it. Midway through the makeover process, I changed direction, but I *love* the end result.

First, I sanded it lightly, which was considerably easy to do. I just took a strip of sandpaper and went over the entire surface while Nic & I were watching "Income Property" on HGTV. Then I used Behr Ultra Paint & Primer that we bought in the Oops! section at Home Depot for ONE DOLLAR!

I don't know how you screw up white, but someone didn't like it, and their loss is my gain. I still can't believe I got this baby for $1.

Anywho.

So I painted the bottom portion white, with the idea that I would buy some foam and sew up a cushion with some blue fabric I bought to make Mona a dog bed.

 

Pretty, right? The top is pretty scuffed up, from age and from Brooke always jumping on the top to look out the window and scratching it. So, I thought to myself, hmm. I don't want to sew up a nice cushion because Brooke uses the chest as her lookout for chipmunks in the yard (that is a whole other post for another day). While thinking about what to do with the top, I played around with some blue paint during Lilia's nap and painted a capital 'S' on the front.

 

I didn't like it. 

So I started distressing it with some sandpaper, which is really fun. And then, I was going through some paint and stain the sellers left in the garage when we bought the house, and I found a beautiful gel stain. Perfect! So I applied it, and wiped it off. Repeat. I liked it so much, I decided to paint part of the top white (leaving the edges the original stain) and distress that as well. I didn't need to do much with the sandpaper on the top since there are tons of scratches and gouges from Brooke and time, so I just added some stain, and wiped it off. 

--click the picture to see it larger--

Brooke got muddy pawprints on the top this morning, so I'm going to have to clean it up and stain it again before I can finish it off with a coat of satin polyurethane. I'm extremely happy with how it turned out.

Next on the agenda: Redoing the desk I got from my dad. Look how many layers of paint there are:

 

Green, red, black, blue, and white. The blue and white are mine, and by far the hardest layers to get off. Nic was using his sander (that he uses for sanding down his sculptures) on it, and he could only get it down to the red layer. Hopefully over the weekend we'll be able to problem solve or just give in and buy an orbital sander :) Stay tuned!

Color Matching Peg Dolls

I saw this great idea at Crafts for Lily and just *had* to do it too. It is too cute, and what a great idea for Lilia to match her colors.

I ordered my wood from Casey's Wood out of Maine. You could also find the unfinished wood at JoAnn's or Michael's, which is what I plan to do for the next set, if I make another one (I hope so!). Then I borrowed my mother-in-law's bucket of acrylic paint and got to work.

First, I painted the skin color on the heads, and then started the body painting and the pot painting. After several coats of paint (the wood really sucked up the paint) I started on the hair and hair accessories. Those tiny bows just kill me; they're so cute! I also added some buttons and lapels to some of the girls, and pearl necklaces to the rest. One of the girls got freckles, but they kinda turned out a little large. Lastly, I added facial features with a fine-tip Sharpie. If I do this again, I will leave the Sharpie details for last because the high-gloss spray paint I put on to finish the project kinda smeared a couple of the girls' eyes. Oh well. Live and learn, right?

 

 All in all, it probably took me 3 hours to complete them all, including time for the paint to dry and the gloss spray as well. Not too long for a cute little game for Lilia to play. Now I can't wait for her to wake up from her nap to play with them!

The paint is dry :)

So I let the jar sit upside down for a few hours yesterday, and then I let it sit overnight right side up. It looks gorgeous, if I do say so myself. Just the burst of blue I needed in the living room. I got so caught up getting green accents that I completely went past the point of accenting, and lost the blue. So I'm trying to even it out. Enough said, here is the IKEA pasta container turned into a vase with simple acrylic paint and a lot of patience.

 

I think it is very pretty. It's kinda glare-y in the picture since it's in the dining area surrounded my windows, but I think you get the gist. And best of all, it was freeeeee!

IKEA pasta container: $0 (been sitting on top of my fridge for years)

Acrylic paint: $0 (in a craft box upstairs for a couple years)

Fake flowers: $0 (again, in a box for years)

So, even taking into consideration that I did have to buy this stuff at one point, I would have to say it cost me about $10. Pretty sweet.

Waiting for Paint to Dry...

Literally. I'm so excited about turning a boring old glass pasta container into something new. I took one of these containers I had bought at IKEA several years ago (like the one pictures, just without the writing on it) for $3 and put some fake tulips I had lying around in it. Boring. It needs something.

So, remembering a tutorial I saw somewhere (before I had jumped on the Pinterest bandwagon to mark stuff I want to try), I headed off to Google to see what I had to do. Easy-peasy!

I had some acrylic paint in my craft room from some long-forgotten project, and I squirted it into the canister. And squirted more into the canister. Then I closed the top, and shook it all around. Added more paint (it takes quite a bit of paint if you're impatient for the paint to swirl around and get the entire inside covered).

Now, it's upside-down on a piece of cardboard, drying.

And I wait. And wait. And wait. Hopefully by tomorrow, it will be dry and I can take pictures and show you the finished revamp. :)

Summer cuteness

I think as you get older, you lose a little bit of your joy in running around in the grass. Grass is something you have to mow, fertilize, weed, etc. But to a child, it's a plush carpet for running, rolling, pulling, stomping, and tickling your toes. I love watching my daughter play in the grass. You can tell by her face in some of these photos that she is experiencing pure joy.

following bubbles across the yard

getting ready to throw a fistful of dirt (isn't she so cute with her hair up??)

playing in the dirt in Daddy's veggie garden

posing on the lawn furniture

Whee!

Playing with Brooke & Mona's ball

Soccer star!

Too cute.

Photo Wall progress #2

All of the frames are hung up! Now, I plan on going to Salvation Army or Goodwill and picking up some more frames to fill in the wall a little more. But I'm really happy with how it turned out.

 

Sorry for the glare--the sun is shining into our window. It's 93 degrees today!

 

 

I love the last picture, of Lilia's fingerpainting. The purples work in our room, so it's perfect. Too bad I broke the glass when I was taking the frame apart. Grrr. 

Photo Wall progress

After painting our bedroom, we realized how bare our walls were. So, with inspiration from Young House Love, I started working on a photo wall. I gathered up all the frames in our house that weren't being used, as well as some that I had got last year at the church rummage sale. I love old frames, the real wood and glass pane ones (sidenote: I do not love, however, trying to wrangle the glass back into the frame and slicing up my fingers), they have such character.

I spent the weekend spray painting all the frames white; I ended up using 2 cans of Rust-Oleum Painter's Touch, gloss white. I should have used 3, but by the time I finished the second can, my finger needed a break, haha. It was really hot this weekend (high 80s, low 90s) with high humidity, so some of the frames bubbled a little. I might sand the edges and distress them a bit to add more character.

Instead of guessing where the frames would go, I cut templates out of newspaper and hung them on the wall. This way should minimize the number of 'oops' nail holes. I'm hoping.

Beautiful, isn't it?

 I also spray painted a couple display cubes, which will hold some little momentos, like our Dutch kissing couple cake topper.

Taking more inspiration from Young House Love, the the 7 sign, I found a piece of scrap wood that the previous owner left. I think it was from our floor or something; it's the same stain. I cut out a number 13 (I was born on the 13th, engaged on the 13th, married on the 13th, and found out I was pregnant on the 13th) on my Cricut--amazing little machine, isn't it?--and used it as a template to paint the wood but leave the 13 with the stained wood showing through.

 

I distressed it with sandpaper, a paint key, the bottom of a spray paint can, a rotary cutter, and the handle of our kitchen shears. Basically, whatever was within reach :) All it needs now is a sawtooth hanger on the back, and we can hang it up with the rest of the frames and knick knacks.

New Paint

We *FINALLY* painted our bedroom.

When we moved in last September, our house--every single room--was the same blah light brown.

Our bedroom before we moved in. (The paper runner is to protect the freshly stained floor)

 Not a bad color, just when it's all you see in every room, it gets pretty blah. So after 8 months, our bedroom is finally painted!

Different view of our bedroom. Still needs work.

We used Valspar Medallion in Contemporary Gray, 50036A. I absolutely LOVE it. As soon as I started trimming, I was in love. I teased Nic, trying to hug the wall because I love the color so much. I'm still not sure about the lanterns that I hung in the corner. The dresser used to be my Grandma Millie's, it's such a nice piece of furniture.

Still need to get curtains or valances. I'm thinking these MERETE curtains from IKEA. I need to make some more throw pillows, and try to convince Nic to throw his out (it used to be his Opa's, and he's been using it for years. I don't even want to think about the dust mites in it because the thing weighs at least 5 pounds) and get a new one. I did make the purple one, below. The petals took for-ev-er to cut out and sew, but I'm really happy with the giant flower that it turned into.

Purple petal pillow

We also need a headboard. Just like this one at Create and Delegate. The plans are from Ana-White.com. You haven't heard of Ana-White.com? Oh man, you need to check out her site. She has building plans for furniture that you can make yourself, which will save you mucho moola. For example, the king headboard that we're going to build, using the plans from ana-white, is going to cost us less than $80. To buy the same headboard at Pottery Barn is $800. Yeah, 10 times the cost!!

And we also need some artwork above the headboard. I'll also DIY that. Something purple and white, I think. Maybe some shades of purple.

So, being the nerd that I am, I decided to put my mad skillz (insert sarcasm here) with Photoshop to use and create a mock up of what our bed would look like with a headboard and artwork.

Mock-up of headboard and artwork. (hello sleepy Polly!)

I know. I'm a dork. But the stain will be a little bit darker to match our furniture and the floor. The to-do list is getting longer! But at least the walls are painted :)

Welcome!

This new blog is going to be a little bit of everything: renovating and decorating our home that we bought last year, Lilia Jane as she grows, crafts that I make, and random ramblings from me. Hopefully, it will be more than me rambling ;)