Dying to Match

I've been a busy girl...in my sweat shop!

I just love the simpleness of this dress. I thought I would try something different from my usual. I'm always drawn to bright and bold fabrics, but this delicate fabric got me! As I was making it I thought it would be cute to add an eyelet lace to the bottom trim, so I dug through my stash and I found a very stark white lace. Ouch...this won't work!

So....off to the kitchen....TEA DYE! 

I put boiling hot water in this glass with 2 tea bags and my white lace, I let it sit for about 20 mins! Then rinsed with water and threw it in the dryer...

Ahhhhh....so much better!! 

All done..size 3!

I love tea dying...have you ever tried? I'll be back soon with a new project. Are you ready for summer?? 

Mishelle

Curb Table to Bench

 

 

Before I even start this Post, I just wanted to ask everyone to please donate $10 by texting Red Cross to 909-99… such a simple thing to do.  Skip lunch tomorrow to make up for it!  I know with what is going on in Oklahoma after that devastating Tornado we all sit helplessly watching the coverage on TV wishing we could help.  This is how we can help… seems small but it really adds up.  All I can say is my heartfelt prayers go out to all those dealing with such devastating loss.

Okay.. back to this post.  How you like my new little bench?

 

 

This little beauty almost lost her life to the big nasty Bulk Trash Machine of Destruction.  Mishelle found this one on the curb one day and grabbed it, giving it a second shot at life.  If I remember correctly (and I often do not!) it ended up hanging out around Mishelle’s house waiting for some reno love.  Mishelle was purging one day and asked me if I wanted to take it for a reno spin.  Of course I did!  I took this and my Chevron Coffee Table that I posted about here and was ready to give it a go.  Of course, being that I move at lightning fast speed (NOT!) I let her sit aimlessly around my own garage for quite a long time. 

Well, I got tired of driving in to my garage and coming face-to-face with this neglected project and feeling totally guilty about not touching it for so long.  So, I finally got to working on it during our rainy last couple of days.  Don’t get me wrong I was totally gung ho in the beginning and I promptly got to work on the repair work it needed.  Here is the before.

 

 

 

 

It had been previously loved by someone’s dog.  Their were little teeth marks and holes all over it.  I used a lot of wood filler, spackle and sanding to fix those spots.  They look better but not perfect so I may revisit those again.  I also had to reinforce the legs and top with finish nails to give it more stability.  As you can see, the top was a total mess from being left out in the weather. 

Once I finally got around to this piece after over 6 months of looking at it every day I gave it a paint job with my trusty spray paint.

 

 

 

This table looks like it was meant to be this Slate Blue color! 

Since the top was not salvageable, I decided this table would come back to life in the form of a bench.  Time to add some cushion and batting to the top.  I always start with a Heavy Duty Spray adhesive to adhere the foam cushion to the surface.  I follow that with a layer of batting.  Thank You Hobby Lobby!

 

 

Adding the fabric got a little tricky because that table lip in some sections was really tiny and hard to get staples in there!  I used some hot glue to first hold the fabric in place in those sections and then followed it up with the Staple Gun.  It worked like a charm (except for the occasional glue burn and follow-up curse words).

I love my new little bench!

 

 

Now… if only I can get around to working on an entire room in my house!

 

See You Soon….

Can You Handle More Door?

 

I just punned you!  Punned not Punked…. Yes I am still stuck on my Front Door.

Sometimes the small things really do make a big difference.  As you can see from this picture:

 

 

My Front Door Hardware was looking a little rough thanks to years in the Sun.  It had turned a most unappealing shade of Yellowish.  The New Pretty Door Color made it look even more glaringly Yellow too.  Ick!!

Here is my New BFF.  (Are you ready?  Can you handle it?)

 

 

I installed my New Gal all by my Handy self too!  It took me most of the day while the boys were at school but it was totally worth the struggle to be my typical impatient self and not wait for the Hubby to do it for me.  It really wasn’t too terribly hard… the problem was that a third hand would really have come in handy on a project like this.  But I’m crafty.  I made it work with just a drill and a screwdriver…. didn’t even need the dumb directions.  They really were dumb too!  They explained nothing!

 

 

Happy Mother’s Day Weekend!!  (Yes I said Weekend)

 

See You Soon……

 

More Door!

 

 

I’m super excited about the changes I’ve made to the Exterior of my Front Door… obviously.  I posted about it here just a few short days ago.    As a reminder, here is my spruced up door with it’s pretty new coat of paint.

 

 

Of course, freshening it up made all it’s negatives stand out big time.  Look closely….

 

 

Yep… lovely Wood Rot.  It was staring me down every single time I came face-to-face with my door and it was really beginning to make me angry.  When I bought this door several years ago I had to go with a Solid Wood Door.  The original door on our home was just downright ugly.  I know you have all seen the amber coke bottle glass… well that is what we had in our door.  Our other problem was that our door was custom made – sounds fancy pants but it kind of made our life a little harder.  Most standard doors measure 36” wide.  Not our fancy pants door!  It had to be special and measure 42” wide.  I searched high and low for doors of this size and couldn’t find a darn thing.  All the doors I found that were 42” wide were also 8’ tall.  Our Entryway was just not that Regal… it’s more of a working class Entryway with lower ceiling heights and lower door heights ().

It’s so my luck that I had no choice but going the route of a Special Order Front Door – can you say Expensive?  I couldn’t so I had to find other options.  I found a local company that would make a door to order for me… yay!!  But my only option to do that and still be able to actually pay for said door would be to keep it Solid Wood.  No heavy-duty, long-lasting Fiberglass for me.  Fast Forward a couple of years to one of our Sprinkler Heads breaking and us not realizing it had been spraying the Front Door regularly at 3 a.m. for quite some time.  We realized it when we noticed the wood rotting on the door!!

This has been bugging me for quite a while, but wasn’t as noticeable when the door was the brownish copper color of baby diarrhea.   It was loud and proud though the second I painted it crisp and cool Capri.  Something had to be done stat.  I went on the hunt for kick plates to cover the damage.  No go.  They were either too wide up and down to fit under the door trim molding, or too skinny side to side to cover the worst of the damage, or they were the worst offense of all – bright and overly shiny gold ( I like gold just not this gold ). 

Time for some creative thinking!  I went perusing Home Depot and found my solution.  Aluminum 12x24 sheets!

 

 

I decided to go with the Union Jack pattern Mate!  I measured and then cut them down with tin snips.  It was actually much easier than I thought it would be.

 

 

I followed that up with a strong Spray Adhesive to get them to initially stick to the door.  I then used Carpet Tack nails (after the Hubby drilled small holes in the middle of the Union Jacks on each end and the middles of my strips) to nail it into the door so it would stay long term.  I am actually really happy with the result.

 

 

 

Clearly some more tweaking needs to happen, but I am happy with my quick fix for my Wood Rotted Front Door.  Good as new!

 

What small fixes are you working on?

 

See You Soon…..

 

It’s Door Week! Who’s Excited?

 

Seriously!  Are you all pumped or what?  As if my going on and on about painting my front door over the last year was not wearing you down enough… I am here to talk about it AGAIN!!  Yes I said again.  I think I have finally made some progress in my Exterior Door Paralysis. 

Remember many moons ago (over a year people) when I posted here about how Obsessed I am with brightly painted Front Doors?  It’s also where I outed the front of my home for the Eyesore that it truly was way back when…..

I also posted here about my baby steps in painting the Interior of my Front Door the color I have been lusting over for a while – Capri by my pal Sherwin Williams.  Clearly I am a slow mover as that post was 5 months ago.

I finally ripped off the Band-Aid and painted the Exterior of my Front Door in Capri!!  No longer was I afraid of neighbor judgment… who cares I decided.  If I love it, it stays and that’s that.

 

 

As you can see from this picture my trim is two different colors – no that is not a design choice.  It’s a paint testing problem I have been having for the past year.  I am happy to report that the trim directly around the door is finally The One.  Foothills by Sherwin Williams is the winner and will become my house trim color – more on that another day.  I will be saying Goodbye to the Baby Poop Brown I have lived with for the last 8 years very soon.

I’m totally smitten with my new color choice, and who was I kidding I totally care what my neighbors think.  Thankfully I’ve gotten several compliments on the new color… phew….

Of course this snazzy new color on the door is so fresh and eye catching that it also makes all the bad spots stand out like crazy!  Still some work to do… but check out where I started.

 

 

Uck… whose Idea was that horrible Copper Color?  Oh yes it was mine.  Oops.

One more before and after……

 

 

 

L.O.V.E.

Oh and by the way I wasn’t kidding when I said it’s Door Week… I will have more posts this week on my other little door tweaks because I would not want to overwhelm you all in one day with all this excitement would I?

 

See You Soon….