In His Grip

Wall From the Thrift Store

This is another installment of how Lindsey's house is really coming together.  This wall is literally from a thrift store.  She purchased most of the items from one thrift store earlier this summer for less than $10.  Then came out the spray paint and she made all of these things come to life in a new way.  The pink owl was a weird brown color and was picked out of the free box they always have right outside the front door of the store.  I love her style and the fact that she is using things that have been cast off and making them totally work in her favor.

Here is the wall before anything was on it.

 
 
We arranged it on the floor in front of the wall first and then the fun part begins.  I love hanging things and watching the transformation take place.  It is amazing what a trip to the thrift store and some spray paint can do for a room.

Participating in the following link ups:Its So Very Creative, DYI Showoff, Keeping It Simple: Motivate Me Monday, It's A Blog Party, The Girl Creative, Making the World Cuter, Mad Skills Monday, Coastal Charm, Mad Skills Party, Blue Cricket Design,Fine Craft Guild, Life as Lori, Fireflies and Jellybeans, Tidy Mom, It's a Blog Party, Finding Fabulous, It's a Hodgepodge Life, Just A Girl, The Shabby Nest, Thrifty Tickle,

 

Goodwill Sofa Made Fabulous!

With our daughter Lindsey moving out into her own home, the last couple of months we have been on a quest to find furniture on a bargain budget.  Just because we had little money to spend did not mean that we had to leave fun design at the door.  Lindsey found the pink flower fabric on sale and knew that this was the fabric she wanted for her sofa.  As a single gal, she knows that if she is going to ever have a pink sofa the time is now before other opinions have to be considered.  But she did not even have a sofa to cover yet.  Off to garage sales and thrift stores she went.  She found the jackpot one evening at the Goodwill.

This is what we found that night at the Goodwill for, get this, $19.99.  Yes, score!  The cushions are not shown in this picture but they were in good shape other than the fact that this white canvas was filthy.  The piece was sturdy and had a good shape so we knew that it would make a great pink flowered sofa.

First I took off the white canvas cover and found this other upholstery fabric underneath which was like new.  So the transformation began.

 

 

 Lindsey made the cushion covers in my Stitches by Sturman studio.

 
The finished project was all that we expected and Lindsey is over the moon with how great it looks in her new great room.
 

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Garage Sale Book Shelf

Since I updated my studio last year, I have been looking for some shelving to go a the bottom of the steps.  I considered doing a custom built in but then the cost became prohibitive so I started to keep my eye out for  something that would work from a garage sale.  I found the perfect piece about three weeks ago for only $10.  Awesome, right?  It works just perfect for my space.  Of course it did not start out looking like this.  I painted it red and then sanded some back off.  With the speed of the internet here in the north woods at Camp Grandma, I am unable to post more that one picture per blog entry.  But the process was the same as I did with this and this.  I love my new garage sale find and always keep my eye out for something old that I can make new again.

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Believe in the Garden

It is this time of year that makes me just want to be outside all of the time.  I even like being outside in the hot humid days if I can be in the shade with a good book.  But part of my being outside thing, is wanting to make my gardens look like places you want to spend your time.  And with the way that I love color, the more color I can get in my garden the happier I am. So to me that means lots of flowers and of course, my choice here is pink, duh! 

 
However, I had some sad looking pots around that needed some help.  This particular pot started out several years ago as a little water feature with a fountain and some water plants in it.  But I just could not keep it from leaking all over the place, so the last couple of years it has been a planter that now needs a makeover.

So I got out my handy dandy heirloom white spray paint and went to town.  I thought the pot looked a little plain so I started searching through some of my craft supplies and came across the word believe in a rub-on transfer.  Perfect!

Okay, this was starting to look better, but it is still a little stark and too high of a contrast.

 

I watered down some brown acrylic paint and wiped it all over the pot.  This helped take the stark whiteness away and gave it a little bit of a warn look.  You cannot see it so much in the pictures, but I think it looks a lot better.  I allowed that to dry and then finished it off with a clear coat.

Next comes the really fun part, the planting.  I picked up a hot pink geranium and some fun little vines that I have never used before and then covered the soil in the "creepy" moss that I got from Minnesota last fall.  And I have a great "new" re-purposed pot in my garden.

This goes perfect with the quote that I put on the garden bench, "Gardening is a way of showing you believe in tomorrow."  

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My Garden Bench

This holiday weekend has been one of yard work, pool time, and a couple of fun garden projects.  When I took the bench off of the front porch that had been there for years, I just could not bear to get rid of it just yet.  Who cares that it is rotting and grows mushrooms in its cracks, I love it.  I am pretty attached as it has been on our front porch for about 20 years and also Jeff and his Dad made it for me.

This is how my bench started out the weekend, but I wanted to give it a new fun garden look and what better way then to paint it pink!

So of course I picked up Rust-oleum Berry Pink spray paint and went to town.  I did not pay too much attention to getting a full coverage of paint as I wanted to end up with a weathered look anyway.

I wanted to add a "gardeny" type quote to the back of the bench so I Google searched garden quotes and found this one and painted it on with a bright yellow.  Although, I couldn't have made this painting perfect if I tried, but I really was going for a more whimsy look. 

Next came out my handy dandy sanded to weather up the paint a bit and make it look like this bench has been in my garden for a while.  I think I love my bench even more now that it is pink.  Now I just hope that it will last for a couple of more years before it completely disintegrates.

I love the pop of color out on that side of the back yard.  Now it needs a big basket of flowers sitting on it.

 

 

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Best Vintage Store!

Friday we left Lake Vermilion with the clouds rolling in.  I hate leaving the lake on a beautiful day, so clouds were good.  Our friends went one way, and the girls and my sister, Janet went the other.   We had a mission at IKEA to get Lindsey set up in her kitchen in her new home.  Once our mission had been accomplished we were on our way to find the Goodwill Outlet, which was not really worth our time, but that is a whole other story, when we came upon this store hunt & gather.  This has got to be one of the best vintage store I have ever been in.  Not only was the merchandise unique and old, the way that it was displayed was great.  I will defiantly be coming back here on our way through Minneapolis in the future.  Or maybe again in July.

 

The Best Adhesive Ever

This week I have found my newest crafting supply.  I have come upon the best adhesive ever.  It is called Household Goop.  It will stick to most anything and so far has work like a charm in my two latest projects.  The last couple of weekends have been beautiful here in Kansas and that means garage sales.  I don't mean just a sale here and there, I am talking whole neighborhoods and even the citywide garage sales like they have in Gardner.  Garage sales just get my creative mind going. How can take someones else's castoff and make it into something that will be useful to me in the future.  All of these items started out much differently, but then I came upon Household Goop and they became something much more.

 

This is what I purchased for $1.  Now mind you both pieces were covered in dirt and have been through the dishwasher at this point. 

 
Both could serve a purpose just as they are but with just a little of the "best adhesive ever".  and they look like the are ready for a much more formal affair. 

After applying my creative thoughts to some castoffs I got brave and as I was passing by some of the summer plastic plates in Wal-mart, I had an idea.  I could use the Household Goop on these as well.

The plates are from Wal-Mart, I think $1.50 each, the knob I picked up at Lowes for .97, and the little wooden candle sticks at Hobby Lobby sometime ago.

I used some Gorilla Glue to glue the candle sticks with the little ends together.  After letting the glue cure, I lightly sanded the and spray painted the pedestal white.

Using masking tape I marked the center of the top of the large plate and both the top and bottom of the smaller plate.

Following the directions on the tube of the Household Goop, I placed the pedestal in the center of the large plate and then glued the top of the pedestal to the bottom of the small plate and the knob on the top of the small plate.  All of this gluing and stacking created a wonderful pedestal server.  With this being so cheap, I keep finding all kinds of things that I can glue together to make them just that much better.   A tiered server does not have to be china or silver to be appreciated.

 

Old Shutter to Supply Holder

These are the shutters that I purchased last Fall.  I gave $5 each for them.  I liked how they were weathered and the paint was all cracked.  I had this idea in my head on how I was going to use them in my studio to hold small supplies.  So this is how the looked before their transformation into their new re-purposed supply holder.

I decided to once again use the colonial red spray paint that matches the other things in my studio.  Giving the shutters a couple of light coats of paint and then allowing them to dry.

After they had dried completed, I used my handy dandy electric sander and lightly sanded off part of the paint.  I always try to make things look like they have been naturally worn so I pay particular attention to the edges and corners.  Once I was satisfied with the way that the shutters looked, I put some hangers on the back and hung them on the wall in my studio.

After hanging the shutters on the wall.  I took some jars that I have been storing supplies in and wrapped wire around the top twisting it together until it was long enough to make it into a hook.  I love the way they look hanging on the shutters and there is plenty of room to add more.  Now, this clears up some space out of one of my cabinets and I can actually see what I have. 

 

From Old Broken Sled to Pink Flyer

This is the old sled that used to sit on our front porch from December through March.  I would decorate it with a wreath for Christmas, I have some old skates that I'd hang from it, and used it in various ways to decorate our front porch in the winter.  Well, seems as we are going with a pink theme this year, I thought that this old sled needed a little pink loveliness added to it so that it would fit in better with our new fun pink Christmas and winter decorations this year.  So I got out my handy dandy pink paint and went to town.

I let the paint dry and then used a white paint pen and added some stripes, snowflakes and the word "Pink Flyer" just for fun.  I allowed that to dry and then went to town with some sand paper to rough it up a bit.

Because I thought the rail needed a little something and I love sparkle I add silver glitter to the rails. 

 
  
I cannot wait to put this outside on the front porch with the other pink loveliness I have been creating.  Check back, as I will be bringing you more and more of our pink Christmas.

Dollar Store Pumpkins~Made Snazy!

I bought these cute little pumpkins and gourds from our local dollar store a couple of weeks ago.  They are great and everything, but I wanted to snaz them up a bit.  So after thinking about this for some time and being inspired by my recent ironing board project, I decided to use some of the leftover dictionary pages and my handy Mod Podge and give these little guys a makeover.  I had some black glitter that I had used for a Halloween costume and put glitter on the stems and then glittered some leaves too.  Here is how they turned out.  I love them!  I think they could work at any black tie affair!  Okay, so I am not sure how black tie and pumpkins go together, but who knows.

Sewing Pattern Lamp Shade

This is a lamp shade that I have had around for a couple of years.  I have two of these lamps with this pink shade and they have been very happy in Ryan's room.  Okay, I know that it is not Ryan's room because he does not live with us anymore but I just cannot bring myself to call it a guest room.  So I think I will always call bed rooms by the name of the child that occupied it, perhaps Ryan's Retreat, Lindsey's Lounge, and Anna's Escape.  I don't know just a thought.  Anyway, I decided that the shade need a redo.

I took the fabric off of the frame and this is what I started with.  The first time I went into Urban Arts and Crafts, I fell in love with the lamp shades they have hanging above their cash register.  They had made them using sewing pattern pieces.  I knew that someday I would make one of my own and decided this was a great lamp shade frame to try it on.  I began with sewing pattern pieces and Mod Podge.

 I started delicately painting the Mod Podge over the pattern pieces and overlapping the pattern pieces as I went.  I folded the tissue over the top and bottom wires and carefully Mod Podge the back side.  Once the tissue is covered in the Mod Podge it tears very easily as it is wet.  So I tried to get a coat on and then not go over again. 

Once the first coat had dried completely I put a coat of Mod Podge on the inside and then when that dried, I coated the outside with a second coat.  The result makes the shade feel like plastic.  It was not nearly as fragile as I had imagined.

I added trim along the top and bottom edges just to snaz it up a bit.  Besides the edges were a bit rough and I needed to cover them up, and you can never go wrong with a great beaded trim.  Trim scrapes in my studio are a perk of my job and you can bet I save every little bit.  You never know when you will need a dab of trim.

Here is where the lamp now lives, in the Stitches by Sturman studio.  I love the golden light that it gives off.  I have not deceided what to do with the pink bubbles, you can see the one at the top and there is also one on the bottom.  But that is for another day.  I think I will put it on a timer so that I can leave it on all the time and will not have to worry about turning it off and on.

My Sister is Creative Inspiration!

This is picture from my sister Lori's shop.  She has space in a store in Chehalis, Washington where she resells junk that she had taken from trash to treasure.  She is a good part of my inspiration when it comes to my trash to treasure projects.  In fact, I have a project in process right now that was idea that she gave me last week when we were talking on the phone.  I will post this project here soon.  You can go over to her blog CinnabarBlue and see some of the other fun things that she comes up with.  See, right there is a sweater pumpkin, black and white, who would have thought it would be so cute.

This Old Ironing Board

This is the old ironing board that I found a couple of weeks ago and paid $5 for.  The legs were broken and it did not really stand up very well.  But with some wood glue and a couple of screws, ta da, it stands up just great and I decided it would make a perfect table in my studio.  And look, the legs were already red so no spray painting needed.  After looking at it for some time, I felt it needed a little spiffying up.  I took an old dictionary and decided to decoupage some of the pages on the top of the ironing board. 

If you look closely, the edge of the pages of the dictionary were red and the Mod Podge made the red bleed slightly.  I ended up putting several coats of Mod Podge on the top so that it would be smooth.  I need all the help I can get on cutting down on the dust bunny collection.  I love how it turn out!

 

Fun Halloween Gift Box

Here is another of my trash to treasure crafts.  I took this drink holder and put a coat of spray paint on it to cover the labels.  I used a tan color and only had to do two coats to cover the writing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I than added a ruffle of fabric that I cut with pinking shears.  The fabric was 2" strip and then I ran a large basting stitch and pulled the string to make the ruffle.  Using my trusty hot glue gun, I attached the ruffle to the top of the box.

 

 

 

 

 

I then took 1" strips of paper that I purchased at the dollar spot at Target, and sewed them with a zig zag stitch overlapping them slightly.  I just kept adding 1" strips until they were wide enough to cover the sides of the box.  Again, the handy dandy hot glue gun helped me attached them to the sides of the box.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I then cut circles with my Cricut and put the tag board letters, also purchased at the dollar spot at Target, on them.  To give them a little dimension I attached them to the box with adhesive foam squares.  The tag was also cut with my Cricut and the pumpkin was part of the tag board letter set.  Add some curly ribbon and you have a great gift box. That cost next to nothing.

Time 4 Fun Gift Box

I have been going to Sonic Drive-In happy hour (all drinks for half price) a lot this Summer.  So needless to say, I have accumulated several of their drink holders.  I knew that there was something cool to do with them I had just not figured it out yet.  Well, I finally came up with something.  A gift box.  I took strips of paper and sewed them together for the sides and then used my Cricut machine to cut out the "Time 4 Fun" letters. I then tied some bows here and there filled it with tissue paper and some shred and there you have it.  A very fun gift box.  I love to make something out of nothing, it always makes me feel so accomplished.

 

Latest Dumpster Find

This is my latest dumpster find.  Now, I did not actually pick this one up, but one of Anna's lifeguard friends at the pool she has worked at all summer did.  It has been sitting in the pool office all summer for the lifeguards to lounge on when they were not on the stands.  So when the boss came by a couple of weeks ago and said that the sofa needed to be gone before the pool closed later this month.  My daughter thinking that I would love this, volunteered to cart it away and, ta da, it is in my garage.  It is in very good shape other than the fabric which kind of smells like a second hand shop, you know that smell that is always in used clothing and furniture stores?  But new fabric is no problem for  me, in fact, I have some yardage that has been left in my studio for two years that I think should do the trick nicely.  Hmm, I wonder if this sofa will fit down the stairs?  Before I go to too much trouble I have decided to get all of the outdoor work done first. So out comes the colonial red spray paint for the wood.  Once I get this part done I will do my best to make it fit down those blasted stairs, and then I will start the upholstery stuff.  I  will keep you updated on how the project is going.