Sunday, July 31, 2011

flower head bands

My friend had a baby shower so I decided to make some homemade gifts.
I love these cute flowers, I can't get enough.

For this one I started with a piece of felt cut into a circle and glued some tule to it.
Then I adjusted the stitch length to 4.5 to gather the fabric

Then you just wind it into a circle 
This time I'm just going to turn it over and apply glue (hot glue) all over the bottom of it then place it on the felt circle. 
There, that makes it clean, fast and easy. (you'll see the flower if I turn it over)
So I love it! and I just attached it to some white cotton that I made into a head band.
To make this one I just attached tule to the top of it and gathered it all together at the same time.


And here is a picture of how to gather in case there is someone out there that does not know how. You just pull the string after you have sewn it on the longest stitch length.

And while on my flower kick I made another flower necklace
I love it, it is so cute and I want it for my self but it's actually a special order from a friend of a friend!
I also made this white one so she could chose which one she likes...
And guess what?  She liked them both! I think this is the first project that I actually made and sold!
Woo hoo! but I can't quit my day job just yet.
Thanks for looking!
I will be linking to these parties...


sew many ways





Friday, July 29, 2011

More projects!

I have soooo many goals/projects around my house. I repainted my railings, installed board and batten and refinished a dresser which is what the t.v will go on.
but I still need to finish this vintage suitcase....
And what color will it be painted?...

White of course!  


This is where my inspiration came from.

And I need a coffee table for my new room too. Check out this one...


Don't you just love it??? I love it and Funky junk interiors is a fabulous website!



Thursday, July 28, 2011

Introducing....

Board and Batten Walls!
Please ignore my ugly couch..that is why I have my quilt over it.
But I love it, it looks fabulous and I could not do it without the help of my husband..Now I just need to get my white couches. I'm saving up for them...they are the slip cover couches from ikea!
 
I still want to attach another 1x2 to the top so there will be a ledge. Next thing to do is decide on some wall decor.
here is a close up..I  used 1x2x4 and this post gives you details of what I went through. It was harder than
i thought! and I used Ana Whites Tutorial   however I spaced my "sticks" 8 inches apart.
So this is just the beginning of my new living room, I will show you updated pictures when I get my new couches and coffee table. I have great plans for the future! Thanks for looking, I'm linking up to these parties...


The DIY Show Off


Domestically SpeakingHookingupwithHoH




Monday, July 25, 2011

itty bitty sewing...

i have been working on home improvements and in between I was able to sew. It is my favorite..I love working with fabric, I love ironing it.
A friend at work wanted me to make her a necklace and I think it turned out adorable. I want to have it for me! However I don't know when I will have time to make another one.

I put some cute pearls in the middle of it.
baby bibs
And then I did a little sewing for babies! I have a baby shower to go to next weekend so I made these cute bibs and I'm going to make some headbands too.

I love this yellow flower!  Thanks for looking. I got to get back to finishing my board n' batten


Sunday, July 24, 2011

DIY board and batten walls

Are you kidding me? You all make it seem so easy...even purchasing the boards is hard work!
I went to lowes to by the 1x2x4 and I wanted to make sure they were 4'height and they were all different. I would have to come home and cut them myself anyway so I ended up buying the 8ft long boards and cut them myself.
I positioned my saw so that when I would line the board up against the wall then that is where I would cut it..just to ensure they were all going to be the same length..

and I did measure and mark it also..I did a better job than Lowes because the other day I had them cut the wood for me cuz I just had a demo wood, so I good go home and see if that was the length that I wanted and when I gave him the wood to cut it was off by 1/2 inch he just looked at me and said "oops" in an Elmer Fudd   voice.

So here they are all the same length...yes you can see that not all of them lay straight. That will be a big big problem when you try to nail them to the wall. I had no idea how difficult it was to find straight would!
And here I am taking off the existing base boards (sorry for the crappy picture).
If you cut it with a razor blade first then it will cut the paint and dap and when you try to pull it off it wont take all the paint half way up the wall.

See how clean it came off? Now I can paint it white...it was yellow. (my camera setting was off)
ok, so this was the hard part. I tried to do it on my own and it was just not working out...I could not get the boards on straight and my husband came upstairs and said it looked wonkyish? lol. So he stepped in and saved the day.

We spaced them 10" apart and made some cheat sticks..you have to use 2, one on top and one at the bottom. Oh and at first I tried to use wood glue and it just wouldn't hold so we decided not to mess around and just got liquid nails.
Now I'm exhausted, I started at 7am and we completed got everything on the walls and finished dapping around 7pm so this post will be continued...
Oh, and for those of you who don't know what look i'm going for this is it..
This is Ann Whites Tutorial If you have never visited her website then prepare to be blown away!

UPDATE:  My board n batten wall


Saturday, July 16, 2011

railing project....

boy was this hard work!!  And sOOOo time consuming. I always read about how hard kitchen cabinets are but railings? No one warned me about these. At least with kitchen cabiniets you don't have to deal with a bunch of grooves.
So this is the before picture, not a pretty picture..in the next few months I will be transforming my ugly traditional living room into a cottage inspired room. In order to do that I had to do something with these railings...so what to do? Paint them white! That has been my answer for everything lately.
I think the most time cosuming part was priming. My daughter helped me sand them down but if you notice the little grooves in each railing..not a good thing, I started priming last weekend at 9:30 pm and did not get done until 2:30 am!  5 hours of priming!! I never saw that one coming.
This is the primer I use for everything..i might be repeating myself from the last post but I love how the fumes are low and it dries fast.
So then I start the painting and look what happend....DRIP MARKS! UGGRR I hate that.
The key is to do thin layers of paint...tonz of layers. And to use a roller brush each time. the first few coats I used a paint brush because i thought I needed to get a good heavy layer going but then that lead to an  uneven paint job.
Some of the railing look like I put clay on them?? it was getting pretty frustrating but I kept painting, sanding, painting, sanding.
I think I did 4-5 coats, I can't remember but it was a looong process and I really wanted to move on with my life, it had been a week that I was working on these so I told myself on the last coat that "this is it"  It has to look good and if its not perfect then that is okay.
And so here are the results...It's a big difference don't you think? it really freshens up the room. Now I just need to get those eye sores of couches out of my house. ...actually, I take that back, I don't want to hurt there feelings, these couches have been good to me however I don't think it would work if I painted them white so it's time for them to move on.
And here  is another view, those railings just look neglected before.


And then right here it looks like I brang them back to life!
So I wish I had some pro advice but I don't. The only thing I would have done diffferent is painted all the railings with a rolling brush the entire time instead of trying to get thick coats with the paint brush. It is better to  apply several light coats then a couple think coats....Oh yeah, i remember...the first few coats I would do the front of the railings then go on the other side and finish the back...well by the time I would get to the back there was drip marks that had already dried so what i started to do is just paint the front of 3-4 railings then walk around and do the back of those 3-4 railings..maybe that is a given but it wasn't for me.
Oh, and i used Valspar white paint..i didn't have them mix in a special color.
Now I gotta get rid of that blank frame....Actually, Im just going to paint it white!
Thanks for looking! hope I have inspired you to tackle your dingy old railings.
I'm linking up here, you will be amazed at all the inspiring projects!



Funky Junk's Saturday Nite Special     UndertheTableandDreaming 

Sewing Scrap Projects! A Quilted Bag.

Don't you just love all this fabric goodness?  In todays episode we will dive into scraps of fabric again! Do you have a fabric stash? I...