You Are My Sunshine....

Benjamin went out of town last week and you know what that means....I took on several projects to keep from going out of my mind!

Here is the first project I undertook:

DIY'ed Sunburst Mirror

I really wanted to make this to put over our headboard and I thought this would be the perfect week for that. I used a tutorial I found on Little Green Notebook here. It was a great, a very detailed tutorial so if you want to make one I would follow it and not my blog.

Here is the project in photos. Enjoy!

Trip to Lowes to buy the supplies.

Gluing the pieces together. I used one of her designs for the smaller shims, but came up with my own
for the larger ones. I made them all the same by using the first one as a template. I used masking tape to
hold the pieces together while the glue dried. 

I let all the pieces dry over-night.

My plan for putting it together.

Basic layout before I started putting it all together!

I basically did this the whole way around. I ended up with four pieces that looked like this and
then glued them together. I did all of this over a series of three nights to give them plenty of time to dry.

I was a dumbo and didn't take a picture of the action of this part but here is the glue setting up
on the plywood for the back.

and here is a picture of the mirror drying with a book and weights to hold it all tight and secure.
Again sorry no action picture.

I used these bad boys to hang it. Got them at Hobby Lobby for $2.

I then used the wire to hang it. It holds up to 50lbs and I thought it would be great for
above the bed until I read this.

Oops!
My plan is to take it down before I go to bed tonight just in case. I will hang it back up in the am
and make sure it will hold for 24hrs.

And here it is. I LOVE it! 

I have more plans to hang something else. I will post photos of it all when I am finished along with the other projects I did while Ben was gone.

Have a great week!

Headboard Over Heels!

For months now I have been pinning images of DIY'ed headboards. It is something that I really wanted to try but was worried it would be too hard or not be cost effective.  I finally bit-the-bullet and decided to go for it.

I used this tutorial here if anyone is interested. 

I first wanted to find a fabric that I loved. I thought I wanted to do a yellow headboard but the more I thought about it I decided to keep it neutral so I could keep it if I decided to take the yellow out of our bedroom. Problem: our walls in our bedroom are grey, but a coat of paint is cheaper easier to change than the headboard to I decided to make a grey headboard and paint the wall our bed is on (more on that in a later post). Finding the right fabric took some time but I found it... for $9 a yard no less.

As mentioned above I also bought the foam during that trip for 50% off. I bought the 3-inch stuff as recommended in the tutorial and I am so glad I did. I don't think I would have been happy with anything thinner. I also bought the batting for 40% off and saved some dough there. Actually now that I think about it I bought everything for at least 40% off using coupons or just buying it when it was on sale. Here's the breakdown of what I used:

• 66 inches of 3-inch foam
• high-loft batting
• 2 1/2 yards of fabric (I bought 3 yards just to be safe)
• 44 buttons and a button cover kit
• 66x40 pegboard
• spray adhesive
• staple gun

I first cut a piece of fabric to cover all the buttons. I traced the template that came with the kit and counted off how many button I thought I would need.

This is where I hit my first road-bump. Because I was using a thicker fabric (velvet) the backs would not go on the buttons so I had to re-cut every circle into a star pattern. It took some time but I got it done.

You can kind of see the star pattern I cut out of the fabric in the plastic container at the bottom of the photo.

I laid out the peg board (I had it cut at Lowes, 66x44 inches) and decided on button placement. After some rearranging I came up with a layout that I liked.

The next few steps were pretty easy. I circled all the holes where I wanted buttons. I then laid the foam underneath and used a sharpie to mark all the circles. I then took a knife and cut out each section to make the tufts really deep.

This didn't take very long and was pretty easy. I then used spray adhesive to attach the foam to the pegboard.

Placed the batting over it

and then the fabric.

Now its time to get down to business. You start with the tufts in the middle and work your way out. I didn't really take a lot of photos of this process. It's kind of a two four-handed process. After about 6 tufts I recruited Benjamin to work the staple gun. After I got the buttons in and the fabric how I wanted, I would hold the thread taunt and he would staple. The back would look something like this.

Below is an in-process photo.

Here it is after all the tufts are done but the edges are not stapled down yet.

I then started in the middle top and pulled the fabric tight while my trusty side-kick stapled away and tah-dah! Its done!

I am so in love with how it turned out!

We still need to install the hardware on the back so we can hang it on the wall but as for now it is actually the perfect height and rests on the hollywood frame of our bed.

If you want a better step-by-step process, please visit the Little Green Notebook for her awesome tutorial.

It's Curtains For You...

One of the very few things I don't like about our new house is the opening from our bedroom to the master bathroom. There is no door. There is a door from the sink/tub/shower area to the water-closet so I am thankful for that, but not one from the bedroom to the "getting ready area".

 This would not be a big problem if Benjamin and I were on the same schedule for waking up, but we are not. Especially on Sunday mornings when Ben gets up at 5ish and I don't. So to address this problem my first idea was to do a sliding barn door. Like this:

Cute right? Well realizing that may never happen (cost and time and we also realized we would have to relocate our security panel and well, I just don't want to mess with that.) and wanting something to work for now, I hung up some curtains we had on hand to help for a while.

Ugly right? They are brown with a gold shimmer (think ugly prom dress fabric). Please don't ask me if I bought these curtains myself because then I would have to say yes and lose all my decorating cred. So please just don't ask.

They didn't look so bad before we painted the room (who am i kidding? yes they did) but now (always) they just look awful. Also the tension bar slips from the condensation, messing up my recent paint job. It only seems to happen when I am taking a shower. Ben thinks it is because I take really long hot showers, but I think it's a fluke or a conspiracy. Lets go with that.

Well needless to say we are ready for a change and finding some great fabric at (where else?) IKEA on sale for $6.99 a yard, I decided my first sewing project on my new sewing machine would be curtains (Thanks to Tom & Cindy for my new machine).

First we bough the Dignitet wire hanging kit from IKEA. We strung up the wire on the inside of the bathroom to hide the wire and to make it where we can push the curtains almost completely to the sides. I didn't take a photo of this. It was very easy and sturdy.

I then cut the fabric straight down the middle and began ironing and sewing the edges.

 

I only included this picture because I love my ironing board cover I bought several years ago off Etsy. It makes ironing a little more enjoyable prettier.  

 Hemming. It's pretty easy. If I can do it so can you!

My new machine has some great preset stiches that I love and decided to use on on the long sides that would be visible. Just to spice things up a bit :)

And here is the shot of the curtains hung on the cable from inside the bathroom.

One picture of the curtains open...

And now closed with the bathroom light on. It doesn't completely block out the light but it diffuses it enough to where it doesn't bother me in the mornings. 

Sew much better right? (hehehe)

You Asked For It

 I have several people ask me to explain some of the stuff from a previous post, so here you go!

• We bought the shelves in the living room from Ikea. They were $14.99 each. You can find them here.

• The drawing of our house that I gave to Ben I found while reading on of my favorite blogs Young House Love. It made by Jennifer Ahnquist from Kentucky. She had a Christmas in June special when she was featured on YHL and I jumped at the deal. I think she charges $90 normally for the same size that I got.

• Bookcase in the dining room is also from Ikea. It is the Expedit in black-brown and was $129.  

• Painting the chevron in the bathroom. Okay this one I didn't really use just one site for this project,  I googled the heck out of painting stripes, chevron, painting textured wall, etc. I also got a great tip from my friend and her husband over at oh write.  They told me to use paintable caulk on the tape lines before I painted so I wouldn't have too much bleed through. It totally worked! Here is the step-by- step process: 

1. I began by measuring the walls all the way around so I would know how many chevrons I needed (odd numbers are always better). 
2. I then began to measure every 8.5 inches around the ceiling about 1.5 inches down. 
3. I then basically followed this sites instructions on what to do next.
4. I can't remember if they did the paint along the tape or the caulk but I did both! I painted first with the main wall color and then spread the caulk all along the paint lines. 
5. I said a prayer and removed the tape after I finished my second coat (while it was still damp) and almost perfect. I only had a few touch-up spots mostly where I was careless with the roller. 

•  DIY Light in the Laundry Room. I got this idea from YHL once again (great blog with awesome step-by-step instructions). I changed a few things. There was no light in the room so I hung a light kit (IKEA $3.99) and then plugged it into a Dimmer switch that I was able to attach to the wall by the door. The light fixture itself is hung on the ceiling with three ceiling hooks, not wire. Since the wall comes down in the front I was able to do that without being able to see it. Also my clothespins don't go all the way to the top. It already weighed a ton so I just went up most of the way and you can't tell unless you are right under it which is hard to because of the washer and dryer :) 

• Future Projects: 

1.  A counter-top (or something) to mount just above the washer and dryer for a more built in look. 
2. Painting walls in the stairwell, upstairs hallway, office, bathroom, mini hallway, master bedroom, master bathroom (painted the bedroom a few weeks ago!) and water-closet. 
3. Paint the ceiling in the stairwell (ack), hallway, office, master bedroom, bathroom and water-closet. 
4. Replace the carpet in the living room
5. Buy a new couch for the living room (this may happen really soon!)
6. Move old couch into basement and organize the basement. 
7. Build shelves in the garage and possibly basement.
8. Hang curtains in the Master bedroom
9. Replace the carpet upstairs (this will be way down the road since the carpet is in great condition, just not my favorite).
10. Do something to spruce up the railing in the stairwell (not sure what yet). 
11. Finish the basement (sigh, someday it will be a bedroom, bathroom, and rec room...someday).
12. etc, etc, etc, etc (I know I am forgetting some stuff so I will just say I think the stuff above will take us awhile).