Easy Bowl Makeover

A $7 bowl at the thrift store became my new table centerpiece pretty quick!

Before, it was metal and rusted:

After a coat of primer, a coat of bronze spray paint, and a hint of shiny gold, it became a real work of art!

Do any quick thrift store fixes lately??

HUGE check off the list. And a Giveaway!!

Let me start with a "Yay!  This wall looks great!!"  And then follow it with a "I hate this stupid wall!"  I don't have a ton of in-progress pictures to show you cause this took FOREVER (we're talking months) and made me angry along the way.  But, I think you'll enjoy the tale...just not many pictures.

But seriously, I love what I did, but the process - whew! 

Please don't email me and tell me which ones are crooked.

Inspired by John and Sherry's book, I bought a pack of postcards from Fab.com that all had this vintage vibe.

I didn't know what to do with them, but after seeing J&S make a collage of sorts in their book and then seeing the postcards on sale on Fab.com, I knew I had to at least buy them.  Then we moved into this place with a giant blank wall in the dining room.  And...idea!  The plan started off very easy.  I went to the dollar store and bought a ton of frames.  And by ton, I mean EXACTLY the number I needed, with no thought as to what might happen if one broke (this is called "foreshadowing").  Jon and I went through all the postcards and picked out 24 places we had been (sometimes together, sometimes separately) and I took them to Home Depot.  I lined them up and picked 4 paint colors that seemed to compliment the postcards and got little sample pots of each.  The colors I used were:

All from Lowe's Olympic line

Then the time consuming part.  I spray painted each plastic frame with a primer, then I actually spackled the places where each side met, because the cheap frames had natural separation at their seams.  THEN I sanded down these cheap little frames (I got a bit obsessive, I admit) and THEN painted 6 of each color.  Well, to be honest, I put them up there approximately one row at a time, so it didn't happen as fast as it perhaps sounds.  

The layers were frame -- glass -- white mat -- postcard -- white construction paper -- frame back -- command strip.

Which leads me to command strips.  A rental's (and, honestly, a homeowner's best friend).  They let you eyeball the exactness because as long as enough of the sticky strips connect, you're golden.  No need to aim for an elusive nail AND put a crap-ton of holes in your wall to patch before your move-out inspection, amiright??

To hang them up, I measured an area down from the ceiling and put a big piece of blue tape across the wall and repeated three more times, then pulled the tape away as I was putting the frame on.  At least, the first rows went like that.  After that, you could really just eyeball it if you put the complete connected two-piece command strip on the frame and then just pushed the whole thing on the wall.

Progress.  I put the stripes up first, but didn't use them much after the first row

So everything was going so well....until two fell off.  It was my own fault - I moved something and I knew the command strip wasn't as sticky as it originally was, but I was an idiot and the frames fell and broke.  Not the glass (yay!) but the plastic frames.  I don't know why - they cost $1 each.  Obviously quality.  But no big deal right, just run to the dollar store and get a new one.  What?  What's that?  We've DISCONTINUED THE LINE OF FRAMES AND THEY CANNOT BE FOUND ANYWHERE????

Yes, that's right.  I dug and dug through a store to find ONE frame that matched the other 22 in my house, leaving me one short.  Two trips to various stores and I was just SOL.  Even online, that frame isn't around anymore.  But, let's face it, it's rare that a project goes well in my house.  So, I bought a very similar frame (it's just more beveled around the edges) and put it in the corner with hopes no one looks/cares.  And honestly, as I type this, I'm turning around checking it out and it's not noticeable at all.  So, sorry, Austin, TX.  You're not different, you're special. 

Lessons learned:

• Buy 30 of whatever you need 24 of.  Always.
• If you move command strips, put up a new command strip

But, all bitching aside, I think it looks really really good.  A great way to fill up a wall with postcards representing places we've been.  I'm thinking about writing when we went there on each mat, but that would require me to take them down, and I'm just not in that place right now :-)

Here's the approximate cost breakdown.  Not bad for an entire wall!
- 27 frames: $27
- 3 paint pots: $12
- Various painting supplies: $10
- Postcards: $24
- Command Strips: $20
- White mats: $20
-Grand total-ish: $113

Have you ever had to fill up an entire wall?  How did you do it?  How do you display travel memories and memorabilia?  Have you ever dug through something in a store trying to find what isn't there?  Leave me a comment below and let me know!

Speaking of - I really enjoy reading comments on my blog, and I don't get a lot of them.  Most people comment on FB, but it's a real high point of my day when I get an email saying that someone has commented on here.  I usually assume the only people that read my blog are my mom (Hi mom!!) and the Russian spambots (Здравствуйте you bastards!) that bump up my blog numbers.  So...if you're so inclined and have the time, drop me a line and let's start a conversation!

AND....to entice you to comment, I am giving away a set of these postcards from Fab.com to celebrate being finished with this project!!  Commenting below will give you an entry and I'll use a random generator to pick someone to get all 24 of the ones that I used, plus a ton more!  They look great on a wall (ha ha) or you can pick one at random and plan your vacation.  Or, gasp!  You can use them as postcards :-)  How cool would it be to go to each place and then send someone (ahem...me!) a postcard from each one?  I look forward to reading your comments that I've bribed you to leave!!!

Be sure to check back here on Friday to see if you won!

Christmas Table

I had a great time putting together my fall table centerpiece, so I wanted to do something for Christmas as well.  Here's a fun and uber-cheap project I came up with that makes our table look pretty cool!

First, I grabbed some sticks from the ground (free!)

And spray painted them silver ($5 buy at Lowes).  The silver on the dark wood makes the branches just look nice and glisteny (this is not a word, blogger tells me) so they aren't too in-your-face silver.

Then, I bought some green yard ($3.50 buy at Michael's) and used some Modge-Podge (already on hand from my fall pumpkin project) and randomly wrapped bits and pieces of the sticks with yarn, leaving some of the silver showing.  I did this while watching the fantastic Hallmark Holiday Movie, "Snow Bride."  Highly recommend if you are lonely.

Next, I took some mini-ornaments ($5, again at Michael's) and tied them to various little branches coming off of my sticks.  I put the whole thing in a big glass jar I bought for another project that I filled partway with river rocks (three bags for $1 each at the Dollar Store)

And there you have it!  A pretty little rustic centerpiece for $16.50.  Not too bad considering I have a whole roll of green yarn left over, a can of silver spray paint, and those river rocks, all of which I can use for other projects.

What's on YOUR table this year? 

Take a Napa!

One of my favorite lines that Carrie says in Sex in the City when Mr. Big is moving to California is "When you're tired, you TAKE a Napa, you don't MOVE to Napa!"  Tee hee.  Well, after a long while with a tiny square table, we finally broke down and bought the Napa Dining Table from World Market.  Behold.

We had tried to get the Provence Table earlier in the fall, but those awesome World Market sales snuck up on us and every table in the world sold out fast.  Boo.  So we signed up for their email list and paid attention and over the holidays we saw this baby pop up on sale.  For $249 (plus a sad-face $100 shipping) we got this delivered soon after our return from Christmas break.

 

I love that it's solid and sturdy, but imperfect (note the little dings on the left side in the picture above) so if it gets scratched up.....which I might have done the first week we got it.....it's not a big deal.  Right?  We are considering getting some plexiglass or something to put on top just for extra protection, but we aren't there yet. 

It's so much better than where we were, don't you think?

Old tiny table

 And for extra info, check out a close up of the table-topper:

This is a great bowl my folks bought me for Christmas!  You can find it at Uncommon Goods.
If you're paying close attention, you might notice a sneak at the wood floors and stainless steel appliances that have found their way in our kitchen!  Pictures to follow, but we are happy to announce the latest additions to our family :-)

PS - like the labeled dining room chairs?  An easy project that I did - check them out here!

Spur-of-the-moment project

So we have this dining room set that I bought off my friend Gabi when we moved (one of the many times we've moved).  It's our ok-for-now-until-we-find-a-real-dining-room-table-we-love table.

It's a little sentimental because it's Avery's first "big boy" table because he sits in it like the adults.  In fact, he knows whose seat belong to whom.  "Daddy's seat!" "Mommy's seat!" "Avery's seat!" "Paw-paw's seat!"  So, in a rare moment of nothing to do, I decided to assign seats using chalkboard paint.  I simply taped the chairs off to only leave the chalkboard part open and went to town with the same chalkboard paint I used for my Halloween pumpkins.

Then, I just wrote our names on the chairs and all done.

See?  How cute, and it took me about 20 minutes to do.

Labeled anything of yours lately?

FINALLY finished....for now

Ugh, I've had this big gaping hole in my gallery wall in the dining room forever:

There's a mirror project I've been "working on" (code name for not working on) for a while.  First, I messed it up and had to buy a new mirror.  Then, I started it and every can of spray paint I bought came out messy.  I finally bought a new can at Lowe's last weekend and wrapped up this project.

I started off with a simple mirror and wood frame from Michael's:

I painted the bottom of the frame cream-colored, then added a fun saying in scrapbook letters:

Then, I spray painted the whole thing black:

Then it was time to peel off the letters and pray it looked great:

And.....it looks ok from far away, but here's the close up on those letters:

Yep, I didn't make sure they were all smashed down as tight as possible before painting.  Typical me.  Luckily, I had some vanilla acrylic paint (from one of the first tries at this project) and got a little paintbrush to make just tiny little fixes.  It didn't need to be perfect, but I didn't want it to be so so messy.  Much better!

And NOW the mirror goes back in and the whole thing goes back on the wall.

For the record, I don't like my black/yellow/cream color scheme anymore, but since we are hopefully in the process of moving, I can always change it up when we get somewhere else.  This gaping hole was just driving me INSANE, so it was worth finishing it up.  I'm super happy with the outcome of this wall thus far, and it's big enough to add more the longer we stay here, so I'm always on the lookout for new stuff to hang up!

A Better Frame of Mind

I've been working on this gallery wall in my dining room forever.  The room is tall, white, and zzzzzzzzzzzz boring.  I looked for weeks and weeks at curtains, contemplated sewing my own, and finally saw these curtains on sale at Target.com for $7.  Seven bucks for two panels!  I didn't realize they came in packs of two, so I actually have 4 panels now.  But, I think these create some really great drama in this boring little room.

Closeup of the colors - beige, grey, and black.  So chic.

Lovely, and it stops people form peeking in our house.

But what about this big blank wall?

I started with a bunch of random wood frames and such, and I want to create a dramatic gallery wall.  At first I was going with an all natural theme, but I didn't love it, and it frankly didn't go with my new dramatic curtain color.  So, I took my wood frames and painted them all with black spray paint.

Original frames

I started randomly throwing things in frames in my excitement to get stuff on the wall, but I had to rein myself in and try to do it a better way.  So, I took a good look at the things I wanted to frame and decided to turn them from ok to great!  A simple mat from Michaels and a shuffling of frames turned this amazing photo taken by my friend Richie at Marheine Photography from blending in with the thick black frame to really standing out in a larger, thinner frame!

First time around - picture tossed in a spray painted frame

So much better!  A simple grey mat and scrapbook paper in a thinner frame!

Other things got the good treatment as well...

PS - be sure to check out my sister's blog, Sunbeam Yellow, for the how-to on the above art.  The tree contains the lyrics to me and Jon's wedding song, and the hearts contain our initials.  Adorbs.  I simply spray painted the white frame to match the rest

Before

After

Photo Strip from our post-bar exam to Atlantic City.  Including a yellow and grey background (scrapbook paper) makes it more exciting!

Amazing story behind this business card on my old design blog

And we have the start of a great gallery wall collection!  As you can see, there's ONE more thing to put up there that's in the works, but I really like it!