Monday, May 30, 2011

Thee mirror

First and foremost I want to say a big "Happy Memorial Day!" to everyone out there. May God keep the lives of our soldiers safe and God bless all soldiers past, present and future. Please pray for our soldiers at home and abroad.









Remember this lovely Dresser?
Well I told you I was going to do something with the mirror too. I know it's kind of hard to see in this pic but it was basically just a plain mirror with a piece of plywood behind it. Sooooo I glued the mirror to the plywood (after detaching it from the dresser) with a mirror adhesive.

Very important to let this dry completely and on a flat surface. 
Then I found some molding for a steal at Menard's that was pre-primed and 8ft long. I used a
Miter box with saw to miter the corners.

Now I know it should go without saying that if your molding has any kind of design at all on it to pay attention to how you are sawing so that the pattern matches up. I may or may not have wasted a bit of wood because I was not paying attention =)

I used the same mirror adhesive to attach the molding to the mirror. If you have clamps now would be a good time to use them. I do not. Therefore I used heavy objects on top praying it would work just as good.
After a couple of days in my garage (I'm sure it sets faster, but I wanted to be absolutely sure) I brought out the HEAVY mirror to caulk the corners. Let me just say this : Caulk is your friend. It will hide a multitude of sins.  
Here's the finished product!
(cat not included =) )


As you can see there is a gap from all the layers being glued together. I'm going to try and find a thin piece of trim to finish it off but just haven't got to it yet. Doh! Oh well anyways... what do you think? This thing is HU-U-UGE! So I'm kind of scared to hang it on the wall. I just leaned in against it for now until I find a better solution.  P.S That dresser that its on...yeah that pretty white one...$3. At a garage sale! I didn't even do anything to it! Score!! =)



Tuesday, May 24, 2011

My door and flowers are numbered

In our front yard we made a bed last year. Since we didn't have a lot of money for flowers, we decided to just put a layer of rock down that way in the future if we wanted we could easily still plant bushes. So my solution to dress it up was to use 3 shepherd's hooks and just have hanging baskets. I have many containers from over the years but wouldn't you know it NONE of them were the same color. Bring on the spray paint!


I decided to go red since it matches nicely with the color of our house.
Why not spray a number on just to add some detail?
I was going to use our street address since this is the front of our house, but decided it might be a little overkill since our door has this on it.
The numbers on the door are just adhesive backed vinyl I cut with my die-cutter. The flower is from Hobby Lobby. I think I got it about 5 years ago. For the baskets I used the die-cutter to make a stencil and then spray painted it on with white. Here's another look.





 The Stories of A to Z
Social Salutations

Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Some "new" things

How many of you have seen this TV tray before?
If they're not in your house then they are sure to be in your Grandparent's. I needed something bigger to put on our new dresser. So I decided to go ahead and paint the tray to try something new. I also had an old Christmas candlestick to paint.

We actually had a day here that was neither rainy or windy so I got right to work. (You never know when Nebraska weather is going to change =) )
Primed and painted them both white. The tray I used a stencil to add a spray painted monogram and some rub on brackets. 

Love how it turned out. I just need something
to put on the glass tray....



 The shabby nest
Just a girl

Saturday, May 14, 2011

Think Spring!

Here in Nebraska it's pretty hard to get excited about the changing seasons. Just 3 days ago my son and I were outside in tank tops and shorts playing in the sprinkler. Today, sweatshirts and socks. Bah humbug.
any-who, I've been going through my older scrapbook magazines to get in the mood for Spring/Summer. I found a really cute page and knew exactly what pic I was going to use. (Click on the pic for a bigger view)
This pic was taken back in February on a "warm" day. I had fun creating the tree and adding some buttons I had.
 The inspiration page is in the June 2011 Scrapbooks Etc. magazine by Cortney Ophoff (page 29) This page is so not my "style" but I wanted to try something different. SO don't be afraid to try something that's not your "normal". You just might be happy with the results!

Friday, May 13, 2011

For the love of Mason Jars

So I may or may not have an infatuation with Mason jars. I just love the old look of them. I decided to round up some of my jars and use them decoratively in our bathroom. I used some tacky glue to glue the jar ring and the metal piece together so they wouldn't come apart every time we opened a jar. And Voila!


Pretty cute right? Well that side of the sink is but on the other side I had a big monstrous container of "germ-gel". (AKA hand sanitizer) Soooo because I'm just daring that way I poured the germ-gel into a large mason jar. Only problem was the pump was waaaay too long for the jar. Since germ-gel is pretty important to us and our almost 4 year old, I had to cut off half of the tube so it would fit inside the jar. I also drilled a large hole into the lid of the jar. What do you think?


Much better right? If it wasn't for the fact that I absolutely LOVE the hands-free soap dispenser we have, I would do it for our soap too. We'll see.....





the shabby nest

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

The dressy dresser (My first post!)

I am so excited for my first post! Since this is my first you're going to have to bear with me (I really have no idea what I'm doing with this whole blog thing)  =)

Alrighty. THIS little beauty was given to us by a friend of ours. Not the most beautiful thing in the world, but she had good lines and LOTS of drawers.






I knew right away that this was going in my husband and I's room. I originally planned on it going white, but was up for something different so I decided on black. ( Our room is all black and white with a beautiful gray on our walls.) So I unscrewed the mirror and got to work!

Bring on the primer!


And here comes the black! (I was sooooo excited with the results!)



Now since this lady was so old, ahem, antique, I had a lot of trouble finding pulls that would match up with the existing holes. I thought about just spray painting them but they were way too intricate and I was afraid that there would be a lot of paint build-up. Soooo we got some Spackle to fill 'er in!
                                                             (BEFORE)


                                                                     (AFTER!)


Isn't she gaw-geous?! I originally wanted to put glass knobs of the 3 drawers but decided to go cheap and get some white monogrammed knobs instead. The smaller pulls were the cheapest I could find at Menard's and the longer 2 on the bottom? Yeah I kinda stole them from our kitchen cabinets. But I won't tell if you don't  =)

Here's a couple tips I learned along the way: (maybe common sense to some..)

       - Use the best quality spray paint you can afford. It will be worth it!
       - If you want a glossy finish, buy glossy spray paint. It will save you a step of spraying a gloss on it.
       -You don't have to buy the "prettiest" or most expensive knobs/handles to get a great look
       -Always measure the doorways that the finished product will be going through. Yeah, lots of touch-up.

Well that's it! How did I do? I'm totally in love with our new dresser and am so happy I went for the black. Here's another look, just cuz she's so purdy =)


Oh, and remember that mirror that was attached to it? Well I have other plans for it.....stay turned!


 Thrifty Decor Chick's spray paint party
Miss Mustard Seed's Furniture feature Friday