Goodwill Chair Makeover

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This weekend my friend and I braved the Midwest weather to try and find her a dresser for her new flat screen to sit on. We struck out on the dresser but I did find myself a couple of cute cane back chairs at goodwill for$ 4.99 each!  

About 4 years ago my dad made me a six foot long farmhouse table (yup, he's awesome) and benches to match.  I have been on the lookout for a couple of chairs to go at the head of the table for a dog's age, so I was super excited to find these guys!

They were a little beat up but the canning was all intact, they just needed a little pep talk.  I removed the seat and spray painted the chairs with a primer.  It took pretty much an entire can of Rustoleum's Heirloom white to cover both chairs. 

I sanded down the edges and any areas that might be distressed with natural wear and tear. 

 I painted some glaze onto the chairs wiping it off almost as soon as it went on.  The glaze just gives it that extra, gritty, old effect.  

Since my children beat the holy Hades out of everything, I have just decided I'm going for the "shabby, distressed, beat to hell" look (that's a thing right?).

I polished them up with furniture wax just to add some extra protection.

 I recovered the cushions in a black and cream fabric I bought at hobby lobby awhile back and viola!  

Chairs for my kitchen table.  Whew, that only took 4 years!

We are obsessed with honey badger around our house so my mom got me the pillow from etsy for Christmas.  I giggle every time I look at that little stinker in his crown.  

Our new little little kitty approves.  

One last before and after:

 

P.S. I'm linking up with these awesome blogs:

savvy southern style - wow us Wednesdays #103

skip to my lou - made by you monday
thrifty decor chick - february-before-and-after

Tales of a bored housewife...

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Maybe that's what I should have titled this little blog.  

I will do just about anything to avoid housecleaning.  Anyone with me?  Can I get a "holla"?  

Anywho...Instead of tackling laundry mountain or vacuuming my ever dirty floor I wander around my house trying to find little projects.

Don't get me wrong, every morning I spend some quality time with some special friends.  As soon as the wee ones are off to school we cuddle up on the couch together...okay I admit it...these "friends" are a cup of coffee and pinterest.  sigh...good times, good times.  

Before I begin totally rethinkng the direction my life is heading let us take a quick peek at my cutie patootie project.  

I saw this little number while spending time with my buddy pinterest:

                                                                  bjdhousedesign

Do you see a little project in the making?  Me too!  Actually I see several but let us not get ahead of ourselves.  It was the little etc. basket that caught my eye first.  I just knew I could do something similar with things I already had at home.  So I turned to some trusty tools.  

Enter my ancient hobby lobby stencils, my much loved sharpie marker, and a sea grass basket I bought a while back at Target. 

My little loveys are incapable of coming home and putting their shoes in the shoe closet (that is literally feet away).  So my entryway always looks like a shoe war zone. 

Exhibit A:

(and this is a good day-usually the hubster's shoes are also among the casualties)

So  I bought this little basket thinking they could just toss their shoes in.  Easy peasy right? 

Exhibit B:

Are you kidding me?  GRRRRRRR...

Oh well.  So rather than deal with the real problem; my children's lack of organizational skills, I decided to purdy up the "shoe basket" instead.  Are you seeing a theme here?  

Ta da!

At least she looks a little cuter with that one dusty lonely pair of flip flops in her and the scattered muddy, dirty, stinky boy shoes thrown in front of her!

  

Now...on to the next project or I may be forced to wash dishes!

P.S. I'm linking up with these awesome blogs:

skip to my lou made-by-you-monday #136

homestories a to z- tutorials-tips-link-party #93

savvy southern style wow-us-wednesdays #102

Gotta Love a Garage Sale

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This weekend I was helping my mom get ready for her garage sale (mostly making sure she wasn't getting rid of anything I  wanted) and while going through her mountains of clutter lovely possessions I discovered this little cutie that she had bought at JoAnne's.  Nothing special I know, but I saw possibilities. 

I've been looking for a utensil caddy ever since I saw this little beauty. 

I don't even remember where it was from (sorry-if anyone recognizes it let me know so I can add a source link).  It was sold out of course, and waaaaay outa my budget.  I kept the image to remember and drool over it's lovely patina.

I thought about trying to faux paint my mom's to resemble my dream caddy, but in the end I decided that I liked the enamelware look of it just fine.  It just needed some sprucing up.

I had some stencils from hobby lobby and decided to paint a number 5 on the front.  

While it did come with some pretty sha-nazzy silverware I decided to replace it with some of my great grandmother's mismatched silver my mom had given me.  I'll keep those fancy green numbers to send in the kid's school lunches.

Final result?

Pretty stink stankin' cute!  It even had two empty holes to throw my salt and pepper shakers into. 

And what can the hubster's say?  I spent nothing on the project!  Of course I spent my whole morning playing around with an old enamel utensil holder...hmmmmm....maybe we'll just keep that one to ourselves.

I'm linking up to these fabulous parties:

savvy southern style - wow us wednesdays #74

no minimalist here - open house party #11

New Stairs!

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Oh my Lawdy!  I feel like I have abandoned this little blog!  I have just been crazy busy lately.  


I FINALLY finished this project and wanted to write about it!  I  have longed dreamed about doing something with my stairs.  Ripping the whole thing down and using a ladder even crossed my mind.  I mean really, the boys would just love me!  Or better yet a rope swing.  They could just swing down like Tarzan in the morning.  Coolest mom EVA!  No worries I haven't totally lost my mind.


Here are my lovely stairs before:

Snooze.  Not to mention the three crazies that live here and that horse of a dog have wreaked havoc on that carpet.

So while the hubster was recently on a trip I went out and bought myself a can of poly shades in Bombay Mahogany and a can of white gloss paint and went to town!  I also painted the little wall green to match the rest of the walls.  'Cause that beige wall covered in little hand and foot marks (I was blessed with climbers) was just nasteeee....


Here is what he came home to. 

I'm gonna be honest here, I was pretty stinkin' proud.  Do you know what he said? Do you?
He said "You made the stairs look to good, it just made the carpet look worse".  Serious.  Like a heart attack.  
Okay pull on your Pollyanna undies cause...
                            I'm getting new carpet!  
oh yeah, oh yeah...


So after 800 trips to every local carpet place within a 50 mile radius, my stairs now look like this.

Did you notice all the "junk" on that goofy plant ledge?  It is a hobby of my boys to see if they can land helicopters, planes, wrappers, window crawlers, etc. up there.

Sigh.

The joys of boys.

One last before and after:

What do you think.  I'm loving them!

I'm linking up to these awesome parties:

savvy southern style-wow us wednesdays #67

home stories a to z - tutorials and tips link party #62

project queen-turning the daunting into the do-able #33

Do you Bookoo?

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Have you been to a bookoo website in your area?  We have a couple around here and I looooove them!  It's like craigslist but totally local (I can only take so long in the car listening to Max and Ruby, soooooo the closer to home the better)!  


Do a quick Internet search for bookoo and see what you find.  It's way to much stinkin' fun for this stay at home mama!


Check out my latest treasure

He has a broken pane but all that chippy goodness makes up for it!  

One thing I have learned using these sort of sites:
I always ask where the closest public place to meet is.  I don't even care if it is on the curb in front of their house.  I'm just not going inside their home. Ain't gonna happen. 
If it is a larger item I send the hubster to pick it up.  (That sounds kinda mean, I just figure no one will mess with him)


Better safe, than sorry right?  If they wanna sell it, they'll meet you.  


I had the perfect home for this little fella all planned.  We have transom windows above all of our downstairs windows.  Over time the seal on the transom over the kitchen window must have cracked because it has condensation in it all the time. 

As Velma would say, Jinkies!  I don't get out much.


So, I screwed some hooks into the back of my little window and popped it right over the transom!  

Be. Still. My. Heart.
It's the little things, isn't it?

Plus, I'm gonna let you in on a little trick for those pesky "hooks" on the back of pictures that are spaced just so apart.
Put lipstick on the hooks (FYI--this is sis' lipstick. I may not get out much but even I know not to wear sparkly purple lipstick!)

Then when you hold it up to the wall the lipstick will leave marks on the wall that tell you exactly wear to place your screws!

I'm a thinkin' gal! ;) 


Plus you can't imagine how many "oops" screw holes I have had to fill in this house!  Talk about learning the hard way...

P.S.  I'm linking up to these awesome parties!

savvy southern style-wow us wednesdays #60

skip to my lou-made by you monday #94

home stories a to z

Easter Egg Traditions

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When my oldest was just a peanut and we began dying Easter eggs he didn't like hard boiled eggs.  So I would dye raw eggs and use the eggs in cooking or baking.


Then I remembered a really fun tradition I saw a lot of when we lived in South Texas.  Cascarones!  Cascarones are egg shells filled with confetti and broken over people's heads for good luck on Easter morning.  


So I began cutting a  hole in the bottoms of the eggs (each time I needed an egg for baking) and then the kids fill the shells with bird seed using a funnel.   Cover the hole with tissue paper and glue when the egg is done.  You can buy Cascarones at stores like Walmart but I figured, hey, I have the eggs, why not?


As you can tell from the glorious picture below we used to use the traditional confetti but trust me it makes a gawd awful mess, and with bird seed the birdies are happy too.  

As the kids got older I was forced to come up with a second activity (never a dull moment), because each kiddo always has their "favorite" egg that they can't bear to turn into a Cascarone.
So we began turning our favorites  into a diorama egg to display every year.  Here is how:


Step one:
Agonizingly decide which egg is the favorite

Step two:
Spray the dyed egg with a sealant to protect the color, because your fingerprints will lift the color right off the egg.  I use Aleene's sealer (bought it at Michael's), but I'm sure any will do. Oh, and I don't cook with this egg. Because of the sealant this egg just goes down the drain.

Step three:
Cut a hole in the front of the egg.  I have found that a pair of sharp embroidery scissors work best.

Step four: 
Agonizingly choose how to decorate the inside.  We have glitter, glitter glue, little glass animals, flocked Easter bunnies, you name it.  Sister choose these cuties:

Step five:
Hot glue your fingers to egg sustaining multiple burns chicks into egg.  Carefully.


Step six:
Glue ribbon around egg opening.

Step seven:
I always glue a flat bottomed "guy" with a string to the top of the egg as the hanger.  They usually come in a package (I think they are for mini trees) at Michael's or Hobby Lobby.


My mom uses ribbon tied with a knot inside the egg.  That is just more than my blistered fingers can handle.

The kids love going through all their old eggs.  And remembering what their "favorites" were each year

Happy Easter egg dying!

P.S. 
I'm linking up to these awesome parties:


project queen-turning the daunting into the do able #27
skip to my lou- made by you monday #93
savvy southern style-wow us wednesdays #59
home stories a to z-tutorials tip link party #54