Wall Decor from a Dusty Ol’ Barn

A barn near by my house was about to be torn down, so my awesome friend called me to see if we wanted to go scavenge.  I was totally down for that adventure!  We found a ton of fun things.  But, one thing that was especially great was an old desk filled with old rubber letters.  We think they were for printing or dye cutting.  I also found rad wood frames, tons of old wood, blue painted wood from the side of the house, and crates.

The desk drawers looked like this.  Hundreds of letters.

I wanted to do something fun with them.   I started to play around and this is what we came up with.

I used the back of the crates, wood frames, and hot glue to put it all together.  It made for some awesome 3D art work on my walls!

I am in love with the end products.

You never know what you might find in an old rusty dirty dusty barn

I have a few of these made into prints that you can download to your computer and print for FREE!

Check those out HERE.

Also I am linking up to East Coast Creative’s linky party.

Check that out!

Shared Boy/Girl Room

When sweet little number 3 came along, I wanted her to be in her own room.   I wanted to put the kids who where on the same sleep scheduled in the same room.  That way there would be less waking me up!  And I felt little Ruby Lou would be safer if she didn’t have a loving sibling trying to give her an extra blanket or stuffed animal.  So, my only solution was to put the two oldest in the same room.    How do I decorate a boy/girl room without it being too masculine or too famine?!   I decided I would start with fabric and go from there.  After a fabric hunt I found my base for the room colors.  (Which are the drapes)   My mom and dad sent down my old bed frames from Washington and I painted them a color from the drapes.  And I went from there…

Here are some pictures.  I will post more info on the art and other tidbits around the room later.  I am doing the reveal first hahaha….

My friend (who has a super cute house and blog, click HERE for The Rooster and The Hen) gave me the idea to paint the beds this teal color, pulled from the drapery fabric.

To see how I painted the beds Click HERE

-The room looked like this before-

-At first I tried to go this route-

It just wasn’t working for me.

So I changed it up!

I took some pictures of my midgets to put up in their room.  Bought the shelves from Ikea and painted them yellow.  And made some art to put up.  They helped me make the “Every freckle on my face is where it’s supposed to be.” quote art work.  And they had a blast.  I’ll post pictures of that later

(Quote from and India Arie song.  Love her songs!)

Now don’t worry, these are not really hanging from the rope.  I have earthquake wall hooks on the back, these babes are not going any where!  Safety first!!

I made these out silhouettes of plywood and paint that I had in the garage.  I watered down my paint and sanded after I painted to give these a distressed look.  I added the rope and make the “faux” mustard yellow wall hooks.   Pretty dang cute I think!

I put up these picture boards, I had them laying around the house.  I want to have lots of pictures around my house

and I knew my kids would think this was super cool.  It is up pretty high so they can’t reach the tacks.  

I have been seeing all those cute “Read” signs on Pinterest and wanted to do one similar.

But, I didn’t want it to seem like I was demanding someone to read, lol, so I added the “we love 2″ part.

The heart is from the top of a cardboard box near the letters at  Hobby Lobby.

By the way!  I do not recommend these Ikea spice racks for book shelves.  The books fall off all the time.

The “animal cage” as we like to call it was built by little ol’ me!

I didn’t know what to do with all the stuffed animals my kids have.   I had them pick out some to donate, I was sneaky and got rid of a few, but they still had so many.

So I thought up the idea for this bin.  I measured they space under the books and made this one morning while my kids where at school.   I will share that tutorial soon too.

I love it!  And it cost me about $8 or less.

I thought a lot about bedding for this room.  That was probably the hardest part.  I looked everywhere!  I bought a few different things, tried them and sent them back.  I ended up going with these from the Land of Nod.  They were both on sale for about $25 bucks each.   It was my husbands idea to do a blue and a pink.  I love how it all came together.

How I Paint Furniture

I have been asked a lot lately how I paint furniture pieces.   I depending on the piece or the look I am after I will do a few things differently.  But! Overall this is what I do and what I use.  My secrets spilled to you.

I just re-did two twin beds I am putting in my son and daughters new shared room.  These where mine and my sisters bed when we were little.  They were also my great grandparents beds back in the day when a husband and wife actually slept in separate beds.  CRAZY! Crazy that people slept in different beds and crazy that these beds are THAT old and still as sturdy and solid.  My mom passed these down to me about 2 years ago and I have been hemming and hawing what to do with them since.  Well, now that I have a new baby coming and I decided to put the two older kids in the same room, I decided to paint them!

NOTE- Everyone has their own way of painting furniture.  This is what I like to do.  You will find what works for you through trial and error.

First things first! I usually don’t sand, UNLESS!

Here are my reasons to sand

1. The varnish or paint is already chipping.

2. There are uneven spots or scratches in the wood.

3.  If the piece is super glossy.  I will go over it a tiny bit with 120 grit sand paper.  But, just a little.  Lets not tire our selves out too much!

4.  I want a distressed finished look with wood showing through; but the piece already has been painted and I don’t want to see that paint.  I will then sand certain parts of the piece and create a map as to where those are.  I then will sand, paint, sand those spots again, paint again, sand again just on those spots.

I no longer strip or sand entire pieces.  I would ONLY do that if I was going to stain a piece.

In this case, I had carved my name in a few places on the bed frame when I was little. (sorry mom and dad)

So I sanded a little in those spots

Another first to think about! Brushes!

I use a foam brush when I am not spraying.  A foam brush will help eliminate brush strokes.  If I want my piece to look more aged I will use a regular wall brush like when I painted the Blue Hutch.  Click on link HERE to check that out.

But, buy some foam brushes!  And I also use a product called Flotrol.  It comes in an orange bottle, I know there is a pic of it somewhere on my blog.  It gets added to your paint to also help your paint flatten out and smooths away brush strokes.

After fixing my little carving mess.  I primed.  This is usually where I start.

I prime with Gripper Primer. You can have the paint people tint it if you want or buy it in grey or white.  I have tried about 4 other brands and this is by far my favorite and what I consider to be the best if you don’t want to sand and want your paint to stick and not chip or scratch off.

I do one coat of primer. See here that it is not perfect coat by any means.  The point of sanding or priming is to give your paint something to stick to.  All you need a basic coat of primer.

Then I paint a first coat.

And usually a second

Maybe a third if it needs it.  But, two usually covers it for me.

Paint! I like to use regular ol’ latex paint from Home Depot or Lowes.   Milk paint is really the best stuff you can use, but it’s more pricey and hard to find sometimes.  I buy my paint in flat, eggshell, or satin.

I distressed this bed with 120 and 100 sand paper on a sanding block.

Colors in these pictures are totally off, sorry.

How I finish a piece! I almost always use Minwax Finishing Wax.  It is easy to use and I like the end result.  I find it lasts longer than most of the polyacrylics and polyurethanes I have tried.  But, occasionally I use those too.  Depends on the look I am trying to achieve.  If using a poly-whatever make sure it says does not yellow.  Some of them do, pretty quickly and it is really annoying.  NOTE! Use water based paint, use a water based top coat – Use oil paint, use oil top coat.  Don’t mix and match.

Good luck!! Some of my favorite pieces where total mess ups or experiments.  So, be fearless and just go for it!

You can do it

-TO RECAP-

Sand only if you must.  Invest in foam brushes.  Buy a lovely latex paint in eggshell or satin finish.  Prime with Gripper Primer.  Paint 1-3 coats of paint.  Distress, glaze, or antique after 2nd or 3rd coat.  Finish with a wax, polyacrylic, or polyurethane that won’t yellow.  Enjoy your hard work and beautiful piece.

Please leave me a comment or Pin me on Pinterest!

Hopefully soon I will be updating my blog with fancy pinning buttons and an easier way to comment

THANKS FOR READING!

STAY TUNED FOR THE COMPLETE BOY/GIRL SHARED ROOM MAKEOVER.  It’s going to be CUTE!

Building a Rad Sand Box Tutorial

My back yard was BO-RING!  My poor kids were wandering the yard with nothing to do except dig in our garden, which wasn’t working out while we were trying to plant it.  So! I told the hubs I was going to build a sand box.  He gave me the “Okay…you sure?-you’re 7 months pregnant-how much is required of me to help-face”  I think he didn’t really think I would do it…until I showed up with a bunch of wood in the back of my Tahoe one afternoon!  hehe…. I’M CRAFTY! (in a few ways, sneaky being one of them )

I know people think I am crazy building a sand box for my kiddos at 7.5 months prego.  I know the guy at Home Depot that I commandeered to help my pregnant self, took a few glances at my growing belly, my 2 year old, and 4 year old in tow; and must have thought I was totally nuts.  But! I am a doer and you just can’t stop me. muuhuhahaha!!!

Here’s how I built the box o’sand that has made my kids super happy.  I hope you can enjoy the smiles this will bring your kids too.

You will need:

3 1″x10″x8′ wood boards – cut 6 pieces to 4 ft each

2 2″x10″x10′ wood boards – cut 2 pieces to 55″ each and the other 2 pieces to 43 1/2″

1 1″x3″x5′ wood board – cut 4 pieces to 15″

A drill

A miter saw

A sander to fix rough edges after cutting

Paint and brushes

8 galvanized hinges

2 galvanized handles

exterior screws- two sizes.  2 1/2 inches long and 1 1/4 inches long

and of course SAND!

We bought our sand for $12 – for a half yard at a local nursery that sells “play ground sand.”  We used a little more than 1/4 of a yard in our box.  So we spent about 7 dollars on sand to fill this bad boy.  DON’T BUY THE BAGS AT HOME DEPOT/LOWES~ IT WILL COST A FORTUNE! Call around to local nurseries or places that sell mulch etc.  and ask for “PLAY GROUND SAND.”  You will spend WAY less moolaa.

Also ladies! If you do not own a truck or don’t have it that day or the wood is just too long for your car OR!! You do not own a saw OR are uncomfortable using a saw ASK SOMEONE IN THE LUMBER DEPARTMENT TO CUT IT FOR YOU!  They will do it for free.  Bring your measurements with you and tell them what and how you want it cut. One less step for you to do if you want.

AFTER I CUT THE WOOD.

(actually for safety reasons I had my husband cut the wood.  My prego belly sticks out too far and made us both a little nervous.)

I then painted it all.

I used a regular latex paint I had laying around.  I had looked at stains and outdoor paints, but the man at the counter said that what I had would work great.  And we did use this same paint on our chicken coop last year and it has held up great through the Utah winter and summer.  I felt good about it and went with it.

The next day I assembled my sand box.  I screwed the 4 bottom box pieces together.  The 2 2″x10″x10′ wood boards – cut 2 pieces to 55″ each and the other 2 pieces to 43 1/2″.  The shorter piece goes inside of the longer pieces.  As shown in this picture below. I drilled pilot holes in all of my wood pieces before putting in the screws.  This helps to prevent the wood from cracking when drilling the screws in. (Just in-case you are not a wood building specialist)

I drilled three holes evenly spaced along the outside of each of the four corners to connect my box together.   I used my 2 1/2 screws here.  Now if you didn’t care about the top part, technically you could stop here.

You would have a box to put sand in.  Hey, it would cost you less and be super simple.  But! Let’s move on to the top piece anyway, that’s the cool part.  And really it is not hard!

You can do it!!!!

After the box was screwed together, I then worked on the top boards.  Start with three of the six 4ft long boards.  Put two hinges on two of the boards.

I did not need to drill pilot holes for these.

Then I flipped those two boards over and screwed in the other two hinges.

Then screwed two of the four 1×3x15″ boards on to the back like in the above picture.  Use the 1 1/4 inch screws for this.  Only screw that 15inch board to the 3rd board.  The 1st board shown in this picture will be the board that gets screwed down to the base/bottom box that you already assembled.  The other two pieces need to move freely.  (You can see the other hinge hiding on the other side of the boards if you look closely).

It should bend like this when you have finished.

Repeat these same steps with the other three 4ft long boards.

Once you have done that, you are ready to screw the top onto the base.   Again, use the 1 1/4 screws for this part.

We laid out both of our three board hinged pieces and attached the two end pieces to the base.   We drilled pilot holes and then screwed in 3 screws long the side as shown above.  The we drilled another 3 evenly spaced screws along the back of the board as shown below.

LAST STEP!  Now add the handles.   We screw one on each of the middle boards that the 15inch board is also screwed to.  We screwed ours in horizontal, hoping it would be easy for the kids to open.  And it is!

Before adding the sand it might be good to lay down some type of breathable fabric to help the sand stay in the box.  That’s up to you.

Your done!!!

Fill with sand, toys, and miniature people to play.  Waalaa.  Another Saturday project checked off the list!!

Please leave me comments and/or Pin this on Pinterest!

I love to hear from my readers!!

USA Plaque

I made these fun USA and I (Heart) U plaques the same way I did the BOO Plaques I made a few years ago.   I made the I HEART U one for my soon to be baby girls room. (Pictures of her room to come!)

Tutorial can be found HERE for how I made these.

I used my Cricut to cut out the stencils for the letters.

I hope you have fun this 4th!  FYI the Fourth of July is like a party every night in Utah  FIREWORKS!!! YAY!

Building an Ottoman

I keep seeing all these cute ottomans in adorable fabrics and I WANT THEM!  So, I decided, “Hey! I can do that!  I am soo crafty with my bad self, how hard can it be?!”  Well my fine friends.  It is NOT THAT HARD! YOOOU CAAN DOOO IT TOO!

Here’s how I made this fun little one for my front entry way.  I am planning on a much larger one for my living room in the near future.  So stay tuned for that bad boy.  I already bought the fabric and am super excited.

I bought this round wood piece of wood at Lowes for about $7.  Home Depots are different, not as good for this type of project and are MUCH more expensive (FYI).

I measured to the center and drilled a whole first, because I knew I wanted to add a big button in the middle later on.

I bought this foam from Home Depot, they have it at random times through the year.  It is $20 for a huge piece.  You could make a few ottomans with the size it is.  It is 3inches.  This stuff is much more pricey at JoAnn’s or any other craft store, so this is a good deal.   Great for seat cushions on a bench or something too.

I traced a circle and cut out the foam with my ceramic knife.  Any smooth super sharp knife or razor blade will work. Then I used a permanent spray adhesive to attach my foam to my board.  I also cut two different layers of quilt batting and sprayed that on too.

I glue it all down and then cut my fabric circle.

I did not glue the top fabric.  I used my staple gun, pulling my fabric tight! and stapling it all the way around.  I tried to make sure that the pleats of my fabric where only on the bottom and wouldn’t show around the sides.  This would be much easier if it was square, but it worked out.

I have an electric staple gun and one that uses an air compressor, I used both.  But the electric one would have been fine.

After that I put my button on, this was tricky because I didn’t have a very long needle.  You will need a really long needle! You can read here to see more about putting buttons on furniture.  CLICK HERE TO GO TO BUTTON TUTORIAL

After my button was on nice and tight, I cut and glued a cover over all my staples and ugliness underneath.  You can buy this black chair under cover stuff from JoAnn’s or any craft store.  I can’t remember what it is called at the moment, but it will be in the upholstery section.

I then drilled holes for my freshly painted high gloss blue legs.  So cute! And screwed them in to the bottom.

I hot glued down the cover fabric and waalaa! Done!

This would be rad with a cowhide too.  Oh the possibilities!

GO ON NOW!

AND!!!

Photography Backdrop

For all you amateur photographers and momtographers out there- You will love this!

I hope it helps you take some fun pictures this holiday season

I was asked to take some indoor photos the other day, since it is FREEZING!! here in Utah lol!  So… I needed a backdrop!   I was mulling over how I was going to make this work and decided I needed to make a PVC pipe frame to hang some fabric from.  I have tons of upholstery fabric laying around from projects I have not yet done  It was nice to finally use it for something.  Turns out thick upholstery fabric makes for a really good backdrop.  And, I got all the PVC pipe I needed for about 3 dollars.

I used 3/4 inch PVC pipe, 2 elbow joints, and 4 T joints.  The two cross pieces are 50 inches long.  The pieces going up the sides are 24 inches long and the bottom pieces helping it to stand are 12 inches long.  This was a great size for little people and 54in wide fabric worked perfectly, but it you need to make this bigger I would use 1in or bigger PVC pipe to make it stronger.

Then how to hang the fabric?  I didn’t want to do anything to the fabric, in-case I did get around to those projects.  Clothes pins?  Curtain clips?  Clamps!  I thought about running to the store for one of those first two things, then I saw the hubs box of clamps in the garage.  Waa laa problem solved!

Here is the finished product- I am pretty pleased how it worked out And I can take it apart and store it for another day.  It doesn’t take up much room, perfect!

I put it in front of a big window for natural light.

Here are the pictures from the shoot that day.  ADORABLE kids!

I am SOO glad it worked out!

We then went outside for a few minutes against the brick on my house.  Use what you got!

I love babies that are sad, but just can’t help but smile when someone smiles at them.  This kid was SOO cute! Such a smiley guy

What a pouty lip!  He was so done, but kept smiling for us.  What a sweet boy.

Making a Table- The Process

I really really wanted a new dinning room table when we moved.  But, a few things kept taking priority over buying a new table.  Espeacially since the tables I liked where around 1500 to 3000 bucks.  hmmm…. Dev (the hubs) wasn’t really feeling that.  So for my b-day he told me he would make one before Thanksgiving.

Uh… he has never made a table before!  What to do… Thinking thinking.  I started to cut out pictures and read blogs about what I wanted.  Then like a present the Lowes project magazine came in the mail with instructions on how to build a table.  It didn’t look to hard.

We went and bought all the wood a week later.

This table from Crate and Barrel is one I have had my eye on for years.  We modeled our table after it.

I told Dev that if we were going to build our own table I wanted to do it for under $100.  And! I wanted it to fit 10 people.  He liked my challenge.

We bought pine 2×6 x8 boards for the top

2×4 for the ends of the top and the frame

4×4’s for the legs

We did a few things differently than the Lowe’s directions.  But, it helped to have an idea of how to start.  Mostly we used the directions for the frame (which I’ll share below).  We wanted the table top to be seamless.  So instead of the Lowe’s way, we changed it up a bit.  We started by trimming up the sides of the 2×6’s to make them flat.  2×6’s from the store are slightly curved.

After cutting those we used a biscuit joiner to cut into the sides of the wood.  We put biscuits and wood glue between the boards and clamped them together, adding one  board at a time.  The table was large so we used pipe clamps to hold it all together.

We planed the ends then put the end board on using a router to cut a tongue and groove joint.  Then glued it and clamped it again with the pipe clamps.

We then used our hand planer to smooth/even out the top.  After that was done we used 100 grit sand paper on the electric sander to smooth it out more.  Ideally you would want to use a planer and run each board through it before starting to put the top together.  OR! You could put the top all together and find a cabinet maker who would let you run the entire piece through one of their large industrial planers.

While the glue was hardening we picked out stains.  I wanted a beachy farm house table feel.  So we decided to do a gray stain with a white wash over the top.

Here is a link to the Lowe’s table directions that we used for the frame. Click HERE

We flipped the top upside down and started building the frame right on to it.

We used a pocket hole jig to join the top to the frame.

We changed the placement of the legs and moved ours to the edge of the table top,  and secured them with lag screws.  We inset only the apron piece.

Then we flipped it back over and filled some of the knots and holes with stainable wood filler.

You should probably use gloves here….oops

After that was dry we sanded the entire piece with 220 grit sand paper.

Before staining the table, we prepped it with Minwax Pre-Stain Wood Conditioner.  This helps a lot!!  It helps you get an even stain, avoiding ugly blotches.

I then stained it with a weathered oak stain.

After that was dry I went over it with a white wash.

To finish the table we applied 4 coats of a water based polyurethane.

We built a solid table for under $100 dollars in less than a week.  AND! It seats 10 people.

We already have plans to build another one! Ha, I know, we are crazy.  But, we had a ton of fun doing this project together.  I love my man.

This table might be for sale soon, if you want it let me know

The next table will have turned legs, with a darker stained top and painted legs.  I am excited to do it again  Stay tuned for that one sometime in January 2012!

Please leave me some comment love!