College Blues..

Yard sale-ing - one of my favorite sports!  Money in pocket on a Saturday morning and out the door no later than 8:00am - modern day treasure hunting!  Last August I bought this dresser for Bobby's room.  He had been using a completely inadequate dresser that was my husbands before we got married.

This is how I had to bring the dresser home, back door wide open, praying the whole way that it wouldn't slide out!  It cost $25 and is just a decent, full sized,  Broyhill dresser.  It would do nicely, except for the color.

This is the dresser Bobby used for years - "labeled" to help him keep his clothes neat, but mostly his clothes were in piles in his closet...You may also notice the lovely curtains made from sheets -in my defense, we had just moved in and had no idea if we could actually afford our new home and so weren't spending ANY money!

Since Bobby is my Florida baby, I had tried to make his room look tropical.  I decided to "comb" a glaze over the lower half of his walls so it would look like a hut.  Here's the thing about doing paint treatments on your walls;  it changes the surface texture of your wall so if you ever want to paint over it, you will see the lines and bumps and whatever else you did in relief against the new paint.  I never loved the treatment, but we had just moved in and there were bigger fish to fry at the time.

Fast forward to last fall when Bobby left for college, I wanted to surprise him with a new room when he came home and so I spent DAYS sanding that dag-gone "hut" off of his walls.  My hands tingled for about a week after from holding the palm sander!

But I digress, back to the dresser..

I decided to paint it a dark navy blue to match his comforter and, because I already had some nice bronze curtains, I opted to accent the drawer pulls and feet in the same bronze color.

No, that wasn't a typo, I did say I wanted to accent the feet and knobs in bronze, but I love the way red looks under gold or bronze paint - you really can't see it much but it gives it a rich look.

After...

I used Rub N Buff (in the tube on the left side of this photo).  Great product and the name tells you exactly how to use it!

When we brought Bobby up to Clarkson University, I looked through the school store for a poster of the school itself - surprisingly, there was nothing.  So, as we walked around campus, I took photos of the school and of the sculptures they have on the grounds so I could frame them as a focal point over his bed.

I am pretty proud of the way they turned out.  I even added "Clarkson University" to the larger photo before I had it printed out!  Not being much of a techie, this was a huge accomplishment for me!

I painted an accent wall behind his bed in the navy blue as well and the rest of the room is in a nice soft tan.

You can just see a little of the bronze curtains in this shot and I still need to get some nice shams to plump up the bed.

Bobby was so happy with his new room when he came home over Christmas!  Of course, Joey has now asked that I not wait until he leaves home to redo his room!  I guess that is my next big project!

Have a wonderful week everyone!

Craft Day!

Just before the holidays last year, I hosted a craft day with my sister Sandy and my BFF Kimmy.  Everyone brought over whatever project they were working on and we spent the day doing them together while watching "chick flicks" and having a glass or two of wine.  It was a ball so I decided to host another Craft Day last weekend, this time including my other sister, Laura, and two of my nieces, Jenny and Courtney.

I mentioned last week that I just bought a new Cricut machine.  I decided to try it out and monogram some wine glasses.  I used my coupon at Bed Bath and Beyond and bought a box of 12 wine glasses for about $14.  Now to "class" 'em up!

 

The process to make these glasses was actually very easy.  The cartridge that comes with the Cricut (there are many you can buy) actually has the monogram programmed into it.  I had the machine cut out the monogram on self stick vinyl and I just stuck it onto the side of the glass.  Without the machine, you could just print a monogram on your computer, then cut it out using an exacto knife onto the vinyl, which they sell at your local craft store in the Cricut aisle.

I used a product called "Armour Etch" and put it on the part of the glass I wanted to be frosted.  You have to put on a fairly thick coat and let it sit for thirty seconds.  I let it sit about a minute or so to get a really good frosting.

After a minute, I took the glasses over to the deep sink and rinsed them off really well, then I removed the vinyl.  The problem I ran into was that because of the curve of the glass, some of the etching creme oozed under the vinyl in a few places around the circle.  Not terrible, but enough that I decided to hand paint a scroll around the edge of the circle in the etching creme so it looked deliberate and no one could tell there had been an "oopsie"!

Love the result!!

Now here are some of the crafts the ladies made - it seems glassware was a theme even though we didn't talk about it beforehand!

First up, my sister Laura.   She lost one of her beloved dogs unexpectedly and so for her craft, she decided to paint mugs to honor the dogs she's lost over the years.

Now you might need to sit down for this, but this was Laura's SECOND TIME EVER painting - the results are nothing short of astounding! 

My niece Jenny brought a large box of mason jars to paint and to share.  They turned out awesome!

Jenny "glitterizing" a mason jar to use as a tea light holder.  She didn't love the finished product, but I did, I thought it looked beautiful!

Jenny's second mason jar - absolutely adorable!

My sister Sandy painted one of the jars as well - gorgeous and perfect for Valentines Day!

My niece Courtney opted to paint coffee mugs using blackboard paint.  I would have never thought of doing that, but what a great idea!

taping off using masking tape

Sandy also decided to paint some coffee mugs from the set that Laura brought for her dog mugs.  She just "threw" them together...sheesh, my family is so talented!

We've all decided that we need to try and do a Craft Day at least once a month.  We love being together and I think all of us were inspired!

In other news - we are digging out from Winter Storm Pax (when did we start naming winter storms?).  I did another snow"man" and thought I'd share a few photos..stay warm everyone and have a great week!

Can you see the frog?  He has a fly on the end of his tongue...

The fly - it's hard to make snow wings that stay on by the way...:)

Malcolm and More!

Hi Everyone!  First of all, let me introduce you to Malcolm the Rabbit.

Last week I decided to clean out my closet and asked my husband to go through his clothes and pull out anything he doesn't wear anymore.  When I was done, I had three large garbage bags of clothes...Bob had a blue dress shirt.  Sigh.  Well, at least it's something!

The blue dress shirt - pretty color and the front of the shirt and sleeves were still in good shape.

I decided to try another stuffed animal since I am enjoying the process so much and with Easter around the corner, I thought a bunny would be cute.   Malcolm is very imperfect, but I like the rather shy quality I managed to paint on him.  He will go with the others on my ever growing "Island of Misfit Toys" shelf and keep me company in my studio.  

I used the cuff of his shirt to make a collar for Malcolm and finished him off with a daffodil.

Also this week, I pinned this Bulgogi beef recipe from A Spicy Perspective on Pinterest.  Isn't her photo beautiful?

Here's my photo in the wok...I really should take a class!  Tasted delish though and I also made some spicy eggplant and Vietnamese garden rolls to have with it.

Vietnamese Garden Rolls

Spicy Eggplant

I really tried to make the Garden Rolls beautiful but the reality is...

...this is what was left only FIVE minutes after I put them out!  My family eats them like they haven't eaten in days!

Lastly this week, I want to share my new toy with you - a Cricut Expression 2 cutting machine!  I've already started thinking about things to make with it!  The machine comes with a sticky tray to secure paper, vinyl or fabric and you can program very detailed things for the machine to cut into them.  It comes with several books of letters and designs but of course you can buy others.  My only regret is that I thought I would be able to download my own designs into it.  There's another machine that I may have to get if I can't do it on this one.  Still, it's exciting to try another tool!

Hmm, comes with a lot of things to learn and it includes a spatula?

Making my first cut according to the intro directions.

The final result is a very crisp cut - I think this is the start of a beautiful relationship!

Tomorrow I am hosting a craft day with my sister's, my good friend Kim and two of my nieces.  I think I may have to work on learning more about this machine and try a project or two!  Woo hoo!

You Gotta Have Friends!

There are times when I look around me and realize I have surrounded myself with the most amazing group of people in the world!  How is it possible that I can count these gems my friends?  I really am so blessed.

I have no craft post this morning as I took some time to meet up with one of said amazing girlfriends who agreed to talk with me about the business end of running a business, which is definitely not my strong suit.

Rebecca, thank you so much for your advice and wisdom and giving me a hysterical visual in my mind that I will giggle about every time I take a bath!

Have a wonderful week everyone!
Andie