Girly Dresser

This dresser has been passed around in my family for many many years.  I think I'm the third and fifth owner or something like that.  One of my older sisters used it when she was young, and at that time it was just plain wood without any paint or finish.  I could be wrong because when I saw it in that condition I was probably wearing training pants and princess jammies.

So it was passed on to another older sister (yes, there are 5 of us girls) and she was a crafty little kook.  She was always painting her room and stuff.  Anyway she gave this poor little dresser it's first white paint job and added some little cut outs from the wallpaper that had recently been put up to match her room.

It was then passed on to me, who did absolutely nothing with it because I thought the '90's roses and ribbons were the most beautiful things EVER!  And so it stayed for years and years.  Well, last year, Mom called and asked if I wanted "that little old dresser" and, about to have baby #2, I said that I did.

Here's what the old girl looks like now.  As you can see, there is laundry on top and miscellaneous items on the floor.  I told you, I'm real. just because I'm taking a picture doesn't mean I have to clean the entire room and vacuum and all that crap. The picture is fuzzy, the lighting is bad, and I believe that it's also crooked.  I'm no photographer.

Now I've turned into a crafty kook like my sister and wanted to give it a little bit more charm.  I scraped off the wall paper, (btw, sis, it was a chore. Ya really got it on there, didn'tcha?) and gave it a fresh coat of white.  Then, I cut some old brown sheets just big enough to wrap around the front panel of the drawer.  I used a very precise mixture of two different dangerous chemicals that you have to be super smart to mix.  Ok, it was half Elmer's Glue and half water.  And used it as a modge podge.  Next came the green ribbon stems, which I used hot glue just on the ends.  The ribbons are satin and I didn't want to see a squiggly line of glue underneath.  Wherever the stems would pass over the whole for the drawer pull, I cut the ribbons ends in a V shape to leave a whole for the screw.  I was afraid that the screw would....screw up my satin ribbons and fray them.  For the flowers I just cut out some really big circles and folded about two or three of them into fourths for each pedal.  The pink satin has scalloped edges.  I made the butterfly with some more satin ribbon and just stuck it on there with more hot glue, and then got some help from my Daddy-o to screw on some plain wood drawer pulls.  Easy peasy.  That's how I like it.

Today's Project

Okay. so when we originally painted the living room at the front of the house, I wasn't really crazy about the color.  It's basically the color of hot chocolate.  Sounds delicious, I know, but the room is always dark because it has a tiny North facing window and another tiny East facing window with a beautiful view of my fence and my neighbor's siding.  It's dark in there.  I've been trying to think of a way to brighten things up in there for a while but didn't want to bring up re-painting to my hubster because Hot Chocolate was the SECOND color we painted.  Yes. Hot Chocolate went over Pumpkin Puke.  That wasn't the actual name of the color, but that's what we call it and that's what it looked like. 

 So this is what it looked like shortly after getting painted. Not terrible, but not that great either.  I've since added curtains and (random) a piano.

So I had been dealing with the dark and scary living room, and then I found this picture on Pinterest.
http://pinterest.com/pin/159455643028192654/

Loved it. I had been trying to get the circles in the rug incorporated  in the rest of the room. (The curtains have circles all over them but it just wasn't workin' for me)  When I saw this picture, I loved it.  So!  I'm a super cheap-o, and went to Lowe's and bought a little sample of paint for $3. Yes. $3.  And how ironic is it that the color is Cream in my Coffee?? So now we have Hot Chocolate and Coffee Creamer, and if you know my family, the two go together.

Pulled the furniture out, (sorry about the glare in the window. I'm not a photographer) nasty, ugly, plain wall.

My two year old was calling them big eggs.  yep. They do kinda look like big eggs. The first circle was ... I'll admit it... it was kinda scary, but after about this much, it was pretty darn fun. 

 The girls had their own paint brushes and oodles of desire to help. 

So after about an hour or two, we finished.  I had to barricade the kidd-os in the other room while I did the bottom half, which only took about 20 mins.  Don't worry, they had Cheeto's and a movie.

And a few hours later it was all dry and I could move the furniture back.

And here we are! You are lucky that I was able to get the naked child out of the shot. It's a rare occurrence to have one of them completely clothed.  Start to finish in about three hours. I'm not even joking. It was a lot easier than I thought it would be. I thought that I would be fighting with babies and kicking them out but it was actually a lot of fun.  I used my dining bench to stand on for the top half and you can see in the picture above that all three of us were standing in a row on it painting.  We had a great time.  I didn't tell my husband that I would be painting the wall that day and he was surprised to see the living room in all pushed to one side, but loved that paint. So that makes me double happy.  He even screwed the outlet covers back on for me. What a babe.

Well there you have it.  Our day project. I even had time to make some yummy dinner for my cute family. 

I had a few people tell me it looks like a lot of work, and ask me if it was hard.  I will say it one more time- THIS WAS SO EASY! AND FUN! If you are thinking about doing something like this, don't be scared, take pictures and let me see your awesomeness!!

Scrabble, Anyone?

Here it is, my first post.  So the story on this started SERIOUSLY when I was pregnant with my first daughter......almost three years ago. Yeah. I really need to work on getting things done.  But I have kids, so basically nothing gets done around here.  Moving on.  So I was looking for crib bedding and came across this cute picture and loved the wall hanging.  Can't find the picture now. (of course) but it was words like Dream, Baby, Play, Love lined up like a crossword....or Scrabble if you will.  So this was what my idea sprouted from. I made Giant Scrabble pieces and used our names and other words.  

 So I started by cutting some craft blocks (bought em at Walmart) into squares and stained them lightly.  Then my awesome sister did some vinyl lettering for me.

Yes, My carpet has not been vacuumed. Get over it.

My first letter. Awesome I might say...

And all of them laid out on my Yes, NON-vacuumed carpet. Don't judge me.  Now all I need to do is get some boards to mount them on and get them on the wall.  I'll post more pictures on that later.  I know, I know the suspense is killing you, right?  Too bad. I can't get to Lowe's till tomorrow at the earliest so don't go crazy.