My Two Dollar Find

I found this little cast-iron-majig at a garage sale for 2 bucks.

It has two hanging baskets, I would assume for plants.

I gave it a pretty new coat with a some glossy teal spray paint...

Old Windows Make It Snow

I bought these old windows at a local garage sale. I wasn't sure what I wanted to do with them right away, but I had to have them. When December rolled around I had a vision of a white Christmas. Unfortunately, I now live in Northern California. Chances of snow in my backyard...slim (unless I want to throw my butt in the car and drive up to the mountains). So to bring a little bit of that snowy feeling to my home, I decided to put my window finds to use.

I had the vision and my super stud executed it, while I was getting ready to prepare a "breakfast for dinner" feast for our friends. All that is needed is two distressed windows, some fishing line, a few small nails, and sparkly snowflake ornaments in various sizes (we got ours 4 for $1 at Target). Hammer the nails into the top of the window frame, every few inches (on the side that will be against the wall). Tie strings of fishing line to each snowflake, then hang at varied lengths on the nails. Finish by hanging windows on the wall. Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.

Unfortunately, we are renting so we can't paint the walls. But just imagine how amazing the snowflakes would look on a wall painted something other than off-white: charcoal, teal, espresso, red...I could go on and on. When I find time, I will definitely be painting the frames a better color to pop off of the white walls, because white with white on white = no bueno.

Makeover Results: Dresser and Hutch

I finished this months ago and am just now posting. Ryan and I got this piece and at a local antique store (to see what it looked like before click here). I fell in love with it, but we had no place to put it. Then it hit me, I still didn't have a desk for my craft room. Why not use it as a workspace/storage? Brilliant! I absolutely love the way it turned out.

If you look at the before pictures, you can see that it was a lavender color, yuck. I've just never been a fan of pastels, not even at Easter. So I decided to go with a neutral color, a cream. As I said earlier, I had the brilliant idea to sand and paint in 100 degree weather. I just think of it as dual-purpose: refinishing a piece of furniture and sweating out all of the toxins in my body.

I didn't do any heavy sanding or use a primer before painting. I just wiped off all the dust, then got to work painting every little nook and cranny. Which, as you can see, there are a lot! That's part of what I loved about this piece: all of the curves and grooves. Avoiding paint drips from all of these curves and grooves, however, was a major pain in my derrière. After two coats, I didn't like the sheen of the paint, too shiny. So I did a third coat with a flat paint in a slightly darker color, the first being brighter than I thought.

The last step : sanding the edges to give it that antique/shabby chic look. I thought that being outside, in the open air, and sanding by hand (not a big electric sander) wouldn't warrant goggles or a mask. Wrong. A word to the wise, wear goggles at least. Even if you don't see much dust coming off. Your eyes will thank you later.

You want to sand every edge that would be exposed over time to rubbing. The beauty of it is, it doesn't have to be perfect. You want it to look worn and old. All those imperfections give it character.

The original piece was meant to be a vanity/dresser, so there was a mirror on the left. The mirror was broken, which was partly why we got such a good deal. We took the mirror out and Ryan cut a piece of steel to fit the opening. He spray-painted it with a metallic silver and then sealed it. Now, I have a fantastic magnetic board.

I like to use antique teacup saucers as little catch-alls. I also filled the thrift store frames (from my sister's baby shower) with some of my favorite photos. The ribbon holder below was 50% off at Michael's recently, which made me a happy girl. I was finally able to wrangle up all of my ribbon.

Makeover: Lavender Dresser and Hutch

Ryan and I went down to an antique center in Chico called Eighth and Main (it's huge, you should check it out if you're local). I came across this piece and fell in love with it. A few other people were eyeballing it, so I knew I had to jump on it ! I was not so keen on the lavender color, but I was willing to take on the challenge.

We talked the seller down to a pretty good price, since the mirror was broken.