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Bathroom remodel reveal!

Wreath Redo and How-to!

I got the idea for this wreath (Insert Picture of finished wreath)

somewhere on blog land.  I know it is one of the blogs that I follow but I am not sure which one. 

Anyway it was super easy and super cheap, but very (and I mean VERY) time consuming.  This would be a good project if you were on a long car ride, or had some extra time to kill. 

Here is the how-to for the paper wreath up-cycle.

Supplies to make the 'flowers:

Old dictionary style book (it needs to have the pages filled with words to look the best)

Box Cutter

Large Flower Punch

Brown Stamp ink (I had two different colors)

All you need to do is punch the flowers out of the book pages. I found I could get the most out of the pages if I cut them off of the binding with a box cutter.

Oh and a quick little tip for the punch.  If it starts to freeze up, just take a piece of wax paper and pump the punch a few times.  The wax paper will lubricate the sides of the punch and prevent it from sticking.

After all of the flowers were cut out, I 'swiped' just the edges in the ink. I tried to alternate between the two colors for a really antiqued look.

(Insert Picture)

Then I took a wreath that was given to me a few years ago at Christmas time.  It got a little smashed in storage..as you can tell.  It just looked like a lump of red.

I removed all of the plastic balls and flowers.  Which left just the base. 

I would have just bought a new Styrofoam wreath, but 1. I couldn't find one that wasn't ginormous and 2. they were like $10.  I didn't want to spend anymore than I had already invested into this project.  Which was $27 (and that included a new hot glue gun). 

The cost break down will come later. 

Back to the pictures.

After hot gluing it back together 

I wrapped it with some off white satin binding.  It was waaaay cheaper than ribbon. 

I hot glued as I went to make sure that it was secure.

Much better. No?

Now it's time to attach those flowers!

Really the idea behind this thing is like what you would have done in grade school art class.  You crinkle up a piece of paper and glue it really close to the last one, which give it that tufted look.

I found the easiest way to do this is to wrap the paper flower around the eraser of a pencil. 

Then add a dab of hot glue, you really don't need much, then (with the paper still wrapped on the end of the pencil) stick it to the wreath. 

This is what it will look like when you first start.

Then this is what it will look like after about three hours....yea, told you it took a very VERY long time.

Then this is what it will look like after about 9 hours worth of hot gluing.... 

(finished picture)

But it was totally worth it! I love the finished product.  Of course you can use a lot less flowers than I did.  But that's the look that I wanted. 

Ok as far as cost goes....

Book: $1

Flower punch: $1 (bought on a garage sale)

Wreath: Free

Hot Glue Gun: $20 (but it can be used on other projects...so I won't really count the cost)

Box Cutter: Free, stolen from my mom's house

Ink: Free, also stolen from my mom's house

Satin Binding:  Joann's for like $4

So total cost of this project (minus glue gun) was a whopping $6. 

Yea, 9 hours was totally worth $6.  :)

Pretty Silver!

So here are some more pretty silver pieces to accompany last week's post. 

These are different silver plated items that I have acquired from different estates and auctions. 

Here is a picture of the condition of a silver pitcher I got from an online auction.

Yuck, huh?  But the good news is I only paid 3 bucks for this, another silver 'Revere' style bowl, and a whole big box of other silver looking items...I just know they will come in handy one day. 
Hopefully.

Here they are soaking in a homemade silver cleaner!  This is what I like to call Kitchen Chemistry. 

Which is my favorite, by the way!

Anyway, what you will need is:

baking soda,

table salt,

hot water,

aluminum kitchen foil,

some kind of baking dish or basin to put everything in (I just used my kitchen sink)

Here is what you do:

1. Fit your container (sink or other wise) with a piece of aluminum foil, making sure that it touches both sides of the container. 

2. Fill with hot water. 

3. Then put equal parts salt and soda in the container.

4. Place silver items in the container.  You will smell a slight metallic smell and see the bubbles from the reaction. Look at the pictures, that is why the water looks cloudy.

6. If your container is not big enough to submerge the piece completely, then turn after about five minutes.  You may have to repeat if they are really bad, like mine were.

5. Remove your pieces and buff with a clean and dry rag. 

And when you are done you will have cleaned silver without the harsh chemicals and little to no elbow grease!

Look how shiny they are...and this is all without scrubbing and no harmful chemicals. 

Then (because it was night time) I grabbed a flashlight and went to get some flowers to put in my newly cleaned silver pitcher!  And yes, my husband did think that I was crazy.

But doesn't it just look great on my window sill?

I love fall!

Satin Nickel Spray Paint

Whoever knew there would be such a thing...but there is and I painted the heck of it!

See for yourself...

Here is the ugly lamp that I had gotten off of an online auction last month.  

Don't you just love the shape?  

 

Well, I wanted it to be a pretty silver color.  So I had read a few places on blog land that some people had used the Blue Magic metal polish stuff...well it didn't work for me.  It just turned my copper boiler black (which I actually kinda like because it is on the inside, it makes it look old and used), make the ugly dull brass a ugly shiny brass. 

So I did what any self respecting crafter would do!  I turned to spray paint! 

Not exactly what I wanted, it looks a little fakey...but it was better once it dried. 

Here is a picture of this thing.  To be honest I don't really know what it was for or what it is called. But I am planning on putting either blankets or towels in it. 

Before

After 

So for about ($1 for lamp+$2 for blanket holder thingy+$4 for spray paint) $7 I have some new silver pretties to display when I get my room together!

Oh and here are the knobs to a $15 wall cabinet that I got from the Salvation Army...the cabinet is not finished yet...well actually the only thing that I have done to it is remove the hardware, painted them  and removed the doors. 

That project will be posted at a later date....or when I finish it. 

It Starts....

I have decided to get off of my lazy butt and start (and hopefully finish) some of these projects that I have been dreaming about. 

So this weekend it all started.  What pushed me to start?  Well we are trying to sell our house and we had a call from a realtor to 'showcase' (whatever that means) twice on Saturday...well we unfortunately had to turn her down because my Oma passed away.  For those of you who are not German, it's my grandmother (on my mother's side).  Although it was not unexpected, it was a difficult weekend.  So a distraction of the crafting and DIY-ing persuasion was welcome.  Actually my mom is coming over on Tuesday to help stencil the back room (more details to come!)

Here is a list of what I did on Saturday from 2pm on  and all day on Sunday.  Are you ready?

Saturday:
2-3:30p- collected supplies from the parents house
4-6p- did some shopping in town @ The Home Depot, Walmart, and Aldi.  The Home Depot should really be called the Intimidation Station..I mean really I never go here and holy crap there is just to much stuff.  Luckily the workers are very nice and helpful.

6:30ish- got home, put groceries away, ate a quick dinner, clean our messy kitty's room, painted said kitty room (which is actually a half bath), and did laundry and made it to bed by 11ish.

Sunday:

7:30a- woke up and made the E monster pancakes and sausage
8a-11:30a- Put another coat of paint on the back bathroom.  Spray painted...A LOT, picked up and started to glaze a mirror...I also ripped apart an old interior design picture because I wanted the frame.
Noon- Lunch at the hubby's grandma's house.  This is just about an every Sunday tradition.
2-3:30p- Spray Painted more and picked up a bit. 

3:30-6p- I have been reading this blog Make 5 Dinners in ONE Hour and it has had me really intrigued.  So I tried it.  Mainly because I had 3lbs of hamburger that I needed to split up...so why not just make the meals they will be used for?  So I made Meatloaf and mashed red potatoes and gravy, beef stroganoff, and hamburgers, and chicken stir-fry.  Now they are not complete meals like I still need to make noodles and rice but I am pretty excited that I am done cooking for the week and now I will be able to getting our house in viewing condition.  Oh yea I also made these killer muffins from King Arthur Flour. 

They are soo good!  I just them to make chocolate chip muffins...just add chocolate chips (I use milk chocolate) to taste and a few table spoons of water...because the baked muffins will get quite dry in 3 days.

I am really tired today...but I will have a whole bunch of cool before and afters to post this week.  I am pretty excited about it. 

Just wait for the fun coming up!

Diversifying my Handiness Portfolio.

I really think that my husband needs to make more money so I can stay at home and diversify my handiness portfolio.  Your thinking what the heck? Right?  Well after looking at the million bazillion trillion websites that are about DIY-ifiying your home.  I am totally obsessed, and not only that I am seeing AMAZING projects that I know I could do.  Well ok, may be not do well but defiantly do. 

But if I could become a stay at home mommy and wifey then I could get some practice with baking super cute desserts, doing crafty decorations, up-cycling old crappy furniture, and the whole slew of other things that I would like to do that keep me up at night. 

Well actually I have a few projects up my little slevies, muhahaha (evil laugh).  We actually the way these projects excite me it should really sound like EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! (Better? No?)

I need to get some pictures up...well I should say I need to charge my camera(s) so that I can take some pictures of my projects before I start them.  You can see some of them in the previous post.  But I have a bit of a surprise, I conned/quilted the hubby into getting me the coolest buffet ever!  Accept the truth of the matter is I am a little intimidated to get into the whole redoing/up-cycling thing.

I know this piece has great potential but I have never done a project like this and I don't really want to mess it up.  I should just go for it right?  The perfectionist in me says that I will never get it to look like this from Better After. 

I mean look at that!  Isn't that awesome! OMG! Can I fake an illness so I can skip work to begin the beautiful transformation that I have in mind?

Ok, I'll stop obsessing over what I don't have time to do right now.  But I will get pictures posted sometime soon! 

I think these projects really need to be started soon, if not I do not see much sleep in my future.

I want to be DIY and design queen!

So after hours to trolling the depths of the interwebs, I have found my new calling:

DIY designing my home. 


I know, it seems like a really silly thing to be excited about.  But the thing is I am really super excited about my self assigned projects.  It was pretty hard not to after looking at websites like this one Centsational Girl.  And there are like 500 million of these blogs out there. Oh after looking at them, it really makes me drool and anticipate the next free weekend that I have to start some of these projects!


So here is a short run down of the things that I plan on doing (and spending under $100)


1.  Framing the mirrors in the bathrooms.
     
     This one may be a little tricky, but what I am planning on doing is gluing the mirrors to the wall, then gluing a baseboard frame to the mirrors (after they are painted white of course).  Hopefully they will look a little more finished than they are now.


2.  Painting the bathroom vanity white.


     This one is still up for debate.  I would like to do it.  I think that it would really finish off the room and the feel better than the laminate wood color that it is now...or maybe I should try staining it a dark mahogany color.  Well at any rate I would like to change the color.


3.  Yard Sale and Restore decorating.


     There were tons of ideas on those websites that I have been obsessed with for the last few days.  There are somethings that I would have never thought about.  Like taking frames (or making if you are savvy with power tools, which I am not) and wrapping them with yarn.  I know it sounds kinda funky but it looks really cool.  And I also realized that you can paint ANYTHING.  Seriously. 


4.  Repainting/Upgrading Laminate bookcases and TV stand


    We were given some really nice bookcases a while ago.  The only bad thing is that they are laminate wood, and pretty ugly.  So I plan to paint a few of them and see how they turn out.  And I plan on having a friend who is good with wood working help me to transform the TV stand into something a little more substantial than it is now.  And paint that black too!


Oh man do I have a TON of stuff to do, I am soo excited!

Ode To Twilight.

Aww Twilight let me count the ways...

This is the second time that I have read this series, however this time seems different. I first read it last year or so, just as the last book was coming out (just before the movie release). At first I liked it ok...the main female character (Bella) was a little neurotic, and obsessive. But unfortunately she became worse as the series progressed. I was very annoyed with Bella by the end of the 3rd book. She was totally needy and obsessive with Edward (her male counter part and love interest). Yea ok, Edward talked about how much he adored her, but good god. But I was not annoyed enough to stop reading the saga...

Then a few weeks ago I watched the second movie. Let me just say....100 times better than the first movie. I don't know if there was just more action to work with in the second book...but the actors (well RPattz was at least...still don't really like K. Stewart for Bella) did a better job at portraying the characters too.

After talking (a lot) about the movie and books to a friend...she told me about how the author (Stephanie Meyer) was planning on writing the books from Edwards point of view. Unfortunately someone 'illegally' leaked the unfinished manuscript for the book online. Curious, I read it. This manuscript, Midnight Sun, really changed my whole perspective of the saga. Even though it is only a small time frame within the story line (like 2 or 3 months out of 3 years), it really helps to understand the draw that Edward has for Bella. Which makes Bella seem not so crazy stalkerish.

I really hope that Meyer continues the saga from Edward's point of view. For that matter, a combination of the two perspectives would have made the first movie AMAZING. But you know how hindsight is...

I will say that after reading Midnight Sun re-reading the Twilight saga; there are clues and hints that Meyer has been planning on writing the saga from Edward's vantage point. Little things in the book that I didn't not pick up on, but now that I have read it; it is very clear that was her plan all along. Which she really should continue, it would provide a lot of closure and answers for the fans.

And let's hope that the third movie (coming out the end of this month) stands up the expectation.

Here's to a great gulity pleasure!

How Time Flies

I cannot believe that it has already been 2 weeks since Eli has turned 4. I want him stay my little monkey forever. But, it seems that the harder I wish him to stay a little boy, the faster he grows.

Recently we had a doctors appointment and he is 3 feet 5 inches. He is in the 63 percentile for height among kids his age. Meaning, if there are 100, 4 yr old's he will be taller than 63 of them...I would consider this to be pretty average or at least on track for his growth rate.

Then I got to thinking, he is more than half as tall as I am (I'm 5'5"), and Christopher for that matter (Christopher is 6' 2"). If he keeps up this growth rate he will be taller than me when he is 8. And to top it all off he will be starting pre-school in Sept. Where has this year gone...seriously! I remember as a kid when the summer was never ending. Summer seemed to last a year! And now, next thing I know my baby is a little man.

I don't know who his first day of pre-school will be harder on, me or Eli.

Weekend Warriors

After cleaning the bathroom last week I noticed that the linoleum was discolored and there is always a new ring of nasty grime (unusually nasty) around the bottom of the potty on the floor. Well this lead to a weekend bathroom renovation, and good thing too. We found out that the toilet was leaking.

So we got a new toilet, a white one to replace the 'bisque' toilet. New flooring, epoxied the tub and surround white (which was 'bisque' also), and I ended up painting too, for good measure.

This is the before...

During.....

Notice the lovely water stain on the floor

After....

For about $300 we have a brand new bathroom.

Eli was pretty eager to help mommy paint,

Wearing my safety glasses.

All in all it was a pretty productive weekend. I still need to do some decorating but it's really nice to get rid of that nasty toilet and have a 'new' bathtub. There are a few cute antique stores in Covington that I'm going to check out for a shelf/medicine cabinet. And I am planning on framing the mirror to give it a more finished look. Lights might be next...there are a million things that I want to change about this house, Christopher has a pretty long 'honey-do' list.

The Day's Good Deed.

OK, so I have already told this story like 50 times, and so I don't have to tell it another 50 times I'll just have people check the blog...good idea? No, well anyway...



On Monday I was helping our HSE (health, safety, and environmental) Manager take some site pictures. These are pictures for the local fire/disaster teams in case we have an accident or a chemical spill. Here is what we came up with.

Totally had to climb on the roof to get this one.

Anyway, we were walking around the rest of the site taking pictures, and over on the South end of the property there is this large concrete vault. It is about 30' x 30' and about 35-40' deep. To give you an idea of how big this vault is, it used to house 2-15,000 gallon tanks that were submereged under water, there was about 8' of water covering the top of the tanks. Over the last year they have had to remove the tanks that were stored here. Right now it is pretty much a large hole in the ground. But I had not seen the vault empty so, we walked over.

Bill, the HSE manager, says "Oh my God. There is a dog in here."

I look over the edge and see this:

This poor stray dog was in the bottom of this containment! Oh and there is about 2-3 feet of water and half of it is frozen. Luckily we walked out there before too much time had passed, then we would have come across a completely different scene.

We were able to safely get him out of there, and one of the operators took him home. It was a happy ending for this very lucky pup.

The First of Many

This is the first official post since I created this blog. It has been a little difficult finding the time to post since I do not have internet at home. Like I keep telling Christopher, there is no way that I am signing off on spending $70 a month so he can get on facebook and cubs.com.

Things have been pretty busy with cheerleading, family, and work. Last weekend the RTHS competition squad competed at ICCA Championships (it's like state) in Springfield. We did OK, not our best performance, but it is the learning experience that is important. And what I have learned is, that we are not going to compete next year, lol. There is only about another week and a half left of basketball season. I am really looking forward to the break.

Eli is growing up incredibly fast. He is almost 4 (in May) going on 15. He is such a thoughtful and caring little boy. I am not just saying that because he is my baby. For instance, last night I had a JV/Varsity home game against BCC and Christopher who was home with Eli, called and told me that he found Eli in our bedroom standing on the bed looking at the pictures above our bed. There are three pictures the one on the left is Eli playing, then a picture of all three of us, then a close up of Eli in his car seat. He was looking at the family picture.

Christopher asked him what he was doing and he replies, "I'm sad Daddy, so I just had to come in here and look at my Mommy because I miss her."

Now who expects that from a three year old?

I am kinda looking forward to the rest of the week and weekend. I have the next two days off. Well tomorrow is for a funeral for Nora (Ehmen) Osterbur, I am not really looking forward to that. But Friday should be nice, Eli and I have a dentist appointment then we need to do some shopping, get a hair cut, and then it is senior night. Saturday will be a busy one too; double open house with Kacie, and then finish cleaning and shopping (depends on how Thursday and Friday go), and that evening is the Royal Valentine's dance. I feel like I'm in high school talking about a dance...lol. Kacie is my date since Christopher will be in Joilet all weekend. And finally Sunday is a do nothing day, or at least that is what I have planned.

Maybe next time I will add some pictures with my post...