10 Minute Lamp Recover Project

Can I just tell you one of the hardest things about a baby, for me at least, would have to be the well thought out design and follow through of the nursery.  

As you may have deciphered over the course of following our blog, I-Ashlie, am kind of a perfectionist.  Some may say it's a good thing, but for the most part, I consider it not so much a good thing.   

So back to our nursery!  It's been a work in progress for nearly a year and a half.  You may say, but your baby is only 10 months old?  Yes, it took me a year and a half to get my fabric. 

Luckily I knew I wanted the room painted gray.  So that's the first thing we did.  I had seen way too many rooms online painted pink and it just made me think Pepto...just saying.  So gray, I thought can go with anything.  And I {trulie} love it.  (Although it could be just a tad lighter....eeeeek!)  

  

Then about June/July she got a crib skirt.  Such an easy project that I could kick myself at how long it took me to get around to making it.  Can I also mention I made her crib sheets out of an white king sized sheet that wasn't being used?  Easy, peasy, porridge and pie! 

With a cute little slit!  It's my favorite :)  

So, after that project was completed, I moved on to her lamp....three plus months later.

I bought it at Wally World for less than $6, (Whoo!) but wasn't crazy about the zebra.  It didn't match.  So logically, I thought about covering it with some excess fabric I had left over.

I first spay painted the outside of the cover as to attempt to cover the stripes so they wouldn't show through my fabric.  

Then I got a sheet of freezer paper and traced the top and bottom of the shade...

Like so.

I started with the seam at the very edge of the paper and rolled and traced at the bottom until I reached my seam again. 

Then did the same thing with top then cut out my new pattern to pin to my fabric.  I added about an extra 1/4" top and bottom to allow me extra material to fold over the lamp edge for a clean finished look. 

Now, insert my new favorite tool HERE:

Spray adhesive.  

How awesome is it? Just spray on your cut out fabric and smooth over the surface.  Making sure you have no bubbles or bumps.  

Fold over the edges.  I cut a slit to let the material lay a little bit nicer.

I then went around the bottom and top with a glue gun to secure the material so it doesn't flip up.  The spray adhesive on the body of the lamp will stay just fine.  

 Lastly I folded over the end seam twice for a clean edge.  Sprayed a nice film of adhesive and finished!  

This project literally took me 10 minutes to do and was very simple.  To jazz it up even more, you could run ribbon along the edges for a nice coordinating accent.  You can also dazzle it up with buttons, ruffled flowers, whatev.   I would, but it would probably time me another three months to get around to it. :)

Happy Monday!

Practically FREE mounting hardware for your {Perfect} Plate Wall Decor

There is one more phase in my {Perfect} Plate Wall Decor tute that I technically had and that is the mounting hardware.  

It's annoying (and expensive!) to go out and buy, so I cheated and used safety pins.  Yup! As if this project couldn't get any easier and cheaper!  I found this website to help guide me, but turns out I had dried up super duper glue and only had glue gun glue.  So here's what I did to improvise since I was too lazy to go buy some :) 

I used a highlighter to mark the middle of the plate (I eyeballed it)

Used a corner of sand paper to rub off some of the glaze to help set the glue.  As Craftaholic says you really only need to rub for a bout 5-10 seconds. 

Set your safetly pin in your glob of glue.  I globbed my safety pin then flipped over it and globbed it some more to make sure I had a good glob amount and secured the top portion.  It's not the loveliest mounting hardware job, but eh, it works :)

 I then left them out for 24-48 hours to let them completely set and dry. 

{It so did not take me three weeks to hang these... I just wanted to make extra sure they would stay.  Yeah, that's it ;} 

And done!  You're own little mounting hardware pieces that you never knew you had just laying around.

Enjoy!

The {Perfect} Plate Wall Decor in Thirty {two} Seconds

Have You Missed Us?

Oh 

My

Lanta!

I hope none of you were holding your breath waiting for our next post.  These last couple weeks have slipped right past us before we could blink.  We have missed you all so dearly.  And I have a special treat for you...

Can you guess what it is?

Betchya can't...

Ok, ok.  

Remember when I did the picture wall post?  Yeah, like a million years ago?!  

Uh huh, so I {finally} finished it like two minutes ago. 

Literally.

So proud of me, I know, I know... It makes me so happy knowing that I have a wall dedicated to my little family.  It completes my little house and makes it feel so cozy don't chya think?!  Who'da thunk it would take me several months to finish such a simple thing, but hey consider the source.  At least I got it done.  I got that done and several more things, I just haven't had the time to post, so keep a look out.  

Mmm and guess what?!  I was so lucky to see my sister this last weekend!!  We got to see each other over the 4th and it was so glorious.  I wish we could have gotten to spend more time together, but se la vi right?  Isn't she so beautiful?  I love her so much...

I love my sister too {heehee}.  And see that dress that little E is wearing?  Um, not to brag, but I made that.  Look out for that tute cuz it'll be coming.  Promise. :)

Extreme Home Makeover:Free-Ninety-Nine Edition.

I know I can't be the only one in the world who wishes sometimes that I could have a million dollars to makeover my home.  How lovely would that be- Right?  The other night,  I wanted badly to be able to go to the home decor store and max out my credit card to get whatever my heart wished to beautify my home. (Isn't that part of being a good wife?)  But I realized this wouldn't be a very responsible action and my husband might get a little peeved-SO! I rolled up my sleeves and found a way to makeover my house, spending only free-ninety-nine (-er, free silly!).

Whether you live in a Mansion, Apartment, Shack, or House  all it takes is a bit of your time, a spot of elbow grease and a bit of creative juice.  Mix it all together and what do you get?!

Well, a mess at first...

But then it comes together nicely.

 Before I really realized what I was doing, I was pulling off things from my bookshelves, rearranging furniture, and moving my "plants" (I say "plants" because they are fake-bc I can't seem to keep the real ones alive) and working up a sweat. So you get a fresh new look and a workout!

So here's my before:

These pics are technically from Christmas two years ago, but my house has pretty much been the same layout since then... 

Like I said I caught the rearranging bug and before I knew it I had a complete mess and I wasn't about to take pictures of that ;}

 
Aw...look at my precious little candle lit table...

And my after:

 

{Imagine that the picture frame on the left is up...teehee}

 

{notice I still haven't fix my picture wall... yeah, yeah, yeah... there seems to be some kind of a blundering picture frame epidemic at my house) 

Ah! That feels and looks better-no?  There's something about cleaning once in a while to make you feel refreshed!

How do you makeover for free-ninety nine? 

Note: Don't be afraid of moving and rearranging everything.  You never know what will look good until you try all possibilities.  And if you end up not liking it, move it back! Simple as that. It may take some time, but waay easier AND funner (excuse me spellcheck ) more fun than paying off credit cards 5 years later with department store debt.  

Fo-Shizzle!

Tute-Sweet Tuesday: Picture Wall

{trulie}

 we don't just do crafts and workout everyday once in a while. We also have a niche for interior design.  Professionals we may not be, but I {ashlie} love to dabble in it. 

 It's what I originally came to Boise to do, but GO-FIGURE, BSU doesn't even have an interior design program. NOT EVEN ONE CLASS. {probably should have figured that out before I came...hmm} But nonetheless over the years I've tried my hand at having an "eye".  Don't really know if I have it, but I like to do it.  

Whoever doesn't love Pottery Barn probably has their pants on fire (liar, liar...).   I get their magazines in the mail every once in a while and I just drool over all the pretty little things that I can't afford.  It sometimes makes me sad {boo} but sometimes it makes me dust off the old brain of mine and get creating-cheapside.  

I've seen lots of great walls of fame {walls of fame: as in the wall of family pictures everyone has....on their wall} and I thought that I could never have one until I had a "family".  And if I really would have thought about it-that's not so true.  You can have one what ever your status.  I was just a little too dense at the time to even consider it.  You have a family whether it be a dog, lots of friends, one friend, a mom, dad, Chubby Hubby aka Ben and Jerry who lives in your freezer, a real hubby, lizard, baby who looks like a lizard, or great-grandma (or a grandma who is great!) or just you! and you should be proud to display for all who walk through your door.

{**You may have another way of doing this.  It might be smarter than mine.  If you'd like to share while laughing at the way I'm doing it, that's ok.  I'll only cry a little.  I know I love to learn all the ways of how to do something- even after I do it myself, mess up, and cry a little in the corner.

And by no means am I really good, I usually just make it up as I go.  (Nuts.  I just gave you my biggest secret...EVER!)  And to warn you, I am not patient as you will learn as we journey together on this blog.  Really. I'm not.  I very dislike watching paint dry.  Literally.  But this is how I did it.}

On Pottery Barn dot com (or you can just google it) you can find in their design center how to put together a Picture Wall.

Notice: the clean laundry that I was totally "getting around to"..

First, you need a wall. {imagine that?!} Then you want to cut out the sizes of the frames that you have.  I just used frames that I had laying around my house.  Seriously I opened a storage tub a couple months ago and found a bunch of frames that I had totally forgotten about.  Total score!  I used freezer paper-just cuz that's what I had laying around.  You can use wrapping paper, paper sacks, -whatev- to use as your paper frames!  Arrange the paper "frames" around to find a layout that you fancy.  In my case I just took a picture of the actual frames.

Oh, and measure...we need to measure the space we're gonna be putting it in to make sure everything fits. Don't wanna be making nail holes every where.  Like me. {Blaa}

{Don't worry.  I was able to cover this one up! teehee}

I really don't remember what the next step that PB says to do- eh - but i just "measured" exactly where the nail hole was on the photo on the paper frame so when I put it up on my wall with painters tape, I could just hammer a nail in that spot and call it good.

Next, hang your frames up.  

** Look at the good job I did!

(** I  know it's not what you pictured... Laugh if you will, but mine has been up for two months and I thought if I got up the frames I would finish putting pictures in it, but, I haven't "gotten to it". Yeah, just like my laundry.  But now I will go to Walgreens.com and order pictures since I know how all of you will be losing sleep to see how it turns out. Then I can put an AFTER picture up... Doing. Right.... Now. :)

It took me forever to have all the frames the same color.  I had to spray paint.  My next project (besides putting in pictures) will be to buy matting so all of them have the same look.  After picture coming SOOOOON! 




Oh! P.S. we're over at Dang Gina-go take a look!! 
Dang Gina Gives