Last Weeks Thrift Find

It was 4:30 in the afternoon on a THURSDAY...

Honestly, who holds a yard sale on a Thursday at 4:30?

I didn't care, I came over the hill and saw it and screeched to a halt!

Handed the kids their sippys turned on Toy Story and hopped out to find some treasures.

I saw this beauty immediately.

I have loved these picture and bowl sets for a long time but have never bought one because of the price.

This was only $15, mind you I don't think it's old or anything.

I bought the flowers at Target this week as well, they were on clearance for about $1 a flower.

So my new table centerpiece was about $20

LOVE IT!

Nursery Update

I shared my nursery update over at Someday Crafts, but I wanted to post it up over here at my blog as well.

My nursery is on child #2 at this point and I haven't done anything with it since I was pregnant with my first baby. I decide it was time for some updating.

I saw the cute fabric in embroidery hoops all over the blog-o-sphere and Pinterest and I thought it would be a cute and cheap way to spruce up the place.

I wanted my baby's name to be included in the collage so I bought wood letters from Hobby Lobby.

I started collecting embroidery hoops from thrift stores and what I couldn't get there I bought from the Hob Lob as well. I bought fabric from various places.

OK, I primed and spray painted my letters. White Spray Primer, Then a Blue'ish Green'ish color (because I wanted it to come through in the distressing stage) then White Spray paint.

Then I distressed with my electric hand sander (which I bought and this was my first project to use it on! Love it!)

I then hung picture hangers on the back. This process may or may not have made me swear a few times. The nails were teeny tiny itsy bitsy, so stabilizing the nail was close to impossible.

 Then this occurred...

 Not once but TWICE!

Got out the E6000 and jimmy-rigged the thing because there was no way I was going to get a new letter.

OK, Then to the funnest part...

This was way easy! Put the hoop on the fabric of choice and then trim around the back.

So here is the before picture:

As my baby was growing out of clothes I would just pile it on top of the dresser to put into the correct bins. The bin you see on the right is the clothes that she was growing into, toys spread around, every single piece of furniture is a different color (not in a good way).

 More casualties: I was moving the changing table out and the leg busted off, kinda glad because now I can buy a new one when I ever have another baby (Something to match).

 This is the inside of the lamp shade...That is not suppose to be bent like that...Off to target to get a lamp shade!

 Hung the collage! Love it!

 I want to take done the alphabet letters, I just didn't have a latter handy.

 Rearranged the furniture around, took out the outdated rug, no more changing table, took down some pictures, cleaned up the massive mess...I'm left with this!

 and again here is the before

 I have collected tea sets since I was a small child.

With all the disasters that happened with this project I have to mention one more that I didn't take pictures of. 

I was all done fixing the room up and the baby was whining, so I put her down for her nap in her new updated room, 10 minutes later she starts crying, I go in and she had thrown up all over in her crib, so I had to tear apart her crib sheets and padding, get out the towels and draped everything else in towels as to not get soiled. So the room lasted for 10 minutes looking like that! Happy Day. Life of a Mother, Right?

Thanks for reading along. I hope you stop on by my blog and check out some of my other projects, like Butterfly Specimen Art, Side Table Re-do, and my Pottery Barn Moss Monogram.

Globe Trotter

I would love to start collecting globes. I have 1 to my name (which a friend found for me) and I have never seen others while thrifting or at yard sales (that aren't an arm and a leg).

Look at all these fun ways to use them in your decor.

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Guest Post {The Story of Home}

Cute Lindsay contacted me about doing a guest post a little while ago and I'm glad to have her here today.

Hi, my name is Lindsay, and I write...

I’m so excited to be here today and share one of my latest projects with you! A few weeks ago I helped my sister transform her bedroom (you can ready more about that here). One of my favorite projects during the makeover was creating an artichoke pendant from vintage book pages! I was inspired by this photo I found on etsy. 

I was not inspired by the price however, $55. So we decided to make one ourselves for a fraction of the cost, and here’s how we did it. 

First, you need a white paper lantern. We found this one from World Market for $8, but I know Ikea sells them as well. 

Then you need some vintage books; we bought 4 for a total of $5 (we only ended up using 2). 

Then you stick in a good movie and go to town cutting circles from the pages. The size of the circles can vary based on what you prefer. We used a glass cup as our template. 

After the circles are cut, you’re ready to glue; we used regular tacky craft glue. The trick to gluing is to start at the base of the lamp; this ensures the circles will overlap nicely from the top down.

And there you have it! A beautiful artichoke pendant made from vintage book pages, and for only $13! Here it is in the space; I love the character and texture it brings to the room. 

Thanks to Camilla for letting me share this project with you all; I hope you enjoyed it! 

I just love this project, so simple and affordable!

Make sure you go and check out her great blog full of interior design tips and ideas.

Thanks Lindsay!

Vanity - Not the Vain Kind

Yesterday I posted about basement progress.

I also mentioned things I was hoping to get done this week.

Well, yesterday morning I got an email from the company that I bought the bathroom vanity from and it said that it had shipped.

So I was a little surprised when like 4 hours later the Reddaway Truck guy knocked on my door to deliver the vanity!

 The box weighed like 250 lbs. so obviously it was going to take some man power getting that downstairs.

We just so happened to be having a BBQ that night with some friends and used their muscle power to get it out of the box and into the basement.

Thanks Guys!!

Here's a little sneak

It's comin' along!

House Updates!

Yesterday I started painting our main bathroom upstairs.

I am doing a darker blue on the wall with the bead board and a shade lighter on the other 3 walls.

I did bead board on the wall and I just had to copy cat Shelley and bead board my ceiling too. 

LUCKILY, when my contractor was doing stuff in my basement I had him just hang the stuff in my bathroom AND when my painters were in the basement I had them doing the bead boards upstairs as well...

I decided I could paint the bathroom walls myself though.

Here's my progress:

Next: 

About a week and a half ago I finalized my tile for the basement bathroom floors and I went with a hexagon pattern. 

So vintage and old school feel!

Up this week(hopefully):

I ordered our bathroom sink vanity, hope it shows up this week and have that installed.

Have the plumber come back and install the toilet, bath tub hardware, vanity, etc.

I ordered the shower surround last week so I hope to have it installed later this week.

Need to order and get carpet installed in the entire basement and stairs leading to the basement.

Finish painting the bathroom upstairs.

I hope you can see why I have had a drought in the craft department, 

I have spent so much time researching carpets, vanities, hardware, surrounds, etc.

Rag Quilts

A rag quilt is a patch work quilt with the edges exposed on the outside of the quilt. 

They fray up and look super cute!

Here's some cute ones I found to show what the technique looks like.
 

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 I bought fabric a couple weeks ago to make a rag quilt and I have started working on it.

It's Halloween colors/theme. I wanted to make sure it was done so I could use it for the whole month of October and not just the last week during Halloween.

Has anyone ever made a rag quilt? Got any tips? I would love to see some pictures if you have them!