Salvaged rusted trunk turned coffee table

The past couple of months I have been frequenting thrift stores looking for furniture and things we can use for our house.  I am learning the art of  “thrifting” and have had some recent success.  The biggest rule: patience pays. You have to be willing to go often and be content to leave with nothing, 90 percent of the time.

One of my recent and favorite finds was this old, antique, rusted trunk found at our local Salvation Army for $14.

I was so excited when I found it, I ripped the sticker off and may have jumped up and down a little.

First, I tried to remove the rust with soap and hot water. Then I decided I would just try to paint over it with some chalk paint because I was too lazy to sand it all off  (also, the lady at the store told me that Annie Sloan chalk paint adheres to everything including rust and that I shouldn’t have a problem-false.)  A few coats later and the rust was still coming through the paint.  We made a trip to home depot and bought some water-based Kilz and applied that over the chalk paint (cringe) and after it dried applied another 2 coats of Annie Sloan’s Old White followed by clear wax then dark wax.  A weeks worth of naptimes and 6 coats later we have a coffee table that I love.

If you are interested in using Annie Sloan paint and wax- I spent some time researching beforehand and found this video especially helpful for applying the dark wax: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nz9Bem69Wb0

Thanksgiving get-together

We had a little Pre-Thanksgiving get-together with our community group from church this past week.  I had been looking forward to it, making plans for it and was even going to bake my first Thanksgiving Turkey! And then, I got really, really, really sick. 😦 We still had our get-together thanks to my wonderful husband and I still did the Turkey (with ALOT of help from my sweet mom!).

The Turkey turned out well but not quite as good as my mom makes hers. 🙂

I also made some Apple votives for the party which turned out to be a really easy way to dress up our table lined with paper plates.

I’m pretty sure this was originally a Martha Stewart craft but I found directions here:

http://www.designmom.com/2012/09/apple-votive-diy/

I am so looking forward to Thursday and seeing both Nick and my family and getting to celebrate all that we have to be thankful for!  Happy (early) Thanksgiving!

September highlights

1. Our nephew Silas was born!- 10 days early.   We got to go visit our brother and sister and meet Silas this past weekend.  He is so precious and we are praising God for his life!

2. Discovered that the radio program “Revive our hearts” posts all of its programming for downloading/listening online.  I am so encouraged by Nancy Leigh DeMoss and have been devouring the series ‘The Counter-Cultural Woman: A Fresh Look at Proverbs 31’.

http://www.reviveourhearts.com/resource-library/Programs/p/Revive%20Our%20Hearts/series/The%2520Counter-Cultural%2520Woman%253A%2520A%2520Fresh%2520Look%2520at%2520Proverbs%252031/

3. I am eagerly anticipating the arrival of two books I ordered-

There’s no place like home by Mary Larmoyeux and Ethan Pope and

Biblical Womanhood in the home by Nancy Leigh DeMoss

4. Tried several recipes this month the best being this easy Oatmeal Apple Crisp- http://allrecipes.com/recipe/apple-oatmeal-crisp/

& Pioneer Woman’s Restaurant style Salsa- http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2010/01/restaurant-style-salsa/. So delicious and so cheap- 6$ for over 6 cups of Salsa and whatever you don’t use you can just freeze!

5.) I finally made a framed chalkboard for our kitchen with the help and input of my sweet husband.  I purchased a large picture frame at Michael’s when they were 55% off (score!) and the Martha Stewart brand chalkboard paint- which I would not recommend for bigger surfaces like the 20×24 inch surface I was trying to paint.

Nick’s artistry 🙂

Frame painted with Behr’s Spa

6. Got to go on a day trip to the zoo with the family I nanny for today- complete  with 1 minivan, 3 adults, 3 children, lots of caffeine, 1 Bojangles run, 1 trip to Chick-fil- a, 1 stop at Hobby Lobby, minimal grumbling, and lots of animals! Some favorites from the day:

Angry bird.

blurry but he got so close to us!

that face.

Mama gorilla carrying baby on her back. 🙂

Second family 🙂

Do you remember my plate wall art for my kitchen I did several months back?

https://smithfamilyhome.wordpress.com/2012/02/23/kitchen-wall-art-update/

Well, it was featured on wallartanddecor.net! 🙂 You can check it out the article “Top 10 Kitchen wall art ideas” here:

http://wallartanddecor.net/top-10-kitchen-wall-art-ideas-wallpaper-canvas-traditional-contemporary-picture-frames-quotes-green-diy-kitchen-wall-art-ideas/

DIY Cupcake stand

I’ve had this pinned and have wanted to make this for awhile.  It’s the perfect craft; cheap, practical and easy to make.

http://pinterest.com/pin/240168592598065383/

Supplies:

Measuring tape, dry erase marker, E-6000 (you can find it at any craft/ hardware store), candlestick (Micheal’s) , 2 plates (These are from target- scalloped white dinner and salad plate).

1.) Use the measuring tape to find the center of the bottom plate and mark it with the dry erase marker OR  if you get lazy you can just eyeball it like I ended up doing. 🙂

2.) Glue the bottom of the candlestick with E-6000 and place in the center of the bottom plate.  You will have a few minutes to move it around until you find the perfect spot before the glue gets really tacky and holds.

3.) Apply E-6000 to the top of the candlestick and place your smaller plate on top.  I had to play with mine for a few minutes until I got it centered (Or you can just measure).

4.) Let it dry overnight.

5.) Make cupcakes.

Red velvet cupcakes from a Spanish themed birthday party we hosted. 🙂

 

Kid’s craft- DIY puffy paint

This week I had one of the six year olds I nanny for home with me and baby.  I wanted to do a fun craft with her and remembered one I had pinned a long time ago… This craft was easy and fun for both of us!  She loved getting to decide what colors she wanted and helping mix them!

The recipe we used can be found here: http://momscraftyspace.blogspot.com/2012/02/homemade-microwave-puffy-paint.html

It requires 1 cup flour, 3 tsp. baking powder, 1 tsp. salt, water and a microwave.  You just mix the flour, baking powder and salt and then add water until it makes a pancake batter consistency.  We divided the mixture into 4 zip lock bags and added food coloring to make lavender, lime green, yellow and sherbet orange paint colors. Then we rubber-banded the bags and made a tiny cut at the opposite end  so she could squeeze the paint out- like pastry icing.  After she was done painting we popped it in the microwave for a minute..

Painting a beautiful flower 🙂

I wasn’t able to get any shots of the finished paintings (after the microwave) because my camera died, but if you go to the link above you can see what it looks like!

Organization

Even though we have been married for almost 10 months I am still unpacking and organizing our home.  I have accepted that I will most likely be in the process of unpacking until we have to repack and we move.   Today,  I wanted to reorganize the two large bookshelves we have in our living room.   Upon organizing I  ‘discovered’ the small basket from our wedding containing all of the cards we received!! I was so excited I stopped organizing and re-read all 50+ cards.   After reading I decided I would do something with them to keep them together so we don’t lose them. This is what I came up with:

Just hole punched all the cards in the upper left corner,  threaded a ribbon through and tied a bow.

Yay for easy, cheap and practical DIY projects!

DIY baby mobile

So I attempted to make my friend a butterfly mobile for her baby’s nursery yesterday.. I think it turned out well for my first try at something like this.. I hope this gift blesses them!

I used a Martha Stewart Die cutter to cut out the butterflies. First I cut out a million butterflies..not really, but it felt like it.  Then I mod-podged two butterflies with matching patterns back to back to make one ‘whole’ butterfly.  I bent each whole butterfly and hot glued two whole and bent butterflies onto a piece of thread which I hung from a small grapevine wreath from Micheal’s.  It took a couple of hours to make but I think that was in large part to the fact that I was trying to figure out what I was doing as I was going. 🙂 I hope baby will like it!

DIY moss wreath

I have wanted a moss wreath to add some greenery to our kitchen for awhile but have not been able to find one for a decent price.  I found one on a craft supply website for 8 dollars and was ready to order up until I saw the 28 additional dollars it would cost to ship it from California.. hmm no thank you.  I decided to make one and used this very helpful tutorial:

http://www.honeybearlane.com/2011/03/how-to-make-moss-wreath.html

I was not able to find the exact moss she used but did find something similar, a moss table runner with mesh backing at Michael’s.   This made the project so much easier than it could have been.   I can’t imagine the time it would take to glue on individual clumps of moss.

This is how it turned out:

I used a straw wreath and found this frame at Michael’s in the “Sold As Is” section for 8 dollars and painted it white.  It will look better once we paint the kitchen.  All together the wreath only cost 7 dollars! 🙂 yayy