Striped Accent Wall

I have been wanting to do something to the small wall under my stairs in my front room for quite a while and finally got off my booty last week and did it! I had originally thought about doing a repeat stencil and then decided on clean light gray on medium gray stripes!

My little wall before... (don't judge that tiny cluttered table thing lol, I am still unpacking boxes and that's where it stays right now)



Then I started taping off my lines...be sure to do this right the first time, and take the time to measure exactly or else you will be screwed...I speak from experience ;)




Here's the tips to getting suuuper clean non bleeding stripes...(which I thought I was too good for and have to do a few touch ups still oops!)

1. Paint wall the color you want...all one color (mine was already painted Behr's Gray Timber Wolf)
2. let dry completely
3. Measure and tape off your lines
**4. Here's the secret: Paint over the edges of your tape the same color that is already on the walls (ex: I would use Gray Timber Wolf) you do this to seal the tape to the wall and so the color that bleeds under the tape (because it will if you have textured walls) is the same color that is already on the walls!
5. let that dry a bit and then paint over it the color you want your stripes and remember to always pull your tape before it completely dries so you don't risk pulling off dried paint in chunks.

And Voilà!



Sorry about the crappy pic. Taken with my cell. But man oh man I am in luuuuuurve!!

Simple Bathroom Mirror Upgrade

Our downstairs powder room is tiny. It had ond of those mirrors that just slapped up against the wall with a couple screws around the outsides holding it on. It wasn't very cute...it wasn't necessarily "ugly" but it just was doing nothing for me. So we painted the room a dark chocolate brown and hung up the mirror that used to be in our old apartment in our dining room and I think it looks so pretty now!

BEFORE:



AFTER:

Kitchen Lights Before & After

Hubby and I bought our first house back in December for our new little bambino! Well I'm finally getting around to posting some of the projects we've already had done here (and there will be loads more to come!)

We wanted to re-do the kitchen lights since they were those uuuugly and I mean UGLY fluorescent lights! This is the only picture I have of the before...this was when we were still in escrow...look up lol



yuck-mo

we pulled them out of there and noticed we had a beautiful recessed ceiling under them! We had our contractor cut some holes and rewire some recessed lighting in there and had him paint the inner wall the same gray color we were painting our entire downstairs! We also added some decorative moulding around the outside edge and around the inside edge and woooah mama, talk about an upgrade!



Closeup of the detail:




love love love love LOOOVE!

I am obsessed with white spray paint

It makes everything look better! I got this giant frame from Ikea a couple years ago. It was black and had stuff inside it. Well I took it apart, spray painted it in my favorite shade of white and hung just the frame in my son's nursery with his first initial in it. Simple and awesome!

During transformation lol


After


LUUUURVE!

End Table Redo

I'm linking this to Shabby Nest's Frugal Friday!
I found this little guy at my new favorite thrift store...




I'm not liking the color, but I'm loooooving the lines

So I sanded him down



Sprayed him with a coat of white spraypaint, just for a base



And then painted him with interior paint in white. (Not pictured)

Then I took these stencils and using a silver/grey (grey,gray?) paint, I made him pretty




I bought a new bauble knob from Lowes and stuck that on there.



And now I cannot get enough of my table!!! I love love love it!! SQUEEE!

Easy Halloween Decorations

I was browsing the Dollar Tree today and found these frames...



The white one ended up breaking, but oh well...the rest of them I spray painted black and then framed cute scrapbook paper...



Voila! I'm sooo into the shiny black frames and bright cheery paper! I love love love them!

Turn an Old Book Into Something Pretty!

Okay really, I think this has been the easiest thing I've ever done, and I feel like I have a fuzzy memory of making these when I was a little girl.

I bought this book at the Goodwill for $1 specifically for this project. I have never read Anne Rice, so I don't know if this book is any good, but if anyone out there is reading my blog, and this is your favorite book ever...look away, it's gonna be a bloodbath..... Okay not really, but I will be destroying this book.




I bought this book because:

A) it wasn't hardcover

B) the pages were huge

C) It had alot of pages, I think it was over 550 pages.

All I did was I started with the first page, and folded it in half.



and then turned the page



Keep going



Keep going



Until all of your pages are folded




Now open up the book in random spots to kind of loosen the spine from the cover



Carefully remove the cover of the book without ripping the spine (you'll know if you ripped the spine if the pages all fall out one by one.) Use scissors if you need help.




Once the cover is off, the folded pages should push against eachother to spin out like this



If it doesn't, you may need to re open more pages to kind of loosen the spine a little bit more, and if that still doesn't work, use some craft glue to hold the spine together.

I stuck it on a pedestal (that I may or may not be painting a different color) that I bought from Goodwill for $3. It really serves no purpose. I just thought it looked cool on my bookshelf.

Turning a $7 Giant Frame Into a Beautiful Chalkboard

I found this framed "Artwork" if you want to call it that at Good will for $7 and I saw it's potential. Something about the frame called to me saying "Amy, please take me home and give me a better life."



YIKES! This needed my help badly!

I cleaned it up a little first with a dry rag, took it apart, and then sprayed 2 coats of white paint on the frame.







When I had opened it up, there was a very stiff cardboard backing that I gave 2 coats of black chalkboard paint.



I was going to leave the frame pure white, but then decided to age it a bit. I first took an ordinary kitchen sponge with the soft sponge on one side and scrubby side on the other and some gold paint.



I put some paint on the soft side of my sponge and smooshed it together so it soaked into the sponge a little bit.




Using my sponge I wiped paint onto my frame, and then wiped it right back off again with a clean part of my sponge, that way not too much gold paint stayed on the frame.




Then I took the scrubby side of my sponge and lightly roughed the frame up a bit.






When everything dried I just put her back together again and hung her up in her new home in my kitchen, and I think she looks mighty fine if I do say so myself!