Lamp shade

I hate lamp shades. They are so hard to figure out. What I've concluded about them is to never, ever buy them separately from the lamp. Or to add blue flowers. Which is the mistake that happened here. I had a perfectly good drum lamp shade. Plain, but good. Here's the problem: I always think plain is just not enough. In this case, it should have been. So, after I added the blue flowers, the shade looked a little too wedding-cake-ish. Not going to fly on the lamp. Not at all! So I had to laboriously pull (rip) each fabric flower, (which had been attached very well!), off of the shade. It left horrible pock marks of hot glue all over the shade where the flowers were attached. See here:
Poor lamp shade. It was still very useful, but I just couldn't leave the hot glue unattended. (You never should. Says so right on the hot glue label.)

So, this is how I fixed it. I know-- pretty unoriginal to just add ribbon around the edge of the shade, but I already messed it up so badly before that I just couldn't dare to hurt this poor lamp shade any more.

Nice and clean. Much better.

TV console cabinet

That student budget thing we were living on really got to me. I guess we're still living on it. We got a new TV a while ago, (time to join 2010, summer!) after not having one for about a year. And this new TV had no home in our house for a while until I found this cabinet.
In 2 pieces!?! It was a sawed-off hutch that also had a removable base, which is what you see here.
The top of the hutch was simply cut right off before I bought it, but it left these huge, ugly grooves in the top. I found it at a thrift store (yet again) and a lady who watched me buy it said, "Oh, I'd never buy that thing. But she's young and ambitious." I thought, "why yes, I am. And a little bit crazy, but that's always served me well." I loved being referred to as "young." I like to think I am. I wasn't about to reveal my true age. I won't here, either.
This baby had tons that needed fixing, hence, the "ambitious" part of the above comment. It was missing a hinge on one of the middle doors. You already saw that it was in two pieces and had gouges in the top.
The glass in this door was broken.
And some of the moulding on the base had come off, but we still had the piece.
Step 1: get the broken glass out of the door. I thought this would be easy. NOT SO! I was very wrong. First, I had to remove the wood that held in the glass. Not hard at all. Gloves and putty knife were all that I needed.
Then came the glass, which was actually GLUED in! Oh nooooo! Glue? So, I researched how to remove glass from cabinet doors and came across some pretty great websites. One said to use a heat gun to melt the glue and then pull out the glass. Ahh, I don't have a heat gun.
But I have a hair dryer! And it worked!
Slowly, but 2 hours (yes, a heat gun would have been much, MUCH faster!) I got the silicone to soften enough to pull out the glass. Halleluiah! After the glass was out, I went to Lowe's and had them cut a new piece of glass for me, costing a whole 6 bucks! And it took no time. They cut it for me right there in the store on a really cool wall mounted glass cutter. I was impressed.
I filled in the grooves with wood putty and let it dry FOREVER! (Can you tell this project was getting long? Maybe I was too ambitious. I am learning.)
Primed everything. And somewhere in there put the molding back on the base.
Then painted! I also used old hardware I had to replace the existing hardware.
It's a great size for that wall.
And for the TV. Thanks to B for mounting that.
Tada! Pretty insane project, but it's done and was a total of $41 out of pocket. We won't count up elbow grease or cost of labor hours spent. But all in all, not too bad. Don't know if I'll do that again, though.

Lady's Chair

Guess what I found at a thrift store. Oh, just a way cute chair for my little Lady's bedroom! It's even a bit shorter than most chairs so my little Lady's legs will fit just right for quite a while. This is how it started. Brown. And really upholstered. UPHOLSTERED?!?
After I primed and painted the thing white (and taped off the real upholstered -beige-bluh- seat), then I said, "Oh crap. I have no clue how to take off the springs and burlap wrap underneath this very comfy cushion. What do you do when you have no clue?
You staple and glue! I stapled the new fabric right over the top of the old by tucking in the new fabric as I stapled so I had a clean edge. The corners were tough. But B helped me muscle our way around them.
I had to buy gimp to edge it. I had some pom pom fringe that would've been fun, but would've been pulled off too easily. I tried using different kinds of glue to hold the gimp down. Nothing grabbed fast enough. So, I ended up with the trusty hot glue gun. I know I left some skin under that edging, and it's not the most permanent thing to hold down the gimp. But, it will work if no one starts pulling on it. Let's hope, anyway.
Here she is. Finished and ready for the ball.

Place mat Pillows

Gotta love Tarjey and Pier 1. So much possibility. I made a toss pillow for my living room by taking out the side seem of this Pier 1 place mat so it was like a pillow case. Then I slipped it over a travel pillow from Target. About $7 and one straight seam later, I have a fun little pillow for anywhere.
I actually took this baby on road trip. Never had a problem finding out which pillow is mine, and super comfy and durable. Fun little idea.

Welcome Spring!

We've waited a long time for spring to get here!



This is what I see out my window as I'm doing dishes. Not bad. It's the peach tree in our back yard, and it looks mighty happy right now.




I'm trying to figure out this lens type called "macro" and I still have no clue what I'm doing.



But it's fun. And after a while, I seem to get some pretty decent shots.




Whatever I come out with on, though, I'm pretty happy with these pics so far. Maybe some of you more experienced photographers can give me a few pointers. I'd sure appreciate it.



For now, welcome, welcome spring! We're ready for you!

More fun with mirrors.

I think I'm addicted to mirrors and their possibilities. I love finding old things and turning them into something else.

This mirror is heavy. Very solid. And brown just wasn't working for me. But, we always see potential around here. Especially in thrift stores.

Normally, I would just remove the mirror like I did with the turquoise mirror a few months ago. But this one was a beast to remove. So, I just covered it with newspaper and taped it off, making sure a bit of the tape went between the gap (which was very, very small) between the mirror and the frame so no paint would leak through onto the mirror. Because that just means the paint that leaks will get reflected, too! So, I very carefully made sure that tape was under that gap to prevent this. I also primed it with spray primer, but that wasn't getting into the ornate carvings. So, I brushed it with the black paint so I could mash the paint into the grooves. My brush didn't thank me for it, but it got the paint to cover it. It took two coats, even over the primer. Lots of nooks and crannies.

We mounted it with two heavy duty wall anchors that will hold 200 lbs. Yeah, a little much, but I just wanted to make sure it wasn't going to pull off the wall. The mirror only weights 27 lbs. But, better safe than sorry. Screws are cheap security.

Here's my entry way now. It sits right across from the coat rack and bench, making a nice place for taking off shoes and unloading coats and checking yourself out to make sure you don't have any food in your teeth. Have a happy day!

Coat Rack

Remember these?

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They are now on this:



Well, at least the glass door knobs are. Here are some progress pictures.



I adhered wrapping paper to the front of the wood and painted the edges and the top shelf piece black.



Getting the glass knobs on was actually a challenge because they are antique. Which means they are not on the "interchangeable parts" spectrum and you can't find modern screws to fit them. Which also means I didn't want to permanently glue them onto the shelf and ruin them. Instead, we wrapped the closest size screw in electrical tape to beef up the screw a bit and then screwed the knob onto it. This actually became very sturdy and will still allow us to unscrew the knobs eventually if we (I) decide to use the knobs for something else. Like a door.





Kind of fun on the blue wall. (The color on the wall is called "Winter in Paris" by Behr.)



Tada!

Valentines paper hearts

I know Valentine's is over, but I wanted to share these. These paper hearts are made from patterns off of Martha Stewart Paper heart bon bons. But, of course, I changed them a bit. The three large hearts can hold candy and fun prizes, (careful, they tip!) and the smaller hearts are just ornamental. But they both use the same pattern.



The small hearts are neat because they are 3D and kind of like a mobile. Instead of punching the hole through just two folds as it says to do in the pattern, punch the hole in all four folds so it's through the center. You'll get the idea. Just fun.