The Yummiest Craft of all Crafts

Disclaimer: I'm not sure where I found this idea. It is 100% not mine. If you know the blogger or are the blogger who I stole this from, please send me the link to your posting, and I will happily give credit! 

1. Grab a bottle of wine, a gal pal, & maybe Steel Magnolias. 
2. Drink Wine. 
3. Remove label by either running under hot water or using your hair dryer on high heat. 
4. Apply a thin layer of spray paint and let dry. Apply another coat or as many as needed to cover, and finish with gloss spray. 
5. Tie on twine or a thin rope.

One Man's Junk, is his Girlfriend's Treasure!

Rusty had a lot of things from the 80's & 90's stacked in boxes in what would soon be the guest room. These items consisted of cards from family members, generations of ex-girlfriend paraphernalia (which was dealt with accordingly), a random collection of froggy stuffed animals (???), and a wonderful cassette tape holder.*

*I forgot to take a before picture, so this is a sketch of what we believe the suspect looked like:

I wasn't sure what to do with it, but I know I wanted to do something shadowbox-y. I found this awesome tutorial on one of my favorite blogs, House of Smith's and got inspired.

I started by knocking out the planks, but careful to keep them in good shape ... for this & other projects. Then I spray painted the box & a couple planks in white. I also used Shelley's idea of tiny, painted clothes pins. After all of the paint dried, I took a sand paper block to weather the box, some of the planks, and the clothes pins. Before replacing the back of the case, I stapled some twine to both sides. Then, I added a hanger bracket on each side. AND VOILA!

                             

A Woman's Touch?

I moved in with my boyfriend this year. It was the ultimate bachelor pad and his friends kept saying "all it needs is a woman's touch." I think it needed the Merry Maids.

This is not a test, do not adjust your screens. He was really living like this, and yes, there is only ONE chair...in the whole apartment.

Before I moved in, he had one chair, a bed, and a kitchen table (with no chairs).

First things first! I needed to buy some chairs so I got two beauties off of Craigslist from a young couple moving out West. They had trouble parting with the chairs, and who wouldn't? They were in great shape! But they must have liked us because they gave us both chairs for $30. Minutes later, I was at Joann's picking out fabric and Lowes grabbing a new electrical staple gun!

On the first chair, we spray painted two coats of bright blue on the wood, removed the paisley fabric, and reupholstered with the pretty white. I would've done both chairs in that gorgeous fabric, but I have the tendency to spill things...and well, it was a bachelor pad, so Rusty's friends are always over and I don't know what I would do the first time beer or bbq sauce lands on that pretty thing! Before putting the pads back onto the chair, we finished it with a gloss. This makes it easier to wipe down the furniture.

The second chair was much more difficult! After removing the old fabric, I had to staple down the new fabric on the fronts and sides, sew a new cushion cover with back zip for easy clean, and then figure out how to finish the back...cue the studs. Those pretty little nail-in studs were not just used to add detail, it's actually what's holding the back together. I stapled the bottom on the inside, then folded the sides and top and nailed the studs.

 Shwew, I will clean up later!