A rusty vent no longer...

I have a secret to admit... I have never spray painted anything, never, ever!!!  Isn't that like against the bloggy world rules?  Hasn't everyone spray painted some piece of junk turning it into a fine hand-painted work of art?  Not me.  I have featured a spray painted fireplace here on my blog but I fully admitted in the post that my sweet hubs did the dirty work (spray painting). 

I've been reading all these great blog posts about spray painting your trash to treasure so I just had to try it for myself.  I thought I'd start with something that would go unnoticed if I did a bad job.  I decided to do this totally completely gross vent that is in my powder room.  I'm embarassed to even show it...  it was gross when when we moved in a few months ago.  We put in bamboo flooring when we moved in and I have had absolutely NO luck finding a wood vent this little size to fit in it's place.  Having one custom made is not part of my chic on a shoestring budget (crazy expensive!).  So, spray paint it is.

Ewwww... look how scratched and rusty it is, I have no idea what happened to it, all I know is it's GROSS!

I got this pretty bronze color that is actually too pretty for a floor vent but it will go well with the floor.

Before I sprayed this gross vent I should have sanded it a bit because of the scratches and rust but, I didn't.  I knew I should've, just didn't bother because it's on the bathroom floor in a dark corner where it won't be seen very much.  I sprayed it on a very windy day which wasn't the best environment for spray painting, I had to get the can too close which caused a little bit of running.  I also had to spray through the vents to get the insides of it which caused a little bit of gloppy-ness. Despite my inexperience, the scratchy rusty vent, and windy weather conditions it turned out ok.

Don't mind the fancy painters tape, I have another project going on to share...

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Friday Parties and Michael Buble!

Happy Saturday everyone!!  I am feeling super excited today because my wonderful hubby got us tickets to see Michael Buble for my birthday and the concert is tonight!  Woot Woot!!!

I am also feeling super excited to announce my first party!  Starting next Friday, April 2 (April already?? Where did March go?!?) I will be hosting a weekly Friday party... "Flaunt It Friday!"  What a better day for a party, it's the end of the week, you get all week to work on your fabulous project, and who doesn't love Friday? :) 

I'm pretty inexperienced at button making so I spent way too much time working on this one...

so if you think it's lame, please don't tell me. ;)

I will not be a picky party hostess, you will be able to post whatever you worked on and feel proud to share.  I will share more info about it later this week. 

Bye for now, I'm off to get ready for Michael Buble! 

Pretty Faux Forsythia... really, they don't look fake!

I love the forsythia bushes in our area, they have some of the most brilliant flowers of spring. 

We have some in our yard and unfortunately, they are still all sticks.  :(  It's a little too early for them to be blooming but not too early for me. 

First, let me just tell you that I've never been a big fan of faux floral arrangements.  In the past, when I thought of a fake flowers it brought up images of dusty, faded, fake-looking and generally very unattractive old arrangements sitting around some sweet old great-grandmother's house, not exactly the look I'm going for in my home.  However, these days faux flower stems can be very realistic and quite expensive... something I'd actually be proud to display in my home.  (in small quantities...)

Armed with some gift cards I hit Hobby Lobby for some 50% off floral stems.   I picked up 3 forsythia stems which I think are actually pretty darn realistic.  I decided to add some pussywillow stems (because my mom told me to and she is a great floral arranger, me, not so much ;), they are much cheaper and also a spring bloomer for my spring-ish bouquet.

I planned on putting them in this great green vase I found at TJ's for $7, what a steal!  I love this vase, it is such a pretty color and I am so loving this green color right now (maybe I'm just longing for spring).  Anywho, this vase is perfect for forsythia because it's tall and has a fairly small opening. 

Did I mention that I'm not much of a flower arranger??   So, if you aren't either, these are the flowers to get!  You can basically just stick them all anywhere and they turn out looking fine.  I just put in the 3 forsythia evenly spaced around the edge and then put most of the pussywillow in the middle.  What an awesome tutorial, right?! (I'm being sarcastic..) :)
So after my professional flower arranging I put it on my island to be this beautiful kitchen centerpiece only to find that it the stems hit my pendant lights... wow, that looks goofy... so, that's not happenin'.  I then decided maybe my kitchen table, but it's very jinormous for the kitchen table and hits the chandelier...Dang it!  I really want this thing in my kitchen because I love to look at it, it matches well and that's where I spend most of my time.

Don't mind the price tags on the stems, very fancy, huh?! ( I did cut them off) ;)

Hmmmm, what to do with the jinormous lovely arrangement....

Rearrange.

I took the lamp off my Easter vignette table and put up my new arrangement, it works!

Happy Spring everyone!! :)  Please follow me or give me some comment love if you're ready for spring!

 

Spring has Sprung at my House (...finally!)

This year I completely ignored my Irish heritage and skipped from Valentine's Day right to Easter with my decor.  Sorry St. Patrick, my new Easter/Spring stuff was just too cute to avoid putting out until after your big day.  However, I will be wearing green on Wednesday and eating corned beef and cabbage and promise to do better next year.

Anywhoo, I tend not to go all out for Easter as it can become a little cartoonish with too many bunnies and chics but this year I found some really cute stuff to add to my Easter decor that will be able to stay out all spring.

Here is my favorite design...

Oh my gosh, I LOVE this!

I also love that I concocted this for super cheap.  I already had the dome and the pedastel (and the little candle holder pedastel that the bird's nest is on).  I found this egg "wreath" at TJ's and it was kind of bent and crooked looking...  I asked if they'd mark it down due to the condition and they did, I got it for 5 bucks!  I got the bird's nest for $1 and my mom split a bag of these cute little green eggs because she has the same decorating addiction hobby that I do  ;) so they were free for me.  And, I got the green swirley place mat for $1.50.  So this only cost me $7.50, did I mention that I love it?? :)

I went back to Jeffery Alans realizing that I needed more of those awesome eggs that my mom shared with me and found some creme speckled ones to mix with my green ones.  A bag of about 10 was 2.99, I threw them in my little apocothary jar and stuck them on a candle holder pedastel.

Got the EASTER blocks for less than a dollar each as they were on clearance already, I couldn't have made them for that cheap!!

I shared the little bird cage that I bought earlier this year for 50% off the clearance price for $4 measley bucks.

I decided to stick my little bunny in my wreath...

Perfect fit! :)

My bunny with the fluffy white tail...

And here's a pic of my nice little Easter vignette (in my humble opinion) for super-duper cheap.

Happy Spring!

I'm linked to Craftaholics Anonymous Easter Round Up Party and...

  

Cabinet Organization 3 Months Late :)

So, I feel like I'm very behind on the times as I'm posting my first organizing post in March and it seems it was the thing to do back in January.  Oh well, at least I organized something. :)

When we moved in last summer I was really excited to be getting a lot more cabinet space.  Our new medicine cabinet is twice the size of our old one with much easier access.  We used to have it in one of those odd cabinets in the corner that has a skinny door that is a quarter of the size of the cabinet, then you have to crane your neck to see what the heck is back in that corner.  I thought surely we'd have much more room in this cabinet, it's about 3 times the size of the old one and it was wide open so it'd stay nice and tidy,  yeah... right.

I am SO completely embarassed to be showing you all this picture of our medicine cabinet.  I was so tempted to straighten it up a little bit as to not scare and disgust you but I wanted it to be real, no editing.  This is what it looked like at it's worst... those with faint hearts and weak stomachs look away!

Holy cow, we look like druggies! 

This is really what it looked like and I'm blaming it all on my dear hubby, (sorry babe!) :)  I tried to organize it when we moved in but he never quite got the set up (which wasn't very good anyway) so if he needed something he would just start rifling through it and it would end up looking like this.  Nice, huh. :)

I went to the Dollar Store and got me some fancy plastic baskets.  I then made sure they fit in my weird size cabinet... to my shock, they did!  I then prettied them up with dog tags and ribbon...

and Waa-Laaa!

I made 3 baskets like this and one smaller one to fit in the weird leftover space in the front.  The end result is lovely but the lighting of my picture is not, it was a cloudy day.

And, it's actually stayed like this for a month!!  Sweeeeeet!!  It works!  Even the insides of the baskets are staying neat, amazing!  I feared that hubs would revert to old bad habits but he puts everything back in the right basket, he loves organization. Guess I need to organize more often! :)

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Cheap Lamp Makeover, Wal-Mart Style

Ok, I'll just tell you right off the bat that if you're expecting a tutorial on cheaply re-doing your lamp using burlap and ribbon this is not the post for you.  This is just a Wal-Mart lamp makeover... no crafting involved, but it's still pretty cheap. 

This brushed nickel lamp came with us from the old house, I still like it and it still matches okay but the shade is just SO totally plain and white.  I don't have much white in this room so it just wasn't working for me.  

I know there are tons of tutorials on re-doing lamp shades with fabric, beads, etc. but knowing me, Mrs.Champagne-Taste-On-A-Beer-Budget, I would pick out the most expensive fabric (I have no fabric scraps around since I don't sew).  Then, I wouldn't cut the fabric straight so I'd be wasting my crazy expensive fabric.  Then if it happened that I did get the fabric cut straight I wouldn't be able to stretch it tightly around the shade... there'd be wrinkles and all kinds of unsightly problems.  Then, I would probably burn myself with the glue gun while crookedly attaching the ribbon and it would just be a big mess.  It would also take me like 3 hours because I'm  a perfectionist and wouldn't be able to get it perfect (plus, when do I have 3 hours??) and then it would look like a rookie job and I wouldn't want it in my house. 

Anyway, knowing how I am with these things I decided it would be much easier to just look for a new inexpensive lampshade.  I have been looking for the past several months but everything was too pricey.  I was super excited to find this new item at Wal-Mart of all places! 

It is a pretty shiny taupe color with black trim... love it!!

Over the past year Wal-Mart has started carrying Better Homes & Gardens housewares.  I've been very impressed with the BHG styles and prices. This good sized lamp shade was $13!   Normally the boring plain ones this size are at least $19, even at Wal-Mart.  What a super price and I'm SO happy with the results! 

For me to buy the fabric and ribbon would have been close to $13, maybe even more depending on the crazy expensive fabric I'd be sure to pick out, PLUS I definitely think my time (and sanity!) is worth $13... this was money well spent!

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