Weekly Thrift Scores

Here are a few home decor steals I found while thrifting and antiquing.

1) "Farmers Market" sign.

$10-20.  I can't remember exactly how much I paid for this.  It would be easy enough to make on your own, but I wasn't feeling very creative at the time and I really needed something to fill the empty wall space above the cabinets.

2) Old ladder.

$30.  I have always wanted one of these to hang blankets on.  And now we have one!

3) Wooden crate.

$6.  Perfect for holding magazines.  Or towels.  Or toys.  Or pretty much anything.

4) Letter "K".

$1. This red K was a perfect addition to our "K wall" in the family room. It's an old plastic letter (like the kind you used to see on gas station signs), but framing it keeps it looking a little less cheesy.

5) Sugar container.

$12.  This container has been used in a variety of locations - kitchen, front entry way, spare bedroom.  It currently resides in our kitchen holding coupons and random important things that don't yet have a home.

Weekly Thrift Scores

I thought a "Weekly Thrift Scores" blog feature might be fun.  I don't always go thrifting or antiquing on a weekly basis.  But I go often enough that I have a huge stash of awesome scores to share with you all for weeks to come.  Some are items that I never would have purchased had I not seen something similar on another blog somewhere.  So I'll share my finds too and maybe it will help broaden your next thrifting trip.  Or not, but at least you'll have some pictures of pretty things to look at.

Since I'm almost 7 months pregnant, I'll start with 5 of my recent faves that I am incorporating into our nursery.

1) Changing table.

I found this baby on craigslist for $25. Basic ones like this sell new for about $100+, so I thought this was a great deal.  It was an ugly oak colored wood, so Ken took it apart, stripped and sanded it, and put it back together in a sturdier fashion.  We painted it a mustard color to go with the baby room, and then I added some chic shelf liner.

2) Vanity mirror.

This was from the local antique shop for somewhere around $100-120.  And I don't feel the least bit guilty about the price tag.  I absolutely LOVE the edges of this mirror and the vintagey feel of the whole thing.  I know it's supposed to go on a dresser, but I think it looks great on the wall too.

3) Side table.

$60.  Obviously antique store price instead of thrift store price.  I originally had some old white night stands from Target that I was going to repaint for this room.  But I'm tired of painting.  And once you figure in $10 for paint, my time, and then factor in how sick of painting I am, $60 doesn't sound so bad.

4) Vintage baby sweaters and petticoats.

Free.  These were mine from when I was a baby and my Mom dug them out and shipped them up.  I'm so lucky that she saved so many of my awesome baby clothes.  There are some treasures in there!  If you aren't as lucky as me, you can find items like these in higher end thrift stores and antique shops if you look hard enough.  Maybe even garage sales or estate sales.  Here are some similar items on Etsy: 1, 2, 3.  I will be reusing some of the clothing on my baby girl, but some will also hang as decorations in the nursery.

5) Photo holder.

$4.  I just liked the color and thought it would be cute to hold a family maternity photo once we have those done.  Or maybe a cute little print like this one.

DIY: Ruffled Lamp Shade

I've seen several tutorials on ruffled lamp shades around the blogger world, so if my version is confusing, do some googling and I'm sure you'll find someone much more descriptive and eloquent than me.  Warning: You're going to want to ruffle all of the lampshades in your home after this.  Assuming, of course, that you're a ruffleholic like me.

At the time of creating the lamp shades in our master bedroom (shown above), I wasn't keeping up on the blog, and therefore didn't take step-by-step photos.  Lucky for you, I couldn't resist doing more ruffled lamp shades and recently created another one for an owl lamp in the baby's room.  See?  I'm in love.

Materials

Old lamp shade

Fabric

Cutting & measuring tools

Sewing machine, thread that matches fabric

Hot glue gun

Step 1: Find an old lamp shade, preferably in a color similar to the fabric you will be using.  Measure the circumference of the largest part of the lamp.

Step 2: Wash and iron your fabric.  Cut into long strips.  My strips for the owl lamp are 4" wide.  Each strip will need to be at least twice the length of the circumference of the lamp.  If your lamp is 30" in circumference, then the longest strip should be 4" x 60".

Yeah, my fabric isn't ironed.   I hate ironing.  It still turned out okay.  You should definitely wash it though.  It makes the fabric more soft and ruffleable.  Ruffleable is totally a word.  Also, I don't do anything to keep the edges of the fabric from fraying.  I think it adds to the whole look.  If you want your lamp shade to be tailored and neat with hemmed edges, you might want to rethink the whole ruffles thing in the first place.

Step 3: Sew a single length of thread down the center of each strip.  Do NOT back stitch at the end of each strip.  You will then pull on the thread from each end, and ruffle up the fabric along the length of the thread.  Or use a ruffling foot on your sewing machine and skip all of that.

Step 4: Using a ruler and pencil, mark where you want each ruffle to go on the shade.  This is where you will be placing the hot glue, so space the markings appropriately.  For the owl lamp, I used 4 rows of ruffles.  Make sure that the top and bottom ruffle will adequately cover the edges of the original shade.  And make sure that the ruffles are close enough together so that the original shade won't show through in between the ruffles.

Step 5: Start gluing on the ruffles!  I place a glue bead of 4-5" long at a time, and then work quickly to smoosh the center of the ruffle into the glue.  At the seam of the ruffles (matched to the seam of the lamp shade of course), I overlap by about 1/4" inch and then trim off the extra fabric.

Step 6: Add each ruffle layer until the shade is covered.  Here is my masterpiece in the baby room.

Those Anthropologie inspired curtains?  I used the tutorial from Besserina.  That side table?  A total score from my local antique shop.  That awesome awesome rockin glider and ottoman?  50% off deal from Guilt Groupe.

DIY: Upholstered Headboard Redux

Remember this DIY upholstered headboard that I did for our master bedroom?  Here it is in our new place.

But after a year or so of floral and pink and red and uber girliness, I got really tired of it all.  Okay, I'm lying.  I'm still totally all about girliness.  But the floral headboard was really hard to decorate around without turning the bedroom into a Laura Ashley style theme, which isn't my style at all.  And I think the hubby really appreciates me toning the whole pink flower thing down a bit.

So...I redid it and ended up with this.

I tore off the existing fabric, replaced it with micro suede, and replaced the crystal buttons with oiled bronze buttons.  This is much more the look I'm going for in the room.  And now I can do drapes and furniture paint colors and wall decorations without the place turning into a pre-teen girls room.

Those ruffled lamp shades and ruffled bed sheet?  So easy!  I'll be doing tutorials in upcoming blog posts.

Blog Revival

It's been about a year and a half since I last worked on this blog.  Yikes!  In that time my world has changed dramatically - moving to a new home, racing 2 more Ironmans, getting pregnant, and a whole lotta crafting.  Not to mention the invention of Pinterest.  I have lots to share with the crafting interwebs, so stay tuned!

DIY: Upholstered Headboard

I've been hating our bedroom decor for awhile now.  The items on the wall looked great when we had a different color scheme going on with the bed.  But it had all evolved into something that definitely didn't work.  See?  The silver frames and the wood on the lamps and the warm colors on the bed.  No good.

So, inspired by some cute dresser pulls from Anthropologie and the hand-made quilt from my Mom, I decided to go with....PINK!  and RED!  Keep your opinions to yourself.  Okay, no, don't.  Because I still need help with ideas.  But the pink and red is staying.  It makes me happy.

The first part of the transition was to do something different above the bed.  I've always wanted an upholstered headboard like they have in my favorite hotels.  How hard could it be?  It turns out, not that dang hard.  If you don't mind really really sore arms and bleeding fingers.  Meh, that all disappeared after a day or so.

The redecorating of the rest of the bedroom will be documented in later blog posts.  Disclaimer: I'm an engineer, not a decorator or designer.  So if I'm way off-the-mark, I'm open to comments.

Supplies
- Plywood.  Since they don't make sheets large enough for the space I needed, I made 2 separate panels with the intent to just place them side-by-side.  It worked great.  And was perhaps easier than making one large one.
- Staple gun, staples
- Fabric, batting (enough for 2 layers)
- If you want to tuft the headboard - drill, buttons, upholstery thread, needle
- Something to secure the buttons to the back of the headboard.  I used wire stapled to the back.

Step 1:

Cut the plywood to the correct size.  Or have the store do it for you.  Some will, some won't.  I wanted mine to free-stand from the floor, so I used 2.5' x 6.5'.

If you are planning on tufting your headboard, drill the holes for the buttons at this point.  Just decide how frequently you want a button, measure, and drill.  You can't tell from this photo, but the holes are there.  I did 5 rows of buttons on each panel, alternating between 2 holes and 3 holes each row.

Step 2:

Drape the batting over the panels, cut off the excess, and secure by stapling on the back side of the plywood.  Don't pull too hard!  Repeat with the second layer of batting.  If you want a really cushy headboard (hehehe), use three layers.  I was too cheap to buy a third layer.  That stuffs expensive, yo!  In the photo on the left you can see the wire across the back to tie off the buttons.

Step 3:

Repeat Step 2, but this time with the actual fabric.  Go slower this time and take the time to make sure it's lined up evenly and that you are pulling the fabric tight enough, but without stretching it.  The corners are a bitch, and I have no good advice here.  Other than trim off the excess batting and fabric, and then staple the hell out of it.  Whew, lots of cursing in this post.  Please don't send me emails about it, thanks.

I forgot to take a photo of this step, so here's one with the buttons already on.

Step 4:

Step back and admire your work.  Resist the urge to stop here.  It really does look so much better after it's all tufted.  Okay, deep breath.  And maybe a shot of tequila with a beer chaser.  This next step takes some patience and lots of reaching and stooping and swearing.  Ready?  Add buttons.  Sorry, that's all I got for ya.  My method took forever and I was hating life for the entire time.  Maybe you will come up with something much more efficient.

I used beautiful vintage buttons that I've been collecting for years.  Mismatched crystal, pearl, and fabric buttons in various shades of clear and white.

Step 5:

Either hang the panels on the wall, or lean them on the floor.  Stare for a really long time.  With a stiff drink in your bleeding hands.

Cuppycakes!

I recently made about 4 dozen cuppycakes for my awesome work peeps who have really pulled through on a few projects lately.  They deserved some sugary, gooey, yummy recognition.  Inspired by Hallmark Valentine's Day, and given my oh-so-awesome track record with cookies, I opted for cupcakes.  I also had some fun icing tools that had never been used that I wanted to play with.  The only real danger here is that I had never actually made cupcakes before, let alone decorated then all pretty like.  I went the training-wheels route and used boxed cake mix.  But the rest was all-natural.  Er, all-homemade.  The icing was a recipe that my Mom made growing up.  It's true perfection.  It's super sweet, but not too sweet.  And it sets up nicely without getting rock hard.  I love this stuff.

Oh, you don't call them "cuppYcakes"?  Try it, I bet you will from now on.

Cake Ingredients:
Favorite yellow cake mix in the box
Each box is typically 3 eggs + 1/3c vegetable oil

Icing Ingredients (per batch, I made about 6 batches):
1 egg white
1/4c margarine (I know, ick, but who am I to mess with perfection)
2.5 - 2.75 c powdered sugar
Food coloring

Filling Ingredients (optional, here's what I used):
Buttercream frosting + lemon extract
Creamcheese frosting + strawberry preserves

Materials:
Mixer
Lots of little bowls and dishes and spoons and knives
Patience while mixing the icing
Decorating tools for the icing (I used disposable icing bags and a few different tips)
Optional - other goodies for the tops of the cuppycakes (I used decorating sugar, sprinkles, strawberry puffs from Williams-Sonoma, candied orange slices, and spice drops)
Optional - cupcake corer (if you want to fill the cupcakes with gooey filling)

Directions:
1) Make the cake mix per box instructions.  Feel extremely clever that everyone will think you made these from scratch.  Pour batter into lined cupcake baking trays.  Bake, cool, etc., etc.

2) If you want a gooey-surprise in the middle, you'll need to core out the center of each cuppycake.  I used a handy device from Williams-Sonoma.  Yes, I'm an impulse shopper.  I suppose you could also use your fingers to pinch out the center.  Eat all the yummy cores.  To test the deliciousness of the cake, of course.

3) Make the filling and stuff into the holes.  For the orange/yellow cakes I mixed buttercream frosting (Betty-Crocker in a can, shhh) with lemon extract (another Williams-Sonoma impulse buy).  For the pink cakes I mixed creamcheese frosting (I love you Betty-Crocker!) with organic strawberry preserves.  The organic part is really important here.  It completely offsets all of the sugar and chemicals.  Don't believe me?  Well then, that's your problem.

4) Wait for husband or kids to get home to mix up the frosting.  The trick is to mix the powdered sugar in a little bit at a time, and to have Popeye-like forearms.  It should be really thick and a total pain in the ass.  I've been reading up on things like aperture and shutter speed and lighting, but for now, you're stuck with photos like this one:

5) Use your ninja decorating skills to create mini-masterpieces.

6) Try one to make sure they do indeed pass the "made from scratch" taste test.

Enjoy!