I Think I'm In Love

With the lamp that I jazzed up yesterday! I was so close to blogging about it last night, but held back to post it today!

I found this lamp at Goodwill. It was only $8.99! It actually had a different shade on it, but it was one of those pleated ones and I didn't think it would work as well to cover with fabric. They had just a plain shade for $1.99 so I bought it to switch them out.



I really like the design of the base, but not so much the gold. My wonderful hubby gave me some friendly suggestions of how he thought I should work on this, and I think his advice was very helpful! We decided that it really needed to be sanded first to help the paint adhere well to the metal. I found a package of steel wool at Wal-Mart that worked perfectly! It came in a package with 3 different grades of wool and I used the medium one to scuff it up to begin with. Then I covered it with 2 coats of black primer and painted it with 2 coats of black satin spray paint.

Someday I will learn to take pictures of the process, but I didn't this time, so you will have to live with an explanation! The shade was much easier than I expected it to be. I bought 1 1/2 yards of fabric at Jo Ann's on Saturday. To cover it, I started at the bottom of the shade and the seam that was already in the shade and wrapped it around. We thought it would be best to use some glue all over the shade to make sure the fabric was tight. I had picked up some fabric glue to use for the shade and it worked perfect. I just poured some on the shade and then brushed it all over. You really want a thin coat because it will seep through the fabric if it is too heavy. Once it dried, I cut all of the excess off, made a pretty seam at the end and wrapped it over the top and the bottom.

I am seriously in love with this lamp and I hope you like it too!!



And a close up of the fantastic fabric!



How awesome is that?! This project was sooooo easy. In fact, I am wondering if you can have too many lamps in one house because I really want to make one for every room in our house!! If any of you would like more info or have questions on how I did it let me know, I would love to help!

A Busy but Relaxing Weekend

Hi All!! I hope you are having a great weekend! Mine has been so much fun and so relaxing. Friday afternoon I golfed with a couple of co-workers at the Oskaloosa Chamber Scholarship golf outing. What a great way to spend a Friday afternoon! I was so thrilled that the weather was decent after the crappy weather we have had for the last two weeks.

Saturday morning I woke up early to head to Des Moines and do some shopping. I hit several stores in just a few hours and I am pretty pleased with what I came home with (some of which you will see throughout my next few posts!) I talked to Nick about 12:30 when I was on my way home and we decided not to go to the lake, so I get home, drink my NO Xplode and head to the gym. 10 minutes into my workout my phone rings, he says that he figures that we don't make payments on the boat all winter just to not go out when it is a couple degrees colder than we would like! So needless to say, I cut my workout really short and headed home to get ready! I am glad we ended up going because although it was cold and definitely not ideal boating weather, we had fun! There were several people we knew down there so it was nice to see a line of boats tied up, that's a sure sign of summer!

A couple of days ago I noticed two cute little bitty bunnies hopping around our backyard, and apparently they are now big enough to jump up into my raised garden bed! Before we went to the lake yesterday I noticed that they had chewed the leaves off just a little tiny bit of lettuce, this morning I go out there and they chewed off my entire row of lettuce!! Grrrr!!!! So we headed to Orchelin's and bought chicken wire and fence posts and put it up around my garden so hopefully this does not happen again! Now we are just chillin at home for the day, with a gym trip thrown in there after while! What a great way to spend a Sunday.

As if this post isn't long enough already, I have a couple more projects to show you!! I am thrilled with how they turned out.

Before my wedding, my best friend and I bought wooden letters to spell out Williams and painted them my wedding colors to use as a decoration. My wedding colors were bright pink and black. When we bought our house I really wanted to display them somewhere and there is a perfect ledge for them going down our stairs. I liked them, but they have always been a little too much in those bold colors, so I decided to mute them down a bit.



This project was FREE and so easy! First I painted the edges black. Next I spread Mod Podge all over the top of the letters, then placed scrapbook paper on them. I let them dry over night to make sure they were stuck down good. After they were dry I flipped them upside down and used my exact-o knife to cut the paper off around the letters. Then I brushed Mod Podge over the top, let them dry, and Ta-Da!



We think they look MUCH better! You can't really tell and I didn't take a close-up photo, but these are patterned papers.

I got the inspiration for this next project at the House of Hepworths blog. I love this blog! When I saw this post I knew I wanted that in my house. So what did I do?? Headed to Goodwill to try to find a tin bucket, wouldn't you know I found one that is pretty much identical in size and shape to hers!



The letters and dots that are on there were super easy to pop off with a straight screwdriver. I put I think two coats of white primer on this and then a few coats of the yellow. Yesterday when I was at Michael's I was able to find the exact same twigs that she used, which I absolutely love. I stuck them in there this morning and am in love with the finished product!



Isn't it awesome?! This project was a little bit more expensive, but still pretty darn cheap. The bucket was $2.99, the twigs were $9.99 regularly, but I had a 40% off coupon that I used and the paint and primer were just over $3.00 each, but obviously I still have some left to use in the future.

What a great weekend I have had! I can't wait to show you something else I am working on. It is going to be so, so, so awesome! Enjoy your Sunday!!

2 Goodwill Finds

I have been busy with my "projects" this week and I have two things to show you!

The first is a small ceramic crock that I found for $2.99! The design on it is not my style, so I spray painted it.

Before:


First I painted it with a primer and then a semi-gloss white paint. One tip for those of you that might decide to paint glazed ceramic, you must use VERY light coats! Glazed ceramic is obviously non-porous, so it does not soak in any of the paint. I learned this the hard way!! It did take several coats, but I finally got it pretty well covered.

After:


I think it looks much better!!

My second project was to find something to place an Uppercase Living vinyl on. It was a "Summer" one that I bought back in December! I went to Goodwill a second time and found this frame for only $1.99!!



Pretty awesome huh?! I knew it could easily be transformed into something perfect for the vinyl and I am pretty happy with the results.



The background was so easy to create!! I just cut up a cardboard box to match the size needed. I then tore up pieces of paper lunch sacks and mod podged them to the cardboard. Has a very rustic look that I really like!!

Here are the two projects on display!! (Sorry for the AWFUL picture!)



These projects were cheap!!!! I think I can get the hang of this thrifty decorating! I have some other projects in the works, but need to get a couple of things for them. I plan on going to a couple of craft stores in Des Moines this weekend to pick them up.

I don't know about you, but I am so happy tomorrow is Friday. We are a sponsor for the Chamber golf outing tomorrow, so after 11:00 I am out for the afternoon to golf!! I think the weather is finally supposed to improve, so it should be a good day for it!

New Life to An Ugly (But Free!) Basket

I have found so many cute blogs the last week or so all about thrifty crafts and decor (several of them I have added to my "Blogs I Visit" in the right column) that have really inspired me! The common theme on pretty much all of these blogs is that if something is cheap (or free!) that has some character to it, but maybe ugly how it is, paint it!! You can really paint pretty much anything!

After spending hours last week reading some of these blogs, I really wanted to do some thrifty decorating. I started wandering around my basement (since that is where things go that I don't know what to do with, but can't get rid of) and found a very ugly basket. I won this basket a few months ago at a chamber lunch and I love the shape and style of the basket, but the colors are just awful! Have a little look for yourself:



Nasty huh?!

What would these thrifty ladies on all of these fabulous blogs do?? Spray paint it!! So I bought some brown spray paint and got to work. It took me about 4 coats to get it pretty much covered. A little tip for those of you that may decide to paint a wicker basket, you will have to flip the basket upside down as well since you will not get the bottom sides of the little pieces from just the top! Fortunately I figured that out before I was all excited to start using it!

I always keep a couple of blankets in our living room, but have never had a place to put them, so I've always just thrown them in the corner. Well, not anymore!!!



Not too shabby huh?! I love it, it looks a thousand times better than it did before! All in all a pretty cheap project! The basket was free and I only spend a little of $3 on the can of spray paint (and I still have some left!) I think these thrifty ladies would be proud!

I can't wait to show you a few wonderful things I found when I scoured our local Goodwill today on my lunch break!! You will just have to wait for that...maybe tonight, maybe tomorrow!

Hope you all had a great weekend and a great Monday! Hopefully this rain and dreariness and COLD goes away soon!

A New Record?!

Two posts in one day!!!! Woo-hoo!! :) I guess I have a lot to say today!

I have a few cards that I have made over the last couple of weeks to share with you. I took about a month break from card making because I just didn't make the time, so I was happy that my creativity didn't completely leave me!

Here is a "just because" card I made for Nick, just because he's so great!


This is a pregnancy card that I just had to make when I found this digital stamp online. I don't know who it is going to yet, but I love it!


A simple thank you card


And finally a card for some friends that just had a baby boy on Monday. My first new baby card!


I also have Mother's Day cards done, but can't share them yet! There are so many things going on this month that I need cards for! I have at least 5 more to make for different occasions! How exciting!

On a completely separate note, I really wish someone would tell the New Alliance office here in town that 15th Avenue is not the Iowa Speedway! If one more floater goes flying by at the speed of light I might just flip out! They shake my whole house!!! Jeepers!

Have a wonderful Thursday evening!!

A 5k and Iced Coffee

Any of you that know me very well know that I am NOT a runner!! I keep trying to fool myself into thinking I am by running on the treadmill at least 4 times a week, but that does not make me a runner! Well, with all that being said, I ran my first
5k last night!! Nick and I both ran the Klompen Classic in Pella! It was the first 5k for both of us and we had so much fun! Of course we didn't run together, but individually we both really had a good time. I had two goals going into the race: run the entire thing - no walking and run it in under thirty minutes. The first one I definitely accomplished! I cranked my iPod up and forced myself to keep running. I will say this, running outside is much harder than running on a treadmill!! I knew this going in, but it was definitely confirmed during the run! My second goal...well it's debatable if it was accomplished or not. I say it was! Here's the deal, they gave us little chips to attach to our shoes that would give us our time when we crossed the finish line. The problem was, they didn't have a timer thing at the start line, so the time started as soon as they said "Go!" I was behind quite a few people and just like when a light turns green, we couldn't just start running immediately, we had to wait for those in front of us. So by the time we actually started moving and I crossed the start line, it was a good amount of time. My slip that printed when I finished said my time was 30:43, see why I argue?!?! Oh well!!! I am okay with 30 minutes or 30:43! There were over 2,000 participants overall and I finished 735th out of everyone and 296th out of all the females (I'm not sure how many there were total), so I was pretty happy with that!

I really did enjoy this race and could see myself running more 5k's and possibly 10k's, but I don't think I would ever have to desire to train for and run a half or full marathon. I just don't enjoy running that much!

On a separate note, I have to share a recipe with you that I have fallen in love with. It is called a Mason Jar Frappuccino that I found on the Tasty Kitchen blog. It is so good!! We obviously don't have Starbucks in our lovely little town and Smokey Row just does not make good iced coffee, so I have to make my own. This is quick and easy and much cheaper than Starbucks anyway! Enjoy!

I hope to be back later tonight with some cards that I have made!!