See The Light

I have these ugly builder light/fans in each of my bathrooms.   



While remodeling my boys’ bathroom, I  thought I take the light out and replace with something nicer.  Until……

I removed the cover and see a big square hole in the ceiling. How what am I suppose to do with that BIG hole?



The way I see it I have 3 options:

1.  Leave it like it is. {Yuck}                                                    

2.  Put a fan only cover on and rewire for a new light.

3.  or my vision and Hubbies execution {see below}



My idea was to replace the light cover with the fan only cover, drill a hole in the center, and run the electrical wires out the hole to install a new light. 



Both light and fan with out making another hole in the ceiling!  Soooo much better!

We did the powder room too.



NOTE:  If your thinking about doing this in your house, you do need to use a semi-flush light.  Flush mount light would not allow the fan to circulate the air.  {But you knew that!}

*It’s finally Monday*

It’s Monday!  Whooh! I need a rest from my weekend!

I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend.  It sure was a busy one for me.  Here is a list of some of things I got done:

• Cut & installed shelves in hall closet
• Two coats of each primer and paint on shelves
• Visited with out-of-town guest
• One craft project (started & finished)
• Painted vent cover & installed new light fixture (with the help from hubby)
• Blogged a tutorial on Easter Wall Art
• Fixed the vacuum
• Removed old bathroom sink
• Created a Easter vignette
• Designed labels for organizer bins
• Dinner out with hubby and youngest son

How was your weekend? Busy or Restful?

Happy Monday,                                  Carrie

Easter Wall Art Tutorial

I had so many wonderful commits on my Teen Girl’s Wall Art.  Thank you everyone.  Your commits were so sweet, you made me think I had done something totally wonderful!  When in fact I just slapped paint on paper and scribbled around the blob with a Sharpie marker.

It’s like when you look at a piece of art with a over priced tag hang from it and know that your four-year-old could have created it. 

       {Really only $500 for that black and blue blob?}

Please don’t get me wrong….. I do appreciate good quality art and think artist deserve getting paid well for their talent. But you all know what I’m talking about… Right?

Here is a tutorial to prove to each of you that you can recreate this:



Start with these supplies:

Pencil, Sharpie marker, cup of water, towel, paint (green, pink, white, & black), sketch pad (or card stock), paint brushes, scrap paper, frame



Determine how big you want each print.  I started with the frame (hey, I’m learning!) to determine the size of my finished project.  Lightly draw the shapes in pencil.  If your really uncomfortable about drawing free hand, you could  print a template off the computer and trace around the shape.



NOW PAUSE…..Take a deep Breath……. and pick up your paint brush.  Remember it’s only paper.  What’s the worse that could happen?  You throw it away and start again!

Looking at the photo of the supplies, notice how little paint is needed. (Any Mary Kay consultants recognize my paint tray? LOL)

Load the paint brush with green paint and tap off the excess on a paper towel.  Keep the brush completely vertical.  Now lightly tap the bristles on the paper.  *TIP#1* You don’t want to completely cover the area.  It’s okay to have some of the paper peeking through.  Paint slightly over the pencil lines.  *TIP#2* Think about the way light hits an object.  Keep it lighter in color on the top and a little bit darker on the bottom.  Do this by adding white & green for the highlights and black & green for the shadows.  *It only takes just a TINY bit of black to darken the color.  You want a darker green or a light green shade NOT white, gray, or black.



Here you can see before and after I applied some shadowing on the stem and leaves of the flower.  *TIP#3* I did all the green and then washed out my brush before moving on to the pink.



Alright your doing great!  I know it looks like a big blob of paint in the middle of the paper.

Now time for some fun. Dip the end of the paint brush in the green paint and paint some dots in and around the egg shape. 



Repeat with the pink paint. Let the paint dry.



Using the “extra fine” black Sharpie marker, start at the bottom of the painted area.  Slowly recreate a small shape of the egg, without picking up the marker, continue making that shape each time get a little bit larger.  *TIP#4* I like the look when two outlines cross over one another and letting the lines go outside the painted area.



Glue finished art onto the scrape paper and frame.  Step back and enjoy your masterpiece!!!  Now run and show everyone!!! 



My fabulous nest and eggs came for this Esty store. 

CLICK HERE



Happy Easter,                                                                     Carrie

I am Queen!

{Queen of unfinished projects that is}

Here is my crown.  Isn’t she lovely?



Now don’t get me confused with the Princess of Procrastination.  I love to start a project.  Love to gather ideas, create a step-by-step check list, and ultimately SHOPPING for materials!   So what’s the problem you ask???   FINISHING. COMPLETING.

We all go through personal journeys. We all need to do some sole searching.  We all need to conquer our own demons.

As I take a hard look at all my unfinished projects,  I have gathered a list of excuses reasons why their still incomplete:

1. Waiting on materials to arrive in the mail because I can’t get them locally. (the down side of living in a small town)

2.  Needing an extra pair of hands.  (usually that of a strong man)

3.  Lack of time (homeschooling 3 kids/4 part-time jobs)

4.  Lost interest (usually because the project isn’t turning out like I want) [shaking hands in the air]

5.  Ran out of $MONEY$ (this happens a lot) LOL

6.  Bit off more than I can handle (this happens from time to time)

7.  Secretly hoping someone else will come and complete the project! Ha Ha

Okay you get the point.  How many of the 7 did you say, “Yep, that’s me”

This is where YOU ALL come in.  The very reason for the existence of this little blog.  I can not post about any unfinished projects!  I may send out teasers from time-to-time but all projects will be completed!!!!

OH   You didn’t think I’d leave you hanging. Of course I’ll show you my collection.

 

Refinishing the front door.  The South Carolina morning sun had faded the outside.  To my defense- the temperatures dropped before I could complete.



Ok this is NOT a before and after photo.  I wanted to change the stained spindles to white.  This small section took several hours to paint!  (Still waiting for the paint fairy to come and finish the rest of the spindles)



These are two separate craft projects that are waiting on materials to come via UPS.  One of them I tried to cut corners and finish anyways but it turned out really bad.  More on that to come…..



And these are two separate home dec projects.  [holding up my right hand] I promise to complete these projects



Thank you everyone for making me accountable!           Have a great weekend!

Inspired To Be A Copy Cat

There are so many wonderful projects that one can find in bloggy land. Many I have put on my own TO-DO list!  You ladies are so talented and creative! (a big high five going out to each of you)   What I say next is only to give each of you a huge compliment….. I’m a COPY CAT!  I loved this project at How Does She? Click Here for Tutorial.  I just had to recreate for my own home.



My kids have out grown the cute little baby toes but I still love it!  I can see changing the photos to each season-  flip flops, toes in the sand, rain boots, winter boots (you get the idea)



This is such a cute way to get the message across and still be polite.

 www.MarthaStewart.com

Martha always knows how to take it one step further.  A basket of slippers at the back door waiting for all your guest!  Love love love it!!!

Have a wonderful day!

Teen Girl’s Wall Art

My darling daughter’s bedroom remodel has been a work in progress for sometime.  Finding artwork to satisfy my daughter’s taste has been a bit challenging.  So what to do?  Make your own wall art.



I sat down with a sketch-pad and lightly penciled out four different flowers designs. 



To make sure the art work matched with her decor, I used the blue wall paint used on one wall.  Slightly diluting the paint with water, I sponged the blue color inside my pencil outlines.  Add a few dots with the other end of the paint brush. While the paint is still wet, add white and black paint (to give some dimension and depth). 



After the paint has dried, I scribbled around the center of the flower and round the outside with a black Sharpie marker.



Because history repeats itself, I couldn’t find frames to fit. :-)

I did find 12x12 frames at Hobby Lobby (50% off!!!) and because this size was to large than the prints, a zebra scrape paper was used to filled the gap. 

Easter Blocks

Have you ever have one project inspire another project? 

That’s exactly what has happened to me!  All the base molding had been removed during layer #2 (installing of the slate tile)  for the boys’ bathroom make-over.  For a few days I walked by these pieces sitting in the garage, waiting to go to the dump.  When it hit me!

Would this inspire you?



Pretty gross… huh?



I cut the molding into small blocks, removed the beveled edge at the top with a circular saw, and lightly sanded down the paint.



Used Mod Podge and scrapbook paper. To get this



Waited about 30 seconds for the glue to dry and sanded the edges.





Aren’t those bunnies cute?



I’m just in love with my Cricut machine.  Do you have one yet? 



Add some lettering……



Cover up any imperfection.  Lol



Trash to Treasure!



Happy Easter!

Cool Photo Names

I’m sure you have all seen artwork out there in blog-land that use photographs of object to spell out a word.  So here’s my attempt to come up with some awesome artwork for my boys’ bedroom. 



As you can tell, dirt bikes are my boys’ hobby!  I took a lot of close-up photographs of their bikes and safety gear.  Then I used Picnik.com to crop and edit photos. (Love this site!)  Be patient with this process.  I really wanted to foot peg to be the “U” but in the end it became the “H”.  Same with the letter “E”.  When I took that photo I was thinking letter “H”.  Go figure….. Stay flexible and you will come up with something great! 

Each letter is printed to a individual 4x6.  I purchased the frames from Amazon.  Learn from me…. Find your frame FIRST.  I thought I would go to the local craft store and pick this frame up in 5 minutes.  With so many samples of this being done in bloggy blog land, really they had to be all over! Right? NO WAY!!!  I went all over town with no luck.  I love shopping online.  Why didn’t I think to go to Amazon in the first place?  Would have saved me 2 months looking.  Seriously, I had this planned for Christmas gifts and they ended up being Valentine’s Day gifts.  lol

I wanted to frame each letter separately instead of compositing the photos together to be one big print.  Reason?  To keep cost down.  I can print my own 4x6 prints.  Plus, I like the way the black frame separates each letter and I didn’t need to have a custom mat or frame made to achieve this look!!!  

In the end, the boys loved them!  Give it try….. and don’t forget to share your photos.

GROW UP!

The boys are growing up and now it's time for the bathroom to do the same. I hated to say good-bye to the cute adorable blue and yellow nautical theme. But I'm liking the change! and change is good. Right? I've been following Christopher Lowell's 7 layers of design. Well sort of......

1. Paint & Architecture ( painted the ceiling: Glidden "Warm Caramel", the walls: Behr custom color match from Glidden "Mexican Springs", and the vanity: Benjamin Moore "Iron Clad Black". I was bit nervous to paint the builders standard vanity but I just loooove it! So classy. Do I dare to paint the powder bathroom?




2. Installing Floor (slate tile for Lowes) I am hoping to install the quarter round molding and toilet today. That will complete step #2!




4. Accent Fabrics (shower curtain from Ikea) skipped layer #3: Upholstered Furnture.
Curved shower rod (Amazon)


5. Non-upholstered Furniture- high lacquered white medicine cabinet (Ikea), Peerless shower head (Amazon), chrome waterfall faucet (Amazon). The faucet hasn't been installed yet.









Mirror has been ordered (Amazon) and waiting for delivery. Still looking for a new sink.



6. Accessories The best layer!! Okay so I couldn't wait for all the other layers to be finished before jumping into this layer. Today I hung a couple of wall art that I made last week.










I replaced the towel bar with satin nickel hooks. For one, I thought it looked a bit more modern and two, I thought the boys might actually use the hooks unlike the towel bar. The towel bar was for decorative purposes only. That's not a bad thing (in other parts of the house) but for a boys bathroom everything needs a purpose! I'll post an update with more photos when all is complete. It's the little things that encourage boys to wash up:)

When A Standard Greeting Card Won't Work!

A 40th wedding anniversary requires something a bit more than your standard greeting card!



Materials needed:
40 blank index cards
Mod Podge (glossy)
foam brush
2 pieces of thin wood (I had removed the back out of a photo frame from another project that I had done (to be posted later)





vinyl lettering (created using my Cricut and SCAL)
drill
paper hole punch
shower curtain hook



Print out vinyl lettering in your desired color. In the photo above you will see that I use painters tape instead of transfer tape. At the last minute, I added the date to the back. Cover the lettering with Mod-Podge. In most cases, vinyl letters don’t need to be covered but my boards had a glossy sheen. I didn’t notice this until I applied the letters. An optional step would have been to lightly sand the board.




Write out your 40 reasons on the index cards. Get the whole family involved! Beware not to write in the upper left hand corner as this is where the hole will be made. You could get fancy and write poetry and quotes. It could even be typed out nice and neat but I’d like the personalization of each individual hand writing. I think this will be a keep-sake! (like Grandma’s hand written recipes)






Drill a small hole in the upper left hand corner and paper punch holes in each index card. I was able to punch several cards at a time and I drilled a hole through both boards at one time. The holes will be sure to line up! There was several options that I thought might work to hold it all together. In the end I went with the shower curtain hook. Very easy to slide everything on and close it up.



Options: Paint the boards, cover with scrape book paper, apply buttons and ribbons
All would of have been cute. I simply ran out of time….. I also think this would be a great idea for a birthday. (Hubby is turning 40 this year!)