DIY Halloween decorating!

So this is my favorite time of year! It might have something to do with the fact that my birthday is the day before Halloween. I still love to dress up every year and eat lots of candy! I also looovveee decorating for the holiday! This year we are having a party so I had to cook up some new ideas. 

My first project is something that I've been wanting to do for a couple years now but just couldn't decide on a theme or colors. I was in the trusty Hobby Lobby and just started picking stuff out. 

 

 I just love the colors! I do wish my front door was black or some other color than wine red, but we are renting and it will be OK i guess. The tulle part is from hobby lobby along with the green string parts. I also had to get a green wreath frame because they were all out of black or orange ones, but you can't even see it! The ornaments and "Wicked" lettering are actually from Wal-mart. The "Wicked" lettering used to be a sign and I just cut the wire in the middle and attached it to the wreath frame. I love the way this turned out and it totally has me inspired to do a Halloween tree in the future! I will be on the hunt for a black tree on sale. And I've already seen so many possibilities for DIY ornaments!

 Moving on...Shortly after the 1st of October I went and got a pedicure and got this really cute hand painted design. I had to search for an example to show the nice lady doing my nails and she did pretty good!

 So to go along with my party decorations I really wanted a cute banner! I see cute burlap ones everywhere but I have a big stash of scrapbook paper that I need to go through so I broke out my supplies! I just gathered all the black paper I had and determined how big each square would be based on that. Then I found great black and orange chevron paper in my stash and used that on top of the black. Lastly, I used my Cricut for the letters. I is the basic font that came with the Cricut when I bought it. Next, I used some of the Tim Holtz distressing ink pads to age the edges. Finished it off with some twine string and a hot glue gun! Love it!

 So you can't have a party anymore without a "photo booth". I had a sad attempt at one at our party last year. It was more of a scary themed party and it didn't look good in pictures. But this one I know is going to look awesome! I have some really cute props that I picked up last year that I plan to use again. I also made this chalkboard so people could hold it in the picture if they wanted to. I wanted to do a frame but just haven't had the time. I have done a lot of projects for this party already and need to call it quits! It's getting too close to start anything else and I still have my husbands costume to make. I will tell you more about that later!

And finally, I picked up these beautiful pumpkins at Hobby Lobby for 50% off. Which if you are like me you don't buy anything from there unless it is on sale. 

I have a few more things such as cookies and treats to decorate, but I won't do that until it is closer to the party! I will try to post it right after. I don't plan to have extra time to post in here before with everything else I have to do! I hope some of this inspires you to make your decorations and see how great it can turn out! The only decorations that I didn't make were the porcelain pumpkins! I hope you have a great Halloween!

Re-organizing project #1

Ahhh...the new year! It's scary how fast the time flies! I am starting classes again and getting used to things at my new job. I am also itching to re-organize some things. So I started with my master closet. I also don't want to have to go out and buy all new organizing supplies. I would love to do that but then I wouldn't be very thrifty. I started with this mess...

Now it doesn't always look like this...I decided to take pics for this post halfway through moving stuff around. All of my husbands stuff is all the way to the left where you cannot see and I decided to put all of his stuff to the right and give him the shelves. After moving shelves around and getting rid of any hangers that weren't black, it all ended up pretty good. I am also in the middle of replacing all of the hangers with the velvet black ones with the metal top. They are so pretty and hold the tops so well. The best deal I have found to get them is at TJMaxx and they always have them. They come in a 25 pack for about $12. I just pick one up every time I am in there.

After getting rid of a full trash bag full of clothes and some other things like old gross flip flops, I ended up with this...

 After I did all of this I decided to turn all of my hangers backwards. Once I wear something the hanger goes back the right way. At the end of the year, if there is anything left backwards I have to get rid of it. If I don't wear it through any of the seasons I probably will never wear it.

 My husband's area shrank a little bit, but I promise he will get a bigger area when we move and have a bigger closet.

I have my shoes on a $15 shelf from Walmart. The cube looking shelf is from Office Depot or Staples I think. It is on it's side holding my purses, jeans, and scrubs.

 All of the boxes and baskets were already in here I just got rid of stuff I forgot about. The blanket is the summer blanket for our duvet tied up with some ribbon.

 My husband has less hanging space but has plenty of extra room on the shelves that weren't really working for me.

I know this isn't anything new, I just hope to spark inspiration in other people! Have a wonderful day!

-Jamie

Repaint a Goodwill end table!

Hello everyone!
I have a new project to show all of you. It took a while to get this one started. I had the table for about a year or maybe more before I even touched it.

You can see the table here. I originally bought this table from a Goodwill and was going to use it to make a small bench. It is actually pretty short for a regular end table. I put it in this place to keep it out of the way until I got ready to make the bench. But I then noticed that with our futon right here in this room it was the perfect height! That is when I decided to go ahead and use it as an end table.

So first I sanded it down to get the little bit of clear coat that was on it.

 I primed the the table then painted it with some paint I had left over from painting the desk in the same room. Then I picked up a stencil at Hobby Lobby and ended up with this! The last step was to seal it with Polycrylic! It is the same stuff I used on another project and it is holding up great! I love the way it turned out! So much lighter and brighter.

Hope you have a wonderful Holiday and I hope I get another project up here soon!

-Jamie

Closet turned sewing room!

Hello everyone!

A while back I went home to visit my family that live a couple hours away from me and we stayed at my mom's house. Every time I go there I just want to help her with her next DIY project. Well, I seen some of the closet/office redo's and thought it would work perfect in her library/sewing room. When I say library I mean like over 1000 books in there and she has read every last one of the them.

I showed her some of the pictures I had found and she really liked them. A couple of weeks went by and we were talking on the phone and she said she wanted me to help her make this happen. Oh I was so excited!

I told her we needed to redo the entire room because the paint color was too dark and some things needed to be rearranged or thrown out. I sketched up a simple idea and told her all the plans. (well what I had so far)

Here is what the room looked like before. Too much stuff and unorganized!

The bookshelves didn't match and that green thing is just plain ugly in there! (my dog always seems to get into the pictures)

The closet just had a ton of clothes that she didn't wear except for a few things that we sorted out. 

This was her sewing table for the longest time until the door broke so now it just stored the supplies but wasn't actually functional!

We started with some really light yellow paint on three walls and a couple shades darker on the fourth wall where we plan to stencil the wall.

We bought some wood to make a desk top and split the old shelf in half to make two and painted them white.

 Added some beautiful Ikea boxes and basket! We still need to paint the desk top, but that is ok.

I also got her a second white shelf to match. We found these white drapes at Ikea. She is going to hem them eventually.

So that is the progress so far! I love the look of the boxes on the shelves and there is way more storage than she needs now! Hopefully we make some more progress the next time I visit!

Updating a thrift store lamp!

Hello everyone!

So I have been in nursing school for the past year and haven't posted anything since then. This makes me really sad...well it makes me more sad that I don't have much time to do very many projects, but that will come soon.

Anyways, I did find a little time to fit a few projects in over a longer period of time and just haven't found the time to post them. I picked up an old lamp from a thrift store a while back...I believe it was Goodwill but 100% sure. I have a lot of furniture and decorative things from thrift stores that I revamp for plan to anyways. Here is what I found:

 It's actually not a terrible color (mint green) but it wasn't what I was look for but I love the shape.

 I taped off the top and the cord where the meet the green and picked up a can of Heirloom white spray paint by Rust-oleum. Gave it a couple of coats and ended up with this beauty!

 I got the lamp shade in the above picture from Target on sale but it lives on a different lamp in the living room. I found an inexpensive neutral lamp shade from Wal-mart that I really like as well. This can be seen in the picture below.

The lamp lives in our guest/craft room on the Goodwill end table that needs repainting or staining (who knows when that will happen). I think it looks pretty good! And you can do this to any interesting lamp base and make a beautiful custom lamp for any room!

Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed it!

DIY: Makeup Brush Holder!!!

Hey everyone! I would just like to first thank my mother-in-law for being my very first official "follower"! I got super excited when I saw it! It means a lot to me!

Anywho, the reason I am posting today! I only use makeup brushes. I don't use sponges or any of the applicators that come with makeup! They just don't really put makeup on like a brush can. I have all different brands of brushes, so they are all different heights. This makes it difficult to keep them all in the same jar or cup. 

I have seen the technique on many makeup blogs and finally did it for myself. It is so inexpensive and easy to do! Like really easy! Probably the easiest thing I have I my blog so far! 

First you want to find a jar you like. I just had this glass one that I was already using for my brushes and cleaned it out. 

 Super simple but still pretty! Next you go to Michael's and get this plant filler. It is for fake flowers! They are with all of those other pebbles and stuff for plant jars. Hobby lobby might have this stuff but I'm not sure. I know Wal-mart doesn't carry it and I don't think Target does either. You will have to go to a craft store or buy it online. 

 One bag should be plenty! Next you pour the bag of beady things in to your jar. I ended up putting some of it in a smaller jar for my eye brushes. It really only needs to be at least half full.

Next, you can put in your brushes! Did I mention how easy this project was? lol!

 Voila!!!

 They all stand up straight! You can easily add a ribbon or something but I like it simple like this! 

Hope you enjoyed this little project and maybe it will help you get your brushes in order! 

~Jamie

Goodwill projects!

Hello all! Hope you had a good weekend and made it through Monday alright! 

These are the final weeks of the semester so my projects have slowed down for the moment. I did start repainting my bedroom furniture but am looking for hardware so I will have that post up soon. 

Anywho, I have two projects to show you today! The first one I finished right after I finished the headboard but I have just been too lazy to post it until now. 

I think you might remember the chair I bought a while back from a thrift store for a couple bucks! 

 It is quite dated and ugly! It smelled funny too. So I painted it white after we moved but had been trying to decide what color fabric I wanted to use for the cushion. I could not figure it out. Well, after I made my headboard I had just enough fabric to double cover the new and thicker cushion.

So I stapled it on real quick and ended up with this!

 I slapped a button on there that I already had and there you have it! My new chair that cost maybe $20 to make! I love it! What do you think?

The next little project I have I also put together real quick. I pinned a monogram project that had a white frame, white letter, and burlap background. I did something similar.

I started with a cheap frame from goodwill. It took a while to find one that was just the frame and big enough. They always charge so much for a frame when it has a picture in it even if its of some ugly ducks or something. 

I found this one. 

 Luckily since it was a poster picture and didn't have glass it was only $2.

I then turned the picture over and hot glued the burlap to the cardboard. I painted the frame first and the "C".

I thought the whole thing was too plain so I decided to draw some stuff on the "C". 

 Here is the final result plus a little frame I did all the same stuff to except made a paper flower for it. 

 This wall is huge and empty! I plan to make a couple more frames with little things like this to fill it. I use pictures on all the other wall we have and keep this one different! 

Have a great day!