I don’t consider myself to be a crafty person. An artist, yes. Crafty, no. There is a difference but don’t ask me to explain it because I can’t. Kind of like the difference between jelly and jam or muffins and cupcakes. Everyone knows they’re not the same thing but does anyone really know why? (If you do, keep it to yourself or you’ll ruin everything.)

Despite my crafting deficiencies, I’ve actually been doing quite a bit of it lately. I spiffed up a lamp shade, repainted some mirrors and snazzied up a stool.

And now I’ve gone and done it again.  

See, most of our efforts on the house have been concentrated either on the first floor, since that’s what most people will see, or Isabella’s room. Our bedroom has gone pretty untouched. Then I stumbled across this blog post and was inspired.

(source)

Aren’t those awesome? We all know how much I love Samson. What better way to honor him than by placing his beautiful silhouette front and center on our wall? That started the wheels turning and before long, I was digging out my trusty can of spray paint again.

There are many ways you can do this project. You can trace an outline of your pet on the canvas and then paint around it. You can put a stencil on the canvas and spray paint over it. You can make it all up on the computer, print and frame it. Or you can do what I did, which seemed the easiest: spray paint your canvas whatever color you want. Print out a pic of your pet that measures the right size and then cut it out with an Xacto knife. Cut it out again on white archival paper and then glue it to the canvas with spray adhesive. The whole thing took me about an hour from start to finish (not counting drying time of the paint).

Here’s the result:

I so LOVE how it turned out!

Isn’t he regal? 

But why stop there? While I was at it, I did a silhouette of Isabella too! Can’t play favorites with your kids you know!

LOVE! Love! Love! That pose is very indicative of her personality too. Always heads down figuring stuff out.

Remember in my post from Sunday how I mentioned spray painting an “S” and a “C”? Well, those went up on the wall with these beauties!

And now for the big reveal!

Ta da! At first I was worried that it was too much black and white. But now I love the graphic nature of it. High contrast with a hint of color in the red ribbon gives our room a slight edge, so it’s not too “fluffy” (I’m not a very fluffy person).

Pretend there are curtains on the windows. This shot would look much better with curtains. I had planned to have some up by now but Target thwarted my plans. It’s a long story. Suffice it to say I bought 2 sets of curtains from there only to have to return all of them for one reason or other. I finally settled on some from JCPenney, which of course were on back order. They should be in our possession some time in May.

I also like how the black/white above the bed ties in with the black frames on the adjoining wall. I have read over and over that you can unify pictures just by keeping the frames consistent. So the rule in our house is black frame, white matte. Always.

I’m super happy with how it turned out. In my head, I had pictured hanging the letters by the red ribbon. But when I went to implement, I didn’t like it. So I went with this instead. MUCH better.

I’m also happy that CJ’s didn’t have a name that started with “M” or our bedroom would take on a whole other theme…

Oh, and another “crafty” project I did a while back but forgot to share was this –

I needed some sort of yellow tray to put on the dining room table to bring more of the sunny color into the room. Then I read in a magazine that you could take an empty frame and put fabric in it to make a tray. Voila!

It just so happened that I had some fabric leftover from reupholstering the dining room chairs so I used that! It worked out beautifully!

All right, that’s enough “Craft Time with Sarah”. I’m really excited about how all these house projects are turning out and love sharing them with you! I hope it gives someone else inspiration too!

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This weekend was full of projects. I’ve had a few things in mind I’ve been wanting to do for a while PLUS I got a few things at Goodwill recently that needed a little TLC. I finally decided to bite the bullet and just get to work.

These mirrors I found at Goodwill a month or so ago.

Both are in great condition and a good size (the small one was $2.99 and the big oval one was $4.99). I wasn’t in love with the color though so I bought some spray paint and got to work. The little one was going to be black and the big one white, which would go in Isabella’s room so she’d have a mirror at her level. Wasn’t quite sure where to put the little one but figured black was a pretty safe color that could go anywhere.

I started by taping over the mirror with newspaper so it would stay clean.

Then set them up outside, on some more newspaper, so that I’d be working in a well ventilated area and wouldn’t have to worry as much about overspray.

Here they are after the first coat.

As you can see, it would take me several coats to fully cover them.

Getting closer…

I didn’t count the number of coats but I think it was about 5 for each.

Here they are in their final state, hung up to enjoy!

The big white one went in Isabella’s room, next to the door so that she could see herself after getting dressed.

I ended up putting the little black one by the front door to use as people are coming/going and want to check their hair, make-up, hats, etc.

I’m really happy with how they turned out and both were super easy.

Another painting project from yesterday was this stool I got at Goodwill for $4.99.

It’s the perfect size for Isabella’s playroom (and we needed one to help her reach some books). The natural wood color was ok but didn’t really go with the theme of the recently redone playroom. So, I got out my trusty white spray can!

Here it is after one coat.

It took about 5 or 6 coats for this as well, due to all the little divots of the wood and wanting to get those filled in.

Here’s the final product, set up in it’s new home.

Isabella already loves it and will pick it up and carry it around to various rooms!

While I was spray happy, I took on some wooden letters. See, I want to put an “S” and “C” up on the wall above our bed and I’d like to put at “I” above Isabella’s! I happened to find a wooden “S” at Goodwill for $.99 (see a pattern here?) so all I had to do was buy a “C” and an “I”. Isabella helped me pick them out. She wanted a glittery pink “I” for her room. While I could have made one myself, I opted to just buy one that was already done.

Here it is hanging on her wall.

Not the greatest pic but you get the idea.

The “S” and “C” had to be painted though because they were plain white.

I painted them black so that they’d stand out from our bedroom wall (which is a light tan) and provide some good contrast. Of all the painting projects that took place yesterday, they were the easiest. 2 coats later and they were done!

You’ll have to wait for the final reveal on those as I want to show them as part of the finished bedroom wall. More to come on that this week!

I also fixed up our living room lamp yesterday. The lamp itself was another Goodwill purchase made over the summer and it cost $14. The shade however was on it’s last legs. It worked for a while, until Isabella knocked in to it a couple weeks ago and broke it beyond repair. So, I bought a new lampshade (no, not from Goodwill…from Target…geesh).

It was a nice lampshade. Contemporary, with the cylinder shape and made of burlap, but a tad boring. So, I bought a clearance roll of ribbon from Michael’s and got to work. I basically took some spray adhesive and sprayed the top of the shade, as well as the back of the ribbon, and then just laid the ribbon around the top. It took me all of 5 minutes to complete.

Ta da!

I really like it. The change is subtle but enough to give it personality. I plan to add another ribbon along the bottom but I ran out and have to go buy more.

Finally, I tackled the kitchen pantry.

Here is the “before” shot.

Things were randomly jumbled in there and it was getting harder to find things.

I started by taking everything out and categorizing it – cereal, baking supplies, cooking, snacks, etc. Then I looked at each group and further sub-categorized (for example, in “snacks”, we had crackers, bars, bagged stuff and candy). Each category then got contained in a bin of some sort, labeled and put back on the shelf.

Here’s the after.

Look at how much more room we have! And it’s nice because some of the staples that I use for cooking or baking are corralled all together so I can just pull out the whole bin and have everything handy! Oh, and of course I got the bins at either Goodwill (for $.39 each) or the Dollar Store.

Here are a few more pics of items that I’ve ‘scored’ recently while thrift shopping!

This circle-patterned pillow ($3.99) on the living room couch.

Some summer shoes for Isabella ($2.99 each).

Some scarves and a vest for me (scarves $3 each and the vest was $5.99).

AND this toddler chair for Isabella to use at the table instead of her high chair (which I’ve been wanting to get rid of for a while)!

This was a huge score. We found it at a used children’s place for $5.50 (normally they can be in the $20-$30 range)! She absolutely loves it too! We also found a potty seat for when we start potty training. It was also way marked down to $5.50 (and it’s a nice one that converts from a self-contained potty, to a stool and seat that goes on the adult potty).

Well there you go – that was my Saturday! Seems like a lot for one day – and I guess it was – but most of it was quick. The painting takes a few seconds to put on one coat. It’s the drying that takes the most time. The pantry was the biggest project, which I knocked out during Isabella’s nap.

I LOVE it when ideas from my head come out in real life just as I pictured them to! And it feels even better knowing they were all thrift store finds (the most money I spent was on the spray paint at $6 a can. Considering I got 7 things painted using 3 cans, I think it was still a good deal)!

Now I’m off to play outside with my sweet daughter and handsome hubby!

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Treasures

Accomplished