Friday, April 6, 2012

Making it work

I've been working on a few projects to get the house looking pretty for the baby's B-day party. The first order of business was to finish painting the front door. Shut the front door! I painted it awhile ago and then it got really cold or else I just didn't have the time with the baby. I finally made some time on Wednesday (while waiting for Roto Rooter man to come fix a clog that was leaking into our basement utility sink. Stinky). Here it is done-enough. Meaning if I get more time I'm going to paint the yellowing window parts white. This is it from a few months back:

This is it done (valspar exterior paint in Jazz club):
I Can't show you it from the outside yet because it's not ready out there.

I made art work for the baby's room. I took my inspiration from a print I saw on etsy but I put my own twist on it. Here is the inspiration pic:
Pastel Forest Only $17 if you want to purchase one! Love it!

Here's what I did for the Beans room:

I just used silver wrapping paper for the back ground and light pink scrapbook paper for the trees that I just free handed. It turned out pretty ok. The pics aren't the greatest. Still learning how to use a fancy Pentax camera. We also hung her mirror and other goodies:

I'm going to be adding an old family desk in front of the mirror some day. I have to get it hauled here from my mom's house and then refinish it. I'm also on the hunt for a long dresser.

Today I made a rug for out front porch. It was inspired from something I saw on Pinterest.  I bought a 9'x12' canvas drop cloth at Harbor Freight for $15 (I'm going to be making curtains for the mud room too so I needed the extra). Here are the tools I used:
Simple! Yard stick, tape measure, red marking pencil, scissors, painters tape and the drop cloth. First I cut my rug to size (6'x4'). Next I laid it out on my hardwood floors and started taping off the stripes. I used my yard stick and the floor boards to help me get an accurate measurement. See here:
See how the tape lines up with the floor boards. It's not totally perfect but I'm surprised at how good it actually came out! The little pieces of blue tape are for me to know which stripes I'm going to be painting blue. Derr. 
Here it is all taped up:

Then I took it outside and used the exterior paint that I used on the front door (Since it's going to be at the front door):
Don't mind the pole shadow

And here she is after she's all dried up and tape is removed:
It took awhile to do with all the measuring, taping and painting but I love how it came out. I almost looks screen printed. It's perfectly imperfect and way cheaper than buying one!

Next on my list is to make drop cloth curtains inspired by Roeshel @ Diyshowoff:
Diyshowoff
 Her sense of design is amazing and she is such a sweetheart. Please check out her blog. It is inspirational.

I also want to paint a flower planter urn that we have lying around somewhere. I would love to make it bright yellow but the husband wasn't too keen on that so we shall see what else I come up with.

5 comments:

  1. I love the rug! Are you putting anything under it? Like a rug underlay?

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  2. Thank You! Eventually I'd like to put one of those rubber rug thingys under it. For now I'm going to use stuff to anchor it down (no time to do anything about it). I also am thinking about bringing it in at night so I just need to worry about it during the day.

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  3. Awesome! I love stripes and your new door is so pretty too! Can't wait to see it all come together! :)

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  4. ps. Thank YOU for the sweet shout out! What a great way to start the day! ;)

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  5. I LOVE the rug!! I saw a Nate Berkus show (love him!) where there was someone on "house proud" that made rugs like that and I've wanted to try it ever since! Any tips?!

    (P.S. I'm the one from The Bump who asked for blogs!) Love it. :)

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