Bedroom glam

So I have yet another Pinterest DIY project that I took on...mind you it was started and completed just days before I give birth to my 4th child! Goes to show that it doesn't take all that much effort, especially if you have a wonderful hubby helping. I get so much more satisfaction knowing I made something rather than bought it at the store and I'm pretty proud of how this project turned out. So as I'm sitting here on my couch (as I have been most of the day waiting to see if these Braxton - Hicks contractions turn into the real deal) I figured I'd post it up on the blog while it's still fresh in my head.

My hubby and I just treated ourselves to a new bed... we had our last queen sized bed since we moved in together 8 or something years ago and it was just time for a new bed after numerous moves and running out of space - two little midgets somehow manage to make their way into our room in the middle of the night. Anyway, we got a king which is huge. Haha. But we just got a simple set on a metal frame and box spring. No fancy headboard. No fancy wood sleigh frame. Just the bed. We knew we wanted to make our own headboard but wasn't sure when we would get around to it with the bambino's due date around the corner. However, the husband was not digging how boring it was looking and we took advantage of his holiday time off and my nesting plus some liquid energy (my 1 cup of coffee a day) to just get down to it.

We didn't follow any particular tutorial on Pinterest. We looked at a couple of pins and kind of planned out what we would do together. We knew we wanted a tufted look and we saw a tutorial for a headboard with some arms which I want to trim with nailheads. We got to measuring and planning - we recommend adding an extra inch to the width of the mattress measurements. We then came to an agreement on how high we wanted the headboard to go...this is completely a personal preference. I think for our king we ended up with the measurements 4 ft X 77 in. At Home Depot we had a 1/2" plywood board cut to that size. We also had several slats of 1" X  maybe 2". My husband used these to manufacture some arms for the headboard which we would bolt to the bed at the end. The rest of the supplies and how much they cost are as follows:
4' x 8' x 1/2" Plywood from Home Depot= $35
3m multi-purpose spray adhesive from Home Depot = $7
2 full size 1.5" foam mattress toppers from Target = $40
3.5 yds of batting from Walmart = $15
3.5 yds of fabric of your choice from Walmart = $8
I already had buttons and scotch guard and wood screws and staples that we used. Total only roughly $100 or so.

The husband started by building the legs while I took the cut board and sprayed it with adhesive to attach the foam to. I left some room on the bottom where the mattress would press up against. I also covered the legs in foam. This process is pictured below.

I gave the foam a little bit of time to fluff out since it was packaged tightly in a bag. My hubby brought the board inside so that the fabric didn't get dirty. I layered it on the carpet fabric first, then batting, then the foam covered board. I wrapped the fabric around the back of the board and stapled them down (pictured below). The corners can be tricky but I just did what I thought looked good.

The next step was to cover the arms with the batting and fabric in the same way that I covered the board, stapling them to the back of the arm so only 3 sides are fully covered. I wanted to leave the back open for when we attached the arms. Before, I did that, though, my husband meticulously measured out where the buttons would go and I put staples in their places and scotch guarded the fabric (pictured below).

My husband took over again at this point. We set the covered board face down on the bed and set the arms beside it exposed wood side up. He took some scrap 1" X 2" wood pieces from where he made the arms and screwed them into the back of the board and arms to secure them together side by side.

Lastly, I took to adding the finishing touches sewing the buttons over the staples we had measured out. The very last thing I'm going to do is add nailhead trim along the arms... but that might come a little bit later. We were too anxious not to set it up behind the bed right away. We had to see what it would look like and we were both quite pleased with ourselves. See the mostly finished product below.

This whole project took us all of 2 days, but it could be done in 1 if you already have all the materials needed. We ended up having to run out for more fabric and batting (we originally only bought 2.5 yds of each but it wasn't enough for the arms). All worth it for the end result. :)

Avo-SPA-do

Whoa! Has it really only been 2 days since my last blog? Haha. Well, since the movers are coming to pack up my entire house in 2 days and I will be without computer, I figured I should post something to hold y'all over until we're all settled in again...or sometime thereafter.

My post on my son's truck birthday seems to be doing pretty well on Pinterest so I figured I would post another birthday-on-a-budget...this time it was my daughter's 6th birthday earlier this year (in April). Well, can you guess the theme (for those who haven't read the previous post anyway)...yep...a spa day. What girl (at any age) doesn't love some pampering? I mean, some gunk and goo on the face, glitter in your hair, and 20 different colors on all 20 nails! I honestly, don't know how much this party cost me, but I can assure you that it wasn't bad at all. In fact, this time I downsized the guest list by only inviting her closer classmates and the nearby relatives.

I think I let Lil Miss invite 6 friends to this little shindig. Most of them showed up, too. I found FREE templates for the invitations which I found on Pinterest. The setup was pretty simple. Paper plates in the girliest of colors (pink and purple), a fancy looking tray from the Dollar Store with nail polishes from my and my daughter's own collections, chargers I already had (and bought at 40% off) to display the snacks and pack of microfiber wash cloths. I also draped multiple robes (in case they didn't bring their own) on the backs of the chairs. I kept everything clean and relaxing. If I had to guess, I would say the decorations came to be give or take $10. It's a huge savings to use things you already have around the house!

The snacks were very cutesy. Like usual, I scheduled the party at an off-peak hour so I was not required to provide a full meal. The menu included pretzels, "spa" water, cookies, and marshmallow polishes. The recipe for the cookies can be found here. It was made from scratch and healthy, although it does contain peanut butter and most ingredients I already had on hand. The marshmallows were sprayed with an edible coloring and I used frosting to stick Tootsie Rolls onto the top. I probably spent less than $20 on snacks.

The activities included avocado facials, manicures, and adding glitter tinsel to their hair. I made the avocado facial because I didn't want to use anything artificial on such young faces. I can't seem to find the website I got the recipe from, but I do recall some avocado, almonds, milk, possibly some oats...I'm not quite sure. You can find tons of natural facials online, though! They all laid around on the living room floor with their hair pulled back in an elastic headband I provided with this green gunk on their faces and slices of cucumbers on their eyes. It was awesome! (Let me also say that a benefit of using natural ingredients is that they are edible as well...yes, these chicas took their cucumber slices and "dipped" it into their faces and ate it!) Once they washed that all off, we started manicures. I had the microfiber towels set on the table with the idea of warming them and wrapping their little fingers in them to soften the cuticles...buuuuut...I totally forgot with all the little girls telling hollering about which color or decal they wanted. While some got their nails did, others got tinsel tied into their hair. I found this at CVS and enlisted the help of a cosmetology student friend. They were all dazzling by the end of the party! And let's just go ahead and say I spent like $15 for these supplies.

Last, but not least are the cupcakes and thank you gifts. I made my own cupcakes at home...therefore they are not the prettiest, but I tried with the same pink spray I used on the marshmallows and purple pearl-like candies. The gifts were just $1.50 nail files and travel lotions from Bath & Body Works. Luckily, they were just coming out with some new fragrances of lotions and had mini lotions on sale for only $1 each before the release. Plus, you can often get free mini lotions with minimum purchases or 20% coupons pretty regularly so if you have a plan ahead of time, you can stock up over time. Add another $15 to my budget.

I think the girls had a great time. They were espeically amused with the facials, but they had tons of fun getting prettied up. I want to know how your spa party goes or other girly themes you come up with.

And if you've been keeping track, my grand (estimated) total for the whole party came to....drumroll please........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................$60! That's not bad...not bad at all even if I didn't have a bounce house or rent out a whole venue or hire a clown. :)

Pallet Love.

That has been quite the hiatus, wouldn't you say? So much has happened since my last post (What was it even about again?). I have shut down my Mary Kay cosmetic business to focus on my true passion of photography. I have been blessed with loyal clients allowing me to photograph their children. However, I am having to say goodbye to these wonderful people as we prepare to move back across the country to Hawai'i, our home in about 2 1/2 weeks. I am not sorry to have come so far and experienced so much. Thank you to the Navy for that. But I am also thankful to be going back home...and timing couldn't be better. My family needs me right now...well, I need them a lot, too.

Well, enough about that. There is so much I have yet to post. I need to catch up on things like my daughter's 6th birthday spa party (which happened in April mind you). But today I am going to post about a project I just finished.

Lately, my husband and I have been obsessed with pallets! Just like you see all over Pinterest, pallet projects have become somewhat of a huge trend in the DIY world. Guess it has to do a lot with free wood and a lot of imagination. So far, my hubby and I have worked together on 3 pallet projects including an outdoor coffee table, a new, huge dining table, and an ottoman for the living room.

(Please excuse the terrible phone photos)

The one I'm going to post about today is the ottoman. Of course I followed a pin because I'm totally obsessed with DIY thanks to this ever-consuming go-to social media site. However, as with everything, I tried to do things just slightly different and in my own way...kind of.

I'll start with the supplies you need (the amount and cost of supplies greatly depends on how big your pallet is going to be):
 1 pallet (size of your choice) - free
 egg crate foam - $21 for a twin sized piece on sale (Joann Fabric)
 batting - $4.19/yd on sale (Joann Fabric)
 upholstery fabric - $8/yd on sale (Joann Fabric)
 fiberboard/plywood - $9 for 4' x 8' (Home Depot)
 buttons - $8.99/12 (Etsy)
 legs/top plates - $20 for 4 of each (Home Depot)
-------------------------------------------------------
My total: approximately $85.00

The first step I did was to sand down the pallet. Some thought it was kind of pointless, but my particular pallet had been sitting in some dirt in all kinds of summer rains and had some mud and splinters sticking out from everywhere. Just because it was ugly, yes, I took my hubby's sander to it and cleaned it up. The wood itself looked great once I was done. Then I measured and cut 2 pieces of fiberboard to the size of the pallet (1 for the top and 1 for the bottom). Once cut, I nailed the bottom piece on with little nails I had on hand for hanging pictures. Note: the boards are to give you a flatter surface to work with so you have something to tuft to and nail the upholstery too. You'll see what I mean as you continue. The pallet is really just a base to start your work with.

Next, I measured where my buttons would go for tufting and drilled 2 tiny holes at each spot in order for me to sew them in place.

After all of that, I took my top piece of fiberboard and and layered it on top of (in order from the bottom) the fabric, batting, and foam. I used Tacky glue (instead of spray adhesive because I had it on hand and wanted to save a little money) to glue the foam to the fiberboard. Now, keep in mind that the foam was cut to the same size as the fiberboard. The batting and fabric were both cut large enough to go down and around to the bottom of the pallet once the top is attached. The amount you need will depend on how thick your pallet and boards are.

Now, this is the hard part. The tufting. I have never tufted before and the pin that I linked to above also provides links on tufting tutorials, but I just used what I knew about sewing buttons to do the tufting. I did not purchase upholstery needles (again trying to cut costs), but they would have been really helpful as my needles didn't necessarily go through all of the materials unless squished...yes squished. It is also difficult trying to find the holes through all that material. Everything I have done up until this point was fast and fairly easy. I think it took all of an hour to do it all...but this took the rest of the night. And I called it a night once I finally got all 11 buttons on. I just sewed the buttons on as you normally would...only I pulled it tight in order to create the bulges. You definitely want to use a thick upholstery-like thread for this process. And even then you want to double it up as you sew. I had some thread on hand for sewing my husbands uniforms. It is fairly thick and did the job.

After some sleep, I got back on the horse and finished up what I started. I added more foam to each of the sides of the pallet (though I had to undo my upholstering later on once I realized that I should have added board to the open sides because you could feel it through the fabric and also add even more foam to the corners). This wasn't difficult just a pain since it was all trial and error and I didn't notice how much could actually be felt until all the fabric was already staple on. Once I had the foam surrounding all the sides, I took the tufted top and nailed it onto the pallet. From there, I turned the whole thing upside down and went to town with the staple gun. Wa-la...the top is all done.

But wait, we're not done! I took the top plates and screwed them into the bottom...OK...this is where my hubby helped me because for whatever the reason, the self started screws it came with didn't want to start for me! Anyway, I shoved them as far into the corner as I could measuring each to make sure it was equal...inside of the stapled fabric. Note: You want to trim away as much of the fabric on the bottom as you can without possibility of the fabric tearing and coming apart.

Once those were secured, I took a plain white piece of fabric I already had, nothing special and covered the entire bottom, even covering the plates I had screwed on. This hides all the ugliness and also reinforces the other materials as you are adding that many more staples and also covering up anything little children or pets can get to.

Wondering how I'm going to get the legs on? Well, I'm going to cut holes right where the legs are going to screw into the plates of course! That's what I did and they went in just fine. Get them as tight as you possibly can and you're all done!!! *Patting my shoulder now.*

Only took 2 days and I've got a new piece of furniture that is now my children's favorite place to sit and watch tv...even take naps. Haha. It's a custom piece without the custom price and the pride that you did it all yourself. As you can see we went for kind of a modern look with a vintage feel (buttons). That is what we hope to accomplish with the new house we are looking to buy when we get back to Hawai'i. I'll post more about how we decorate and other DIY projects we do to make it our own.

Enjoy making your ottoman!!! I'd love to see what you can accomplish with pallets in other ways as well!!!

Gnawing Away

As I was browsing Pinterest (yet again) I came across a recipe for teething biscuits. I thought, "Really? Hmm..." So I clicked on the link to check it out. Sounded like a great way to use up jarred baby food and rice cereal...since my picky little baby doesn't want either...at 8 months old, he wants the good stuff...the stuff that his brother and sister are eating. So, I thought it was a perfect fit. The very same night, I got in the kitchen and starting mixing up the ingredients. Half an hour later, it was cooling off in time to subdue the little dude once he started fussing later in the night.

The recipe was pinned from here. If you try it, I just want to note that I used apple sauce in place of the oil and sweet potatoes from a baby food jar in place of bananas. The dough is supposed to be uber sticky and hard to roll out...even with a layer of flour. Next time I might try some wax paper, but I think it might even stick to that. :p And once baked, the biscuit itself is supposed to be chewy as it is a teething biscuit. And that way it's a bit harder for a baby to bite off pieces and choke on them. They should be able to take their time with it. My little guy can handle little bits at a time. (Next time I will be making them smaller). And through reading the comments on the recipe post, I noticed that the author had introduced her child to it as early as 6 months.

You'll notice since it is almost Halloween, I decided to shape the biscuits like skull heads. But next time I'll just be making small bars. ;)

Short and Sweet. :)

Upcycle

Pinterest is an awesome bad habit. I haven't gotten too many good recipes off of it recently, but I have definitely been crossing off some of the projects I've been wanting to try in my "DI Why Not" board. The latest being hats made from old sweaters. In my case, I didn't use an old sweater, just one that my hubby got and decided he could do without it. So, I took it from him, made a few snips here and there and wah-la. Two hats for my kids.

It was really simple to do. You can follow the tutorial from the original pin here. Basically you're just going to cut the shape of the hat from both the front and back of the sweater at the very bottom. Then you're going to sew both pieces inside out along the edge that you cut. Turn it right side out. Done! Simple, right?! I should note that the thicker the sweater, the harder it will be to sew...I learned that the hard way, but I got it done and this is what I came up with.

Then, I added a couple of my own embellishments just to make them slightly more appealing and relative to each child.

So easy, right?! Hopefully these will help keep their heads nice and warm during the coming winter months...even though each have a head full of hair that cushions their precious little noggins from any hits. :P

Upcycle. Recycle.

Curb Alert

So, I was once obsessed with the Nate Berkus show and all the style, decor, and DIY tips that came out of that handsome man's mouth. But I began itching to do EVERYTHING on his show and was wishing I had a house of my own...it didn't help that I became a mother of 3 instead of 2 demanding children. Now, I catch it whenever I can. Anyway, Nate used to have many a guests who transformed their spaces with a lil paint and elbow grease and I always wished I had a piece of furniture I loved enough to fix up, but quite frankly, we bought everything new and it's still holding up pretty well. So when I saw a cute little chest of drawers out on my neighbor's curb for disposal, I got excited. I debated back and fourth whether I wanted to snatch it up. I've never done anything like that and I was a little embarrassed. But one rainy day, I couldn't stand to see the wood get ruined and with no one watching (I hope), I carried it into my garage where it sat for months. In fact, the neighbor recently came over to chit chat as our kids played outside and I'm pretty sure she spotted it considering I don't have much in there. Though she didn't say anything. Haha. Well, I just recently found the time and motivation to get started on it. I didn't know what I wanted. I thought about keeping it a similar cream color and touching up the hardware and design to maintain it's vintage feel - I don't actually know if it is vintage. But instead I came across a silver leaf dresser on Pinterest. I decided to try something similar since I don't have a clue how to silver leaf and don't have the patience to learn how to do that on top of it being my first time refinishing a piece.

So I made my way to the Home Depot (the first of many trips) to look at their paint selection. I picked up a white Paint & Primer In One spray and some metallic glaze from Martha Stewart's collection in Mercury (as was advised by an associate) to get a similar look. I had already fallen in love with a pair of vintage inspired knobs from Urban Outfitters and was designing everything else around them. And lastly, I found 2 handles (also from Martha Stewart's collection at the Home Depot) that went really well with the knobs. I had to make sure the glaze color, which was silver, didn't wash out the silver handles.

Some of the supplies used.

Then I got home and got started. I cleaned out the drawer and "sanded" down parts of it with a wire brush where a few stickers were plastered on. I also took pieces of a lace curtain I picked up at the Goodwill and Mod Podged it to the front of the drawers - another idea off of Pinterest. I then took it out to my back patio and sprayed down each piece separately with the white primer. Once dried, it was time to paint the glaze on. I used a paint brush as well as a sponge brush. It took a couple of coats to cover it completely and even still I was so unhappy with it. I didn't like how obvious the brush strokes were and wished I had used a metallic spray paint instead. It wasn't until everything was put together with all the hardware that I accepted the way it looked. I began to see that the steaks gave it some wear and character and I couldn't wait to take it up to our bedroom. I can't forget to add that I also used self adhesive shelf liners I found on a recent trip to TJ Maxx for inside the drawers adding a little pizazz and preventing any snags.

Before and After pictures

 You can see the imperfect paint strokes in these detailed pictures. But I learned to love them.

As much as I wanted to display it, it didn't go well with the current decor so it had to go into my closet, which was the plan anyway. The piece isn't very large so I'm using it to store my more delicate laundry leaving an extra drawer in my dresser for my clothes. :)

You have to remember that Rome wasn't built in a day. This project wouldn't be done in a day even for the most experienced seeing as it takes quite some time for the paint to dry completely...especially if you are using multiple coats as I did. I should also note that my hubby had to help me plaster the old holes and drill new ones for the door handles as the original ones were made closer together than the new handles I bought. I had chosen all of my hardware very carefully and didn't want to give up the items I chose and therefore we opted for this approach. For a beginner like me, this project was rather time consuming and I couldn't wait for it to be over...especially since I had 3 other "projects" to attend to I will refer to as "the Diva," "Mommy's Bubby" and "Be-bo." But after all the time and work put in, I am pretty pleased with my first project of this kind. I would like to do more in the future. I hope you like it as well! :)

Hope you're having a great Sunday!