This is Where the Magic Happens

I remember back in the day when I used to watch Cribs and drool over all the obnoxious, overindulgent decor in the homes of "celebs."  Whenever it came to viewing their bedroom, they'd say "this is where the magic happens."  I'm sure some of them literally had magic happening in their bedrooms!  I'm sure their butlers are also out of work magicians who would put on magic shows every morning.

Well the magic going on in our bedroom is redecorating magic.  I have been magically able to redecorate with little money to work with...cuz we po'.  Apparently we are so poor that we don't have enough to even spell the word out all the way!

I will have to track down a before picture, but it involved ivory and beige zebra print!

 After

 Swing-arm wall sconce

 Grapevine squares with pictures

 Painted Grapevine Wreath

 Mirrors:  painted, crackeld and white-washed

Painted Grapevine wreath up close

So here's the Magical Boudoir Breakdown:

Brown Quilt:  already had (Pottery Barn)
Duvet:  already had (Pottery Barn)
Shams: same as above...apparently we weren't "po'" at one point in our marriage!
Curtains:  dupioni silk (Pottery Barn)  - all courtesy of "Santa"
Body Pillow:  already had (got it when I was pregnant)
Sheets: $45ish - Target (compared to the previous $179 zebra print sheet set from Pottery Barn) we made out like bandits this time!
Teal Boudoir Pillow:  $12 Kirklands
Swing-arm sconces:  courtesy of Santa again (he shops at Home Depot and they are a little under $50 a piece - Pottery Barn ones were too much for Santa...roughly $160 a peice!
Grapevine  Squares:  $8.99 a piece at JoAnn's (the store, not my mother-in-law!)  I had 2 40% coupons for 2 of them.
Pictures:  Walgreens 10 cent picture deals  (the cardstock matting was about 69 cents a piece at JoAnn's)
Mirrors:  a friend of mine bought theses at a yard sale for a few bucks.  She couldn't use them so she gave them to me for FREE!  I did buy acrylic paint and crackle medium, so roughly a few bucks spent on that.
Round Grapevine Wreath:  under $6 - Jo Ann's (store).  They are $8.99 but I had another 40% off coupon.  I used the same paint from the mirrors and did sort of a 'wash' on it!

Pretty much everything else we had already.  I sold the zebra print chaise lounge that was in our room from before and was able to redo our bedroom, bathroom and some stuff for Ryne's room!

Also the pictures are experimental!  I am working in the "creative" setting on my new camera, so I'm still getting the hang of ISO, f stops, and such.  The lighting in our bedroom is terrible, so it's the best I can do for now!  Hopefully better pictures to come soon!

"Serving" Tray

A couple of months ago I came across an amazing blog, called Elm Street Life, from a lady Franklin, TN.  She made this super cute plaque with the words, "say grace" on it.  We always used the term "say grace" when I was growing up, so I fell in LOVE with the plaque project.  I have yet to make one for myself, but I decided to take the idea and make another craft with one of my favorite Bible verses!

I have always been fond of the verse from Joshua 24:15, "But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord."  My grandmother has a needlepoint of this Bible verse hanging next to her front door, and I've always felt it was special to me.  I also just happened to have a unfinished wood serving tray that needed a purpose other than to hold junk that needed to be thrown out a loooong time ago!

So this is what I came up with:

The concept was great, the execution needs some work!  I had and still have several issues with the outcome.  My paint pens kept breaking on me and splattering gold paint all over the tray.  Then probably the most obvious things are that the majority of the wording is too small, and for lack of a better term, crooked as a dog's leg!  It must be the font that I used.  It printed out fairly straight on paper, but when I applied it to the tray it came out with an obnoxiously obvious slant to it (aka: crooked as a dog's leg!).

I am probably going to completely redo it, because I am a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to things like this, but I wanted to share the idea!

Knies Knacks

A few years ago, Adam decided that my Mary Kay stuff was swallowing our only desk. So one day he brought a desk home for me because a patient of his was getting rid of it.  I completely understand why!  It was a hot mess, but I never look a gift horse in the mouth!
I've been wanting a new desk for awhile, but the ole purse strings are a little tighter these days with the bambino.  Have you priced car seats these days!  Anywho, I decided to just paint the desk to save a little money and give the ole girl a makeover!
Now let me explain the essence of this desk!  It's a particle board dream nightmare with laminate overlay on the top!  It's okay to be jealous!  Anyway, I wasn't sure if you could paint laminate or not so I hunted around on google and found out you could.  It's not easy but it's doable.  So, after some sanding, priming and painting it black, I have a decent looking desk!

The fabulous desk

The side pieces were literally taped on!  

Sanded

Primed

Finished!

Now it matches my hutch!

Mirror, Mirror on the Wall

By mirror, I mean that mirror cheap piece of glass that was glued to our bathroom wall. Saddlebrook provides no fancy frills unless you shell out some clams! Well, several months ago, I noticed a tiny crack that started creeping up the mirror. At first we thought the mirror cracked and then stopped cracking. I marked the top of the crack with some eyeliner (MK, of course!), to see if the crack was continuing to creep. It gradually started getting worse and worse - more and more of an eye sore. We talked to some contractor-esque friends to see what they suggested. Adam and I thought the mirror would just pop off easily, but we were told that may not be the case, depending on how the mirror was attached and how much glue was used. Crowbars and holes in drywall were mentioned. Ummm, no! Not to mention that Lowes and Home Depot, neither one had a piece of builder's mirror cut to the size we needed. Custom cut mirror - so that's why our house cost so much to build!

So a few weeks ago, I was blog stalking a friend of a friend's blog and somehow magically made my way to a blog, Sabby in Suburbia, where she was currently in the middle of framing her builder's grade mirror. I think Sabby got the idea from Domestically Speaking, who has a great tutorial on how to jazz up a builder's grade mirror! So, anyway, I thought this would be a perfect way for us to "fix" the mirror without replacing it and crowbarring a hole in the wall! Who would have ever thought to do that? Obviously not me! Interestingly enough, after mentioning this to my mother, she said that when she had her house remodeled back in 2002, that's exactly what the contractor did. Her advice: paint the back side of the frame too!

This project was very easy to do. Adam and Frank used Frank's (grandfather's????) one hundred year old miter saw to cut the frame. We still need to fill in some of the little gaps with calk, but it has made a HUGE difference in the way our bathroom looks!

We are tackling the guest bathroom next!

The Crack

Before

After!

More Crafts

I've been in craft mode lately! It feels good to get in the zone when creating something...it's sort of my therapy! Adam and I have also been wanting to jazz up the house a little bit, so my crafts are being put to good use.

This past weekend, I decided to paint some letters for Ryne's room. He originally had a mobile attached to the wall above his crib, but the weight of the Cubs mobile caused to mobile to start coming out of the wall. So the mobile had to go. It's tough being a Cubs Fan! Afterwards the wall seemed so bare, so we decided to put some letters up!

I have done some crafts before with paper mache boxes. We found some paper mache letters and I broke out the ole craft paints! It only took about two hours from start to finish - enough time to get burnt on my upper back and shoulders and sweat through my entire outfit! I originally wanted to match Ryne's room colors - a mixture of various reds and blues. However, the red on the letters did not seem to work well, and neither did my original design for the letters. So polka dots it is!

The Letters. I think they are a little crooked, but whatev!