Clean Bedrooms

In search of bedroom inspiration...

www.countryliving.com

Love how clean the room above looks! The old finds, like the bed, table, and old beams, help to cozy it up.

www.countryliving.com

I'll take that view. lol. Beyond that, I l-o-v-e the chair and how they wrapped the room in white. The blues and whites in the rug are a nice nautical touch.

www.coastalliving.com

I'm not a big fan of peach. I chalk that up to getting my fill during the '80's but this is so nicely done that I may rethink my peach abhoration.
I love the beds on ropes with their chunky wood boards. Although, that wouldn't be functional with my terrible motion sickness. I, however, can spot some things that would work for me. I love the fruit paintings. If you read my post a while back... I feel validated!... there are other bedrooms that have fruit, too! lol. In addition, the black in this room appeals to me, of course. I really like the balance of color with pieces that dress up the room, like the black accessories. And, I could, most certainly, "hang with" that light fixture.

Now, this troop leader is off to pack for a Girl Scout meeting!
See you back tomorrow evening with another Friday gift!

A Coastal Christmas Continued

Time for two more ideas. These are both ideas for revamping items into new Christmas ornaments.

First off, the inspiration....

www.coastalliving.com

I absolutely love the boats and was thinking of a way to replicate the look. My mind wondered to this...

http://www.carlpeterswholesales.com/index.php/cPath/6

Do you know where I'm going now?

These things snap apart.  You could easily snap them apart and paint them. Afterward, rub on some brown and wipe off to give them some depth and age. Leave them bright and fresh for a more modern feel.

The next item is your old Christmas balls. Just wrap them with jute or a thin strip of burlap and you have a frugal update for your tree. This one has some sequin trim.

While thinking about this, I thought about revamping those large glass balls with netting, like this, to make them look like glass floats.

 http://beach-bazaar.com/store/

Just remove the cap, wrap on netting, and add jute twine to gather the netting around the nub where the cap was. You may want to add some low temperature hot glue to secure the ball in place. Now you're in business.

These are some large glass floats but you can see how easily it would be to replicate with netting and glass ornaments.

http://www.sealifegifts.net/Glass-FloatsBuoys--589.html

Happy crafting!

A Coastal Christmas

Boy am I exhausted! We've been out of town and I'm beat!

I couldn't neglect sharing these fine ideas with you all, though.

In my never ending search for all things "home", I've ran across a few pics that got me thinking. This one mixes seashells, pine cones, and evergreen branches, like I have on my mantel, but what stood out to me was the lazy bow made of netting - never thought about that before. If that's too literal for your taste, try burlap instead. :)

I can so see this translated into a front door wreath, garland up a beautiful staircase, or a tree.

http://www.bluebarnacles.com/nautical-coastal-holiday-decor-c-54.html

 

Here we have more tree pics. We've been busy here so I haven't actually accomplished all the things I aspired to. I did get an aha moment the other day and ran outside to cut the plumes off my pampas grass. I then pulled them into pieces and stuck them in our tree and in our door bucket. They look so feathery and soft, like angel wings.

 

It's hard to see in the pics but the tree is loaded with plumes.

I've got two more ideas for ornaments but I'm going to hit the hay. I'll post the others tomorrow night. They are my faves. ;)  Hope to see you then!

Fabulous, Fantastic, and Frugal Friday - Gift No. 5 - Monogrammed Shutter Organizer

My apologies for being a day late on this. Our cable had a major outage before I could load the pictures. So, without further ado...

Have you been looking out for shutters?


If not, don't despair. You can find these babies all over the place... Craigslist... junk shops... on the side of the road... salvage yards...

Mine came from Craigslist. I got 10 for $10. Some of them even have yummy little white glass knobs and hooks. What a score!

They had wooden dowels on the back that had to get taken off. The slots wouldn't have been big enough for mail, cards, and pictures to slide in if the dowels had been left in place.


I then glued all the slats where I wanted them with a dab of glue on each side of the slat. Be sure to do that on the back. ;)
After the glue dried, this one got coated in black spray paint.


I used some sandpaper to distress it a bit.

I also painted and distressed the "a" that I used to personalize it.


I picked these up from the dollar store. I plan on using them on some of the remaining shutters.


I'm not sure how this will get used. If it gets propped up somewhere the papers would just slip through. I decided to staple fabric on the back to prevent that.


It didn't look finished to me so I hot glued some ribbon on top of the staples.


Next, I glued on the cute distressed monogram and coated the whole thing with varnish.
(Although, next time I'll skip the varnish - a bit shiny for my taste.)


You can add hanging hardware to the back.
This one is upright but I plan to make a few that are lengthwise. Add some hooks to the bottom if you want a place to hang keys.

That's it, folks. It's that simple.

Spiffy for the holidays - an easy French manicure at home

Are you one of those gals who likes nice looking digits but is endlessly spray painting and crafting?

If so, you know it's not economical to run to the salon and get your nails done each time you chip a nail hammering together some old piece of furniture.

Ever seen or tried those French manicure kits in the stores? You know the ones that come with stickers or pens? They've been out forever and never worked for me.

I've had plenty of French manicures done at the salon and they looked easy enough to duplicate at home without stickers and pens. Needless to say, I'm going to show you how I do it and we can all save our extra cash for something else. Sound okay to you?

Okay, here goes...

Supplies

• acetone nail polish remover
• a polish you want to use for the tips
• a natural nail tone color for the entire nail
• a clear/top coat nail polish
• a paper towel
• one brush

Now, start with clean and dry nails. I had just went over my nails with a med/fine grit foam buffing block. That's the reason they look a bit dusty. I do that to scuff up my nail surface to hold polish longer. It's not necessary, though.

I then grab my white color and...

paint the tips. I know, looks terrible! Just stick with me.

Don't worry about them looking perfect. Just give them one even coat of paint on the tips.

You can see in this picture that the lines are all jagged but that doesn't matter at all.

You don't have to let your nails dry before this next step.

Get your nail brush and dip it into the acetone nail polish remover.

(The non-acetone will gum up the polish and not give you a clean line.)

Dot the brush on to the paper towel to take off the excess polish remover and then swipe the brush across where you want the white polish to end at.

Like so:

After about two swipes you will need to dip the brush again and rub off the excess paint onto the paper towel. Dip it again and swipe the extra acetone on the towel and proceed until all your digits are done.

This is actually very easy with the right brush. I use a Beauty Secrets #22 Supreme Oval/Flat that I got a Sally's Beauty Supply.

Feel free to try a flat and wide craft brush if you have one.

You should be left with this:

(your natural nail with even white painted tips)

After you have the tips looking good, let your white polish dry.

Then, after drying, you can apply your all over color. The all over color should be applied all over, from base over tips to the end of your nail.

I use OPI in the color Bubble Bath. It tones down the white and give the nails a very natural look.

Now your nails will look somewhat like this:

You may have a bit of paint on the sides, like above but it will easily clean off with soap and water after your nails are completely dry.

Here's where you let your nails dry the second time. Then you grab your top coat.

Paint your top coat all over to give your nails a better shine and to keep them from chipping so easily.

After the top coat dries, you may want to wash your hands and rub on some cuticle cream.

Now look... I couldn't even get a clear pic because they were so shiny.

What a difference!

From green food coloring stained nails to shiny and neat!

It's super easy and my home ones turn out way better than the nail salon's.

If you try it, please let me know how it worked for you.