My Painted Secretary

It is finished! 

Last week I wrote about how a visit to my blog reader prompted an inspiration for me to finally paint my Craigslist Secretary desk.

We had a very rainy week here in Central Texas and my husband was out of town for most of it. So, that gave me plenty of time while the kids were occupied to get to work painting.

Remember how it started?

The day my hubby left for a 4 day retreat/conference/wedding {three separate things...not a wedding at a retreat! ;) } I asked him to get everything all ready for me to paint.  I wanted to do it inside so I'd be near the kids and keeping tabs on them so he moved it into the entry way for me and disassembled everything.  Good man, Good man.

I had to prime it before painting and our primer is oil-based.  I can't stand oil-based paint.  Not because it stinks - but because I am MESSY with painting and messy with Oil-based means a lovely bath in Paint Thinner when I am ready to clean up.  So, it's not LITERALLY a bath...but really, I can get paint EVERYWHERE on my body.  It's ridiculous.  In an effort to protect my skin I covered up EVERYwhere.  Don't believe me...

And yes, that is a basketball hoop on our front door.  Somehow my boys {old and young} decided to move it here and it gets more use here than it ever did in our son's room so... it stays {for now}. Last night it provided entertainment for our college kids after dinner - competition can be found in anything!

After priming everything I let it sit overnight.

We removed the inner workings of the desk for two reasons. One: I didn't want to hand paint all those nooks, crannies & crevices. Two: I wanted it to be another color.  More on that later...

The front of the drop down desk had a ugly lovely to someone wharf scene. I'm sure someone paid a lot extra to have that etched into the wood.  But this girl wasn't a fan.  So, we used wood filler for the deep etchings and then sanded it somewhat smooth.

I was amazed that after just the primer coat how you really couldn't see the etching anymore. And after two coats of color you would never know it existed.

I bought a chair from TJMaxx that had a bit of sass with the zebra print, but still blends so well with my color scheme that's working in this room right now.  I loved the detail on the legs.

 

I love looking online to see if I can find where the chair originally came from.  I never found an exact match but I did find very similar chairs at some of the big name home decor places.

We also took the glass out of the doors to paint.  I wanted to remove the "panes" look that was on the front of the doors and to do that we needed to pop the glass out and then the wooden panes just pried right out of the inside of the doors. {It wasn't attached directly to the glass}

 

We ended up getting a new piece of glass cut & mounted inside the door after we cracked one side trying to secure it.  It only cost us about $15 and it's more professionally secure than what we were trying to do! :)

 I went to Lowe's and picked up new drawer hardware.  I settled on these because they were literally the only in-stock pulls that were the same size as the old ones.  Thankfully, I also liked the look of them.

I'm so happy with how it turned out! It's come a long way since my dad brought it to me from Houston after I spotted it on Craigslist.  I think I paid around $125 for it.  

And here it is today!

Where I happily have a new home to blog from!

And for the details:
Paint color is the same as our kids bathrom redo: Valspar Mountain Smoke
The interior part of the desk is spray painted with Rustoleum Painter's Touch Ultra Cover in Ivory {Gloss}
Drawer hardware is from Lowe's
Original hardware was spray painted with Rustoleum Hammered in Dark Bronze

Linked Here:
Fine Craft Guild
Someday Crafts
Southern Lovely

How to make Fabric Rosettes

Lindsay & I were challenged last week to come up with a craft that

college girls would want to do with us.

So after careful consideration, we decided on these fabric rosettes!!

They're fun and easy to make, so I thought I would explain how we made them, in case you're interested in making some too :)

Here are a few things you can do with them...

Add color to a bag.

Add personality to picture frames.

I use this chalkboard for grocery lists and memory versus.

Dress up a sweater.

Or use them in your hair.

I put this one on a head band for my daughter.

So here is how you make them...

1. Cut a 1 inch strip of fabric, 1 yard long.

2. Fold one end of the fabric in half (so that the pretty side is on the outside)

& hot glue it together.

3. Roll the folded end 10 times & use another dot of glue to hold it in place.

You've created the center.

It should look like this.

4. Begin to turn the material over itself while twisting it around your center, hot gluing every so often to keep it in place.

Keep the fabric folded as you go, so that the pretty side is all that you see.

Don't stress over making it perfect. Some loops will be bigger than others.

Fight the urge to make your twists too tight. Instead of rolling the fabric, you're really just making nice soft folds.

5. When you near the end of the material, you can either...

Fold it to the back and glue it down.

Or...Glue a piece of felt on the back. Make sure the felt is smaller than the flower so that you can't see it. You can then add a safety pin, a hair clip, etc.

You can add a pearl or button to the middle if you have one on hand.

I've also seen them used on necklaces, wreaths, little earrings, etc.

There's so many possibilities, I may need to get some more fabric!

Stress-free decorating!

How many times have you hung things on the wall, stepped back to admire your handy work, and noticed it's crooked, off-center, or not spaced correctly? Or, how about those annoying frames that have two sawtooth hangers, or the kind that the screw has to fit into the hole "just so" and to make it even worse there are usually more than one of them? Oh, how I dislike those!!

Well, I'm here to share with you an easy way to make hanging things so much easier and less frustrating!

My first tip is to use masking tape {or painters tape} on the wall to lay out where you want your piece to be hung so you can imagine it there. I did this with my kitchen shelves so I could "live with it" for a day or so, just to be sure.

Next, take your tape and lay it over the top of whatever your mounting method will be. In this case it's the pesky screw holes that have to be exactly right or else you'll NEVER get the thing hung.

Use a pen or pencil to mark the holes. {In the case of other types of hangers you'd do the same concept...just marking where your nail or screw needs to end up}.

Take that piece of tape off and place it on the wall where it needs to go. This is why I love using the tape to lay out the outline of whatever I'm hanging. You can use that tape to measure out where exactly your nail/screw holes should be and there shouldn't be a need for a 're-do' because the height or centering wasn't right.


Nail or screw your holes, remove the tape and hang your piece!

I promise you this has revolutinized how I hang ANYTHING in my house. I wish I'd done this for years. I would have saved myself so many holes. Not to mention the crooked, off centered, & uneven decorations I've lived with just to save myself from doing it all over again.

I hope it helps you too!

Preschool Napmat!

Yay! It's back to school time! My little one is SO giddy about starting preschool tomorrow, she can hardly stand it! She has a new backpack, her own lunchbox and here's her new napmat! I'm so excited to show her in the morning. Can you tell it's dark? That's because I literally just finished it...10 minutes before midnight. Nothing like procrastinating!

I made just like my older daughter's one from last year. Can you tell that it's bright and sunny in this picture?? I must have finished it days beforehand!

Here's last year's tutorial if you missed it.

Making Blogger photos BIGGER!

I'm here to share a quick tip with you today on how to make the photos you post in Blogger BIGGER.

First things first... Upload your photos into your post.
Then click the Edit HTML tab.

If you've uploaded a photo you should see something like this.

Find the text shown below in the highlighted area & delete.

Next change the area shown below in the highlighted area to read s520 (you may need to adjust this depending on your margin area that you've got going on in your blog layout. I started with s420 and kept increasing the number until it was the size I wanted).

That's it! You should now see larger pictures when you post your blog (or when you click back over to the compose tab).

Good luck and hopefully this helps you out!