Pirate Room

We are in the midst of transforming my twins' room into a pirate room. My husband drew up a plan for a pirate ship bunk bed and built it from scratch. It took a couple months to build but it is finally done. Here is a sneak peak of their room, once all the decorations are up I'll post another photo.

DIY Girly Robot Doll

 

My sewing machine was at my sister's house so I had to sew everything by hand but she came out pretty cute! I made this for an auction to benefit a family in the process of adopting so I didn't get to keep her but hopefully someone is enjoying her.

 

                                                                 The tutorial I followed.

Old Window Turned Picture Frame

 

 

Supply List:

Old Window Pane

Enlarged Photo

Hardware to Hang Frame

 

Old Windows can be free on craigslist but I decided to just buy this from an antique store.

 

 Pick a photo that you want to be framed by the old window and get it enlarged. I wanted the photo to look grainy and as imperfect as possible so I went to Staples and enlarged my photo by ordering an engineer print. It's usually used to print off blue prints so the photos are only available in black and white. The best part about engineer prints is the price. For the size I chose which was a 24x20, it was less than $3.00!

Attached the photo to the frame, I just taped mine. Then add the necessary hardware to hang the frame and your old window has now turned into a picture frame.

My finished window frame.

Door Shelf Tutorial

DIY Door Shelf Tutorial

I was browsing an antique store in Sequim a couple weeks ago and came across a shelving unit made from an old door. I fell in love with it but it was more than I wanted to spend since I wanted to put it on my porch so I walked out of that store empty handed. A couple weeks later while I was gathering supplies at Home Depot for another project I came across marked down/clearance interior doors. The doors were scuffed, scratched, chipped or otherwise blemished and were a fraction of it's original price. I found a door for $9.00 that reminded me of the shelving unit I had seen a few weeks prior and decided to recreate that piece in my own way. Here is the door I bought from Home Depot.

 

The first step in creating this piece is to cut the door into 2 equal pieces down the center of the door but since you need the door pieces to fit perfectly back together at a right angle you need to cut at a 45 degree angle. I didn't realize this door was hallow inside so my cut was pretty messy and didn't fit perfectly back together. I took some brackets and attached the 2 pieces together so they were sitting at a right angle and filled in any unalligned pieces with filler. Once the door was standing on it's own I added a few shelves.

 

Now on to painting. I wanted a worn look so I'll explain how I like to create that look. I take a base color that I want to peek through when I'm done and paint the entire thing the base color which I chose brown for this project. Then you take vaseline or wax whichever you prefer and rub it on the areas you think the door would have naturally rubbed off any paint if it had aged. I usually apply the vaseline on the edges and randomly on any edges I see. To get the worn paint look I like to use chalk paint. You can buy it or make it yourself since it can get pricey for big project. To make chalk paint I take my paint and add water and some plaster of paris.

  

 

Base Color 1 coat

2 coats of chalk paint in white (I also used outdoor paint for the white since it will be sitting on my porch)

 

After you sand various parts of the shelf you get the "worn" paint look. Add decorations to the shelves and your done, I'll post another photo once I add all my shelving decor but here is my porch door shelf.

Girly Dress Up Armoire

The next piece for my daughters room was a girly chic dress up armoire. I searched pinterest and combine a few projects that I saw on there to create Presley's dress up armoire. Here are the 2 photos that inspired me:

 

Items Needed:

Armoire/Entertainment Center

Modge Podge

Exacto Knife

Paper (Design of your choice)

Extendable Shower Curtrain

 

I loved the idea of having a damask design incorporated in the furniture and I loved the idea of having a dress up rack. With these ideas in mind I found an old entertainment center that was only $30 and full of endless possibilities. Here is the armoire before.

 

Here is the armoire after it was painted a "worn" black.

 

 

I found some cute black and white damask wrapping paper from Target cut it with an exacto knife to the exact dimensions for the back of the armoire. Spread Modge Podge all over and applied the paper. Make sure you take a credit card or something to go over the paper to remove all wrinkles. After the paper background was applied to the inside of the armoire I took an extendable shower curtain and placed it in the armoire. Last step was to find some cute and girly pettiskirts and hung them and voila you have an adorable girly dress up armoire.

 

 

 

Chandelier Makeover

When my daughter Presley turned 2 I decided it was time to update her room a bit. Turn it from a nursery into a fabulous little girls room. One of the main items I knew I wanted to put in there was a hanging chandelier. When I was shopping around for some I couldn't find any chandeliers I wanted that were under $300 but during my search I came across an old rusty chandelier on craigslist for $10. It wasn't all that pretty but the shape and style matched what I was looking for so I decided to make it over.

Terrible picture I know, I wasn't planning on blogging about this project. The original shape of this chandlier was very rusty and the original paint was missing in many places. The first thing I did was sand all the paint off. I wanted to make sure it was even all the way around.

 

All the chandeliers I originally wanted all had hanging crystals or beads dripping from the chandelier so to replicate that I took some dollar store mardi gras beads and cut them to the right lengths and glued them. Which I don't have a photo of since again I didn't think I was going to blog about this. Here is a photo of Style for Style's version of this step.

 

After I had the beads hanging the way I wanted them I took spray paint. I chose a satin finish with primer already mixed in and spray painted the chandelier. All it took was 2 full coats and the Chandelier was complete!