My Advent Garland

Last week, I put up the garland in my front hallway so things are looking a little more festive around here. I put up the advent bags that I made last year and filled them with some little treats. I like this better than a calendar. It's fun to find a treat in each bag on your way down the stairs in the morning. Here are a few pictures:

New Pillow Covers

A little a while ago I recovered a chair that turned out like this...

Part of the reason for choosing this particular fabric is that I have two dark blue wingback chairs in my living room. They are in good shape so it doesn't make sense to pay to recover them or even slip cover them. Instead, I decided to use dark blue as the accent colour for my living room. I made some pillow covers to tie into the recoverd chair fabric. Here's how they turned out:

Organized Spice Cupboard

I recently organized the spice cupboard that is beside my stove. I thought that it was looking a bit too busy. Here is a picture of it before:

Mini Blind Turned Roman Blind Tutorial

Let me apologize in advance for the length of this post, but I didn't want to leave out any of the steps.

Chair Makeover Tutorial

I showed a sneak peek earlier this week of a chair that I had made over. Here is exactly how I did it.

An Old Chair Makeover

Here's a quick peek at an old chair that I recently made over. I will post a tutorial about exactly how I did it later on this week. For now here are a few before and after pictures. So this is what I started with:

 

And here is how it turned out:

 



 

Revised Kitchen Artwork

A little while ago, I added some vintage labels as artwork in my kitchen. I liked how they turned out as a project but in the end, I thought they made the kitchen walls look too busy. I also tend to want to change my artwork frequently so I adjusted the pictures frames that I already had to make these:

A Few More Halloween Ideas

I just wanted to show a few more pictures of the Halloween decorating that I have been doing. I hung some orange-coloured Christmas balls from our front entry light fixture. I drew faces on them with black sharpie. I also took a branch from my yard, spray painted it black, and hung dollar store spiders from the branch with black thread.

Chalk Paint and Antiquing

Here is a more detailed look at how I painted my small table with chalk paint and how I antiqued it. I apologize that it's kind of long and wordy but I didn't want to leave anything out.

 

Here are a couple of pictures of how the table looked before I painted it.

 

Chalk Paint Makeover

 

So here is the very first peice of furniture that I painted with my new chalk paint. It's a small table that I keep in my upstairs hallway. The chalk paint was super easy to use. I also found it easy to distress (I'll explain more about this in a future post). For now, here are some pictures of the finished table.

My To-Do List

I've been trying to be more organized lately and so I decided to make myself a To Do list. I wanted to make it something that I could reuse over and over again so I decided to use post-it notes to write the things I need to do. That way when I finish something, I can take that post-it note down and there's room for a new note.

Burlap Wreath Tutorial

As promised, I'm here to explain how I made my burlap wreath.

Burlap Wreath

I'll be posting a tutorial for this tomorrow but I wanted to quickly show you a little project that I did today. It's a wreath that I made using burlap. I'm really happy with how it turned out and I will definitely be making more of these.

Chalk Paint

I just needed to do a quick post because I am so excited to have finally picked up some of Annie Sloan's Chalk Paint. 

I went this afternoon with my Grandparents to a lovely little shop in New Hamburg run by a lady named Kathie Jordan. I just got one can to start with to see if I liked working with it. As it turns out, I love it! (Of course I started painting as soon as I got home) I'm sure I will be posting many, many pictures of painted furniture in the near future. I'm really looking forward to it!



A Quick Kitchen Project

Here are some pictures of a project that I  did yesterday in our kitchen. I got these wood letters from Walmart for $0.99 each and spray painted them ivory. I apologize for the cord you can see beside the letters. It is for our range hood microwave that hasn't been installed yet.

Bridesmaid Survival Kits

This past weekend I officially asked all of my bridesmaids if they would be part of my wedding. We are not getting married until August 2014, but I have been thinking about it a lot lately and wanted to officially ask each of them. I wanted something small to give them when I asked, so I decided to do a Bridesmaid Survival Kit. I put a bunch of things together that I thought they might need during the wedding/planning process. I boxed these things up for each of them and gave them a little poem explaining what each of the items was for. I had a lot of fun putting all of these things together.

 

Ottoman Tutorial

As promised, here is a step by step tutorial of how I made an old coffee table into an ottoman. Here's a quick picture of how the ottoman turned out.

Coffee Table Turned Ottoman

I will post a tutorial for this project either tomorrow or Monday, but I just wanted to quickly show you how it turned out. One of Alex's coworkers gave us an old coffee table last week and here's what I did with it...

Tutorial for Trick or Treat banner

Here's a quick reminder of the Trick or Treat banner that I made earlier this week.

 

Now to explain exactly how I did it.

A bit more Halloween decorating

This is just a quick post to show a bit more of the Halloween decorating that I've been up to.

How I made the doll house

As promised, here is exactly how I made my small bathroom cupboard into a doll house.

 

Remember what I started with...

 

Bathroom cupboard turned doll house

My latest project...

Some Halloween Decorating

This is just a quick post to give you a peak at some of the Halloween decorating that I have started. I've only got as far as the dresser by the front windows of my living room. Here's how it looks so far.

Our Kitchen Message Board

We really needed a kitchen message board but I couldn't find one anywhere that had everything that I wanted. We decided to make our own and here's how it turned out.

Engagement card display

I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that my parents hosted and engagement party for us. At the party, we recieved many lovely cards from our guests. Here's one of the ways that I displayed them. 

 

Bathroom step stool

I've been looking for a small stool for my bathroom for a while. I ended up finding one at the antiques market but it wasn't exactly what I wanted so I decided to refinish it. Here's a look at the before and after.

Kitchen Artwork

Here are some framed vintage labels that I hung in my kitchen this weekend...

 

A bit of progress in the kitchen

 This past week we finally painted our kitchen walls (dark grey) and the paneling (creamy white). It got me excited to start hanging some of the projects that I've been working on for the kitchen. Today, I hung this wood cabinet that my Grandma got for my this year for my birthday. It's right beside the stove so I think I'll use it as a spice cupboard.

 

 

I also finally hung the chicken wire photo board that I wrote about here.

 

It's nice to finally see some things getting finished in the kitchen. I'll post a few more things that I've hung in the kitchen shortly. I hope everyone had a nice weekend!

Early Kitchen Pictures

We are currently renovating our kitchen and it's taking a lot longer than I ever thought it would. We decided to try and save some money by working with the cabinets that we already have. We added a few more cabinets and painted them all in creamy white. Here are a few pictures of our kitchen in the early stages of renovation. Prepare yourself for this because it's pretty bad...

Mason Jars in the Bathroom

This is just a quick post to show you one of my favourite ways to store things like q-tips, cotton balls, and extra soap. I keep them on a small floating shelf over the toilet in our main floor bathroom. I love the look of mason jars and I am probably going to find a way to use them for something in every room of my house! Here are a couple more pictures...

Vintage Hanging Rack

I honestly thought that this would be a quick easy project but a few surprises along the way slowed me down. In the end, I am very happy with this new hanging rack for my main floor bathroom.

Magnetic Board

I recently attached magnets to the back of scrabble letters and I was using them on my fridge. It's been a lot of fun to have an on going scrabble game, but I prefer the look of a completely clear fridge. I decided to make a separate board to hang on the wall in the kitchen so we can continue our scrabble games and my fridge stays clear. Here's what it looks like...

We made our own save the dates

My parents are throwing us an engagement party tomorrow afternoon and I'm really looking forward to it. We'll get a chance to hand out our save the date magnets to the people who can make it to the party. We didn't want to spend a lot of money on save the dates so we decided to make them ourselves. It was very easy and I think they turned out pretty well.

 

Christmas table runner

I had some left over Christmas fabric from last year and from making the advent calendar so I decided to make a Christmas table runner for my mom. Last year I made a table runner for her kitchen table and so I wanted her to have one for her dining table as well. Here's how it turned out...

New bay window look

We have a bay window in our front living room. I really like the space but I am not sure of the best way to decorate it. I have moved a few things around and here is what it looks like right now (please ignore the paint colour, we haven't had a chance to update this room yet).

Picture frame advent calendar

It might be a bit early to start actually decorating for Christmas, but that doesn't stop me from thinking about it. I made this advent calendar to give to my sister this year. I sewed little bags, one for each day in December leading up to Christmas. I made similar bags for myself last year that I hang on my garland going up the stairs in my front hallway. They were a big hit so I thought I would make some for my sister too. She doesn't have an area to hang garland going up her stairs, so I thought the empty frame was a good solution. This way she can hang it on the wall, or set it on a table and lean it against the wall.

Fall in the front hall

In my earlier post about my front hall, I mentioned that I didn't really like how my coat shelf was decorated. I have since changed that and here are the results. It's nothing too crazy but I think that it looks 100% better. I made the vintage Give Thanks sign myself.

Vintage Give Thanks Sign

Here's the Give Thanks sign I made for my front entryway this fall...

And here's exactly how I made it.

Dresser turned TV stand

Here's a project that I finished this past winter. I added shelves and some paint to an old dresser to make it our new TV stand. I really love how this project turned out.

old window picture frame

We recently replaced our kitchen window and I decided to find a use for the old wood window. I used hot glue to attach pieces of trim to separate each half of the window into three sections. Next I painted  all of the wood creamy white.

I lightly sanded the frame and then used a mix of walnut stain and glaze the give the wood a more aged look. I didn't like how new it looked after I painted it white. I used some pictures from a vacation we took and of the magnolia tree in our backyard. Now we have some inexpensive artwork for our living room.