Starfish Video

Here is a great little video about starfish. It makes me laugh everytime - I hope you find it funny too!

Kitchen Artwork

Do you guys remember the kitchen towel holder that I just made? And do you remember how I had no idea what to do with the area above the knobs? Well, you guys gave me some GREAT suggestions and I had an idea of what I was going to do, until I got a random memory of how I wanted to use artichokes in the kitchen. Dilemma solved!...Well, sort of. I didn't want to go searching for the perfect artichoke print, which meant I would have to paint my own, and I haven't painted in a really long time (think last Christmas!), which meant super duper rusty painting skills...but alas, I bit the bullet and went to Michael's for some canvas. I bought a 3-pack of 11x14 canvases and used a coupon, so it came out to somewhere around $3 total.

Are you guys ready for blogland's worst tutorial ever? Sorry, but when I paint I get in a zone and kinda sorta forget to take pictures =)

So once the little guy was down for his nap, I brought out my good ol' paint supplies and painted my canvas white. Then I mixed what was supposed to be a lime green (according to the bottle, but it so wasn't the color I was expecting!) and just a smidgen of black.

TIP: It only takes a teeny tiny itty bitty amount of black to darken something and a lot of white to lighten something.

I didn't have an actual artichoke in front of me so I found an artichoke painting online and used it as a reference (is that like stealing??). I then drew an artichoke on my canvas with pencil and roughly filled in the spaces. I left some white around the edges so that it didn't all blend together.

Next, I mixed in a little bit more black and did some shading.

This is the point in my paintings where I usually think it looks so ugly and there is no way to turn it around and then I have to give myself a little pep talk and try and convince myself that it will get better.

So after my convo with myself, I took some black to do some more shading, and I also added a little bit of red on random spots.

TIP: Water is your best friend if you are using acrylics! If you get too much paint on your canvas, you can easily take some off or blend it if you add water. Sometimes I'll even dip my finger in water instead of using a brush.

It was looking a wee bit bright and the lines were too harsh for me at this point so I did a very light white wash over the entire artichoke and also added some Minwax Dark Walnut  to age the painting.

But I really didn't like how muddy the stain looked, so I went back and did another white wash over the entire piece, which gave it some dimension.

The last thing I did was paint some white on some areas that would naturally be highlighted.

At this point, I called it a day because it was late and I was tired of painting, but I kind of wish I spent more time on it. Oh well!

I felt like it still needed a little somethin' somethin' so I printed the word 'Artichoke', with a little border, out to attach to the top.

So, back to the kitchen towel holder. I didn't want to secure it directly to the front because I was afraid it might take some of the stain off the door if I ever removed it, so I ended up attaching a floor tack to the front and hanging it with twine.

Ready for the final product?

Please excuse the blurriness.

I wanted to add a little bit more interest to the  'Artichoke' label, so I added a copper brad in each corner.

And a closeup.

My kitchen towels are green and I think they will look great with this!

   

Headboard

My sister and I took a trip to Ikea this weekend. I wasn't planning on buying anything, but I found this awesome door in the reject section.

There were 2 of them and they each had a sticker saying they were $65 each, so I didn't think twice about it. Buuuut, my lovely sister decided to ask about them and it turns out they were really only $7 each. Now that's my kind of price!

We each bought one and I knew right away mine would turn into a headboard. I didn't want to paint it with a billion bottles of craft paint to match my coral and window frame, so I ended up going to Home Depot and getting a color match in a sample size. It's only $3 for a sample, which is probably less than I would have spent on a billion bottles of craft paint AND I have some left over!

Of course I had to give it a coat of stain to match the rest of the goodies in my room. For the crevices, I wrapped my piece of sheet (haha, I just wrote 'piece of shit'! I'm glad I realized it right away so I could change it!) around the end of a flat head screwdriver and dipped it in the stain and ran it through all the nooks and crannies. A Qtip also helps distribute the stain.

You can tell that the 'S' is a perfect match to the headboard. Good job Home Depot!

Now, since I haven't moved yet, I'll give you a little sneak peak of what it will look like. I got the crisp white duvet from Target on sale for $15 for a king!

And the pillow was another Target score. I had been eyeballing it for a while last winter, but wasn't willing to spend $24. I kept checking back and it was finally on clearance for $6. Much better!

From Ikea Reject to Faux Wood Kitchen Towel Holder

I have to apologize in advance because I didn't take many pictures of the process I went through. Ok, I didn't take any pictures. I know, I suck.

Anywho, I started out with this cabinet door in the reject...er, clearance section at Ikea.

And at $3 bucks, how could I resist?

I truly had no stinkin' clue what on earth I was gonna do with it, so I painted it Rustoleum's Heirloom White. I think we could all agree that's a safe bet. But it looked totally boring after I painted it and inspiration still wasn't striking, so I got out my Minwax Dark Walnut stain to give it some age, but my silly self didn't wait for the Heirloom White to fully dry before doing so.

Oops!

But to my surprise, I actually like the way it looked! Ok, this is where I'm supposed to have a picture of what it looked like, but I'm kinda lame and didn't take a picture =) But I sure will try my best to describe what it looked like. Ok, close your eyes and imagine completely weathered barn wood with a grey tinge to it. Yeah, it looked pretty cool. Only prob was that I didn't get the stain in the cracks, so I had to go back later (let it dry at least 24 hours) and get the stain in all the nooks and crannies with a Qtip. I accidentally got stain all over the place ('cause sometimes I'm just messy like that) and I kinda sorta ended up doing another coat of stain on the whole door.

Again, a happy accident. The second coat was much richer and less weathered-looking, but I do have to note that it took about 2 days to fully dry, which is like, forever for impatient DIYer's like myself.

Once it was dry, I added 3 knobs (that match my tv stand). Super easy!

I'm thinkin' since there is so much empty space above the knobs, I will decorate it with seasonal decor.

What would you do with the empty space? I'm not really inspired by anything right now so I would love to hear what you would do and possibly get some ideas.

 

Window Frame Revamp: Take 3

Yes, this would be numero tres of making over this poor little victim, but by golly, I think I finally like it! 

In case you don't remember, I last left you with this:

I loved the knobs so much, but didn't think they looked right. I was about to return them, but then I asked myself why I would do that when I love them? There's gotta be something else I could change, right?

Then I thought about how I've never been crazy about the color, even thought it matches my other bedroom furniture, so I decided to go out on a limb and paint it. The problem with the color was that it's a warm color and so is the beach mat, so the cool silver knobs just threw it off.

My solution? Paint it the same blue I just painted the coral.

Here is a pic in case you don't feel like going to the link:

So, I painted my window frame and stained it with some Minwax Early American and I finally love it!

And now the knobs look so much better, in my opinion.

Ok, I promise you won't be hearing about this guy again...I think.

P.S. This is how the window originally looked.

 

Coral Makeover: #2 1/2

Well, it's another makeover folks, and this time the victims are coral...muahahahaha!

As you may remember, I bought 2 pieces of purple coral that I spray painted white, but I knew they wouldn't be staying like that for long.

It's not that the white was bad, but it looked a little too modern for me...Oh, and I found out the walls where I am moving are white so they would just blend in.

I decided on blue as the accent color in my room so I went to Michael's and picked up some light blue paint.

It looks a lot brighter in the pic, but the sticker on top was kind of a subdued, slightly silvery blue color.

I loved the color when the paint was wet, and although paint usually dries darker, this paint dried brighter!

So not the look I was going for! I wanted to tone it down so I thought I might experiment with stain, having no idea how it would turn out.

I quickly realized that there was no dabbing it off, so I had to rinse it in the sink. The first time around I only let it sit about a minute, which wasn't long enough, so the second time I let it sit for about 10.

TIP: If you rinse wood stain in your sink, wash it as soon as possible! I used a Clorox bleach cleaner, which seemed to do the trick.

I know the end result isn't for everyone, but I love how the color is much more dimensional now.

It looks like it was just pulled out of the ocean, mud and all.

It's still bright enough to not be boring, yet toned down so it won't stick out like a sore thumb.