Patterns to Warm your Nubbins

Huddled up on the sofa this morning with my laptop, sipping a cup of coffee.....freezing my nubbins (fingers) off!  My hands are always like ice cubes when I am on the computer for awhile.....bad circulation maybe?  Right now.....its just from the chill of fall creeping in my house.  You know it is a cold morning when the kids haven't even attempted to get out of their beds!  Yes, I believe it is time to turn on the heat!

 

When it comes to turning on the heat for the first time...... my husband is the all time scrooge!!  He always insists that its not cold enough yet, put on some more clothes he says, get a blanket he says......trying to penny pinch while I sit here shivering, lol.  So, since I doubt we will be turning the heat on today, and yet I am still in need of some warm hands, I think it is time to get out the hook and make some fingerless gloves.

 

I have only made one pair of these before and they were for my chicklet about two years ago.  The pattern I no longer have, so I have had to compile a list ones to try. 

 

Fingerless with a bow by Samantha Foster

 

Ripple Lace Fingerless Gloves by Bethany Scofield

 

Callenge Mitts by Sharon Maher

 

Basic Fingerless Mittens by Julia Vaconsin

 

 

Now the only problem is deciding which ones to try first!

 

 

 

 

 



WIP Wednesday 11

So......I have been busy!!!  With the cold weather, I had to take some time off from my ongoing projects to make everyone a new pair of slipper socks......hardwood floors are cold on the feet!  I did work some on my chicklets new sweater and it is looking amazing!

 

I got most of bodice done......though I had her try it on, and Im thinking shes wanting it a tad bit longer.  Im going to hold off though and see what she thinks once the sleeves are done.  Still need to add the button closures as well, and Im undecided on what to do with the neck line........hmmm......

 

Anyways, this project is back on hold because chicklet has decided that what she wants to be for Halloween........and guess who gets to make that???  Yep...me!  Im saving that WIP though to share when it gets closer to the holiday.



Diy: Turning Wood into Metal

Just a quick little tutorial in case you haven't figured this one out yet..........!!

 

If you seen my posts on my dresser redo over the last few weeks, then you would have seen that I bought a can of Rustoleum to repaint the dresser pulls with.  Well, I still had plenty of paint left in the can for another project.

 

 

I found these candlestick holders for a dollar at the thrift store.  I was happy with the wood, but was itching to use the spray paint again.....and thought that these may match up a little better if they were metal.

 

I laid down newspaper as to not make a mess of the stepping stones outside, and sprayed away!!!  It was like instant gold!  Well........pewter, but you get my point.  When you seen these, they appear to be super heavy duty metal but light as a feather!!

 

If you get close up, you can still see the wood grain, but I love them.......quick simple and cheap way t update your décor!



WIP Wednesday 10

Oh, I am excited to share my WIP this week!!!  I started working on this last week, and just hadn't had the time to load the pictures until last night.  With the cold weather fast approaching, I decided that it was time to start on some new gear for my chicklet.

 

I hit up a sale at Hobby Lobby a couple of weeks ago, and new when I picked up this yarn that I would put it to good use.  They only had two balls of it, so it was going to have to be a smaller project........welp, guess what.......my chicklet.....is one skinny little chick!!

 

I found a free pattern online for a cute little cardi.  Because my chicklet is very petite, I always have to tweak patterns a bit.  When I get this finished, I would post the pattern I based this off of.

 

Ok, so here is my work so far!!

 

 

 



Dresser Redo Reveal!!!!!

After the five part series of showing you all the steps I took to redo this dresser.....I am finally going to show you the finished piece!!

 

If you want to know how I did it, I check out the links below:



 

 Dresser Redo Part: 1
Dresser Redo Part: 2
Dresser Redo Part: 3
Dresser Redo Part: 4
Dresser Redo Part: 5

Here she is before.  Missing drawer pull, shredded corner drawer and scratches everywhere!

 

I am just totally in love with this!  More projects in the works!!!

 

 

 

 

WIP Wednesday 9

 

This is a project that I almost didn't post........why......because Im not quite sure yet if I plan on finishing it, lol.

 

I have had this yarn in my stash for about two years now.  I bought it on the clearance rack at Hobby Lobby.  The color combination I am not crazy about, but at the price I couldn't pass it up.  So, its just been hanging out in the stash pile waiting for its turn to get hooked.

 

Since it is a cotton I started this with the intention of just using it for an extra rag around the house, then I thought maybe I would just make a quick granny baby blanket for "just in case".  Who knows, I put it back in the closet today, we will see how long it takes me to get it back out again, lol!

Dresser Redo Part: 5 (drawer pulls)

 Well.....this is the last step in my dresser transformation and it was the easiest part of the whole thing!  Below are the links to the rest of the posts of this project.  Click on them to see how I got to where I am at now with this dresser.



 

 Dresser Redo Part: 1
Dresser Redo Part: 2
Dresser Redo Part: 3
Dresser Redo Part: 4

When we got the dresser the top drawer was missing a pull.  Some of the other pulls were kind of rusty and gritty.  I loved these pre existing handles though, and didn't want to replace them.  Since I was missing one, I did have to buy new ones for the top drawer, but seeing it all together now......the mismatched handles just add more flair to the piece.

 

I washed all the old handles with soap and water, and scrubbed them down with a wire brush to get the grit off.  Once they were thoroughly dry, I stuck them into a piece of Styrofoam so that they would be raised off the surface.  This was a very handy step being that I was getting ready to spray paint them.

 

 

To freshen up the older handles, and make the new ones match, I chose this!!!  I wanted that old aged bronze look and thought this would be perfect.  Silly me did not test spray this product before applying to my handles though......and I got an unexpected result.  The color that came out was not the same as what was on the can!!!  Instead of being bronze, it came out more of a dark pewter color.  I ended up liking the color so I stuck with it.  Plus, this stuff runs about 8 bucks a can.  Lesson learned.

 

 

After letting the handles dry over night I reattached them to the drawers.  I was totally in love with the finished look!

 

Come back Saturday for the big reveal!!!!!!  Woot!!

 

 

 

 



Dresser Redo Part: 4 (distressing paint)

Welcome back!

This is part four of my dresser redo project and I am going to show you how I gave this lovely dresser a simple distressed finish.  If you happened to miss the first three posts of this project you can find those by clicking the links below:
 

 Dresser Redo Part: 1
Dresser Redo Part: 2
Dresser Redo Part: 3
 

 

I knew from the start of this project that I was going to be giving this piece a distressed finish.  Its a sauder dresser with a veneer finish so there was going to be no way of staining it back to a wood finish. With the damage that it had, paint again was going to be the only option.  The style of the dresser also has an antique touch to it, so distressing it was going to really bring that look out.

I viewed many tutorials from blogland, pinterest and google before attempting this part of the process.  Some made it seem really difficult, while others turned a free item into something very costly and time consuming.....all of which I wanted no part of.  So, I took bits and pieces from here and there.......and just kind of winged it.  The ending result I will say turned out just as great, and I am very pleased.  I have money in my pocket and the whole project I completed in one weekend!

I bought this from Lowes......it is the cheapest brand they carry and ran me about 10 bucks for the quart.  Seemed expensive being that you can get a whole gallon of paint for that price, but I only used a bout 1/3 of the can for the whole dresser.  That left me with enough paint to do a couple more projects to match, which I will show you at a later date.  It is a paint and primer in one, with a satin finish, which helped cut down on the cost and time.

 The color  I chose was Antique Lace.....the name was very fitting! Ok, so I started out with applying a very thin coat over the whole dresser.  Being that I was using a paint and primer in one, I was expecting a more solid look, but to my surprise, this was not going to effect the outcome.

So I ended up doing a total of three very thin coats, just using a standard 3 inch angled brush.  I allowed about 2-4 hours inbetween for drying time.  With the layers being so thin, they seemed to dry pretty quickly.  I let the last layer dry for a complete 24 hours before I started to distress the finish.

For the distressing I used a very fine grit sand paper. I went along the edges of the dresser and drawers, just lightly.  I tried to hit all the others that you would typically see wear at.  Since the dresser already had some nicks and dings in it, I hit those areas too.  Once  I was satisfied with the look, I cleaned up all the dust again from the sanding.

On most tutorials that I came across they used a sealant such as a polyurethane.  I decided to not do this last step.  I didn't want it to cause any yellowing of the paint, or add any more glossy shine to it.  This is piece is going to be placed in my bedroom so I wasn't too concerned with adding the protective coating.  However, if it is going to be in an area of your home where there is children or high traffic, I would def. recommend adding a sealant.




FO Friday

Whew........... almost didn't make it!  not that I didn't finish the WIP from earlier this week........I just almost forgot to post it!!!

 

 

So here it is .....Baby Jemmas new cocoon!!

 

 

Isnt she just the cutest thing you have ever seen!  So sweet!!  Love her to pieces already!

 



WIP Wednesday 8

 

Another week........another Wednesday.......and another WIP!!!

 

Welp, yesterday baby Jemma turned a whole big two weeks old!!  She has already changed so much and is just the cutest little thing ever!  This weeks WIP is another little something just for her!  At the hospital she was given a hand knitted cocoon (sleep sack) and she just loves it.  So, her mother asked me if I would make her another one.......and of course I couldn't say no. 

 

 

I decided that I was going to go with crochet because honestly my knitting skills consist of your basic scarves only.  Crochet also works up super quick and I wanted to get this to her this week.....and before she grew too much more!

 

I chose two different shades of pink that coordinate with her crib bedding and went with a double crochet to speed things up even quicker.  I didn't use a "pattern" for this, just sort of started out like you would make your basic hat.  I had seen the one she received from the hospital so I just eyeballed the sizing from that one.

 

This one will definitely make to FO Friday!!

 



Amazon.com Gift Cards to Celebrate a New Baby

Dresser Redo Part: 3 (fixing shredded sauder)

We are now on part three of my dresser redo!!!  If you missed the first two segments then you can find those HERE and HERE .  I cant wait to be able to reveal the finished product to you, but that is going to have to wait!

In this post I am going to show you how we fixed the corner of the drawer.  This was probably the most difficult part of the whole project, but we did it, and it looks great!   

 

 

 

This dresser is made of pressed board, sauder or what ever name you know it as....it is not a solid piece, but it does have veneer as the top layer.  If this had been a solid piece it would have been a less scary project to me.  I must say though, that it was a little easier than anticipated.

 

 

 

The first thing we did was sand down some of the roughness of the shredded sauder just to clean it up a bit.  Because the material is so fragile, we did not do a lot.  We then applied Elmers Wood Filler, as you can see in the above picture.  There are a lot of good and expensive products out there that are similar to this, but we chose this one.......probably the cheapest one at the store.  We applied it on pretty thick and tried to stay with the shape of what the corner was supposed to be.  Then we waited for it to try, as directed on the package.

 

Once we were sure that it had dried to a solid piece, we began sanding and shaping our new corner.  We did this by hand to  make sure we didn't take too much off and that we were getting the right shape.  It was kind of tedious, so you just have to be patient and work carefully.

 

Once all the sanding and clean up was finished, we applied our first coat of primer/paint.  It is not a perfect corner, but I would say that its as close as we could have gotten!  If you didn't know that it was fixed, you would never be able to tell.

 

I am very pleased with the results that we got.  I can say now that I am not afraid to buy a piece sauder furniture to redo!



7 DIY Fall Leaf Projects

I was always say that Summer is my favorite season.......but when Fall starts to approach I find myself saying that it is my favorite season, lol.   Just another one of those things that I can not make up my mind about I suppose! 

 

I do love Fall though.  The cooler temperatures mean time for snuggling and time for breaking out all my favorite boots.  With less outdoor activites going on I get to do more inside crafts.....and its also the first hint that the holidays are coming!

 

My most favorite thing of all about Fall though..........is the changing and falling of the leaves!  It is natures art!  All those beautiful colors and shades........I just love it!  And then........your left with the mess to clean up in the yard, lol. 

 

Ok, so instead of dreading the raking of all those leaves, think of it as collecting supplies!  I have here 7 DIY projects that will surely put some of those great leaves to use!  Check them out, all links have tutorials, and they may help inspire you to come up with a creation of your own!

 

Leaf bowl from Gembobs Crafts

 

 

Crafts for all Seasons

 

 

Simple As That

 

 

Craftiments

 

The Thrifty Abode

 

 

Lifestyle Justice

 

 

Savvy Sugar

 

 Our leaves have yet to start changing or even falling for that matter, but I can not wait till they do! Free new home décor here I come!! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Shop Amazon - Fall Outlet Event

WIP Wednesday 7

Just a quick post to show you the progress that I have made on one of my previous WIP's.  The Tree of Life baby blanket that I am making for my niece!

 

 

The blanket is basically down now.  Im waiting to find out what she is having to add either some pink or blue on, but for the most part its done.  I also would like to add some leaves.  That is going to require a trip to the craft store.......maybe I will do that this weekend!

 

This is one project that I cant wait to give away!!