It's Tee Shirt Time

Ok... I saw these on the web and had to give it a try.  I got the markers at Michael's and the onesies at my least favorite store Walmart.  Our Walmart is grub 2 the E.  It is the only one in Vermont, and the use of it shows.  
My process for making these little cuties was finding a tie in Adam's closet of hell, and tracing it onto the onesie.  The first one I did I winged it, and it turned out like crap.  Then I thought of my love for polka dotted ties and used a quarter to trace the circles.  I colored in the rest with whatever color I wanted.  Here are the results.

I can't wait to see the little man in these.  Ohhh and I have the most fabulous project in the works right now. My EFT (estimated finish time) is probably 3 days.  Have a great weekend, and spooktacular Halloween!

UPDATE:  This project is a little more than I thought it would be.  I am the worst spray painter ever, and have to do some fixin.  It will still be fabulous and be posted when I finish it up.

 

Red Record Cabinet

I finally finished my record cabinet.  I think the worst words you ever have to say to yourself as a DIYer is, "ugh it needs another coat"  I said this like four times.  Painting something red is the worst.  I love the finished product, but it takes a lot of coats of paint.  It is so cool.  The old radio inside works, but I think we are also going to install our own stereo inside it.  I love records, so it'll be great to have a retro cabinet to play them in.  I feel like it makes the dining room look swanky.  I will post the process I went through tomorrow.  Here is the finished product, not sure what I'll put on top of it yet.  I am thinking a mini bar.
Here is the before.

Decor4poor Tip

I was out and about today getting some things for the record cabinet and of course I stopped at Goodwill.  I haven't been in awhile and couldn't help myself.  I never look in the book section because I am usually preoccupied with the knick knack department.  They have a ton of decorating books for cheap.  I love to look at books with decorating in them, as I am sure you all do too.  These books were $2.99 a piece and full of ideas.  I look at books like this all the time, plus I think they look great on a coffee table too.

One If By Land, Two If By Sea

While in Boston we decided to go have Italian food in the North end "little Italy."  We ate at a quaint little Italian restaurant (which wasn't that great), then we went to get some pastries.  We went to Mikes which is the best pastries in the state.  We also went to see the church that Paul Revere used to put his famous lanterns in to warn that the British were coming.  Here is a pic of the church and the statue. 

Here is Mike's Pastries, we literally waited in line for a half hour.

Here is the restaurant

I took it from inside the car, so it's not a great pic.  I have been working on the record cabinet so this is a little filler while I'm knee deep into that.

iPhone Costume

 Adam is an iPhone this year, that Tom and I made for him.  This costume was a lot of work.  It started like this.

We got two pieces of wood at Lowe's and cut them to the shape of an iPhone, then sanded the sides.  We then cut some quarter round and glued them to the sides and top of the wood iPhone shape.  I took a picture of the face of an iPhone and had it blown up.  When I picked up the pic it was on regular paper, instead of glossy photo paper so I had to have it blown up again.  It worked out well though, because the paper one was used as a template.

We then cut out foam insulation for the curve part of the iPhone.

I then spray painted it all silver for the outside of an iPhone.

We also had to purchase acrylic, that also had to be cut in the shape of the original wood form. (not easy).  The acrylic is for the front screen of the iPhone.
We cut out Styrofoam to put behind each ap, we did this for extra illumination of the Christmas lights that are behind each ap.  This was so tedious, and took some time.

We then spray painted the back which also had acrylic to give it a more glossy effect.  We glued and double stick taped the acrylic to our wood frames, made holes for straps for Adam to wear, and it was done.  It took over 8 hours to make.  We got the idea here. 
Adam was a huge hit at the Prudential mall in Boston.  People pointed, took pictures, tried to touch his costume.  People thought it was an actual phone.  I will take more pics on Halloween, it looks fabulous at night.  Here are some from the mall.  Noah was a lion and was adorable.  His time will come for an awesome homemade costume.

UPDATE!!!!!  If you want to do this project, get started now!  It takes time.

Ikea Stuff

I was of course so excited to go to Ikea this past weekend.  I had a list in my head of what I wanted, and totally didn't get any of it.  I didn't see any drum shades that would work on the lights going down my stairs.  That was a major bummer.  I did see a lot of pillow covers I loved, but nothing along the lines of what I was thinking for our living room.  I checked out the fabrics too, but by the time we got down to those I think the men, boys, and my mom were like, "alright already let's go" in their heads.  I just couldn't think.  We did get a fabulous light that we are going to put downstairs once we get it all setup.  We also got these round cowhide chair pads.  I was going to use them for chair pads, but then I thought these could be awesome sewn together as wall art, a rug, for the table.  Tom loved them too.  I am not sure what I will be doing with them but we bought ten.  They were on clearance for $4.99.   I also got some of the small melma mirrors in hopes I could do something cool like the pic below at my brothers, but Adam's Halloween costume consumed all of our time.  We bought 16 of those mirrors and want to do a design similar to that picture in his condo.  Here are some pics of our stuff.

I'm Back

So we got in from Boston around 8pm last night. I am tired.  I have been trying to catch up on my blogging, unpacking, returning rental car.  Busy, busy, busy.  We all had a great time, but Adams Halloween costume was the costume from hell.  We finished it minutes before we went to the Prudential mall for their annual trick or treating thingy.  Adam was a huge hit!  People were taking pictures, pointing, and commenting all over the place.  Adam was an apple iPhone.  I will have a tutorial on the costume later, for now I am just going to post a couple pics.  Noah was a Lion and he was super cute too!  Brianna got the costume at Marshall's for him.

It had lights behind all the applications.

It started with a piece of wood that was cut to the shape of iPhone.

I took a picture of the face of an iPhone and had it blown up.  We then made a frame to hold it.  The sides were clamped and glued.  I had luckily had to blown up pictures so one could be used as a template.

Pipe insulation was then cut, and glued to the corners.  I spray painted it silver for the sides of the iPhone.

We cut out styraphone to put behind each app to alumanate the christmas lights that were behind each app.

We had to car

The Barski

I thought I would show you some pictures of our bar.  I haven't really gotten to our downstairs yet as far as decorating.  It is totally in my radar though.  I will not be posting for a couple days, "I think I'll go to Boston."  I can't wait to see that Ikea building, Hello!!  I want to buy fabric for pillows, and an art piece I will be working on soon.  I want to get some drum shades for the lights we have going down the stairs, possibly some bedding.  I also can't wait to go to Target.  If you have never been to Boston, it is FABOOSH!!  Especially right now.  I can't explain what is so cool about it, it just has history in the air. The buildings are all old and beautiful.  I will not forget the camera on this trip. Ohh and I will also have pics of the little chill ins in their costumes.  Adam's costume is fantastic.  See you soon.

She's My Pride and Joy

 I have been working on Adam's Halloween costume which has turned out to be more work than I first thought.  I had to go to Burlington to get some advice, then decided to go to Recycle North because I was in the neighborhood.  I was so excited to see this record player.  I have been wanting one for a long time, and this is nothing like what I had pictured.  I fell in love with this.  I had always planned on painting it black, with tacks around the edge.  I am not sure if I am doing that now.  The wood is gorgeous on this.  It is almost animal striped.  The only part that isn't looking great is the top, it is scratched up.  I am going to sand and re stain it.  I am also going to paint the grill at the bottom silver, and put different material where the record holder and speakers are.  I will probably put new hardware on as well.  The record player and radio work which is fabulous.  I can't wait to get it.  Tom will be picking it up within the next couple days.  Oh and did I say it was $25.00.  HELLO!!!!  Here are some pics I took at the store.

Update:  I have decided the wood is not great at all, and the guts of the console arn't good either.  I have decided I am going to paint it.  I am going to paint it red, with black glaze.  I think it will be cool.  I am also painting my my hallway door like a mustard yellow with black glaze.  Pretty excited about this adventure.  I am also excited about the fact that I made those words the corresponding color of my text.    Cheerio!

Bathroom Makeover

Welcome to the smallest bathroom in history.  This is our hallway bathroom.  It needed some help.  The vanity was originally the faux oak look.  I don't have a picture of the before because I did it awhile ago and didn't blog then.   I of course added new hardware.  We painted it a couple months ago and here is the finished project.  The curtain I purchased at Bed, Bath, and Beyond for like ten bucks.  The mirror I got at Home Goods for twenty bucks.  We purchased a shower curtain rod that bows out to have more space when your getting your shower on.   I put those Chinese branches in there because they require no sunlight to grow.  I didn't think that was possible, but it is.  I have two more bathrooms in need of makeovers, more to come.  Here are the before and afters.

DIY Headboard

Tom and I were tired of having no headboard, when one day Martha Stewart was making one on her show.  We decided at that moment to do it.  We had an extra hollow core door, we went to Jo-Ann fabrics with coupon in hand (thank god) because that green foam is expensive.  I feel like it was $60 with coupon.  The fabric we got was on clearance for I believe $6.00.  The fabric was a faux leather.  We wanted something easy to clean, and comfortable.  The buttons we got were a little pricey, they are from Italy and just looked a little different.The biggest challenges of this project were the buttons.  It was hard to make them look even so keep an eye on that when you do this.  I would also say make sure you pull the fabric tight when stapling it to the door.  I wouldn't bother cutting the door at all.  We cut ours, and we have a king and we wish we wouldn't have it is a bit narrow for our bed.  If you have an air compressor with stapler that would work best.
   I plan on getting new bedding for my bed, I have a little too much black and white going on in there.   When I designed it, I pretty much designed it around the fact that our baby was going to be staying with us for awhile.  Noah's crib bedding matches our bedding.  It is hard to decorate with a little one in your room.  We our lucky to have a really big bedroom.  Our house has three bedrooms including ours.  Brianna will be going to College next fall, so little Noah will have his own room then.  This is the instructional from Martha. 

Here is Noah's crib.

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