Dumb and Dumber

So--I just have to write this little post to explain why I haven't posted anything lately!

First--I went for a wonderful little getaway to my sister's--and had a WONDERFUL time! (I love that gal more than life itself!--You can meet her HERE at her blog).

Well--on the way to the airport I put my camera under the seat of her car while we went in to a store. And the brainiac that I am--forgot the darned thing when she dropped me off at the airport!

So now I have NO CAMERA!!

And what is worse--that I had lots of pictures on it that I was going to post and hadn't transferred to my computer yet!

BUMMER!

Well, when I got home--I had a lot of projects that I wanted to do--and didn't want to wait for my sis to send me my camera--so my GENIUS husband suggests that I just use the camera on my phone!!! (That man is a genius I tell you!)

Awesome!

So I have been doing all my projects and documenting them all with my camera phone!

Then this morning I sat down to load them onto my computer and start posting about all of the awesome projects I have been doing...only to discover--I HAD LEFT MY CELL PHONE CORD IN MY CAMERA BAG!!!!

So now I can't even up load the pictures that I have on my phone!!

FRUSTRATION!!

So note to my little sis: Hurry and send me my camera please!!

Mirror Fiasco

Ok. Its time for me to come clean.

Not too long ago I did THIS little post about cutting mirrors to the size you want--Easy Schmeasy. But the truth is that AFTER I posted about it--I had some catastrophic problems! And now enough time has passed...my wounds have healed enough for me to be able to write about it.

So here is the whole story:

I was on the look out for something to hang above my bed. I figured a mirror would be perfect. SO I found one such mirror at the thrift store for $5.99. This is what it looked like. (just imagine the mirror inside the frame--I had already taken it out when I realized I needed a picture).

What a Beauty! Right? Well--it had potential. It was a good size and I liked the clean lines of the frame.

Here is a close up of this lovely little frame BEFORE I went to work on it. So inspirational isn't it?

So after I got the mirror home--I realized that it was not just dirty--but scratched as well. BUMMER!

So instead of scrapping the whole idea--I decided to buy an inexpensive piece of mirror ($2.50--which should have cost me $5 but I got a deal that I will tell you about later--I know does this story ever end?)

The mirror was the perfect height--but too long. SO this is where I decided to cut it myself. And I did! And it WAS easy! Remember this picture?

Do you also remember the two pieces of advice I gave when cutting the mirror?

First: the part where you must score the mirror EXACTLY on the line? The cutting tool has a little edge on it (about 1/8th of an inch) and if you place your ruler on the line and run your tool along the edge you may be OVER about an 8th of an inch!!!)

And if you make 2 cuts--one on each side of the mirror to capitalize on the best parts of the used mirror, you may find that you have an extra 8th of an inch on BOTH SIDES of your mirror.

Which in turn amounts to 1/4 of an inch and makes it TOO BIG and then it will not fit into the frame that you took DAYS sanding and painting!!!!!!

And then you might have to go against the other cardinal rule of mirror cutting and try and cut LESS than an inch off so that it will fit into the blessed frame.

Then when you do--the mirror might not cut exactly where you scored it--and it might break the WHOLE MIRROR (and then you might be so mad that you forget to take a picture of the thing to document it). And then you might be left with an awesome frame and NO MIRROR!!!!

But you then may insist that your husband hang the blessed frame above your bed anyways because you worked so hard--and darn it--you are going to have SOMETHING to show for it!!

And then it might look like this for a few days or weeks till you can get up the nerve to try to do it all over again:




Like I said before: Mirror cutting IS easy schmeasy...just measure carefully!

P.S. What do you think about the sconses on either side? I'm trying to decide if I should paint them a silver or brushed nickel or just leave them.

Anyone?

Back Door Bliss

As promised in THIS other post when I did the trim of my FRONT DOOR--I am writing this post to show you the before and afters of my BACK DOOR spray painting trim project.

I just finished it and am SO HAPPY with the results!

I just wish I had done this YEARS earlier!

Here is the trim in its sun damaged YELLOWNESS before:

The hardest part of this project is the prep--taping and papering.

(And since that isn't hard at all--that tells you how EASY this project is!)

OK--are you ready?

This change is pretty dramatic and AWESOME!

BEFORE:

(And yes, that is my little one on my lap in the reflection--this is how a lot of my projects are done--with my little ones right at my side! They are such big helpers...right?)

AFTER:

BEFORE/AFTER

Now let me just say it again....I LOVE SPRAY PAINT!!!

Linking up to:

Bathroom Fixture Fix

SPRAY PAINT SAVES THE DAY AGAIN!!!

And I am not even going to be ashamed that I am posting ONE MORE POST about SPRAY PAINT!!

So here is the fixture in our master bathroom:

BEEEUtiful? Not really.

I don't know which was worse--the gold/brass or the lovely petal glass shades over the lights.

The whole thing just screamed UGLY at me every time I looked at it.

That is until I found these little beauties at my friends dollar thrift store

(all three for $1--and that is a deal people!):

So then I used the spray paint left over from THIS little project redoing all the hinges in my house!

And so the fun begins...

And that is how I turned my bathroom fixture that looked like this:

Into THIS:

AND FOR ONLY $1!

That is what is called a GOOD DEAL!

Spray Painted Door Trim

OK--don't roll your eyes, but I have yet another post about the wonders of spray paint!

My front and back doors have been bothering me. They have this wonderful plastic trim around the window that over the years the sun has turned an awesome shade of YELLOW!

Exhibit A:

(I do not have an awesome camera to do this picture justice--just know that it is pretty yellow!)

So I turn to my new trusty friend: Spray paint.

I chose one that is specifically designed to use on PLASTICS.

AND I saw one of these tools on someones blogs once--and finally found one at WALMART--for somewhere in the $2-$3 range.

I figured it was a good investment in the health of my spray painting finger considering all the spray painting I am doing. And let me just say--IT WORKS AWESOME!!

If you spray paint at all--you really should get one!

It looks like this once you slip it over the can of your spray paint.

So then I taped off the areas of my door that I didn't want to get painted.

And then I went to work!

I applied 2 coats of paint. And I think it looks AMAZING! It looks like I have a brand new door!!

Here are the results:

Before / After

I can't wait to do the same thing to my back door! It is MUCH YELLOWER (is that a word?) and will make an even better before and after picture!

SPRAY PAINT MAKES ME HAPPY!

Dresser Found Dead on Roadside

A couple of years ago, we found this dresser on the side of the road with a "FREE" sign on it.

At the time we had just had our 4th baby, and were actually in the market for another dresser--and nothing beats FREE!

So we piled it up into our van and brought it home to our garage where it has sat for the last 2 Years!!!

Until 2 weeks ago--when I sweetly asked my hubby to do the necessary repairs on it so I could finally paint it and GET IT OUT OF OUR GARAGE!!!

Which he did. And we soon realized why it was dead on the side of the road!

It needed a bunch of work done.

So here is a picture of it all taken apart as my sweet hubby repaired it.

Once he was finished I got to work with the priming and painting.

This dresser took 2 coats of primer and like a million coats of paint!! (I think a million actually equated to 4-5 coats--I lost track)

It just soaked up the stuff like it had been in a draught!

Here it is in our garage getting all painted:

The dresser didn't come with any hardware. And because it was a FREE kids dresser--I didn't want to spend much $$ on this little project. So I bought the cheapest little wooden knobs that I could find and painted them to match the dresser.

I stuck them in the bottom of a plate to make them easier to paint.


And here is the finished product.

One kids dresser all painted and ready to go!


Free is good!