Last Drop of Gold

I am VERY PLEASED to announce that this is THE LAST GOLD LIGHT FIXTURE in my house to get a face lift!!

This is it! I no longer have ANY gold fixtures, or door knobs in my house!!!! (Ok--the pulls in my kitchen are sort of a brushed bronze--but NOT GOLD--so that doesn't count)

So here it is--Nothing fancy--just a plain old bathroom fixture turned awesome with some plain old spray paint!

(And sorry--I forgot to take a picture of it hanging in the bathroom!)

BEFORE:

AFTER:

(Sorry for the bad picture quality--I am STILL having to use my cell phone camera!)

So I know that GOLD is one of the most precious and lovely things in the world--used for fine jewlery, olympic medals, solid gold dancers (hee hee), and a whole bunch of awesome stuff, but I hope that it is NOT a design trend that makes a comeback anytime soon!

Raise your Hand if you SHIRR

I have always wondered how to sew a stretchy gathered sun-dress or top. You know--the kind with multiple rows of stitching that stretch? Oh--here is and example of one I found online:

Well--this technique is called SHIRRING. (And since learning what it is called--the jokes have been flying at our house--"Are you Shirr?"..."Raise your Hand if you Shirr", etc)

Anyhoo--I always assumed that sewing these up would be pretty hard. I was SHIRR wrong! It is EASY SCHMEASY!

I googled shirring--and found several tutorials--sadly to say, none of them were my favorite...so I hope to do my own tutorial VERY soon.

But here are my first attempts at Shirring. I first did a sample on a scrap piece of fabric. After I had done a few rows it started to gather and roll into itself a little and someone mentioned it looked like a Barbie dress.

So I sewed the side seam up and here is the first shirred dress I ever made...barbie size (and I have to tell you--I think my daughter was more excited about this dress for her Barbie than the one I sewed for her!)

Since I made up my own pattern and I am still without my camera--I didn't get a lot of pictures (as I SHIRR didn't know if this little project was going to turn out).

So I only started to take pictures after the whole dress was sewn. But here is a couple pictures of me putting on the straps.

Because it is so stretchy I pulled it a little tighter by stretching it over my ironing board and measuring from each side seam to figure out the placement of the straps. I wanted to make SHIRR they were spaced equally.

And here are a bunch of pictures of the finished dress.

Both of us were SHIRR happy with the way it all turned out!

(I'm SHIRR you're all glad that I am done with this post and all my lame puns!)

Linking up to THESE parties.

Tinting Coconut

So--this may be sort of a silly post--as maybe the whole world already knows how to do this...but while making my little guys B-day cake I needed colored coconut and had never done it before. So maybe some of you are like me and hadn't done it before either.

(Of course I knew it was going to be easy and involve food coloring--but I am an anal person and wanted to get the proportions JUST RIGHT--so I found some instructions--and they worked perfectly. So I thought I would share them with all of you other perfectionists out there!)

So this is how it is done:

You will need:

1 cup coconut

1 tsp water

1 ziploc bag

a few drops of desired liquid coloring

Put the water and coloring in the ziploc bag first and sort of spread it all around. Then you add the coconut. TOSS it all together until it is equally distributed.

And there you have it:

The perfect shades of coconut to do this:

And this:

Barn Yard Birthday Cake

Saturday was my youngest child's birthday! I can't believe that he is 2!!!

My baby is getting SO OLD!!

I wanted to make him a fun cake for his birthday.

So I googled around and found THIS amazing site showing this amazing video of how to make the most ADORABLE barn yard cake:

I was in LOVE the moment I saw it! And it looked easy enough that even I could do it! So I set to work.

I baked up a yellow cake mix into a 9x9 and 9 cupcakes (the recipe tells you can make 12 cupcakes--but I only ended up with 9).

Here is the cake as it cake out of the oven (a little cracked--but icing works like a charm to fix that kind of thing).

Then I cut it in the shape of a barn.

Then came the HARDEST part of this whole project...MAKING RED ICING. I used 1/2 a tub of food coloring paste, and 1/2 a bottle of liquid food coloring (no joking--I really did) and all I was able to achieve was this bright PINK color!!! I was NOT HAPPY! (and it actually looks redder in this picture than it did in real life).

I googled my icing problem as well and all the sites said to wait 24 hours and the color would darken over time but I didn't have the time then to wait (I did sit the frosting on the counter as an experiment--and it did darken over about 24-36 hours), but because I was on a schedule--and I didn't want to take the chance that it MIGHT darken--I decided to do the only thing left--SEND MY HUBBY TO THE STORE at 9:30 at night FOR RED ICING!

Two of these little tubes cost $8!!

The icing companies must know how hard it is to get a true red frosting--and prey on people who are desparate!! I mean $8? Come on!

(But it was worth it--It saved me from having a PINK BARN!!!)

The frosting was HORRIBLE STUFF though--just as a warning. It was SUPER STICKY and GLUEY and TAR LIKE. And when I first put it on--it looked like I had just put ketchup over the whole cake! (But it was still cuter than the pink!)

Over time--it dulled a little bit so it wasn't SO SHINY. But these are the pictures I snapped right after I finished decorating...so you'll have to imagine it not so shiny!

And here are some pictures of all the animals all chilling in the tray waiting to be put to pasture.

And then finally--the whole things comes together!

It came together so CUTE! It is my FAVORITE cake yet!

I had SO MUCH FUN putting it together (DESPITE all my RED ICING PROBLEMS).

And what did the birthday boy think of it?

He LOVED it too!

And what do you think?

Oh yah...it tasted pretty good too.

Happy Birthday my little man!

Linking up to:

The Shabby Nest Frugal Friday

Copy Cat Shirt

So--a long time ago I came across THIS post at the Pleated Poppy and fell in love with the pattern. But was not really wanting to spend any money on buying the pattern.

Isn't it adorable?

I figured I would could wear it with either a short or long shirt underneath. Darling!

So I decided to try my hand at copying it on my own.

I had already done a very similar looking dress for my little gal HERE, and so I could probably figure this shirt out.

I started out by cutting out a front and a back in the roughly the size pieces I would need. (I did make some adjustments as I sewed it together and tried it on). But this is what I started with.

Then I made my own bias tape out of the same material to trim out the armholes.

(Which my next post will be a tutorial on making your own bias tape--I had some friends ask how to do it--so I will be showing that soon!)

I sewed up the ties and put a matching band on the bottom--and like magic--I had a new shirt!

If I were to make this again I would definately make a few changes--I really wanted it a bit longer than it ended up (I had to make it shorter because it was TOO TIGHT around my behind! So making is shorter was the better option--trust me--it wasn't pretty!)

But all in all--I think it turned out pretty cute!

Linking Up to:

Mirror, Mirror ON THE WALL!!

All of you will be SO HAPPY and RELIEVED to know that I finally finished the mirror above my bed!!

Remember the whole story about my MIRROR FIASCO?

It started here with my Thrift Store Find:

Then went to here where I broke the mirror and had my hubby hang the frame up anyway:

Well, My hubby and I finally did it!! We successfully cut another mirror--THIS TIME following all of the cardinal mirror cutting rules found HERE--and TA-DA....

Ok--These three pictures can just show you how REALLY BAD my camera phone is!! (The first 2 pictures are taken with my camera--the third with my phone).

(I really should wait to post all of these things when I have my camera back and can take a decent picture!!! But I AM NOT PATIENT ENOUGH!! So I will just have to retake all of these pictures again and redo all of these posts at a later date!)

But for now--you get the picture (ha, ha)!

And for me, I am just happy to put this mirror frame to Bed! (ha, ha, ha)!

(I know I am lame--but I crack myself up!)

Bench Bliss

I have a tiny little porch on the front of my house.

A couple of years ago, our neighbors gave us this little bistro set when they were moving--and it has been sitting on our little front porch ever since. (Minus the cute new pillows that I just got at the garage sale--and forgot to take a picture of it without them! Oh and minus the pot on the table that just magically appeared (was dropped off by my friend who owns The Dollar Thrift Store--as she saw me eyeing it! What a sweetie!)

So it was cute--but just a little ho-humm. I had ALWAYS wanted a little bench to put there--but never wanted to spend big bucks and since this bisto set was free--well it was just staying like this!

UNTIL Saturday morning--I looked out the window and what did I see? My neighbor across the street was having a garage sale and had THIS little bench sitting outside!

I jumped up and down with glee, rudely hung up the phone with my sister (sorry again Michelle) and RAN across the street knocking down all the other garage salers to get to it.

And guess how much it was?

It was only $5!!!!!

I was dieing!!!!

It was EXACTLY what I had ALWAYS wanted!! And in my cheapy budget!!!

So I wasted no time and bought it--along with all of the awesome outdoor throw pillows that she had (that were only $2 each!!) I really love how the pillows give it that fun punch of color--and softness. They really cozy up the space!

So I got this bench and 5 pillows for $15!

I am in serious LOVE with this thing! I peek out at it several times a day--just to admire it!

I did have to put the bistro set away as we don't have enough room for both--but I did buy two extra pillows so someday when I eventually get a bigger house--I think the bistro set and the bench will make a cute little set (once I spray paint the bistro set black--that is)!