Monday, January 26, 2015

January Goal Finish - Two Monikered Bags {ALYOF}

I finished them! 
My January Goal was to finish these two baby bags. 
#29 in the ALYOF Goal Linky Party  



Lincoln and Chase now have personalized bags that they can eventually carry around with pride to the library or to church or just around the house. 



The main change from the usual bags was that I decided not to use any denim in the handles. It made it a lot easier on my machine! Each bag has one pocket on the back and one on the side... plus a corduroy one on the inside. 



The fabrics came from a variety of sources... most of them came from Instagram's #thegreatfabricdestash last winter. The striped red and green fabrics were winnings from Benartex giveaways, the other red, the blue and the bandana fabrics were from my stash.. and the green and the safari were from my mom's stash :)

~*~*~

You can see other Monikered Bags that I've sewn here and here...

Monday, January 19, 2015

E's Room Finale {Beware: long rambles!}

Finally, a post all about E's room makeover. It was the first room that we've painted... and even though there are more rooms that I want to paint, that just hasn't happened yet. 

A little at a time. A little at a time :)



Anyways, the main reason that we needed to paint E's room was because it was very much a boy's room before. Those dinosaurs may have only been on one wall, but oy! I believe they are painted with chalkboard paint, and if you look closely enough, you can still see their outlines after being painted, but there's enough stuff on the wall now, that you would probably never notice.

I chose the almost-white-cream-color because I love the idea of white walls, but I know that with the cherry wood trim and cabinets in this house, I doubt I could ever pull it off. This cream is the next best thing! I cannot wait to use it in other rooms to brighten things up! (the main color in the house, which included two walls in E's room, is a much more yellowish/tannish/beige... I want to get rid of it!).

You can see above that the walls used to be a dark brown below the bright green. I chose a aqua-ish blue. Much to my dismay, there are three bedrooms in this house that have chair rails. Now, I love the idea of chair rails, but they only put it on two of the walls in those three bedrooms. If I'm going to do chair rails, they'll go on all of the walls or none of the walls. So.... now we have the joy of trying to match detail and color. I wish the previous owner would have left some information on their trim purchases!!



But enough about paint... you remember the wall art from a previous post... 



... and that I hung a quilt on a wall... and painted my old bed...






Well, here is E's new desk/vanity! It used to be mine when I was little... and it used to my mom's before that. When I was little Mom painted it white with yellow tops and blue horse stencils. When I was in middle school, I repainted them white with some blue/pink/purple sponge details on the top. It was time for another refresher! The main color is a shade away from the walls, and the pink is a fun pop! I first found the spray paint for the handles and then matched the paint for the top and bottom to that. (Same story with the dresser below).

 The chair came from a thrift store. It was a dollar. I originally passed on it, but then I told my mom about it, and she went and bought it for me, ha! I painted it black when I had it in my old apartment. But, to make it fit perfectly in E's room, I painted it a shade away from the blue paint on the bottom half of the walls.


 Here's the dresser, and you can see where we need to find the chair rails still! The mirror was a wedding present that I spray painted the same as the bed. 

Overall, I love E's room!!! Now, it's time to start thinking of Gus-Gus's room... only a few months left!

Monday, January 12, 2015

E's {Future} New Bed

I love "stealing" from my parents :) 

Although E is still not quite ready for the twin bed, I figured it just made sense to move my old twin bed at the same time that we moved everything else to our new house last summer. If it's any consolation, at least I left my parents the twin bed frame and mattress that I used in college!

Before setting this one up, however, I needed to spruce it up!


Mom originally took this bed out of an outbuilding at my grandmother's farm (a hired man had used it at one time, I think) when I first needed a twin bed. At that time it was red... then Mom painted it white... then I repainted it white and changed the flowery details. This time... I was going for a more deeper, striking look! (but first, I needed to use a little steal wool to smooth it all down).



Here's the color I chose! I LOVE IT!




I covered up a wall in the garage, opened the garage doors and went to work. Of course, I was limited to nap times and after bedtimes, but it was still a pretty quick project.



As you can see, we decided to set it up in E's room, even though she's still sleeping in the crib. I didn't want to move it around too many times (even with just setting it up once, I still have to go and touch up a few chips!), plus I figured this allows E to get used to it before she actually sleeps in it. 

I love how the purple looks next to the pink and blues in her room... the next post is a review of everything in her room, along with a few notes about her dresser and desk! I finished the quilt last spring, and never imagined that it would be used for E's bed. I plan on making a new one eventually that is longer and wider, but for now, I think this one works fine!



We may not hang out on it every day, but it's safe to say that E loves her future bed :) 
Hopefully she still loves it when it's time to say bye-bye to her crib!

Monday, January 5, 2015

A Shelf for Ev

I always love a good before-and-after project! This started as a rummage/vintage/garage sale find. I only bought it this past summer, but I cannot remember how much I paid for it! After a little work, it became a nice shelf for my daughter's newly-decorated bedroom.



Even before buying a house, I always loved the idea of putting a piece of wood on some decorative brackets to make an easy shelf. Well, here was a shelf that already had the decorative brackets, so I didn't even think twice before picking this up at the sale!



First, it was time to sand. 



Then, I used some above-ground-pool supports (that have since been sold to a scrap metal place) to make a nice spray-painting station in the back yard. 



The only black spray paint that we had on hand was some super-tough-on-rust stuff that my husband previously used on our SUV hitch. All I cared about that it was black :)



After spray painting the brackets, I primed and painted. The final paint color is one shade away from the wall color. It was the same paint that I used for her dresser and desk (upcoming post).



I topped it off with my hexi-scrap table topper and a few special frames and pictures of E. 

Project complete :)

Friday, January 2, 2015

January Goal Post {ALYOF}

It's another year for "A Lovely Year of Finishes!"

This is a wonderful way to set one goal at the beginning of the month and to stay motivated to finish it by the end of the month. I'm sure I won't be able to participate every month during 2015, but I may as well start and see how it goes as the year goes by :)


January goal: I have two "Monikered Baby Bags" to complete! 

While my mother makes these as baby gifts, the way things are going around here, I think I'll start calling them first-year-birthday bags :) A lot of moms have their preferred baby bags anyway. I use E's as her toddler bag as it's easy for her to add toys to before leaving and to dig for toys at our destination. My brother's sons use them as church activity bags. They are even wonderful for library bags! So, I'm OK with them getting finished long after baby is born... as long as they get done... preferably by the first birthday, ha! So.... let's get these two done before I really have to get busy on some more baby quilts :)

Thursday, January 1, 2015

ALYOF 2014 Review

An overview of all my monthly goals and completions for "A Lovely Year of Finishes - 2014!"


I only missed one month, September, but other than that I was able to use ALYOF to help me stay productive last year :) Thanks to Melissa and Shanna for hosting!!



December
Baby Quilt Binding
Goal Post Link
Finish Post Link



November
E's Popeye Skater Dress
Goal Post Link
Finish Post Link



October
Halloween Table Runner
Goal Post Link
Finish Post Link



August
Two Baby Quilt Borders
Goal Post Link
Finish Post Link



July
Scrappy Baby Quilt Tops
Goal Post Link
Finish Post Link



June
Tree Skirt Binding
Goal Post Link
Finish Post Link




May
Tree Skirt Binding
Goal Post Link
Finish Post Link



April
Two Monikered Baby Bags
Goal Post Link
Finish Post Link



March
Grandma's Quilt Top
Goal Post Link
Finish Post Link



February
Baby Quilt
Goal Post Link
Finish Post Link



January
Two Table Runners
Goal Post Link
Finish Post Link