Sewing Desk Makeover/Re-Do! Try #2...

About 2 months ago when I bought my Pfaff, I inherited an old sewing desk that came with it.

At first I had no idea what to do with it. This was before my hours of blog browsing! Then I realized what I could try to do with the sewing desk, and the fun started!

Here is the desk before:

                          

Then I painted it off-white.

I also had this type of glaze that I tried.

In the end, it turned out like this:



It was okay, but I wasn't crazy over it. It just didn't look like the right distressed glazed look like the other super-creative girls out there did.

But I wasn't using the right glaze anyways!

So when my 3 year old took a sharpie marker to the top... I didn't get that mad.

It made me try something else...

Distressed blue. I actually mixed a darker blue with a green. Mistints from the Benjamin Moore shop in town, of course! Freeeeeeeeeee!

Something was verrrry interesting.

This is a candle mat and candle I've made for one of my son's teachers for the end of school.

I should actually be making another one right now so I need to stop blogging.

And to finish it off.

And there is my robin egg blue sewing desk!

Should I keep it this way? Or try something else?

Thanks for looking!

Linking here:

A Few Garage Sale Finds this Weekend

This past weekend in MN was fishing opener! Yay!

It also means that everyone and their dogs were out garage sailing OR having a garage sale.

In the past, I've found you don't find lots of goodies due to your large competition, but you can find some.

Here are a few of mine...

This grey corduroy chair was a little odd - but SO comfy! It folds up real nice too. It was $5. I debated. Waste of space, or worth it? I decided I didn't have a good chair in the boys' room so it was coming home. This is the ultimate read-and-watch-the-sunset chair. So cozy. And I have a love of curduroy.

Do you see my butt imprints?

 These BabyGap shoes were $3. A little more than I'd spend on a pair of shoes for the boys. So I went to go find them to take a picture... And here they were. One minute - nice and clean. Next minute - full of dirt. Story of my life.

Disney Sully costume!! $1?!?! I'll take it!

 And this is why I'll take it!

 Bad picture. But huge grapevine wreath for the house. $1? I'll take it again!

Bike w/ training wheels for my 3 year old? Just needs new tire. $2? Take it a third time! I've been searching for one!

And this beauty... I can't believe I even looked at this and debated. It was $5. Beautiful porch swing. Aged and everything. I just couldn't figure out where we'd put it. I, unfortunately, don't have a beautiful wrap around porch yet like I dream about each night. But my husband helped me make it work and hang on the deck. We didn't have a place to sit before - and now we do!

When I bought this, an older lady said to me that her grandkids used to call it grandma's swing because that is where she would sit with them and read them books in the summer. Now that's cool. :)

Unless you are a fisherwoman, you may not get this. I was pumped. First - I asked the lady how much the tackle box was. She said $2. I said sold. It had all sorts of great stuff in it! New lures, lots of bobbers, weights, line, leaders, etc! Then I found this pair of antlers - it was an 8 pointer and there was still some hair attached. I know. Gross. But $3? You can make antler lamps and all sorts of cool outdoorsy things with those! Totally worth $3. The hubby was like - WHERE did you get these?!

 This I also debated on. It was a full big cardboard box of scraps. Old sewing fabric. For $1. I couldn't decide if I was bringing home junk or if I could use it. I bit the bullet and bought it. And it was super fun to go through when I got home - so that alone was worth $1.

The picture is after I cleaned it out some. Lots of spools of thread, knitting needles, crochet hooks, tons of 2" pre-cut fabric squares that were going to be used for a quilt... But it never happened.

What sold me was the doll fabric.... So cute and vintage!

 Above are a few of my favorites.

 Love. But what will I use it for?

 Here is another close up of the paper doll fabric. But what will I use THIS for?!

 A cute little iron plant hanger. Always wanted one. $2.

Could use another liner thing but that shouldn't cost too much.

 I don't normally like stuff like this - and $3 was a little steep normally for el-cheapo me... But I really liked it. It hangs by my patio door where nothing was and I love the bright green and yellow. It's enough color to see it when you drive up to the house.

And, finally, this little rooster. $1. My husband laughed at this. I think it goes darling in my kitchen. The red head matches the wall. The green body matches this frame I have. (Pictured behind.)

 

Of course I got other fun things. But if I listed everything I got... I'd have many very long posts. ;)

Patchwork Sewing Machine Cover

Unfortunately, this isn't much of a tutorial. I kinda flew by the seat of my pants on this one.

I'll back up. I learned to sew about... 2 months ago. 

On a 1975 Kenmore like this:

 She was actually a pretty sweet little thing to learn on.

Then I decided to bid on a Pfaff hobby machine at an estate auction and won it! It's nothing crazy expensive - just a good, solid machine for learning on. $91 total. So exciting!

I love her - and I named her "Pfaffy". Here is what she looks like:

I saw all these darling little sewing covers and had to try one for one of my first projects. So just by looking at different pictures, I decided to just start making some patchwork strips and then adding strips in between - and just see how it ended up when I was done!

And here she is! Don't you love my craft room - errr - kitchen table? 

Try it crafty girls!

Thanks for reading bloggers! It means a lot!

Linking to:

Barn Stars out of Oven Roaster pans! El-cheapo!!

So I stumbled upon this blog idea by a very smart lady at Choose to Thrive.

She's genius.

I, along with everyone else it seems, love those barn stars. They give me a warm, country feel. But when I'd walk up to them and glance at those price tags - I'd shudder. I'm too cheap to spend that kind of money! So I went to my local overstock warehouse type store and bought some oven roasters for 69 cents each. (Did I mention this was el-cheapo??)

Her tutorial is great!

And here are my results...

I had a very boring space above this railing in our house. I had no idea what to do up there and didn't really want to fill it up with dust collectors. I like them - for now!

I actually painted them the with the wall color paint I used for the wall below. I think it matched pretty well!

This red paint liked to kind of fleck off a little easier.

But that was okay with me, because it gave it a more vintage feel.

Thanks for reading! Head over to her blog!

Jewelry Armoire Re-Do & Paint (Craigslist find!)

Well, one more project completed. This is pretty much my first furniture re-do!

I was browsing the Craigslist free ads one day and saw a "FREE JEWELRY BOX" ad in MY town for once! I texted right away and it was mine. 

I pulled up after work in my little Volvo car and SOMEHOW, by an act of God, got that sucker wedged in the passenger side. Let's just say my 3 year old had to sit with one of his legs folded under him in the back seat. What a trooper. (I want a truck!)

Before:

The lady had called it a jewelry box. But the correct term is a 4 foot tall jewelry armoire. The doors looked like they'd been stained... And there was hardware that had been attempted to be put on the doors and on the inside. She had said she "just wanted it out" and didn't finish it. A project that had been sitting there for a while. Do you see that gross red stain gooey crap on the inside?

So I painted it an off-white. I didn't use primer. I now know the importance of primer.

I then decided to leave those top doors off. I finished by painting stripes on the back of it - the color is a tan/green but is more of a green. I love it. It's on my bedroom walls so it matches nicely. :)

After:

Light distressing, of course.

All in all, I'm proud. It works well in my room. And I needed a place to hang my necklaces!

Tangled necklaces are the worst when trying to get out of the house on time!

Thanks for reading!

Alicia

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Distressed "Barn Style" Last Name Greeting Sign from Old Wood!

I had been awing and ooing over all these distressed signs made from old barn (or other) wood that people were making on different blogs. Pair that with the fact that I LOVE signs that have your last name on them, and I decided I was going to make my own sign!

Again, I dug in my pile of old wood and junk. I found a plank of wood that looked like it may have been an old piece of siding? It was beautiful! Still damp from the swamp water... But still had some fading seafoam green paint, cracks on the bottom, wear on the top and bottom - I loved it! So I brought it up to the house and let it dry in the sun and wind for a couple days until I could tell it had really dried through. 

I was impatient, like normal.

So I went on to this site where you can download lots of free, new fonts. You could even put your word (so I put my last name) on this preview and it showed you each font and what it would look like in the font you've chosen. This is so helpful because it is very hard to see what it would really look like bigger. Don't you agree? Anyways, the site is called DaFont. Check that out sometime for a project like this!

Unfortunately, I don't have pictures of it before or during my process because I'm still getting used to this! I printed off a few pages of my lonnng last name. I just guessed on the right size. And I guess right, for once! I used an exacto knife and my cutting mat to cut out the letters on the paper to make it a stencil. Then tape it on tight to the sign exactly where you want it. It doesn't lay totally flat - but I tried my best. The font I happened to choose was more timber/rustic so if it got screwed up it would (hopefully) just add to the character. I took my el-cheapo white spray paint and tried it. It did nothing. So then I got out my cheap Folk Art white paint (just plain 'ole acrylic) and small paintbrush and went to work. 

Super fun painting. I let it dry and then did another coat. I carefully peeled off the stencil and there were a few places that had bled over with white paint but I just took my exacto knife again and scraped it away off the old wood. Then I took some clear protective spray I got at Ben Franklin. Man, I can't remember the name! But I sprayed it on the front of the sign for a few good coats. To hopefully prevent running of the paint.

Then I decided to go au-natural and nail it up on a tree that is right before the opening to our home. Very rustic. Very us. SO easy! I love my sign. I really do. Try it out!! I'm secretly hoping one of my family members or friends ask me to do one for them. 

Love the old wood...

Broken Red Wing crock :(

This did not take much work, but wanted to share the story. Our his sits in kind of a swampy area. We bought our home 1 year ago this week! In one spot there is a lot of old wood and rusty junk and it used to be the previous owners old junk pile. Believe me, I've sorted through this pile a few times looking for goodies. But it really is mostly junk.
So... I saw this before and never did anything about it. But now my CREATIVE side decided to do something with it! In the back, grown over with weeds, was an old crock. I went up to it - cringing - because it sure looked like a Red Wing that was broken to pieces. It was. So sad! It was sitting upright, but there were pieces piled up inside and out. I looked a little closer and tried to piece the pieces together and they fit!


I felt so bad for this girl that I hauled her back home to give her a good cleaning.

I sprayed her out, scrubbed her with some Dawn and let her dry outside.

Then I brought her in and opened up a new bottle of Instant Krazy Glue. I first did a few googles on what I should use on pottery. Some people were saying they were using some special pottery glue from this internet website - but I'm wayyy too impatient for that. I wanted to glue it that night.

The package on the glue said pottery. So I used it. I knew, even though she'd have a few scars, she'd be beautiful on my deck and used as a big planter! So excited!

Can't you picture some big red begonias pouring out of this 12 gallon crock?

Cost of this project... Free. Free broken crock. Krazy glue I had. But now I have a new, huge planter!

I'm kind of scaring myself with the attachment I feel to some of my projects... I am starting to call things "him" and "her".

Hello world!

Well, here I go... I've officially joined the blogging world.

An introduction:
My name is Alicia. I am married to a tall, dark and handsome man named Nate. We have 2 sweet but active boys - Cole (5) and Jack (3).

For the past 25 years (or... my entire life) - I haven't been that crafty. I was a tomboy and would rather catch snakes outside for $1.25/snake than watch my mom sew inside. Then I got older and it wasn't cool. Then I went to college... Got married... Started working full-time... And had 2 kids 2.5 years apart. My main goal each day was to keep the house somewhat clean and get out the door in time for work.

So about 1 month ago I got this urge to do something crafty. But I realized it wasn't just that I had a temporary urge. I was hooked! Unbelievably, my creative side was trying to EMERGE! I stayed up 'til all hours of the night just browsing through DIY blogs that I didn't even know they existed! A whole new world opened up that night.

My main point of this blog is to share with you some uber cute stuff that I find on other blogs and try myself. I am not quite to the point of doing my own crafts - I always need to steal good ideas. I also am learning to use my Pfaff sewing machine. The first time I used it about 4 weeks ago, I honestly didn't know where the bobbin was. No joke. So it's a learning process for me and I'm loving every project I do!

And... of course... as my blog title reads... I brake for garage sales! I love them. Thanks, mom, for hauling me around with my $5 allowance to every garage sale in town when I was younger. It planted a seed and is now an obsession. The garage sale season in MN is just starting! I love to see and share all the good finds from them. I get very jealous of other people's finds. And when I say garage sales - I also mean yard sales, thrift stores, estate sales, auctions - anything!

When you mix DIY blogs and re-purposing things AND garage sales - you have a potent mix! YAYYYYY!