Teal Candle Holder, 1 of 4

Remember the post about the four candle holders makeover? Well the first of the four teal candle holders is done and up for sale. Here's the before picture:

This was a fun project. I really like this color. My sister Denise gave it to me when she went with a slightly different teal in her kitchen (which looks amazing! check it out at the end of the post).  So, in the "reuse spirit" I applied this paint to a few other projects of mine. Here's the finished holder:

I LOVE the picture with the red candle on it.  Again, that inspiration came from Denise and Joey's kitchen, and I think the red and teal combo looks amazing.  The past few years I've really started to like all the different red and blue combinations. There was a time when I worried about certain reds & blues looking too "captain america", but I think with the right shades it doesn't even come to mind.  I think the use of teal with the strong red is by far the most impressive! Thanks again Denise! So the candle holder is for sale in my etsy shop, here.

Now for a little inspiration for those of you wondering, here is Denise and Joey's awesome kitchen done in teal with red accents, and a beautiful dark countertop. These colors work great!

The back splash is clear glass subway tile backed in white that they installed themselves. Not shown here is how in the cabinet above is all red dishware, on glass shelves, with spotlights.

Have a great day!

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New Door Glass

So yesterday we had a project we didn't intend to do, and it turned out to be a good thing. The glass in our door (probably 40 years old) finally gave in, and sent a huge crack up the middle. We are having a party saturday so we thought, we'd better fix it so it doesn't come crashing down during the party.  Instead of getting a plain clear glass, we decided to pay just a little extra for something neat.

We chose "Raindrop glass". I wanted to do a color but we decided to keep it clear since we still have to paint the kitchen, and the door is red on the outside.

Installing it was surprisingly easy: Remove the molding, put the glass in, replace the molding. Done! Now we just have to repaint the door red, but it looks nice and "old" right now as is. Then someday......the kitchen! I love this new glass though - we get a little bit more privacy but still all the light!

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Lime Chair

Here is another current project of mine. I'm starting to feel like I have to many balancing all at once, but I know I will get the hang of that soon. Here is a Chippendale chair we found at a thrift shop. Check out the "gorgeous" fabric.

After tearing that layer of fabric off, I found this layer. (I could see a pleather layer coming up next, but decided to stop and just cover this later as is)

I wanted to paint it teal, but lime won the battle, and here are the first phases.

I wasn't sure what fabric to do, but seeing the chair with this teal color made me realize that I should find a teal or blue/green fabric to cover with. I'll update when I finish! The most amazing part, is that when I was searching for "lime bamboo chairs" in google images to get ideas of how it would be, I came across the name - discovering this is a Chippendale chair.  During that search, I found someone else selling a Lime Chippendale Chair..........for guess how much? No - more than that. $500! Take a look:
Chippendale Chair Full Price.

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Resurrection!

Here is the story of a cabinet who was brought to life, then died, and brought back to life again. Here is the picture of the cabinet the first time I fixed it up.

It was great, the one thing was that I hadn't figured out what would go in to replace the glass. Well my sister Denise really liked the cabinet, so I decided to give it to her for Christmas. That was when I realized it was not as protected as I thought, and the rain had caught me off guard. Here is what it looked like when I finally got to dry it out this weekend.

Jeez - I was confident I could fix it, because this was all cosmetic, but it looked terrible. I let it dry all week in the sun to be SURE there was no moisture left, and then let the sanding begin. The one problem I am dealing with, is the door is rubbing when it closes now, but I think some serious sanding will fix it. Denise liked the idea of chicken wire too, so I added that this time around. Here it is, back from the dead!

I'm actually happy this all happened, because I could add the wire. I still have one more coat to go, then the sanding and distressing. I put a layer of black on the edges under so I have a color to distress to, if that makes sense. One of my favorite parts, is since some of the old paint had chipped off, I sanded and painted over the old paint that remained, so there is this awesome texture over the whole thing that makes it look even older. Any suggestions on a rubbing door??

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Candle Stands

Here is phase one, or possibly all, of the wooden candle holder project. Here they are in their "natural" state.

My sister Denise gave me this awesome paint color, "Cozumel" or something, and I love it. In fact, it may go in my kitchen someday. Off topic - I thought it to be the perfect color for the candle holders. Some sandpaper and a few coats later, here's what we have:

I'm not sure what to do next. I may seal them as is. But I thought of rubbing in some color (dark blue or black) and wiping off, just to catch the nooks and cracks... or sanding OFF some teal to reveal the original, shabby style. Perhaps I'll have to do one of each style... any input? I need it! Feel free to comment. I LOVE that color!

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Teal Chandelier

Here's an older project of mine. Sarah found me this old chandelier which was in terrible shape.

So I tried to take it apart and rewire it.  The light worked, then starting blinking.... I realized I didn't want to risk fire and just tore the wires out. Now what should we do with it? I instantly thought of candles, and Ross found some perfect flower candle holders that we could attach. Here she is:

The "S" hook is no longer there, it's now on a teal chain.

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Corned Beef und Cabbage

Oh man! The house smells so good right and i'm starving, I forgot to include this earlier - Happy St. Patrick's Day! I'm wearing green and making Corned beef and cabbage. It's been cooking for about 3 hours and I'm STARVING.  The whole house smells amazing and my stomach is trying to claw it's way out  & run to the kitchen.  A few more minutes and it's time to eat!

I used this recipe, but I think they are all the same. I added a bottle of guiness though for extra flavor. I saw that somewhere, or I made it up. Hey - one for me, one for the stew! One last thing, if you would like to receive e-mail updates to blog, click here and enter your info.  RSS feeds are also available on the lower right of this page. 

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Chalkboard & Driftwood

Yesterday I had shown all the great stuff we got recently, and I mentioned I was starting work on the interesting pig and cat ceramic figurine (here). Well, I finished them:

Here are some close ups, and they are for sale here.

Yep! Chalkboard paint. I've never used this stuff but I really really like it. It was fun, I plan on putting a tutorial up soon. Aside from the chalkboard adventures, Ross and I have slowly been working on a garden art project made of driftwood.  The idea is to have a stack of driftwood, like a tower, and just be a crazy shape. It will make itself. So first we gathered some wood & rebar, and started drilling a 3/4" hole in any random spot on the wood. Sometimes I did them off center so it would sit uneven, I like that.

Then we planted the 2 rebar posts, and started stacking!

So far so good! For the top I am just going to drill halfway into a chunky one and let it be a cap. I'll probably have to be clever in choosing wood towards the end, for a perfect fit. For now it's anything goes. One is three feet, the other is 4.  I'll update as we go!

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Score!

So yesterday Ross and I went out to the thrift shops to do some hunting, and we totally scored.  We spent almost 2 hours in one place because we found so much GREAT stuff!  Maybe it was the caffeine, but we had so many ideas flyin' around & so many things with so much potential!  We settled on only about 1/4th of the things we wanted, but we had to draw the line somewhere as it was getting out of control.. check this stuff out!

Keep an eye on the blog to see the progress of this stuff. You can get email subscriptions by entering your address on the right of this page.  I started in on the pig & the cat today:

...but I will save those for later. It's a surprise! They are coming out great though.  Which is good news because that cat is hideous, and Ross didn't believe it could be saved.... ha! Have a good one...

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Dutch Wooden Shoes

Out thrift store sailing (spelling intentional hehe) one day, I came across a lonely pair of dutch shoes, buried in the back of a huge shelf.  I loved them right away, and my mind started conjuring up all kinds of ideas for them - they just needed a looooove. Here they are when I picked them up:

I had a lot of ideas for them, but eventually went with wall hanging, pencil holding shoes. Well, they can hold whatever! Here they are after:

Now here are some of the ideas Ross and I came up with for them, pretty fun!

I really love how they came out, especially the one with the ties! If you're interested in making these shoes a part of your family, they are for sale here, in my etsy shop.

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A giveaway!!

Wow, I'm so flattered! Dana, of Little D Down Under, featured a couple of my shirts in her blog giveaway! Living in Australia and Santa Cruz, Dana has a unique blog that's definitely worth a read over. Head over to her place for this giveaway.

• Giveaway 1 - Surfer T, Banana Slug & Oatmeal soap
• Giveaway 2 - Lighthouse T, Banana Slug & Oatmeal soap

Special thanks to Dana, for featuring my stuff on her blog, and good luck to everyone entering the contest!

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Bright n' Fuzzy Speakers

These speakers take me back...  I was looking through my old project pictures and found these babies. Here's a simple how-to on converting a set of mobile speakers into some raver-iffic gear. I used a pair of old speakers that I had from middle school, (12 years ago or so??) and converted them for this auction we had back at the Y when I worked there, for the kids to spend there "bucks" that they earned through good deeds, behavior, homework etc. They were a big hit, so I thought I'd show 'em. You could do this with any of the newer mobile speaker sets, (those ones that fold shut) just keep in mind the open/close function, and glue accordingly. 

So first, I gathered my supplies:

• A mobile speaker set
• Fuzzy balls
• A glue gun & glue sticks
• Sandpaper

Since plastic can be so fickle, I gave the speakers a quick scratch before I started.  Then, after the glue gun was hot, it was just a matter of grab n' glue. Very easy & entertaining, I didn't do them TOO tight together, just enough to make sure you couldn't see the speaker anymore. This set of speakers joins together at their base for some reason, so I did all sides but those, making sure I could still connect them. 15 minutes later, done:

The sound travels through the fuzz balls no problem, and they plug right into anything with a headphone jack. Hope you liked my tutorial, as simple as it was, and be sure to send me your projects!

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Purple Table

One of my first furniture projects, was purple table. I should think of a better name, but this one is pretty descriptive.  I found this on a street corner in the middle of nowhere, and decided to fix it up. The first step was of course sanding n' such, then I did a coat of light purple, and washed it with a purple called "Grape Freeze".

After seeing the finished product, my mom fell in love with it. So she has it now & loves it. Here's the finished pictures:

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