Fill ‘Er Up

I got all of the frames in the nursery collage filled – out with the generics!  To see how I hung the collage, click here.

It didn’t turn out exactly as I had planned…I feel like all of my projects have little hiccups these days.  The girls in the pea pod picture was supposed to be an 8 x 10 but when I saved it way back when, I saved the file smaller than I intended (so sad considering it’s the only copy I have) and the largest I could print without it being super-blurry was a 5 x 7.  I didn’t plan on having to mat it considering the size I wanted it so I simply placed it over a white piece of copy paper I cut to size. 

The little square frames on both sides hold ultrasound pictures of both girls, the one on the left is a picture of the tops of their heads together and the one on the right is the first ultrasound we got that told us we were going to have our hands (and hearts) full with twins!  I used pixlr.com to put a pink filter over them and was planning on lightening them just a little but forgot.  The frame on the far left is the one I tried coffee staining and holds these foot-printed buttons we got from the hospital after the girls were born:

I took out the frame glass, wrapped some leftover fabric around the backing, and used some washable tacky glue to glue the buttons to the fabric (I accidentally glued Cecilia’s feet on backwards…oops!  Good thing it’s washable glue!)

I used this free printable in the octagonal frame, another one of my hiccups.  Since we were out of ink, I printed all of the pictures out at Wal-Mart.  The word art downloaded as a .pdf file and so I had to use some online service to convert it to a .jpeg and after it’s conversion, the background color was a little more green and darker than it’s .pdf version…hmph.  Then I assumed that it’d fill the frame as an 8 x 10 but I was wrong (always check before you print…duh).  I had to extend the existing mat (which I spray painted white) with some more copy paper to make up for the size difference.  It’s not my fave.  I might swap it out for my own painted rendition one of these days.

Even with the minor issues though, I do love it.  The best part is that the whole thing only cost me about $6 in picture printing and $3 for the octagonal frame (thrifted).  The other frames and cross were either gifts or hand-me-downs.  The collage is hung high enough that the girls can’t reach it while being changed and once potty-training has commenced and the changing pad goes away, I can always add to it.  For now, it’s one more thing checked off the nursery to-do list.

 

This and the mint wall in the kitchen are the two out of four tasks I completed after last week’s coffee-induced motivation.  I’ll be back sometime this week to dish on the other two.  I’m going to need some input so please come back and give me yours! 

Mint In the Kitchen

Ever since we completed our kitchen makeover, which we love, Anthony’s been saying there’s not enough color abounding.  With the white cabinets and subway tile backsplash and neutral counters and floors, its safe to say it’s pretty plain. 

So we started in on some color infusion by spray painting some kitchen gadgets, adding a painted rug, and a colorful window valance.

Well then it dawned on me one day that I should paint the far wall.  That would add color, right?  And, I should do it while Anthony was in charge of a middle school lock-in so when he came home it’d be one heck of a surprise!  Great plan…almost what happened.  The girls were especially needy that particular night so bedtime turned into 10 bedtimes and my paint strokes were about five.
  

Still a surprise, just a very unfinished one.  He got the idea though.

Nap time the following day was a different sleeping story though and allowed me to complete the wall.  Since it’s so small, it took me about 15 minutes. 
Subtle color.  Not too overpowering.  

Per the usual, this was a free project since I used left-over paint from our guest bathroom (Lyndhurst Celadon Green by Valspar), the same paint I’m planning on slapping on the walls of the laundry room one of these days.   

The only thing we’re not liking is how the black side of the fridge stands out now.  We’re thinking of adding white beadboard to make it blend in more – add another tweak to the to-do list, it’s never-ending anyway.  We’re also dying to swap out the hollow-core door complete with redneck doggy door for a french door, a cheap (probably used) french door.  Here’s a little photo-magic to show what I’m talking about:
 
I’m on the Craigslist hunt.  We will find one, someday.

We’d also love replace the light with something a little more, eh, less warehouse-ish?  Long florescent lights just aren’t our thing.  Maybe a clearance track light or thrift store chandi will call our name asap. 

Even with the few things left on our “hopefully someday” list, our kitchen’s come quite a way from the day we crossed the threshold as it’s new owners:

So, what about you?  Is your kitchen begging for some color or are you lucky with the perfect balance of the rainbow?  Maybe there’s too much?  How about an accent wall in the kitchen?  Stencils?  What about a french door?  Have a spare you’d just love to sell me?  Do tell. 

Planz

What a week!  It’s been one of the most rollercoaster-ish weeks I’ve ridden in a looong time.  Don’t worry, I’ll tell you all about it, one thing at a time and not all today.  Sorry.  It’ll be better broken up into a few posts rather than one biggie for your sanity and mine. 

So, we’ll start with this:

If you follow us on Instagram you’ll have seen the ambitions Monday morning’s cup of coffee made me think I could tackle this week.  My rate de completion?  50%.  I’ll dedicate one day of the coming week to each but for now, focus on the upper right.  If you’ve been visiting Bean In Love for long, you’ll already know that we found this coffee table at Goodwill a couple of months ago after a long search for a coffee table to transform into an ottoman.  Well, it’s no ottoman yet and thanks to spring showers outside, there’s a bleak outlook on today being it’s day.  But, we’re hoping to get that ball rolling in the  next week or so now that we have the fabric it’ll soon sport.  Along with that, we’re planning a mini-makeover of sorts in the living room to take effect asap and it involves these:

Stop by this coming week for allllllll the details!!! 

What I Wore Sunday – Corraled Coral

My mom gave me this coral, one-shoulder number last year but it was a smidge too big.  I didn’t mind the bagginess of it (baggy and post-partum are always friends) but the arm hole was a little too big and the armless side hung halfway down my abdomen making modesty a pretty massive issue.  To fix it, all I had to do was sew a straight stitch all the way down the side with arm hole, making sure to backstitch at each end for security reasons.  I took off about one inch and made sure to follow the existing seam so everything was nice and straight.

Then, I sewed a little stitch about two inches in at the top of the other side to “corral” the sagging and make sure I was full-frontally covered. 
 
It made a little pleat in the chiffon overlay that’s visible if you’re examining my underarm but lucky for the examiner, it doesn’t look bad at all.  It was seriously one of the easiest alterations there ever was.

Here’s what it looks like post-alteration:
 
I’m totally getting the hang of the art of selfies, no?  Ha!  Well, here’s the thing, I got smart this time and used the “self-timer continuous” option on our camera thinking that by taking a bunch of pics in a row, at least one would turn out.  Wrong-o.  As I was quickly glancing at the camera screen I was tempted to re-take but I couldn’t help laughing at these:
 
The “after” was the last in this series.  Lesson:  Make sure you’re 100% ready for the picture before you press shoot…shoes on and all.  

For Mass I tucked it in and added a cardi to get this:
 
Just another classic candid from yours truly.  In this shot, I’m in the midst of squeezing Cecilia between my legs to keep her from getting to the big tripod toy with the expensive camera atop it.  Thought I was still far enough away to get my whole bod in but I guessed wrong and we’ll just add it to the rest of my semi-decapitated stills.  :)

Don’t worry though, determined to get a whole outfit shot, I quickly drug her back and finally captured a semi-good moment just for you.
 
Skinny skimmers (skinners?) and cardi:  Target (clearance rack, where else?)
Belt:  Target via Dirt Cheap ($1 holla!)
Shoes:  Fashion Bug?  (spray-painted)
Top:  Gift from me Madre (I think she got it at Joyce Leslie)
Necklace:  ?  Found it in my jewelry box…I’m trying to reestablish a relationship with jewelry these days
Trashed bathroom courtesy of the twins…one of them learned how to open drawers (cough, Cecilia, cough) and they both went to town emptying it of it contents.

Linking up with all the other WIWSers over at Messy Wife, Blessed Life this week!

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Happy Monday y’all, emphasis on the Hhhappy!  :)

Stain and Sniff

I finally got around to mounting a collage ‘o frames and such above the changing table in the twins room.  No more bare walls!  The rest of the house though…very naked. 

To figure out a layout, I simply grabbed some frames from our (large) unused stash, traced some onto an old calendar and some onto freezer paper and hung the paper cut-outs up, rearranging as I saw fit. 

This was my first I-think-this’ll-do:

But after looking at it for a week, it felt a little too busy.  So, after sticking and unsticking a hundred times over, I came up with this:

Up and at ‘em and here it is now:

  

I made sure the whole thing was high enough that little hands wouldn’t be able to smash and grab whilst being changed.  Some of the frames were gifts including the cross, the large geometric one was thrifted awhile ago ($3), the small gold “Hail Mary” one was a gift to me from my dad, and the rest are hand-me-downs from various family members.  A few of the frames were table frames only, meaning they were lacking hanging hardware.  After digging around and coming up short for any hardware, I made do by shooting a few staples into the back sides of the frames and attaching some twisty-ties (for the life of me, I couldn’t find the picture wire I know we have somewhere…time to reorganize).  It worked perfectly and no one will ever know…except you!

   

To hang the collage I used the same pinterest-inspired technique I used to hang the collage in our dining area – my handy dandy picture hanging scrap of wood.  Basically, I hammered a nail through the end of a thin-ish piece of wood to which I hang the picture at hand.  Then I just tapped the picture very lightly to puncture the wall (or paper) behind, showing me where my nail should go – no measuring required, just like I like it.

 
 

I have yet to fill the frames with artwork and pictures but so far so good.

Moving on, let’s talk about the dark frame on the far left and get to the stain and sniff part.  It initially looked like this (I took the glass and back out for the following project):   
(Except in real life it’s not really bowed…thank you camera.)

However, I’m going for white, gold, or wood frames in this collage so black has no place.  So, the first step was sanding it down to the wood.  I thought a nice dark stain would be perfecto to tie in the dresser but I don’t have any wood stain on hand.  Lucky for me, my genius sister once used coffee to stain a wood frame (she had an awesome tutorial on her blog but she’s currently on vacation from blogging…boo!)  So, I winged it (wung it?).

First I ran 1/3 cup of water through the used coffee grinds of our daily joes one morning this week to get this:

Then, using a foam brush, I simply brushed the coffee over the frame without wiping it off and letting it dry in between coats.  One coat, barely a difference.  Two coats, no change.  Three, nada.  The wood just looked wet.  Time to change gears. 

I needed a darker mix and I wasn’t about to go brew a ton of our good coffee just for painting so I rummaged through the fridge for the decaf we have hidden away from pregnant days past and scooped six tablespoons into our maker along with pouring in a 1/3 of water.  Muy darker, no?

One coat, eh, a little darker.  Two, the tiniest bit darker.  Three, the tiniest bit more.  At this rate, I’d be brushing coffee for daaaays.  So, I let my impatience get the best of me and threw a tad bit of brown acrylic paint into the coffee.

It worked but I’m not liking the color.  It’s got some ugly hint of red or orange or poop in it that’s just not flying with me so I’m skipping the clear acrylic layer and getting the white spray paint out as soon as I can to change all that.

Until then, I’ll chat you up some more and tell you about the buttons.

When the girls were born, the hospital gave us the above button pins that had the girls tiny footprints stamped on them.  I thought it’d be fun to display them so I wrapped some leftover fabric (from this project) around the backing of the frame and glued the buttons to the fabric with washable glue in case I want to switch up the art someday…ooooor until, while looking at the pictures I’m posting, I realize I glued Cecilia’s footprints on backwards:
Oops on the right.

I think the whole thing will look much better with that white spray paint that’s coming it’s way but until then, I’ll bask in the smell of coffee stained wood for a couple of days.  I’ll be working on filling the rest of the frames this week, including sideways Jesus, and writing up a post all about it.  Also, I’ve got some pretty grand painting plans this week so stay tuned!

And just because I don’t think I have quite enough pictures, here’s one more nursery update.  I found this Target ottoman at Dirt Cheap for $20. 

My plan was to sew up a pouf for feet-resting but when I saw this and thought of the storage potential, I couldn’t resist.  Cute, huh?
   

Now the only thing that remains to be asked is, has anyone ever used coffee grinds to stain wood?  How’d it turn out?  Maybe it looks great like my sis’ project or maybe the only thing it should’ve been paired with is some delish creamer.  Speaking of, coffee’s sounding really good to me right now so I’m off to brew a cup.  Anyone else? 

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P.S.  Cassity at Remodelaholic asked to know what everyone’s working on these days via a link-up so I’m heading over to spill it!