VOTING is open | Final Round of Creating with the Stars

Hi everyone! Hope you had a great weekend!! Like the past four weekends, we worked on finishing up our submission for Creating with the Stars. We made it to the FINAL round! Can you believe it!?

A HUGE thank you to everyone who has voted to get me through the final round. I couldn't do it without you!! Thank you!! Thank you!!

The final week is sponsored by the following amazing companies!!  homes.com, Home Goods, and Home Talk! SO exciting!!

We've worked super hard on our final project and I absolutely love it! My favorite yet! It gave me the perfect excuse to try a few things that I've wanted to do, but haven't had the chance. These past four week's have kicked my bottom into gear!

I know you are probably tired of hearing me ask, but I promise this is the last :) Stop by East Coast Creative and VOTE! It is super simple and only takes a minute :) Click HERE to go to this week's project page! Browse the projects, scroll to the bottom of the post, in the box, select your favorite project and hit submit! Super simple!

Voting is open now until Tuesday at 10 PM!

Then come back here and let me know what you think! This month has been our own version of March Madness, and I'm looking forward to catching you up on some of the behind the scenes moments! 

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Today I'm at East Coast Creative

Hi Everyone! Today I'm at East Coast Creative today, sharing a few more details about our bookshelf to secretary desk transformation. Stop by and take a look!

I'm taking a quick break from working on our final project for Creating with the Stars, and let me tell you, it is the BEST yet! I'm SO excited to share more details soon!!

Stop by Monday for details on VOTING! I need YOUR vote to win!!! :)

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Bookcase to Secretary Desk + Custom Stencils

I love thrifting - you never know what you'll find! When I first saw this bookcase across room in Goodwill, I quickly sprinted over! I was in love with the arched top, the unique molding on the doors, and most of all the price, it was only $30!!

It felt dark, heavy and unbalanced, but nothing that a little paint and little re configuration couldn't fix!

By moving the drop down panel directly above the doors, it felt more balanced since the closed areas were together with the open shelving on top. Plus now it could double as a secretary desk!

Here's how we did it:

First we removed the back panel - it was easier to move the shelves, plus stenciling the back outside of the bookshelf is much easier!

To be desk height, the middle shelf needed to be raised about an inch (since we were adding feet, we took into account that measurement too). We added wood, some wood glue and clamped.

Next, we filled in all the damaged areas with wood filler and once dry, the entire piece was sanded with an orbital sander (medium 100 grit sandpaper and then finished with a fine 220 grit sandpaper).

Then, we wiped it with a mircrofiber cloth to remove all of the dust. For paint, my preference is an oil based primer, such as, Zinsser Cover Stain - it leaves a super durable base coat and it prevents the stain from bleeding through light colors. For the top coat I used Sherwin Williams Pro - Classic, a water based enamel like paint that leaves a super hard finish.

I used a smooth 6" foam roller to apply both (2 coats each, and lightly sanding with a fine grit sandpaper, and wiping the dust off in between coats)

Next, my favorite part, stenciling! It's one of the easiest ways to take a project from ok to WOW for a budget friendly price.

For the wall stencil, we drew the pattern in Adobe Illustrator, cut 9 sheets of thin plastic on our Silhouette Cameo and taped together. I love the large scale!

Prior to reattaching the back panel, I stenciled a smaller Moroccan trellis stencil in a deep turquoise. To finish it off, I created a border stencil for the fold out desk.

I love the pop of color and pattern that it adds.

To prevent it from looking bottom heavy, we added small feet (re purposed a section of spindle railing) to give it a little lift.

I love how a chair can be pulled up to use the desk, and then neatly tucked away. Perfect for a smaller home!

I picked up a few brass candlesticks and vases from a local thrift store for only a few dollars each.

The pencil cup and vase are votive holders from Target.

I'm always amazed by the power of paint! I LOVE the transformation! I'm so glad that I looked past the worn stain, damaged wood, and awkward door placement - it's now one of my favorite pieces!

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Custom Cornice for Draperies

Today I wanted to share the custom cornice for above our DIY Schumacher inspired draperies. Custom cornices can be super expensive, so DIY is definitely the way to go!

The window in our living room is pretty big, 60"x60", our finished cornice was 90" (to allow room for the draperies to sit without being in the window)  x 16"

First up, we were rush to finish it for the deadline, so I may be missing some information, so use this as a guideline :) 

Ok, here's how we did it!

First we cut the notches into the 1x6 with the jigsaw (We ended up cutting one off because it looked a little heavy), and used wood glue and screws to attach it to the 1x12 (and clamps while it dried)

We wrapped it in batting.

To inexpensively cover the whole piece (without seams), we used a 70"x144" white tablecloth from Target, it was only $14 because it was an open box item. That's a lot of fabric for $14!!

We then repeated with the fabric. To fully cover the seams from the batting we doubled up the fabric, which ended up being good for the corners. I don't have any more photos, because we were really rushed to finish! But I do want to mention how we handled the fabric on those tricky square steps. We cut the fabric at a 45 close to the edge. Having two layers of fabric allowed us to more cover the edges because there was more fabric to work from to cover the edges. This sounds a little confusing (honestly, I can't entirely remember how it worked because we were that rushed!) We then used the ribbon to cover any imperfections from the square steps. It was applied basically just like the greek key trimmed pillow shams by cutting the edges at a 45 and burning the ends and securing with heat n' bond no sew adhesive.

We then installed it on the wall using corner brackets! 

Ready to try it?

Price Breakdown and source list:

Wood: 1x12 ($10) and 1x6 (from our scrap pile)
Fabric: 70"x114" white table cloth from Target ($14 open box item, $20 regularly)
Ribbon: Free! Wrapped around throw blankets at Target around Christmas.
Heat n' Bond no sew adhesive: already had

Total Cost: $24!

We had a good bit of supplies on hand, but if you were buying everything new, it would probably be about $30-$40, still pretty good!

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Finally, last but not least, a reminder to vote for your favorite project in this week's Creating with the Stars at East Coast Creative! Voting ends tonight at 10 pm.

I love my project and I'm pretty sure you will too! :) I'm looking forward to sharing which one is mine tomorrow!!

Voting is super easy and quick, if you would stop by and vote I'd appreciate it! Thanks so much!! 

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Round 3 Creating with the Stars Voting!!

Hi! I hope you had a great weekend! We were busy finishing our submission for this week's Creating with the Stars project. The theme was paint, and if you've been reading for a while you probably know how much I adore paint!

We created a new staging area, so if you think you haven't seen something in my house, don't count it out!

I'm CRAZY about our project and I hope you think it's great too! Stop by East Coast Creative and vote for your favorite!!

Like the last two weeks, projects are submitted anonymously so I can't tell you which one is mine, but I hope you love it! Only three advance to the final round, so I would LOVE your vote! Thanks so much :)

and a few pics from our weekend, after finishing our submission ...

Saturday night we took Annabelle to the beach to play fetch right before sunset. Such a pretty day!

Sunday morning breakfast with latte bowls, Annabelle looks like she just got out of bed (forgot to comb her hair :)

I love it when Annabelle's ears get stuck up. I'm thinking that she gets that from her Jack Russell side.

and Sunday afternoon we took Annabelle back to play fetch, she likes to dive into the sand after the ball, hence the sandy beard :)

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Make sure to stop by East Coast Creative to cast your vote! and remember, we created a mini staging area, so if you think you haven't seen something in our house, it may actually be! Thanks so much for voting!!


Finally, sorry for no post on Friday! I was busy finishing up our submission. Look for a tutorial on how we made our custom cornice for above draperies tomorrow!

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Anthropologie Inspired Ottoman

Today I'm sharing how we built our Anthropologie inspired bench. We saved on a few materials and splurged on a few to make it a little more special. 

Here we go :)

We built a frame out of 2x6s (20" w x 50" l) with corner supports for the legs to attach. Holes were pre-drilled and counter sunk to prevent splitting when screwed together. 

Additionally we used, 3" upholstery webbing, batting, cording, a drapery panel from Target, and a king comforter from Ikea.

For the corners we stapled the fabric, and a piece of thick acid free paper and folded the fabric back and ironed. 

Fabric was pulled tight and the plate for the legs was screwed into place.

We folded a king comforter overlapping 4 times, of course Annabelle thought it was a bed for her ... haha :)

Onto my favorite part! We used upholstery webbing in lieu of plywood for the support. We stapled and wove the webbing together. And we finally upgraded (from our $8 one :) to a heavy duty stapler, per the recommendation of Jenny. And it is AMAZING, I would highly recommend!

I loosely hand stitched three layers of the comforter together (not in image). I then sewed a simple cover  with cording for the filling, but when I put it on it didn't have the polished look that I wanted, so I opted to secure the top down with nailhead (I actually pulled them out of our sofa so we would have enough. David straightened them as I put them in). It was a make it work moment :) I put a few staples in prior to applying the nailhead to keep it tight and then removed once finished.

The legs were stained with Minewax Driftwood, then we inserted the casters and attached them to the plates.

My new favorite spray paint color is Lemongrass from Rustoleum, it is the perfect yellow chartreuse.

The gray ikat pillow is from Marshalls and the other two are from Target.

and that's it!

Source and Price breakdown:

2x6 (2) $12 - Home Depot
Drapery Panel - $24 Target
Comforter - $15 (Ikea on sale)
Webbing 14 yards .50/yard with coupon - $7 (Beverly's, local fabric store)
Legs (4) - $33
Casters (4) - Currently unavailable, but I think it was around $12
Cording - 4 yards .50/yard with coupon - $2 (Beverly's, local fabric store)
Stain - $5 Ace Hardware
Batting - already owned, fabric.com has a good selection.

Total $110

I splurged on the legs/casters, but with a more simple leg, you could definitely get it under $100!

I'll be back with a brief tutorial on how we made the cornice tomorrow!

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Did I mention that the theme for this week's Creating with the Stars is paint? Yeah, I'm pretty messy when I work ... :)

I'm really excited with it coming together and I can't wait to share it with you! Voting starts Monday!!

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and my knockoff project was ...

The Schumacher Zimba inspired draperies and Anthropologie inspired ottoman!!! AND we made it to the next round! The next theme is paint and you might know how much I LOVE paint, so I'm pretty excited! We have an AMAZING project planned and I can't wait to show you!

Today I thought I would share the tutorial for how I painted the draperies :)

It was love at first sight with Schumacher's Zimba print for me! But $100 a yard definitely adds up for multiple panels. For our living room/office, 4 panels would be about $900, which is definitely not in our budget! We created a similar look by purchasing Ikea's Lenda draperies and stenciling them.

Here's how we did it:

We calculated the repeat at about 27" wide and 32" high, recreated the shapes in Illustrator, printed it on 8.5x11 sheets of paper and then taped them together. Having additional sections of the repeat is important when lining it up (the more the better, I wish I would of made a few more sections)!

I created a PDF of the pattern to be printed on 8.5x11 paper. Print the sheets, line them up and tape together. I numbered each sheet on the upper left corner, but you may want to cover that up once you start laying out the pattern to avoid mixing them up with the stencil numbers. I'd recommend taping paper to a table and then taping the print out to the paper to avoid them slipping around.  Download available HERE

After taping the guide to the table, we traced the shapes on clear plastic with a sharpie, then cut out with scissors. 

 

We used 1 part fabric medium and 2 parts BM sleigh bells (a warm neutral light gray) Side note: grays are tricky to pick out! They favor one color very easily. The best way to pick out a gray to hold it next to other grays (this helps show the undertone) and compare that way.

Double stick tape was placed on the back of the stencil pieces. The panel was centered and placed on top of the print out. The drapery panel was semi translucent so I could see the pattern underneath to line it up, a must for this project! Then I used a small foam roller to paint ... a lot! Once done with an area, I moved the panel and replaced the stencil, lining it up from underneath.

Each panel took about 2.5 hours to stencil. Four drapery panels would of been about $900 in fabric, this cost about $50, definitely worth it in my opinion!

The ottoman tutorial tomorrow, I used a few new materials to cut costs, so I'm excited to share :)
 
I hope you enjoyed! I'm off to work on our paint themed project! Wish me luck!

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Pinterest Favorites

It's been a busy week, David and I are tired, Annabelle's even tired (most mornings since daylight savings time I have to go back to the bedroom to wake her up ... ha!) But that hasn't stopped me from browsing Pinterest! After all, it's the best when I'm sick or I'm bored or watching TV activity (Am I the only one that can't just watch TV? :)

Anyways, here are a few of my favorite recent pins:

 Kitchen remodel @ 7th House on the Left Amazing, right? I love it all, but I think my favorite is the floor to ceiling tile! It really puts the perfect finishing touch! Stop by Greg and Ashley's blog to check out more inspiring projects.

Amazing herringbone flooring! Maybe one day (hopefully sooner than later) when we have a home :)

Wow! This kitchen is stunning! The pop of chartreuse on the kitchen island really makes the space (and I love that if you get tired of it, it's less area to paint!)

Finally, this post from Cottage and Vine on 5 ways to avoid the room in the can look. Some great tips included!

All images via my Pinterest board, Interiors 

Notice a trend? All but the last involve renovation, guess I'm itching to buy a house! We hope to buy in the next 6 months to a year, I'll keep you updated as we know what's going on :)

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and last but not least!

Voting ends tonight @ 10 pm for Round 2 of Creating with the Stars, Knockoff!!

Again, I can't tell you which one is mine, but I hope you can pick it out of the crowd :) Every vote counts! :)

Stop by East Coast Creative and vote for your favorite!! 

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