Joining the Ultimate Blog Party 2011

                                             

I just learned about the Ultimate Blog Party '11 and thought I should join up.

The Ultimate Blog Party is kinda like a huge link party where you can visit tons of different blogs all week long, and hopefully make some new connections. Fun right?

Okay so here's my "party post"-a post that tells you a little bit about me and my blog.

 

I started this blog in September 2010, just a couple of months after my daughter Rian was born.  I had previously blogged about our family before, but gave it up when life took over and made me feel incredibly busy.  I missed blogging though. I missed being able to write about my day, and have some kind of creative outlet. I needed something that helped me be more than just a mommy and wife. I kind of dove back into blogging through becoming crafty.  I didn't and don't mean for this to be primarily a "craft" blog, because in no way could I possibly keep it up if it were. I just don't have that kind of creativity in me. (I am amazed at the women who have that kind of insane talent though, to keep coming up with new projects each week.)  This is simply where I am at in my life right now- learning new things, trying to make our little house a home, and allowing myself some creative me time and trying to not feel bad about it.  So on this blog you will find crafts, tutorials, DIY projects, a few giveaways, but you'll also find stories and pictures about my family (husband and kids), reviews of things I like, recipes I have tried or want to try, and just ramblings from a sometimes crazy and sleep deprived momma.

And if you want to read more about our family check out my About this Blog page

Here's to meeting new friends and finding some great blogs. :)

Easy Lamp Shade Redo

Sorry I haven't blogged in a few days. We got busy over the weekend. And we took a day trip to the IKEA in Palo Alto, California. Ugh, I can't even tell you exactly how awesome it was. It was only my second time going to an IKEA, but this was nothing like the first IKEA I went to. It was huge and insanely busy. Like the adult, home decor version of Disney Land.

Anyways, I came home and wanted to get projects done, but the kiddos have been less than cooperative. And Levi caught a nasty cold, so now he's sick and needs lots of mommy time.

I thought I'd start back blogging with a post on how to redo a lamp shade, simple and easy peasy. I promise.

For supplies you need a lamp shade you currently don't like the looks of. Scissors. Hot glue gun and plenty of hot glue. Fabric.

Lamp shade #1 I re-did for the 2nd time.

 

This was the lamp shade I had decorated in Rian's room. I ended up not liking it though because the shade was more of a linen color and not white like I decided to go with. So I ripped off the ribbon and was going to start from scratch. (Just ignore that darn painted on bird, mm-kay?)

 

I cut pieces of white fabric into stips about 5 inches wide. I used my pinking shears, hoping the fabric would fray less.

 

Then I took some embroidery thread I had and wrapped it around the piece of fabric and tied it in a double knot.

 

Then I used every crafter's most cherished tool, and hot glued the fabric to the top and bottom of the lamp shade.

 

I went all around the lamp adding my pieces of fabric. Then I used left over fabric to tuck behind the gathered and glued pieces of fabric so you couldn't see the original lamp shade fabric anymore. I didn't bother covering the bird with a gathered piece of fabric though. I'm just going to turn her shade the other way. (Yes, I know that means I half-arsed this project.) Oh, and my fabric was less wrinkled, but I defer back to the 2nd picture in this post. Baby girl obviously didn't care if her lamp shade fabric was wrinkled so neither did I.

 

 

 

 

See simple and easy and costs next to nothing.

 

These are the other two lamp shades I re-did for our room.

Before:



After:

 You can either use string like I did here, or cut of strips of fabric like the one below.

 Now I just need to repaint the actual lamp. But don't tell my husband I said that. ;)

Bei Fiori Giveaway Winner!!

Thanks everyone for entering the giveaway. I hope you all know I wish everyone could win.  And I want to give a special thanks to Marilyn for letting me host a giveaway for her shop. 

The winner was chose using Random.org

That person is

I hope you're excited! SAHMof1.  As usual, you have 48 hrs. from the time I message you and announce you as the winner to claim your prize.  All you have to do is send me an email with your mailing information and the item you'd like from the Bei Fiori Embellish shop and I will forward that on to Marilyn so she can send you your prize.

Just a reminder to the rest of you lovely people, APRIL'S GIVEAWAY is coming up.  To enter all you have to do is EMAIL ME your recipes or any recipe you like. Each recipe you send counts as 1 entry. 

You can EMAIL ME recipes up until APRIL 22, 2011.

On APRIL 30, 2011 I will randomly choose one winner.

Giveaway prize will include- The Pioneer Woman Cooks Cookbook and another awesome item(s) for you to use in your kitchen.

Send your recipes to alwaysinwonder@aol.com

Chalkboard Painted Refrigerator Tutorial

Oh my gosh I feel like our crazy project is done.  Finally. We painted our refrigerator with chalkboard paint. Crazy I know, but I wanted to try something fun and different so I stopped being scared of painting our refrigerator and we just did it.  (Actually, Justin did it, but I kept the kids corralled and happy.)

Okay so here is our refrigerator before

Not bad, but there were all kinds of scuffs on it and dings since we had bought it used.

I googled the Internet for different ideas on how to go about painting our refrigerator, and decided to do a combination of tips that I found.  One tutorial said to sand the whole refrigerator before painting, and I was like "Hecks to the NO!" So I decided we should just prime it and then paint it.

I taped off the handles and the ice/water dispenser using Scotch Blue Multi-purpose Painter's Tape. Then we primed the whole refrigerator using Rust-oleum's Magnetic Primer. We just rolled it on with a sponge roller. And cut in using a 1" Purdy paint brush.

Rust-oleum's Magnetic Primer

Purdy 1" Brush

This is our refrigerator after it has been primed with the the magnetic primer. We followed the instructions and did 3 light coats of primer.

The Rust-oleum Magnetic Primer paint on our refrigerator, still drying.

We waited 4 hours before adding the first coat of the Rust-oleum's Tintable ChalkBoard Paint. And then after another 4 hours we added the second coat. (By the way, I found the Magnetic Primer at Home Depot for $20-$21, and the tintable Chalk Board Paint at Home Depot for $11-$12.)

Rust-oleum's Tintable Chalkboard Paint



Our refrigerator painted with Rust-oleum's tintable ChalkBoard Paint. Still drying.



excuse the nerdy husband, he was really happy to be finished. :)



After we let the refrigerator dry I pulled off all the tape and decided I now hated the handles.

In these pictures they really don't look bad...ugh now I am wondering if I should have changed them after all...??

Anyway, I decided I didn't like the refrigerator handles and asked Justin if he could take them off.  He did, but probably thought I was crazy and that this project was taking a lot longer than I had originally said it would.  I also didn't like the ice and water dispenser now either, but haven't quite figured out how I want to make it more discreet. (Any suggestions???)



Refrigerator without handles

  

I filled in the holes with wood filler. It was what I had on hand.

Then I started searching on google for refrigerator handles. Um yeah, bad idea. I found some awesome ones that cost anywhere from $50-$120 per handle. There is no way in heck we could afford that so I put my thinking cap on and came up with another crazy idea.

I asked Justin what he thought about using towel bars for refrigerator handles.  I showed him some pictures of some towel bars online and we both decided it would be worth a shot.

We headed to Lowe's to to look at their towel bars and see if there was anything we thought might work.  We ended up buying two 24" dark oil rubbed bronze towel bars for about $19-$20 a piece. 

We, and by we I mean Justin, had to drill small holes in the refrigerator doors where the screw plates would go, and then he attached the handles like the instructions showed.

ChalkBoard Painted Refrigerator with Towel Bar Handles

Honestly, I don't know if it was a mistake to take off the handles and add these things or not. I always second guess myself when it comes to crafts or projects.  But I think they look really good in real life, or off camera.

We followed the chalkboard paint instructions and waited 3 freakin' days before conditioning the refrigerator with chalk so that we could use it. (To condition it you basically rub chalk all over it and then wipe it away. Ugh and get your vacuum ready because it's a really, really dusty process.)

Conditioning the chalkboard painted refrigerator

Then after you rub the chalk all over you get the fun task of wiping it off. Yeah, not fun. Not fun at all.



Conditioned and ready to use Chalkboard painted refrigerator





Once the whole process was done, it was time to draw!

It's really fun drawing on it, don't let Levi's expression fool you. :)



My new favorite question to ask myself.

Okay, so that's my whole paint your refrigerator with chalkboard paint tutorial, and change the existing handles to towel bars. Haha.

Hope you guys at least found it interesting.   And you can let me know what you think, I know it's not for everyone, but I'm okay with that.


Linking up to

Check it out- A shop giveaway and I'm guest blogging today!

Two fun things are happening right now.

1.) A blog and twitter friend of mine is having a GIVEAWAY featuring my shop. You guys can head to Mama's Monologues to enter to win a $20 shop credit to my shop Always In Wonder Creations.

AND

2.) I got to guest blog for the first time on my friend Marilenn's blog, The Studio Alcantara.  You guys can read all about why I started blogging, why I started my shop, and how much I love the online community I am a part of.

Sneak peak pic of our painted refrigerator

So all weekend we've been tackling the project of painting our refrigerator. It's not quite ready but here's a sneak peak.

Ha, it's just a little peak, but maybe now you'll be interested and come back and look when it's all done. Or you're thinking uh, they just totally screwed up their refrigerator.  Either way I bet you're gonna want to see the end result.

Rian's Catch-all Frame

I'm not really sure what you would call this project. It's a frame that will hold cute mementos, pictures, and whatnot.

It's another project that I've wanted  to do for months and this past week it was finally warm enough to spray paint the frame. Not to mention I finally found the chicken wire where I could buy it in small pieces, and not in bulk!

This is the BEFORE:

This is the AFTER:

I removed the burlap art I did and the glass, then I spray painted the frame white using Valspar's white Primer.  I liked the flat finish so I didn't paint over the primer.

I stapled my piece of chicken wire to the back of the frame using my staple gun and 1/4" staples. Then I cut the excess chicken wire off using wire cutters.  I didn't want the chicken wire to scratch her walls so I hot glued strips of felt over the cut ends.

Next I added some cute clothes pins that I hand painted using acrylic paint

Then I added the silver LOVE sign I had bought from Marshall's for about $3. It used to be brown but I had spray painted it silver a while ago.

It's held on using small gauge silver wire I had lying around.

Then I added her R for her first name.

It's a simple card board letter from Joann's, I think it cost me $2-$3. I painted it using acrylic paint, then mod podged on the cute scrapbook paper I had cut out in to an R to match the colors in her room.  I embellished it by wrapping some cute ribbon and trim around one side and some of the small gauge wire too.  It's also hanging on by the wire wrapped around the top of the R and one "leg".

I love this way better than the other art piece I had done for her room. It's fun and cheery and I can't wait to clip on some cute pictures.

Linking up to