Burlap Memo Board and Goodwill finds

Hey people! Sorry for the lack of inspiring posts lately...hopefully this one will help redeem me! I am in that end of pregnancy phase where I feel like I could pop at any moment...even though I still have 5 weeks to go! I am so uncomfortable and SO ready to be done being a human baby grower! Sleep is hard to come by, my tummy is at (what I feel is) MAX CAPACITY, and I'm just emotionally spent! All the while having to nurture and care for and chase around a toddler all day... Lets just leave it at I'M POOPED!!!

Ok on to other non-pregnancy related topics...lol

When we moved into our new place recently I discovered a few things that I had held on to forever that I could totally repurpose into something useful and fitting for our new abode!

Enter my burlap memo board! I had an old memo board that had housed pics from my college days and from when my hubby and I were first dating...as well as magazine clippings and other cheesy things that I no longer cared about. Well I'm sure you all have seen the gorgeous burlap memo boards that Pottery Barn carries that are about a million dollars and TOTALLY easy to create with stuff most of us having lying around the house!

So here's how I did it....
Materials:
~Piece of burlap in any color...just needs to be about two inches bigger all around than your memo board (I got two yards of it in the remnant section of my local fabric store for 2 bucks!!)
~Crusty old cork board....goodwill is a great place to score these...I see them all the time for about a dollar...or you could just look in your garage in that big box labeled "High School" or "College".
~Staple gun and staples
~Cute upholstery tacks. Mine are Oil Rubbed Bronze and were about 2 bucks for 25 of them at JoAnn Fabrics

Step one...remove all high school related paraphernalia from cork board
Step two...lay cork board down on top of burlap and cut around it leaving just enough burlap to stretch and staple to the back...not too tight....you'll see why in a min.
Step three...Once burlap is stapled all around flip that bad boy over and grab your upholstery tacks and hammer
Step four...Start putting your upholstery tacks around the inside of the frame of your cork board and gently hammering them in. The best way to do this I found is to start off with one in each corner....and then put one half way in between each one...and then half way again....and again...until you have enough of them and it looks even. I just eyeballed it...no math calculations here! Or if your a huge perfectionist and want it to look like a showpiece you can buy the strips of nailhead trim (if you can find them) and it'll look super DUPER good. I just personally wanted to use what I had laying around!
Step five....hang on the wall in your kitchen, office, entry way, bedroom (for jewelry of course...duh!), etc. and tack cool stuff to it with leftover upholstery tacks!!
I thought about writing out some french inspired love quotation or something on the burlap, but for now I'm happy with it the way it is.




And now for my Goodwill finds....

So today's finds include...
A SUPER DUPER cutey patootie multi bud vase for $2.00
(looked online when I got home and I saw this exact one for 70.00!!!!)
A blue glass teeny dish that I'm gonna put rings in for $0.50
A yankee candle draft blocker thing for jar candles (these are really expensive if you buy them in the store) for $0.50
An adorable little apothecary jar for my collection for $1.00

And the other pic is just some flowery goodness that I clipped from my yard yesterday! I hope you all have an amazing Memorial Day weekend and if you are married to or related in any way to a veteran...please give them a hug and thank them for their sacrifice for our freedom!

Linking up to SNS @ Funky Junk Interiors

Coming up for air...

Hey everyone! Sorry for majorly neglecting my beloved blog friends lately...this move has kicked my booty! Well we are officially out of our old place and FULLY into our new place. We are loving life in this new house and when its semi presentable I'll take pics to show you all! Just to give you all a mental picture of what we left....1970's retro ranch house....avocado green bathrooms....harvest gold tile....fake looking wood formica....WHITE CARPET (in a rental....were they smoking crack?)....gross looking gold pebbled glass window next to the front door (looks like it came out of a church)....and LOTS more. This house was cozy but majorly needed an update and I wasn't gonna spend my hard earned cash doing it!
Fast forward to our current place.....
Beautiful high quality laminate floors throughout the whole main floor....stainless steel appliances....granite countertops....goose neck faucet and brand new DEEP stainless steel sink.....really pretty textured "dirt colored" carpet (the owners lived here with their two children before we moved in and they definitely thought ahead when they installed the carpet)....brand new vinyl windows/furnace/hot water heater and lots of other cool money saving gadgets! This house is like stepping out of the past and into the present! I love it...plus its so full of light and open and airy! There are a couple rooms that I'm stumped about the layout and I have a lot of painting to do. Lets just say they LOOOOOOOOVE them some Terra Cotta colored paint! Eww. Hopefully I can get all the painting done (with help of course) before the little lady comes...but who knows! Maybe all the painting will make her head out a little early which I would be TOTALLY fine with! lol
I hope you all are well and didn't think I had dropped off the face of the earth. I will be back to my crafty self sometime soon hopefully and will do my best to dazzle you all! :)

Sappy pregnancy hormone induced post

Hey ladies! So yesterday was Mom's day and I've been sentimental since then thinking about my family and my priorities and how lucky I am. My little girl is due in 8 short weeks and my little boy is growing like a weed and changing literally every day. I am so floored by how much God has blessed me and my family. For starters he has blessed me with an AMAZING husband. I mean....really amazing! My husband works so hard at his job (he's in IT) and does whatever he can so that I can be a stay at home Mom which is what I've always dreamed of. He's also an incredibly devoted father and genuinely enjoys spending time with Liam...currently he's teaching him how to skateboard. I know that our daughter is going to be just as cherished by my husband as Liam is and that makes me feel overwhelmingly happy and fulfilled. I didn't have a good relationship with my Dad growing up and I've always said, ever since I was a little girl, that any guy that I married would have to be a devoted father who put Jesus first in his life and loved and cherished his family. I am so lucky to have found that man and I feel so proud to call him my husband. I'm sure some of you are familiar with this song but I wanted to put it on here because it truly defines what I feel it means to be a good parent. I don't think I would be a good mother if I didn't have God in my life to lead me. God's direction and grace is what has shaped my parenting and given me the skills that I need to be a good Mom. I owe the relationship I have with my family to him and his unfailing love and support!

Please listen to this song and let me know what you think...its beautiful!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAKBXBXz1fo

Cute little chairs

Hey everyone! So I've had these chairs for quite a while now and have always wanted to revamp them but only got around to re-upholstering the seats. They are antique spool chairs and they were given to me for free when I got my Armoire on craigslist. We were in the people's garage loading the armoire into our moving truck and I commented on how cute some chairs were...she said, "you want em?"....I was like...."Uh...YA!" so she threw those in for free as well. They are solid wood but were sadly wobbly and needed wood glue in just about every joint to make them usable. They weren't too high up on the priority list at the time but I held onto them and knew I would get around to making them shine one day! Well that day was yesterday! I mixed up a glorious paint concoction that produced a super pretty robin's egg blue and after thoroughly sanding the chairs and removing dust I got to work painting. I used an approx 1 inch wide Purdy paintbrush and was surprised with how smooth and even the paint looked after it dried...even on the round parts. These needed only two coats to be fully covered and after they were dried fully I applied about 3 layers of wipe on poly for shine and protection. I love how they turned out and will be reupholstering the seats again to match the cute new paint!

Here's the before....
And here's the after...

Love these! They will make a cheery addition to my dining room!!

Linking up to the Before and After Party at Thrifty Decor Chick