I judged a book by its cover...

Yep. Hate me if you want to, but today I judged a book by its cover. Ok, I lied. I didn't just judge ONE book by its cover, I judged TWO! Now, before you judge me, take a look at the beautiful books...

I bought them simply because I liked the color of their covers. I know, I'm cool like that, but please make me feel better and tell me you've done something similar.

Guest Bedroom Reveal

Well, it's not completely complete, but I like where it's headed. Our guest bedroom used to be our office. Really it turned into the room where we shoved everything when we didn't know where to put it or if people were coming over. (Shut the door and it is out of sight, out of mind kind of thing.)

This is the color the office used to be. Yup, I liked it when we first painted it. I thought the office would be the perfect place to play with color, but now I just laugh when I see this picture.

After some new paint and repurposing, this is how it turned out. It could still use a little artwork for the walls, but I like how it's coming together so far.

See how I recovered the lamp shade? I also sewed the pillows for the bed (it's bothering me that they aren't laying right in the photo- grr).

I painted the candlesticks yellow, refinished my childhood dresser and made the artwork. It's amazing what a little clean-up can do.

I'll be linking to these parties this week.

Recovering a Lamp Shade

Remember my childhood dresser redo? I mentioned that I've been redecorating our guest room and that is where the dresser is, but I also needed a lamp to provide some mood lighting to my guests. Today I want to share with you this cute lamp that I painted and recovered.

Don't get scared. If *I* can recover a lamp shade, so can you! I had absolutely no idea what I was doing, but I love how it turned out. I'm hoping I can shed some light (pun intended) on the subject for you.

This is what the lamp started out looking like.

I taped off the electrical components of the lamp and gave it a nice spray with light yellow paint.

I used the lamp shade to trace and make a pattern. I kind of rolled it as I traced. I didn't have a lot of fabric to work with, I was using a scrap that I found in the remnants bin at the store, that's why I decided to go with the making-the-pattern-approach.

This is what my pattern ended up looking like. Depending on your lamp shade, yours will look different. My pattern is for 2 sides of my lamp, so I knew I would have to cut out 2 pieces of fabric using this pattern.

I cut out my fabric with a little help from Choco. (She has a habit of always making herself comfortable on the exact area of fabric I need to work with. She is too cute to kick off.)

Use some spray adhesive to attach the fabric to the old lamp shade.

Remember how I was working with a small amount of fabric? Because I had 2 pieces of fabric, I had to seam up my edges, but it was easy, I just folded the ends under to finish them off and used the spray adhesive.

The top and bottom are going to have all kinds of crazy fly-away fabric. This is ok. I will show you how to finish it off.

Trim the excess fabric.

Now use bias tape and hot glue it around the edges to finish it off.

Smooth it down and make sure it stays put!

It was really pretty easy!

I have a few more finishing touches to put on the guest room and then I will let you see it! I am also still working on a spray booth tutorial. Good things come to those who wait...

I will link to these parties this week. How fun!

Glittering Holiday House in a Jar

It is officially that time of year! The hubby says it is too early to put up the Christmas lights and decorations but I say if we don't put them up now, we won't get to enjoy them. So, I have decided to take baby steps. Here is my glittering holiday house-in-a-jar that I just made this weekend.



I have my Aunt and Mom to thank for this idea. They are always crafting up new ideas based on things they like and things they see. Most of the supplies came from Hobby Lobby, but I believe most craft stores carry all of this, especially at this time of year. Here are some pictures of some of the supplies I used:









If you would like to see how I made this, please continue to read (this might get a little lengthy, so please, pour yourself a cup of hot chocolate, get comfy and read on). If you would like to admire my glitzy house in a jar one more time, scroll back up and look at the first picture (oohs and ahhs are optional, yet appreciated).

The first thing I had to do was decide on a color for my house. I originally painted it a bright aqua blue, but I thought it was too intense. It would be reminiscent of the holidays in the Caribbean - nothing wrong with that, except that the snow I later put into the jar would not exactly happen in 90 degree weather, so I repainted and used a lighter color of blue.

My original color:


After painting, it is a good idea to bleach the trees that will be going in around your glittery house. The sooner you do this step, the more time they will have to dry. You may decide to skip this step all together if you would like to keep your trees the green color.

If you decide to bleach your trees, here are a few tips: make sure you wear old clothes and gloves (you don't want your clothes to become polka-dotted with bleach); try to do it outside if possible because, let's face it- bleach stinks!; and use 1/3 bleach, 2/3 water.

Dip each tree into the bleach solution, then set it aside to start to fade the color. When it is the desired color, dip it into cold water. You can always re-dip if you want the tree to look even lighter. Also, if the bleach solution is taking too long, add a bit more bleach to the water.

Dipping the tree into the bleach solution:


Waiting a few minutes for the bleach to lighten the trees before dipping them in cold water:


Dipping the bleached trees into the water, when they are the desired color:


While you are waiting for the trees to dry, cut a piece of white quilt batting and silver tinsel garland. These will go in the bottom of the jar. I used my jar and traced the bottom to get the correct size circle. At this time, it is also very important to make sure the inside of your jar is clean, it will be a lot harder to clean later, so do it now!

Now you are ready to begin gluing your batting to the bottom of the jar. The tinsel garland will go around the edge of the white to cover any unevenness.







Now it is time to check on your trees again! Are they dry? If not, blow dry them on low and get them to dry faster! You want to glitter them, don't you??

The glitter station: I used three different types of glitter. You can use as many or as little as you would like. I must say, my personal favorite glitter is the Martha Stewart Crystal Coarse Glitter that you can get at Michael's. I used some old shoe boxes to glitter over so that I could save as much as possible and pour back in to use for future projects.

I started with my house and I painted the Mod Podge all over. I then poured glitter over it. Use more Mod Podge if you need to (and more glitter of course!).







Repeat this process with your mini wreath (if you want one on your house) and your trees.





I also used some decorative snow to put on the roof of my house, the wreath and the fence. I applied it in an uneven way with a frosting spatula. While that was still wet, I put a coat of glitter on it.







Ok, now the hard work begins. (I know, what was all that before?) It is time to place the bottom of the house. Hot glue it to the bottom where the batting is. Then you can begin to place your trees and hot glue them in along with the fence and anything else you want to put in there (the jar is only so big).

Now hot glue your wreath to the top of your house (outside of the jar).

This picture was taken seconds before reaching around to the back of the wreath and burning my finger on the hot glue. (But hey, what's a day of crafting without burning off a fingerprint here and there.)


At this time if you would like to add any more glitter to the bottom of your jar to even things out, do so with a spoon or something that will fit into the jar.

Now you are ready to put the top of the house in the jar and put the lid on. Clean the fingerprints off the outside and any glue strings. Now you have a beautiful glittery house in a jar. Of course your own house probably looks like the glitter fairy had a New Year's Eve party, but it's well worth it.





Here is a picture of my mom's house. It turned out beautiful!


I am linking this to: