Lamp, Finds & a Few Changes!.

Hey kids!  I'm having movie night with Brian and it's a sobering one..The Company Men on Netflix. Pretty good but it's a huge dose of reality.  I prefer to live in lala-land, personally!

I'm making some changes to my blog by adding new pages and getting a little more organized.  It's going to be slipshod for a while, so bear with me.

My sister and her family came to town this past weekend for a visit and we did some junking (woo-hoo).  Here's what I snagged:
 

Picked up another globe for my son's room from an antique shop.  I'm going to paint the stand red.  He really likes his collection!

Now this one, I love!  I found this fixture at Habitat..it was $8.00 and 50% off..yep, $4.00!  I have already spruced it up and I can't wait to show you how it turned out.  We're going to hang it in the hallway that I'm working on now.  I have the walls patched, sanded, trim off..basically, it's a flipping mess!  Now I have to put it all back together - the fun part.

Moving on...remember this?

I'm using it in the den for a little pop of color.

Here is what I did with it...

 I used spray glue and covered the shade with the silk floral print and trimmed the rough edges with a cream ribbon.  This lamp looked like this not too long ago, but I didn't think the blue was working in this space, so I changed it up. I think the orange is MUCH better!

 Another little shot of color. I'm tickled with how the den is turning out. We still have to put up crown molding.  I added my own special touch to the carpet by knocking over my paint tray.  Brian says it looks like a flower...it happened in slow motion and it totally sucked eggs to clean up.  I'll include a shot of it in the "big reveal".

Here are a few of the pillows I made with the other fabric.  (I didn't have the heart to knock Olive out of her comfy spot.)

And you'll never, ever guess what else I'm doing....can you tell what this is?

It's a family of kitties that showed up in my backyard a few days ago!  Apparently, they got the tweet with my address and headed on over.  It's a mommy with her 4 babies.   This picture is taken from far away because they are super skiddish.  I'm not sure if they're totally feral but it's going to take some time to win them over. We are making arrangements to get mommy fixed before she finds herself in a 'family way' again, then the babies.  After all of that, they are going to need to be relocated. 

I'm finding a lot of great resources as I take in all these little guys and I'm going to be sharing them from now on on my Pet Rescue page.  Some of the groups I'm working with have chapters all over, so hopefully it will be useful for others that are stray magnets, like myself.  Please check it for updates.

I was watching the movie while writing this, so if part of this post makes no sense, you know why.

Talk to ya later! Hugs-

Fun lamp!

This is going to be a short post..I have a ton of furniture painting to do on this gorgeous day, my little guy has a pal coming over for a sleepover and my big guy and I are needing some ice cream, so I have to get to the store!

I was poking around Tatertots & Jello yesterday and found this featured tutorial from mama says sew for a gorgeous lampshade. I took a drum shade from a lamp that will go into my newly revamped den (that I'm not finished with yet) and with my hot glue gun, a couple yards of burlap and When Harry Met Sally (on last night) whipped up this:

Mine is less ruffley than Terra's and I trimmed the top & bottom a little.  It was fun to make while watching TV and a quick project. It was MESSY though with all the little pieces flying around.  I'm sure using a different fabric would be a cleaner process but I love the texture of burlap.

I did one thing different from the tutorial mainly because I was being lazy with getting the iron out.

Instead of ironing the creases in the strips I just rolled them up like this with a pin. By the time I needed that strip it had a good crease in it.  This was probably not so time efficient - rolling them up, but, whatever, I was just sitting there watching TV so I didn't mind it.

Little less of a wave.

I painted the metal part with ORB to freshen it up a bit. 

Again, it's going in the den and I can't wait to show you that room when it's finished! 

I'm linking to these parties and I'm going to get some ice cream now! Hope you guys have a fun weekend & thanks for coming by!

Chandelier is UP!

My dreams came true!  Brian tackled removing our old light fixture & put up the new one this past weekend.  I was thanking him the whole time because as you can imagine, crawling around in the attic is no treat!

Mom picked this chandelier up for me last year for $20 at Lowe's.  They have the best clearance!  I liked the shape but it was a little too fussy, so I simplified the design a little.

I painted it black at first but it looked too flat, so I repainted it with Oil Rubbed Bronze. ORB gave it a nice sheen & some dimension.

This is what it originally looked like.  I used pliers to remove the leaves & sanded down any rough places left behind.  I still have the crystals & will use them in another project, I'm sure.

I love the dripping wax look on socket sleeves but couldn't find any, so I made my own.  I used hot glue and dripped it down the plain white plastic ones, then painted them a soft white.

(Aww man, the guy on the left is leaning a little. Didn't notice it until picture time, of course!)

We're installing a dimmer switch for it this week. I am seriously going to do that myself.  I'm ready to move up from rewiring lamps.  If you don't hear from me again, then you'll know I forgot to turn off the circuit breaker! 

I'm linky partying with Frugalicious Friday at Finding Fabulous!

I hope you all are having a good week and staying warm.  And as my niece says,

"Lemon out!" (we love 30 Rock)

The beauty of black paint...

I was talking to my sister the other day about how I haven't been blogging much lately and she said it's hard to blog when you are doing projects all the time - totally true.  I've been working on this blasted bookcase for days now and I'm SOO over painting the grooves in beadboard!  Another sandtrap has been my paint choice. I've heard so many great things about Sherwin Williams paint, but I think it's kind of on the thin side compared to Benjamin Moore & Behr.  I've had to put 4 coats of paint on this bookcase PLUS a coat of primer to get the coverage it needs.  If I don't end up in a cast from all of this painting, then I'll count myself lucky!

So to break up the monotony of white & because I suffer from 'must have multiple projects going on at once all over the house-itis", I walked around with a BLACK can of paint.  Here's what I did..

Before:

*yawn*

After:

Black paint, new tassel & shade.  New look..love it!

I'm trying the zinc look on a mirror..cross your fingers it works!! 

TTFN,