Thrifty Thursday

I just wanted to share a little project that I completed recently.

I got this coffee table at my local thrift store. I loved the lines of it, and thought it had great potential. The finish HAD to go though...

I topped it with a quick coat of primer, and followed up with a couple coats of "oops" paint that I found at the Home Depot. I sanded it a little, for a distressed look.

Then finished the whole thing off with a couple coats of poly. I LOVED the original hardware, so I just gave it a quick coat of black spray paint...

What do you think...do you like how it turned out? If you're in Arizona and are interested in purchasing this table, leave a comment and I can work out a GREAT deal for you!!

One Dollar Wednesday... felt flower tutorial

I LOVE felt and I LOVE flowers. It was inevitable that these two loves of mine would cross paths one day. I have seen so many cute felt flowers around town, and knew that I could throw something together.

I started with my pattern pieces. In this case a drinking cup, and a medicine cup. I used a blue crayola for tracing.



Here are all my circles traced onto the felt. I have five large, four medium, and 4 small.



I cut my circles out.



Then I cut them all in half, with the exception of one large and one small.




I started layering on my large circle, using my glue gun to affix my layers.



Another layer...



and another...working from large to small.



When I finished with my layers, I put a dollop of glue in the center and finished the layers off with the small circle.



For my clip, I cut one more circle and a little strip of felt.



I glued the strip of felt around the end of my clip, then glued the clip to the bottom of my flower. I finished it off with the small circle.



I added a pretty pink vintage button, and it was good to go!

Bib Towels

It has been raining non stop for a month now. OK, maybe not non stop, but pretty close. We get one nice day and then BAM! five days of rain. I am so over it, I just want some sun. I want to play outside, go swimming, and eat popsicles. One a positive note, (I am trying to be more positive lately) this incessant rain has forced me to clean up the house, move things around, clean out, donate, and get rid of clutter. It also finally gave me no excuse not to find out how to make hand towels into bibs. My friend had her little girl wearing one at M's birthday party and I again thought how I need to get more made. These aren't new, they have been around forever, but since I finally figured out how to make them, I thought I would share. If you know your way around a sewing machine, these babies will take you about 5 minutes. For you non-sewers out there, it may take you a few minutes longer, or you can just cheat like I did, I will explain below.

A couple months ago a nice neighbor brought me this fun bib to church for my sweet babe. I put it on baby M and I was in love! He couldn't take it off, which is what happens with most bibs, and it covered him so well that not a drop of food got on his clothes. Since that never happens I knew I had to make a few more.

After a fruitful IKEA trip I found some super cute towels for my bibs. I will admit, I splurged. I usually hunt around, find the deal, and love getting something super cute for cheap. This time I just went for the cute, honestly, I didn't have time to hunt for the deal. Splurging ever now and again is OK right? We all do it, or am I alone? Don't worry I saved money on other things, and I stayed within my budget.

I gathered my supplies. I used the blue one as my pattern and I was lucky enough that my Mother-in-law already had some white ribbing, woo woo!
You take your ribbing fold it in half and measure your baby's head. You want to stretch it a little bit since you will be stretching the bib over the head to put it on your babe.
Hand towel size is the perfect size for these bibs, I decided to put the neck line 3/4 of the way over, giving more fabric to the front of the bib.
Fold your towel in half and cut a small circle. Cut it small, a little at a time, constantly trying it on your baby. You DO NOT want to cut it too big, otherwise it won't work with your ribbing and won't fit as well. Cut a little, try it on, cut a little, try it on, until it just barely fits over your baby's head. If your baby is anything like mine, they will absolutely DETEST this process, and try to crawl away from you as fast as possible when they see you with that striped towel.
Once you have your hole cut out, you just sew in the ribbing, with it still folded in half. Just stich around the ribbing and the towel and it will turn out something like this....

Confession time, you all know I don't sew, this last part I did not do myself. My Mother-in-law was kind enough to sew the ribbing in for me. Aren't I lucky to have such a nice MIL? It turned out perfect and I love them! Since I splurged, I was only able to make 2, I would like a bunch more. Now I will be on the look out for some bargain ones.

Speaking of my fruitful IKEA trip, I CANNOT wait to show you what else we got. It is amazing, are you intrigued yet?

One Dollar Wednesday... flower clip tutorial

Happy Wednesday! It's been ages since I posted, but I've been running on empty for awhile. Luckily I have my babies. I love my children so much! I hate to send my "bigs" to school every day, because they miss out on the fun the "babies" and I have.

We could do this every day...


brownies and beautiful babies, what's better than that?




Project time...
I have a plethora of artificial flowers from the Dollar Tree, and decided to finally put them to use.

I like to layer my flower clips, I think it just adds a little "something". To do this I got a bunch of flowers that were the same color.



I took my flowers apart. If you don't take these plastic pieces out, they just don't lay right.


I reassembled, or messed with the layers a bit, until I got the look I wanted. Then
glued the layers together with hot glue.



I added a flat bottomed crystal to the center of my flower.




For a more "finished" look, I covered my clip with a bit of ribbon. Just hot glued it all the way around.





Here it is, all finished. The possibilities are endless when layering, and I love these flowers for spring and summer.

One Dollar Wednesday... cupcake pedestal

You may remember my post from October, when I revamped some burner covers to make a Halloween Pedestal. Well, the same trip I took to the Dollar Store~~Honk's for you lucky SLC peeps~~ I found these beauties.



I knew with the "springy" colors, they would be perfect to transform for my Baby's birthday. I've held onto them for long enough... Baby's birthday is next Monday!

Out to The Spray Paint Place for the candle sticks. A good coat of primer, and Ballet Slipper Pink.



While the paint was drying I made a scalloped edge on my scrapbook paper... using a "D" battery of course :).



The result...



the set...



here they are stacked...


and even with a yummy chocolate cake!


Okay, the cake isn't real, but looks good enough to eat, huh!

One Dollar Wednesday... cutlery trays

You know I love the little silver trays that are so prevalent at the Dollar Tree. I love them so much that I decided to do ANOTHER craft with them.

I started with 3 rectangular silver trays, some pretty scrapbook paper, and a slew of cutlery.



I sent them straight to The Spray Paint Place, for some quick coats of primer and paint.





I used my "paint on, rub off" method with the trays,



and then I used the same method on the cutlery... heads first,



and then tails.



I attached my scrapbook paper,to my trays, with a thin coat of mod podge.



Lastly, I glued my cutlery to my trays...



and now I have some fun decor for this little corner of my breakfast nook!

One Dollar Wednesday... Rags to Valentine Pillows

I found some red rags in the Automobile Section of the Dollar Tree the other day. They had a loose weave, kind of burlap-ish, and I thought I'd give them a try. There are so many cute projects done with burlap and I thought "red burlap" would be perfect for a Valentine craft.





I made a "prep" surface~ a book covered with wax paper.





I have had these foam stamps for ages. I just brushed them with a little diluted craft paint...



and ended up with LOVE :).



A trip to the sewing machine, and some stuffing borrowed from this pillow that I'm no longer using.



I gave each "pillow" a quick whip stitch to close 'em up.




Now I have a little more Valentine decor to add to my home, and you certainly can't beat it for a buck!