Working hard

Hi all!
I've been working hard on two quiet books. One for a little boy, and one for a little girl. It's been fun doing them at the same time. I've finished the boy one, which you can check out here. It has already been given to Peyton, and from what I hear, he loves it! I'm almost done with the little girl one and will post it as soon as I get it finished.

The other project that I finished up, is our bedroom tv unit. It has actually been done for a bit, but I lost my camera to computer cord, and haven't been able to download them..until now! Yeah!

This started out as your typical armoire, with an upper portion that was half shelving, and half small drawers, with doors to enclose it all. So lovely country 80's. Thanks mom and dad! I took out all the guts of the upper portion, filled and sanded. Then painted it all white, with a touch of black here and there. I also papered the upper portion and cut a hole in the back for the TV to be able to stick out. I also cut off the huge hunk of an upper decorative nothing thing. It was weighing the whole piece down and made it HUGE.
I love the way it turned out!
Take a look:






Of course I had to add some items to the top of the unit. The little hat box is filled with all of our high school and Navy letters. There are LOTS of them. The two vintage linens came from my grandmother, which I adore. The picture, well, don't look too closely at that. Those were taken when I was 18 for my hubby. I had gone to a bridal fair with my mom, and signed up for Bedroom style pictures to be taken. This is one of hubby's favorites. The tall candle stick came from a garage sale, for a whole 75 cents, with the Z Gallerie price tag still on it. The love sign was wood from the Salvation army store, painted white and added some cute ribbon to hang it from. The mirror, well, if you know me, I have mirrors. No really. As I'm sitting here typing, I can look up and see four mirrors in my house.
I love mirrors.
And I don't even wear makeup.
LOL!

~nic

A little beachy

I picked up this cute child's rocking chair at my local Savers a few months back. I have one from my childhood, actually I believe it was my mother's from her childhood. (Mom, can you confirm?) I had been wanting to re-do a little rocker but really didn't want to do mine. So when I ran across this one, I grabbed it up quick.
I had one vision for it: beachy and unisex.
I think I achieved it, what do you think?

I made the little cushion reversible so if you didn't want the flowery motif any more, just flip it over and have a nice solid cream ribbed motif.

I added grommets to the ends of the tabs on the cushion, then just flipped the chair over, marked where the grommets landed, added some little screws for the grommets to fit over, and voila!
Reversible cushion. : )

So, if you are in the market for a darling little beachy rocker, let me know!
I've got one I can sell you. : )

Update: I sold this cutie at my garage sale to a sweet elderly couple for their great granddaughter! Yeah!

~nic

I've linked up to:

For you Jamison!

My good friend Ashley is pregnant with her second son, Jamison, and had this adorable Pottery Barn style baby bassinet. However, it was a little on the dingy white side and she was looking more for the beautiful espresso side.
So, that's what I did for her.
What do you think?

(Before)

(After)

I threw the white table cloth in between because it will eventually have a white with blue trim bed set and matching crib skirt. I wanted to show Ashley (and Lia..Hi Lia! haha!) an idea of what it was going to look like. She and her hubby love it and have already picked it up and moved it into place at home. I hope you enjoy your new home when you arrive Jamison! I had fun cleaning it up for you! : )

~nic

P.S. I will have Birthday pictures posted soon. I'm hoping to do it tonight, but you know how real life works out. The boys had a blast and the party was a big success! Thanks Nanny and Poppy for hosting and letting us, yet again, use our beloved family pool! : )

Mark this one off the list!

A few months ago I picked this little gem up from, yet again, a CraigsLister who just didn't have a spot for it anymore. I love our little town of Los Gatos, sweet people that have very cool things.



It's a White Sewing machine and it came not only with the booklet, but with all KINDS of little sewing feet and attachments. I really do want to plug it in and try it out, I'm hoping that all the little attachments really do work. I don't have a ruffler for my Brother machine, but this one does!

Oh, and look at the little built in bobbin and pin holder in the top drawer.
Love!

My mom says to just plug it in and go for it! I'm always so leery when it comes to electricity and electrical things, especially when they are super old.

So after I gave it a good cleaning, I just went ahead and started spraying. Yes, I am a spray paint kinda girl. My daddy probably isn't very proud of that, as he prides himself on his painting skills, and the man has painted his entire house, inside and out, with just a little 4 inch wide brush, but my patience level isn't as big as his.

Anyways, here she is!


The sides both still open and the original White Sewing machine is still inside, so for now, I'm keeping my machine on top. I'd like to get a thin sheet of Luanne wood (I think that's how it's spelled, I know it sounds like that : ) ) and when I need to open it up and use my machine, I can just put the wood over the opening with the White in it. If you haven't noticed, I seem to be into painting the "feet" of furniture. Lucky for me, there was a nice little trim edge around the bottom that just screamed, "Paint me like feet!" My pedi's seem to be all with black polish, but I sure do love it!

I love how my chair pops against the yellow.

I can't wait to sit down and start using her!

And find the guts to plug the original machine in. : )

~nic

I'm linking to:

http://www.domestically-speaking.com/

I can't seem to figure out the grab my button and link up thing this morning...

Give me a good weekend, and look what gets done!

After a month of prepping and then going on our summer family trip to Lake Don Pedro, I'm back! I'm relaxed and I've got the bug to get projects done.

Love it when a good weekend rolls around. Things like this get done:

Free chair on the side of the road...thank you!

Free primer and white gloss spray paint from my Big Brother CAP, thank you, Love you!

Free canvas tarp runner that my parents gave me because it was all funky shaped with a plastic slippery liner...thank you, Love you too!

Star material that I've had stored for years, so free to me now, thank me! hehe!

Free lessons on how to use our air compressor and staple gun attachment, from hubby, thank you, love you the best! : )

I can't believe that I did this one! I still have one item left to finish on it, but I was so excited about it, I had to post. I need to finish off the cording around the seat back, which I will have to go buy. I did buy one can of white gloss spray paint as my brother's didn't quite have enough, but if I can find a good deal on the cording, which I know exactly where to go for that, I should have a brand new French Provincial chair for less then $10.00. LOVE! This one is for our master bedroom, which is slowly coming together, piece by piece. But I don't mind, I can be patient and get a whole new bedroom set for less then I EVER imagined.

New dresser for me: 35.00
New dresser for hubby (still working on, it's a bear!): 10.00
New chair for us: FREE
Black crystal chandelier: FREE!! I think this one is my ULTIMATE score.

Two side tables that I picked up months ago from CL's (need to be redone): FREE

Wow! I'm so glad I have this blog to keep track, it will be fun to go back and really figure it out.

Okay, on to my next project.

I've got a girlfriend at work that has recently adopted a teenage daughter. They are actually still in the process of finishing all the paperwork and she mentioned that she is trying to get "her bedroom" put together.
I jumped at it.
I've been collecting pieces of furniture and needing to find homes for them before Hubby up and leaves. Okay, he would never, but you know how hoarding becomes a problem after a while.
I'm just sayin'.

Anyways, I found this darling little end/side table (not really sure if there is a difference) at S.A. for 12.00, again, a few months back. I didn't take a before picture, but it seriously was just a different shade of green, but with some love marks left on it. That sounds a little weird. What I mean is, it had some dings and scratches and a few dirt marks that I just couldn't get out. The two drawers were stuck together with the icky green paint they chose to use and not let dry before cramming the drawers in, so I had to do a little sanding on those. Oh, and it had some spilled wax on one side of it. The new teenager is wanting to use a bright key lime/florescent green color in her room. This is what I've come up with.

I love it.
I think it screams teenage diva.
Justin was walking by as I was staging these pictures in our hallway and said, " Cool colors mom."
Okay, I think I nailed it.
I also painted the candlestick lamp on the back of the table, and the little trinket box next to the lamp. I didn't however, paint the knobs on the drawers. Yup! I actually had two green star handles that fit perfectly! They were from one of Justin's hanging closet organizers that I used when he was a baby. The lamp shade is really a wire trash can that I picked up from the dollar store and wove with black ribbon and then glued on the white trim. I need to trim up the frayed ribbon and do that burning technique so they don't fray. Tomorrow I'm going to be picking up a free chandelier to go with this as well. I've been playing tag with another CL'r on a sweet little vanity that will fit in so nicely. Keeping my fingers crossed on that one! She's also got a dresser that is SOOO similar to mine that I just redid that I'll be taking too, hopefully! I think I've got a good start. What do you think?

~nic

I'm linking up to:

50 cent s!

Yup, I got this cute, but very dated wooden spice rack from our local Catholic School thrift store for a whole 50 cents.

A little cleaning.

A couple coats of white spray paint.

Some FREE alphabet stickers and a little rub on bling and I have a darling little button/ribbon holder.

Love!